PseudoPod

by E. Lee McVicar

Not only is Jay’s Place a Pseudopod original, but also the author’s first professional publication sale. PseudoPod couldn’t be prouder to introduce you to this author.

E. Lee McVicar grew up in West Virginia and now lives in Western Massachusetts, where she works at a small publishing company. When she’s not working, painting, or watching birds, she’s hiding under the covers reading ghost stories. When she was writing this story, she was thinking about the frustration and terror of being unable to understand something angry, and how we just want things to make sense, both around us and inside of us.

Your narrator – Joe Scalora is a senior marketing manager at Del Rey Books and Del Rey Star Wars. He is a curator of Geek pursuits and has narrated for Pseudopod and The Double Shadow, the Clark Ashton Smith podcast. Follow him on twitter @JoeScalora

Your guest audio producer – Chelsea Davis is a scholar of Gothic fiction. She’s currently at work on a dissertation about supernatural war literature. In her spare time, she produces radio, & gets a huge kick out of reading killer Pseudopod submissions as an Associate Editor.

Your guest host – Julie Hoverson is the writer and producer of such audio dramas as 19 Nocturne Boulevard and Fatal Girl (both available at 19 Nocturne Boulevard), has now turned her hand to audiobooks and can be found on audible.com narrating such diverse pieces as Jake Bible’s Dead Mech / Apex Trilogy and several novellas that are part of Brian MacLellan’s Powder Mage series, most recently the short story collection In The Field Marshal’s Shadow.

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The road looked like it was there by accident. Turnoff so steep it felt like driving straight into the trees. Houses set far apart, hiding suspiciously at end of long dirt driveways, husks of cars crouched on their lawns. These were not the kind of people who made friends with their neighbors, but that was all right for now.

His place was second from the end of the street, a rocky oval where lost souls could pull a three-point turn and get back to the interstate. The house looked like it was built more recently than its neighbors. It was a little too narrow for its two stories, but the siding was all attached and the roof hadn’t yet shed any asphalt tiles. Jay examined it critically from the end of the unpaved driveway. Even this late in the evening, he had to shield his eyes against the fierce glare of the sun.

“No one’s been in there for a while,” said his brother, “but I just got it inspected and the inside’s actually all right. Hot water works, electricity’s not gonna kill you.” He leaned against his truck, boots crunching in the gravel.

“What’s it need done?” Jay asked.

“Well, once the yard is cleared out, I figure we’ll fix up the porch. Windows are okay but the screen door needs replacing. The rest is for you to figure out. Once they demo that dump next door, I think we may have a chance of selling.” He gestured to the neighboring property, barely visible behind a tangle of underdeveloped trees.

Author : Lisa Tuttle Narrator : Heather Welliver Hosts : Andrea Subissati and Alex West Audio Producer : Chelsea Davis Artist : Galen Dara Discuss on Forums Bug House was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1980. It won second place for best short story category in the 1981 Locus […]

by Lisa Tuttle.

Bug House was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1980. It won second place for best short story category in the 1981 Locus Awards.

Lisa Tuttle began her career as a published writer in the early 1970s, and won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer of the year in 1974. She’s the author of seven novels and more than a hundred short stories. Born and raised in Texas, she has lived in a remote, rural part of Scotland for the past twenty-five years. Her first novel, Windhaven, was a collaboration with George R. R. Martin published in 1981. This was followed by a horror novel, Familiar Spirit, in 1983. Unable to stick to one well-defined genre, although most of her work features elements of horror and/or dark fantasy, she went on to write novels of psychological suspense, science fiction, and fantasy as well as books for children and young adults, and non-fiction (including the Encyclopedia of Feminism and Heroines).

Short stories were her first love, and remain important. Her first short story collection, A Nest of Nightmares was published in the U.K. in 1986, and two years later featured in Horror: 100 Best Books edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman. A number of her short stories have appeared in “best of the year” anthologies and been nominated for awards; “Closet Dreams” won the 2007 International Horror Guild Award. She edited an influential anthology of horror stories by women writers, Skin of the Soul, first published in 1990.

She has just finished a new novel, to be published in early 2016: THE CURIOUS AFFAIR OF THE SOMNAMBULIST AND THE PSYCHIC THIEF — this is the start of a new detective series set in London in the 1890s. If you want a taste of what is to come, check out her stories in both the Rogues and Down These Strange Streets anthologies and follow her author page on Facebook.

Your narrator – Heather Welliver is an Emmy Award nominated narrator and voice actress. She has been part of the Escape Artists family of narrators since 2007. She is slated for new episodes for Cast of Wonders, Escape Pod, and more in the coming year.

Your guest audio producer – Chelsea Davis is a scholar of Gothic fiction. She’s currently at work on a dissertation about supernatural war literature. In her spare time, she produces radio, & gets a huge kick out of reading killer Pseudopod submissions as an Associate Editor.

Your guest hosts – Tackling all things horror with a slash of analysis and research, horror journalists and occasional academics Andrea Subissati and Alexandra West are your hosts for brain plumping discussions on all things that go bump in the night. Produced independently in Toronto, Ontario The Faculty of Horror is your best source for classic and contemporary horror film discussions that will haunt the libraries of your mind! Follow them on Twitter at @FacultyofHorror.

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The house was a wreck, resting like some storm-shattered ship on a weedy headland overlooking the ocean. Ellen felt her heart sink at the sight of it.

‘This it?’ asked the taxi-driver dubiously, squinting through his windscreen and slowing the car.

‘It must be,’ Ellen said without conviction. She couldn’t believe her aunt — or anyone else — lived in this house.

The house had been built, after the local custom, out of wood, and then set upon cement blocks that raised it three or four feet off the ground. But floods seemed far less dangerous to the house now than the winds, or simply time. The house was crumbling on its blocks. The boards were weatherbeaten and scabbed with flecks of ancient grey paint. Uncurtained windows glared blankly, and one shutter hung at a crazy angle. Between the boards of the sagging, second-storey balcony, Ellen could see daylight.

Author : Shannon Peavey Narrator : Tina Connolly Host : Wendy N. Wagner Audio Producer : Chelsea Davis Artist : Galen Dara Discuss on Forums PseudoPod 476: ARTEMIS RISING Women In Horror Showcase: Black Hearts is a PseudoPod original. Black Hearts by Shannon Peavey Alma carried the worm-fork and Lewis carried the knife. They didn’t […]

by Shannon Peavey.

Black Hearts is a PseudoPod Original.

Shannon Peavey is a writer and horse trainer from Seattle, Washington. Her stories have also appeared in Apex, Lightspeed, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Kelly Sandoval and Shannon co-edit Liminal Stories, a twice-yearly online magazine for beautiful and unsettling stories.

Your narrator – Tina Connolly is the author of the Ironskin trilogy from Tor Books, and the Seriously Wicked series, from Tor Teen. Ironskin, her first fantasy novel, was a Nebula finalist. Her stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, as well as Escape Pod, PodCastle, and here on PseudoPod.

Her narrations have appeared in audiobooks and podcasts including all four Escape Artists podcasts, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and her Parsec-winning flash fiction podcast Toasted Cake. She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.

Your guest audio producer – Chelsea Davis is a scholar of Gothic fiction. She’s currently at work on a dissertation about supernatural war literature. In her spare time, she produces radio, & gets a huge kick out of reading killer Pseudopod submissions as an Associate Editor.

Your guest host – Wendy N. Wagner is the author of Skinwalkers, a Pathfinder Tales novel inspired by Viking lore, and she’s also published more than thirty short stories in anthologies like Cthulhu Fhtagn! and The Way of the Wizard, and in magazines like Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Farrago’s Wainscot. She is the managing/associate editor of Nightmare and Lightspeed magazine, and served as guest editor for Nightmare’s Queers Destroy Horror! special issue.

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Alma carried the worm-fork and Lewis carried the knife. They didn’t speak and had not spoken since the morning, fifteen miles back through dry grass and bare dirt and the click-chatter of insects. Dust rose around their ankles and the sun beat hot on the napes of their necks.

When they dropped over a rise and hit bottom, Lewis stopped and nodded and Alma took the worm-fork in both hands. It was a heavy thing, its grip worn smooth by her palm. She raised it shoulder-high, breathed once, and slammed it down into the ground.

She didn’t know how Lewis decided on a place — what made that stretch of plain any better than the miles they had passed before it. Long miles, leading a horse too laden with jars and bags to ride. They were somewhere south of Nampa, days out of Boise, and she’d been gone from her home for more than a year. The land was different, here. The ground packed so hard she had to lean all her weight on the worm-fork to get it to stick.

They’d been only children at the start of Lewis’s great journey, but no one would call them such anymore.

Author : Jessica Amanda Salmonson Narrator : Sandra Espinoza Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop Discuss on Forums The Toad Witch originally appeared in Tales of Witchcraft in 1991. The Toad Witch by Jessica Amanda Salmonson I began life in 1950. Until then, everything was darkness. Afterward was suffering and beauty. How could 1 not become […]

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson.

The Toad Witch originally appeared in Tales of Witchcraft in 1991.

Jessica Amanda Salmonson is a recipient of the World Fantasy Award, ReaderCon Certificate, and Lambda Award, author of THE DISFAVORED HERO and other novels, THE DEATH SONNETS and other poetry collections, and THE DEEP MUSEUM and other short story collections. Forthcoming – a giant omnibus of her works will appear from the extravagantly cool Centipede Press consisting of her Dell Books novel ANTHONY SHRIEK, a number of poems, and her Ace Books collection A SILVER THREAD OF MADNESS plus enough new and uncollected material to equal a third book in one huge volume. Her next poetry collection PETS GIVEN IN EVIDENCE OF OLD ENGLISH WITCHCRAFT AND OTHER BEWITCHED BEINGS will be issued this coming year by The Sidecar Preservation Society to coincide with Diversicon where she will be Guest of Honor. She’s presently working on a small collection THE BLIND AVIATRIX: Dream Life and Real Life, too odd for commercial publishers but she can’t help it she has to write it.

Your narrator – Sandra Espinoza is a voice actress and video/sound editor in New York with a background in publicity, research and writing. She’s provided voice over for games like Apotheon, Primordia, Combat Core, Norse Noir and Supreme League of Patriots. Sandra’s upcoming roles include Freida in Kreative Spill’s newest point-and-click adventure Norse Noir; and Ember in Combat Core. To find out more visit dustyoldroses.com or like DustyOldRoses on Facebook.

Your guest host – Kat Rocha is Associate Editor at PseudoPod, Guest Editor for the Artemis Rising Event, and Editor-in-Chief of 01Publishing. They released Whispers from the Abyss 2 in ebook in 2015 and will release it in trade paperback in early 2016. She is a longtime fan of horror and good horror stories and has made the promotion and publishing of them her career.

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I began life in 1950. Until then, everything was darkness. Afterward was suffering and beauty. How could 1 not become a masochist? By the age of four I had learned to mistrust everyone, a good philosophy. If one expects something terrible to develop out of even pleasant events, one may also expect consolations at moments of travail; and even I must delude myself from time to time, succumbing to the disease of sentiment.

People who are essentially cheerful annoy me. When they are finally bent and deaf, they are suddenly surprised. They find out their lives were pointless falsehoods; that it’s all nearly over, and for what? When in the end they are completely disillusioned they seek forgiveness from everyone, for they had always been oblivious to the obvious things, to the suffering around them. They are sorry for having insisted nothing was ever all that bad. Destined as they are to so much disappointment, they merit our sadness more than our disdain.

As for those of us daily anguished, we need not be pitied. The world constantly reinforces our perspective. We may nod our heads like true sages. We are impervious to disillusion, knowing as we do that worse is yet to come.

In our first 2016 metacast, we present the Escape Artists (EA) stories that ran in 2015, which are eligible in the upcoming Hugo nomination season. A quick plug. For us. All four EA shows – PodCastle, Pseudopod, Escape Pod and Cast of Wonders – are themselves eligible in the SEMIPROZINE Hugo category. Not Fancast. Not […]

In our first 2016 metacast, we present the Escape Artists (EA) stories that ran in 2015, which are eligible in the upcoming Hugo nomination season.

A quick plug. For us. All four EA shows – PodCastle, Pseudopod, Escape Pod and Cast of Wonders – are themselves eligible in the SEMIPROZINE Hugo category.

Not Fancast. Not Fanzine. SEMIPROZINE. Yes, the categories are confusing and often overlap. “Fancast” is traditionally dominated by commentary shows and sketch-based audio programs.

There’s an argument that we could split the shows and compete in multiple categories to increase our chances. We don’t think that benefits anyone. The division is artificial at best, and extremely difficult (at worst) to explain, given all four of our shows have harmonised pay rates and submissions policies. It would smack of gamesmanship, which doesn’t interest us.

Don’t get us wrong, we LOVED seeing PodCastle and Escape Pod on last year’s Hugo long lists, and we’d be honoured for any one of our shows to be a finalist.

But that’s a decision that rests solely in the hands of YOU, our fans and supporters.

(And just a note, Mothership Zeta doesn’t qualify this year because they’re too new.)

Below are links to some aggregation projects, where fans are building lists of those eligible in the various categories. They’re great tools, and we’d like to thank David Steffen for his efforts. We’ll also link to our Wikia page, containing links to all the eligible Escape Artists stories.

Escape Artists Stories eligible for Hugo Nomnations (2016)

Art eligible for Hugo Nomnations (2016)

ALL Hugo Nominees so far

Hugo Nominees for Best Semi-prozine (2016)

Please listen to this MetaCast for the Escape Artists entries!

Author : S.L. Gilbow Narrator : Mat Weller Host : Alasdair Stuart Audio Producer : Graeme Dunlop Discuss on Forums “Mr. Hill’s Death” was first published in The Dark Magazine and was reprinted in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2015. “The English assignment in the story is based on a project I used […]