– Not what we expected Hell-bound for a summer of adventure in France, we didn’t care . David Collins holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and taught English/Creative Writing for forty years. His work has appeared in numerous journals, reviews, magazines, and newspapers. His first full-length book, Accidental Activists: Mark Phariss, Vic Holmes, and Their Fight for Marriage Equality in Texas , won the Mayborn Award for Excellence in Nonfiction in 2016, pu...
Sep 28, 2024•7 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast – Is love worth the pain? My belief in immortality for the people I adored did not pan out. Terri Kirby Erickson of Pfafftown, NC, is the author of seven poetry collections, including her latest book, Night Talks: New & Selected Poems (Press 53), a Finalist for the International Book Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in “American Life in Poetry,” Atlanta Review , Rattle , The SUN , The Writer’s Almanac , Valparaiso Poetry Review , and numerous other publications. Winner of the Jo...
Sep 25, 2024•Transcript available on Metacast Forty-five writers share their personal stories of courage and daring, rashness and folly, incited by intention, imprudence, or circumstances. These are tales provoked by reasoned confidence or aggravated by recklessness, some pivoting on inattention to what could go wrong. We choose what to do next, how to live, based on what we think we know and believe will happen. What we don’t get right we might get wrong for many reasons, but in every case, we get a story to tell. &n...
Sep 21, 2024•8 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast – to risk failure as a writer It takes courage to write, to accept feedback, to write to completion. Landis Wade writes light-hearted legal thrillers, mysteries, and essays. He is a recovering trial lawyer and host of Charlotte Readers Podcast where he has conducted more than 500 author interviews. His recent novel– Deadly Declarations –has won ten awards, including Winner in the 2022 American Fiction Awards and the National Indie Excellence Awards in the mystery categories. In 2023, he r...
Jul 31, 2024•8 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast – I’ve got to get around it. As I swerve left, I cringe and bite my lip. More gas, more gas. Suzanne Cottrell, a member of the Taste Life Twice Writers and NC Writers’ Network, lives with her husband in Granville County, NC. An outdoor enthusiast and retired teacher, she enjoys reading, writing, knitting, hiking, and Pilates. Her prose has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including the Personal Story Publishing Project, Inwood Indiana Press, Quillkeepers Press, and&nbs...
Jul 27, 2024•8 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast – to the palace and take the hill; Helen Keller on fire When will it be too late to make their difference heard? Bill Donohue is a retired Dean of Students from Winston Salem, North Carolina, who shares a lifelong advocacy for people with disabilities. This story chronicles that passion with his own present-day battle with Cancer.
Jul 24, 2024•8 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast – I hesitated. I had never done a real rescue. Benny hated rejection and held a grudge. Susan W. Harris lives in Hilton Head, South Carolina, where she is a member of the Island Writers Network, (IWN). Her mother, a writer, encouraged her to write. Professionally she wrote grants and proposals for nonprofits. Poems and stories were published in the IWN anthology’s recent two books. Currently, she is writing a novel inspired by the life of her grandmother and mother....
Jul 21, 2024•8 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast – Oh, the lagging path between words and actions! For me, the motion of the bike was just the right pace. Emily Rosen, 97, lives in Boca Raton, Florida, where for over 20 years and until her 95th birthday, she instructed classes in memoir writing, publishing two anthologies of stories from her classes, and the book, Who Am I? For two decades until the local weekly newspaper folded in 2021, she wrote her column, “Everything's Coming Up Rosen.” Her travel and feature articles have appeared n...
Jul 17, 2024•8 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast - fighting for respect Randell Jones lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is the author of several award-winning history books, including In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone, and two videos. Since 2007, he has served as an invited member of the Road Scholars Speakers Bureau of the North Carolina Humanities Council. He writes, speaks, and publishes as Daniel Boone Footsteps at www.DanielBooneFootsteps.com or www.RandellJones.com ....
Jul 13, 2024•7 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast – revenge of the 6-year-old A wronged child welcomes home the prodigal parents with a flood of retribution. As an author, Tonya is moved by the effect humor and narratives have on readers. She is enthusiastic about crafting stories with beguiling characters, adding dashes of humor, and engaging dialogue that leaves her fingerprint on each page. She is published in anthologies, e-magazines, local press, and literary magazines. She is a member of Poets and Writers. Her books include Old Moun...
Jul 10, 2024•8 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast – Never was the real answer. I left disappointed and broken-hearted . Mother started me on an adventure and took me into a mystery. Martha Rowe Vaughn lives in Mount Airy, North Carolina and is a member of a local writers group that has been meeting for over 15 years. During that time, she has published two books: Grandma’s Trunk (non-fiction) and Crossroads (fiction). An interest in genealogy and family history prompted her to write both books. She gradu...
Jul 06, 2024•8 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast – “I could have died happily in Florence.” “I’ll mind the kids. You take the trip. I’ve seen all the world I need to see.” A published news journalist and a practiced lawyer, Cherie Cox calls North Carolina home. Awards include the Charlotte Writers’ Club first place in poetry. Published short stories, essays, professional legal articles and poetry vary her credentials. These include Personal Story Publishing Project anthologies, Kakalak, and The Christmas Wreath. She enjoys people who giv...
Jul 03, 2024•8 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast – “I have your back.” She knows by my face not to ask why. Barbara Reese Yager is a writer who draws inspiration from life on her farm with dogs and horses and her love for her family and friends. She was a winner of the Charlotte Writers Ruth Moose Fiction contest. Barbara’s work appeared in an anthology of non-fiction, Sooner or Later by the Personal Story Publishing Project, Daniel Boone Footsteps Publisher. She holds a BS in Human Development from Penn State and a MS in Leadership from Duque...
Jun 29, 2024•8 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast – Her incantations were rhythmic and hypnotic. “If you don’t care, I don’t care.” Award-winning author Bob Amason is a retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and college professor. A Florida Writer’s Association member, Bob writes under his pen name, Frank A. Mason. His Journeyman Chronicles series of American Revolutionary War novels are Amazon.com bestsellers. Journeyman: Heart of Tempered Steel won the 2023 Florida Writer’s Association Gold Royal Palm Literary Award, Florida’s most pre...
Jun 26, 2024•8 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast – 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 
