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Lit - Blog Posts
“That’s who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.”
— John Green
"it was like something cracked open inside of me, not unlike a watermelon, cool and soothing sweet. I always thought insanity would be a dark and bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it."
- Kathryn Stockett, The Help
“I just want someone to love me hardest when I least deserve it.”
— Javson Johnson, “Building”
“I am thankful for my struggle because without it, I wouldn’t have stumbled upon my strength.”
— Alexandra Elle
“I am both worse and better than you thought.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath
“I didn’t know what to call it, what was happening between us, but I liked it. It felt silly and fragile and good.”
— Ransom Riggs; Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
“Too often, the only escape is sleep.”
— Charles Bukowski
You’re a fucking loser, man
Well, life’s a fucking uppercut
Right inside my fucking gut
Wanna fuckin’ end it but
I don’t have the balls to
Fuck, I’m such a pussy, fuck me up
Kid trunks 777 ft.xxxtentacion
“I’m doing drugs just to maintain - part of the reason that I can handle this damn pain”
— XXXTENTACION x KiD TRUNKS | 777
““My heart is so tired” - Markus Zusak”
—
“Some people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them.”
— John Green
There will always be a person who looks like a poem the earth wrote to keep you alive.
Juansen Dizon
“It made me wonder how many times we forgive just because we don’t want to lose someone, even if they don’t deserve our forgiveness.”
— Deb Caletti
“That’s who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.”
— John Green
"... you will go home and then you will find that home is not home anymore. Then you will really be in trouble. As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home."
— James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
“There are some people who could hear you speak a thousand words, and still not understand you. And there are others who will understand. without you even speaking a word.”
— Yasmin Mogahed
“I like to listen. I have learnt a lot from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
— Unknown
“If you don’t love yourself you will always be chasing after people who don’t love you either.”
— Mandy Hale
New fighters, stages, and much more were revealed in the latest Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Nintendo Direct! If you missed it, be sure to watch the video and catch up on what’s coming to the game!
Sure isn’t 5 years divorced & ready for a friend finally
“It’s never too late to start over again and to be happy.”
— Anurag Prakash Ray
Chapter 5 of the new sci-fi novel, Engineer Your Perfect Child, by Bett Correa, as narrated by Russil Tamsen. 10 mins. Original on Amazon here.
In this chapter, two gangleaders - a gruff hero and a slippery materialist - bump heads in a futuristic strip club in Lima, Peru. Pedro is prying to find out what happened to several street kids he mentors who have been mysteriously kidnapped and returned brain-dead.
This also happens to be the third book I've personally edited. The author said about this reading, and I quote: "This is SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE IT!!" One exclamation point is quite sufficient, says my inner book editor.
All rights reserved. Russil Tamsen: narrator, comic improv actor, book editor, and author of 21 ebooks. Please visit my ebookstore at QuirkEbooks.com and follow audiobooknarrator. Know a piece of Tumblr fiction that deserves a great reader? Run it by me!
Second Story Window, a short story by Gibson Grand, narrated by Russil Tamsen. 6 mins. Original here. It's a night of awkward teenage blues when a fat boy and a homely girl are the only ones not hooking up at a basement party... She is soon blossoming into a beauty. To his chagrin, she will catch him peeping when she is bathing. They will manage to become friends anyway, but there will still be an elephant in the room... All rights reserved. Russil Tamsen: narrator, comic improv actor, book editor, and author of 21 ebooks. Please visit my ebookstore at QuirkEbooks.com and follow audiobooknarrator. Know a piece of Tumblr fiction that deserves a great reader? Run it by me!
The Cleanup, excerpted from a novel by Ravi Kotecha, narrated by Russil Tamsen. 13 mins. Written version here. A couple of young dudes from India - runaways from an earlier chapter - have inserted themselves into the business of smuggling guns and opium. They are now wandering around the rutted back tracks of Afghanistan, haggling and trying to spend as much of their arms trade money as possible buying up as much opium as their rickety vehicles can carry. Wow, this was a vocal actor's challenge. Jumping between several Indian and Arabic voicings, phew! I love picturing these exotic locales... And it's a nerve-wracking tale too: we're just waiting for the shoe to drop, for their hubris to catch up with them! That, however, would be part of a later chapter. I initially voiced the narrator as an Indian, but later decided to go with my regular voice. It's a tough call when the narrator is first person, but it seemed like too much Indian the other way. What do you think?
All rights reserved. Russil Tamsen: narrator, comic improv actor, book editor, and author of 21 ebooks. Please visit my ebookstore at QuirkEbooks.com and follow audiobooknarrator. Know a piece of Tumblr fiction that deserves a great reader? Run it by me!
The Old Man Bar is the opening scene of the upcoming novel by Dylan O'Toole, and is narrated by Russil Tamsen. Original here. 4 mins.
A young out-of-town writer hits a dive bar, angling for some inspiration. He meets a grouchy old dude - and what a vivid character he is, the old geezer! Coincidence promptly entangles them both in a web of misunderstandings and threatening behavior.
I think most of us have met him along the way at some point.
All rights reserved. Russil Tamsen: narrator, comic improv actor, book editor, and author of 21 ebooks. Please visit my ebookstore at QuirkEbooks.com and follow audiobooknarrator. Know a piece of Tumblr fiction that deserves a great reader? Run it by me!
Autumn Wing, a monologue by Blank's Page, performed by Russil Tamsen. 5 mins. Written version here.
A wistful piece from the windowless halls of an insane asylum, with its routines of meds and scheduling... and one redemptive walk per day past a mystery lady in the courtyard.
All rights reserved. Russil Tamsen: narrator, comic improv actor, book editor, and author of 21 ebooks. Please visit my ebookstore at QuirkEbooks.com and follow audiobooknarrator. Know a piece of Tumblr fiction that deserves a great reader? Run it by me!
The rough and tumble erotic story of disturbia by Molly Cupcakes, They'd Fucked Five Times So Far. Russil Tamsen's second audio version of the piece. 3 mins. Written text here.
It's fascinating how different acting choices by a speaker can create vastly different results. This was the first time I'd ventured two very different versions of a story, and it was enlightening. Feedback from one listener of the first version got me imagining how this flash fiction story would sound delivered in a normal narrator's voice. Using a resonant, understated approach, one that let the language do all the legwork: a very different choice from overstated version one.
To me it sounds really good this way. It might possibly be the better choice!
All rights reserved. Russil Tamsen: narrator, comic improv actor, book editor, and author of 21 ebooks. Please visit my ebookstore at QuirkEbooks.com and follow audiobooknarrator. Know a piece of Tumblr fiction that deserves a great reader? Run it by me!
At The Whisky Girl, a flash fiction by Scott Syx aka cheshirecatgrins, read by Russil Tamsen. 4:21 mins. Original text here.
An unlikely romantic encounter between a pair of drinkers starts at a noisy night club. The two grapple cautiously on the perilous road to intimacy - their respective emotional baggages casting long shadows along the way...
This piece said noir to me (although updated). So I said noir back!
All rights reserved. Russil Tamsen: narrator, comic improv actor, book editor, and author of 21 ebooks. Please visit my ebookstore at QuirkEbooks.com and follow audiobooknarrator. Know a piece of Tumblr fiction that deserves a great reader? Run it by me!
A riotous short story by Cate Doherty, given the radio theater narration by Russil Tamsen. 8 mins. Original text here.
A couple of biddies of a certain age are chatting or maybe knitting over afternoon tea, sharing the latest gossip. Marian has to relay to her friend Maggie the whopper of a story told to her by a crazy neighbor. About being kidnapped by angry fairies of the field! (And every word true, don't ya know.)
Erin go bragh, and let's have a wee bit o' fun toying with an Irish accent, shall we? Well now. A real challenge for a narrator, this one! And great fun.
All rights reserved. Russil Tamsen: narrator, comic improv actor, book editor, and author of 21 ebooks. Please visit my ebookstore at QuirkEbooks.com and follow audiobooknarrator. Know a piece of Tumblr fiction that deserves a great reader? Run it by me!