It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: Moonkids, by Abbey Mei Otis, Part 2

Episode Date: May 17, 2026

Margaret continues with the final part of a gutting story about rejection and re-accimlationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Sending a spicy picture to your work chat instead of your significant other? That's so embarrassing. You know what's not? Debt? Consolidate your debt with a loan from FIG. No hassle, no judgment.

Borrow better with FIG. Visit fig.ca. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs

banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On

Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything.

Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Hey, it's a Shanti Plummer from Fud around and Find out. This week, AZ Fud and I sat down with Steff and Curry. Step talks pressure, confidence, and what it really takes to stay great. There's different categories, I guess,

so I'm like conditioning, shooting drills where you try to simulate kind of games. Look at her face. We have a love-hate relationship with those because you know you're getting something out of it. You don't look forward to those days. Listen to butt around and find out on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcast. Also Media. But club, club, club, but club, but club. Hello and welcome. to the Cool Zone Media Book Club. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and today we are finishing up the story,

Moon Kids, by Abby May Otis. If you didn't listen to the first part, well, that's strange. That is a strange decision to have made. You should listen to Part 1. I guess I'm not actually in charge of you. Where we last left off, we were following a click of moon kids,

young adults who grew up in the science utopia on the moon, but failed their aptitude tests and were sent back to Earth. But because of the gravity shift, their whole bodies have been compressed down about six inches, and they're kind of funny-looking by Earth standards. And so far in this story, just to bring you up to speed, you have met the following characters. You've met Colleen, who has her shit together and his mom to all the newly arrived moon kids, who's probably our protagonist.

And there's Tesla, manager of the crabby Abbey, crab shack where her crew all works, but she's not adjusting well to earth life. And there's trespass, Tesla's punk-ass younger brother who has a big mouth. And there's Abitha, who has newly arrived as the hot shit batty, who has big ambitions and is slowly getting plastic surgeries to become desirable. Abitha has just riled up all the boys on the beach, talking a big game about how hot she's going to be one day, only to be interrupted by Tesla, who has returned in tears. Trestpast has stayed on the beach to fight. some rude boys, but not rude boys, like not people into ska, but instead boys who are rude.

And the girls head back to Colleen's place for the second parts of Moon Kids by Abby May Otis. And just as a note, if you're like, but how did their voices change between parts one and two? Is it part of the narrative or is it the showbiz of the fact that I'm recording this a week later? And I only recently decided to do voices at all. And so I'm not going to do it perfectly. It could be either one of those things. Moon Kids, by Abby May Otis, part two. Out of two.

You must be disgusted with me. Tesla flops her head into Colleen's lap. Girls are on the futon couch and Colleen's apartment. Just one room on the first floor, with an afterthought of a bathroom and a kitchen stowed away in one corner. But her front door slides open to a sandy street. and across the street is a sandy sidewalk, and past that is the roaring, suckling, spitting old man's sea,

Colleen Pets Tesla's hair, I'm not disgusted with you. Then you're a saint, I'd be disgusted with me. The room smells like lemons and salt-stiff clothes. This afternoon, Tesla spent locked in the old-time Quick Mart bathroom. Some brash-mouth earth lady tried to pick her up in the oral hygiene aisle and fragile girl freaked. She called me Luminus being.

Tesla rolls the word on the front of her tongue for disgusted emphasis. She said something about devotion. She probably wanted me to go recharge her goddamn crystals. Colleen does a belly laugh that makes Tesla's head shake up and down. You should have. You should have done her star charts, blown her fritzy mind.

Tesla groans and reaches out to play with the rocks on the side table. Colleen likes rocks smooth, symmetrical, ovoid. She brings them home and finds that anyone who comes through the apartment likes to cradle them. Big as a finger, big as a fist. Earth bones in every color. Tesla lays a green pebble in each palm and rubs them with the hams of her thumbs. Holds them up to her ears like secret listening.

Brings them to her lips like a kiss. Colleen's distracted by a phantom pressure on her upper arms. She worries at the memory until she can place it. Abitha's hands at the party shaking her shoulders, pulling her close. She twists her head and presses her mouth to her arm flesh. Why, don't know, seeking a taste, like how the ocean's touch leaves behind fingerprints of salt. Souso has a bunch of people over at his pieced-together house. Abitha shows up with legs like strange long twigs.

Bulk's still on her belly and ass, but her hips all, carved away. She walks like a newborn fawn, cackles like a raven. Told you, I told you I'd do it. Ugly mugs thought I was full of shit, but I told you. Doctor had a big laser. It was over in 10 minutes. They asked how she paid for it, she says, fill out the right forms, smile at the right people. It was state of the fucking art, I'll tell you that. I'm doing this shit right. She flings her arms out, shakes her hips. Next stop, torso, next stop shoulders. Next stop, face. Colleen stays out of the fray, though all night she can feel Abitha raking her with her eyes. Finally, Colleen slips out the sliding door and stands on the sidewalk, leaning against the vinyl siding of the apartment

building. Tesla's funk is making her anxious. She thinks about how it's like some people have a broken vase inside them. The pieces never quite fit back together. She turns and finds Abitha right up in her face. Holy shit. Sorry. Abita looks the opposite of sorry. She nudges Colleen. Hey, uh, I wanted to ask you a question. I heard a thing about you. Oh, yeah. At some point or another, everyone hears a thing about Colleen. she tries to look like she doesn't know what Abitha means and doesn't want to, like that'll make the girl go away. What I heard, Abitha grinds the gristle of her question, is that you didn't take the exams.

Yep, that's what they hear. Colleen stands perfectly still and stares out across the parking lot. Then really slow, she brings her head up and down. It's the first time she's seen Abitha struck silent. Girl doesn't ask why not, but it's in a little. the cant of her head and the tap of her fingers. So finally, Colleen answers. I didn't want to do research. Didn't want to be a scientist. Had some dumbass idea about art. She laughs at herself, bitter seal bark. Yeah, Colleen, you thought you were pretty freaking cool,

didn't you? Sitting in the exam room with your hundred classmates, typing dirty limericks into the answer screens, hitting the submit button and sending in 56 pages of blank, blank, blank. You were going to stick it to the man. You were going to shuck off your parents and your friends and your whole little sanitized, climate-controlled life, all in the name of that snarky pagan god called art. You lovely fucking revolutionary. But there were those first months when she arrived on earth and found it so full of artists, its eyes were turning tie-dye. When she tried to enroll in a narrative school and got laughed out of the admissions room, because the truth is, Colleen, in this post-consumer, post-information, fever dream of a world?

Creativity is a vital fluid. The inhabitants of these cities swim in virtual galaxies. They sculpt their bodies into fairy tale shapes. They lick the lines between reality and fantasy, body and mind, until everything melts together like ice cream. All because of Luna, gleaming white sacrificial lamb. It took three years for Colleen to get this. Research happens on Luna, so pleasure.

can happen on Earth. The beautiful Earth people, they don't have time to concern themselves with the twitching, blinking nerd men from the moon. They for sure don't have time for some flabby beach bum kids who wobble when they walk. So Colleen falls back on what she knows. She soothes Tesla and she rolls her eyes at trespass. She's good at giving people a place to crash. She's good at serving fried food. When she dreams of the moon, her visions are colored amethyst and silver and midnight. The desolate, gaping plains of home wake her up with tears streaming down her cheeks. She'd like to dig her nails into random people on the street. Moon kids no pain, she'd shriek to them.

Moon kids could make beauty, but she doesn't. Oh, Colleen, no one wants to hear about that. But, dear listener, do you know what else no one wants to hear about? The products and services that support this show. Sending a spicy picture to your work chat instead of your significant other? That's so embarrassing. You know what's not? Debt? Consolidate your debt with a loan from FIG. No hassle, no judgment. Borrow Better with FIG. Visit fig.com. Hey, Ontario, come on down to BEDMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out.

Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BEDMGM. Access to the Price is right Fortune Pick is only available at BEDMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager Ontario only, please play responsibly. If you have If questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness,

professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. from the WMBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel like you don't feel on. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it.

An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladeke. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. at our level at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning.

It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. And we are back. Abitha grabs her wrist. I knew there was something, something. You don't go around moping like everyone else. Her fingers palpitate up Colleen's forearm.

You're so tense. Colleen tries to pull away. She wants to say, Tesla doesn't mope, but that's such a lie. And it's true about the rest of them, too, how they shiver, how they cling. Sometimes it builds like sludge on her brain, until she wants to fling them all into the ocean. I told myself I'd be different. Abitha scrutinizes Colleen's wrist.

I knew I'd fail. I was never any good at that shit. I figured, might as well embrace it. She doesn't say anything else because Colleen leans in and kisses her. Somehow, they are down the street and in Colleen's apartment and on the futon. Abitha's hands are up her shirt, tracing orbits around her breasts. The moon is hidden behind clouds to night. night, a milky haze that leeches through the window. Colleen reaches for Abitha's hips and

peels her shorts down. The scar from her bone shave runs down the outside of her leg from hip to knee. The skin is sunken and gray. A line of pale pus oozes between the stitches and catches the moonlight. It doesn't hurt. Abitha puts a hand on Colleen's cheek and forces her eyes away from the wound. Leave it. Her words rasp in a language. Colleen doesn't understand. Her long hair hangs in her face, brushes over her stomach. She must have been growing it for years on Luna, Colleen realizes. She must have planned to let it down. The clouds shift, and for a moment the moon gets an eye full of them, then is obscured. Colleen clamps one of Abitha's legs between her own knees, shoves her other thigh up with her

hand, leans down, breathing hard, sticks her tongue into the dark. New girl takes her like clam juice, which is to say salt water and body. Abitha makes a noise like a gall. Something shakes in her thigh. Then she sits up and pushes Colleen back. Her eyes are dark and liquid and Colleen thinks she sees something broken open. Abitha licks her lips. You, she says, you could be Lunarian. Her voice is thick with longing. Colleen has thought about this every day for three years. She imagined. She imagines filling in the exam blanks with serious answers. She imagines filling them in with her whole brain and whole heart.

She can picture the congratulations, the celebrations, the cool, close embrace of her family and the tunnels of Luna. She shrugs at Abitha. No, I couldn't. I've been here long enough to figure that out. Abitha shakes her head stubbornly. But you don't know for sure. Suddenly the three years that separate them feel like ages.

three years of earth pole, of fighting, of just barely making it. They stretch miles wider than Colleen's whole childhood on Luna. If I had passed, there are other things I would never have known. I made a choice. I'm not really any different. And you aren't either, she thinks. I didn't see that at first. She reaches out to pet Abitha's shoulder. The other girl's questions drive sadness into her like a wedge.

Her mouth is dry. Abitha pulls away. You are different, she insists. The door that had cracked open in her eyes, now so fast clangs shut. We're different. There it is, back in her eyes, the tinge of distaste

that makes her look more like an earth girl than any body mod ever will. She is retreating and retreating like the tide. They sit in silence for a moment. Then Abitha stirs. I think I should go. Inhaling as the fabric skates over her scars. Colleen doesn't turn and watch her go out the door.

So, sandpoint, crappy little gum wrapper town, undeserving of so many stories, so much love. But this not quite ground and not quite water, they own it. This sliver of country with its ever-changing dunes and sinuous shoreline, it's theirs. Knowing is a kind of possession, and they know where the tide pools form, where the weed is sold,

which beachfront property owners don't mind if you cut through their yards. In constant, of course. But remember, they're moon kids. They're used to not owning things for real. They were raised in home pods stalled out by the government. The moon knows sleeping space and study space. The moon knows regulated recreation zones and one vacation day per month. The moon knows you are part of the machine, and it presses that knowledge in on you.

It gives you disposable clothes and flings. flavorless food and raises you with the knowledge that you too are only worth the research you produce, sweet little cogs of mine. Funny then, sick and sad, how souls find something to latch onto even in the bleakest environments. How hungry bodies are to belong. Little Lunarian kids, their brains know nothing is guaranteed, but their hearts cling like hermit crabs on driftwood as the tide comes in. December after they turn 16, the examiner. come. The wind whips up the water. January, the scores get mailed out. Crash. Big waves slam down, froth and churn. And when the water recedes again, some of those crabs, those cogs, those bright-eyed

girls and boys, are swept clean away. In the night, Colleen flees down to the beach, kneels by the water, sand collapsing all swirly around her legs. She puts her mouth into the sea and hails and the saltwater barrels down her throat like a bullet train, burns tracks into her tongue, girl falls backwards, coughing. Her hair goes smack in the wet sand. Turn her head one way, down the beach there is an old petrol car parked on the sand, people dancing like paper cutouts in the headlight glow. They kick up shells and gallop down to the water edge to scream and spit. Turn her head the other way, up the beach, is a dark, slick shape of something. Big jelly or rotten tire or selky skin. Salt and body. The ocean is nothing

but salt and body. Colleen drinks seawater till her eyes ache, thinking with each suck, go ahead, put the flame to us. Just see if we melt and flow away. Gulps until her stomach revolts and then she pukes it up and walks a long way into town. By the time she reaches her apartment, the sand has dried on her. She brushes it off like dust and climbs into bed, sweet and clean. Do you know what else in time will brush off like dried sand?

Not these products and services that support this show. They are eternal, like the moon itself. That's how good of deals they are. Sending a spicy picture to your work chat instead of your significant other? That's so embarrassing. You know what's not?

Debt? Consolidate your debt with a loan from FIG. No hassle, no judgment. Borrow better with FIG. Visit fig.com. Hey, Ontario, come on down to BEDMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BetMGM. Access to the Price's Right Fortune Pick is only at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense Remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connick. Ontario at 1866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them?

On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions, to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout, Kate Martin and rising hockey star, Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel like you don't feel on.

Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladeki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world, Like, I can do anything.

I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. And we are back. On the phone with her mother in the pink hour between lunch and dinner rushes, Colleen leans against the sliding glass door and jams the mini-dress.

disc to her ear. The connection is finicky. It balks and shuffles its hooves. Do you? Her mother's voice flickers in and out. A job? Her concern seeps down the phone line. No other question a moon mom could ask, really. No other way to tell. Are you okay? Are you functioning? Lucky Colleen lives in a pleasure park town where things like jobs still exist. Or else, how would she explain to the mama? Jobs mean goose egg here. We've moved on. I'm a waitress, mom, like I tell you every time. I bring people food. That faint noise might be her mother owing, or might be the sound of 200,000 miles. Colleen waits for more news without expecting any. Machines don't rearrange their parts often. Oh, her mother's thin exclamation. The Sakaros! Mr. and Mrs. Sakaro live in the neighboring

pod. They're having a baby. Sharp pain as big chunks of Colleen's chest erode into her stomach until she takes a quick, tight breath. Why does this news smart so bad? Why does she wrench open the door and fling the mini-disc into the flower bed?

Later she'll apologize to the moon mom. Explain how the connection fritzed out. And she'll think of how Lunarians see her today. Wonder, if she saw saw Mom paw again, would things be different? Probably no. course not, how could you?

But maybe. Maybe there'd be a little hitch pause between the moment of recognition and the moment of hugging. Maybe that hitch would grow wider. It would be easy to call the dark, breathless void between them space, but Colleen knows it's way older than that,

and still no one's built a rocket that can cross it. One evening, Colleen runs into Abitha on the boardwalk. Not like she's been avoiding her or anything. Not exactly. When she thinks of Abitha, there's an odd sensation in her stomach. Not embarrassment, that she's sure of. More like disappointment.

A little like grief. You talked so big, new girl, she wants to say. I thought you had answers. I thought you could fix us like that hack doctor straightened your legs. They stare at each other. Abitha licks her lips. Colleen makes emotion with one hand and then stops, not sure where she's going.

She shifts her eyes to the people passing. them, ogling them in the near dark. Then she hears her name being called, Colleen! Trespass, white-faced under his white paint, hurling up the beach like a cannonball. Colleen! It's big sister! Get her! Gotta help me get her! The two of them rush cross the beach. No, not two of them. Three. Abitha runs too. Colleen can feel her joints grind, her muscles fray. times like this she hates her body the most this earth pole this aching flesh how light we were on the moon

how we could have bounded over miles Tesla is walking into the ocean the water is up to her neck waves rear up and come down over her head and she doesn't flinch doesn't duck just keeps heading out it's almost too dark to see her moon girl come back they scream through the sea breeze

hurl themselves into the ocean. At first the water is something to fight, but then it gets deep enough that they can give themselves over to it. They paddle to Tesla, surround her, tug on her arms and kiss her cheeks. Big sister, best friend,

why would you leave us? The fuck you thinking? That first moment when they catch her, Tesla's eyes are dead, but she sparks under their touch and her mouth makes a smile. I'm okay. Her lips shape the words,

but her voice is barely a sound. I'm... I'm okay. Her eyes snag on something beyond all of them. Colleen and trespass Nabitha, they turn and follow her gaze. A full moon is rising. It catches them off guard.

In the ocean, they fall silent, still. Look at them now, only their heads bobbing above the water, four dark bumps breaking up the white shine of the moon reflection. cradled by the warm ocean they don't have to be moon kids they could be round and embracing

as Luna herself they could be slender as the breeze that licks the sea surface they could be regular earth boys and girls loving the feel of water on skin they could be sea nymphs they could be four seals

Abitha's face is hard and set she stares at the moon like a challenge trespass is quiet his arms winging back and forth just under the surface. Paint runs down his face and makes a pool of smoke around his throat. Tesla lets out one gasping sob and chokes on seawater. Colleen reaches through the black water and finds her hand.

They clutch each other in the darkness. Colleen leans her head back so water creeps cool on her scalp. Around her and beneath her, the ocean pushes with hands like continents. Push, drag. With her head tilted, her vision is filled up with moon, white and brilliant and huge as the sound of blood in her brain. Huge as the pull of home. Can she see the cities on the surface? The pale tunnels that hashed through the face of Luna? Can she see her parents sitting down to dinner, bloodshot, sun-starved, their fingers still tapping out equations? Could she notice the extra place setting at the table, but when they look at but never touch?

Oh, come on now. Girl doesn't see any of that. Doesn't even imagine it. This time of night with water lapping at her cranium, the moon is no longer a place. The moon just is, bigger than everything. Her light flowing out and lifting them up until they are no longer even floating.

Their bodies have vanished. They are nothing but light. If we cried out loud enough, Colleen thinks. Maybe the moon would turn her eyes back down to us. If we beat ourselves against the earth, if we let our bones break and our flesh split, maybe that would jar her memory, her exiled children. Maybe she would fall in love with us again. It is not enough, this warm, dry dust, these rocking waters.

We will not last very long. Luna, please, hold us, let us go. Let the squalls in our minds grow quiet. Let our bodies gentle. Let all the knots untie. dun dun dun that's the end of the story thank you for listening along to moon kids by abby mayotis and oh what did i think about this time when i was reading it i'm interested in the seal thing the symbolism of the seal i didn't get it on the first read but like basically they're constantly

being compared to seals and there's like a thing about a selky skin and so it's got this like selky vibe about like people pulled out of the ocean and living on the land in order to be part of society, and it's got all this stuff about, well, I don't know, you just listen to it, and you've got ideas too. Hazel, who helps me with the scripts, has this to say about it. Less on the emotion side, big, languishing, so, so juicy, and more on the craft side. I love, love, love Abby's prose. It is so stylized and fragmented in a really evocative way.

Abby will use a verb, but not conjugated or with a pronoun attached. and it feels both poetic and exacting, efficient and scientific, like lunar society. She uses a lot of sentence fragments that feel like parts of a life pieced back together, like a cozy quilt. It's hard to convey this over audio, but a lot of what characters say

moves in and out of quotation marks. It gives this effect where only some of what's discussed happens out loud, or like a lot of the dialogue is imagined, or a character's inner monologue. It makes a really interesting read. I would absolutely recommend, checking out the full text sometime if you're excited about that kind of experimentation. And then as for what Abby herself says about this story, when we asked her, quote,

I tend to collect threads of thought until I have enough to twist together into a story. The threads for this piece included, reading John Kessel's Stories for Men, and thinking about the effect of gravity differentials on bodies, working in a middle school and navigating the harms inflicted by standardized testing systems, conversations with my friends from other countries, thinking about what it means when your home is a place for which other people have their own deeply ingrained cultural associations. Fascination with beach towns and tourist economies in the off-season.

This is what emerged from those threads. But who is Abby May Otis? You might be asking because you forgot the bio that we read at the end of the last episode. Well, I'll remind you. Abby May Otis is a writer, a teaching artist, a storyteller and a fire starter, raised in the woods of North Carolina.

She loves people and art forms on the margins. Her story collection, Alien Virus Love Disaster, from Small Beer Press, was named one of the best science fiction books of the year by The Washington Post, and was a finalist for the 2018 Philip K. Dick Award. She studied creative writing at the Missioner Center for Writers,

Oberlin College, and the Clary and West Writers' Workshop. Currently, she is making a living as an artist in residence at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in West Philly, where her favorite days are spent walking her dogs in the woods, overstaying her welcoming coffee shops, chipping away at a novel, and dismantling the state.

We did ask her how our audience can stay up to date on her releases, and she said, quote, I don't have any social media, please don't follow me anywhere, which is wise, brave, and iconic, and I'm officially jealous. That's it for this week. We will see you next week for more short fiction. My name is Margaret Kiljoy.

I have a substack, Margaretkilljoy.com. You can find my thoughts pretty much every week. And, well, take care of each other. Fuck ice, free Palestine, up the punks, up the moon, kids. See you all next week. It could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel,

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward.

At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the. the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Hey, it's Shanty Plummer from Fudd Around and Find Out. This week, AZ Fud and I sat down with Step and Curry.

Step talks pressure, confidence, and what it really takes to stay great. There's different categories, I guess, so I'm like conditioning, shooting drills where you try to simulate kind of games. Look at her face. We have a love-hate relationship with those Because you know you're getting something out of it You don't look forward to those days Listen to butt around and find out

On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, Or wherever you get your podcast. The story I've told myself Can then shape my behavior And that can lead me to sabotage The Possibility of Connection This Mental Health Awareness Month Tune into the podcast

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