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PODCAST

A Literary Cornucopia

Luisa Morales-Molina

A cozy literary nook where poems and essays wander in, tiny stories flutter by, author bios come alive, and bookish curiosities await discovery.

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All Episodes

00:17:31

Episode 145: The Brothers Grimm and "The Robber...

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/12/30

"Once upon a time there was a miller who had a beautiful daughter. When she came of age he wished that she was provided for and well married. He thought, "If a respectable suitor comes and asks for her hand in marriage, I will give her to him."Not long afterward a suitor came who appeared to be very rich, and because the miller could find no fault with him, he promised his daughter to him.The girl, however, did not like him as much as a bride should like her bridegroom. She did not trust him, and

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00:06:33

Episode 144: J.R.R. Tolkien's "Letters from Father...

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/12/16

When we think of J.R.R. Tolkien, we usually think big: quests, wars, and vast imaginary landscapes. But one of the most revealing windows into his creative life comes from something much smaller—his Christmas letters to his children.For more than twenty years, Tolkien wrote as Father Christmas, describing life at the North Pole in words and pictures. These letters were playful, sometimes chaotic, and deeply imaginative, filled with Elves, Goblins, and the ever-troublesome North Polar Bear. They

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00:11:13

Epsidoe 143: Hans Christian Anderson: "The Little...

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/12/02

She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing.She crept along trembling with cold and hunger--a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing!What makes The Little Match Girl so striking is its simplicity. A young girl wanders the snowy streets on New Year’s Eve, trying to sell matches. She’s cold, starving, and afraid to return home. Every time she lights

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00:08:32

Episode 142: James Baldwin: "Why He Carried the Turkey"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/11/18

James Baldwins' story "Why He Carried The Turkey" is taken from Fifty Famous People - A Book of Short Stories, 1912."Well, that is lucky," said the old man, smiling. "I happen to be going that way, and I will carry your turkey, if you will allow me.""That is John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States. He is one of the greatest men in our country," was the answer.The young gentleman was surprised and ashamed. "Why did he offer to carry my

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00:09:53

Episode 141: Luisa Morales: "The Wine Bottle: A Quest"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/11/04

She descended into the basement, hunting for the wine her uncle had hidden there. A vintage from 1847. November, no less. Her birthday month. A coincidence? A grand reserve, priceless beyond imagination.The stairs looked ready to betray her. Narrow. Uneven. Crumbling. Why, why had she worn heels today? Each step felt like a gamble. The railing, thin and wobbly, seemed more dangerous than helpful. In a quest story the ultimate goal can be a physical object, a place, a person, or an internal change,

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00:08:20

Episode 140: Luisa Morales: "The Lonely Trail: In...

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/10/21

"It was not too long ago that he felt free as a bird. He always had the choice of doing whatever he wanted to do or wherever he wanted to go. No one could stop him, until that one day. He couldn’t stop thinking of the day he met Angela. The first time he laid eyes on her, he thought he was seeing an angel in the flesh. Was it a coincidence that her name was Angela?"As a fan of mysteries I enjoy writing mysterious narratives. This is just one of a few that I've written.

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00:13:37

Episode 139: Shirley Jackson: "The Witch"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/10/07

“A big old ugly witch and I told her to go away and she went away,” the little boy went on, in a quiet narrative to himself, “she came and said, ‘I’m going to eat you up,’ and I said, ‘no, you’re not,’ and I chased her away, the bad old mean witch.”Although very short (just over 1,400 words), there are enough dark elements in this Shirley Jackson story to unsettle most readers. Themes in this story include parental inattention, boredom, imagination, witchcraft, innocence and its possible

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00:11:36

Episode 138: O. Henry: "Hearts and Hands"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/09/23

"It's Miss Fairchild," he said, with a smile. "I'll ask you to excuse the other hand; "it's otherwise engaged just at present."He slightly raised his right hand, bound at the wrist by the shining "bracelet" to the left one of his companion. The glad look in the girl's eyes slowly changed to a bewildered horror. The glow faded from her cheeks. Her lips parted in a vague, relaxing distress. "Hearts and Hands" is a short story which centers on a chance encounter on a train between a young woman, Miss

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00:05:40

Episode 137: Katharine Brush: "Birthday Party"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/09/09

"It became obvious that this was special occasion and that she had planned a surprise." "Birthday party" is a brief, observational story about a married couple in a restaurant where the wife attempts a public birthday surprise for her husband. Katharine Brush's short stories have been compared, in their lack of sentiment and their sharpness, with those of F. Scott Fitzgerald, her more famous contemporary.

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00:07:48

Episode 136: Anton Chekov: "A Nincompoop"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/08/26

"I asked her pardon for the cruel lesson and, to her great surprise, gave her eighty rubles. She murmured her little "merci" several times and went out. I looked after her and thought: "How easy it is to crush the weak in this world!" ("A Nincompoop)" Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) was a Russian playwright and master of the modern short story, known for his laconic precision in probing the hidden motives of his characters.

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00:08:12

Episode 135: Gwendolyn Brooks: "Home"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/08/12

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) was an influential 20th-century poet and the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. Her short story "Home," later incorporated into her novel Maud Martha, centers around a family's anxiety and eventual relief as they await the outcome of a bank loan application.

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00:14:42

Episode 134: Shirley Jackson: "Charles"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/07/29

With the third week of kindergarten Charles was an institution in our family; the baby was being a Charles when she cried all afternoon; Laurie did a Charles when he filled his wagon full of mud and pulled it through the kitchen; even my husband, when he caught his elbow in the telephone cord and pulled the telephone and a bowl of flowers off the table, said, after the first minute, “Looks like Charles.” Laurie's parents were worried that Charles might be a bad influence on their little boy.Shirley

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00:11:41

Episode 133: James Thurber: "The Princess and the Tin...

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/07/15

Once upon a time, in a far country, there lived a King whose daughter was the prettiest princess in the world. Her eyes were like the cornflower, her hair was sweeter than the hyacinth, and her throat made the swan look dusty. And so begins James Thurber's unusual fairy tale. The stories of the journalist-cartoonist are deceptively simple and charming in style yet unflinchingly clear-sighted in their appraisal of human foibles.James Grover Thurber was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist,

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00:15:16

Episode 132: Liam O'Flaherty: "The Sniper"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/07/01

His face was the face of a student, thin and ascetic, but his eyes had the cold gleam of the fanatic. "The Sniper" is a powerful and concise short story by the Irish writer Liam O'Flaherty, first published in 1923. It's set in Dublin during the Irish Civil War (1922-1923), a conflict that pitted Irish citizens against each other over the Anglo-Irish Treaty.Liam O’Flaherty (1896–1984) was an Irish novelist and short story writer, considered to be a leading figure of the Irish Renaissance. His works

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00:05:02

Episode 131: Mona Gardner: "The Dinner Party"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/06/17

A spirited discussion springs up between a young girl who insists that women have outgrown the jumping-on-a-chair-at-the-sight-of-a-mouse era and a colonel who says that they haven’t.“A woman’s unfailing reaction in any crisis,” the colonel says, “is to scream. And while a man may feel like it, he has that ounce more of nerve control than a woman has. And that last ounce is what counts.”There has always been a debate on man versus woman under a crisis. In "The Dinner Party" we can draw our own

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00:07:31

Episode 130: Leonard Q Ross: "The Path Through the...

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/06/03

Leo Rosten (April 11, 1908- Feb. 19, 1997) was a Polish-born American author and social scientist best known for his popular books on Yiddish and for his comic novels featuring the immigrant night-school student Hyman Kaplan.He wrote "The Path Through the Cemetery" under the pen name of Leonard Q, Ross. In the story, the lieutenants' challenge sets into motion Iván's attempt to master his fear.

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00:11:32

Episode 129: John Collier: "The Chaser"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/05/20

"Oh dear, no," said the old man. "It would be no good charging that sort of price for a love potion, for example. Young people who need a love potion very seldom have five thousand dollars. Otherwise they would not need a love potion."John Collier (1901-1980) was a British-born author and screenwriter, primarily known for his darkly humorous and often macabre short stories. "The Chaser" remains a popular example of Collier's talent for crafting concise, impactful

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00:10:50

Episode 128: Bertrand Russell: "How to Grow Old"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/05/06

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician, and social reformer, known as a founder of analytic philosophy and a Nobel Prize winner.His early life was marked by tragedy, losing his parents, sister, and grandfather by age six, after which his grandmother cared for him and his brother. In the essay "How to Grow Old," Russell gives the reader advice on growing old (but it's really more on "how not to grow old").

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00:12:45

Episode 127: Quentin Reynolds: "A Secret for Two"

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/04/21

"No ... no .. ." Jacques said softly. "None of us knew. Only one knew--a friend of his named Joseph ... It was a secret, I think, just between those two."The author of "A Secret for Two," Quentin James Reynolds, was an American journalist and World War II war correspondent. As an associate editor at Collier's Weekly from 1933 to 1945, Reynolds averaged 20 articles a year. He also published 25 books.

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00:13:14

Episode 126: Eva-Lis Wuorio: "You Can't Take It With...

A Literary Cornucopia ·

2025/04/07

Uncle Basil had heard all the words they called him because he wasn't as deaf as he made out. He knew he was a mangy, stingy, penny-pinching screw, scrimp, scraper, pinchfist, hoarder, and curmudgeon (just to start with). There were other words, less gentle, he'd also heard himself called. He didn't mind. What galled him was the oft repeated warning, "You can't take it with you." After all, it was all his.Eva-Lis Wuorio' s work was principally for children and young

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