650-Word True Stories
Read650 is a literary forum promoting established and emerging writers through curated live and digital performances celebrating the spoken word. It’s a high-quality platform for true personal stories—two pages and 650 words long, read aloud by the writer before an audience. Read650 places a strong emphasis on the craft of writing—word choices, sentence structures, the arc of the narrative. Our submission-based events are developed around broad themes that invite a wide range of expression. An editorial committee curates and sequences the content of each show and, where necessary, our editors collaborate with writers to further refine their work.
Episodes
PALMA, Eileen • The Moskowitz Girl / GREDLER, John • SRO / MANNING-SCHAFFEL, Vivian • What Makes a New Yorker? / BTL: LEVIN, Ann • The Blank Page. There simply is no other place in the world like New York. Its architecture, culture, and general buzz combine to make New York the greatest city in the world. But New York is also a collection of unique neighborhoods, people. and stories, and we’ve selected three of those stories today ...
For most of us, our mother is our first love. For a time, she is our entire world, serving as our protector, nurturer, and teacher. Our relationships with our mothers is simple and elemental.. while at times being the most fraught and complicated relationship we’ll ever know. And if you ARE a mother, you know it’s the hardest job there is. This episode features writers Kate Mayer, Sarah Bracey White, Jennifer Rawlings, and Lucy Isc...
When I was a kid, my family took summer camping vacations in the Adirondacks. My parents packed a tent and sleeping bags and food and utensils and a deck of cards, and we drove five hours north from New York City to a kind of paradise with trees beyond counting, sweet, clear lakes for swimming, more stars that I’d ever seen before, and a crackling fire in a ring of stone. Instead of TV, there was conversation and stories of ancest...
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...
You never forget your first puppy, your first car, or your first love. Some firsts are mundane, (first olive), while others are unforgettable (first high dive). A first can be a solemn rite of passage or a dream come true, and some firsts supply practical knowledge we carry forward. Like, for example, why you should avoid games involving dice and money, or why tequila shots are actually a very bad idea.
In many parts of the United States and certainly in New York City, the St. Patrick’s Day holiday is often larded with a kind of shamrockery or paddywhackery that makes some of us cringe a bit. You know — the mugs of green beer and those big “Kiss Me I’m Irish” buttons and t-shirts. Instead of overcooked corned beef and cabbage, Read650 acknowledges this St. Patrick’s Day with four rich personal stories reflecting the lived experien...
Read 650 celebrates writers and the spoken word five minutes – and 650 words – at a time, and on today’s show … Sthree writers present original true stories relating to birthdays — not always happy, and not necessarily occasions for singing. For most of us, however we acknowledge or celebrate them, birthdays are important mile markers in our lives. And in the lives of our children, parents, grandparents — the people we matter to, a...
Read 650 celebrates writers and the spoken word five minutes – and 650 words – at a time. The theme of this week’s show is Gratitude, and includes three true personal stories of gratitude recorded at a live event at New York’s Lincoln Center featuring Jamie Bernstein, Malachy McCourt, and Mihai Grunfeld.
How we respond to stressful or even appalling circumstances determines our path and shapes our life. “Hope Happens” is the title of this week’s Read650 podcast, and features three personal stories of resilience, recovery, and renewal from writers Marshall Karp, Jennifer Rawlings, and Ann Levin. Plus, we go “Between the Lines” with Chicago Tribune columnist Sally Schwartz and learn the one thing she really needs in order to write. L...
Learning begins as soon as we enter the world, our lives a cinematic fast forward through first steps and tying our own shoelaces; to a first bus ride, algebra test, driving test, and swim test; thorugh learning to cook and dance and play an instrument; from being hired and fired and falling in and out of love– the gamut of lived human experiences, all of which, in their own way, teach us things. They are rites of passage, or life ...
Popular Podcasts
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
This is what the news should sound like. The biggest stories of our time, told by the best journalists in the world. Hosted by Michael Barbaro. Twenty minutes a day, five days a week, ready by 6 a.m.
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
It’s a lighthearted nightmare in here, weirdos! Morbid is a true crime, creepy history and all things spooky podcast hosted by an autopsy technician and a hairstylist. Join us for a heavy dose of research with a dash of comedy thrown in for flavor.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.