Showing results by narrator "Mara Wilson" in All Categories

Katrina Kelly might have eight million Instagram followers and a multipage IMDb listing, but she also has a completely stalled-out career and some major questions about her sexuality, which seems to be moving closer to raging lesbian every week. Yet maybe she can solve both of those issues at once. . . . After all, rebranding as a queer icon is a great way to jump-start an acting career.

Brooklyn-based aspiring writer Lucy Minninger has no trouble putting the comedy in her rom-coms. It's the romance part of the equation that's the problem. Former child star Rudy Riziero made his mark on some of the most popular kids' shows of the '90s. But that early success has pigeonholed him into a stand-up routine riffing on his past work, while the slick single life he envisioned was clearly a fantasy. He's actually ready for a relationship, if he could just find someone uninterested in who he used to be.

At four months old, Olivia Dahl was almost murdered. Driven by haunting visions, her mother became obsessed with the idea that Olivia was a changeling, and that the only way to get her real baby back was to make a trade with the dead women living at the bottom of the well. Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own...and for the first time, she hears the women whispering. Everyone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread.

Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for decades, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he's pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale—"for the algorithm"—Misha discovers that it's not that simple. As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what's right—before it's too late.

Marianne Blume knows she’s one of the stupid kids. After years of trying and trying and feeling like she's always failing, she has mastered the art of turning off her brain whenever questions or lectures arise. She gets by in school on a combination of luck, deflection, and charisma–that is, until she lands in the classroom of Mr. Garcia. To avoid flunking Mr. Garcia's class, Marianne joins her school's Quiz Quest team, hoping the move will ingratiate her to him, the team's coach.

From the outside, Isabel doesn’t seem to have much going on. It’s the summer after college graduation, and she’s moved back to her hometown, where she spends her days house-sitting, babysitting, working the front desk at a yoga studio, and hanging out with her friend Ellie. But on the inside, Isabel’s mind is always running, always analyzing, and right now, she’s trying hard to not let her thoughts give weight to boys. So when Isabel spots three baby skunks in the yard, their presence is not only a strangely thrilling break from the expected, it feels like a fortuitous sign from the universe.

From the editors and most popular writers of Reductress, the only satirical women’s magazine in publication, How to Stay Productive When the World is Ending is a collection of essays, how-tos, and “inspirational” phrases to help you laugh when staying both sane and productive in a commodified world feels impossible.

In 1947, during the early years of the Cold War, a field in Roswell, New Mexico was disturbed by a strange crash and smattering of debris. Some say the bodies of extraterrestrial beings were strewn across the ground, that a UFO had crashed there, and that the government was covering up the evidence in a massive conspiracy.

Up-and-coming screenwriter Beatrix Noel's dream project is finally a reality—her 90s-era script is in production. Less dreamy is the A-list actor in the starring role—none other than Rocco Riziero, who jilted Beatrix on New Year's Eve back in 1999. Without his celebrity status, the project would likely still be withering on her hard drive, but that doesn't mean Beatrix won't shame him at every opportunity on-set—especially when it becomes painfully obvious he doesn't even remember her.

Living peacefully in Vermont, Ryan Flannigan is shocked when a text from her oldest friend alerts her to a devastating news item. A controversial photo of her as a pre-teen has been found in the possession of a wealthy investor recently revealed as a pedophile and a sex trafficker—with an inscription to him from Ryan's mother on the back.

In New York City, newly single Caroline is stumbling her way through the recent implosion of her life. After a surprise breakup leaves her with no job, no apartment, and no backup plan, she’s unsure of what to do next. That is, until Caroline’s father, Leo, injures himself in a bad fall and asks her to move home to the Jersey Shore suburb she’d always been desperate to escape. But Leo doesn’t want his daughter to be his caretaker; he needs her to replace him as third baseman in his local men’s softball league.

In an unnamed coastal city filled with refugees, the mother of a displaced family calls out her daughter’s name as she wanders the cliffside road where the child once worked. The mother searches and searches until, spent from grief, she throws herself into the sea, leaving her other children behind. Bearing witness to the suicide is another woman—on a business trip, with a swollen belly that later gives birth to a stillborn baby. In the wake of her pain, the second woman remembers other losses—of a language, a country, an identity—when once, her family fled a distant war.

In the town of Night Vale, there's a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone's home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of the Woman is revealed, as she guides, haunts and sabotages an unfortunate Night Vale resident named Craig. In the end, her dealings with Craig and her history in 19th century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way.

At the edge of Chicago, nestled on the shores of Lake Michigan, there is a waystation for the dead. Every night, the newly-departed travel through the city to the Station, guided by its lighthouse. There, they reckon with their lives, before stepping aboard a boat to go beyond. Nera has spent decades watching her father – the ferryman of the dead – sail across the lake, each night just like the last. But tonight, something is wrong. The Station's lighthouse has started to flicker out.

​​​Yet Delta Wilding and her sister Bee are familiar with the peculiar. Raised by an eccentric father always on the hunt for the spectacular, they’re used to following weather patterns that twirl onto strange paths, a car that refuses to play any artist but one, and living in a sentient house with whims of its own. But when a mysterious boy falls from the stars into the woods behind the Wilding sisters’ farmhouse, nothing can prepare them for the extraordinary turn their lives are about to take.

Camp Damascus is the world's most effective gay conversion camp. Nestled in the Montana wilderness, parents send their children from around the world to experience the program's 100% success rate. But, this story isn't about that. This story is about Rose Darling, a God-fearing young lady who can't stop puking up flies. It's about her parents who ignore her visions of an eerie woman with sagging, pale skin who watches from the woods. It's about the desires deep inside Rose that don't seem to make any sense, and her waking nightmares that are beginning to feel more like memories.

Mona is the eccentric Lady of Easley House, running a bed and breakfast to keep her inherited English manor afloat. Wilfred is Mona's 26-year-old adopted son who spends his weekends in London, looking for love in the gay bars of Soho while pining after his pen pal, Michael 'Mouse' Tolliver. The current guest of the manor is Rhonda, a straight-laced southern belle who has left her abusive husband and has no idea what to do next, especially in the company of the free-spirited Mona and Wilfred.

Former childhood star and die-hard romantic Millie is bound for Key West from Washington DC, determined to fulfil a promise to her elderly best friend, Mrs Nash, by reuniting her ashes with her long-lost love. And if this grand gesture also happens to reassure a recently heartbroken Millie that believing in love isn't foolish, all for the better. When flights are grounded, Millie is forced to catch a ride with Hollis, an also-stranded near-stranger from her ex's grad school.

Fake spirit medium Gretchen Acorn is happy to help when her wealthiest client hires her to look into the unexplained phenomena preventing the sale of her bridge partner's struggling goat farm. Gretchen may be a complete fraud, but she's a beneficent one. So if 'cleansing' the historic property will help a nice old man get on with his retirement and put some much-needed cash in her pockets at the same time, who's she to say no? Of course, it turns out said bridge partner isn't quite who Gretchen imagined - Charlie Waybill is young, hot as hell, and extremely unconvinced by Gretchen.