Everything Good: Recent Episodes
Everything Good
Episode 31: I'm Wearing Tunics Now by Wendi Aarons
Today we have a guest essay. I'm Wearing Tunics Now by Wendi Aarons, which was originally published by McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
Wendi Aarons is a freelance humor writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker Daily Shouts, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, US Weekly Fashion Police, Wall Street Journal, and various other outlets including NPR Austin affiliate KUT.
Her writing is included in the anthologies Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now (Putnam, 2015) and Keep Scrolling Til You Feel Something:Twenty-One Years of Humor from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (McSweeneys, 2019). Her humor pieces have been performed by award-winning actresses including Uzo Aduba of "Orange Is the New Black”, Sharon Horgan, and Alison Brie of “Glow.”
Wendi is also the author of the best selling humor essay collection I'm Wearing Tunics Now (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2022), Socks (Chronicle Books, 2023) and middle-grade novel Ginger Mancino, Kid Comedian (June 2022, BookBar Press).
Episode 30: Revised Pinterest FAQs by Dana Norris
Today we have a guest essay, Revised Pinterest FAQs by Dana Norris This piece of satire was originally published by The Rumpus’s Funny Women Column.
Dana Norris is the author of The Storytelling Code: 10 Simple Rules to Shape and Tell a Brilliant Story, and the founder of Story Club, a monthly storytelling show that has been featured in Poets & Writers magazine. Story Club is currently held on a monthly basis in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and SW Michigan.
Dana resides in the Cleveland area, where she teaches for Literary Cleveland. She has been featured in Cleveland.com, Cleveland Scene, the Chicago Reader, the Chicago Tribune, as well as on WBEZ and WCPN. Dana has been named one of the funniest women in Ohio by Cleveland.com. In 2015 she was named one of Chicago's top 50 literary influencers by New City Chicago.
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Episode 29: A Prayer to St. Anthony by Rosamund Lannin
Today we have a guest essay, A Prayer to St. Anthony by Rosamund Lannin
Rosamund Lannin reads and writes in Chicago, where she's pleasantly surprised to have lived for over 20 years. During that time, she has published short stories and personal essays in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Tor.com, and Vice. She's currently working on a YA novel about live action roleplaying and the nature of fantasy; if you're an agent who's into that, don't be shy. You can find her most places on the Internet @rosamund.
A Prayer to St. Anthony was originally published by The Woodlands Magazine.
Rosamund introduces her essay as, “When my new husband was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, I was forced to examine my unhealthy relationship with objects.”
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Episode 28: This Was Not the Plan by Molly O'Laughlin Kemper
This week we have a guest essay. "This Was Not the Plan," an essay about birth and grief in the early pandemic, first appeared in MUTHA Magazine in June 2022.
Molly O'Laughlin Kemper is a writer, translator, editor, and reader based in New York City. A 2022 resident of St. Nell's Humor Writing Residency for Ladies, she is also a co-host of The Dead Ladies Show NYC, which celebrates ladies who were in some way fabulous during their lifetimes.
Excerpts of the song Sweetness by Audiosphere were played in this podcast.
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Episode 27: Dear Gen XXX by Emily Flake
This week we have a guest essay from Emily Flake's sex and relationship advice column for AARP The Arrow aimed at Gen X men called Dear Gen XXX, but I promise her reponses are real gems.
A regular contributor to The New Yorker, Emily Flake is the author of several books, including Mama Tried, a book of essays and cartoons about parenting, and the newly published creativity deck Joke in a Box. She does a weird hybrid of standup and cartoons on stages throughout New York City and beyond. She is the owner and operator of St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency for Ladies, “a space for womxn practitioners of the humor arts to wrestle their projects into submission.”
This episode contains the mention of sex and even some fun takes on sex positions so best not to listen with children.
Excerpts of the song Swing Jazz 50s by Summer Sound were played in this podcast.
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Episode 26: Clowns in Her Corner
Motherhood made me champion ladies getting theirs, with clowns if necessary.
Story notes by Sara Mannheimer
Excerpts of the song Swing to the 60s Again by Marius Joppich were played in this podcast.
We have merch on Bonfire.
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Episode 25: Baby Jesus
How do men change when they become fathers?
Baby Jesus was originally published by Full Grown People.
Edited by Jennifer Niesslein of Full Grown People.
Excerpts of the song Flaming 50s by Higgins were played in this podcast.
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Episode 24: The Feral Instincts of Motherhood
What happens when two friends are different types of mothers?
This essay was originally published by Mutha - an alternative parenting magazine started by MIchelle Tea.
Story notes by Sara Mannheimer, editing by Meg Lemke.
Excerpts of the song Adventurous 60s by Simon Armitage appeared in this episode.
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Episode 23: Inhabited
I was invaded from within.
Excerpts of the song 60s Rock by Abydos Musique were played in this podcast.
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Episode 19: Midwestern Witch
My greatest childhood fear followed me into adulthood.
“Leaning against off-white wall plaster, I caught glimpses of the only woman in my family who looked like me, until my sister shouted from the living room, ‘It’s doing something weird!’”
Story notes by Rosamund Lannin.
Excerpts of the song Liberty Girl by Heifervescent were played in this podcast.
This story won the Audience Award at Story Club Chicago North Side in October 2018.
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This week we have a guest essay, a chapter from Will Heinrich’s novel The Pearls.
The book follows Henry Corn, a soda jerk and occasional pickpocket in 1920s New York City, as he bounces between two love interests: Dot Cohen, a no-nonsense Coney Island barmaid, and Marion Hammer, the daughter of fabulously wealthy banker Felix Hammer. In this chapter ("The Color of the Sky"), which takes place shortly after an extreme night out, Felix invites Henry to the Hammer Building for the first time.
Will Heinrich was born in New York and spent his early childhood in Japan. His novel The King's Evil, published by Scribner in 2003, won a PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship in 2004; his most recent novel, The Pearls, was published by Elective Affinity in 2019. He has been an art critic for the New Yorker, the New York Observer, Hyperallergic, Art in America and, since 2017, the New York Times.
The Pearls is only available as a signed and numbered limited edition directly from Elective Affinity. An audiobook of the Pearls is available now on Apple Music.
Excerpts of the song Smoke by Ruka were played in this podcast
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Episode 21: The Naked Truth by Johanna Gohmann
Some thoughts on nudes, and not having any.
Johanna Gohmann is a humor writer, essayist, and children’s book author. She has written for numerous outlets, including The New Yorker, McSweeneys, The Cut, Jezebel, and Bust. Her essays appear in several anthologies, most notably A Moveable Feast - Life-Changing Food Adventures Around the World, Every Father's Daughter – 24 Women Writers Remember Their Fathers, and The Best Women’s Travel Writing. She is also the author of 28 middle grade and Young Adult books for ABDO Publishing, including a series about a tween girl who finds a portal into another dimension after eating a rotten hot dog. She makes her home in Brooklyn with her husband and son.
This essay was originally published by Romper.
Excerpts of the song The Black Cat by Flashinmusic were played in this podcast.
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Episode 20: My Father the Teenager
I’d heard of old people becoming babies but not of them becoming teenagers en route.
"His living room was like a teenager’s bedroom – hectic and chaotic – if that teenager loved Ronald Reagan and glossy golf magazines. As my gaze scanned the room, I noticed the confused stylistic touches of a young person: my grandmother’s vase lay upside down on the kitchen table, and he layered a glass armoire with every keepsake he had ever been given, transforming it into a cabinet of kitsch."
Story notes by Rosamund Lannin.
Excerpts of the song Lavish by Yigit Atilla were played in this podcast.
We now have merch available on Bonfire.
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A young woman is so removed from society that she becomes haunted by her past.
"I wasn’t going to quit the Sac Bar. I’d quit too many jobs to land in a not much better or flat-out worse replacement. I’d just be a different person – I wouldn’t make jokes or talk about movies, books, or comedy. I’d pour brown liquid to the red line on the shot glass and wear the dead rattail extension of another woman."
Excerpts of the song Little Liar by Roller Genoa were played in this podcast.
Story notes by Rosamund Lannin and Aaron Murtagh.
We now have merch available on Bonfire.
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Episode 17: The Tooth and Nail of Dreams
What happens when your childhood dream grows up?
“O-kay, I said and I hung up. I had just agreed to bring the perverse mischief of my low-budget ramshackle of a movie into the home of my father’s childhood dream."
Story notes by Sarah Smith, Rosamund Lannin, and Aaron Murtagh.
This story was originally read at The Line Break Series in Queens in July 2018.
Excerpts of the song Upbeat Soul Groove by Nilly Nell were played in this podcast.
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Episode 16: A La Fin du Monde, with Cows
I decided I'd rather be alone than with someone who yelled at me for no reason. That is, I'd rather be alone with the cows at the end of the world.
“Another pamphlet portrayed a simple red and white passenger ferry. It did not show people on its cover, but it featured Patagonia’s otherworldly fjords. I shrugged and said to Max, It looks relaxing.”
Story notes by Sara Mannheimer and Aaron Murtagh.
Excerpts of the song Lofi Chillout Hip Hop Beat by Joystock were played in this podcast.
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Episode 15: Family Planning
What to do when Dad comes to town?
"My husband Aaron had met my father and he’d heard the stories, but he couldn’t reconcile the two. Like a good husband, he pretended to believe me, but he nursed doubt. In a way, I understood. Without witnessing my father’s episodes, they were difficult to explain.”
Story notes by Sara Mannheimer
Excerpts of the song Tropical Island by MarbleSound were played in this podcast.
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This week we have a guest essay, a satirical letter titled Re: Cloud Engineer by Lynn Maleh.
In our troubled times, a hopeful young woman applies to the job of cloud engineer.
Called "up-and-coming" by the LA Times, Lynn Maleh is a Syrian-American writer and standup comedian whose last name means salty, which she is. She's written for Act Your Age on Bounce TV, The Onion, Reductress, and McSweeney’s and has performed on Hot Tub with Kurt and Kristen, Don't Tell Comedy, The Second City Diversity Festival, The Westside Comedy Festival, and a few times in Brad Pitt’s old backyard. She co-created and co-produces Hilarious Habibis, the first ever Middle Eastern-only standup showcase at The Hollywood Improv. Follow her on IG @heylynnmolly
Excerpts of the song Redlight Blues by Christian Petermann were played in this podcast.
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We're on a two week break!! New episode 8/31!
This week we have a guest essay, Spanish Lessons by Trish DiFranco.
This is a story about puppy love and the pile of poo you find when you try to chase it.
Trish DiFranco is a writer and marketer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. You can read more of her work at trish.substack.com
Excerpts of the song Passion Tango by The Piano Lady Lena Orsa were played in this podcast
Once a late bloomer, always a late bloomer.
Excerpts of the song Blues for Bess by Simon Armitage were played in this podcast.
Story notes by Chelsey Heil.
My college boyfriend’s mother gave me a glimpse into who I might become.
Excerpts of the song Teddy's Blues by Regis V. Gronoff were played in this podcast.
Story notes by Sara Mannheimer and Aaron Murtagh.
A most Midwestern sexual education.
Excerpts of the song Funk on Full by Avalon Audio were played in this podcast.
A bad boy and a good boy meet at the public pool.
Excerpts of the song St. James Infirmary by Matt Confusion were played in this podcast under a license purchased on Jamendo.
A special thanks to Michael DeJohn for audio and design help throughout the podcast.
In the single most romantic gesture of my life, I flew to China for a guy.
Excerpts of the song Again Raining Dogs by Zero 1 were played in this podcast under a license purchased on Jamendo.
Story notes by Sara Mannheimer.
Who owns up to what in the spaces we occupy?
Excerpts of the song Malbak After Sex by Ogg Vorbis were played in this podcast under a license purchased on Jamendo.
Story notes by Sara Mannheimer.
As a child, my father gave me men’s clothing for birthdays and Christmases. Then, the unthinkable happened.
Excerpts of the song Avocados and Beer by Jacob Haller were played in this podcast under a Creative Commons license.
Story notes by Sarah Smith and Rosamund Lannin.
After the wedding, after the honeymoon, what do you get? A new family.
Excerpts of the song Buzzard by Lobo Loco were played in this podcast under a Creative Commons license.
This story won the Story Club Cleveland Audience Award in January 2017, and it was published by Story Club Magazine.
Story notes by Sarah Smith, Rosamund Lannin, and Aaron Murtagh.
One night stands... from a woman's perspective.
Excerpts of the song Part-Time Dog by Jacob Haller were played in this podcast under a Creative Commons license.
Story notes by Sarah Smith and Rosamund Lannin.
I claimed Canada in the Bush years, so it was easy for me to immerse myself in Euro trash.
Excerpts of the song The There and Then by Krestovsky were played in this podcast under a Creative Commons license.
Story notes by Sarah Smith and Rosamund Lannin.
A study of choral recitals from lead to show tunes leper.
Excerpts of the song Tropical Fishes by Krestovsky were played in this podcast under a Creative Commons License.
Story notes by Sarah Smith and Rosamund Lannin.
There were four us in my hotel room on my wedding night.
Excerpts of the song Relatively Human by Jacob Haller were played in this podcast under a Creative Commons license.
Story notes by Aaron Murtagh.
As a child, my father gave me men's clothing for Christmas and birthdays. Then, the unthinkable happened.
I begrudgingly claimed America, and Canada in the Bush years, so it was easy to immerse myself in Euro trash.