RWJF

This audio version of Take Us To A Better Place was narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt and Holter Graham. Featured stories by Madeline Ashby, Hannah Lillith Assadi, Calvin Baker, Frank Bill, Yoon Ha Lee, Karen Lord, Mike McClelland, Achy Obejas, and Martha Wells.

Presented by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in collaboration with Melcher Media. This audio program was produced by John Marshall Media.

Visit http://www.rwjf.org/fiction to learn about the stories, authors, and ideas presented in Take Us To A Better Place.

Having lost his wife to disease, ex-marine Guy, a rugged Samaritan in his small-town community, struggles to reconnect with his only child. It's not until he steps in to care for the neglected son of an opioid-addicted man that he learns emotional responsibility and the skills to rebuild his severed ties.

In 2079, a mysterious illness called grey pox is killing large portions of the population. When the illness finally reached the remote Pelican Island, a team of researchers including Audra Lee—whose own young niece has been affected—must muster all of their meager resources to help find a cure.

Harry and Dean are just starting their adult lives in New York. An encounter with Raquin, who was forcibly evicted from the apartment they now rent, illuminates the trauma of gentrification and the struggle to be heard and understood in today's world.

When a popular high school football player dies from a mystery illness, Glory, a reporter for a large online media conglomerate, is determined to get to the bottom of what happened before it spreads any further. But she finds herself up against the local sports culture and the conflicting goals of her employer.

On a space station near Jupiter, station manager Jixy discovers one of her friends, Greggy, an "augmented human," has been brutally murdered. A semi-mythical figure called Piecework has been blamed for similar attacks on other stations. Determined to protect the people on herstation, Jixy sets out to see if Piecework—or someone else—is responsible for the crime.

Isa, a woman with progressive hearing loss, is separating from her wife. It's not her decision. There's lots wrong in the marriage but also lots right, and she has developed a number of dependencies--many, in fact--around her hearing loss. As the marriage falls apart, Isa has to reconfigure who she is and how she finds support.

In a future society, two teens find out what happens when seemingly innocuous "community games" serve a more sinister purpose. It turns out that these popular means of social interaction are quietly eroding civil liberties and privacy as neighbors collect data on one another and report it to shadowy rulers and a power hungry elite.

Rita is a Syrian refugee whose family has escaped the conflict to Arizona—but not without a cost. Her mother was killed back home, and her father and brother carry bullet wounds. Facing xenophobia and racism at school and work, Rita and her brother struggle every day in the face of systems and individuals who fail to support refugees and immigrants.

Kyle and Bobby, long-lost lovers from different backgrounds, live in a United States where encroaching coastlines are wreaking havoc on health and well-being. When they reconnect, the disparities and inequities between their two worlds: a South ravaged by global warming and an eco-protected island in North Carolina are thrown into harsh juxtaposition.