Writers Read 5 Minute Personal True Stories

Writers Read 5 Minute Personal True Stories

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. Writers Read 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.

Episodes

Who, Me?

October 31, 2024 • 30 mins

It’s been said that genealogy is where you confuse the dead and irritate the living. Recorded live at City Winery NYC, this episode features three true stories about ancestory from writers Rhonda Zangwill, Jai Chakrabarti, and Isaiah Hunt — Plus, a meditation on the writing life from Lynn Lauber. Listen now or anytime. • To receive the series directly to your phone or smart speaker, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts:

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Straight Outta Ireland

March 16, 2023 • 26 mins
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, Writers Read™ acknowledges this St. Patrick's Day with four rich personal stories reflecting the lived e...
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Holidays

November 23, 2022 • 24 mins
Holidays are a time to celebrate cultural traditions and set work aside. A holiday offers a break in our routine, prompting a three-day weekend in the sun—or a three-hour snow delay at the airport. Some holidays are lightweight and fun, making you think about watermelon and fireworks, while others seem solemn or fraught, setting the stage for either a delicious meal or a family drama. The special "Holidays' event we presented on st...
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Haunted

October 26, 2022 • 25 mins
O'SHAUGNESSY, Corinne • Five / FORMAN, Sharon • Ghosts at the Costco / PATTISON, Cari • The Bronxville Exorcist • BTL: MASELLO, David • A Postcard on Postcards. Read 650 celebrates writers and the spoken word five minutes - and 650 words - at a time, and on today’s show we present excerpts from a show entitled "Haunted," featuring true stories of Premonitions, Superstitions, and Apparitions. Halloween has been around for more than ...
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New York Stories

October 5, 2022 • 26 mins
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 ...
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The First Time

September 21, 2022 • 25 mins
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.
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Back to High School

September 7, 2022 • 22 mins
Featuring Annabel Monaghan, Arthur Bell, Julie Trelstad, Sarah Bracey White. Bus rides and best friends. Marching band and mean girls. Homeroom and home grown. Whether high school was the site of your fondest memories or the scene of the crime, the stories we've selected from a live show might just transport you to that not-so-distant world of nerds, jocks, and stoners.
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Gratitude

August 24, 2022 • 27 mins
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.
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Love and Marriage

August 10, 2022 • 23 mins
Poets and singers and writers of all types have been writing about love for millennia. In this century, the novelist and essayist Ursula LeGuin wrote, "Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new." For today's show, we've selected three stories from our "Love and Marriage" event that we presented on stage at Sarah Lawrence College in New York's Westchester County.
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Summer Jobs

July 27, 2022 • 26 mins
Featuring Jennifer Rawlings, Sarah Bracey White, Annabel Monaghan, David Masello. Ah, summer—a break from school and a time to sleep in and hang out with friends. Or maybe instead it's a time to catch the bus, clock in, and put on your nametag. We've assembled a trio of summer job stories from talented writers who recall those summer days all too well.
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Jew-ish

July 13, 2022 • 27 mins
Great storytelling runs deep in the Jewish DNA, from Sholem Aleichem to Philip Roth and Nora Ephron, and that spirit is alive in the tales we selected for today's show from an event we planned called Jew-ish (with a hyphen): True stories of love, latkes, and l'chaim.
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Money

June 29, 2022 • 29 mins
You save it to spend it. You crave it, you lend it. Do any of us ever really feel that we have enough money? We posed that question in a call for submissions, and presented a collection of true personal stories about money from a cast of talented writers before a live audience at City Winery's flagship location in New York City. We've selected three of those stories with very different takes on the subject for this week's show. KW...
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Time

June 15, 2022 • 29 mins
You save it to spend it. You crave it, you lend it. Does anyone ever really have enough time? It's a precious resource, and our days and our lives are often shaped and guided by the clock. Writer Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.” Writers, like just a...
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Counterpoint

June 1, 2022 • 23 mins
Lynn Edelson • Counterpoint / Julie Evans • Baptizing John Coltrane / Leanne Sowul • Over the Rainbow / BTL: Jeremiah Horrigan • One Question, Three Answers
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On Mothers

May 4, 2022 • 25 mins
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 Iscaro.
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Great Outdoors

April 20, 2022 • 24 mins
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 ancesto...
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My Library

April 6, 2022 • 27 mins
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...
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Birthdays

February 23, 2022 • 24 mins
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.
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Hope Happens

January 26, 2022 • 25 mins
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. Plus, we go “Between the Lines” with Chicago Tribune columnist Sally Schwartz and learn the one thing she really needs in order to write.
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Lessons Learned

January 12, 2022 • 24 mins
Learning never stops. It begins before birth, in the earliest glimmer of consciousness, when certain sounds or movements or even tastes begin to soothe or agitate the new human growing--and learning --within. Real learning begins when we enter the world, with our lives now 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 coo...
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