Writers Read 5 Minute Personal True Stories

In Back to the Garden, Debra Fried recalls calling her mother from the grocery store for help with recipes and how those simple exchanges became part of a much larger ritual of connection. Blending humor, food, memory, and tenderness, Fried reflects on an evolving mother-daughter relationship and the ordinary moments that can come to mean everything.

Writer and professional production assistant Betsy Friedman takes listeners back to her first day working on a television set, where she encounters the strange rules, exhausting hours, colorful personalities, and unexpected moments that come with working behind the scenes. Recorded live at City Winery New York, “Navy Blues and Polished Shoes” is a humorous and reflective look at where a decades-long career in film and television began.  

In Forbidden Walk, Daphne Gregory-Thomas takes us back to a sun-fading afternoon on a tight-knit city block — immigrant families, clotheslines, penny candy, and a rule that said you never walk to the corner store alone. Warm, quietly romantic, and laced with the specific textures of a mid-century New York childhood, this essay is a love story told in two digits and a lifetime of steps. Daphne Gregory-Thomas is a retired educator and essayist based in Kennebunk, Maine, whose writing has appeared in the MSK Visible Ink Anthology and Zibby Media.

Steven Lewis shares Not My Father’s Cadillac, a candid and often humorous reflection on growing up with a hardworking father and the long arc of understanding that follows. Through rebellion, adulthood, and an unexpected turn, the story explores identity, family, and the quiet realization of what we once failed to see.

What happens when a 12-year-old kid is forced to retire?

This week, we dive into the hilarious and sweaty world of a teenage transplant trapped in a 1970s Central Florida retirement community. Surrounded by Hammond organs, matching fezzes, and a "post-reproductive" neighborhood, our guest shares what it was like navigating puberty while wearing dead people’s clothes.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Thrift Shop Trap: Why adolescent boys should never wear white patent leather shoes.

• The Grandma Posse: Surviving a neighborhood ruled by giant tricycles and orange safety pennants.

• The Bicentennial Disaster: The peak humiliation of riding a July 4th parade float

This episode of the podcast was produced and hosted by Edward McCann, with engineering and mixing help from Victor Scoppa.

If you’re new to the show, welcome; we’re so glad you’re here! Learn more at our website, WritersRead.org, and please email us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, suggestions or critiques!

Podcast # 89

What happens when a 12-year-old kid is forced to retire?

This week, we dive into the hilarious and sweaty world of a teenage transplant trapped in a 1970s Central Florida retirement community. Surrounded by Hammond organs, matching fezzes, and a "post-reproductive" neighborhood, our guest shares what it was like navigating puberty while wearing dead people’s clothes.

In this episode, we discuss:

The Thrift Shop Trap: Why adolescent boys should never wear white patent leather shoes.

The Grandma Posse: Surviving a neighborhood ruled by giant tricycles and orange safety pennants.

The Bicentennial Disaster: The peak humiliation of riding a July 4th parade float

This episode of the podcast was produced and hosted by Edward McCann, with engineering and mixing help from Victor Scoppa.

If you’re new to the show, welcome; we’re so glad you’re here! Learn more at our website, WritersRead.org, and please email us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, suggestions or critiques!

Podcast # 89

What does it mean to look back at the men who raised us, or the spaces they left behind? In this episode of Writers Read, we bring you a collection of true, five-minute personal essays that explore the complex, beautiful, and often unspoken dynamics of fatherhood.

FEATURED WRITERS

Steven Lewis

Dan Zevin

Malachy McCourt

David Masello

Writers Read is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the art of the personal narrative. We bring voices to the stage and the page, celebrating the power of true stories, read by the people who wrote them.

This episode of the podcast was produced and hosted by Edward McCann, with engineering and mixing from Brent Reilly.

If you’re new to the show, welcome; we’re so glad you’re here! Find and follow us on Instagram, and please email us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, suggestions or critiques at [email protected]

Listen & Follow: Subscribe to Writers Read on Spotify to ensure you never miss an episode. For more information on our upcoming live events and anthologies, visit our website, www.WritersRead.org

Podcast # 027

What does it take to survive live television in the 1960s? For one production assistant named Jim Russek, it started with schlepping tongue sandwiches from the Stage Deli and ended with handling comedy legends like George Burns, Joan Rivers, and Sid Caesar. This is a hilarious, behind-the-scenes look at the golden age of variety TV, featuring a high-stakes, live-broadcast disaster involving 100 pounds of cue cards, a jazz diva, and a frantic race against the clock on The Ed Sullivan Show.

This episode of the podcast was produced and hosted by Edward McCann, with engineering help Quincy Simmons and Aaron Hekking.

If you’re new to the show, welcome; we’re so glad you’re here! Learn more at our website, WritersRead.org, and please email us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, suggestions or critiques!

Podcast # 89

Dressed in black, Afro-Latina dancer Mercy stood alone by the DJ booth at her first Salsa social, bypassed for lighter-skinned dancers. In this episode, we explore colorism on the dance floor and the deep West African roots of Salsa. Mercy shares how she navigated her dual identity, embraced the rhythm of La Clave, and ultimately reclaimed her space on the floor.

Her story is a beautiful reminder that Salsa isn't just a dance—it’s Black ancestry in motion.

This episode of the Writers Read podcast was produced and hosted by Edward McCann, with engineering help from Anisah Garcia.

If you’re new to the show, welcome; we’re so glad you’re here! Find and follow us on , and please email us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, suggestions or critiques at [email protected]

Podcast # 89

In honor of National Library Week, we’re celebrating the sanctuaries of story and the quiet power of the printed word.

Step inside the stacks with this special "My Library" edition of the Writers Read podcast. Moving beyond the spine and into the heart, we bring you raw, lyrical, true five-minute stories from a lineup of talented writers who explore what it means to be shaped by the books and the spaces that house them.

National Library Week is a time to celebrate our nation's libraries, library workers' contributions and promote library use and support. Since 1958, National Library Week's been sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and observed in libraries across the country each April. All types of libraries - school, public, academic and special - participate, and you can learn more at the American Library Association website, ALA.org

Writers Read is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the art of the personal narrative. We bring voices to the stage and the page, celebrating the power of true stories, read by the people who wrote them.

This episode of the podcast was produced and hosted by Edward McCann, with engineering and mixing from Brent Reilly.

If you’re new to the show, welcome; we’re so glad you’re here! Find and follow us on Instagram, and please email us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, suggestions or critiques at [email protected]

Podcast # 061

Listen & Follow: Subscribe to Writers Read on Spotify to ensure you never miss an episode. For more information on our upcoming live events and anthologies, visit our website.

The cast of “My Library” • Cindy Clement Carlson, Krystia Basil, Sarah Bracey White, and David Masello