Advertise on podcast: 6-minute Stories

– “Let’s face it. We’re lost.” Our speech is breathy, our lips are parched, and our tongues are like sandpaper.    Suzanne Cottrell, a Buckeye by birth, lives with her husband in rural Granville County, North Carolina, where she’s a member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network and the Taste Life Twice Writers. She’s the author of a hybrid book, Nature Calls Outside My Window, A Collection of Poems and Stories, and three poetry chapbooks (Kelsay Books). A retired teacher, outdoor enthusiast, and nature lover, she enjoys monthly misadventures with her best friend Deborah Forbes, her co-author of “Preserving Freedom.” Besides writing, Suzanne enjoys reading, researching, knitting, and Pilates. www.suzanneswords.com. Deborah Forbes, a retired educator, lives in eastern North Carolina with her husband and their Greater Swiss Mountain puppy. She enjoys fitness, gardening, needlework, reading, and video calls with her granddaughters. This is her first published piece, marking an exciting new chapter in her life. After retiring, Suzanne and Deborah rekindled their friendship, beginning monthly adventures. Suzanne’s encouragement and guidance have been instrumental in Deborah’s journey as a writer, offering patience, knowledge, and unwavering support. Though still learning, Deborah hopes this piece will be the foundation for more stories to come.

“Before Liberty”—again! Even through the misty lenses of history, they were not giants—neither are we. Randell Jones is an award-winning writer about the pioneer and Revolutionary War eras and North Carolina history. During 25 years, he has written 150+ history-based guest columns for the Winston-Salem Journal. His newest release is the expanded 2nd edition of the 2005 biography and travel guide, In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone (2024) and the related video, Boone’s America: Boone Trace, 1775. In 2017, he created the Personal Story Publishing Project and in 2019, the companion podcast, “6-minute Stories” to encourage other writers. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Visit RandellJones.com and BecomingAmerica250.com.

– “I’m Gus. Climb in; I’ll give you a ride.” The gravitational force pushed the seat straps into my shoulders and my stomach leaped. I couldn’t breathe. ‍ ‍ S. G. (Sandy) Benson lives in Warne, North Carolina, where she is a member of the North Carolina Writers Network-West. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, and she received awards from the Nebraska Press Women. She published her first book in 2021, My Mother’s Keeper: One Family’s Journey Through Dementia. Her second book, Dear Folks: Letters Home from World War II, 1943-1946 was released in 2024. She is working on a collection of autobiographic short stories, Girls Can’t Do That. Details at https://www.sandygbenson.com/ ‍ ‍

– I was unwilling to pour out good beer. I received their conversation and stories and momentary camaraderie as an exchange for the communal feast. Jeanne VanBuren, from Winston Salem, N.C., is a contributor once again to the Personal Story Publishing Project. She is working on a collection of her life adventures that come from being a widowed mom of five sons and growing up in a huge family of 12 siblings. She has been documenting life's travels and changes over 25 years, annually enjoyed in Christmas newsletters, with promises of creating the award-winning novel or screenplay. She is fine tuning the art of storytelling through writing with guidance from projects such as these. Personal stories express to her that we are all uniquely the same, just living out experiences in different ways.

– He wasn’t cheap; he just liked free things. He charged into snake-infested palmetto bushes with gusto, flinging balls out to the fairway like a crazed Walmart shopper on Black Friday.

– Going barefoot is fun…if you have shoes in your closet. Even in old age, Mama remembered hopelessly tugging down the faded blue dress, trying to hide her feet.

I had to hide my secret. Without my bubble, I would cease to live, just blow away like dust.

–He could not send others into dangers that he was not willing to face himself. The locals know that date. They honor it. They value it because it gave them freedoms that they live to this day. Words and their friends fill Ginny’s days. Sometimes they come in a well-organized dignified gathering so that Ginny can enquire about the spellings and meanings of the ones she hasn’t met before. Other times, however, they spill out and fly by quickly as if they flew out the window of a speeding car. Ginny likes to imagine what those words might have been, try out using them and guessing their derivations. A fascinating thing is that you can rearrange words over and over. And Ginny keeps doing that. Every time out comes a different story. Real stories. Ginny shares her little post office box on Sullivans Island, South Carolina with many words and hopes to keep on doing so.

– “If you turn around now, I’ll get you home.” A 1955 Chevy Nomad station wagon, her faded, chalky green body panels and acid-etched roof and hood left no doubt as to her ancestry.

– There are all kinds of marriages. Freedom is not cheap. And it is never “pure.” ‍ ‍ Emily Rosen lives in Boca Raton, Florida, where for over 20 years and until her 95th birthday, she instructed classes in memoir writing, publishing two anthologies of stories from her classes, and the book, Who Am I? (Emily celebrates her 99th birthday in April 2026.) For two decades and until the local weekly newspaper folded in 2021, she wrote the column “Everything's Coming Up Rosen.” Her travel and feature articles have appeared nationwide while her poetry has mostly languished in the pages of a fat notebook. Some of her poetry was rescued in 2024 from its “languishing” and turned into a short chapbook, Lingering over a L-o-ong Life: Selected Poems from My Journey (Available on Amazon.) Emily has worked as a copy writer, travel writer, columnist, elementary and community college teacher, mental health counselor, and owner of the now defunct “singing telegram” company, Witty Ditty. Her long-lived history puts her at an old Philco Radio listening to FDR’s “Fireside Chats.” (www.emilyrosen424.com) ‍ ‍

– The cows? The cows were a problem? I walked each check to the bursar's office, fully aware that the cost of my education was far greater than the value of the check. Phoenicia Miracle is originally from Harlan County, Kentucky, one of Appalachia's most recognizable communities. Through non-fiction short stories, Phoenicia features the region's people and place in authentic, narrowly focused plots. "Free from the Feds" centers on her Dad and his independent, self-reliant spirit. This piece benefited from recommendations made by her local writing group in Charleston, S.C. For several decades, Phoenicia worked in education and non-profit fundraising. Recently, she launched Shuck Beans, a podcast celebrating positive aspects of Southern Appalachian culture.

–  I am certain we had more fun. There was nothing like the feel of the wind slapping hair in our faces as we leaned out the window and yelled fervent taunts at the opposing cars. Vicki Easterly is a retired disability advocate living in Frankfort, Kentucky. Several of her stories have appeared in prior PSPP anthologies. Her book, Miracles in the Mundane, was selected for the annual Kentucky Book Festival. She was a finalist in the Poetry Unites Kentucky competition. Her nonfiction memoir was a winner in the 2025 Kentucky Monthly writing contest. She continues to write memoir, poetry, and children’s stories. She enjoys playing with her granddaughters, baking, and acting.

– Not so fast, my slowly dying friend! Out there my heart easily held you with the thrum of ancestral music, song, and dance, as consistent as air. A native fish-taco-loving San Diegan, Jo McElroy Senecal spent decades on the East Coast, blending professional stage and clown credits with various roles at magical powerhouses like The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp and The Big Apple Circus Clown Care (now Healthy Humor). Her NYTimes article hints at her passion for pediatric palliative care, which Jo continues to do along with adult hospice care in Charleston, South Carolina. Jo has been a member of the Lunas, six actors-turned-writers, for two decades. .Jo is a member of Sullivan’s Island’s Poe Library Memoir Group.

“Sister, that sounds like fortune telling. Isn’t that a sin?” What would happen to the rest of us who die swallowing pennies and buttons? But not wanting to be the rooster, I stay silent. Mary Alice Dixon treasures a tattered old index card on which her 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Elvira Friend, wrote the recipe for her Happiness Cake. Mary Alice, a multiple Pushcart nominee, won the North Carolina Writers’ Network Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition and is a past finalist for the NC Poetry Society Poet Laureate Award. Her chapbook, Snakeberry Mamas: Words from the Wild (Charlotte Lit Press, 2025), offers poems of Appalachian women and folkways. She lives in Charlotte, NC where she grows sunflowers in cow manure. Find her at www.maryalicedixon.com.

Freedom and scot-free or freeloader and free-for-all We acknowledge those blessings and those curses in the stories we tell.