Weekly Short Stories

Each week The Literary Roadhouse podcast hosts deeply read and discuss one short story.

The Servant’s Daughter – Paulo Coelho – Literay Roadhouse Ep 22

Next week’s story is In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried by Amy Hempel

This podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spreaker. Please take a few moments to leave a review (for Spreaker follow & heart us). Those reviews encourage us and help us be found by new listeners.

Rated Squeaky Clean

There is a sound issue and while I was able to correct most of it, this episode is not perfect. I do apologize for the inconvienience.

This week our guest co-host is the novelist, teacher and podcaster Aaron Gansky. He was a wonderful part of the discussion on how to modernize oral tradition stories for the modern reader. The Servant’s Daughter was the first parable for Literary Roadhouse and was a perfect catalyst for this important discussion.

Don’t forget, to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” If you want to design a Bradberry, we’d love to see it.

So tell us, on a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate The Servant’s Daughter? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode.

Next week’s story is In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried by Amy Hempel

Sodom and Gomorrah – Adam Mcomber – Literary Roadhouse Ep 21

Next week’s story is The Servant’s Daughter as popularized by Paulo Coelho

This podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spreaker. Please take a few moments to leave a review (for Spreaker follow & heart us). Those reviews encourage us and help us be found by new listeners.

Rated Explicit

The true genius of Anais and our guest co-host Rammy shines this week. Due to a family emergency, Maya completely missed the podcast and Gerald is on the tale end of his amazingly awesome vacation. We expect Gerald either next week or the one after! Personally, I can’t wait to hear all about his adventures.

This week’s story tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from the side of the fornicators. We discover just how geeky Anais can get as she links various mythologies and themes. Then Rammy surprised her with the depth of homosexual themes that she missed. While they both had issues with the story, we get to hear a good conversation that deepened their appreciation of it.

Don’t forget, to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” If you want to design a Bradberry, we’d love to see it.

Y’all rated The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula Le Guin 5 Bradberries.

So tell us, on a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate Sodom and Gomorrah? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode.

Next week we are reading The Servant’s Daughter by Paulo Coelho

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas – Ursula Le Guin – Literary Roadhouse Ep 20

Next week’s story Sodom and Gomorrah by Adam Mcomber

This podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spreaker. Please take a few moments to leave a review (for Spreaker follow & heart us). Those reviews encourage us and help us be found by new listeners

Rated G

Please Pardon the audio quality on this episode. I upgraded editors and am still learning all the bells and whistles in the hopes that future episodes will be much more clear and enjoyable.

Gerald is now in France and we are missing our best buddy. We had a great co-host scheduled but he had had technical difficulties so it was just us girls. We had a lot of fun discussing the political underpinnings of The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. The big question still nags, is the well being of many enough to out way the misery of one. Maya tried to play devils advocate and see the story from a conservative point of view; spoiler… she failed.

Don’t forget, to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” If you want to design a Bradberry, we’d love to see it. Y’all rated The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe 4.33 bradberries.

Next week’s story Sodom and Gomorrah by Adam Mcomber

The Masque of the Red Death – Edgar Allan Poe – Literary Roadhouse Ep 19

Next week’s story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula Le Guin

This podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spreaker. Please take a few moments to leave a review (for Spreaker follow & heart us). Those reviews encourage us and help us be found by new listeners

Rated G

Roz Morris joined us this week to discus The Masque of the Red Death. She is an author, writing coach and public speaker. This story prompted a wonderful exchange on the definition of story given just how many rules this story breaks. Edgar Allan Poe was the granddaddy of Horror and Crime genre, and this was an interesting exploration both of the story and the experience of reading the precursor to several modern fiction forms. With flowery Gothic style and a modern feel, The Masque of the Red Death was a great choice for Literary Roadhouse.

Personally, I found researching Edgar Allan Poe deepened my enjoyment of the story. After writing this weeks Author Spotlight: Edgar Allan Poe, I would have rated the story a solid point higher. I hope the article does the same for you.

Don’t forget, to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” If you want to design a Bradberry, we’d love to see it. Y’all rated Axolotl by Julio Cortázar, 5.66 Bradberries.

So tell us, on a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate The Masque of the Red Death? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode.

Next we’re reading The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula Le Guin

Author Spotlight: Edgar Allen Poe

As I read The Masque of the Red Death for this week’s podcast, I felt a deep fear and modernity despite the older Gothic style of Edgar Allan Poe. While this was my first experience reading Poe, I also experienced a subtle sense of déjá vu as I read. Like many, I grew up watching and reading horror, but I was drawn to the emotional psychological style. Reading Poe was an odd experience as I finally read the father of several genres that I’d only experienced through the descendants. Researching Edgar Allan Poe as a person gave me not only insight into him as an artist, but also helped me understand The Masque of the Red Death on a deeper level.

Born in 1809, Poe was a year old when his father abandoned the family. Both of his parents were actors and while the trade was commonly seen as one step up from prostitution, his mother, Elizabeth, was well-loved as a leading actress. She died when he was 3 years old from a long bout of tuberculosis; this set him on a pattern that, to me, felt almost as inevitable as the outcome of one of his stories.

Because his mother was well respected, John and Frances Allen took him in. They were a well off family and Poe was emotionally close to Frances. Educated in languages and the classics Edgar Allan Poe showed genius early. Though raised as if he was the Allan’s son, he was an angry and troubled teen. When Frances became sick with tuberculosis, the relationship between Edgar and John became even more difficult.

Fed up with Edgar, John sent him to the University of Virginia but didn’t give him enough money to live on. It didn’t take long for Edgar to go into debt from gambling and after parting ways with John he enlisted in the military under an assumed name out of fear of arrest for his debts. Later, Poe shortly reunited with John. John helped him get a discharge from the military so he could enroll in West Point. During this time he self-published two collections of poetry. But his time at West Point didn’t last long and John Allan cut him off after Frances’ death.

Many scholars trace Poe’s intense respect and apotheosis of women to these two deeply felt female losses. When he decided to take his writing seriously as a profession, he became an editor well known for his acerbic style of literary criticism. While this style made him popular, the offense within the literary community played a part in his future struggles. Jumping from job to job and moving frequently, he finally settled with an aunt and her young daughter, Virginia Clemm. This was a huge influence on him as he finally had a sense of family. While living away, he received a letter from his aunt explaining that she’d arranged for her daughter to live with extended family to be raised as a proper lady.

Then 26 year old Edgar Allan Poe, immediately wrote her a passionate rambling suicidal letter declaring his love for his 13 year old cousin Virginia. They married several months later. While they struggled financially, his early years with Virginia were very happy. They played games, and he taught her many academic subjects including math and music. During these years, he published stories in the Gothic and Dark Romantic styles while also dabbling in satires and humor. This happy period in Poe’s life ended when she began coughing up blood while singing for him.

Edgar Allan Poe nursed his wife for several years often struggling to pay for medication or heating oil. She would get better only to turn around and get worse. He was overcome with grief each time she worsened and it was during this time that he wrote some of his most emotional work including his breakthrough poem, The Raven. While an instant success and invited to read publicly, he only made 9 dollars for the poem. Poe became friends with the poet Frances Osgood. Their friendship was flirtatious and a source of rumors socially. When Osgood’s reputation was damaged, they stopped seeing one another. Virginia’s tuberculosis worsened in the stress of the situation and she died. Unfortunately, he began drinking heavily again as he fell into grief.

After his wife’s death his heavy drinking was accompanied with erratic behavior. He courted several women simultaneously, often copying entire sections of a letter to one woman for a letter to another. Edgar became engaged to the poet Sarah Whitman, but Whitman’s mother put an end to the engagement when she demanded they sign a form declaring if they marry, Sarah would be cut off. Offended by the request, Edgar left Sarah. Professionally, he suffered as well as editors paid low wages or refused him work.

Destitute, childless, and sickly he visited a local bar near the Baltimore docks. On October 3rd 1849 Edgar Allan Poe was found delirious on a Baltimore street. Wearing too small clothing that did not belong to him, he was taken to Washington medical college. Incoherent, he called the name “Reynolds” repeated and only became coherent enough to say, “Lord help my poor soul,” right before he died. Edgar Allan Poe was 40 years old. His cause of death remains a mystery.

The drama of Poe’s life did not end after death. Rufus Wilmot Griswold wrote a scathing obituary for the New York Tribune and despite his grudge against Poe, he became Poe’s literary executor and promptly began trashing Edgar Allan Poe’s reputation.

The ghost of Edgar Allan Poe lives on in our modern horror and crime genres. His relationships and loss of the women in his life bleed into his work. Often focusing on the death of beautiful women Poe wrote some of the most memorable female characters of the day. There are many great documentaries on Edgar Allan Poe but I really enjoyed the BBC’s Edgar Allan Poe: Amor, Morte e Mulheres

And here’s one more for good measure!

Axolotl – Julio Cortázar – Literary Roadhouse Ep 18

Next week’s story The Masque of the Red Death by Edger Alan Poe

This podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spreaker. Please take a few moments to leave a review (for Spreaker follow & heart us). Those reviews encourage us and help us be found by new listeners.

Rated Explicit

Caleb J Ross (@calebjross) dropped by this week since Gerald is still on his amazing vacation (no, I’m not jealous at all). Caleb is the author of several books including the novels Stranger Will and I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin. He is also one of the hosts of the Important Question Podcast and possibly the most well read person I’ve ever had the opportunity to chat with. He both elevated the conversation and drove it right into not safe for kids territory.

Axolotl was a fascinating story and I left the taping with a long list of books added to my TBR pile. The highlight has to be, Anais’ final question… wan the narrator crazy? We debated surrealism versus magical realism, the uncanny valley and how specific the language was in the story compare to the emotions in evoked. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.

Sam gave us a link to an entire pdf of a book of short stories by Julio Corázar check out these this collection Blow-up and the novel Hopscotch.

Don’t forget, to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” If you want to design a Bradberry, we’d love to see it. While Anais and I didn’t really enjoy last weeks episode, you guys definitely did. I was really excited to hear the different opinions and I am determined to give last weeks story a re-read once I’ve had some distance. Y’all rated What We’re Sure of by Brandi Reissenweber, 5.25 Bradberries.

So tell us, on a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate Axolotl? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give you the final tally on the next episode.

Next week we are reading The Mask of the Red Death by Edger Alan Poe

What We’re Sure Of – Brandi Reissenweber – Literary Roadhouse Ep 17

Next week’s story Axolotl by Julio Cortázar

This podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spreaker. Please take a few moments to leave a review ( for Spreaker follow & heart us). Those reviews encourage us and help us be found by new listeners.

This weeks podcast is rated Explicit for early discussion of erotica and mild swearing.

We were joined by Sam Tarakajian and had an amazing discussion. While Anais and Maya found many faults with this weeks story, they agreed that many of the literary choices were interesting and even brave. Sam enjoyed the story a great deal more and wondered if it was because as a man, he had more distance from the story which actually allowed him to enjoy it more. This episode was a blast and Sam was a gracious guest co-host with many interesting observations. If you would like to follow him on twitter, his handle is @starakaj

We do have a rating scale based on Bradberries! For the history of this goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” If you want to design a Bradberry, we’d love to see it. Anais has the urge to create a Bradberry collage… Imagine, Bradberries on your desktop! You gave last week’s story, Birdsong by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,  4.5 Bradberries.

On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate What We’re Sure Of? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give you the final tally on the next episode.

Next week we are reading Axolotl by Julio Cortázar

Birdsong – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Literary Roadhouse Ep 16

Next week’s story What We’re Sure Of by Brandi Reissenweber

This podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spreaker. Please take a few moments to leave a review ( for Spreaker follow & heart us). Those reviews encourage us and help us be found by new listeners.

Please pardon the sound quality this week. I made a few changes to my recording area that did not work out so well. ~Maya

This week both Maya and Anais were absolutely enchanted by Birdsong. Even Gerald enjoyed many aspects of this short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Don’t miss the Author Spotlight for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, she is an interesting author and – finally!- after 16 episodes it’s Maya’s first author spotlight.

Yes, we do have a rating scale based on Bradberries! For the history of this goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” If you want to design a Bradberry, we’d love to see it. Anais has the urge to create a Bradberry collage… Imagine, Bradberries on your desktop! You gave last week’s story, To Build a Fire by Jack London, 3 Bradberries.

On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate Birdsong? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give you the final tally on the next episode.

Next week we are reading What We’re Sure Of by Brandi Reissenweber

Author Spotlight: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian born novelist. Born in 1977 to a middle class family of university educators, Chimamanda was raised in Southeastern Nigeria and read at an early age. Surrounded by English children’s literature she felt the call to write stories very young, but the lack of African children’s literature had a profound effect on Adichie. She often recounts that her initial stories featured white children doing things that she read about rather than stories of children like herself and the reality she saw everyday.

Adichie studied medicine briefly at the University of Nigeria before leaving for the United States to study communications and political science at Drexel University. Eventually, she transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University where she graduated with distinction in 2001. In 2003 she received a master’s degree in creative writing from John Hopkins University and went on to also receive a Masters of Arts in African Studies from Yale University in 2008.

A collection of poetry entitled Decisions was her first published work, which was quickly followed by a play and short stories. In 2003 she published her debut novel Purple Hibiscus to critical acclaim, earning Adichie recognition as one of the leading new young English speaking African novelists breathing new life into African literature.

When I looked at the list of awards Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has won, I was struck by the depth and breadth. Since 2002 she has been nominated for an award every year and won an award in all but four of those years. Most recently, her Ted Talk “We Should all be Feminists” was sampled for the song Flawless that appeared on the Grammy Award nominated album Beyoncé.

Currently, she has a published collection of 12 short stories entitled The Thing Around Your Neck. Multiple stories published in literary magazines and three novels. In additional to Purple Hibiscus, she has published Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah—which was selected as one of the ten best books of 2013 by the New York Times Book Review.

Half of a Yellow Sun was adapted to film and released in 2014. Americanah is set to become a movie starring Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo. This film is being produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B along with Lupita Nyong’o and Andrea Calderwood. Plan B has previously produced a number of films including Selma, 12 Years a Slave, and The Time Traveler’s Wife.

I highly recommend you listen to her Ted talks. They are funny, engaging and, for me, provoked a feeling of recognition and contemplation as I researched her. Below is her speech called The Dangers of One Story.

To Build a Fire – Jack London – Literary Roadhouse Ep 15

Next week’s story Birdsong by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spreaker. Please take a few moments to leave a review ( for Spreaker follow & heart us). Those reviews encourage us and help us be found by new listeners.

We were having an excellent conversation when the UK power outage hit and kicked Gerald offline.  As a result, not only is this episode late but Anais and I recorded an extra conversation were we really talked about our relationship with reading. I think that conversation had a positive effect on this episode as we went deeper into character than we had on previously. After 15 episodes, I am looking for ways to make the podcast more fun, informative and dynamic. If you have ideas or suggestions, please post below. Also, don’t miss Anais’ article on Jack London, it is a wonderful read.

Yes, we do have a rating scale based on Bradberries! For the history of this goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” If you want to design a Bradberry, we’d love to see it. Anais has the urge to create a Bradberry collage… Imagine, Bradberries on your desktop! You gave last week’s story, The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, 4.25 Bradberries.

On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate To Build a Fire? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give you the final tally on the next episode.

Next week we are reading Birdsong by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie