Katrina Grigg-Saito's essay "The Original Feminist" provides a tender portrait of her grandmother Mimi who did it all--worked as a hairdresser, raised five children, tailored stylish clothes, and advocated for education--in the pre-Civil-Rights South.

Veronique Hyland's short story "Orchard", inspired by the Wineville Chicken Coop murders in 1920s California, is an evocative study of complicity, guilt, and the cost of a young boy's confused loyalty.

CD Collins' essay "The Vigilantes of Vance" is a portrait of her candy-eating, derringer-toting, fast-driving mother, and a drily funny story of the woman's power to enthrall those around her.

Bret Anthony Johnston closes his reading at the November 15 Four Stories event by announcing he will be plagiarizing Jamaica Kincaid's famous story "Girl". Here is his short piece "Boy".

Bret Anthony Johnston spins a story about loss of innocence, loyalty, and betrayal from a simple prompt: one sentence from an author's correspondence. Bret's sentence? "Sex doesn't start on an eighteenth birthday at midnight."

Bret Anthony Johnston starts off his reading at the November 15 Four Stories/Drum event with "Porn Star," his entry for a dictionary of dirty words.

At the November 15 Four Stories event, Lynne Griffin reads a central chapter from Sea Escape, her novel about the ties between a mother and her daughter, inspired by a collection of family letters. To hear Lynne read the first two chapters of the novel for The Drum, click here and here.

Michelle Hoover reads from her novel The Quickening at the November 15 Four Stories event, choosing a scene that dramatizes the themes of loss and perseverance at the novel's core.

Reading at the November 15 Four Stories event, Ethan Gilsdorf begins with a boy facing a woodchuck, and leads us through a humorous and complex contemplation of the nature of play, cruelty, and kindness, in his essay "Just To See If I Could".

Faith Salie welcomes the crowd at Cambridge's Enormous Room to the November 15 Four Stories event in collaboration with The Drum, goes over the ground rules--and opines on The Great Gatsby, pageants, and catheters.