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PODCAST

DEBORAH PRUM

Welcome to First Kiss and Other Cautionary Tales, a podcast where you can listen to observations on the quirkiness of life, hear short fiction read by a short person, and listen to book and movie reviews.

fiction comedy fiction

All Episodes

5:48

PODCAST-TASK-TV SERIES

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/10/24

PODCAST-TASK-TV SERIES If you’ve read very many of my movie reviews, you’ll know that I love dark movies with redemptive underpinnings. The seven-episode TV series, Task, fits the bill. This crime procedural was written by Brad Inglesby, who also penned Mare of Eastown. Both series do a brilliant job of capturing gritty blue-collar life. Mare of Eastown is a mystery that keeps viewers in suspense, eager to discover the big reveal at season’s finale. The plot of

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4:10

PODCAST-JOYRIDE-MOVIE REVIEW

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/09/25

PODCAST-JOYRIDE-MOVIE REVIEW I saw a snippet of Joyride on a long airplane flight. I found the film intriguing and always wanted to watch the whole movie, which I did last night with my fellow members of The Quirky Movie Club.The plot: Twelve-year-old Mully (played by Charlie Reid) is singing in a pub to raise money for a charity that benefits cancer patients, the disease that recently has taken his mother. While singing, Mully notices his reprobate father making

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4:32

PODCAST-SMOKE-TV SERIES

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/08/26

PODCAST-SMOKE-TV SERIES Smoke is a nine-episode Apple TV series based on Dennis Lehane’s book, Firebug. This thriller is dark and gritty, with its main theme being no one can escape the negative effects of a traumatic childhood. All the primary characters have backstories that have left them flawed. The writing is good and is often laced with a cynical and biting humor. As the story opens, we viewers learn that a serial arsonist has set more than

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6:32

PODCAST-NINE DAYS-MOVIE REVIEW

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/07/23

PODCAST-NINE DAYS MOVIE REVIEW I watched Nine Days a week ago. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Written and directed by Edson Oda, this surreal film is set in a clapboard house in the middle of a bleak desert. In this house, over the span of nine days, Will (Winston Duke) decides if a soul will be given the gift of life. If the answer is yes, that soul will be born on Earth with all the attributes they already possess. If they are not chosen, they cease to

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18:32

PODCAST-SLOW WALKING OUT OF BABYLON

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/06/20

PODCAST-SLOW WALKING OUT OF BABYLON *This originally appeared in Literally Stories, an international literary journal. One day, I meet Beelzebub standing ahead of me in line at the To God Be the Glory Soup Kitchen. Bathed in the glare of the fluorescent lights that flicker above us, the man glistens. Shards of hard white light reflect off his glimmering jacket, obscuring my view. But that one glimpse gives me the shivers. Our line inches closer to the table and

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4:56

PODCAST-DON’T ARRIVE BEFORE YOU GET THERE

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/06/17

PODCAST-DON'T ARRIVE BEFORE YOU GET THERE You can read this essay in Streetlight Magazine where it first appeared or down below.***My writing mantra used to be, Fine is good enough. I made sure whatever I sent out was the best it could be. However, I worked fulltime and was the primary caretaker for three children. When I finished a manuscript, I checked for issues, then hit “send” before anyone came down with croup, required a ride to music lessons, or needed

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5:05

PODCAST-INSTANT FAMILY-MOVIE REVIEW

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/05/24

PODCAST-INSTANT FAMILY-MOVIE REVIEW Straight out of college, I took a job that gave me a year to “de-institutionalize” a group of 17-year-old kids who had spent their lives bouncing from one placement to another. My task was to equip them with the survival skills they hadn’t learned during their formative years. I was supposed to accomplish this before they turned 18, at which point the state would dump them on the curb. These kids had heartbreaking

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4:42

PODCAST-PISTOL PACKIN’ MAMA

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/05/08

PODCAST-PISTOL PACKIN' MAMA Photo Courtesy of Taylor Brandon 0:00 / 0:00 Pistol Packin' Mama Ninety-five years ago, my grandfather, Gaetano Boccaccio named my mother after his favorite Longfellow poem, Evangeline. Despite raising five children on a barber’s salary during the Great Depression, Gaetano made sure my mother took ballet, tap, and had French horn lessons. In high school, she played the French horn so well that she

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6:43

PODCAST-THE GOD OF THE WOODS BOOK REVIEW

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/04/10

PODCAST-THE GOD OF THE WOODS BOOK REVIEW Liz Moore’s literary mystery is set in 1975 at a prestigious summer camp in the Adirondacks. This place requires coed campers (aged eight through teens) to participate in a minimally supervised survival exercise. They are placed in small groups, given scant supplies, then are sent into the deep forest overnight to fend for themselves. The last instructions they hear are, “Do not get in touch unless someone is dying.”What

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5:30

PODCAST-CODE RED

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/04/01

PODCAST-CODE RED Photo courtesy of Jason Leung 0:00 / 0:00 Code Red Have you ever seen Das Boot (1981), the movie about a German submarine? I don’t recommend it. I don’t remember much about it except a terrifying few moments of sirens blaring, lights flashing, and Germans screaming, “ALARM!” This scene convinced me I’d never want to set foot on a submarine. Sad to say, I feel as if I am in a Code Red Das Boot moment

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4:45

PODCAST-TIME OF THE CHILD-BOOK REVIEW

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/02/26

PODCAST-TIME OF THE CHILD-BOOK REVIEW The first half of Time of the Child by Niall Williams moves ever so slowly, taking its time to build a solid framework for the captivating events of the second half. By the middle of this novel, we readers are intimately acquainted with the village of Faha, its topography, history, climate, culture, spiritual leanings, its people and the fascinating ways they are connected. Even though there’s not a lot of action

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4:38

PODCAST-HIGH POTENTIAL-TV SERIES

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2025/02/19

PODCAST-HIGH POTENTIAL-TV SERIES Lately, I’ve been seeking low key, stress-free entertainment to keep my mind off reality. The television series High Potential fits the bill.Single mom, Morgan Gillory (played by Kaitlin Olson), is an exuberantly inappropriate savant whose antics get her in trouble with employers, past husbands, and the law, most specifically the LAPD, where she works as a janitor.The opening episode shows Morgan, music blasting into her air buds,

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6:22

PODCAST-IF I EVER DIE

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2024/11/29

PODCAST-IF I EVER DIE My father often started his sentences with the phrase, “If I ever die…” I never corrected him. I didn’t say, “Don’t you mean, when you die? You understand that dying is inevitable, right?”Instead, I wondered how he thought his life might play out. Did he believe he’d be carried off to heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah in the Bible? Probably not.My father’s pronouncement didn’t seem to be influenced by any theological theories. The

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4:42

PODCAST-DADDIO MOVIE REVIEW

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2024/11/20

PODCAST-DADDIO MOVIE REVIEW Daddio is shot in the interior of a yellow taxicab on its way from JFK Airport to an apartment in Manhattan, a trip that normally takes forty minutes, with traffic. However, on this late night, the trip stretches to one hour and forty minutes because of a car accident. Not only does the movie take place in the cab, but most of the shots are of Clark (Sean Penn) and his passenger whom he calls Girlie, (Dakota Johnson). A few times, Clark

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3:56

PODCAST-IRRESPONSIBLY GROWN POTATOES

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2024/11/14

PODCAST-IRRESPONSIBLY GROWN POTATOES 0:00 / 0:00 Irresponsibly Grown Potatoes Recently, as I walked through the produce section of a grocery store, I passed a sign that said, “Responsibly Grown Potatoes.” Naturally, I began to imagine “Irresponsibly Grown Potatoes.”Would they be grown by a chain-smoking farmer, one who flicks his carcinogenic ashes on the crop?Or, maybe they’d be raised by a tipsy fellow who stashes a hip flask in his

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5:52

PODCAST-WHEN TO CARE AND WHEN NOT TO

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2024/11/13

PODCAST-WHEN TO CARE AND WHEN NOT TO Photo Courtesy of Omar Salom 0:00 / 0:00 When to Care and When Not To (This essay originally appeared in Brevity.)My vocation is writing, but my avocation is painting, mostly portraits. I belong to a Facebook group dedicated to showing the work of artists who are trying to create loose watercolor paintings. Members range from people whose pieces could be displayed at a prestigious museum to

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2:30

PODCAST-GHOSTLIGHT-MOVIE REVIEW

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2024/10/31

PODCAST-GHOSTLIGHT-MOVIE REVIEW On the recommendation of my friend, I watched the Sundance, indie film, Ghostlight. Released in the summer of 2024, this movie hasn’t enjoyed a lot of buzz, which is unfortunate because it’s a gem. I’m not going to say much about the plot because it unfolds in a nuanced way. I don’t want to reveal anything that would spoil the process. The film is an excellent depiction of a family processing a difficult loss. However, it’s

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4:01

PODCAST-MY LIFE IN CARS

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2024/10/25

PODCAST-MY LIFE IN CARS My father gave me my first car, a 1965 Ford Fairlane. Although I had my driver’s license, I didn’t know out how to back up, park, or merge. To be honest, I couldn’t even start the car. I’d always flood the engine.How did I get a license? The day of the exam, I aced the written section, but failed the road part. I couldn’t parallel park; nor could I negotiate a K-turn. For some reason, the examiner said, “Oh hell,” and passed me anyway.That

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4:07

PODCAST-WE ARE ALL IN IT TOGETHER

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2024/10/17

PODCAST-WE ARE ALL IN IT TOGETHER Photo Courtesy of Ryan Ledbetter-Unsplash 0:00 / 0:00 We Are All In It Together One morning, as I drove down a narrow country lane in Charlottesville, I spotted an African-American child, about eleven, perched on a small pink bike. He sat in the middle of the road, precisely at the center of a blind curve.I thought, If a driver speeds around that curve, the child will be killed. I

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2:20

THE KEY TO FINDING INSPIRATION-CONVERSATION WITH SUE...

DEBORAH PRUM ·

2024/10/11

THE KEY TO FINDING INSPIRATION--CONVERSATION WITH SUE CUNNINGHAM ON LIVING POETRY Recently, poet and therapist, Susan Cunningham, interviewed me on her podcast, Living Poetry. We talked about how to find inspiration by paying attention, everywhere and all the time!In addition to sharing lots of good laughs, we touched on these topics:*Redeeming the pain of grief by channeling the energy of the emotion into creative endeavors. *Realizing that failing to forgive can

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34 results

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