Narratively Out Loud

Have you ever been so deep into a questionable relationship that it was hard to see it for what it really was — but then once you finally did, you realized, wow, you sure missed some signs! Well, of course you have. Us, too. 😉 In fact, that’s precisely what this Personals piece is all about. If you missed it the first time, or prefer to listen in your headphones rather than read it on your train ride home, here’s the author, Brahna Yassky, in her own voice. Enjoy! (And if you actually would rather read it, head here.)

P.S. For audio versions of even more of our stories, head to the Narratively Out Loud podcast in Spotify, Apple or the podcast player of your choice.

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We have heard from so many people about how much this Personals essay from Dr. Chris Hartnick means to them. That it showed them a side of the medical world they don’t usually get to see, that it was beautifully written though heartbreaking, that the piece gave them hope. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet and you actually prefer to listen to stories, this one’s for you. As we’ve done with so many of our Personals pieces, we had Chris read this one himself.

So, on your next walk, subway ride or road trip, listen to Chris share his own words about the time early on in his medical career he met a patient whose approach to pain astounded and amazed him. If you’d like to check out the written version, too, you can do so here. Enjoy! —Narratively

P.S. For audio versions of even more of our stories, head to the Narratively Out Loud podcast in Spotify, Apple or the podcast player of your choice.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.narratively.com/subscribe

We like to make a pretty big deal out of our memoir prizes and the winning essays, so you might have noticed that not only have we recently published the grand prize–winning essay of our 2025 Memoir Prize, “My Absolutely Chaotic Adventures at Sea During the Summer of 1984,” by Andrew Printer, but we also hosted a party and live reading to celebrate this monumental win. (Paying subscribers can check out the video of the live event here.) We’re here now to keep the party going. We love nothing more than hearing writers read their work in their own voices, so in the latest episode of our podcast Naratively Out Loud, we have Andrew reading his winning essay himself. Listen while you head out for your morning walk, get ready for brunch or drive to meet a friend for coffee. Enjoy!

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If you’re here, we know that means you like a good story — but we also know that sometimes it can be hard to sit down and actually read one. Did you know we have audio versions of most of our written stories? So, next time you’re on a walk, washing the dishes, folding the laundry, unpacking your groceries (oof, could we go on…), might we suggest pairing that rather routine experience with a Narratively audio essay to make it that much more enjoyable? Mallory McDuff’s new piece about her exploration of environmentally friendly end-of-life choices with her students is a great place to start — it’s about a subject matter we don’t collectively talk about enough, it’s thought provoking and it’s beautifully written. For audio versions of even more of our stories, head to our Narratively Out Loud podcast in Spotify, Apple or the podcast player of your choice. Still prefer to read? Find the written version of this story — the latest in our Personals section — here. Enjoy! —Narratively

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IVF has been in the zeitgeist for a while now. So many important stories have been told with candor about how real the struggle can be, the physical challenges, the emotional journeys people go on, usually ending in success. What we hear about less, though, is what it looks like when these journeys aren’t successful, the toll it takes monetarily and psychologically, the heartache that follows, but also the logistics. This essay, by the brilliant writer Angie Chuang, gives us a glimpse inside of that world. We’re so proud to present it.

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Today we have a first: a Personals essay written by our executive editor, Jesse Sposato, who usually oversees this very section, bringing in revealing and emotional essays from a wide array of writers around the world. This one — which is part of a bigger collection she’s working on about coming of age — is, well, very personal, and just in time for Valentine’s Day. Click play above to listen to an original audio version of this piece, narrated by Jesse herself, or head here to read the story. —Narratively co-founder Brendan Spiegel

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Happy New Year, Narratively fam! If you loved reading Ivy Eisenberg’s recent story “A Freak Accident Brought Me Closer to My Domineering Dad” (or listening to the awesome podcast version) we think you’ll also enjoy this hilarious Narratively Classic from Ivy. (For the record, we totally endorse quitting your job to reinvent yourself, but thought you’d enjoy this funny quitting-fail in this high season of resolutions and renewal.)

It’s 2003 and I am stuck in the bowels of Verizon’s IT department, in a g-d-awful boring job. I’ve been working for various IT departments in Corporate America for 20 years and writing jokes for imaginary stage performances on the side. With a house, a husband, and two millennial children who need to be fed a constant diet of pizza, smoothies, and games for their Xboxes, Game Boys and PlayStations, I am resigned to staying put. October marks my 47th birthday. I only have 20 more years of this corporate drudgery, I reason. I am coming down the home stretch.

One morning, I come up with a phenomenal business idea, which will propel me out of Verizon and make me rich and famous: I’m going to start my own line of custom corporate fortune cookies. I will write up work-appropriate fortunes and stuff them into homemade fortune cookies, to be handed out as party favors. But, here’s my brilliant spin: On the back, instead of “Speak Chinese” it will say “Speak Yiddish.” I call my new enterprise “Work Favors the Fortune-ate.” Instead of the morning marathon of packing the kids’ backpacks, getting myself out the door to work by 8:03 a.m., and applying my makeup in the car at each red light, I will sleep in, then waltz out at 10 in sweatpants for coffee. Instead of shopping at supermarket sales, I will luxuriate in Balducci’s, buying cantaloupe-sized grapefruits and grapefruit-sized oranges. I will get a driver to take me all over the city to lunches, dinners and galas in my honor. I will visit production plants across the country, speak about my rags-to-riches endeavor on the morning shows, and take a real family vacation to the Fiji Islands and Japan, not just a quick road trip to Cape Cod. Most important, I will buy a whole GameStop store for the kids, so that they will shut up about what they “need” next.

I arrange a prototype run by scheduling a mandatory team-meeting-slash-luncheon-slash-dessert-swap for the week before the December holidays. There are 22 people on my team, so I create my first line of 24 Verizon IT-friendly fortunes.

I type up the fortunes, using the same rose-colored font and style of type used in Chinese fortune cookies, and print the fortunes, front and back, on my color printer. I cut them into little strips of paper, and they look perfect. For example, one says, “HTTP 404: Not Found.” And on the back, it says, “Schmear: A spread or a bribe.” Another says, “Talk is cheap. Often cheaper on nights and weekends.” On the back: “Chutzpa: Nerve.”

Now I need to figure out how to make the cookies. I find a recipe online that seems impossibly easy to do, uses everyday ingredients, and sounds delicious. I can almost taste the success emerging from my oven. The night before the meeting, I throw pizza at the kids for dinner and lock them in their rooms by 8 p.m., giving me a full 12 hours before my 8 a.m. meeting. The recipe calls for baking the cookies for five to 20 minutes. I’ll do 12 minutes. At that rate, I figure, I can bake four cycles of six cookies each. I’ll be done in 48 minutes, then I can work on the actual meeting agenda.

It’s difficult to smooth out each round into a four-inch circle. After 25 minutes of mushing and pushing, I settle for three-inch circle-like masses. The first batch goes in — and comes out crumbly and overdone. I try for eight minutes. I get one cookie out, fold it — it works! I slip the little fortune in and drop it into a muffin tin.

I go to pick up the next one, and it cracks in my hand. I taste a crumb, and it’s yummy. I pick up the pan, forgetting my oven mitts, singe my fingers, and drop the pan on the floor. As I soak my burning fingers, I recalibrate. I will bake the cookies for six minutes, and I will only bake three cookies at a time. It is now 11:30 p.m., and I’ve made exactly one cookie. At this rate, they’ll be ready for the spring company picnic.

By 4:30 in the morning, 22 fortune cookies are done, although a stiff breeze would break half of them. The paper fortunes have turned translucent from the grease. They look like rice paper, not office printer paper. I gingerly place them in a Rubbermaid tub, cloak them in a tea towel, and carefully transport them to the office, where they join the other treats in the conference room for our holiday dessert buffet, which is a force to be reckoned with.

Amy, who’s missed all of her work deliverables all year, has turned out 100 chocolate snowballs with perfectly crisp outsides, covered in powdered sugar snow. Sandy, who works so hard in the office I never imagined she would set foot in a kitchen, has fashioned perfect miniature green wreaths out of Corn Flakes and Red Hots, with bright green icing. Janet shows up with sleighs made of Christmas candies. She has driven through three states to get here, yet her sleighs are fastened by melted peppermints, with such expert engineering precision they could tackle a sleigh ride in a blizzard. And Joey produces his “remarkable” chocolate pecan cookies. He’s been touting their remarkability all fall, but there isn’t actually anything remarkable about them. They’re just cookies (no humor or education or brilliance in his cookies). In the middle of this fabulous buffet is my Rubbermaid container with the stupid, cloaking tea towel.

At dessert time, I whip off the tea towel and declare: “Time for dessert.” Everyone is filling their plates with the other desserts, but no one is taking a fortune cookie. I walk around with the bin to each person and say, “Here, take one.” Everyone politely takes one. They work for me. They have no choice. But no one is eating them.

I walk over to Joey.

“Joey, open yours. Read it.”

He obliges. “May you have more bugs in your code than you have in this cookie.”

No one smiles. “Read the back,” I command.

Joey struggles. “Chaz – a – ray … Chaz a?”

“CHAZERAI!” I correct him. Joey’s from Canada. He can’t speak Yiddish.

“Amy, open your cookie,” I say.

“Can you hear me now?” she reads. She doesn’t get the joke.

“Look at the back!” I shout.

“Schmat … ”

I dive in: “SCHMATTA: RAG!”

Everyone opens their cookie. There’s barely a chuckle from the group. Certainly not the hearty guffaw I had expected from this team. There is one cookie left. I open it and read the fortune: “Do not quit your day job” it says. And on the back: “Oy vey.”

My fortune cookie debut and the team’s reaction are signs. I do not quit my day job. I’m still at Verizon three years later, in 2006. I’m about to turn 50, and I’ve made the sad transition from reading Glamour magazine to reading MORE magazine.

MORE is my North Star — 130 pages of bladder leak protection ads, interspersed with motivational tales of women reinventing themselves in midlife: becoming life coaches to other women, building cupcake empires, moving to Australia to save the wallabies.

A decade later, in 2016, MORE will cease publication. They will be no MORE. They will be edged out because they target an older female demographic, and we all know that women over 40 are supposed to be invisible.

The death knell is when MORE changes its tagline to “Women of style and substance.” No one wants a woman of substance. Everyone wants a woman with no substance, a vacuous wisp of a thing who has starved herself with a juice cleanse and had her eyebrows microbladed.

Aside from MORE weight and MORE debt, there isn’t anything MORE in my life — there’s a lot LESS. Less life left to live, less money, less sex.

My job at Verizon is a dead end. Literally. My office is below ground level, so if I jump out the window, I must j…

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I moved into a haunted building in a ritzy resort resort town and sank into a terrifying depression. I never dreamed the thing that saved me would be the woman who died in my apartment.


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Over the summer, we launched The Personals, a new series of essays about smaller — but still largely impactful — moments. This latest one from writer and comedian Ivy Eisenberg is an absolute delight. We felt like we were right beside Ivy as she tried to dodge her father and vie for his approval all at once. Listen to Ivy read it aloud in her own voice here (and if you want to read the piece yourself, head here).

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These suburban mothers are deadly serious about chasing ghosts.


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