So it’s summer right now, if you’re with me hemispherically. Although if you were to zoom in a little closer you’d see that in some places, we’re tying up that chapter, it’s cooling down, and that means it’s time to read you some Tove Jansson. Now, I was going to read you something [...]

Listen Now:

In the two days since first reading of tonight’s story, I’ve been deeply ensconced with this idea of show-and-tell, to the irrational (read: batshit) point of showing-and-telling the objects comprising the contents of my desk to the various beasts kicking about the place, or showing-and-telling one runty waterlogged piece of the garden to another. [...]

Listen Now:

A couplefew nights ago, catatonic with fatigue after a couple days of travel, I found just the right pace of entertainment watching my cat chase a furry little squeaker all around the place. My conscience wouldn’t let me object– it was nature’s way and the mouse deserved whatever was coming to it, after all… [...]

Listen Now:

During a trip by car I noticed a guy on the phone in a parking lot frantically trying to start his car, a kid really, a kid in trouble, just laying into the ignition while the engine was turning halfway over which indicated, to my limited capacity for automotive troubleshooting, that maybe his vehicle was [...]

Listen Now:

“But when it thinks, I feel like vomiting.” With these words, it is clear that if Nigel Dennis were still around I’d be his groupie. I’d start the FaceBook Club and make mashups on Youtube for him and disguise myself as an editor at Rolling Stone Magazine to obtain his personal email address, which I [...]

Listen Now:

Were I a listmaker, and perhaps I am, you would be the warm recipient of many reasons to be grateful when the internet goes for broke on Bloomsday. This list, were I to make one, would include the subcategories: FOR ME and FOR YOU. Topping the FOR YOU list, were such a thing [...]

Listen Now:

So I read in the news today about the Indonesian macaque monkeys who’ve learned to successfully catch fish, and how exciting this is for biology, and how it’s a living and breathing example of the adaptation of a species to its conditions and environment, and really it was all astonishing stuff to read. But [...]

Listen Now:

So, my "identity" was stolen recently. And not for the sake of sordid members-only internet sites or international travel or a weekend of Spitzering other scandalous activities that, if you're going to have your identity stolen, would constitute Theft in Style. No, my identity was used to buy clip art and stock photography and website services, which is about as exciting as cutting school to go and get a root canal, sneaking out of the house late at night to mow the lawn next door. You get the picture. So a personal note to identity thieves in training: when you're done with me, at least return me with a few heavy anecdotes and a thrilling punked-up haircut. OK?

Listen Now:

Fishing season began early this year for your Miette, with the streetside discovery of a freshly abandoned goldfish with wonky telescopic eyes, in its bowl and with a note reading: Free Fish! Please Give Steve Buscemi a good home. And of course I did. I found an exceptional home for him, a home where he’s [...]

Listen Now:

After a week of muscle-burning manual work and long long drives, some of us settle in with a nice cold beer. For others-- maybe like me, who's to say -- it takes more that that... way more, maybe, to relax muscles as sore as these and attempt to put together nerves which have been plucked to the bone. For that reason, perhaps it's best to just shut up and read (if you're me) or grab a beer and listen (if you're you) and maybe write the Pulitzer committee about considering a Podcasting category.

Listen Now:

All week I've been wanting to read this to you, waking up more excited than the trashman on the day-after-Christmas, and running into my.... uh... recording studio (read: three paces from the bed) to see if it's quiet enough...

Listen Now:

A saw a sign the other day while out on a drive, a sign that said this: Frost Heaves. And I almost had to stop and compose myself, because I was so deeply distressed by the fact that frost can't heave in private (and I'm not a histrionic sort of girl), and saddened that a frost's heave has to be announced clearly for any old asshole who happens to be driving by...

Listen Now:

The question that's been asked a few times of me now: why don't I read more African writers? Actually, it's been asked more than a few times... enough times, in fact, to warrant the sort of qualifier most accurately described as MANY.

Listen Now:

It's confusing, the name of tonight's author, right? I mean, the better known writer sharing this name didn't bother with a middle pseudonymous initial, and there's a slight tweak to the surname, but we readers would be none the wiser, push-to-shove, and would settle back with a cup of tea and upperclass accent.

Listen Now:

A mildly embarrassing problem when getting under way with tonight's story, confessed in full in these lines: when I first sat down to read it to you this evening, I got caught on a raft in a sea of lexical continental drift, and over and over I stammered out the title only to have it read "Roadsome Load." No kidding: again and again.

Listen Now:

As I lay writhing on my sickbed I was catching up on my milehigh stack of unread periodicals, and made my way to an article about one of the leading competitors for an upcoming race for a high position of public office in the country in which I'm living. Because, you know, there aren't many articles written about this, which is surprising, because from the sound of things, the race for this public office is not of no importance....

Listen Now:

A few days ago I was driving down the street behind a car which, as was warned by prominent display of rooftop sign, was being operated by a Student Driver... a sign which really wasn't necessary, given the stammering mid-intersection braking and sideview-mirror clipping taking place all the way down the road, and I had this great idea that it'd be a real public service - a true exercise of civic duty - if other drivers could collectively contribute to driving lessons, by driving like raving lunatics around students, just to get them on their toes and on the lookout.

Listen Now:

A message from the author of today's story: Do you ever wonder as you are reading a story, or hearing one, such as on a podcast, for example, what or whom has inspired a particular story? Picture this: imaginary "directions" or "instructions" for a story that the author creates-- after the story has been written--or told. Imagine that these "directives" led to this story--which in actuality they did not--well at least the author had no idea of any directives of any sort when the story came into being.

Listen Now:

Returning soon with a much-awaited all-new MBSP. Leaving you with a mightylong one to hold you till (the longest yet in one sitting, I think). For Dream, remembered always, and loved even longer.

Listen Now:

HEY, Internet, I want to tell you all about Earideas. Wow, that sounded a little snake-oily- let me try that again:

Listen Now:

I was thinking about the last story I read to you, and thinking it’d be nice if other events of this variety, the sort of events that are difficult to explain to small children, were similarly reimagined. And not just on a large scale, either. I’m talking about The Pulling of My Wisdom [...]

Listen Now:

I hope those of you celebrating All Things Autumnal are settling into it well, the roast fowl and the hot cacao and woodfire smoke for dessert, and, well, you know the picture I'm aiming for here. It does wonders to the general countenance, I think:

Listen Now:

I read in the news yesterday that television writers here in the U.S. have gone on strike, and that because of the strike, everybody's arms are collectively thrown up in a great wide panic, because nobody knows what's going to happen on Charmed and because there's nobody to script the next great Wardrobe Malfunction, and this sounds like very bad news indeed and I was sorry to read it.

Listen Now:

At times during my podcastressing career, I have stumbled upon authors about whom I know very little, and have been fortunate to find that you, resourceful mariners of the Internet's belly, have proven yourselves well worth your collective avoirdupois in gold and other fine metals, and for that, I thank you.

Listen Now:

Andrea was kind enough to suggest and supply a sufficiently Halloweeny bit of ghoulishness to reconcile the setback of temporary lack of access to mine own troves. In the hopes of exponentially increasing the sympathy factor, let it be known that in addition to being without books, the chief operating offices of Miette's bedtime have been largely internet-free for the past weeks, in what would, under normal circumstances,

Listen Now:

So listen, about today's story, well, as you'll know when you listen to the first minute, I'm running low on resources at the moment, tapped, so to speak, at least, until things are nice and orderlied again.

Listen Now:

While settling in and to avoid the appearance of mothballs, here's another Mansfield. And while this isn't the first time we've rocked her boat, she's a voice so nice I'll read her unspliced.

Listen Now:

Last night, I was thinking of what to write to you today while starting to doze off just prior to handing over the wheel. I woke up with one of those Holy Mother I'm Dozing Off kind of starts, and, as I was now more alert than usual during this leg of the trip, I made the sad discovery that what I'd read as the Bikini Avenue Exit was actually something far more G-Rated, and significantly less scandalous.

Listen Now:

Where I am, dear listeners, it's hot. And for reasons which terrify some, confound others, and lead to the sort of mass collective eye-rolling that I'd rather avoid (because the energy produced therein would raise the outside temperature another half-degree), I'm not the sort to articondition the air. Which means: it's hot, here, big vats of frying oil hot, and there's no reprieve inside these walls.

Listen Now:

Herbert Goldstone, what are you going to tell me about him? Writes crazy sci-fi about thinking machines more human than man. This story in dozens of brilliant anthologia. Very little else to be found. The wiki draws a blank. This story is not a drop shy of Wondrous.

Listen Now:

A delivery truck pulled out in front of me the other day, freshly deflowered by a graffiti artist who chose to express him- or herself by relaying the following, in big blue caps: I LOVE SARAH, KINDA?

Listen Now:

Some days, as a podcastress, you find that it's about a billion and two degrees of sour sunshined degrees outside, measured by the scales of Daniel or Anders either/or, and while the last thing you feel like doing might involve heavy lifting dressed in black, the next to last thing, on days such as those, might involve trying to get discernible sound and meaning to emerge from your throat.

Listen Now:

Happy Bloomsday to you, and happy third Bloomsday podcast from your Miette, an event which many of you will remember is dear to me.

Listen Now:

Dearest listeners of the internet, I know. I've been gone. Many of you have pointed this out to me, though by the time I returned to read your pleas and queries, I was back, relieved of goneness, and racked with guilt over how abandoned you'd all been left, was at a loss at what I might read to redeem myself.

Listen Now:

A caveat for you listeners. Hell, a full-out warning: this is a long one, today's story, long and, dare I say it, a little dark, and not in the "change the bulb" sort of way. Which is just my way of saying to you:

Listen Now:

As a rule, yours (very) truly takes a big dollop of pleasure in knowing just a little something about the authors I'm reading to you. Where there are exceptions, they are serious exceptions, resuscitated from beyond the brink and leaving their snot in my mouth.

Listen Now:

Never having been one for bandwagonry (after all, the bumper's too high for me to jump, and I don't have much in the way of carnival skills from which is allegedly derived the phrase), but it can't be helped: if everybody and their thrice-removed step-great-uncle

Listen Now:

Riding the big train today and started to daydream, in the daydreamy style of reductive logic unique to the accompaniment of a train horn, the subject which was What I Might Read to the Internet Tonight.

Listen Now:

Given that Tonight's Story invokes the Mann Act, and given that the Mann Act is bar-none the best Congressional Act of 1910 (and I dare you to find a better one. I mean, Chuck Berry was charged with violating the Mann Act. Frank Lloyd Wright too.)

Listen Now:

The news today tells us that a respected literary journal (not to be named here) has just released a list of names they consider to be The Best Young American Novelists, and among them, a full third of these names have not yet had a novel published. And that's kind of odd.

Listen Now:

What we’ve got going on here, for those assiduous enough to parse their eyes over these words (and I suspect that I’m not speaking about many of you, that most of you just download the listening bits, which is quite all right) — but for those of you reading, I thought I’d thank you with [...]

Listen Now:

At times, this little podcast of ours is thought of not unlike a nice helping of ice milk-- not bad for you, tasty even, in the right circumstances, but of questionable nutritional value. Not harmful, necessarily, but nothing that might be considered Useful For You. At then sometimes, someone will say otherwise, and that's not bad, usefulness.

Listen Now:

NOTA BENE This podcast is published with permission of the Guy Davenport estate. To further enjoy the works of Mr. Davenport, please see amazon.com or abebooks.

Listen Now:

Listening to this one earlier, I noticed something. A noise, behind the entire story, not unpleasant, entirely, but a nuisance, distracting, and not unfamiliar. And then it hits: The dog, oft noted in these recordings, had used the moments of storytelling to enjoy an early repast. And given the fact that a) the dog lacks lips

Listen Now:

Plenty of you (because I'm supposing you're all geniuses) are aware of the arguably unattributable (King Solomon? Buddha? Lincoln? Miette?) aphorism, idiom, and, notably, universally applicable phrase "This Too Shall Pass.

Listen Now:

While I suspect that some of you might be nursing a yen for happy wishful and firmly resolved pick-me-up for annus novus, be warned that it's not going to happen with today's story, with which you should prepared. If, on the other hand, you need a story in preparation for dirtying your hands or drinking too much, consider yourself In Luck.

Listen Now:

To offset or maybe just counterpoise the thin slice of news conveyed in the audio introduction to today's story, which, as has recently been pointed out to this podcastress, might be the most poetic science headline ever:

Listen Now:

In the interest of spitting a sluicy cobwebbed thread to tie together the conversations in and around this corner of the infoweb and its earbound counterpart, I wanted to offer up one more chance to allow our space to double as the hotbed of information on the social and biological activities of the Tree Squirrel, and bring some attention to our relationship with tree squirrels.

Listen Now:

Because nothing says Hither Holiday Season like the Kris Kringle of Krabby, and because as you will soon hear, your Miette has learnt that nothing says Hither Holidays like a Headcold, tonight's story speaks for its self.

Listen Now:

Nice title, right? In my efforts to knock your socks to obscurantist skies, I'm willing to offer a dollar to the first listener who can prove he or she already knows of this story (currently in the running (BY THE WAY) for Miette's Top Short Fiction Find of the Decade, and how's that for a reason to listen?). And how to prove this? I don't know.

Listen Now:

Today's is another story by an author of whom I know very little, which I've plucked from a collection of Big Guns German fiction including Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Hoffmansthall, Hermann Broch, ad krautium,

Listen Now:

But would you believe that I spent the last couple of weeks dedicated to trying mightily and hard to uncover the identity of tonight's author before hurling the fruits of these findings to splat on your walls. Maybe I spent the week after mired in self-pity at having failed you... failed YOU, the Internet, whom I adore.

Listen Now: