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In an effort to fend off the blahs of short days and bipolar weather patterns we recently organized an event at Gallery Connexion in Fredericton that saw the telling of stories brought to the stage. Inspired by the Moth storytelling series and podcast, the performers would simply present their tales, loosely following the theme “Lost and Found,” in a very off-the-cuff conversational manner, without notes or props of any kind.

via Brick Books AudioBoo podcasts.

fourthirtythree is a new audio magazine. We’ll be broadcasting and podcasting short stories of around five minutes (up to 1,000 words), written and read by some of the best contemporary writers. We’re looking for edgy, engaging stories about modern life - stories which work well when read aloud.

One of the topics from last week’s Slate Culture Gabfest was a discussion on provocative literary agent Andrew Wylie’s recent shift into the world of electronic text on behalf of his blue chip stable of clients (Updike, Mailer, Nabokov, Bellow, etc.) Will this signal a quantum shift from paper to lcd?

Christian Bok will be on CBC Radio’s ‘Q’ (hosted by Jian Ghomeshi) this Monday, January 5, to talk about the success of his bestselling poetry book Eunoia, in the UK. Eunoia was just released this fall in England by Canongate, and it’s causing quite a stir across the pond.
fr. Coach House

If you are a fan of the audio book iTunes is offering a little treat in the form of a chapter-a-day download for Terry Fallis’ new book The High Road.

The warm weather is here… the beginning of summer? Perhaps. In any case the vacation mind is surely awakening for some of us. If your getaway time is still well off perhaps a few brief virtual escapes might hold you over until you can set foot in some faraway land. Here are some interactive views of The Sistine Chapel, British Histories courtesy of the BBC and The Smithsonian’s current exhibits.

The word appeared first in English in 1440 in a work regarded as a masterpiece. Thomas Malory is a bit of a shadowy figure, having lived so long ago, but it seems that he was a knight on the wrong side of political struggle in England and spent lots of time in prison where he penned Le Morte d’Arthur; which translates as “the death of king Arthur.”

Agatha Christie’s cleverly plotted detective stories made her the 20th century’s best-selling fiction author—she sold billions of books throughout a career that spanned the 1920s to the 1970s. But her intricate novels may reveal more about the inner workings of the human mind than she intended: according to Dr. Ian Lancashire at the University of Toronto, the Queen of Crime left behind hidden clues to the real-life mysteries of human aging.

An .mp3 sample posted by The Guardian from the British Library’s new audio CD The Spoken Word: Sylvia Plath