Write Here, Write Now: A Vocal Podcast

The spookiness of a dim, overcrowded antique shop packed to the brim with bric-a-brac can scarcely be denied. Add some malicious magic into the equation, and you’ve arrived at the setting of Patti Larsen’s “Lifted.” This is a curiosity shop best visited during daylight hours.

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/lifted-a51r140din

Essay Written By: Patti Larsen

Essay Voiced By: Jasmine Hammond

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks. 

Kallista Kusumanegara constructs a singular vision out of flashes of many, lending new ideas to what comes after life. “Destination" calls for a letting-go, allowing us to surrender to the wash of words, visuals, and stories.

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/destination-rq8glz0uq0

Essay Written By: Kallista Kusumanegara

Essay Voiced By: Gary Spangler

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks. 

Mirages. They can come from wistful thinking, from nostalgia, from the burning sun. In “Heat Stress,” Claire Ibarra immerses us in the mind of a mother running away from her past into the Moab desert. But what is she running toward?

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/heat-stress

Essay Written By: Claire Ibarra

Essay Voiced By: Tessa Flannery

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks. 

The ballet - an art which embodies culture, beauty, and grace. But what of the people behind the performance? Elodie Hollant’s “Libellule” offers a glimpse into the personal world of one ballerina, following her as she moves from a childhood love of dance into the darker complexities of adulthood.

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/libellule

Essay Written By: Kelson Hayes

Essay Voiced By: Crystal Judkins

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks. 

“Fresh Off the Boat” provides a look at the present through the lens of a sobering vision of the future — a world darker, but not too different from our own. Kelson Hayes brings us to a dystopian Central Europe which may be just around the corner for all of us.

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/fresh-off-the-boat

Essay Written By: Kelson Hayes

Essay Voiced By: Gary Spangler

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks. 

It's one of the hottest summers in recorded history and a couple are attempting to navigate their relationship to each other — and to the future of the Earth. In "Burden of Proof," Scott Hardy captures cycles of inner and outer conflict with a dark and biting wit.

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/burden-of-proof-d3835k0bfl

Essay Written By: Scott Hardy

Essay Voiced By: Wilson Conkwright

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks. 

A familiar scent is a surefire way to catapult the mind back into memory, to a particular moment in time. Decay, a sea breeze, wine. Three smells that tie this story together, and propel the protagonist down a west coast highway. Steve Hanson’s “The Envious Flood” resists the pull of nostalgia to level a clear-eyed gaze at the past.

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/the-envious-flood

Essay Written By: Steve Hanson

Essay Voiced By: Gary Spangler

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks. 

There’s fear of the unknown - darkness, monsters, and the like - but sometimes the most terrifying are the things - and people - we think we know best. Jacqueline Garrahan’s “Bull” is a masterful look into the frigid, the cruel, and the disturbing, deep in the dead of a Maine night.

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/bull-s44z6d0a07

Essay Written By: Jacqueline Garrahan

Essay Voiced By: Gary Spangler

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks. 

Settle into the southern humidity with Lucas Díaz-Medina’s “Going Fishing.” A journey of introspection and self discovery unfolds as two boys mosey down a bayou back road. Family history and mythmaking collide when a passerby gives the boys a lift. 

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/going-fishing-5gecdm0imj

Essay Written By: Lucas Díaz-Medina

Essay Voiced By: Daniel Ison

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks. 

Matthew Daniels puts a new spin on job interviews with “Mistress of the House of Books.” With a heavenly interviewee, the power dynamics are bound to be flipped. But there are some roles in this world that just can’t be reversed.

Check out this essay at: https://vocal.media/fiction/mistress-of-the-house-of-books

Essay Written By: Matthew Daniels

Essay Voiced By: Tessa Flannery

Don’t forget to follow Write Here, Write Now for free wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking this link.

If you liked what you heard, tell a friend! Just put this link into any of your socials: https://podcasts.vocal.media/

Want to read this and other amazing essays and stories on Vocal? Or maybe you want to write your own story? Get started today by going to https://vocal.media/ and creating a free account. Or, become a Vocal+ member and get access to incredible challenges, promotions and other perks.