On the island of Manhattan, there’s a building out of time. I can’t tell you where it is, exactly. It has an address, of course, as all buildings do, but that wouldn’t mean anything to you. What I can tell you is that the building is called The Oakmont. | © 2023 by P A Cornell. Narrated by Nan McNamara.

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Lara is a summer witch born with fruit rich on her tongue, a monkey god's chittering beneath her skin, and a full July sun's worth of love for love. Her ba claims to have read Pasternak, but she knows it was Julie Christie's face he traced when he named her, Julie's yellow-gold hair her ma made fun of him for admiring, bright as an August afternoon. © 2023 by Ruoxi Chen. | Narrated by Judy Young.

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The chrysanthemums are dying. The yellow flowers face downward, stems wilting at the neck. Their petals curl and brown at the edges like burning paper. You lift one of the ragged blossoms up, as if to try and help it support its own weight. You keep the flowerpot on the kitchen countertop right by the apartment window where it can get the most sunlight, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. © 2023 by Sam Kyung Yoo. | Narrated by Susan Hanfield.

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In the fading shadows of dawn, a hunter meets a wolf with white eyes, a wolf whose mouth stretches open, and in its growl there are three faraway voices, distorted as if heard through water, so the hunter shoots. He does not wait to see what he has done. | © 2023 by Lowry Poletti. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

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The forest whispers of my sister’s arrival long before I sense her. Birds flutter between pink-girdled maehwa trees, mocking her voice in the tongue only shamans understand. Seonbyeon, Seonbyeon, they repeat mindlessly, and this is how I know my sister is looking for me. But I don’t know which sister, not until she finally appears from the forest gloom. | © 2023 by Hana Lee. Narrated by Judy Young.

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It takes a Black woman to tell the truth about another Black woman, whether she likes that woman or not. If the woman in question is loved, the story reaches mythological heights, she could do no wrong, she was brown skinned and beautiful, intelligent, had all her faculties and her teeth, all the men and women of the neighborhood called her by a term of endearment, which is how Medea morphed into Ma’Dear. | © 2023 by Davida Kilgore. Narrated by Janina Edwards.

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It's so dark. Black-orange-bloody-bruised. Flashlights throw long beams across the sand. Police lights flicker blue and red, blue and red, blue and red, and the Ferris wheel on the pier glows an obscene neon. No one thought to turn off the calliope. It echoes off the empty boardwalk, cheerfully macabre.  | © 2023 by Margaret Jordan. Narrated by Roxanne Hernandez.

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Outside is the palace of slaughter. Under its gambrels of boiling sky, there is the cold unforgiving sea; there are mountains ready to cradle your bones. Along its corridors of singing grass, there are horseback warriors who will cut you to pieces. | © 2023 by Simo Srinivas. Narrated by Judy Young.

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I am haunted by a funeral, a pageantry of mourners and tears that I can only barely remember. I am not certain, but I suspect the funeral may be my own. The mourners are masked in elaborate disguises. Feathered and ribboned and silk. If I know any of them, I don’t know that I know them. The flowers arranged beside the casket seem to carry some meaning, a meaning that has nothing to do with me. And yet… I feel myself drawn to that casket, feel that it belongs to me in some way. My dream self lingers among the incense burners, awaiting enlightenment. ©2023 Daniel Ausema. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

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Don’t feed him, Greta. We can’t afford to feed him! There’s not enough to eat! We were lost when we found the tower made of sugar that stretched up into the sky in endless red and white spirals. A sea of ants milled at its base. Fat dollops of sugar dripped onto the surrounding trees, candied the leaves, and brought curious bees to hover. ©2023 by Melissa A Watkins. Narrated by Judy Young.

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