May Hathaway is a Chinese-American writer based in New York City and Philadelphia. Laetitia Keok is a poet & writer from Singapore. Ottavia Paluch is a high school student from Ontario, Canada, and sometimes she writes poems.
(Transcript)
Welcome to a young writer edition of Micro, a podcast for short but powerful writing. I’m your host, Drew Hawkins.
This episode was curated by guest editor Grace Q. Song. Here’s Grace, explaining her choices:
GQS: Hello, my name is Grace Q Song, and I am the guest editor for Micro Podcast’s Young Writers Edition. I chose these three pieces because of the way they explore tension, specifically the tension between freedom and captivity.
In “Eden, Idaho,” the narrator toys with the idea of escaping her utopian-named town until she realizes it’s too late.
In “self-portrait as ways i have loved you,” the speaker is trapped in repetition, unable to escape her lover who has become part of her identity.
In “Sonnet on Escape,” the speaker rejects the idea of light at the end of the tunnel and confesses her desire to leap—not into the sky, as birds do—but into the sea.
These pieces by young writers are fierce, vulnerable, and compelling. Please enjoy.
Thank you, Grace, for the introduction, and for your careful curation of this episode. And without further ado, up first is a piece of prose titled “Eden, Idaho.” It was written by May Hathaway and published by HAD on January 18, 2021. Enjoy!
“Eden, Idaho” by May Hathaway in HAD
May Hathaway is a Chinese-American writer based in New York City and Philadelphia. You can find her on Instagram at @mayy_h, on Twitter at @mournamentalism, or on her website at mayhathaway.com.
In our next piece, the title and prose work in tandem with each other to drive emotion. It’s called “self-portrait as ways i have loved you. It was written by Laetitia Keok and published by perhappened mag. Enjoy!
“self-portrait as ways i have loved you” by Laetitia Keok in perhappened mag
Laetitia Keok is a poet & writer from Singapore. You can find her on Twitter at @laetitia, on Instagram at @l.aetitia, or on her website at laetitia-k.com.
Using the classic but challenging fourteen-line structure, our final piece comes in the form of a sonnet. It’s called “Sonnet on Escape.” It was written by Ottavia Paluch and published by Plum Recruit. Enjoy!
“Sonnet on Escape” by Ottavia Paluch in Plum Recruit
Ottavia Paluch is a high school student from Ontario, Canada, and sometimes she writes poems.
You can find her on Twitter at @OttaviaPaluch, or on her website at ottaviawrites.weebly.com.
Once again, we’d like to thank Grace Q. Song for guest editing our first Young Writer’s episode. The first of hopefully many more to come.
Micro is edited and curated by Dylan Evers, our social media is managed by fellow curator M.M. Kaufman, and the show is produced and hosted by me, Drew Hawkins. You can find all of the information about this episode’s writers, their featured work, and the publications where they were published, as well as a transcription of this episode in the show notes.
Check us out on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We’re also on YouTube, so if you need subtitles, check us out there. And you can always find our shows at micropodcast.org, and you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at podcastmicro.
Thanks for listening.