Eric is a fellow audio storyteller. You can hear his work at Crows Nest Radio. He is also involved with Superthank, another radio show/podcast/live event series, so he is a busy man. Fortunately, he has found time to write. Today's story is a job interview, but, it quickly becomes apparent that the candidate either doesn't care about the job, or there is no job at all. It is a movingly funny parody of the absurd process almost all of us have been forced to become familiar with. 

Conversation Topics: jobs, interview, Google, Louis Sachar, fiction, writing, kids, fatherhood, X-Ray Radio, podcasting, journalism, Portland, kids lit. 

Read todays story at Medium.com.

Today's music by

Lifeformed - twitter & facebook

The intro & outro music by 

MUSH - twitter & facebook

If you would like to submit writing to, and perhaps be on the show, send any fiction, narrative non-fiction, and poetry between 1,000 and 4,000 words to:

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Calvero is a poet whose work veers from place to place. It is crass, even silly one moment, then the next, it is nestling into a tender spot you never thought it would fit in. His metaphors become characters, his plots are hyperbole, but his characters seem to always find their way back to the familiar, somtimes touching or painful places, and I think you'll be surprised by where your sympathies lie. 

Calvero has a book of poetry available, Someday I'm Going to Marry Katy Perry from University of Hell press. 

His work has appeared in Hobart, Metazen, Unreality House, Salt Hill Journal and pressboardpress. 

You can follow him on Twitter (@CalveroHasCats) and on his tumblr, www.calveropoetry.tumblr.com.

Music by:

Kidswaste - facebook & twitter

MUSH - facebook & twitter

If you would like to submit work to the show, between 1,000 and 4,000 words, send it to:

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Twiter

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Episode #16 with poet, Calvero, will be here tomorrow. Since there's been a slight delay, I thought I could at least give you all a little more than usual. Tomorrow's full episode will have three poems from Calvero as well as our conversation, so for today, here's one more: "My Beached Whale Mother."

Find more of Calvero's work at calveropoetry.tumblr.com.

Follow him there, and on Twitter @CalveroHasCats

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The character of today's story, Win, has found himself in some very hard times. However, he sees an omen of just how much worse things can truly become, and he remembers that he always has choices. Craig Buchner's story is a gritty depiction of what kind of desperation poverty can breed and his lean and pointed writing captures the casual nature of this common doom. Today's story is a darker one, but it is also a vivid look at where our choices and our circumstances can take us. 

Craig's story first appeared in Hobart Magazine.

Find more of his work at his website.

Conversation Topics: writing, Portland, Asheville, NC, Ron Rash, reading, poverty, homelessness, plasma donation, mental illness, jobs, short stories, storytelling, surrealism, choices, William Kennedy, Ironweed, literature, nursing, helping, teaching, Denis Johnson.

Music by:

Red Giant

MUSH

If you would like to submit a work of fiction, narrative non-fiction, or poetry between 1,000 and 4,000 words, please send it to:

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The writing of today's guest, Zulema Renee Summerfield, manages to be quirky and funny but avoid the ironic bitterness often thought to be attached to her kind of humor. She manages to make Mark Zuckerberg, the subject of her story, small and vulnerable and human in a way we often forget people like him always are. While presented in a package of the fantastical, the sentiments between this almost quantum-Zuckerberg and his friend will certainly ring familiar.

Today's story originally appeared in The Heavy Feather Review.

You can find more of her work at her website.

Her book, Everything Faces All Ways at Once, is available in print here and available on Amazon Kindle here.  

Conversation Topics: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Stephen King, writing, process, submissions, 50 Shades of Grey, habit, persistence, novels, trauma, past, history, childhood, editing, revision, plot, fame, celebrity, money. 

Music by:

salami rose joe louis

MUSH

If you would like to submit a work of fiction, narrative non-fiction, or poetry, please send it to:

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Ambiguity is almost a character form in Ben Nardolilli's poetry. It reoccurs, it antagonizes, and is even victimized by the reader. It occurs in the forests, swirling around alien telephone poles, it emits from a boastful, personals ad, it tortures the poet as some unfaithful shade of a memory. And after all his poems, Ben can still write a detective novel about a pop artist.

His work has appeared in Yes Poetry, Grey Sparrow Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, & Rabbit Catastrophe Review.

He has a chapbook of poetry entitled "Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained" published by Folded Word Press.

Ben's writing website.

Poems featured this episode:

(4:00) - Soliloquy in Late May

(10:33) - Dull & Confused

(18:00) - Personals Ad #18

(24:07) - We May Abandon

(30:07) - Empower Lines

(43:39) - No Chance for a Sequel

Conversation Topics: DC, Arlington, NYU, writing, narrative, literature, poetry, fiction, submissions, noir, music, detective, crime novel, history, losers, confederacy, nazis, empire, death star, star wars, pop culture, capitalism, process, experience, storytelling, conversation, interview, science fiction, universal truth, albert camus, philosophy, intellectuals, plays, celebrity, capote, hemingway, ira glass

Music by

Made in 1985

Intro & Outro music by

MUSH

If you would like to submit a work of fiction, narrative non-fiction, or poetry between 1,000 and 4,000 words, submit it to: 
[email protected]

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Also  available on SoundCloud and Stitcher. 

Today's story, "The Potential Energy of Mr. English", by our guest, Johnny Day, walks a fine line between childhood absurdity and a darker, more violent reality. Much Johnny's fiction steps into the surreal and the fantastical, and it is all hypnotically entertaining. 

Conversation Topics: writing, short story, fiction, Murakami, mystery, Japan, bullying, hierarchy, teaching, novels, PTSD, veterans, trauma, war, medicalization, depression, anxiety, fairy tale, scifi, Ohio, non-fiction, narrative, screenwriting, scriptwriting, dialogue. 

Read today's story and more of Johnny's work at his website. 

Music by:

MUSH

ludwig danson

If you would like to submit a work of fiction, narrative non-fiction, or poetry between 1,000 and 4,000 words, submit it to: 

[email protected]

Follow the show on Facebook, Twitter @unknownwordspod, and Instagram @unknown_words_podcast. 

Braden is the show's first poet and his work has varied focuses, but it always maintains a strange and beautiful, outward facing interest in the world. From the small wars between ghost crabs and seagulls, the obstinate poverty of Detroit, and the chasm of unsaid words to a beautiful woman on a train, Braden Bell's poetry is always intriguing. 

Conversation Topics: poetry, writing, scriptwriting, treatments, Norway, travel, Detroit, Portland, revitalization, poverty, gentrification, typewriters, letter writing, structure, Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, nostalgia.

Read Braden's work at Exquisite Corpse, The Commonline Journal, and systemdetroit.com. 

Music by:

MUSH

ludwig danson

If you would like to submit a literary short story or narrative non-fiction between 1,000 and 4,000 words, or works of poetry, please submit to:

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Today’s episode features two pieces by writer, Olivia Olivia. Her stories are directly connected, share their characters, and are both raw and personal in their depiction of growing up. They’re also really funny. Follow Olivia and see more of her work at: www.oliviawrites.com

Her essay for Salon that we talk about can be read here. 

"Donkey Kong in Trouble" first appeared on The Rumpus. 

Conversation Topics: feminism, livejournal, Roxanne Gay, salon, rumpus, jezebel, npr, tumblr, pop culture, writing, fiction, friends, childhood, coming of age, race, ethnicity, storytelling, comedy, el salvador, immigrant families.

Music by svävande - soundcloud.com/svavande

Intro & Outro themes by MUSH - soundcloud.com/mushmusic

If you would like to submit a story between 1,000 and 4,000 words, works of poetry, or music to the show, email:
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 In today's episode, we have two stories from writer, Chris Paul: “A Picture Painted Quickly” and “A Statue on the Corner”. Chris has been living in Vietnam for the past year, and his stories of an inexplicable violence and of a guilty compassion paint a portrait of a sometimes chaotic, but always rich and interesting country.

Conversation Topics: writing, poetry, the hobbit, ho chi minh city, history, vietnam war, manchester, england, reading, childhood, teaching, language, english, future aspirations. 

Read today's stories and Chris' other work on his blog.

All of this episode's music is by MUSH.

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Hear Matthew with Dean on the Science Fiction Film podcast here!