– He wore torment like a red velvet cape. A familiar sense of frustration and self-deprecation crept upon me, strengthening the loneliness of grief. Edith Gettes has worked as a violinist, teacher, and psychiatrist, as well as mother of four daughters. She has lectured about learning, trauma, and motherhood at several international conferences. In addition to writing for musical and medical journals, her story “Banana Bread” appeared in the Personal Story Publishing Project’s fall 2023 pub...
Jun 22, 2024•8 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast – Technicolor visions rapidly appeared out of the haze. I didn’t look back or cry. I disappeared into the forest. Ginny Grulke lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where she has discovered a community of like-minded writers through the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. She has been writing non-fiction for her family and friends to enjoy. Her stories revolve around a life with horses, aging, and widowhood, as well as her rural childhood in a large Pennsylvania Dutch family. A few colorful...
Jun 19, 2024•8 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast – Quiet, please. This is a sacred space. What if authorities in Ecuador allowed Basilica-like crowds to swarm the Galapagos? Kenneth Chamlee’s work has appeared in five previous Personal Story Publishing Project anthologies. His latest collections are If Not These Things (Kelsay Books, 2022) and The Best Material for the Artist in the World , a poetic biography of 19th-century American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023). Ke...
Jun 15, 2024•8 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast – Breeding for a silver dapple is a bit of a gamble. I was planning on it, laughingly saying I was going to ride until I was 95. Bio Janet K. Baxter lives in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, and is a member of the Charlotte Writer’s Club and Scribblers, a memoir critique group. Her stories, “Horse Whispering for the Average Woman,” “Southern Blues,” “A Frank Lesson,” “Cappie, The Boomerang Horse,” “An Angel’s Smile,” “Morgan: Our Escape Artist,” “One Soul Alone,” and “Forest Bathing on ...
Jun 12, 2024•8 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Winston-Salem-native Mick Scott worked in the Winston-Salem Journal’s editorial department for 20 years, the last five of those as editorial-page editor. During that time, he churned out thousands of editorials and opinion columns on tight deadline and received numerous first- and second-place awards from the N.C. Press Association. He is the author of Stardust and Scar Tissue: Rambles, Ruminations, and the Search for an Authentic Culture of Life , published in 2023 by Press53. Follow Mick’s cur...
Jun 08, 2024•8 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast This story is offered for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944. It is the experience that day of my next-door neighbor as he wrote it years later. He passed away in February 2024 after turning 100 on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day. This version of the story ran four years ago when he was 96. It first ran when he was 95. A few years ago he learned that he had been awarded a fourth Purple Heart to accompany his Bronze Star. This story is offered in honor and memory of all World War II veterans wi...
Jun 06, 2024•8 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Phyllis Castelli returned home to Henderson, North Carolina, after retirement from her music career. She spends time with her lifetime special interests: writing, music, photography, a pollinator garden, and Black Labrador Retrievers. Phyllis loves to create projects that knit together the beauty of those favorites. Phyllis’s poems and essays have appeared in Quillkeepers Press , The Avocet, Scarlet Leaf Review , and Tar River Poets , among others. As a young poet, she published Gen...
Jun 01, 2024•9 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast Constant writer and occasional author M. J. Norwood lives in East Bend, North Carolina. Her work has appeared in previous Personal Story Publishing Project publications Curious Stuff and Twists and Turns . A member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network, and active in Yadkin County’s Between the Covers Book Club, she is currently writing her third novel, and avidly supporting the Atlanta Braves.
May 29, 2024•8 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast Akira Odani lives in the ancient city of St. Augustine, Florida. He belongs to Taste Life Twice Writers and the Florida Writers Association. Born in Tokyo, he had written extensively for the Japanese media. Still, more recently, his interest has turned to writing in English and subjects related to his experiences interacting with the two cultures. Some of his work has appeared in the pages of FWA anthologies, The Weekly Avocet , PSPP, Twists and Turns, Lost & Found, and Sooner or Later . He ...
May 25, 2024•9 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast Ellen Zaroff lives in New York City and has recently published three books: A Layered Tress , A Tree’s Tale , and Once, Upon Reflection . Her fourth book is due out soon. She runs a small foundation and travels trying to help community projects while collecting stories and sharing stories from around the world.
May 22, 2024•8 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast S. G. (Sandy) Benson lives in Warne, North Carolina, where she is a member of the North Carolina Writers Network-West. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers and received awards from the Nebraska Press Women. She published her first book in 2021, My Mother’s Keeper: One Family’s Journey Through Dementia . Her next book, Dear Folks: Letters Home from World War II, 1943-1946 is scheduled for release in April 2024. Details at https://www.sandygbenson.com/...
May 18, 2024•8 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast Thomas Gery, a common man with uncommon experiences lives in Berks County, Pennsylvania. He served in the U.S. Army with duty in Vietnam. As a social worker he helped children, youth, and adults in a variety of practice venues and situations throughout a work life of 40 years. Married with two adult children and two grandchildren, he is currently writing his life’s story to provide answers to questions his kids will never ask. His first two published stories appeared in Personal Story Publ...
May 15, 2024•9 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast Arlene Mandell is an artist living in Linville, North Carolina, proudly celebrating her 10th year at Carlton Gallery in Banner Elk. ( carltongallery.com/arlene-mandell ). A native New Yorker, relocating to the Blue Ridge Mountains with Captain Dan ignited a passion to write. Her “6-minute Stories” podcasts include: “Eye of the Dolphin,” “Artist Borne,” “Gobsmacked in the Gulfstream,” “Renegade Daughter,” “It Started with a Typo,” “Shopping for the Homeless,” “Thirteen Candles in the Dark,” “The ...
May 11, 2024•9 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast David Inserra lives on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina with his wife Ellen Titus and their dog, Mindy. David’s most recent work appears in the PSPP release, Sooner or Later . He is a member of the Island Writers Network and works at the local Unitarian Church. David’s first novel, a speculative thriller titled “In Your Own Backyard,” is currently being queried to agents. He is also a musician who has written over 400 songs, most being about his wife. Visit davidinserra.weebly.com ....
May 08, 2024•8 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Growing up in the South means hearing and sharing stories. Ginny Foard learned a lot that way and keeps on trying to find out more about it all. The air is thick with good stories. She lives in a little post office box on Sullivans Island, South Carolina.
May 04, 2024•8 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Emerging author Lynne E Williams is a native New Englander who lives in Charlotte, NC. with her two cats, two dogs, two teenaged sons and their father. Lynne is a graduate of Clark University in Worcester, MA where she double majored in Music and Theater instead of English but was nevertheless named a Writing Fellow of the University. She is a member of the Charlotte Writer’s Club and Charlotte Lit, and a two-time finalist in CWC’s nonfiction contest. Her story “The Power Drill” was included in ...
May 01, 2024•7 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Lubrina Burton lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband and pug. She completed the Carnegie Center’s Author Academy in 2020 and is now pursuing her MFA at Eastern Kentucky University’s Bluegrass Writers Studio. In 2023, Hydra Publications/Erudite Press released her first book, Shitbag Soldier , a creative nonfiction memoir detailing her experience as a young soldier in a pre-9/11 U.S. Army. Her short stories and poems are featured in the anthologies, That Southern Thing , Trouble , Curious ...
Apr 27, 2024•8 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Alison Rice Bruster comes from a long line of women who love the written word. The granddaughter of a librarian, daughter of an English teacher, and sister of a novelist, she was destined to be an avid reader and writer. After a career spent finding the voices of senior business executives, she is writing a new chapter. She holds a BA in English Literature from Queens University of Charlotte and lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina. She is a member of the Charlotte Writers Club, Charlotte Lit, and...
Apr 24, 2024•8 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast Catherine Parisio is a freelance editor, relentless writer, and international schoolteacher, currently living and working in Calama, Chile. The college student with the courage to take a risk and pursue an unconventional relationship became a woman living a somewhat uncommon life as an international schoolteacher, seizing opportunities to experience all that life has to offer. Catherine believes the pivotal moments of life provide insight into the core values that shape us; writing and sharing t...
Apr 20, 2024•9 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Robin Russell Gaiser, MA, CMP, added a certificate for music practitioner to her degrees in English literature and psychology. As an experienced multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Robin gave live bedside acoustic music to critically and chronically ill, elderly and dying patients in hospices, hospitals, rehabs, nursing and private homes. Her first book, Musical Morphine: Transforming Pain One Note at a Time (Pisgah Press, 2016) chronicles such work. Her second book, Open for Lunch (Pisgah Press...
Apr 17, 2024•8 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Fascinated with every big and little thing, Jamie Cheshire has long been an avid student of design and structure. Having worked together with giants, he has had the extreme good fortune to practice his craft for most of the last four decades and has seen his work appear nationally and in several countries on three continents. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with his beloved feral, hippie-chick wife, their three dogs and two cats. Deeply committed to the ordinary, he is constantly sear...
Apr 13, 2024•8 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Mary Alice Dixon is a Pushcart nominee, award-winning poet and former finalist for the NC Poetry Society Poet Laureate Award. Her writing is in five PSPP anthologies, in Braided Way, County Lines, Kakalak, Main Street Rag, Pinesong, and elsewhere. Her poetry will appear on NC Poetry Society posters in 2024. Mary Alice lives in Charlotte, NC where she teaches a Hospice Grief Writing Workshop for the bereaved. Her course includes found poems, tears, laughter, peppermint c...
Apr 10, 2024•9 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Annette L. Brown is a mother, wife, and retired teacher, who lives on an almond farm in Central California where she enjoys spending time with family and friends. She is grateful for the support of The Taste Life Twice Writers and The Light Makers’ Society and for simply having time to write. Annette has pieces reflecting her love of nature, family, beauty, and humor in several publications including Cathexis Northwest Press, Last Stanza Poetry, Flash Fiction Magazine, Every Day Fiction, and oth...
Apr 06, 2024•8 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Richard (“Rick”) Davis is a retired Air Force colonel with an extensive professional writing history, including some non-fiction material published over the past 40 years. To transition to fiction, he studied with Amherst Writers & Artists and published his first novella in 2014. He has two book-length manuscripts pending. “Two Minutes and Eighteen Seconds” marks his second offering to PSPP, which earlier accepted his submission for Lost & Found (spring 2023). He lives in Elk Grove, Cali...
Apr 03, 2024•9 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Raven Chiong earned her Master of Arts in Exercise and Sport Science from the University of Florida. A lifelong student, life coach, and educator, she qualified for the first-ever Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials in 1984 and paid it forward with her 19-year cross country coaching career. After her competitive running and coaching career, she ran her pen across the pages of this life. Raven was the author of Ode to the Still, Small Voice—A Memoir of Listening . She was a proud mother to four...
Mar 30, 2024•9 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Forty-one writers share their personal stories of experiences and decisions hinged on a moment in time. Now or never is a turning point, a hope, an admonition, an intersection of paths ahead to take, to avoid, or to create. Now and Never are also states of being—living in the present, accepting what is or dealing with the roadblock, the closed door, the helping hand no longer extended. With decisions made and consequences encountered, for better or worse, we each move ahead balancing out our now...
Mar 27, 2024•8 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Kenneth Chamlee’s work has appeared in five previous Personal Story Publishing Project anthologies. His latest collections are If Not These Things (Kelsay Books, 2022) and The Best Material for the Artist in the World , a poetic biography of 19th-century American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023). Ken lives in Mills River, North Carolina, and is an active member of the North Carolina Poetry Society and the North Carolina Writers...
Mar 23, 2024•8 min•Ep 54•Transcript available on Metacast Arlene Mandell is an artist living in Linville, North Carolina, proudly celebrating her 10th year at Carlton Gallery in Banner Elk. ( carltongallery.com/arlene-mandell ). A native New Yorker, relocating to the Blue Ridge Mountains with Captain Dan ignited a passion to write. Her “6-minute Stories” podcasts include: “Eye of the Dolphin,” “Artist Borne,” “Gobsmacked in the Gulfstream,” “Renegade Daughter,” “It Started with a Typo,” “Shopping for the Homeless,” “Thirteen Candles in the Dark,” “The ...
Mar 20, 2024•9 min•Ep 53•Transcript available on Metacast The luck of the Irish brought Gail Tyson to Knoxville, Tennessee, in fall 2021, where she belongs to the Knoxville Writers Guild and the Pre-Pulitzer Critique Group. In 2020 Shanti Arts published her chapbook, The Vermeer Tales . Current and upcoming work appears in Rockvale Review, Still: the Journal, Psaltery & Lyre, and Thimble Literary Magazine. Gail serves as president of the board of Knoxville’s Flying Anvil Theatre, where she paints sets and avoids giving curtain talks....
Mar 17, 2024•9 min•Ep 52•Transcript available on Metacast Akira Odani lives in the ancient city of St. Augustine, Florida. He belongs to Taste Life Twice Writers and the Florida Writers Association. Born in Tokyo, he had written extensively for the Japanese media. Still, more recently, his interest has turned to writing in English and subjects related to his experiences interacting with the two cultures. Some of his work has appeared in the pages of FWA anthologies, The Weekly Avocet , PSPP, Twists and Turns, and Lost & Found . He stays active, med...
Mar 13, 2024•8 min•Ep 51•Transcript available on Metacast 
