PenDust Radio

ROBERTO LOIEDERMAN

As a young man, Roberto Loiederman read Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," and George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London," which inspired a dream: to be broke in Paris one day. In his 70s, as a tourist in Paris, a sudden event gives him the chance to live out his youthful dream. Temporarily, anyway. This is a story about how we are all pretenders, to one degree or another.

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JEFF FLEISCHER

Art and business collide in this tale of a hapless artist and a very shrewd, if not entirely scrupulous, marketing executive. A struggling creator of sculptures made from pieces he’s foraged from dumpsters, is just barely getting by when he receives a mind-boggling offer that he can neither believe nor refuse. Will he or won’t he accept it? Art "gets the business" in a story that begs the question: What makes a piece of art worth anything?

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ROBERT SHUSTER

A writer of thrillers encounters a woman who claims to be the clever central character from his first novel. He plays along for a while, enjoying her witty company and the social boost she gives to his fading renown, but when she demands his involvement in a scheme to steal millions, he starts to wonder if she has, in fact, emerged from his fiction. As the situation becomes increasingly dire, he struggles to outwit her double-crossing skills.

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SARAH BLANCHARD

When Kilauea Volcano erupts in May 2018, back-to-the-land farmers June and Lani must decide whether to stay and protect their Big Island homestead against everyday threats like feral pigs and potential looters, or evacuate and flee the dangers they cannot control. In the process, they learn where the fault lines are in their own relationship, and whether they can survive a disaster that may be immediate and cataclysmic.

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EMLYN CAMERON

After his father dies, Emlyn Cameron returns to his hometown in California, which is menaced by COVID-19 and massive wildfires, to unpack their relationship while sorting the contents of his father’s storage unit.

This is a beautifully written and touching essay about the life and death of the brilliant, kind, and infinitely creative Charles Cameron — a man we here at PenDust Radio knew and loved very much. We are honored to publish his son Emlyn's eloquent words.

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ROBIN LUCE MARTIN

Nothing, but nothing, interrupts the daily quests that preoccupy the precious patrons and harried staff of New York City’s Upper East Side shop, Spanking Buttons, until the "Blonde Mace Attack" precipitates a collision and disappearance.

The post Through the Hole appeared first on PenDust Radio.

MICHAEL FALLON

Michael Fallon’s visit to Ireland's Aran Islands is a very funny “you-can’t-get-there-from-here” story. He arrived by ferry from Galway. Though everyone spoke English, he could not learn how to return to the mainland to catch his flight home. “There’s no ferry that goes to Galway," he was told. But how did the ferry he took from Galway get there in the first place? How would he get home?

The post Red Ferry, Blue Ferry: An Irish Lesson in How You Can’t Get There from Here appeared first on PenDust Radio.

JEFF FLEISCHER

Spending a solitary Christmas Eve after a recent break-up, David Silver stops in a neighborhood bar for a drink. There he encounters a cat and a stranger who asks him to deliver a cryptic message to someone he’s never heard of. This is just the first of many odd things he will experience on a night that becomes increasingly surreal. Just who the cryptic is for and what it means is the mystery revealed in this enigmatic tale in which our protagonist comes under the sway of some old Celtic magic.

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MICHAEL FALLON

First, cancer endangered Michael Fallon’s life, and then it threatened to take his voice from him. He learns that to survive and recover from cancer, you must find that place in yourself which is the source of inspiration and strength, that deep river of being that — even now — flows through you. This is the uplifting story of how he found “the lost river” and got his voice back — with the help of memory, imagination, and a sip of Garnacha wine.

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LORENA ORTIZ

Teresa, a young woman living in rural Mexico in the 1930s, is pregnant for the first time and is bound to name her baby according to the tradition of the small town she has grown up in — a tradition that ensures prosperity or poverty for the child. This is the story of a young woman determined to break from tradition so that her unborn daughter has a better shot in the world.

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