This guy narrates the death of a surfing buddy, but here's the thing. He tells the story three times, each time remembering additional important details and events. When the whole story comes into focus, we’re left wondering what other details were left out, and where this story, or any story for that matter, actually begins and ends.

We’d finally convinced him to come to the beach with us. He’d been backing out again and again but that day the sun was really bright. He said that maybe it would do him good to get a little burnt, whatever that meant. There was this crazy low tide that day, and he was obsessed with sea glass and the sand dollars and crabs so we just figured we’d start out without him and see if he’d join us. I was riding serious A-frames out there, I didn’t even really notice that he was laying still on the sand until there were people surrounding him and shouting for help.

Read the full story, along with other great fiction, in Etchings Magazine, Issue 4, from Ilura Press. Or click here for my copy.

Labels: fiction

After singing songs from the 1500s for an hour, the choir members peel off their flowing purple robes and rush out the doors for dinner. They're starving. But I pull some aside in the few minutes they can spare and I ask them why they sing what they sing, what it means, and who the audience tends to be.

People into meditation and stuff have discovered it. I would say musicians and probably... older ‘folk.’ (laughs) So, why does old music draw old people?

Hear the full, 5 minute clip online, complete with early music by Josquin Desprez and Heinrich Isaac, here.



Also check out the early music album Angelus on magnatune.com.

Labels: audio

An evil twin can come in the smallest package. Like a baby doll. Courtney Matson got away with so much mischief as a child because she could always blame it on her naughty, naughty doll, who she appropriately named, “The Evil Chubbetta.” At times, she even embarrassed her parents in public with Chubbetta's bad manners.

Chubbetta would sneak up behind the bald man and rub his head, vigorously... I would say “Chubbetta, stop it!” But she would say, “Evil Chubbetta listens to no one.”

Hear the full-length audio online here.

Labels: audio, childhood

Crushes are all the same in some ways—admiration from a distance, secret longing, nervous encounters, and eventually, either reciprocation or rejection. In Erica Davis' case, her crush was far out of reach. So she put him in a story she was writing to give herself a reason to interview him.

At the conversation kept going, something came over me. Talking to Mr. Anonymous... it felt like home.

Listen to the full audio clip of Mr. Anonymous here.

Labels: audio, love

I met Abdul Shabazz at a flea market in New Haven; he was distributing the latest issue of the Muslim Times. A month later, I went with him to Muhammad Islamic Center, a predominantly black mosque. It had been years since I had let go of my own Pakistani Muslim faith, but in this setting I talked with people about the history of black Islam and the problems facing urban youth, and I became re-acquainted with Islam through a new community.

Damn, Brother! I didn't know you was pretty like that. What you going through the sisters' side for, boy? Huh? You pretty? You pretty boy?

Hear the full audio clip here: New Haven's Black Mosque

Labels: audio, islam, urban

He was doing his job: passing time watching people watch art. I wondered what that would be like, and how it made a difference that he was Sikh, that he wore a turban along with his museum guard uniform. So I wrote a fictionalized monologue from his point of view, based on the hour that I observed him.

My first day I had a difficult time putting the headset on over my turban. The metal band did not bend enough and my ear kept popping out from under the earpiece. Yes, I remember, I thought it was a huge problem. I even went and asked the curator what to do.

Read the full short online at Brink Magazine »

Labels: desi, fiction