PenDust Radio

FRANCIS DUFFY

"Bar Kafka" is the gripping story of Joe Nickerson’s adventures after serving in Vietnam. We travel with him from Vietnam to Japan, and after he arrives home, from Los Angeles to New Jersey. Captivated by a stalwart, seductive, and enigmatic woman, he ultimately returns to Japan... which leads to a most unexpected encounter.

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ANNA PRAWDZIK HULL

Hector, a young man from Albuquerque, is one semester away from getting a degree from the University of New Mexico. His mother, who was recently deported from the U.S., is sick and needs urgent care in Oaxaca, Mexico. To help her, Hector gets a job working for a secretive character, a man named Johnny G, whose dangerous side business — if you can call it that — opens Hector’s eyes, and his heart.

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JENNIFER O'NEILL PICKERING

This eloquent and poignant short story, about redemption and forgiveness, begins when a horseshoe-shaped belt buckle tumbles out of an old photo album into Sarah’s lap. She recalls that there was nothing lucky about that particular keepsake, and relives the momentous events of one particular summer that she called “the summer of the river bottom dragon.”

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SEAN MURRAY

What do a box-car riding, washed up sax player, a Tijuana cop, a Scandinavian diplomat, a gorgeous high diver, and a race horse ready for the glue factory, have in common? They all turn up in Sean Murray’s highly entertaining short story.

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ANNILEE NEWTON

Annilee Newton answered a Craigslist job post with a photo of herself drinking wine — a bold move that will eventually lead to her becoming a professional wine taster. This amusing memoir takes us along on Annilee’s journey to learn the intricate art of wine tasting. We travel with her to Mississippi, France, and Texas. We learn that place affects the taste of wine—both the place where the wine is made and where the wine is drunk.

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JERRY VIS

In the mid-1950s, Jerry Vis attended a strict Adventist college near Washington, D.C. On the sly, his eccentric Uncle gave him this insightful advice as he departed for college: "To become your own person, learn how to think for yourself, not what others want you to think." Jerry intuitively follows his Uncle's advice and makes friends with some... unusual characters.

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CARRIE GRINSTEAD

This is a short story about a medical miracle, a childhood obsession, and a first hearbreak. The main character develops a dark and destructive obsession with a classmate. She also experiences the first real dreams for her future, and her first crushing disappointment.

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TIM JONES

We all make choices, and then must live with the consequences. In this story, Chase reluctantly returns to the mid-sized, middle-class mid-western town he grew up in, and had left as quickly as he could. In a moment of nostalgia during a visit home, he tours the town and reconnects with two people he had nearly forgotten.The impact of an old judgment becomes visible in the overhead light of experience and maturity.

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EILEEN CUNNIFFE

Both a memoir and a love letter to Mary Tyler Moore and her best-remembered role. This story begins with an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show where author Eileen Cunniffe's real life mirrored Mary Richards' television life, involving what might now be called "fake news."

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