Writers Read 5 Minute Personal True Stories

Writers Read™

A literary forum promoting established and emerging writers through curated live and digital performances celebrating the spoken word. It’s a high-quality platform for true personal stories—two pages and 650 words long, read aloud by the writer before an audience. Writers Read places a strong emphasis on the craft of writing—word choices, sentence structures, the arc of the narrative. Our submission-based events are developed around broad themes that invite a wide range of expression. read less

Society & CultureSociety & Culture

Personal JournalsPersonal Journals

Start Here

Straight Outta Ireland

Straight Outta Ireland

In many parts of the United States and certainly in New York City, the St. Patrick's Day holiday is often larded with a kind of shamrockery or paddywhackery that makes some of us cringe a bit. You know -- the mugs of green beer and those big "Kiss Me I'm Irish" buttons and t-shirts. Instead of overcooked corned beef and cabbage, Writers Read™ acknowledges this St. Patrick's Day with four rich personal stories reflecting the lived experiences of Irish and Irish-American writers—individual perspectives, presented with an emphasis on craftsmanship. Originally performed for a live audience at City Winery in Manhattan, these stories were proudly presented as part of Carnegie Hall’s citywide spring festival, “Migrations: The Making of America,” acknowledging and honoring the perseverance and resilience of immigrants and the contributions they continue to make on America’s diverse cultural landscape. Writers Read™ celebrates writers and the spoken word five minutes - and 650 words - at a time, and this week, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, we celebrate Irishness with true personal stories from writers Anthony Murphy, Malachy McCourt, and me. And, on today’s “Between The Lines” segment, writer Colin Broderick recalls the challenges he faced as a young man in New York while trying to establish himself as a writer.

Episodes

Straight Outta Ireland

Straight Outta Ireland

In many parts of the United States and certainly in New York City, the St. Patrick's Day holiday is often larded with a kind of shamrockery or paddywhackery that makes some of us cringe a bit. You know -- the mugs of green beer and those big "Kiss Me I'm Irish" buttons and t-shirts. Instead of overcooked corned beef and cabbage, Writers Read™ acknowledges this St. Patrick's Day with four rich personal stories reflecting the lived experiences of Irish and Irish-American writers—individual perspectives, presented with an emphasis on craftsmanship. Originally performed for a live audience at City Winery in Manhattan, these stories were proudly presented as part of Carnegie Hall’s citywide spring festival, “Migrations: The Making of America,” acknowledging and honoring the perseverance and resilience of immigrants and the contributions they continue to make on America’s diverse cultural landscape. Writers Read™ celebrates writers and the spoken word five minutes - and 650 words - at a time, and this week, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, we celebrate Irishness with true personal stories from writers Anthony Murphy, Malachy McCourt, and me. And, on today’s “Between The Lines” segment, writer Colin Broderick recalls the challenges he faced as a young man in New York while trying to establish himself as a writer.

Holidays are a time to celebrate cultural traditions and set work aside. A holiday offers a break in our routine, prompting a three-day weekend in the sun—or a three-hour snow delay at the airport. Some holidays are lightweight and fun, making you think about watermelon and fireworks, while others seem solemn or fraught, setting the stage for either a delicious meal or a family drama. The special "Holidays' event we presented on stage at the Ossie Davis Theater featured a collection of true holiday stories spanning the range from sunburn to heartburn. We've chosen three of those stories to present in today's show.

O'SHAUGNESSY, Corinne • Five / FORMAN, Sharon • Ghosts at the Costco / PATTISON, Cari • The Bronxville Exorcist • BTL: MASELLO, David • A Postcard on Postcards. Read 650 celebrates writers and the spoken word five minutes - and 650 words - at a time, and on today’s show we present excerpts from a show entitled "Haunted," featuring true stories of Premonitions, Superstitions, and Apparitions. Halloween has been around for more than a thousand years, and its origins can be traced back to an ancient Celtic festival during which it was believed that the souls of the dead returned to their homes.

New York Stories

New York Stories

PALMA, Eileen • The Moskowitz Girl / GREDLER, John • SRO / MANNING-SCHAFFEL, Vivian • What Makes a New Yorker? / BTL: LEVIN, Ann • The Blank Page. There simply is no other place in the world like New York. Its architecture, culture, and general buzz combine to make New York the greatest city in the world. But New York is also a collection of unique neighborhoods, people. and stories, and we've selected three of those stories today from a live event we produced for a full house at The Cell Theater on West 23rd Street.

You never forget your first puppy, your first car, or your first love. Some firsts are mundane, (first olive), while others are unforgettable (first high dive). A first can be a solemn rite of passage or a dream come true, and some firsts supply practical knowledge we carry forward. Like, for example, why you should avoid games involving dice and money, or why tequila shots are actually a very bad idea.

Back to High School

Back to High School

Featuring Annabel Monaghan, Arthur Bell, Julie Trelstad, Sarah Bracey White. Bus rides and best friends. Marching band and mean girls. Homeroom and home grown. Whether high school was the site of your fondest memories or the scene of the crime, the stories we've selected from a live show might just transport you to that not-so-distant world of nerds, jocks, and stoners.

Read 650 celebrates writers and the spoken word five minutes - and 650 words - at a time. The theme of this week's show is Gratitude, and includes three true personal stories of gratitude recorded at a live event at New York's Lincoln Center featuring Jamie Bernstein, Malachy McCourt, and Mihai Grunfeld.

Love and Marriage

Love and Marriage

Poets and singers and writers of all types have been writing about love for millennia. In this century, the novelist and essayist Ursula LeGuin wrote, "Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new." For today's show, we've selected three stories from our "Love and Marriage" event that we presented on stage at Sarah Lawrence College in New York's Westchester County.

Featuring Jennifer Rawlings, Sarah Bracey White, Annabel Monaghan, David Masello. Ah, summer—a break from school and a time to sleep in and hang out with friends. Or maybe instead it's a time to catch the bus, clock in, and put on your nametag. We've assembled a trio of summer job stories from talented writers who recall those summer days all too well.

Great storytelling runs deep in the Jewish DNA, from Sholem Aleichem to Philip Roth and Nora Ephron, and that spirit is alive in the tales we selected for today's show from an event we planned called Jew-ish (with a hyphen): True stories of love, latkes, and l'chaim.

You save it to spend it. You crave it, you lend it. Do any of us ever really feel that we have enough money? We posed that question in a call for submissions, and presented a collection of true personal stories about money from a cast of talented writers before a live audience at City Winery's flagship location in New York City. We've selected three of those stories with very different takes on the subject for this week's show. KWON, Beth • Found Money / LEVIN, Ann • How to Think About Money / Suarez-Baez, Emma • What is Enough? / BTL: BASIL, Krystia • Cycle Gap

You save it to spend it. You crave it, you lend it. Does anyone ever really have enough time? It's a precious resource, and our days and our lives are often shaped and guided by the clock. Writer Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.” Writers, like just about everyone else, often wish we had more time. But we also know that time isn't something you find, but something you make.

Lynn Edelson • Counterpoint / Julie Evans • Baptizing John Coltrane / Leanne Sowul • Over the Rainbow / BTL: Jeremiah Horrigan • One Question, Three Answers

world, serving as our protector, nurturer, and teacher. Our relationships with our mothers is simple and elemental.. while at times being the most fraught and complicated relationship we’ll ever know. And if you ARE a mother, you know it's the hardest job there is. This episode features writers Kate Mayer, Sarah Bracey White, Jennifer Rawlings, and Lucy Iscaro.

When I was a kid, my family took summer camping vacations in the Adirondacks. My parents packed a tent and sleeping bags and food and utensils and a deck of cards, and we drove five hours north from New York City to a kind of paradise with trees beyond counting, sweet, clear lakes for swimming, more stars that I’d ever seen before, and a crackling fire in a ring of stone. Instead of TV, there was conversation and stories of ancestors, and time spent gathering wood and water—time that was altogether different from what we shared at home. Those childhood memories shaped the course of my life—and my choice to settle in New York’s beautiful Hudson River Valley. For today's show, I've selected three stories about the Great Outdoors (not all as bucolic as mine); stories first performed for a live audience in a theater in New York City.

National Library Week is a time to celebrate our nation's libraries, library workers' contributions and promote library use and support. Since 1958, National Library Week's been sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and observed in libraries across the country each April. All types of libraries - school, public, academic and special - participate, and you can learn more at the American Library Association website, ALA.org

Read 650 celebrates writers and the spoken word five minutes - and 650 words - at a time, and on today’s show ... Sthree writers present original true stories relating to birthdays -- not always happy, and not necessarily occasions for singing.

How we respond to stressful or even appalling circumstances determines our path and shapes our life. “Hope Happens” is the title of this week’s Read650 podcast, and features three personal stories of resilience, recovery, and renewal. Plus, we go “Between the Lines” with Chicago Tribune columnist Sally Schwartz and learn the one thing she really needs in order to write.

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned

Learning never stops. It begins before birth, in the earliest glimmer of consciousness, when certain sounds or movements or even tastes begin to soothe or agitate the new human growing--and learning --within. Real learning begins when we enter the world, with our lives now a cinematic fast forward through first steps and tying our own shoelaces; to a first bus ride, algebra test, driving test, and swim test; thorugh learning to cook and dance and play an instrument,; from being hired and fired and falling in and out of love-- the gamut of lived human experiences, all of which, in their own way, teach us things. They are rites of passage, or life lessons.

Featuring Kathryn Mayer, Lynn Edelson, Ann Levin, Robert Moulthrop. The Christmas and New Year's holidays are a time to break our routines, set work aside, and gather with friends and neighbors; they're a touch point that can revive old memories and present opportunities to create new ones.