life rattle show no. 1262

Presented on THURSDAY, june 27, 2013

Hosted by laurie kallis

featuring

"Fridays"
by Morgan Goodwin

&

"Clancy's"
and
"The Coolest Kid in School"
by Tyler McLaren

tonight's Show

Life Rattle Number 1262, features stories by two new Life Rattle writers: Morgan Goodwin and Tyler McLaren.

On tonight’s program we present the work of two young writers, both in university, both finding their way in the adult world of relationships, romantic and platonic. Not surprisingly, they each have written a story about unreturned romantic interest, one from each side of that unpleasant equation.

Our first writer, Morgan Goodwin, was born in 1991 in Edmonton, Alberta. Her parents moved to the United Arab Emirates when she was eight years old, and then moved the family to Qatar when she was fifteen. Morgan graduated high school and took two years off to live in Australia with friends before returning to Canada to study. All the years spent in warm climates have spoiled Morgan rotten, so that when winter rolls around each year, she wears a ridiculous amount of layers and complains constantly about the cold. Morgan Goodwin is currently doing her BA in Women and Gender Studies and Art History.

In her story, "Fridays," Morgan brilliantly captures “the state of awkwardness”—the acute awkwardness of a certain age, and the discomfitting awkwardness of having another’s attention bestowed upon you, when you don’t feel the same spark.

Tonight’s second reader, Tyler McLaren, says that he had a very boring birth in 1988 in Mississauga, Ontario. He is a fifth-generation Canadian and has lived his entire life in the same home with his sometimes happily-married parents and older brother. After struggling with his weight throughout high school, Tyler discovered a passion for weightlifting and amateur boxing, and occasionally even talks to girls. He went on to study criminology, philosophy and writing at university. Tyler hopes to graduate in the fall and eventually follow in his father’s footsteps and become a police officer. Before doing that, however, he says he’d like to take some time to work on a novel, or perhaps just binge drink and die young. Let's hope that he chooses to work on the novel!

Tyler also writes about unreturned romantic interest. But his take, brutal and honest, is from the other side.

In his first story tonight, "Clancy's" Tyler writes of frustration and disappointment in an absolutely flat manner that makes the story’s moment of climax, which takes place in a boxing ring, especially shocking.

In his second story, "The Coolest Kid in School," Tyler's theme moves away from a romantic relationship to a longterm friendship between two young men, growing even further apart.