Alissa Nutting

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast, and this episode, to the exquisite hideousness of Alissa Nutting. Nutting's suburban feminist gothic prances over manicured lawns through palaces of neglect and dementia in which tracheotomies, self-produced teen porn and routine abortions are rites of passage from a childhood without innocence to an adulthood without maturity. Ms. Nutting's story, "I Feel Nothing 4U," is witty, charming and incredibly disturbing. Please enjoy Alissa Nutting.

Danielle Pafunda

We are proud to present Danielle Pafunda reading a creative lecture. With dizzying erudition, she delights us at the intersection of poetry and scholarship, biology and criticism. The effect is something like a psychedelic sermon. Please enjoy Danielle Pafunda.

Sabrina Orah Mark

Sabrina Orah Mark is a poet-fabulist whose work is part ghost story, part myth, and part sacred text. Each poem is like an artifact from a sealed and secret vault; each poem is itself a sealed and secret vault, beckoning, glistening, and exhorting any would-be opener to enter carefully and to remember what wonder feels like. There is eeriness, and levity, and eerie levity; there is exultant familiarity set against ominous inscrutability. Listen as Sabrina reads from her forthcoming book Tsim Tsum, and introduces us to Walter B., Beatrice, and The Oldest Animal—characters who, like the world they inhabit, are perpetually on the brink of disappearance.