Off the Page

Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of two collections of poetry, This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Press, 2014), and Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018), which was named the winner of the Publishing Triangle's Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. A recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Hieu is also a 2018 McKnight Writing Fellow, a Kundiman Fellow, and a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Best American Poetry, The New York Times, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, a former Stegner Fellow, and a current Jones Lecturer in the creative writing program at Stanford. Originally from the Twin Cities, Hieu now lives in Oakland.

Aamina Ahmad reads from The Return of Faraz Ali, a rich and deeply moving novel about confronting histories both personal and political.

Aamina Ahmad, a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, has received a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a Pushcart Prize, and a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award. Her short fiction has appeared in One Story, The Southern Review, Ecotone, and elsewhere; she is also the author of a play, The Dishonored. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota.

Author Lydia Conklin reads "Pioneer," a story from Rainbow Rainbow, their delightful debut collection of prize-winning stories, queer, gender-nonconforming, and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes.

Lydia Conklin is an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Vanderbilt University. Previously they were the Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Fiction at the University of Michigan. They’ve received a Stegner Fellowship in Fiction at Stanford University, a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, three Pushcart Prizes, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, a Creative & Performing Arts Fulbright to Poland, work-study and tuition scholarships from Bread Loaf, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Djerassi, Hedgebrook, the James Merrill House, the Vermont Studio Center, VCCA, Millay, Jentel, Lighthouse Works, Brush Creek, the Santa Fe Art Institute, Caldera, the Sitka Center, and Harvard University, among others. They were the 2015-2017 Creative Writing Fellow in fiction at Emory University. Their fiction has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming from The Paris Review. They have drawn graphic fiction for Lenny Letter, Drunken Boat, and the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and cartoons for The New Yorker and Narrative Magazine.

In this episode, Shannon Pufahl's reads “Lucky."

You can find more of Shannon's work at [his/her] website: https://www.shannonpufahl.com/about

Off the Page is a podcast of stories, essays, and poetry from the Stanford University writing community, produced by the Stanford Storytelling Project in collaboration with the Stanford Creative Writing Program. Music by Breakmaster Cylinder

Learn more at storytelling.stanford.edu and at creativewriting.stanford.edu

Come on a journey to understand our fascination with sea monsters and what they inspire in humans. In particular, hear about the Icelandic Lagarfljótsormur, the water monster that sparked a 13 person commission of the Icelandic government to investigate its existence.

Eating is one of life’s great pleasures, but what about the pleasures that come with sharing your food with others? In this episode, we’re looking at how the act of feeding can bring people together. We’ll hear the tale of an unlikely pet, a meditation on cannibalism, and a story about children on a rooftop garden in San Francisco.

Our second story takes us to one of San Francisco's toughest neighborhoods, to look at tender shoots growing on the rooftops of the Tenderloin. By tender shoots we mean fifth graders, who are learning to grow and prepare their own food.

Featuring: Maya Donelson, Rebecca Alonzi

Producer(s): Natacha Ruck and Charlie Mintz

What does it mean to preserve a living being? We follow the life of a sourdough starter, a live culture of bacteria and yeast, that was passed onto producer Parsa Nowruzi as a parting gift by a friend. After hitting a rocky road, Parsa inevitably faces the challenge of how to keep his starter buddy alive: what does it mean to preserve the life of someone else when you are struggling to take care of yourself?

Music: , Artist, Album. Include links and permissions) Sound of Picture (Artist: Podington Bear) Across the River, Piano I: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Piano_I/Across_The_River Dark Matter, Thoughtful: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Thoughtful/DarkMatter Rain on Glass, Epilogue: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Epilogue_1331/Rain_On_Glass Triste, Duets: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Duets_1372/Triste Undergarden Sea, Fathomless/Ambient: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Fathomless_-_Ambient/Undersea_Garden Wilt, Duets: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Duets_1372/Wilt Continue Life, Kevin MacLeod: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3545-continue-life

Feeding Intro Story: Mukbang by Stanford Storytelling Project

She Was There by Paloma Moreno by Stanford Storytelling Project