Barbara Hamby: Elvis and Tolstoy Save the World
I am standing in line waiting for the bus to take me
across the street to Graceland when Tolstoy shows up
with his white beard and peasant’s garb
Video: Night Visit (Mature)
Ruthie spends an unusual night with a guy from her village. After discovering the troubling circumstances that led to their unexpected romantic encounter, she must seek the truth and find her own way to confront him. (Subtitled)
Michael Simms: My Recent and Forthcoming Books
Vox Populi doesn’t usually include advertisements, but I hope you will indulge me when I let you know that my recently published books are available.
Video: Junkyard
In this award-winning film written and directed by Hisko Hulsing, a man is robbed and stabbed on a metro train. As he lays dying, a friendship from his youth flashes before his eyes.
Philippe Labro: The Rule of Engagement
The Rule of Engagement, along with the coat and tie dress code, was one of the university’s two unbreakable traditions. It involved saying “Hi!” to everyone you encountered, or – if that person were first to greet you – responding in kind. I was taken aback at first, not so much by the idea of saying hello to a stranger crossing campus, but by the mindset that required me to say it, and say it, and say it again, all day long, no matter my mood and no matter who it was coming up alongside me.
Richard Cambridge: In Medias Res
Tom, the eldest son of Daniel and Helen Brownson, tells his parents he has dropped out of college. He is now in the crosshairs of the draft board and will be re-classified 1-A — a good chance he will be sent to — and possibly die in Vietnam.
Elizabeth Kirschner: Time and Again
As the fire taught the house how to surrender, the dolls, they screamed, not me, oh they screamed like ashes that smelled of church pews.
Michael Simms: My debut novel is being launched tonight
This evening the rap artist and filmmaker Christian Nowlin will be helping me launch my debut novel BICYCLES OF THE GODS: A DIVINE COMEDY.
Kimberly Parish Davis: Forever and Ever
…they watched television or surfed around the Internet for news about what was going on in Palestine. There had been a lot of fighting—a lot of bombed out buildings. One website told about the attack at the School where Hanna’s little brother was killed, and she was probably dealing with that while Emma was news surfing.
Vox Populi: OMG! An Interview with Michael Simms about his Debut Novel ‘Bicycles of the Gods’
Who wouldn’t love a story about badass vigilante nuns and the end of the world?
Peter Makuck: A Shot in the Dark
Gino Vendetti was nursing a sweaty bottle of Bud. Four ceiling fans along the bar spread the cigarette smoke and a faint odor of beer. Always a few guys from the old high school gang were here. Most had something going. Not Gino. It had been almost two years since Viet Nam…
Video: Green
In this short film which won the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, two undocumented Turkish brothers face the challenges of life in New York City.
Video: Elif Shafak | The Politics of Fiction
Listening to stories widens the imagination; telling them lets us leap over cultural walls, embrace different experiences, feel what others feel. Elif Shafak builds on this simple idea to argue that fiction can overcome identity politics.
The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant (Egyptian Middle Kingdom 2000 BCE)
A poor peasant, Khun-Anup, is traveling to market with his donkeys heavily laden with goods to exchange for supplies for his family when Nemtynakht, a vassal of the high steward Rensi, notices the peasant approaching his lands and devises a scheme to steal Khun-Anup’s donkeys and supplies.
