A Grain of Sand

Series produced by Charles McGuigan

Caption: PRX default Series image
PRX default Series image 

Weekly series featuring real stories that spring from the well of memory. Every narrative illuminates our shared human experience. At least that's the hope of producer Charles McGuigan.

I want to achieve the effect of a short story but told in a way that makes the listener feel part of evolving action.I love stories and believe narrative that flows directly from the well of experience illuminates like arc light, strikes with the force of iron.


156 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Caption: John LaFratta, Credit: Charles McGuigan
John LaFratta didn’t start practicing law until he was in his thirties. He had studied business and English literature as an undergraduate, and wor...

  • Added: Mar 18, 2024
  • Length: 27:06
Caption: John LaFratta, Credit: Charles McGuigan
John LaFratta is a defense attorney in both civil and criminal cases. Over the years he has represented clients charged with every conceivable crim...

  • Added: Mar 11, 2024
  • Length: 27:47
Caption: The Arthurs performed from their front porch in Bellevue., Credit: Charles McGuigan
The Covid shut down occurred almost four years ago to the day. This piece includes On the Front Lines, with a guy by the name of Leigh Carter, a nu...

  • Added: Feb 27, 2024
  • Length: 23:28
Caption: Abigail Spanberger, Credit: Rebecca D'Angelo
Abigail Spanberger swore an oath at age twenty-four “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and d...

  • Added: Feb 24, 2024
  • Length: 21:33
Caption: John LaFratta, Credit: Charles McGuigan
John LaFratta, a law practitioner for many years often working as a court-appointed attorney, has just told me about a singular case in a neighbori...

  • Added: Feb 10, 2024
  • Length: 27:11
Caption: John LaFratta, Credit: Charles McGuigan
John LaFratta didn’t start practicing law until he was in his thirties. He had studied business and English literature as an undergraduate, and wor...

  • Added: Jan 19, 2024
  • Length: 26:38
Caption: The House, Credit: Catherine Rose McGuigan
Kimberly had talked about her house as if it was a person, her best friend as she put it. Stephanie saw her house as a metaphor for her life, falli...

  • Added: Nov 10, 2023
  • Length: 24:53
Caption: House, Credit: Catherine Rose McGuigan
This is part one of The House. It’s about that place where we do some of our living and all of our sleeping, Where we eat. Raise children or pets....

  • Added: Nov 06, 2023
  • Length: 24:02
Caption: ILLUSTRATION, Credit: by Doug Dobey
More ghostly encounters of a Third Kind with a woman named Sarah who seems to have something of a shine.

  • Added: Oct 31, 2023
  • Length: 25:23
Caption: Artwork, Credit: by Doug Dobey
Just in time for Halloween. Two women share their stories of ghostly encounter. Some of them will tingle your spine.

  • Added: Oct 23, 2023
  • Length: 27:26
Caption: Frank transporting his first group of Ukrainian passengers. , Credit: Frank Pichel
In the first part of this story we heard from Uliana Bazar who, with her husband, Matthew Propert, left their home in Ukraine five hours before th...

  • Added: Oct 16, 2023
  • Length: 24:18
Caption: The Houlihans, Credit: Rebecca D'Angelo
This week we encounter the supernatural with Beth and Chris Houlihan.

  • Added: Oct 12, 2023
  • Length: 26:58
Caption: Self portrait., Credit: Uliana Bazar
Four years ago, Uliana Bazar, along with her spouse, Matthew Propert, left their home in the United States and flew to Ukraine, the land of her bir...

  • Added: Sep 29, 2023
  • Length: 27:20
Caption: PRX default Piece image
A piece of original fiction I wrote several years ago.

  • Added: Aug 17, 2023
  • Length: 26:50
Caption: State Senator Jennifer McClellan, Credit: Charles McGuigan
This is part 1 of A Monumental Change about how the brutal murder of George Floyd has propelled the entire country forward toward a more perfect Un...

  • Added: Apr 14, 2023
  • Length: 26:48
Caption: PRX default Piece image
Sammy Marques, descended from Portuguese seamen, was expatriated from his native America by his missionary father. When he returned stateside he ma...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2023
  • Length: 27:56
Caption: On the National Mall, Credit: Charles McGuigan
From where we stood, in every direction, as far as the eye could see, there were people holding placards above their heads, all of them moving, som...

  • Added: Jan 23, 2023
  • Length: 25:44
Caption: Rev. Pat helps unload food from the FeedMore van
Gurus and evangelists, swamis and proselytizers, new agers and mystics—they immediately arouse my suspicions and raise my hackles as I prepare for ...

  • Added: Aug 08, 2022
  • Length: 27:49
Caption: Poet Rita Dove, Credit: Fred Viebahn
Pulitzer-prize winning poet Rita Dove.

  • Added: Jul 28, 2022
  • Length: 24:10
Caption: Page Wilson
Page Wilson was a singer and a song writer and host of the most popular music show in Richmond, Virginia. Called the Out of the Blue Radio Revue, i...

  • Added: Apr 12, 2021
  • Length: 27:53