UFR Weekly Newsletter #5: Auction Block

[David Cotrone]

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our new layout and let us know what you think. We’re still making some adjustments, but we’re pretty excited about it. Also, we now have space to advertise. If you know anyone associated with an organization, small business or small press looking to get their name out, feel free to spread the word: Our rates are cheap. (Please know we’re not money-grubbing; any revenue goes toward site maintenance and funds to print an anthology, among other UFR projects.)

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My New Boyfriend by Michelle Reale

Two poems by Egan Millard

Where Shall We Meet? by Andy Roe

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In April 2009, I went to a lecture: “All Because of the Color of His Skin: Race and its Relations to the Art of Bob Dylan.” Here, Boston University’s Chris Ricks spent a lot of time talking about one song in particular, No More Auction Block. He told us to close our eyes and listen as the music piped through a speaker hanging from the ceiling. No more auction block for me, no more, no more. A lot of people in the audience were alone. Some had probably only wandered in. No more auction block for me, many thousand gone.

Someone asked the professor, “How can he write this song from an African American’s point of view? What’s his point of entry?”

“It’s simpler than you might think,” Chris said. “We’re all on an auction block, are we not? Whether it’s someone else’s or our own.”

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Upcoming in UFR:

Interviews with Tom Grimes and Ryan Scott Oliver

A new column by Sara Lippman called Read it Loud: Notes from Storytime

A new logo

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Thank you for reading each other’s stories, for contributing, for submitting, for your support. If you have time, suggest our facebook page to your friends, tweet about us, forward this message to someone you love. That is, after all, why I’ve sent it to you.

Be well,

David