life rattle show no. 1321

Presented on THURSDAY, november 6, 2014

hosted by laurie kallis

featuring

"Making Moves"
and
"Scarface"
by Shane Driver

tonight's Show

Life Rattle No. 1321 features two stories by Shane Driver, inaugural recipient of the Arnie Achtman Award.

After a difficult youth, Shane Driver decided he wanted more out of life and enrolled at college. He earned a business diploma and then, deciding to follow his father’s path, pursued a marketing diploma and a career in sales. His studies were interrupted when his father died unexpectedly. Work in sales left Driver uninspired. He resolved not to spend his life working in a career he hated, as his father had, and enrolled in university, where he found his passion—writing. Shane Driver is now pursuing a career doing what he loves.

I’m excited to introduce Shane Driver as the inaugural recipient of the Arnie Achtman Award. When we first met Shane two years ago, we recognized that he was a very talented writer, with a potential collection of stories deserving of publication. We have encountered writers of this calibre in the past. This time, we decided that we needed to do something to help bring these stories to a broader audience. And thus began our fundraising campaign, originally called the Single Author Collection Award.

Thanks to many loyal “Life Rattlers” our dream to introduce a publication award became a reality this year, and we have officially named it the Arnie Achtman Award. The “awarded prize” is the publication of a new writers collection of non-fiction narratives.

Tonight, we will hear two stories from Shane Driver’s collection, Broken, which will be launched at this year’s Totally Unknown Writers Festival on November 11.

The stories in Broken provide a sometimes brutal account of a troubled teen, who after facing the harsh consequences of reckless actions and the devastating loss of loved ones, matures into a responsible young man, left to deal with the fallout of his early choices.

We have chosen tonight’s featured stories as an introduction to Shane’s writing because they offer a fine representation of two of the strongest themes in Shane’s work. Just as life does, Driver stacks the absurdly funny right next to the gut wrenching, and leaves us reeling.

Shane Driver’s heart-rending honesty and willingness to show his character’s—and by extension our own—deepest conflicts and vulnerabilities, makes each word ring true.

In "Making Moves" we meet a young man heading off to college in another city. We learn that this is a turn-around point in the narrator’s life. After a moving parting scene with his father and girlfriend, the narrator thinks, “It’s time to do what I do—make myself known.” He strips down to his wife beater, places headphones over his ears, and bumping his head to the tunes of The Alkaholiks, he strides onto campus. But a chance brief encounter reminds him of how much he is leaving behind as he takes this big step forward in life. .

"Scarface," taking place shortly after “Making Moves,” sets us down at a college house party. After our narrator stands up to a behemoth of a “maybe” doorman, a mellow party turns into a bloody spectacle.

Please Note: Tonight's story contains adult subject matter and language. Listener discretion is advised.