StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups

This week on StoryWeb: Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Moose.”

This episode is dedicated to Patricia Dwyer, whose love of Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry inspires my own.

Nova Scotia. Just the sound of those …

This week on StoryWeb: Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.”

for Jim

Nine years ago this week, I and my groom, Jim, listened as our dear friend Jennifer Soule read Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.”…

This week on StoryWeb: Willa Cather’s novel O Pioneers!

for Amy Young

For many of us, certain books immediately release a flood of memories – where we were when we first read them, friends and relati…

This week on StoryWeb: Laird Hunt’s novel Neverhome.

Last week’s StoryWeb episode featured Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the Confederacy. This week…

This week on StoryWeb: Mary Chesnut’s Civil War.

In her book on the American Civil War, Mary Boykin Chesnut, the wife of a Confederate general, describes a woman seeking a pardon for her husband: “Sh…

This week on StoryWeb: Sherman Alexie’s film Smoke Signals.

Smoke Signals is the first – and as far as I know, only – feature-length, commercially distributed film written and directed by Native Amer…

This week on StoryWeb: Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Tim Kamer.

Here is a book whose fortunes have gone down and up, down and maybe up again. When Herm…

This week on StoryWeb: Carson McCullers’s novel The Member of the Wedding.

This episode is dedicated to Suzanne Custer.

Here’s a writer whose work has much too unfortunately fallen out of popularity.…

This week on StoryWeb: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter.”

“What we did had a consecration of its own.”

So says Hester Prynne to Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel, T…

This week on StoryWeb: the documentary film Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me.

Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me is a powerful, compelling, utterly gripping documentary in every way. It traces the famed pop country …

This week on StoryWeb: Prince’s song “Raspberry Beret.”

For all his musical genius, Prince was not much of a storyteller. Think of any number of his songs – “1999,” “Delirious,” “Purple Rain,” “When …

This week on StoryWeb: Adrienne Rich’s poem “Diving into the Wreck.”

I suppose you could say that Adrienne Rich’s iconic poem “Diving into the Wreck” is about scuba diving, but that’s like saying H…

This week on StoryWeb: Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian writer and philosopher, is known for his epic, huge-canvas novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenin…

This week on StoryWeb: Bernard Rose’s film Immortal Beloved.

This episode is dedicated to Jim.

Ever since I was a teenager trying to play Beethoven’s classic piano sonatas, I have loved the thunderi…

This week on StoryWeb: Earl Hamner, Jr.’s television series “The Waltons.”

When I was growing up, I wanted to either marry John-Boy Walton or be John-Boy Walton. Mostly, I wanted to be him, wanted to…

This week on StoryWeb: Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening.

Kate Chopin initially made her literary name as a writer of “local color fiction.” Writers around the United States were focusing careful a…

This week on StoryWeb: Bill Pohlad’s film “Love and Mercy.”

Virtually all of us know and recognize any number of hits by the Beach Boys: “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” and perhaps most of all, “G…

This week on StoryWeb: Janet Frame’s memoir “An Angel at My Table.”

If you haven’t read Janet Frame’s work and if you haven’t seen Jane Campion’s film An Angel at My Table, you must rectify these ove…

This week on StoryWeb: Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Zora Neale Hurston, who hailed from the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, is probably best known for her 1937 nove…

This week on StoryWeb: Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun.”

Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun, was a groundbreaking play in so many ways. Hansberry was the first African…