Podcast: Play in new window | Download

First up, Pichchenda Bao’s “Speak, Muse” contemplates the roles we are assigned in life and the roles we adopt: refugee, American, daughter, mother, artist, citizen; the compromises we make for survival and the ways we interpret silence, and ultimately how we can expand, not contract, our relationship to each other and the world.

Read for us here by Carolyn Castiglia.

Story partners: Pichchenda Bao and Carolyn Castiglia

Switching it up, in Carolyn Castiglia’ s story “A Friend Request,” the author looks back at a time in her early twenties when she chose comfort over vulnerability and suffering over fulfillment. A small gesture reminds her how people who pass through our lives can show back up on our radar years later to remind us how we’ve weathered life’s storms.

For this 2019 Brooklyn Book Festival event, we partnered with The Astoria Bookshop for a special evening of poets and comedians trading true tales inspired by the theme “aMuse.” Stories performed live on September 17th, 2019.

“Speak, Muse” was directed by Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons.

“A Friend Request” was directed by Erika Iverson.

Podcast narrated by Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons.