From Our Soundbooth | October 29, 2021

Hello and welcome to Miller Aud-cast #30. The finalist you’re about to hear is Mara Naselli, in collaboration with Gil Teixeira and Liza Barley, and the piece is the wonderfully realized evocation of humanity during the pandemic entitled “Drinks on the Porch 2020.”

Mara Naselli is an editor and writer. Her work has appeared in Agni, The Kenyon Review, The Hudson Review, LARB, and elsewhere. She is a 2014 recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. “Drinks on the Porch” is her first audio collaboration. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her husband and two sons.

Gil Teixeira and Liza Barley are musicians, composers, sound artists, and music educators. Gil’s recent performances and installations have appeared at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (Portugal), the Barbican Center (UK), Lydgalleriet (Norway) and the Thrival Festival (USA). Liza has lived and worked all over the world, including ten years in Tanzania, East Africa, where she founded and directed Umoja Arts Project, a community art space for education, performance and empowerment. Gil and Liza live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with their two children.

Be sure and keep listening after the poem as contest editor Bailey Boyd and I take some time to marvel over it. Keep your ear to the wheel, and you will shortly be rewarded by Miller Aud-cast #31, coming soon. Thanks to Patricia Miller for her generous support for the Miller Audio Prize. Finally, TMR is open for submissions year-round, and we remain dedicated to discovering and publishing the best contemporary writing in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Be heard. Give us the opportunity to discover you: subscribe or submit your work today! Learn more here.