journey story

Journey: Band Members and History

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For over 40 years, Journey has been one of the greatest classic rock bands of all time. The band has released 23 albums and 43 singles since 1975 and has reached worldwide album sales totaling more than 75 million. 

But how exactly did Journey come to be? The San Francisco band got its start in 1973. Santana's former road manager, Herbie Herbert, recruited two of that band's members (Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon) and former Steve Miller Band bassist Ross Valory to form the Golden Gate Rhythm Section—the band that later became Journey.

The original Journey band members included Gregg Rolie on vocals and the keyboard, Neal Schon on guitar and vocals, George Tickner on guitar, Ross Valory on bass and vocals, and Prairie Prince on drums. 

Their first album was released in 1975 and established the band's jazz-influenced progressive rock sound. After several personnel changes, Steve Perry signed on as lead vocalist, launching the band's greatest period of commercial success from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. Many people remember Steve as the face of the band.

The Best Album

The group's seventh album, Escape,  produced three hit singles and sold over 9 million copies. In addition to its commercial success, the album also received critical acclaim that has eluded them through most of their existence. Arguably, the most popular song put out by Journey is "Don't Stop Believin'." Originally released in 1981, the song became a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, debuting at No. 9. The song has been used in near countless films in American TV and cinema including  Monster, Glee , the season finale of  The Sopranos , and  Rock of Ages. 

Journey Band Members Over the Years

In 2005, the band (along with original members Schon and Valory) marked its 30th anniversary with the release of its 23rd album,  Generations  and an anniversary tour, at times featuring some of the many former members of the group. In December 2006, Jeff Scott Soto replaced Steve Augeri as lead vocalist. Soto had been filling in for several months after Augeri was sidelined with a chronic throat infection. Soto was replaced a few months later by Arnel Pineda , vocalist for a Filipino cover band who was hired as a result of a video he posted on YouTube.

The band has been on a journey as it has evolved from past members including Steve Perry to its current members. 

Past Journey band members include the following:

• Steve Perry (1977-1998)
• Aynsley Dunbar (1974-1978)
• Robert Fleischman (1977)
• Steve Smith (1978-1985, 1995-1998)
• Randy Jackson (1985-1987)
• Steve Augeri (1998-2006)

Current Journey band members:

• Neal Schon - guitar (1973-present)
• Jonathan Cain - keyboards (1980-present)
• Ross Valory - bass (1973-1985, 1995-present)
• Arnel Pineda - vocals (2007-present)
• Deen Castronovo - drums (1998-present)

Fun Facts About Journey

• Journey music has been part of the animated TV shows South Park and Family Guy, and movies Caddyshack and BASEketball.
• The group received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005 and was inducted into the San Francisco Music Hall of Fame in 2003.
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BOOKS JOURNEY

A 2014 Caldecott Honor Book

A lonely girl draws a magic door on her bedroom wall and through it escapes into a world where wonder, adventure, and danger abound. Red marker in hand, she creates a boat, a balloon, and a flying carpet that carry her on a spectacular journey toward an uncertain destiny. When she is captured by a sinister emperor, only an act of tremendous courage and kindness can set her free. Can it also lead her home and to her heart’s desire? With supple line, luminous color, and nimble flights of fancy, author-illustrator Aaron Becker launches an ordinary child on an extraordinary journey toward her greatest and most exciting adventure of all.

“Though Becker has plenty of experience as an artist for films, “Journey” is his first book, and it’s a masterwork.” — New York Times Book Review

Click here to order JOURNEY from bookshop.org and help support independent booksellers across the country!

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© 2013-2024 Aaron Becker All Rights Reserved.

8 Epic Journeys in Literature

Reading Lists

Micheline aharonian marcom, author of "the new american," recommends quest stories.

The journey story, where the hero must venture out into the world for reasons not necessarily entirely of his/her own devising, is likely as old as recorded literature.

Of course the journey story can also be understood as an allegory of the self, or soul, and its evolution in a lifetime, for storytelling is always an act, as Ann Carson says, “of symbolization.” In this sense, the journey story not only narrates the material events of a life, but also the interior transformations an individual undergoes.

As I wrote my seventh novel, The New American —which takes up the story of a young Guatemalan American college student at UC Berkeley, a DREAMer who is deported to Guatemala and his journey back home to California—I thought a lot about these kinds of archetypal stories in imaginative literature. Here are a few of my favorites. 

The Epic of Gilgamesh, or He Who Saw Deep translated by Andrew George

The epic poem, one of oldest works of world literature, was composed in its earliest versions over 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia and written in Babylonian cuneiform on clay tablets. Much of the reason it is lesser known than the younger works of Homer is because the epic itself was not rediscovered until 1853, cuneiform was not deciphered until 1857, and it wasn’t well translated until 1912. Fragments of the story on stone tablets continue to be found in modern-day Turkey, Iraq and Syria.

The basic story follows the King Gilgamesh of Uruk (modern-day Warka, Iraq) and his friendship with the wild man Enkidu. They undergo various battles including fighting and defeating the bull of heaven. Later, upon Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh journeys to the edge of the earth where he goes in search of the secret of eternal life and, not finding it, returns home to Uruk having in some manner, in spite of life’s sorrows and travails, made peace with his own mortality.

“Ever do we build our households, ever do we make our nests, ever do brothers divide their inheritance, ever do feuds arise in the land. Ever the river has risen and brought us the flood, the mayfly floating on the water. On the face of the sun its countenance gazes, then all of sudden nothing is there!”

The Odyssey by Homer

Written down, along with the Iliad , soon after the invention of the Greek alphabet around the 8 th -century BCE, the epic poem sings of Odysseus’ return home after the Trojan War and his encounters with monsters, the Sirens, shipwrecks, and captivity by Calypso on her island until he finally makes it back to Ithaca. Because the poem survived more or less continuously until modern times and has had influence in so many cultures for millennia (unlike the more recently rediscovered and older Gilgamesh ), there’s no need to reiterate a narrative which so many of us already know, either directly or through the many stories the poem has inspired and influenced. One of my favorite moments comes in Book 14 when Odysseus finally makes it to Ithaca after ten years of traveling and, disguised as a beggar, seeks out Eumaeus the swineherd, who, not recognizing Odysseus, asks “But come…tell me of thine own sorrows, and declare me this truly, that I may know full well. Who art thou among men, and from whence?” These lines have seemed to me to in some way encapsulate some of storytelling’s most basic questions across the ages. 

The Divine Comedy by Dante

Written after Dante had been sent into exile from his beloved city of Florence, the Commedia tells of the pilgrim’s descent into hell, his travel through purgatory, and eventually his ascent to paradise, with the Roman poet Virgil as his first guide, and later his beloved, Beatrice. The Commedia —the adjective “divine” in the title wasn’t added for several hundred years—begins with “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita/mi ritrovai per una selva oscura” which can be translated from the Italian to “Midway through the road of our life I found myself in a dark wood.” This is another line from literature that has haunted me for years, not only for the allegorical  “dark wood” many of us might at times find ourselves lost in, but at Dante’s strange use of the word “our” even though the Commedia will tell of one pilgrim’s journey and search for the right way. The first person plural points, I think, to the common story of seeking meaning, understanding, and wisdom, and how in the case of this beautiful work, the company of literature with its manner of encoding in the song of language (even if you don’t speak Italian, read a few lines out loud and you can hear the poem’s rhythms) is a blessing in any reader’s life’s journey. 

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, translated by John Rutherford

Alfonso Quixano has read too many chivalric romances (popular in 15 th and 16 th -century Europe), has gone mad from his reading, and now confuses reality with fantasy: he imagines himself the knight-errant Don Quixote and he determines to set off in search of adventure. From that premise, we journey through the countryside with our knight errant and his squire, Sancho Panza, as they slay giants (windmills) and defend the honor of his lady-love, Dulcinea del Toboso (a neighboring farm girl), who doesn’t actually ever appear in the story. In addition to being an amusing, laugh-out-loud tour de force of strange encounters as the pair travel across La Mancha, the reality of the violence, ignorance, and venality—not of Don Quixote, but of the society in which he lives in 17 th -century Spain—of corrupted clergy, greedy merchants, deluded scholars, and the like, is on full display. To this day, Don Quixote continues to reveal the joyous role of reading in our lives, how fictions make for all kinds of realities, and how very often it is the fool who sees the truth.

“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams—this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness—and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

Tayeb Salih’s mid 20th-century masterpiece is narrated by an unnamed young scholar who returns from England to his village on the Nile after seven years of study abroad and encounters a mysterious newcomer, Mustafa Sa’eed, who also lived for many years in the north. The novel takes up the many complexities and legacies of colonialism in post 1960s Sudan, the difficulties of encroaching modernity, the tragedy of Sa’eed’s life in England, and the intricate web of communal relationships in a traditional village. It is some of the women characters, especially the irreverent and bawdy storyteller, Bint Majzoub, very much like a storyteller out of the Nights , who regales the elder male listeners with bawdy tales, that has stayed in my imagination since I first read the book a decade ago. But it is the style of the book, its formal narrative complexity and interplay, the beauty of its prose, its deep and complex interrogation of the self in the world, that have made it a book I continue to return to. “How strange! How ironic! Just because a man has been created on the Equator some mad people regard him as a slave, others as a god. Where lies the mean?”

The Bear by William Faulkner

The journey here is into the woods to hunt Old Ben, the last remaining brown bear of his kind and stature in the quickly diminishing woods of Mississippi at the turn of the 19 th -century. As with so much of Faulkner’s work, the writing is sublime, the form strange, the land is a character, and we witness the maw of industrial capitalism as it reduces everything—animals, the land, people—to a ledger of profits and loss. The last scene of the illiterate woodsman, Boon, in a clearing—the land by then has been sold, Old Ben is dead, and loggers will imminently cut the remainder of the old woods down—sitting beneath a lone tree with squirrels running up and down its trunk screaming “They’re mine!” has long haunted me.  

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Italian writer Italo Calvino’s fantastical novel is about the imagined conversations between the 13th-century Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, and the Tartar Emperor Kublai Khan of the cities Polo has seen during his travels. The book, however, is mostly made up of descriptions of cities—fantastical forays not into any visible or historical cities, but imaginary invented ones: both ones that might have been and could be, and ones which perhaps did or do exist but are now transformed by the lens of story and distilled to their strange often wondrous essences. Calvino reminds us in this glorious book how the stories we tell greatly shape our thinking, our cultural formations, our views. “You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.”

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

When I think of Hurston I recall her description in her essay “ How It Feels to Be Colored Me ” of the “cosmic Zora” who would emerge at times as she walked down Seventh Avenue, her hat set at a certain angle, who belonged “to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.” In Hurston’s extraordinary novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God , the eternal and timeless qualities of imaginative literature are on full display in the very specific groundings of place and time, spoken language and culture. The book opens with Janie Crawford recounting her life story to her friend Pheoby upon her return to the all-Black town of Eatonville, Florida. The book, set in the 1930s, follows Janie’s narration of her early life, her three marriages (the last for love), and the many trials she undergoes including the death of her beloved during her travels, before she finally returns changed, wiser, independent. “You got tuh go there tuh know there…Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.”

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Journey Wiki

Journey's 12th Anniversary Poster Winner! Congratulations Kbak! Join players around the world in celebration of Journey's 12th Anniversary fan event on March 13th!

• View history

Journey is an adventure game developed by ThatGameCompany and released by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2012 on PlayStation 3, as a Sony Exclusive title.

Due to its ongoing success, it got ported to several platforms:

• See Release dates

Since the very start, the game had a very strong community, people that fell in love with the game and playing it all over again. Over the years, they discovered many interesting things and are still playing it. Journey is a very special game, it's best enjoyed "blind", with no knowledge about it before playing it for the first time.

The Journey effect [ ]

"According to Chen (one of the founders of TGC), the company focuses on creating video games that provoke emotional responses from players." [1]

You will be thrown into a scary, yet, wonderful new world, with no idea who you are or what you're doing, besides one singular goal.

Even worse: there is no guidance, no helpful hints to bail you out: you have to find out everything by yourself and make your way through the what seems like an endless desert.

The stunning visuals (best enjoyed on a big screen, played with a controller) and the Grammy nominated soundtrack will do their part to cause a wide variety of emotions.

Beware: Journey is a beautiful game, but it often manages to cause emotions like despair, confusion, fear or sadness too. This is part of the experience.

Journey is all about empathy and respect. Upon meeting a figure like you, you are forced to make decisions. Sometimes, they want to go further or go on an endless exploration. If both are stubborn, they will part ways.

Just like finding a new friend in life, you might walk for a while, lose contact or stay friends until the very end. You will enjoy the time spent together and probably respect each others flaws.

Journey is also a game about sand, cloth, and various creatures you meet on the way.

The more you play Journey you will discover slight differences or see things, that seem new. It may be hard to describe, but here are some expressions from longterm fans of Journey :

• Does this look different now?
• This never happened before.
• It's so scary.
• I have never seen this.
• It is a hard game. (meaning not only gameplay, often the game causes emotions and not all are "nice", just like experiences in life)
• I want to learn more about this.
• Interactive zen video. So relaxing.
• Everytime something new.
• It's so funny.

Journeys success continues through the years, it received over 100 awards. Several "Game of the Year", many BAFTA awards, the soundtrack got nominated for a Grammy (Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media ) and so on.

Wikipedia link to awards: Journey (2012 video game), Reception .

Game support [ ]

This wiki does not provide technical support for Journey .

If you have any technical support questions or concerns, please contact platform support teams:

• PlayStation versions: Sony Computer Entertainment
• PC and iOS versions: [email protected]

As of mid-2021 it appears that technical support and updates have ceased from SCE and Annapurna Interactive

https://thatgamecompany.com/journey/

Trailer [ ]

Further reading [ ]

For further hints about approximate game length, bug warnings, settings etc. Read this Guide .

ThatGameCompany

• Homepage: https://thatgamecompany.com/journey/
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatgamecompany

Annapurna Interactive

• Homepage http://annapurna.pictures/interactive/
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna_Interactive

See also [ ]

• System requirements
• Guide: Your first Journey , general hints about setting, length etc, without saying more about the game itself. It will lead you to further guides and provide links to useful articles at the start of your journey through Journey .
• How to play guide for Journey
• Category: Gameplay Basics

References [ ]

• ↑ Wikipedia
• 1 How to play guide for Journey
• 3 Wayfarers

Patricia Grace

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

thatgamecompany

life’s companions

Experience the wonder in this anonymous adventure where you travel on a life’s passage, with the chance to connect with companions along the way.

a mysterious world

Alone and surrounded by miles of burning, sprawling desert, you soon discover the looming mountaintop is your goal. The passage will not be easy but this experience of a lifetime will help you discover who you are, what this place is, as you arrive at your purpose.

beautiful art and music

Soar above ruins and glide across sands as you explore the secrets of a forgotten civilization.  Featuring stunning visuals, haunting music, and unique online gameplay, Journey delivers an experience like no other.

The release of Journey attracted over 100+ industry awards and media accolades, with some naming the game as their ‘Game of The Year’ in 2012.

"A glorious, thoughtful, moving masterpiece"

- entertainment weekly, "mysterious and beautiful", "an incredible, emotional game", "one of the most amazing game experiences of my life", - gamesradar.

© 2012 Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. Developed by thatgamecompany. Journey is a trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC.

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Journey (Aaron Becker's Wordless Trilogy, 1) Hardcover – Picture Book, August 6, 2013

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Book 1 of 3 Journey Trilogy
• Print length 40 pages
• Language English
• Grade level Preschool - 3
• Lexile measure NP
• Dimensions 11 x 0.39 x 9.63 inches
• Publisher Candlewick
• Publication date August 6, 2013
• ISBN-10 0763660531
• ISBN-13 978-0763660536
• See all details

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"A masterwork."

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Candlewick; 1st edition (August 6, 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 40 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0763660531
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0763660536
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 3 - 6 years, from customers
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ NP
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ Preschool - 3
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 11 x 0.39 x 9.63 inches
• #627 in Children's Friendship Books
• #673 in Children's Fantasy & Magic Books
• #905 in Children's Action & Adventure Books (Books)

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Journey (Aaron Becker's Wordless Trilogy)

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About the author

Aaron becker.

Born in Baltimore, Aaron Becker moved to California to attend Pomona College where he scored his first illustration job designing t-shirts for his water polo team. Since then, he's traveled to Kenya, Japan, Sweden, and Tahiti backpacking around while looking for good things to eat and feeding his imagination. He now lives with his family in Amherst, MA where he's busy at work on his next book project. You can find out more about what he's been up to lately at storybreathing.com.

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Summaries, Analysis & Lists

Stories About Journeys: Short Stories About Quests or Journeys

In these stories about journeys, characters make some sort of physical trip or quest and sometimes have a psychological journey as well. See also:

• Time Travel

Stories About Journeys

The Outcasts of Poker Flat | Bret Harte

In an effort to improve their town, the citizens of Poker Flat expel a group of undesirables from their midst. They set out for the next settlement, making a difficult mountain journey. On the way, they meet up with a couple headed for Poker Flat, who share some provisions and direct them to a cabin to rest.

This is the first story in the preview of  Big Book of Best Short Stories: Western .

“The Story of a Letter” by Carlos Bulosan

A man receive a letter from his son Berto who left home eight years prior. It’s in English, so neither he nor his younger son, the narrator, can read it. He has some ideas on how to get it translated. ( Summary )

Read “The Story of a Letter”

“At the Fall” by Alec Nevala-Lee

Eunice, a robotic hexapod, is deep under water along with her toroid companion, Wagner. They discover a fallen gray whale. They use it to recharge. Eunice was part of a five member crew that were mapping, analyzing and observing the underwater ecosystem and bringing their data to the surface. Now they’re on a dangerous journey.

This story can be read in the preview of  The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 4 .  (46% into preview)

“The Golden Apples of the Sun” by Ray Bradbury

A rocket ship is nearing the sun and the temperature outside reaches a thousand degrees. Inside, the temperature is a thousand degrees below zero, maintained by many refrigeration units. The crew wears protective suits. They plan to fly right up to the sun. ( Summary )

“Precious Cargo” by C. H. Hung

The  USS Marilyn Barton  is a bioship, carrying a large human delegation. One of Marilyn’s rooms is sagging and has turned a sickly yellow. Doctor Thrasher is working to fix the problem. The life of the ship and the passengers are at risk. Normally, a bioship knows what is wrong with it, but the deterioration happened too quickly in this case. Marilyn needs to be healthy enough to get everyone to Aurigae Prime.

This story can be read in the preview of  Beyond the Stars: Infinite Expanse . (23% into preview)

“20/20” by Linda Brewer

Bill and Ruthie are on a road trip. Bill finds her conversation simplistic; she refuses to argue anything. She says what she sees along the way. ( Summary & Analysis )

Blue Winds Dancing | Tom Whitecloud

A young American Indian man, lonely and disillusioned with school, leaves for home to be with his own people again. ( Summary )

A Forward Movement | Louisa May Alcott

Miss Tribulation’s quest to become an army nurse continues as she boards a night-train in New York. Afterward, she reaches a boat in New London. She relates her interactions with other passengers and the difficulties of the trip.

This story can be read in the preview of  100 Great American Short Stories .  (25% into preview)

“Man and Woman” by Erskine Caldwell

A dejected and exhausted man and woman are walking at dawn. When they see a farmhouse in the distance, Ruth believes they’ll be able to get something to eat there.

This story can be read in the preview of The Stories of Erskine Caldwell .  (29% into preview)

“A Little Journey” by Ray Bradbury

Mrs. Bellowes is on Mars staying at Mr. Thirkell’s Restorium in preparation for a rocket trip to heaven which will bring her closer to God. She’s been there a week now, and it’s almost time for take off. ( Summary )

“A Journey” by Edith Wharton

A married couple are taking a train back home to New York. They have been away for the husband’s health, but he hasn’t improved. His wife still loves him, but she feels constrained by the situation. She wants her old life back. ( Summary )

Read “A Journey”

“The Walk Up Nameless Ridge” by Hugh Howey

Over sixty thousand feet up Mount Mallory on the planet Eno, one of the three climbing teams rests. The narrator is ashamed to admit he doesn’t want either of the other teams to make it. He wants the glory of being the first to summit this mountain. Governments and alpine clubs gave up conquering it long ago. Now, individuals who have climbed the highest peaks on their own worlds try to immortalize themselves on Mount Mallory.

This story can be read in the preview of  Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories .  (30% in)

“Tower of Babylon” by Ted Chiang

The Babylonians are building a tower to heaven. Hillalum arrives from Elam as part of the mining crew who will dig through at the top into the vault of heaven. On the ascent, Hillalum learns how the construction of the tower takes place, and what the plans are when the top is reached. There are many workers as well as people who live at various points on the tower.

A lot of this story can be read in the preview of  Stories of Your Life and Others . 

“A Newspaper Story” by O. Henry

The movement of a daily newspaper is tracked, along with the uses it’s put to. ( Summary ) It’s the newspaper that goes on a “journey” in this story.

Read “A Newspaper Story”

“Wild Honey” by Horacio Quiroga

Gabriel Benincasa, an accountant, feels a need to leave city life for a while to test himself in the jungle. His godfather warns him that he won’t last in the jungle and tries to discourage him from going off himself. ( Summary )

Read “Wild Honey”

“That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French” by Stephen King

Carol and Bill, married twenty-five years, are on their second honeymoon, driving to their destination. Carol experiences déjà vu; voices and images keep coming to her mind. Their drive comes to an end and she finds herself at an earlier point in their trip.

“Che Ti Dice La Patria?” by Ernest Hemingway

Two men travel near Savona. They let a man ride on the outside of their car with them into Spezia. They stop to eat at a restaurant where the waitresses are very friendly. They continue through the suburbs of Genoa.

Paul’s Case | Willa Cather

Paul gets suspended from his Pittsburgh High School. His father wants him to be a responsible wage-earning family man when he grows up, but Paul is drawn to a life of wealth and glamour, so he decides to go to New York.

Read “Paul’s Case”

Journey Stories, Cont’d

Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry | Elizabeth McCracken

Aunt Helen Beck, a woman in her eighties, outspoken and eccentric, travels around to all her relative’s homes to stay for a while.

The Train | Flannery O’Connor

Haze, nineteen, is travelling by train to Taulkinham. The porter reminds him strongly of a man he used to know; he might even be the man’s son. He tries to find a way to talk to him.

Read “The Train”

Falling in Love | Sandra Birdsell

Lureen’s boyfriend leaves her as he’s done several times before. She tries to go back to her family by bus, but misses her connection, and has to walk thirty miles in the heat.

A Worn Path | Eudora Welty

An elderly African-American woman, Phoenix Jackson, walks through the Mississippi forest to get into town. She encounters many obstacles along the way.

The Swimmer | John Cheever

While relaxing at a friend’s pool, an affluent man decides to make his way home by swimming the length of the pools in his neighborhood.

The Furnished Room | O. Henry

A young man searches boarding houses looking for the woman he loves, a small-town girl trying to break in to show business.

Read “The Furnished Room”

Greyhound People | Alice Adams

The narrator boards a greyhound express bus to San Francisco with the feeling that she’s in the wrong place. On the way, a man angrily demands her seat, a woman tells a boy to be quiet and the boy’s mother confronts her, she listens to conversations, and has other interactions.

The Ultimate Safari | Nadine Gordimer

The narrator, a young girl, tells us that her mother and father left one day and never came back. Her village has been targeted by bandits who have taken everything. Fearing for their lives, the girl and her extended family set out on a long and difficult trek through South Africa to a refugee camp.

What I Have Been Doing Lately | Jamaica Kincaid

An unidentified and unnamed narrator answers the door but doesn’t find anyone there. After having a look around, the narrator goes on a dreamlike walk.

Stalking | Joyce Carol Oates

A thirteen-year-old girl, Gretchen, is pursuing her Invisible Adversary through the suburbs. She follows it through fields and across roads, and eventually into a shopping center.

Tears of Autumn | Yoshiko Uchida

Hana Omiya is on a ship going from Japan to the United States. She is seasick and nervous; she has some regret about the trip. She’s going to America to marry a man she has never met.

The Ugliest Pilgrim | Doris Betts

Violet Karl is traveling to Tulsa, Oklahoma to get healed by a televangelist—she was struck by an axe head as a child which disfigured her face. As she travels by bus, she meets several people who react to her in different ways.

The Facts of Life | Somerset Maugham

Nicky Garnet is a well liked young man who’s never given his parents any trouble. An opportunity arises for him to play in a tennis tournament in Monte Carlo. Nicky’s father doesn’t want him to go unsupervised.

The Hiltons’ Holiday | Sarah Orne Jewett

After a long day of hard work, John Hilton talks to his wife about their lives and daughters. He has the idea of taking his daughters on a small trip so they can see the world off the farm.

The Blue Jar | Isak Dinesen

A rich Englishman who only cares about collecting rare China is sailing with his daughter when the ship catches fire. His daughter is left behind in the confusion. She is rescued by a young sailor, and they float in the lifeboat for nine days before being picked up.

“The Blue Jar”

By the Waters of Babylon | Stephen Vincent Benet

The narrator, a young man, is the son of a priest, and will one day be a priest himself. The people are forbidden to go east to the Dead Places, or to cross the river to the Place of the Gods, except for a priest. There is another more primitive group called the Forest People. He sets out to the east on a journey.

Read “By the Waters of Babylon”

The Sun-Dog Trail | Jack London

Sitka Charley is relaxing after a day on the Alaskan trail. He and the narrator start talking about a painting, which reminds Sitka of an arduous journey he once made. When he was a letter carrier on Lake Linderman, a young woman hired him to take her to Dawson. Then she hires him to travel with her. She is desperately looking for something but doesn’t tell him what.

Read “The Sun-Dog Trail”

The Other Side of the Hedge | E. M. Forster

A man stops to rest on the side of the road. He is passed by some people, and also thinks of his brother whom he left behind. He notices a small opening in the hedge that lines the road. He pushes his way through it.

The Town of Cats | Hagiwara Sakutaro

The narrator used to take many drug-induced voyages. They had a bad effect on his health. He starts taking long walks, ending up in an unfamiliar, charming town. He relates one such walk he took while staying at a resort.

Identities | W. D. Valgardson

Moved by childhood memories, a man leaves his own affluent neighborhood and goes exploring. He ends up in a seedy area. He can’t blend in because he’s driving a Mercedes.

The Greatest Thing in the World | Norman Mailer

Al Groot, a young adult, enters a lunch wagon and tries to get a deal on a doughnut and coffee. He has been walking and hitch-hiking, trying to get to Chicago. When three men come in for a meal, Al tries to get a ride with them.

The Wisdom of the Trail | Jack London

Sitka Charley is an Indian who has left his own people to learn the white man’s sense of honor and the law. He’s a member of a traveling party led by Captain Effingwell. Only Sitka and the Captain are armed. Sitka warns two other Indians with their crew to carry out their duties properly.

Read “The Wisdom of the Trail”

Bitter Grounds | Neil Gaiman

The narrator is dead in every way that counts. He starts driving. He throws away his cell phone and withdraws all the money he can. After staying over at a motel, he meets a man in the lobby who’s waiting for a cab. He offers the man a ride.

Read “Bitter Grounds”

The White Silence | Jack London

Mason, Ruth (his wife), and the Malamute Kid are on the Yukon trail, low on food, with a long trip in front of them. They know they will have to eat some of the dogs. They reach a high bank that proves difficult for the weakened dogs to climb.

Read “The White Silence”

The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains | Neil Gaiman

The narrator, an unusually small man, is looking for a cave on the Misty Isle. He wants to hire Calum MacInnes as a guide. MacInnes is reluctant to go because of the legends about those who take gold from the cave. It is a long journey.

Read “The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains”

Passage | Kevin Jared Hosein

The narrator was drinking at a pub, The Tricky Jester. One of the regulars, Stew, told a story of when he hiked El Tucuche. He claims to have come across a house in the middle of the mountain, and to have seen a young woman there. The narrator works for the Forestry Division, and knows the wilderness well. He has doubts about Stew’s story. He decides to check for himself.

The Road from Colonus | E. M. Forster

Mr. Lucas is getting old—slowing down and losing interest in things. A forty year dream of his has been to go to Greece, and now he’s there. While traveling with his party on muleback, he pulls ahead of them and arrives at a small inn. It’s surrounded by plane trees, including one that is hollowed out and hanging over it, with water flowing from it. Mr. Lucas is struck by the scene.

Read “The Road from Colonus”

Rock Springs | Richard Ford

Earl is getting out of Montana—he’s had trouble with the law and with women. He leaves in a stolen car with his girlfriend, Edna, and his daughter, Cheryl. He hopes for a new start, but he seems to attract trouble.

Read “Rock Springs” (Pg. 48)

I’ll keep adding short stories about journeys or quests as I find more.

Essaying the pop culture that matters since 1999

Lancscape: Free Photos ( Pixabay License / Pixabay )

Short Stories: Journeys

The protagonists in these short stories by Asako Serizawa, Nanjil Nadan, Goli Taraghi, Stephen King, and John Cheever are unsettled, vulnerable, and unmoored during their journeys.

There’s an old saw about how there are only two kinds of plots in fiction: a person goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. Over the past few decades, this declaration has been attributed to literary legends like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, et al., without proper citation. The one substantiated reference to it comes from the writer and educator, John Gardner, who suggested the following in a writing exercise in his landmark book The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers (Alfred A Knopf, 1984):

Write the opening of a novel using the authorial-omniscient voice, making the authorial omniscience clear by going into the thoughts of one or more characters after establishing the voice. As subject, use either a trip or the arrival of a stranger (some disruption of order — the usual novel beginning).

Clearly, he hadn’t said there were only two plot choices. Also, he was discussing the beginning of a story rather than its entire plot. But his point about a trip or journey being a disruption of order in a story holds eternally true. Whether a journey’s intent is a voyage, a quest, a pilgrimage, an exploration, a passage, a tour, or an adventure, the state of limbo between the place we leave and the place we are going to is often filled with many unknowns. Even if we may have covered the same physical distance many times, we are different individuals each time we travel. The latter also applies to those around us, whether headed to the same destination or observing or interacting with us as we pass them by. Given all of this, both real-life and fictional journeys provide plenty of anecdotes, vignettes, and stories.

A lot of our earliest fiction in both the Western and the non-Western traditions has involved journeys. From The Odyssey and The Mahabharata to Don Quixote and Twelve Years a Slave , writers through the ages have used the long physical journey as a literary device to weave together many individual stories and wide-sweeping character arcs.

The most striking aspect of the best travel or journey narratives is that the landscapes described along the way are as important to the stories as the main characters. Key plot points, narrative tension and suspense, and the characters’ internal and external conflicts are all derived from their encounters and interactions with the elements, mode(s) of travel, and the people around them during a journey. The protagonists of such stories always undergo significant metamorphoses because of their new experiences and/or perspectives. Typically, the physical journey is also a metaphor for an inner journey. And, as is often the case in the real world, what matters is the actual act of travel versus the arrival at some destination.

This month’s five short stories — by Asako Serizawa, Nanjil Nadan, Goli Taraghi, Stephen King, and John Cheever — involve journeys through all kinds of places by train, bus, airplane, car, and even foot. The protagonists are unsettled, vulnerable, and unmoored during their journeys. As we readers are transported along, our senses become heightened too.

“Train to Harbin”, by Asako Serizawa ( Literary Hub )

Trains have featured in many short stories throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Given how cars and airplanes are more common modes of travel these days, we don’t get train stories quite as much anymore. In her famous essay-length response (titled ‘ Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown ‘) to Arnold Bennett’s complaints about poor character-building in the novels of their time, Virginia Woolf shared her experience of a woman encountered on the train from Richmond to Waterloo and wrote, “I believe that all novels begin with an old lady in the corner opposite.” She then wrote a brilliant short story about just such an old lady in the corner of a train and not only proved many of the points in her essay but set a new benchmark for train stories in general.

Serizawa’s train story first appeared in The Hudson Review in 2014 and was reprinted in the Pushcart Prize XL (2016 Edition). It was shortlisted for the 2016 O. Henry Prize and was the favorite of one of the jurors, Molly Antopol, who wrote about it here on RandomHouse.com .

There’s a lot happening in “Train to Harbin”, both story-wise and technique-wise. The narrator is an old Japanese doctor. During World War II, when Japan and China were also at war, this doctor had been involved in some secret research involving prisoners of war. In the present time, he’s still trying to make sense of it and cope with the regret and pain of it all. Serizawa paints such word pictures as the doctor goes back and forth through his memories that we cannot help but take the journey with him — both physically and emotionally.

I once met a man on the train to Harbin. He was my age, just past his prime, hair starting to grease and thin in a way one might have thought passably distinguished in another context, in another era, when he might have settled down, reconciled to finishing out his long career predictably. But it was 1939. War had officially broken out between China and Japan, and like all of us on that train, he too had chosen to take the bait, that one last bite before acquiescing to life’s steady decline. You see, for us university doctors, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We all knew it. Especially back then.

“Forest”, by Nanjil Nadan ; translated by Gita Subramanian ( The Indian Quarterly )

While the story above involves a planned train excursion to a city, this one is a spur-of-the-moment bus trip through a forest. Nanjil Nadan is the pseudonym of the Tamil writer, G. Subramaniam.

The narrator is having a bit of an existential crisis and takes an aimless walk, then boards a bus going from the state of Tamil Nadu, India into the neighboring state of Kerala. As the vehicle loads up with more people and things, he makes pithy and somewhat caustic observations about the hurrying passengers, the angry driver, the good-looking conductor, the ethnically diverse men working the drink/food stalls at various stops, and the dense forest they pass through.

There isn’t much of a plot here but it’s a well-drawn sketch of a typical everyday scene in rural southern India with all its chaotic and teeming energy. The writer’s main intent is to enable readers to experience the narrator’s world, as it passes him by — spatially, visually, and temporally.

Half the bus got off at Attapadi. Half the goods on the bus were also unloaded. This was the hill country of Kerala. There seemed to be Tamils everywhere—the coolies, the little wayside shopkeepers, in the bakeries, in the supermarkets, all the workers seemed to be Tamilian. Worry lines due to poverty and humiliation were evident on those faces. Just as all South Indians are called “Madrasis” in the north, and all UPites and Biharis (including politicians like Lalu Prasad Yadav) are referred to as “Bhayyas” in Mumbai, all over Kerala, Tamilians are hailed as “Annachi” or “Pandi”. There was no way out; one had to accept the mocking epithet with a grin—even in “God’s own country.”

“The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons”, by Goli Taraghi ; translated by Karim Emami and Sara Khalili ( Words Without Borders )

Goli Taraghi’s short story collection, The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons , was one of the Best Books of 2013 at NPR . Arun Rath recommended it as follows:

I have met the pomegranate lady, and you may have as well. If you’ve ever made a disarmingly intimate connection with a stranger while traveling, you’ve had the experience. Connections and dislocations drive the characters in these stories: dislocations of place — exiles who end up in Paris, but never really leave Iran behind, and dislocations of time — elites who preserve a bubble of the “old,” secular, drinking, partying Iran — upon which modern, revolutionary Iran intrudes, with tragic-comedic results. Constantly moving between cultures is not easy on these individuals — but perhaps because of that, it reveals so much raw humanity — both cruelty and compassion.

Words Without Borders has published a handful of stories from this collection, including this title story.

In this excellent 2007 interview at Bookslut , Taraghi talked about publishing and censorship in Iran, living as an expat in France, and her own writing.

In her story, “The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons”, an educated, worldly woman is traveling from Tehran to Paris and has to help an older, illiterate woman who has never been on a plane before and is going to Sweden to see her fugitive sons. There are all kinds of tragicomic exchanges between the two women, of course. But it’s also a beautiful story within a story of the life of the older woman and we can see why the younger one is drawn, against all her common sense, to try to help her. The ending has a little wrenching twist.

I hate this life of constant wandering, these eternal comings and goings, these middle of the night flights, dragging along my suitcase, going through Customs and the final torture, the humiliating body search. “Take off your shoes, open your handbag, let’s see inside of your pockets, your mouth, your ears, your nostrils, your heart and mind and soul.” I am exhausted. I feel homesick—can you believe it? Already homesick. And yet I want to get away, run, flee. “I will leave and never come back,” I tell myself. “I will stay right here, in my beloved Tehran, with all its good and bad, and I will never leave. Nonsense. I am confused. All I want is to close my eyes and sleep, to slip into that magic land of oblivion and disappear.

“Herman Wouk Is Still Alive”, by Stephen King ( The Atlantic )

This one is a car journey and won the 2011 Bram Stoker Award . True to his form, Stephen King gives us moments of bone-chilling shock and fear here. It’s not a ghost story, but possibly more terrifying. Eleven lives crash together, literally. And the tension ratchets up as only King can ratchet it up. The language is cinematic, immediate, and pulls us in even when we’re cringing about what’s being shown and told. Also, this is one of those stories to read again and again as a masterclass in writing craft. Hard to say more without spoiling all the fun, so we’ll leave it there.

Brenda should be happy. The kids are quiet, the road stretches ahead of her like an airport runway, she’s behind the wheel of a brand-new van. The speedometer reads 70. Nonetheless, that grayness has begun to creep over her again. The van isn’t hers, after all. She’ll have to give it back. A foolish expense, really, because what’s at the far end of this trip, up in Mars Hill? She looks at her old friend. Jasmine is looking back at her. The van, now doing almost a hundred miles an hour, begins to drift. Jasmine gives a small nod. Brenda nods back. Then she pushes down harder with her foot, trying to find the van’s carpeted floor.

“ The Swimmer “, by John Cheever

John Cheever is called the Chekhov of the American suburbs. Known more for his short stories than his novels, he wrote about the duality of things: the conflicts between wealth and happiness, inner persona and outer appearance, cultural/community traditions and modernism, and much more.

“The Swimmer” is frequently anthologized for teaching purposes. It’s about a walk through a familiar neighborhood seen afresh as if for the first time. The main character is a typical Cheever fella: socially active, upper middle class, and with a Mad Men -esque sense of entitlement and privilege that makes him blind to much of what his life is all about.

Neddy Merrill decides to swim through all the pools of his neighborhood on a summer day. Things begin well enough but take a rather dark, surreal turn. The storytelling skill is seen in how various characters interact with Ned in surprising ways and what he realizes about himself and his life as he continues his quest. In many ways, this is Homer’s Odyssey set in 1960s suburbia.

Cheever began this as a novel and, after 150 pages of notes, cut it down to a short story. There’s a movie version with a rather well-toned Burt Lancaster in a pair of swimming trunks through most of it. Picture him this way:

Neddy Merrill sat by the green water, one hand in it, one around a glass of gin. He was a slender man—he seemed to have the especial slenderness of youth—and while he was far from young he had slid down his banister that morning and given the bronze backside of Aphrodite on the hall table a smack, as he jogged toward the smell of coffee in his dining room. He might have been compared to a summer’s day, particularly the last hours of one, and while he lacked a tennis racket or a sail bag the impression was definitely one of youth, sport, and clement weather. He had been swimming and now he was breathing deeply, stertorously as if he could gulp into his lungs the components of that moment, the heat of the sun, the intenseness of his pleasure. It all seemed to flow into his chest.

In the essay “ A Reader’s Guide to Planes, Trains, & Automobiles ” ( The New York Review of Books , 10 Apr 2019) Tim Parks posits that a book is a means of transport (like a train, bus, car, ship, or plane) and a story is a journey.

Both go somewhere. Both offer us a way out of our routine and a chance to make unexpected encounters, see new places, experience new states of mind. […] Then, by mixing with strangers of every class and clime, the traveler is bound to become more aware of himself and of the fragility of identity. How different we are when we speak to different people! How different our lives would be if we opened up to them.

Both physical journeys and book journeys are only satisfying and meaningful when we approach them as more purposeful, mindful endeavors — beyond a change of scenery or relaxation or entertainment or checking off a to-do hotspot/bestseller. Beyond mere tourism, really.

John O’Donohoe’s poem, ‘ For the Traveler ‘, sums it up well, especially, this part:

May you travel in an awakened way, Gathered wisely into your inner ground; That you may not waste the invitations Which wait along the way to transform you

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Arnel Pineda

Who Is Arnel Pineda?

After a series of unfortunate events in his childhood, Arnel Pineda found success in Asia as the front man for the group The Zoo. In 2007, he was discovered by Journey guitarist Neal Schon, after a series of YouTube videos were posted of him covering American songs, including the famous hit, "Dont Stop Believin'." In December 2007, Pineda became the new lead singer of Journey. His is noted for having a strikingly similar sound to former Journey front man Steve Perry.

Troubled Childhood

Arnel Pineda was born on September 5, 1967, in Sampaloc, Manila, in the Philippines. Throughout his childhood, Pineda endured grave misfortune. When he was just 13 years old, his mother, who was 35 at the time, passed away after a long battle with heart disease. Her medical costs left the family in serious debt, and Pineda's father could no longer provide for Pineda and his three younger brothers, Russmon, Roderick and Joselito.

While relatives were able to take in his brothers, Pineda was left on his own. He spent the next few years homeless, often sleeping outside in public parks and scraping for any food or water that he could afford. When possible, he would stay at a friend's house, who offered him a cot outside. Eventually, Pineda was forced to quit school and take up odd jobs collecting scrap metal and bottles at the pier and selling newspapers to support his family.

Early Career

Pineda's love of music started at a young age. He began singing at just five years old, and had entered many singing contests as a child. In 1982, when he was 15, Pineda was introduced to a local band called Ijos, and was encouraged by his friends to try out as their new lead singer. He sang the Beatles' "Help" and Air Supply's "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All." Although they were concerned with his lack of training, Ijos members were wowed by Pineda's powerful voice, and took him on as the new front man of the band. One of the band member's friends even offered to pay Pineda's salary, 35 pesos a night, out of his own pocket, and Pineda was offered a tiny room to sleep under the guitarist's front stairs.

In 1986, some members of Ijos joined together to form the new pop-rock band Amo. The group found success covering songs by hit groups Heart, Queen and Journey. In 1988, they turned heads when they won the Philippines' leg of the Yamaha World Band Explosion Contest. Although they were disqualified in the finals due to a technicality, the event was broadcast on TV in Asia, widening their fanbase. The band continued performing at popular clubs and arenas around the Philippines.

In 1990, the members re-grouped yet again, under the new name Intensity Five, and re-entered the contest. The band came in as runner up and Pineda won the Best Vocalist Award. After a series of unfortunate health problems in the early '90s, including the brief loss of his voice, Pineda re-emerged in 1999 with a new solo album with Warner Brothers. The self-titled album had several hits in Asia.

After brief stints with a few different bands, Pineda found success again in 2006 with The Zoo, a band that he formed with Monet Cajipe, a guitarist/songwriter who had been in all his bands during over the previous 20 years. The Zoo performed at several popular clubs in the area and, in 2007, released an album by MCA Universal titled Zoology . Soon the band began covering songs by groups such as Journey, Survivor, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles and more, with more than 200 performances uploaded to YouTube.

On June 28, 2007, Neal Schon, guitarist and member of the band Journey, saw a video of Pineda on YouTube and immediately contacted him. The band had been looking for a new lead singer, and Pineda's voice sounded strikingly similar to Steve Perry, Journey's legendary former front man. After speaking with Schon on the phone, Pineda made arrangements to fly to the United States and audition with the band in San Francisco. On December 5, 2007, Pineda was welcomed as the band's new lead singer.

Right away, Pineda went on tour with the band, performing two shows in Chile and two in Las Vegas. Both were a huge success. After a series of guest show appearances and magazine features, Pineda gained popularity within the American public. On June 3, 2008, the newly organized Journey released their first album, Revelation , which came in at No. 5 on the U.S. charts. The album was their highest charting album since Trial by Fire (with Steve Perry), and reached platinum status by October 2008.

Soon after the album's release, the band continued touring around the world with Pineda. The documentary, Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey , slated to be released in 2012, will chronicle the band's "Revelation Tour," and Pineda's first years with the band.

Personal Life

When he is not on tour, Pineda resides in the Philippines with his wife, Cherry, their children, Cherub and Thea. He has two other sons—Matthew, 19, and Angelo, 13—from past relationships.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Arnel Pineda
• Birth Year: 1967
• Birth date: September 5, 1967
• Birth City: Sampaloc, Manila
• Birth Country: Philippines
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Arnel Pineda is best known as the new lead singer for the rock group Journey.
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• Nacionalities

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Arnel Pineda Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/arnel-pineda
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: July 20, 2020
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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Steve Perry Walked Away From Journey. A Promise Finally Ended His Silence.

By Alex Pappademas

• Sept. 5, 2018

MALIBU, Calif. — On the back patio of a Greek restaurant, a white-haired man making his way to the exit paused for a second look at one of his fellow diners, a man with a prominent nose who wore his dark hair in a modest pompadour.

“You look a lot like Steve Perry,” the white-haired man said.

“I used to be Steve Perry,” Steve Perry said.

This is how it goes when you are Steve Perry. Everyone is excited to see you, and no one can quite believe it. Everyone wants to know where you’ve been.

In 1977, an ambitious but middlingly successful San Francisco jazz-rock band called Journey went looking for a new lead singer and found Mr. Perry, then a 28-year-old veteran of many unsigned bands. Mr. Perry and the band’s lead guitarist and co-founder, Neal Schon, began writing concise, uplifting hard rock songs that showcased Mr. Perry’s clean, powerful alto, as operatic an instrument as pop has ever seen. This new incarnation of Journey produced a string of hit singles, released eight multiplatinum albums and toured relentlessly — so relentlessly that in 1987, a road-worn Mr. Perry took a hiatus, effectively dissolving the band he’d helped make famous.

He did not disappear completely — there was a solo album in 1994, followed in 1996 by a Journey reunion album, “Trial by Fire.” But it wasn’t long before Mr. Perry walked away again, from Journey and from the spotlight. With his forthcoming album, “Traces,” due in early October, he’s breaking 20 years of radio silence.

Over the course of a long midafternoon lunch — well-done souvlaki, hold all the starches — Mr. Perry, now 69, explained why he left, and why he’s returned. He spoke of loving, and losing and opening himself to being loved again, including by people he’s never met, who know him only as a voice from the Top 40 past.

And when he detailed the personal tragedy that moved him to make music again, he talked about it in language as earnest and emotional as any Journey song:

“I thought I had a pretty good heart,” he said, “but a heart isn’t really complete until it’s completely broken.”

IN ITS ’80S heyday, Journey was a commercial powerhouse and a critical piñata. With Mr. Perry up front, slinging high notes like Frisbees into the stratosphere, Journey quickly became not just big but huge . When few public figures aside from Pac-Man and Donkey Kong had their own video game, Journey had two. The offices of the group’s management company received 600 pieces of Journey fan mail per day.

The group toured hard for nine years. Gradually, that punishing schedule began to take a toll on Journey’s lead singer.

“I never had any nodules or anything, and I never had polyps,” Mr. Perry said, referring to the state of his vocal cords. He looked around for some wood to knock, then settled for his own skull. The pain, he said, was more spiritual than physical.

[ Never miss a pop music story: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Louder. ]

As a vocalist, Mr. Perry explained, “your instrument is you. It’s not just your throat, it’s you . If you’re burnt out, if you’re depressed, if you’re feeling weary and lost and paranoid, you’re a mess.”

“Frankly,” Mr. Schon said in a phone interview, “I don’t know how he lasted as long as he did without feeling burned out. He was so good, doing things that nobody else could do.”

On Feb. 1, 1987, Mr. Perry performed one last show with Journey, in Anchorage. Then he went home.

Mr. Perry was born in Hanford, Calif., in the San Joaquin Valley, about 45 minutes south of Fresno. His parents, who were both Portuguese immigrants, divorced when he was 8, and Mr. Perry and his mother moved in next door to her parents’. “I became invisible, emotionally,” Mr. Perry said. “And there were places I used to hide, to feel comfortable, to protect myself.”

Sometimes he’d crawl into a corner of his grandparents’ garage with a blanket and a flashlight. But he also found refuge in music. “I could get lost in these 45s that I had,” Mr. Perry said. “It turned on a passion for music in me that saved my life.”

As a teen, Mr. Perry moved to Lemoore, Calif., where he enjoyed an archetypally idyllic West Coast adolescence: “A lot of my writing, to this day, is based on my emotional attachment to Lemoore High School.”

There he discovered the Beatles and the Beach Boys, went on parked-car dates by the San Joaquin Valley’s many irrigation canals, and experienced a feeling of “freedom and teenage emotion and contact with the world” that he’s never forgotten. Even a song like “No Erasin’,” the buoyant lead single from his new LP has that down-by-the-old-canal spirit, Mr. Perry said.

And after he left Journey, it was Lemoore that Mr. Perry returned to, hoping to rediscover the person he’d been before subsuming his identity within an internationally famous rock band. In the beginning, he couldn’t even bear to listen to music on the radio: “A little PTSD, I think.”

Eventually, in 1994, he made that solo album, “For the Love of Strange Medicine,” and sported a windblown near-mullet and a dazed expression on the cover. The reviews were respectful, and the album wasn’t a flop. With alternative rock at its cultural peak, Mr. Perry was a man without a context — which suited him just fine.

“I was glad,” he said, “that I was just allowed to step back and go, O.K. — this is a good time to go ride my Harley.”

JOURNEY STAYED REUNITED after Mr. Perry left for the second time in 1997. Since December 2007, its frontman has been Arnel Pineda, a former cover-band vocalist from Manila, Philippines, who Mr. Schon discovered via YouTube . When Journey was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last April, Mr. Pineda sang the 1981 anthem “Don’t Stop Believin’,” not Mr. Perry. “I’m not in the band,” he said flatly, adding, “It’s Arnel’s gig — singers have to stick together.”

Around the time Mr. Pineda joined the band, something strange had happened — after being radioactively unhip for decades, Journey had crept back into the zeitgeist. David Chase used “Don’t Stop Believin’” to nerve-racking effect in the last scene of the 2007 series finale of “The Sopranos” ; when Mr. Perry refused to sign off on the show’s use of the song until he was told how it would be used, he briefly became one of the few people in America who knew in advance how the show ended.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” became a kind of pop standard, covered by everyone from the cast of “Glee” to the avant-shred guitarist Marnie Stern . Decades after they’d gone their separate ways, Journey and Mr. Perry found themselves discovering fans they never knew they had.

Mark Oliver Everett, the Los Angeles singer-songwriter who performs with his band Eels under the stage name E, was not one of them, at first.

“When I was young, living in Virginia,” Mr. Everett said, “Journey was always on the radio, and I wasn’t into it.”

So although Mr. Perry became a regular at Eels shows beginning around 2003, it took Mr. Everett five years to invite him backstage. He’d become acquainted with Patty Jenkins, the film director, who’d befriended Mr. Perry after contacting him for permission to use “Don’t Stop Believin’” in her 2003 film “Monster.” (“When he literally showed up on the mixing stage the next day and pulled up a chair next to me, saying, ‘Hey I really love your movie. How can I help you?’ it was the beginning of one of the greatest friendships of my life,” Ms. Jenkins wrote in an email.) Over lunch, Ms. Jenkins lobbied Mr. Everett to meet Mr. Perry.

They hit it off immediately. “At that time,” Mr. Everett said, “we had a very serious Eels croquet game in my backyard every Sunday.” He invited Mr. Perry to attend that week. Before long, Mr. Perry began showing up — uninvited and unannounced, but not unwelcome — at Eels rehearsals.

“They’d always bust my chops,” Mr. Perry said. “Like, ‘Well? Is this the year you come on and sing a couple songs with us?’”

At one point, the Eels guitarist Jeff Lyster managed to bait Mr. Perry into singing Journey’s “Lights” at one of these rehearsals, which Mr. Everett remembers as “this great moment — a guy who’s become like Howard Hughes, and just walked away from it all 25 years ago, and he’s finally doing it again.”

Eventually Mr. Perry decided to sing a few numbers at an Eels show, which would be his first public performance in decades. He made this decision known to the band, Mr. Everett said, not via phone or email but by showing up to tour rehearsals one day carrying his own microphone. “He moves in mysterious ways,” Mr. Everett observed.

For mysterious Steve Perry reasons, Mr. Perry chose to make his long-awaited return to the stage at a 2014 Eels show at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn. During a surprise encore, he sang three songs, including one of his favorite Eels tunes, whose profane title is rendered on an edited album as “It’s a Monstertrucker.”

“I walked out with no anticipation and they knew me and they responded, and it was really a thrill,” Mr. Perry said. “I missed it so much. I couldn’t believe it’d been so long.”

“It’s a Monstertrucker” is a spare song about struggling to get through a lonely Sunday in someone’s absence. For Mr. Perry, it was not an out-of-nowhere choice.

In 2011, Ms. Jenkins directed one segment of “Five,” a Lifetime anthology film about women and breast cancer. Mr. Perry visited her one day in the cutting room while she was at work on a scene featuring real cancer patients as extras. A woman named Kellie Nash caught Mr. Perry’s eye. Instantly smitten, he asked Ms. Jenkins if she would introduce them by email.

“And she says ‘O.K., I’ll send the email,’ ” Mr. Perry said, “but there’s one thing I should tell you first. She was in remission, but it came back, and it’s in her bones and her lungs. She’s fighting for her life.”

“My head said, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Mr. Perry remembered, “but my heart said, ‘Send the email.’”

“That was extremely unlike Steve, as he is just not that guy,” Ms. Jenkins said. “I have never seen him hit on, or even show interest in anyone before. He was always so conservative about opening up to anyone.”

A few weeks later, Ms. Nash and Mr. Perry connected by phone and ended up talking for nearly five hours. Their friendship soon blossomed into romance. Mr. Perry described Ms. Nash as the greatest thing that ever happened to him.

“I was loved by a lot of people, but I didn’t really feel it as much as I did when Kellie said it,” he said. “Because she’s got better things to do than waste her time with those words.”

They were together for a year and a half. They made each other laugh and talked each other to sleep at night.

In the fall of 2012, Ms. Nash began experiencing headaches. An MRI revealed that the cancer had spread to her brain. One night not long afterward, Ms. Nash asked Mr. Perry to make her a promise.

“She said, ‘If something were to happen to me, promise me you won’t go back into isolation,’ ” Mr. Perry said, “because that would make this all for naught.”

At this point in the story, Mr. Perry asked for a moment and began to cry.

Ms. Nash died on Dec. 14, 2012, at 40. Two years later, Mr. Perry showed up to Eels rehearsal with his own microphone, ready to make good on a promise.

TIME HAS ADDED a husky edge to Mr. Perry’s angelic voice; on “Traces,” he hits some trembling high notes that bring to mind the otherworldly jazz countertenor “Little” Jimmy Scott. The tone suits the songs, which occasionally rock, but mostly feel close to their origins as solo demos Mr. Perry cut with only loops and click tracks backing him up.

The idea that the album might kick-start a comeback for Mr. Perry is one that its maker inevitably has to hem and haw about.

“I don’t even know if ‘coming back’ is a good word,” he said. “I’m in touch with the honest emotion, the love of the music I’ve just made. And all the neurosis that used to come with it, too. All the fears and joys. I had to put my arms around all of it. And walking back into it has been an experience, of all of the above.”

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100 Epic Journey Story Prompts

The epic journey—a story involving a hero or protagonist tasked with venturing into different lands, worlds, times, and universes—is as old as time itself. From Homer’s epic journey in  The Odyssey  to Luke Skywalker’s venture into the stars in  Star Wars , the epic journey has always served as one of our greatest forms of storytelling. 

An epic journey is a metaphor for the journeys of conflict we face in life, both physical (external) and emotional (internal). Stories like these act as escapism, where we can live adventures vicariously through the eyes and experiences of the characters. And they also manage to challenge characters the most, which offers an even more cathartic and enticing experience for the reader or audience. 

The more epic the journey, the more conflict that the characters need to face. And conflict is the driving force of any story—big or small.

With that said, here we offer 100 epic journey prompts to get your creative juices flowing! 

Note: Because we’re all connected to the same pop culture, news headlines, and inspirations, any similarity to any past, present, or future screenplays, novels, short stories, television pilots, television series, plays, or any other creative works is purely coincidence.

Read More: Exploring the 12 Stages of the Hero’s Journey

'Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back' (1980)

• A time traveler must venture through time to find a villain.
• A forgotten map leads characters through magical doorways, each transporting them to a different fantastical realm.
• A Steampunk airship captain embarks on a daring expedition to find the mythical floating city hidden among the clouds.
• The last astronaut on Earth must save all of mankind in the last spaceship.
• A lone warrior searches the world for a long-lost magical sword.
• An archaeologist uncovers a portal in an ancient ruin that transports them to the time of the dinosaurs.
• An archaeologist uncovers a portal in an ancient ruin that transports them to the time of the Egyptians. 
• An archaeologist uncovers a portal in an ancient ruin that transports them to the Medieval Ages. 
• An archaeologist uncovers a portal in an ancient ruin that transports them into the future.
• In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a group of survivors stumbles upon a hidden gateway leading to an untouched, flourishing oasis.
• A scientist creates a time loop that forces them to relive the same epic journey across parallel dimensions until they can set things right.
• A spacefaring nomad encounters a sentient nebula leading to parallel universes.
• A hero must navigate the surreal landscapes of the dreams to restore balance to the waking realm.
• A librarian discovers that books in a magical library can open portals to fantasy worlds. 
• A librarian discovers that books in a magical library can open portals to historical events.
• A librarian discovers that books within a magical library can open portals to futuristic landscapes. 
• A librarian discovers that books within a magical library can open portals to alien worlds.
• A group of astronauts crash-lands on an alien planet.
• A mission sends a time-traveling assassin to manipulate key events in different historical periods to alter the course of history.
• Middle school friends discover a magical book that can open portals to a different world.
• Middle school friends discover a magical book that can open portals to a parallel universe within their school. 
• An underwater explorer stumbles upon an aquatic realm.
• A time-traveling detective chases a criminal through different eras.
• An astronaut goes through a wormhole and discovers a planet with floating islands.
• A pair of siblings discover a hidden doorway in their basement that transports them to an alternative universe.
• An Old West wagon train strives to survive the open range.
• A gamer must seek the way out of the virtual world where they are trapped.
• A ship, its crew, and its captain decide to take the same route as Columbus. 
• A ship, its crew, and its captain decide to cover every point of the Bermuda Triangle. 
• An astronaut on a routine space mission is plunged into a parallel universe.
• A group of survivors in a post-nuclear world try to make it to an island.
• A sled dog team tries to keep their master alive as they journey through a winter storm.
• A pirate ship, its crew, and its captain try to track down a royal ship full of gold.
• A baseball team in a post-nuclear world travels the country to provide entertainment and hope for survivors. 
• A terminally ill father and his son embark on a road trip across the country. 
• A presidential candidate in a post-apocalyptic world travels the country to earn votes.
• A dog is reincarnated as a puppy, remembering their past life, and tries to get back home.
• A group of spelunkers finds a long-lost world. 
• A group of spelunkers finds proof of a very different past. 
• A group of friends tubing on a river gets lost in the Everglades.
• A group of friends tubing on a river are transported to the world of dinosaurs.
• An artist attains the ability to venture into their paintings of surreal landscapes. 
• A museum employee discovers they can enter into the world of iconic paintings.
• A time-traveling botanist explores different epochs to collect samples of extinct plants, hoping to revive a lost ecosystem in a world ravaged by environmental disasters.
• A young dinosaur is transported to the future through a strange portal. 
• An interdimensional bounty hunter tracks down dimension-traveling fugitives.
• A time-traveling bounty hunter tracks down time-traveling fugitives.
• A spaceship pilot discovers a wormhole that leads to an alien galaxy.
• The discovery of the Hawaiian Islands. 
• The first space flight to Mars.
• The first expedition to the dark side of the moon.
• A young character can explore the world of their dreams.
• Young friends discover they can meet up and explore the worlds of their dreams. 
• A detective must travel through different time periods to solve a case.
• A group of explorers discovers a forgotten jungle where dinosaurs never went extinct.
• Young siblings find a series of caves behind their grandparents’ old mansion. 
• A spacefaring cartographer maps out uncharted territories in space.
• Two young siblings walk the burnt landscapes of a post-nuclear world. 
• A widow decides to travel to all the places she and her husband never were able to visit.
• A stranded astronaut on the moon, thought to be dead, must try to find a way to tell Earth that they are alive.
• A young baseball player joins a traveling baseball team and comes of age.
• Young lovers meet on a backpacking trip across Asia. 
• A plane crashes, and the crew must find their way home.
• An ant gets a glimpse of the larger world around their habitat and wants to go explore.
• A knight must travel across the land to find the princess he’s tasked with rescuing.
• A character dies, and their ghost must find their way through purgatory.
• An alien receives a message from Earth and strives to find a way to get there.
• Disneyland’s rides are portals into the real worlds they depict.
• Characters must find their way out of a seemingly endless haunted mansion.
• An expedition through the Rocky Mountains. 
• An explorer sails along the coast of the Americas to create the first map of the continent.
• Mark Twain’s adventures down the Mississippi. 
• A group of kayakers decide to kayak down the Mississippi. 
• A group of tubers decide to tube down the Mississippi. 
• A journey to the Earth’s core.
• A journey to the bottom of the ocean.
• Grade school friends decide to climb to the top of a local bluff. 
• A man loses his dog and tries to track it through the GPS chip.
• A boy and his dog are separated when their canoe tips over in a raging river, and they struggle to find each other.
• A time traveler from the future is stuck in the past and must find a way back home. 
• Characters struggle to find a military bunker before nuclear missiles hit their country. 
• A Navy ship is lost in time and must find the portal back home. 
• Characters find a real-life bean stock leading up to a world of giants.
• The first Westerner expedition of the Amazon. 
• A plane crash-lands in the Amazon Jungle, and the survivors struggle to find their way out. 
• A man is given the chance to save his family from death by finding them in the afterlife. 
• Technology allows people to explore the minds of people to save them from dementia.
• A veteran NFL quarterback is traded from team to team until they find a team they can win the Superbowl with.
• Old West cowboys must move their herd across the frontier while they face the elements and other threats. 
• A contemporary retelling of  The Odyssey .
• A character discovers their adoption and now must travel to another country to find their birth parents.
• During a hiking trip in the mountains, the family accidentally leaves a child behind, and the child must survive the elements until they find them.
• A child runs away from their Midwestern home to find Santa.
• A character takes the ashes of their deceased parent across the country. 
• A character vows to run from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States of America. 
• A character vows to sail to every continent of the world.
• A character vows to fly to every continent of the world.
• Old retired astronauts enlist the help of a billionaire to fly them to the moon.
• A father does everything to return home from a WWII war zone for Christmas.
• The first ascent of Everest.

Read More:  101 Epic Sci-Fi Story Prompts

'Dune: Part Two' (2024)

Have fun, and travel well within your stories these prompts may have inspired. 

WANT MORE IDEAS? TAKE A LOOK AT OUR OTHER  STORY PROMPTS !

Check out our preparation notes so you start your story off on the right track.

Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries Blackout, starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner, the feature thriller Hunter’s Creed, and many Lifetime thrillers. Follow Ken on Twitter @KenMovies and Instagram @KenMovies76

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25 Hero’s Journey Story Ideas to Start an Epic Adventure

by Sue Weems | 0 comments

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The hero's journey is one of the most beloved and popular story frameworks in books and film. Today we have 25 prompts with hero's journey story ideas, so you can write your own epic adventure tale!

If you've watched any one of George Lucas's Star Wars films, read or watched any of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings books or films then you've experienced the hero's journey. I've walked my creative writing classes through these stories numerous times, helping them identify and emulate the story principles. 

Part of what makes these stories so compelling is that they follow a character from their ordinary life into an adventure they couldn't have imagined, leading to personal transformation.

You can see David Stafford's (our resident expert on Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey Story Structure) Ultimate Guide to the Hero's Journey here if you want to see a complete breakdown of the heroic journey that creates these character arcs. 

While there are twelve stages or phases in a traditional hero's journey story, I've organized these prompts in the three essential stages: the departure, the initiation, and the return. You can combine these into a story or use them individually to fuel just one section of your larger story. 

Try one and see how it pushes your character out of their normal life and into a hero venture! 

Hero's Journey Story Ideas for the Departure

This opening stage is all about establishing a would-be hero's everyday life, revealing the status quo, and then disrupting it. What's expected of this character in their current state? What do they believe about themselves? 

The departure stage requires the hero to leave that mundane life, that familiar world behind to begin their adventure that will happen in a series of stages. The departure includes: the Ordinary World , the Call to Adventure and Refusal of the Call , Meet the Mentor , and the Crossing of the Threshold .

1. Create a scene where your character is frustrated or in trouble at their current workplace or home. Avoid a wake-up scene unless you can make it compelling.

2. Show your character doing their favorite activity when it gets interrupted with something inconsequential.

3. Show your character interacting with a pesky sibling, challenging family member, or sometimes friend. 

4. What problem will arise in your character's community that will necessitate them leaving home to solve it? 

5. Create a major threat to your character's favorite place or person , preferably one that could be extended to the entire community. 

6. Describe the insecurities that plague your character, focusing on ones that will inform their refusal of the call to adventure. 

7. Create a mentor (or two or three!) that will inspire your character to think beyond their current limitations and plant a seed of inspiration. What kind of person or being will best speak into your character's specific fears?

8. Write the scene where the character accepts the call and leaves home to begin the adventure. 

Hero's Journey Story Ideas for the Initiation Stage

The initiation stage includes Trials, Allies, and Enemies ; Approach to the Inmost Cave ; The Ordeal ; and The Reward .

This next part, the initiation, is usually the longest in a story, loosely from the inciting incident to the end of the climax (and immediate repercussions). This is a place to play—get creative with the trials, the complications, and the ultimate battle.

9. Make a list of your hero's strengths and weaknesses. Now, create a trial or an antagonist that can challenge each of those traits. 

10. Write a scene where your hero meets an unexpected ally on their journey . 

11. Create a fantastical challenge or physical obstacle in the world where your story is set. Drop your hero and one other character into the situation and force them to fight their way through it. 

12. Write a scene where the hero faces something they think will be easy, but it challenges them in an unexpected (and humbling way).

13. How will your character take on a new physical look during the initiation phase? How will their build, clothing, features change? Write the description , including an outline of how it happens. 

14. Create a creature who the hero will approach as a threat. What happens in the face-off? Will the creature remain foe? or become a friend?

15. The character archetype of the shadow (sometimes called the villain) appears during the approach to the inmost cave. The villain is the dark side of the hero. Write a scene where the hero misuses their power and prowess—then see if you can adapt it for the shadow OR use it to help the hero grow. 

16. Write a scene where the hero faces their toughest foe, the scene where they are not sure they can beat evil.

17. Consider how the fight has become even more personal for the hero. Write about what they believe they are fighting for now. Make sure the stakes are high.

Hero's Journey Story Ideas for the Return

Finally, the Return stage shows off how our hero has changed, how the internal transformation has now manifested as an external change as the hero fully embraces their new status and learning.

It includes the final stages of the journey structure: The Road Back , The Resurrection , and the Return with the Elixir . 

18. Write a scene (or a list!) where the hero recounts what they have lost on the journey. 

19. Write a scene where the hero has achieved what they hoped, but somehow it falls short of what they thought it would be to them.

20. Write out the worst thing that could happen on the hero's way back home. How will they face it?

21. Describe (or draw!) a map of the hero's way home. Will they return the same way or go a new direction? What have they learned? 

22. Write a scene where your hero makes a significant sacrifice to defeat evil, preferably on behalf of their community.

23. Write a scene where the hero encounters a setback on their way home, either physical or relational. Make sure they are using their newfound confidence to solve the problem. 

24. Make a list of possible “elixirs” or rewards your hero could bring back from their adventure. Think about what is broken or important to their community and what that physical object will mean to them. Choose one elixir and write the moment the hero presents it. 

25. Write a hero's celebration feast scene. 

Now you try! 

The hero's journey structure can push you as a writer to focus on character development in addition to its opportunities for action and world building. Try one of these prompts today in your writing time and see where it leads!

Choose one of the prompts above. Set your timer for fifteen minutes and write. When finished, post your practice in the Pro Practice Workshop here , and I hope you'll share feedback and encouragement with a few other writers. Help those heroes shine! 

Sue Weems is a writer, teacher, and traveler with an advanced degree in (mostly fictional) revenge. When she’s not rationalizing her love for parentheses (and dramatic asides), she follows a sailor around the globe with their four children, two dogs, and an impossibly tall stack of books to read. You can read more of her writing tips on her website .

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340 episodes

Journey with Story is a storytelling podcast for kids ages 3-10. These audio stories are told with a Celtic flavor and calming voice of Scottish author, Kathleen Pelley. She shares fairy tale stories, bedtime stories, classic stories, and her own original children's audio stories.

Journey with Story - A Storytelling Podcast for Kids Kathleen Pelley. audio story podcaster, children's author

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• APR 3, 2024

The White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy- Storytelling Podcast for Kids

An old American tale by Carl Sandburg about a girl who loves her white horses more than anything in the world and a young boy who loves more than anything listening the the different kinds of winds.  A beautiful tale that celebrates the wonder of friendship and our natural world.  An episode from Journey with Story a storytelling podcast for children ages 4-10.  (duration 13 minutes) If you are enjoying this podcast you can rate and write a review here If your little listener wants to ask us a question or send us a drawing inspired by one of our episodes, send it to us at instagram@journeywithstory.  Or you can contact us at www.journeywithstory.com.  We love to hear from our listeners. If you enjoy our podcast, you can rate, review, and subscribe at here Did you know Kathleen is also a children's picture book author, you can find out more about her books at www.kathleenpelley.com   Don't forget to check out our friends at Armchair Adventures podcast - a super fun, join in adventure series for kids ages 6-10.  New episodes release twice a  month on the first and third Thursday of the month. https://www.instagram.com/armchairadventuresuk/ https://twitter.com/madebymortals www.facebook.com/armchairadventuresUK        

• MAR 30, 2024

Easter Sunday Playlist-Storytelling Podcast for Kids:Playlist

If your little listener wants to ask us a question or send us a drawing inspired by one of our episodes, send it to us at instagram@journeywithstory.  Or you can contact us at www.journeywithstory.com.  We love to hear from our listeners. If you enjoy our podcast, you can rate, review, and subscribe at here Did you know Kathleen is also a children's picture book author, you can find out more about her books at www.kathleenpelley.com   Celebrate Easter with our special playlist of our most popular Easter stories - The Velveteen Rabbit The Tale of Three Trees A playlist from Journey with Story, a storytelling podcast for kids ages 4-10. (duration - 33 minutes) If you want to check out Kathleen's latest story, Ned, the Knock-Kneed Knight, published in Cricket Magazine, about a cowardly knight who learns how to conquer his fears, you can read it to your little listener here If you would like to enjoy our weekly coloring sheets and other perks, subscribe to our patreon page here If you are enjoying this podcast you can rate and write a review here  

• MAR 27, 2024

The Honeyguide's Revenge -Storytelling Podcast for Kids

  An African folktale about a honeyguide bird who shows a young man where to find a large honeycomb in the forest, but when the young man keeps all of the honey for himself without sharing it with the little bird, the honeyguide decides to teach him a lesson about the importance of sharing.  An episode from Journey with Story, a storytelling podcast for kids  ages 4-10.  (duration - 8 minutes)   If you would like to enjoy our weekly coloring sheets and other perks, subscribe to our patreon page here   If your little listener wants to ask us a question or send us a drawing inspired by one of our episodes, send it to us at instagram@journeywithstory.  Or you can contact us at www.journeywithstory.com.  We love to hear from our listeners. If you enjoy our podcast, you can rate, review, and subscribe at here Did you know Kathleen is also a children's picture book author, you can find out more about her books at www.kathleenpelley.com    

• © 2018 Kathleen T. Pelley

Customer Reviews

321 Ratings

Best Storytelling Podcast for Families!

I’m the father of three children: Rock 9-yr-old, Behr 7-yr-old, and Magnolia 5-yr-old. Along with their beautiful mother, Emily Drew, we have listened to every episode, and we listen to every new episode. We have been loyal followers since 2018, and we look forward to every Thursday for the new episode. We intend on checking out your Patreon account this week, and we’re sure that will be even better. I am a podcaster as well being a cohost of the health and fitness podcast Barbell Shrugged. I just wanted you to know from one podcast to another that you are doing an amazing job. If you would give my children a shout out, it would make their entire year. I will return the favor to the parents on my show regardless as you sincerely deserve it. Sincerely, Travis Mash and the Mash Family

Fun for all

Found this podcast while searching for Irish stories around St. Patrick’s day. Narrator is fun and the stories are engaging for my hard-to-please family. The sound effects are cute and hold their attention, but they’re not distracting.

Awesome podcast!

Thank you for your wonderful stories! We listen every night before bed. Nico would like a story about a dinosaur.

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April 25, 2024

10 min read

An Indigenous Archaeologist’s Journey to Find the Lost Children

How “heart-centered” archaeology is helping to find the Indigenous children who never came home from residential schools

By Kisha Supernant

A staked child’s dress near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia memorializes the Indigenous children who died at the institution, where young people faced abuse and neglect.

Cole Burston /AFP/Getty Images

A late summer prairie wind swung my beaded earrings as I looked down at a gray-and-black pattern on a computer screen. The grass beneath my feet quieted as I paused. A disruption appeared, changing the radar image on the screen. My breath caught. “There,” I thought, anticipating what might come to light when we took the data back to the lab. My feet grew heavier, as did the ache in my heart.

I will never get used to walking over the land that may hold the unmarked graves of Indigenous children.

I did not start my journey as an Indigenous archaeologist in Canada with the intention of working with the dead. But I now find myself using my technical knowledge and research abilities to help my relatives find the unmarked graves of our children. Beginning in the late 1800s and over the course of more than century, Canadian authorities forcibly removed more than 150,000 Indigenous children from their families and placed them in residential schools . Thousands never came home. In recent years, many First Nations have begun the sacred and difficult work of trying to find the children who are lost, and they are calling on archaeologists for help.

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Along the way, people have gained a better understanding of how complicated it can be to find the answers that families of missing children deserve. But even when radar surveys locate anomalies in the soil that may indicate an unmarked grave, a lot of uncertainty remains. Present-day archaeologists are collaborating with survivors and communities to bring together all the information they can to locate the children and bring them home.

These efforts are an example of how archaeology is transforming to become more engaged, more ethical and more caring about the people whose past we are privileged to study. Historically, archaeologists have collected Indigenous belongings (calling them “artifacts”) and ancestors (“human remains”) without the consent of descendant peoples and used these to formulate theories about their past lives. In contrast to this top-down approach, archaeology is now being used to support restorative justice for communities who have been historically and systemically oppressed.

This new archaeological practice, which I describe as “heart-centered,” brings my colleagues and me back in time to the places touched by our ancestors. We use the material pieces they left behind to try to reanimate their lives, revive their stories—and, by informing their descendants of what became of their loved ones, to help bring closure and heal trauma . Though the journey is long, archaeological methods can be used to tell the stories of the past, both of ancient Indigenous lives and the impacts of colonization, to help build a brighter future.

In 2021 the unmarked graves of about 200 Indigenous children were found near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Alper Dervis/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The nation known as Canada and the colonies that preceded it created policies and practices designed to eliminate the ways of life of Indigenous peoples. Central to this effort were government-funded, church-run residential schools. Established in the 1880s, these institutions incarceratedIndigenous children—separating them from their families and forcing them to attend, indoctrinating them into Christianity and punishing them for speaking their own languages or engaging in their own cultural practices. “I want to get rid of the Indian problem,” said Duncan Campbell Scott of the Department of Indian Affairs in 1920 upon mandating school attendance for Indigenous children. “Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question.”

The residential school system tore families apart and placed children in environments of physical, psychological, cultural and often sexual abuse. Thousands of them died at schools from neglect, substandard living conditions, diseases, malnutrition and abuse. Some were buried in cemeteries or graveyards at the schools, while others were disposed of in more clandestine ways. Parents were often not notified of their children’s death; their kids simply never came home.

Survivors of the schools shared their knowledge about their missing companions for decades, but neither the churches nor the federal government took significant action to find the remains. Too often, these testimonies were ignored or downplayed. Over time, physical markers that might have indicated the locations of the graves were erased through both neglect and deliberate actions. In the 1960s, for example, a Catholic priest removed the headstones from the cemetery of the Marieval Residential School at Cowessess, Saskatchewan. Other cemeteries were decommissioned and erased from the landscape. It took Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which published its first shattering reports in 2015, along with the announcement of the results of ground-penetrating radar surveys conducted by First Nations investigators in 2021, to bring the horror of residential schools into the international spotlight. The trauma inflicted by residential schools have affected Indigenous people across generations. My great-grandmother attended a residential school, and this sacred work is therefore part of my own journey of healing and coming home.

In 1953 my then 19-year-old grandmother gave birth to my father in a Catholic hospital in Edmonton, Alberta. She was part of the Métis Nation, an Indigenous identity that emerged out of early unions between European fur traders and Indigenous women. The descendants of these unions formed a community with a distinct way of life, culture, and language and are now one of three recognized Indigenous groups in Canada.

Young, unmarried and Indigenous, my grandmother was not given a chance to raise her firstborn son. After she left the hospital, she never saw him again. The baby was taken from her and deposited in an orphanage, where he spent the first two years of his life . Many of these orphanages operated like residential schools; in fact, some residential schools housed orphanages, such as the St. Albert Indian Residential School, also called Youville, in Alberta. Then came foster care—my father bounced from family to family before he finally landed in a more stable placement with a French-Canadian farming household. Never adopted, he spent two unfulfilling and alienating years as an undergraduate at the University of Alberta before leaving behind his Métis homeland.

In his early 20s, he met my mother, a woman of European (mostly British) descent, in British Columbia. I was born and raised away from my ancestral homeland of prairie fields and thunderstorms. My childhood was instead spent exploring the towering cedar trees and damp mosses of the temperate rain forest near the Pacific coast. I had an unusual upbringing, being homeschooled for much of my childhood. My interests were wide-ranging, but in my teenage years, my father introduced me to archaeology, and it sounded like the most exciting and adventurous life, traveling around and exploring ancient places. My path forward seemed clear.

Archaeology emerged as a discipline in Europe and was brought to North America as part of colonial institutions such as universities and museums. Early archaeologists, almost all of them nonindigenous, excavated Indigenous sites and took what they found to museums. They framed themselves as the rightful stewards of Indigenous pasts, using our creations and ancestors for their scientific studies without our involvement or consent.

In the 1970s and 1980s, coinciding with codification of human and civil rights legislation, archaeologists began to call for a shift toward understanding individual experiences of diverse peoples from the past. Concurrently, many Indigenous activists were pushing for museums and universities to return ancestors to their communities, leading to the passing of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in the U.S. in 1990. This act required institutions that received federal funding to inventory and return ancestors and burial objects wherever cultural affiliation could be proven. It caused consternation among many archaeologists and biological anthropologists, who voiced concern that their respective fields were in danger. They were so used to the idea that nonindigenous scholars had a right to study whatever they wanted about the past, even if living Indigenous people strongly disagreed, that returning the stolen ancestors seemed a significant threat to the foundations of their discipline.

As a teenage archaeology enthusiast in the mid-1990s, I had no idea about the changes occurring in the field, and yet they had a huge impact on my training. I was educated after NAGPRA and in British Columbia, where many archaeologists were working closely with Indigenous communities.

In 2001 I excitedly stepped off a boat—I remember the midsummer sun glinting off its metal hull—onto a rocky shore. I was an undergraduate at the University of British Columbia, and my classmates and I were on the territory of the Sq’ewá:lxw First Nation, along the lower Fraser River in British Columbia, to learn field archaeology. I glimpsed the rich red ocher spread across the insides of my wrists before instinctively brushing my fingers against my temples to check that I remembered to put the paste there. The ocher allowed us to be visible to the ancestors while digging at the archaeological site nearby; every person stepping off the boat that day had to follow this protocol.

Walking up the gentle slope to the excavation that awaited, I fell into conversation with our community partners from the Sq’ewá:lxw Nation. As they shared their knowledge and connections with the past, they were as much our teachers as the academics on site were. They helped me, an Indigenous student entering my last year of university, continue my own journey of reconnecting with my ancestors. The Sq’ewá:lxw elders planted seeds in my mind that led me to where I am today: using archaeology to help Indigenous communities find our children.

Survivor Evelyn Camille was forced to spend a decade at Kamloops Indian Residential School, where, she reported, the students were subjected to physical and sexual abuse.

Cole Burston/AFP via Getty Images

In mid-2021 Tk̓emlúpste Secwépemc Nation announced that about 200 probable graves had been detected near the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. While work to locate unmarked graves had been ongoing at other locations, this announcement brought unprecedented attention to the issue of unmarked graves. The community had worked with an anthropologist who used ground-penetrating radar to locate these potential grave sites.

Since that announcement, many archaeologists have been called on by Indigenous communities in Canada and the U.S. to help find the unmarked graves of their children. This collaboration represents a significant change: communities that have been the unwilling subjects of archaeological research in the past are now asking for assistance.

Supporting Indigenous communities in this painful task requires archaeologists to lead from the heart. It is emotional and highly sensitive work, requiring great care, sincerity and scientific rigor. Instead of an extractive practice that takes knowledge, belongings and ancestors away from Indigenous communities, this new archaeology can support redress and restorative justice.

In 2020 three colleagues and I published a book envisioning a heart-centered archaeological practice flowing through the four chambers of care, emotion, relation and rigor. We invited fellow archaeologists to care for the living and the dead, to recognize the emotional content of archaeology (such as the emotions inherent in the lives of ancient peoples and evoked by the materials they used), to accept that the past relates to the present (so it’s important to build ties with the living and respect their boundaries) and finally to acknowledge that rigor comes in many forms (all knowledge systems have internal rigor that determines what the nature of knowledge is, who has knowledge and how knowledge is passed on).

It is also in heart-centered archaeology that I can find a space to be both an archaeologist and an Indigenous person. It has taken me a lifetime, but I am finally here, practicing archaeology in my own way that respects my Métis relatives. My heart has brought me back home to my homelands. The relationship I have built with my community has brought me to the most meaningful and sacred work I could imagine: helping to find the missing children. I am learning the stories of my family, including my great-grandmother, the one who attended a residential school, and my grandmother’s first cousin, who died at the age of seven and was buried in a cemetery beside a residential school. I am learning the truths of our experience, working to heal so my young daughter can have a brighter future.

Two decades after my undergraduate work in 2001, I sat down with a survivor of a residential schoolin a building that was right next door to what was once such a school. A church spire from the mission that had run the institution was visible through the window. A crispness in the fall air carried the promise of a frigid prairie winter to come. I lit the sage leaves gathered in a small cast-iron pan, the flame from the wooden match creating a burst of heat. Tendrils of fragrant smoke enveloped me as I pulled the cleansing smudge, or smoke, toward my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my heart. I stood, my ribbon skirt constricting my movement, to offer the survivor the smudge, knowing the pain that would come with what the team was about to share.

Earlier that day, I had surveyed the field behind the school with ground-penetrating radar while my team analyzed the images that appeared on my computer screen. Back in the lab, the data had resolved into a few colorful oval shapes on a white background, each about three feet long, three feet deep and similarly oriented. These were most likely buried children. No trace of their graves remained visible on the grassy field behind the residential school building, whose shadowed windows hid many secrets still to be discovered.

I told the survivor what the team had found. They needed to step away; the grief and pain were overwhelming. I stepped away, too, because I heard my own heart echo their heartbreak. Each of these shapes represented a cherished child. Yet the search was only beginning. Thousands of graves had yet to be found—and we were coming to terms with the fact that we would never find them all.

How many times can you break a broken heart?

There is still a long journey ahead. Many sites surrounding the residential schools have not even begun to be searched. The landscapes of these institutions are vast, and the process of searching is slow. It will take years of work to locate possible graves, and Indigenous people continue to discuss the question of what happens once they are located. But maybe, after years and years of asking, there might be some accountability for those responsible for taking the children away—only if the government and churches support the work to come and the public keeps the pressure on for real action.

The journey for archaeology as a discipline is equally challenging. There are still people in our field who insist that collaboration with Indigenous communities and the return of ancestors are a threat to the very foundations of our discipline. But if a foundation is fundamentally flawed, do we just continue building the same way, or do we imagine a different foundation?

We can, and will, do better. And we will help find the children.

Kisha Supernant (Métis) is director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology at the University of Alberta and co-editor of Archaeologies of the Heart (Springer, 2020).

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Festival in Focus: Saudi Film Festival Master Of Ceremonies Mohammed Elshehri Talks Journey From MC To Film & TV Fame

By Melanie Goodfellow

Melanie Goodfellow

Senior International Film Correspondent

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Actor Mohammed Elshehri belongs to a generation of emerging Saudi talents who first cut their teeth on YouTube and are now making their names in film and TV.

The rising star will be master of ceremonies at the upcoming Saudi Film Festival in the Eastern Province city of Dhahran, which will be celebrating its 10th edition from from May 2 to 9.

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Elshehri’s master of ceremonies role takes him back an earlier time in his career, as a TV and event presenter.

This work grew out of YouTube show Trailer , which he created around 2014, after coming to the conclusion he would never achieve his dream of becoming an actor on mainstream TV. “I felt there was no chance I was ever going to get a role as an unknown,” he recounts. “I decided to stop being an actor and to do something around it instead. It was kind of Jimmy Kimmel style. It wasn’t criticism, it was more recommendations with a light, funny tone. I did three seasons.”

The second season caught Netflix’s eye and they started working with Elshehri to promote their shows in the region, even inviting him to the set of Spanish crime thriller Money Heist .

This work came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, but Elshehri says he was not too disheartened as he already wanted to move on.

“I saw it as a sign that it was time for me to stop,” he says.

Shortly after, he secured a supporting role in The Fates Hotel , an original series created for MBC platform Shahid.

The hit crime drama revolved around the illicit goings-on in a dilapidated hotel located on the outskirts of the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh.

“It was good for me because it showed people that I was an actor and not just a host,” he says.

Within a year, he had been approached for roles in Khalid Fahad’s 2022 feature Valley Road and Road Trip , which was developed to run in a primetime slot over the Ramadan religious period.

“Everyone in the Arab region is watching TV when they break their fast. It wasn’t easy as an unknown actor,” he says.

“It’s a different experience from being on a show on a platform… On public TV, everyone watches and if they don’t like it, they’ll say it on the social networks… shows come under attack. But we felt we had something and with second season it went boom.”

Elshehri suggests the show’s success is due in part to the fact that Saudi audiences identify closely with the three fraternal protagonists.

“When I’m walking in the street. People come up to me all the time and say my character reminds them of cousin or a brother,” he says.

With the third season over with the end of Ramadan, Elshehri has yet to learn whether a fourth season will be greenlit. He suggests it is a format has more mileage in it yet.

In the meantime, he is in throes of negotiating a new role in a Saudi feature that is due to shoot in September.

Ahead of his Saudi Film Festival appeareance, he says it is a must-attend event for people in the burgeoning local film industry.

“We love this festival. It’s where we meet our family. The director Ahmed Amulla is one of a kind. He’s so humble. He is trying to help everyone. I know so many talented people who have found themselves at this festival.”

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"It's a dream come true": Rome Odunze talks about epic journey to the 2024 NFL Draft

From early rome odunze days to the nfl draft..

It's Week 4 of the 2023 college football season. The No. 8 Washington Huskies are up 38-12 over Pac-12 foe Cal on a chilly Seattle night. Late in the first half, Washington's top receiver, Rome Odunze , is split wide to the left.

Quarterback Michael Penix Jr. takes the snap and Odunze beats press coverage immediately, racing up the seam. Penix Jr. knows where he wants to go but sees a safety lurking in Odunze's way. He launches a deep pass to the corner, away from the safety but also away from Odunze's original path, forcing a tight-window throw.

In a split second Odunze looks back at the ball, adjusts his route, and looks back again in time to secure the pass for a touchdown - a sight Huskies fans saw 13 times over the course of the season.

"That was one of my favorite plays from the season," Odunze said, crediting teammate Jalen McMillan with helping develop his elite ball-tracking abilities. "You have to be ready for that moment and retain the focus through a route adjustment to make the catch."

It's plays like that on the field - and the man Odunze is off of it - that make him one of the top prospects in the 2024 NFL Draft. That potential began in Utah more than a decade ago.

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Rome Odunze's journey from Utah to Seattle

Odunze, named after the Roman Empire thanks to his father's love of history, was born in Orem, Utah. At age 3, his parents moved to Las Vegas. Even with the distance, Odunze made the trek back to Provo, Utah to spend summers with Wayne and Helen Bunnell, his maternal grandparents, at their farm.

"I remember the four-wheelers, I remember the cows, the hay, the barn, the tractors," Odunze recalled with ESPN . "Also the hard work."

Odunze made the varsity team at high school football powerhouse Bishop Gorman High School mid-way through his freshman year. He earned All-State honors as a junior as Bishop Gorman won a state title in 2018.

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Odunze credits Wayne's work ethic providing for the family as a model for success.

"My family, my mother, my pops, where I come from, we're all hardworking and determined people with tenacity," Odunze said. "It was naturally instilled in me as a young man and continues to be instilled in me to this day."

Success kept coming for Odunze on the football field. Bishop Gorman fell short in the title game in 2019 but Odunze earned Gatorade Nevada High School Player of the Year honors.

His outstanding play on the field complemented his stellar work off of it. Odunze was a 3.47 GPA student and a volunteer with charities including the Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada and the Special Olympics.

In August 2016, Wayne went out for a bicycle ride as he did often after a day of work on the farm. But this time he crashed and went over his handlebars, suffering a traumatic brain injury in the process.

He's legally blind and never got to see Odunze shine on the field for the Huskies. Instead, Helen watches diligently and fills him in on every catch.

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Building a winner in Seattle

In the Huskies' 2020 recruiting class, Odunze wasn't even the top-ranked receiver. That honor went to McMillan, a four-star wide receiver out of Fresno, Calif.

During his second year in Seattle, Washington fired coach Jimmy Lake after video showed him shoving linebacker Ruperake Fuavai during a loss to Oregon. As a highly touted recruit, Odunze could've entered the transfer portal and looked elsewhere.

"I had already made my mind up that I wanted to leave the place better than I found it," Odunze said. "I felt like there was so much still to accomplish. When the new staff came in and we talked about their offense, they talked about [Penix Jr.] coming in, I knew it could be something special."

He stayed as the Huskies hired new head coach Kalen DeBoer and the results on the field were immediate. Odunze made a leap and led the conference with 1,145 receiving yards and eight total touchdowns.

"The offense allowed for a lot of plays to be made by the receivers," Odunze said. "I had the skillset, I had the talent, just putting more work in through the offseason and I grew as a player... the offense started to allow me and all my brothers to eat."

During that breakout season, he took a day in December with teammates McMillan, Bralen Trice , Troy Fautanu , and Alphonzo Tuputala to wrap gifts for underprivileged children with The Forgotten Children's Fund .

That community work continued ahead of his third season, too. During Dawg Derby , a charity event put on in July by the University of Washington that pairs players and fans for a fishing tournament on Puget Sound, Odunze's foundation donated $5,000 to the Tulalip Boys & Girls Club .

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Odunze's record-breaking 2023 season

After earning first-team All-Pac-12 honors in 2022, Odunze earned a new title before the first kickoff of 2023: team captain.

"It's one of the biggest honors I've ever received," he said. "That's something I hold closer to my heart than a lot of awards that I've received and that's because it's voted on by the team. For those boys to see me as a leader, as someone they want to captain the team, to lead them out into battle every game, I felt very blessed."

His third season in Seattle was a record-breaking one. Odunze's 1,640 yards in 2023 broke the program's single-season record by nearly 200 yards. All of this while playing through a fractured rib and a collapsed lung suffered late in Washington's 31-24 win over Arizona .

This is the same man who played for two weeks of his sophomore season in high school with a broken collarbone . He'd miss no playing time for the Huskies who were gearing up for a showdown with Oregon.

“That dude was already worried about what he could do to get better and be ready for Oregon," Washington's head trainer Daren Nystrom told Christian Caple of On Montlake . “He did not make a big deal of it. If you didn’t know what was going on, you wouldn’t have known. You couldn’t tell by looking at him.”

Odunze kept playing and Washington kept winning. A win over Oregon in the final Pac-12 championship game ensured a spot in the College Football Playoff.

"I've been winning championships playing football for a long time," Odunze said. "Finally, to get my first Pac-12 championship with my brothers, it was a four-year journey. When we finally did and we could relish in the moment, that's something that I'll never forget."

After winning the Sugar Bowl over Texas , Odunze was the last player on the field at the Superdome. He was signing autographs for any kid who wanted one.

Though the Huskies lost the College Football Playoff national championship game, Odunze's proud of building one of the most successful teams in program history. His impact didn't go unnoticed by key figures in the program, either.

“Just over and over again, think about how many times he’s come through when you really needed it," DeBoer, now at Alabama , told reporters . "A lot of times you think about when you lose football games or you didn’t come through in the big moment. You remember those. I can’t remember Rome not coming through.”

2024 NFL draft rankings: Caleb Williams, Marvin Harrison Jr. lead top 50 players

Rome Odunze's draft potential

You don't have to look far to find praise from scouts and analysts about Odunze. He put on a show at the scouting combine while other top prospects sat out, including staying later than any other prospect to get the time he wanted in the three-cone drill.

That drive - in addition to his talent and production - is grabbing plenty of attention.

NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah said Odunze is his favorite player in the draft in a media call. An NFL scout told The Athletic's Bruce Feldman Odunze is the safest guy of the top tier receivers and "he's built right to last and run routes." A wide receiver coach also raved about Odunze's football IQ. NFL.com draft analyst Lance Zierlein compared Odunze to future NFL Hall of Famer Larry Fitzgerald .

In most other years, Odunze's production, athleticism, and character make him the top wide receiver in a draft class. But Ohio State's Marvin Harrison Jr. and LSU's Malik Nabers are a pair of other top prospects at the position.

"I think [Harrison Jr.] is a tremendous wide receiver," Odunze said leading up to the draft . "He has a Hall of Fame father who has installed that in him... he kind of emulates that in his own game."

Regardless of how you rank the top receivers, Odunze is a near-lock for the top 10. USA Today's latest mock drafts have Odunze going No. 9 overall to the Chicago Bears and No. 10 overall to the New York Jets .

He's one of the few prospects invited to Detroit to be at the NFL Combine live. When he hears his name called, it'll be the culmination of more than a decade of work that sprouted from a family farm in Provo.

"It's a dream come true," Odunze said. "It's something I've been chasing since I was six years old... and I think my family's even more excited than I am."

Marvin Harrison Jr. Q&A: Ohio State WR talks NFL draft uncertainty, New Balance deal

Following Odunze's rookie season

Fans of the franchise that drafts Odunze can look forward to a standout weapon in the passing game. Advanced metrics from Reception Perception show he stands out even at the top of the draft class at route success rate.

"I'm going to work," Odunze said. "I'm a young guy coming into a team, an organization that's been there for many years with many players going through so I'm just going to play my part and put the work in it."

He's also keen to do more than just produce on the field. Odunze noted in a recent interview on This Is Football that his locker room presence and leadership will be an emphasis early on.

"My involvement in the community as well, I feel, is second to none," he added.

He's working with Verizon this year to take fans through his experience. Verizon's following Odunze as well as Texas wide receiver Adonai "AD" Mitchell as they transition from college to the NFL in a series titled "Call to Pro," similar to the annual "Hard Knocks" documentary program .

The first part of Odunze's series will feature him making the call back home to tell Wayne and the rest of his family where he'll be playing professional football.

"He won't be able to make it to the draft because of his condition," Odunze said. "So Verizon hooked me up and that'll be the first person I call to let them know that I've been drafted."

That first part of the series will be released Friday with Odunze's social media platforms.

"I'm sure there'll be so many people I'll be connecting with," Odunze said. "The whole NFL experience is an incredible journey so they'll be right there along the way."

An Amazing Journey From Intern to Zoologist

In fall 2021, a Bowie State University biology student, Muhannad Alghamdi, attended a presentation given by the Service’s Ela Carpenter about urban wildlife biology through his Field Biology class. He and his classmates learned how to set up trail cameras to monitor wildlife at Patuxent Research Refuge. His interest in wildlife management continued to grow. In January 2022, Muhannad participated in the first public mammals inventory program at Masonville Cove Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership in Baltimore, Maryland. 

That summer, Muhannad entered into the Masonville Cove Partnership's Urban Conservation and Education Internship (UCEI). The six-week program provides interns with opportunities to explore environmental careers; network with mentors in the environmental and conservation sectors; assist with outdoor environmental education programs; and engage in outdoor community programming and wildlife conservation and monitoring. 

During his internship, Muhannad worked with members of the Masonville Cove Partnership, including Service biologists with the Chesapeake Bay Field Office and Patuxent Research Refuge and the Living Classrooms Foundation. Part of his UCEI experience included assisting with the summer outdoor education program for children at Masonville Cove, the free fishing program for underserved communities, and numerous wildlife field trips. 

Now, two years later, Muhannad is a zoologist at a nature reserve in Saudi Arabia. One of his first projects is an intensive 200-to-300 trail camera survey to monitor a variety of wildlife, from carnivores to herbivores.

“Working as an intern in the Urban Conservation and Education program opened my eyes to different fields within environmental science,” said Muhannad. “It helped me have a deeper understanding of the environment and guided me to find my path through all the people that I met through the internship. I met a lot of experts working in urban conservation, and all of them had amazing insights on the work and nature. That made me search more about majors in the environment field, and I found zoology.”

Muhannad recently reached back out to urban biologist Ela Carpenter to discuss techniques for utilizing trail cameras as well as ways to engage local hunters and farmers near the reserve.

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Goaltender Ivan Fedotov signs a two-year, $6.5M deal with the Flyers after long journey to the NHL

PHILADELPHIA — Goaltender Ivan Fedotov signed a two-year, $6.5 million contract with the Flyers on Tuesday, landing a short-term commitment in the NHL less than a month after joining the team and nine years after his complicated and secretive journey to Philadelphia began.

Fedotov made his long-awaited Flyers debut earlier this month after being selected in the seventh round of the 2015 draft. He was able to join the team after CSKA Moscow terminated his contract in Russia’s KHL.

The 27-year-old went 0-1-1 with a 4.95 GAA and a .811 save percentage in three games (one start) with Philadelphia this season.

He went 21-22-1 with a 2.37 GAA and a .914 save percentage in 44 games in the KHL. The 6-foot-7, 214-pound Russian was tied for sixth in shutouts and tied for eighth in wins.

Fedotov initially signed with the Flyers in May 2022 and attempted to come to North America two months later. But he was taken by authorities to a remote military base in the Arctic Circle for a year of service.

Before trying to jump to the NHL two years ago, Fedotov helped the Russians reach the Beijing Olympic final, where they lost to Finland and left with a silver medal.

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Stepinac headliner Boogie Fland is looking for the next stop in his basketball journey

WHITE PLAINS ‒ After reflecting on the last four years, Boogie Fland smiled at the idea of coming back in the near future to see his college jersey hanging in the Stepinac gym alongside so many other graduates who competed at the next level.

Now he just has to pick a school.

Fland completed a run of national showcase events last weekend, checking in at the McDonald's All-American game, the Nike Hoop Summit and the Jordan Brand Classic. Now the five-star recruit is focused solely on finding the next stop after being released from the National Letter of Intent he signed with Kentucky.

"I'm more locked in this time, more straightforward," he said of the approach. "Before, the process was more about trying to enjoy it all. This time I’m trying to be more serious about everything."

A repeat win: Boogie Fland headlines 2024 lohud boys basketball all-stars for Westchester/Putnam

The 6-foot-2 guard picked the Wildcats over Alabama and Indiana.

Fland asked to be released from his NLI a week after news broke that John Calipari was moving on to Arkansas. It was not a complete surprise to the CHSAA AA MVP.

"He did (call me)," Fland said. "He told me before he left so I wasn’t totally in the dark. He told me there were some rumors and something would be happening."

Fland was shocked at the latest first-round exit by Kentucky at the NCAA tournament. He purchased Wildcats gear and had his summer class schedule in hand when Calipari signed a five-year deal with the Razorbacks.

"I can’t tell you there were no emotions, there were definitely some emotions," Fland said. "We have to start over and I feel like I’m more focused and locked in on what I need to do and how I handle these college coaches."

Back on the market: Stepinac headliner Boogie Fland asks Kentucky to be released from NLI

Arkansas is a possible destination.

"They're in the mix," Fland said.

It's unclear what other programs are getting consideration. Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, St. John's and UConn were among his eight finalists the first time around. Fland is done with classes at Stepinac on May 10. There is no timetable for a decision in place and he said no official visits have been scheduled at this point.

"I’ve got a few schools that I like, I’m not going to say which ones, but I’ll take visits there when the time comes and we’ll go from there," Fland added.

Fland has become close with former Stepinac standout R.J. Davis, a 2023-24 First Team All-American who's returning to North Carolina for a fifth season, according to a CBS Sports report. Fland on Tuesday received a text from the Crusaders all-time leading scorer, who suggested they team up. It's unclear whether the message friendly banter or a serious idea.

"He finished senior year and played in three marquee events around the country and was preparing to head to Kentucky in early June to start summer session and then this all comes about,” Stepinac coach Pat Massaroni said. “I think his mom and dad and the rest of his inner circle has done a great job staying focused on what is at hand. You have to do it in a short time frame, so it’s definitely been stressful on him, but I think he’s done a really good job of listening to the right people around him and staying focused on that the goal is, putting himself in the best position to go onto the next level as quick as possible."