DEBORAH PRUM

DEAR SANTA 0:00 / 0:00 Dear Santa Dear Santa: As you might remember, when I was seven, all I wanted for Christmas was a live horse and a real gun. I envisioned myself patrolling our neighborhood, on the lookout for bad guys. I didn’t intend to shoot the bad guys, only brandish my firearm, telling them, “Stop picking on the little guys. Be good or else .” And Santa, you know we did have some ac...

UNSTICKING A STUCK STORY 0:00 / 0:00 Unsticking a Stuck Story An idea for a great character drops into your mind. Then, you compose what you believe to be a magnificent first sentence, “Two hours before Simon’s life took a nightmarish turn for the worse, he stood in his grimy bathroom, under the dim light of a single yellow bulb, hacking away at his shaggy brown hair with his ex-wife’s dull ga...

MOVIE REVIEWS: LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND AND LOVE & OTHER MONSTERS 0:00 / 0:00 Leave This World Behind A glutton for punishment, last weekend I watched two end-of-the-world movies: Leave the World Behind and Love and Monsters . (Yes, my social life leaves a lot to be desired.) Leave the World Behind stars four wonderful actors, Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, and in a supporting...

EVERYONE HERE IS KIN BOOK REVIEW 0:00 / 0:00 Everybody Here is Kin Using only thirty-eight words, the first sentence of Nash’s debut novel vividly describes two main characters, their behavior, beliefs, and financial status. Nash writes, “Naomi and I slogged through sand so hot it scalded our tender feet, lugging two rusted lounge chairs and a bag between us—her Coppertone tanning oil, my SPF...

PODCAST BENEDETTA’S LENTILS 0:00 / 0:00 Benedetta's Lentils Benedetta, my grandmother, made the best lentil soup, food that warmed body and soul on many a cold winter evening. She’d send it home with us in a Mason jar, frequently accompanied by a delicious loaf of bread. As hard as I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to replicate that bread—crusty on the outside, sweet and chewy on the...

SAFETY, ITALIAN STYLE 0:00 / 0:00 Safety, Italian Style             When I was eighteen, my cousin Giovanni visited us from Italy.  I sat in the passenger seat of Giovanni’s rental car as he sped through a red light at a busy intersection.  I shrieked, “Stop.  Stop.  You’ve got to stop!”             Giovanni smiled and said,  “In Italy, red light is optional.”             Giovanni wasn’t kiddi...

NO HARD FEELINGS MOVIE REVIEW 0:00 / 0:00 No Hard Feelings Jennifer Lawrence is a good actress with broad range. If you don’t believe me, check out one of her earlier, pre-fame films, Winter’s Bone . The movie is based on a gritty book by Daniel Woodrell and portrays the desperation of extreme poverty. The actress gives a performance that is both mesmerizing and gut wrenching.             Beca...

FIRST KISS Debby and The Gorilla at High School Play 0:00 / 0:00 First Kiss Names are changed to protect the guilty.             My first kiss was planted on me by a seventeen-year-old guy in a gorilla suit. My junior year, our drama club decided to perform Murders in the Rue Morgue .  Mrs. Sardi, the director, gave me the part of a little old lady who is attacked by a simian creature, carried...

SINKING Photo Courtesy of Stormseeker 0:00 / 0:00 Sinking (Originally published in Streetlight Magazine.)   I attended a state university that required you to pass a swim test to graduate. I will not mention the name of the institution because I’m about to malign them.             When the orientation materials arrived by snail mail, included in the package was an inquiry about whether I could...

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT MOVIE REVIEW 0:00 / 0:00 Love at First Sight On December 20 th , on her way to her father’s second wedding, Hadley Sullivan (played by Haley Lu Richardson) misses her flight to London by four minutes. This is not surprising. She is late 21% of the time, which, coincidently is the average battery life of her cellphone. While waiting for the next flight out, she heads for a r...

SPIDER Photo Courtesy of Julian Gobel 0:00 / 0:00 Spider MacQueen’s Quinterly  published my flash fiction,  Spider.  You may read it in the  journal . Or, here below. A medium-sized spider climbed her husband’s pant leg, his obscenely expensive pant leg. The Brioni suit had cost $4,500. When Preston’s second wife grumbled about the charge on their credit card, he laughed. “Swimming with the bi...

BRUSSELS SPROUTS A CAUTIONARY TALE Photo Courtesy of Jodi Pender 0:00 / 0:00 Brussels Sprouts I used to have impossibly high hopes for family holiday dinners. I blame Norman Rockwell. Remember his painting of a well-dressed family gathered around a flawlessly set table?  The children, parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents sit shoulder-to-shoulder, admiring an unpardoned turkey that was brow...

HOLDING VIGIL: FOSTER CARE Photo Courtesy of Atharva Tulsi 0:00 / 0:00 Holding Vigil One result of the overturn of Roe v. Wade will be that many more children will be entering foster care, a system that is already underfunded and overwhelmed. Years ago, at my first job out of college, I saw firsthand how a broken foster care system caused great suffering for the teens under its care. Back then...

DISPLACED Photo Courtesy of Farid Ershad 0:00 / 0:00 Displaced Mid-August last year, when Fatema* answered her cell phone, she heard her sister Shaima’s frantic voice, “I’m at the airport. Can you bring me my passport right now?” Not a simple request. On a normal day, it would have been dangerous for Fatema, who was 23 and single, to ride in a cab alone. That day, Taliban soldiers filled the s...

EINSTEIN ON TIME Photo Courtesy of Taton Moise 0:00 / 0:00 Einstein on Time I can’t pretend to understand what Einstein meant when he said that time was an illusion. In fact, I can’t pretend to understand much of what Einstein said. What I do know is that living during these Covid years has shifted how I experience time. Pre-Covid, I worked hard to tame time into manageable chunks. I exported...

BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES Photo Courtesy of Hans Isaacson 0:00 / 0:00 Bonfire of the Vanities Twenty years ago, a reporter called me with bizarre news, so bizarre that I instantly wrote him off as a prank caller. He claimed he was from a town out West, maybe in Colorado? I am fuzzy on the details. I didn’t write down a word he said because I didn’t believe he could be serious. He asked if I was...

PIVOTING INTO 2022     0:00 / 0:00 Pivoting into 2022             This past Thanksgiving, all our grandkids were visiting. At one point, three-year-old Bea and four-year-old Hank decided to prepare for an imaginary beach trip. Hank packed several face masks into his yellow leather bag and Bea jammed a bunch into her blue vinyl purse. Then, off they went, pushing an umbrella stroller filled wit...

JACK’S GRANNY A STORY FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES 0:00 / 0:00 Jack's Granny  Some grannies knit and some grannies bake bread. But Jack’s granny plays the banjo.             Jack’s Granny settled into her rickety rocking chair and began to fiddle with the tuning pegs on her banjo.  Both Jack and his granny could hear excited clucking from the hen house.  Inside the barn, all the hens were g...

0:00 / 0:00 Caught in the Jaws of a Claw   My exercise essay appeared in The Daily Progress today.  See below:   CAUGHT IN THE JAWS OF A CLAW             Have you ever wanted to be someone you’re not? So, one day I was at the gym exercising on the calf-stretching machine.  As you might imagine, calf-stretching is boring, so I looked to my left to see my friend, Debbie who sat inside this claw-...

If you have time, please listen to my three minute essay “Biking Whitetop” which aired this morning on NPR-member station WVTF:  Biking Whitetop BIKING WHITETOP I’m the one on the left. 0:00 / 0:00 Biking Whitetop I used to be adventurous.  I used to be a risk taker.  But, at some point, my everyday life took over: cooking, shopping, de-worming the dog. I lost track of my dre...

If you have time, please listen to my 3 minute essay Locked in the Loo at the Louvre  which just aired on NPR-member station, WVTF: PrumsBathroomAdventures LOCKED IN THE LOO AT THE LOUVRE Photo Courtesy of Calvin Craig 0:00 / 0:00 Locked in the Loo What kind of person travels across Europe seeing splendid sights, eating marvelous meals, then comes home and writes about bathrooms? Yet, why desc...