The Hidden Gems Podcast (Classic Tales & Original Short Stories)

If you could peer inside the souls of all your loved ones and learn their hidden mysteries, would you choose to do so? If the answer is yes, this story is for you! 

Born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne was best known for his novels 'The Scarlet Letter' in 1850 and 'The House of Seven Gables' in 1851. Talk about a writer with family drama! He changed his name from Hathorne to Hawthorne to try to distance  himself from his great-great-grandfather's guilt and involvement in the infamous Salem Witch Trial persecutions. Find out more at https://electricliterature.com/move-over-poe-the-real-godfather-of-gothic-horror-was-nathaniel-hawthorne/

John Bell is our narrator and he is also the writer, producer, and actor on the award-winning "Bell's in the Batfry" podcast, which can be found at http://thebatfry.libsyn.com/

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

My name is Cathy McCarthy and I write under the name of C. Mack Lewis. You can request my books from your local library and I would greatly appreciate your opinion in an honest online review of The Fallen Angels Detective Series, written by C. Mack Lewis. For more information about me, go to https://cmacklewis.com/

You can read the Kirkus Review of my latest book, The Angel Wore Black at  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/c-mack-lewis/the-angel-wore-black/

If you enjoy our podcast, we would love it if you would rate, review, and share our podcast with other lovers of short fiction. 

Thank you for listening!

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com

Spring break isn't simply a journey filled with sweet anticipation and new friends! It's also about learning to love tacky Christmas cards and getting a fresh perspective on family, love, and acceptance. 

Join Cathy McCarthy as she features the short story, Spring Break, written by Lorraine Murphy.  Lorraine was raised in Jamaica Queens and has been living in Northport Long Island for over thirty with her family. She has completed a fictional novel and is currently working on a screenplay for that body of work. 

John Bell is the narrator and he is also known for being the Producer/Writer/voice of the family-friendly The Bell's In the Batfry Podcast, which has previously won the Parsec award, which is a juried award for podcasts centered around speculative fiction. You can listen at http://thebatfry.com/

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

Your host is C. Mack Lewis, author of The Fallen Angels Detective Series, which is available on Kindle, and Audible, and can be requested through your local library. For more information, you can visit https://cmacklewis.com/

Until next time, keep writing, keep listening, and keep dreaming!

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com

Have you ever wondered why your reclusive sibling never invites you over or comes to visit? Ride along as our intrepid Hero delves into this mystery and undergoes trial by fire and is reborn into a new world of understanding and knowledge.  

Today's writer, Leeland Kirwan, is involved in programming, higher math, and pet rats, cats, and dogs. He lives in a house in the woods in Oregon. Lee has written a few guides on gamefaqs.com.  He likes to write short stories, too.

John Bell is our  was our narrator and he is also the writer, producer, and actor on the award-winning "Bell's in the Batfry" podcast, which can be found at http://thebatfry.libsyn.com/

I'm your host, C. Mack Lewis, and you can visit my website for more information about my books at https://cmacklewis.com/

You can also find my books, The Fallen Angels Detective Series, on Kindle and Audible and I would love it if you would leave an online review. Don't forget to request that your local library order my books! 

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

Thank you for listening!

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com

You are formally invited to attend the wedding of - wait!  What? Who killed the bride? Was it the heartbroken groom, the world-weary detective, or the mother-in-law from hell?  Is this a love story? A horror story? Or is it just plain fun? You decide. 

Thank you for listening to The Hidden Gems Podcast, which is dedicated to bringing you the best short stories that you've never heard. For more short stories on The Hidden Gems Podcast, please go to: https://www.thehiddengemspodcast.com/podcast 

If you liked what you liked this story, you can find more of C. Mack Lewis's writing at https://cmacklewis.com/

Also, I would greatly appreciate it if you would request that your local library order my books, The Fallen Angels trilogy, written by C. Mack Lewis. Many thanks!!

John Bell is our  was our narrator and he is also the writer, producer, and actor on the award-winning "Bell's in the Batfry" podcast, which can be found at http://thebatfry.libsyn.com/

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

Thank you for listening!

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com

It's just another boring commute on the New York City subway, right? Join us today for this haunting short story by  our newest featured writer, Lorraine Murphy!

Join Cathy McCarthy as she features the short story, The Subway Lady, written by Lorraine Murphy.  Lorraine was raised in Jamaica Queens and has been living in Northport Long Island for over thirty with her family. She has completed a fictional novel and is currently working on a screenplay for that body of work. Lorraine had been attending a weekly session at the Cold Spring Harbor Library writers group of prolific and established writers.  

John Bell is the narrator and he is also known for being the Producer/Writer/voice of the family-friendly The Bell's In the Batfry Podcast, which has previously won the Parsec award, which is a juried award for podcasts centered around speculative fiction. You can listen at http://thebatfry.com/

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

For more information on my fiction, The Fallen Angels Detective Series, you can visit https://cmacklewis.com/

Until next time, keep writing, keep listening, and keep dreaming!

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.” So begins this classic tale of revenge and murder, written by Edgar Allan Poe. 

Edgar Allan Poe is said to be the first American writer who earned a living from his writings, and he is also said to be the "inventor of the detective fiction genre" as well as an important contributor to early science fiction.  He is the grandson of an Irish immigrant and was born in Boston in 1809 to the parents of actors. His father abandoned his mother when he was one-year-old and his mother dies one year after that of tuberculosis. He was taken in by John Allan who was a successful merchant in Virginia and had the strange habit of excessively spoiling his foster son one day and then aggressively disciplining him the next. 

Poe went to the University of Virginia in 1826 to study ancient and modern languages and, during that time, he became estranged from his foster father over his gambling debts and not receiving enough money to pay for his school costs. He moved to Richmond where he worked a variety of odd jobs, including working as a clerk and a newspaper writer. Finding that he was unable to support himself, he joined the US Army and published his first volume of poetry, which sold 50 copies. 

After several years, he left the Army and went to West Point. At this time, he married his cousin, who was 13 years old. He argiued with his foster father, John Allan, over his extramarital affairs and his illegitimate children and then Poe went so far as to purposely get court-marshaled so that he could leave West Point. 

Poe continued to write and, as his wife slowly succumbed to tuberculosis, he began drinking more heavily. In 1849, Poe was found in the streets of Baltimore, severely ill, wearing another man's clothing, delirious, and calling out for a mystery man named 'Reyolds' who was never identified. You can read more about his mysterious death in the excellent Smithsonian article below. 

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The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe 

Was the famous author killed from a beating? From carbon monoxide poisoning? From alcohol withdrawal? Here are the top nine theories, written by Natasha Geiling  October 7, 2014

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/still-mysterious-death-edgar-allan-poe-180952936/

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For Creepy Magazine's graphic black-and-white magazine version of The Cask of Amontillado, check out https://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2014/12/poe-1965-pt-8.html

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The Simpon's version of The Cask of Amontillado:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjSjYSH4Xsc

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John Bell is our narrator and he is also the writer, producer, and actor on the award-winning "Bell's in the Batfry" podcast, which can be found at http://thebatfry.libsyn.com/

***

My name is Cathy McCarthy and I write under the name of C. Mack Lewis. You can get my latest novel, which pays homage to Poe's classic tale The Cask of Amontillado at https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Black-Fallen-Angels-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B096SP6R6W/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+angel+wore+black&qid=1624373536&s=amazon-devices&sr=1-1

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Thank you for listening! And don't forget to rate and share with other lovers of short fiction. 

C. Mack Lewis 

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com

"It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet." So begins this gem of a short story written by the master of sci-fi dystopian fiction, Philip K. Dick.  

Philip K.Dick  was born in 1928 in Chicago, but he grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. Throughout his career, he wrote 33 novels and 121 short stories and he had almost no commercial success during his lifetime. In the science fiction world, he was considered a genius, but he struggled to make a living with low-paying science fiction publishers.  He was so broke at one point that the writer Robert A. Heinlein, who was a great admirer of his work, lent him money to bail him out of IRS troubles and he purchased him an electric typewriter.  

The writer’s life was deeply troubled: he married five times, had a lifetime of financial stress, struggled with substance addiction, severe depression, including a failed suicide attempt and he had a series of mystical experiences where he believed that he had been taken over by the spirit of the prophet of Elijah.  

He died in 1982 after suffering a stroke and his greatest successes then occurred posthumously. Films based on his fiction include Blade Runner, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, The Adjustment Bureau, and The Man in the High Castle.   

I personally think that Philip K. Dick was a writer who was ahead of his time. He was writing about alternate realities, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and the true nature of a person’s identity, which are all very modern and relevant subjects. 

John Bell is our narrator and he is also the writer, producer, and actor on the award-winning "Bell's in the Batfry" podcast, which can be found at http://thebatfry.libsyn.com/

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

My name is Cathy McCarthy and I write under the name of C. Mack Lewis. For more information about me, go to https://cmacklewis.com/

You can read the Kirkus Review of my latest book, The Angel Wore Black at  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/c-mack-lewis/the-angel-wore-black/

If you enjoy our podcast, we would love it if you would rate, review, and share our podcast with other lovers of short fiction. 

Thank you for listening!

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com

Did you ever wonder who is working behind the scenes to create the many sugary delicacies which are our annual expressions of undying love - or perhaps even temporary passion - for Valentine's Day?  Meet Natalie. 

Join Cathy McCarthy as she features the short stories, Mise En Place, written by Nathan Douglas Hansen. Nathan began his writing career in the Southwest, working as a feature writer and columnist for regional newspapers and magazines before attending Antioch University in Los Angeles where he received his MFA.  After university, Hansen became a literature and creative writing instructor and he continued writing a column for various literary magazines until focusing on short stories and an upcoming novel.  Nate is a full-time artist and veteran of the U.S. Army, and he now lives in Arizona. 

Nathan is also an amazing artist and, in his own words, “The inspiration behind all of my art is a combination of the insatiable desire to express myself coupled with embracing the few things in my life that have been giving me purpose as of late, namely time in nature, the pursuit of fuller conscious moments, the healing of personal traumas, and the retelling of visceral personal experiences through abstract imagery which I hope can one day translate into broader stories for my family and friends."

You can view Nathan's artwork at: https://www.natehansenart.com/  

John Bell is the narrator and he is also known for being the Producer/Writer/voice of the family-friendly The Bell's In the Batfry Podcast, which has previously won the Parsec award, which is a juried award for podcasts centered around speculative fiction. You can listen at http://thebatfry.com/

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

For more information on my fiction, The Fallen Angels Detective Series, you can visit https://cmacklewis.com/

Until next time, keep writing, keep listening, and keep dreaming!

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com

What happens when the Hunter becomes the hunted? Join us today for Richard Connell's classic short story "The Most Dangerous Game!"

Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" and published in 1924 in The Saturday Evening Post and was adapted into a film of the same name in 1932, starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, and Leslie Banks. He began his writing career when he was 13 years old when he covered a local murder trial for his father’s newspaper in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1906. By the age of 15, he was a seasoned crime and sports reporter. His father became a Congressman and Richard then attended Harvard and went on to serve a year in France during World War One where he edited a camp newspaper called “Gas Attack.” When he came back to America, he got married and moved to Hollywood where he worked on many projects, his most notable being “Meet John Doe” in 1941.    

John Bell is our narrator and he is also the writer, producer, and actor on the award-winning "Bell's in the Batfry" podcast, which can be found at http://thebatfry.libsyn.com/

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

Looking for your next book? Check out this review of the 1st book in the C. Mack Lewis's Fallen Angels Series, Gunning for Angels:  

William E. Wallace

5.0 out of 5 stars C. Mack Lewis is on the Side of the Angels in Her Debut Novel

Private eye Jack Fox has a problem. He just can’t seem to keep his business end inside his pants, and winds up flopping into the sack with just about every female he meets.

But his overactive libido isn’t Jack’s real challenge. The thing that is turning his life inside out is the fact that Enid, the daughter that resulted from one of those one-night stands sixteen years earlier, has run away from her alcoholic mother and taken the Greyhound to Phoenix looking for the father she only recently learned she had.

For his part, Jack didn't even know Enid existed.

This is the situation at the beginning of “Gunning for Angels,” a fast-moving detective yarn by Lewis, a New Jersey native transplanted to Scottsdale, Arizona, who deftly juggles plot twists, humor and mayhem in this enjoyable debut novel.
The story involves unwanted children and a few that are wanted far too much for comfort.

Lewis's character, Jack Fox, is a solo operator working out of a hole-in-the-wall office staffed only by his secretary receptionist.

A Lothario from the get-go, Fox is described by Lewis as "not handsome enough for Hollywood but too handsome for his own good." Practically the only women in the story he doesn't get between his sheets are his daughter and the receptionist.

This lust-struck peeper is between clients when Enid, the result of his blast in the past, walks into his office, coat-tailing on a woman who wants to hire him to identify her birth mom.

Eventually the two enter into an uneasy alliance. Jack, who was rejected by his own birth father, a cop and bigamist, can’t seem to work past his guilt at having a teenage daughter he’s never met. Enid, who is used to cleaning up her drunken mother’s messes, is distraught by her abandonment.

Despite their mutual distrust and fear, they join forces and struggle to come to grips with what seems to be a simple parental abandonment case but turns out to involve trafficking in child prostitutes, pedophilia and fraud.

Oh, yes: and murder; lots of murder.

The basic plot of Lewis’s book is pretty grim stuff, but she manages to serve it up with dashes of wit that leaven the violent and gruesome nature of the story. Just when you are beginning to think that Fox is a competent investigator and all-around cool guy, he hits a banana peel and does a pratfall – usually with his newly-acquired daughter looking on.

Case in point: in one scene Jack is boffing a client while Enid who has managed to sneak into the bedroom before him, hides in the closet, trying to keep from blowing her lunch. Good times!

And unlike the female partners in many detective yarns, Enid doesn’t exist just to be menaced by the villains. She is manhandled, abused and subjected to violence in the novel, but manages to escape on her own. In fact, she does at least as much to solve the mystery and obtain justice as her gumshoe dad does.

The characters in the book are all colorful and neatly rendered, particularly Jack and Enid. Unfortunately, as is the case with many novels these days, this one could have benefitted by a final editing pass to eliminate some of its tendency toward repetition. For example, at the beginning of the book, a death scene is described in which a “baby’s fist spasmodically beat[s] against the dead woman’s face, splattering rips and reams of blood in every direction of the tiny kitchen.”

Nearly three quarters of the way through the book, Jack finds the corpse described in the initial passage and picks up the infant, whose “tiny fists beat against him, splattering rips and reams of blood across his face as she wailed at full volume.”

I like the phrasing, but that’s a few too many rips and reams of blood being splattered for my comfort.

These are minor points, however. Offsetting them is the fact that Lewis has laced her novel with really fine writing that shows her eye for the telling detail and a facility for original language. It would have been easy to sketch the plot in a series of clichés, using tired metaphors hundreds of other authors have used before. Instead, Lewis opted for originality and flare.

For instance, only a couple of sentences into her novel she gives us:

“Eyes full of empty stared upward as she lay sprawled out like some grotesque pin-up girl. An all-American beauty served up on cheap linoleum, a Jackson Pollock canvas of bullet holes and blood spatter.”

“Eyes full of empty;” “A Jackson Pollock canvas of bullet holes and blood splatter;” Now that’s writing. An author capable of turning two phrases like that in a single paragraph knows what she’s doing. What’s more, Lewis does it over and over again in spinning out her story.

She’s on top of things from the very beginning. I’m looking forward to her next novel already.

Read a sample of Gunning for Angels now (also available on Audible):

https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B00I84NSE0&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_PW1M5AAVMJ81S3AEJ4X9&tag=podiat_ad2-20

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com

 What does a traditional Christmas have in common with a Naked-Mole-Rat-Implosion, magnetic putty underwear, and the vixen-robbers of Lordia-Taver?  Find out as our intrepid hero scrambles to create the best Christmas ever!

Thank you for listening to The Hidden Gems Podcast, which is dedicated to bringing you the best short stories that you've never heard. For more short stories on The Hidden Gems Podcast, please go to: https://www.thehiddengemspodcast.com/podcast 

If you liked what you liked this story, you can find more of C. Mack Lewis's writing at https://cmacklewis.com/

For a Free Audible book (The Fallen Angels Detective Series, written by C. Mack Lewis) or a Free Kindle ebook, please email a request to me at [email protected]  

John Bell is our  was our narrator and he is also the writer, producer, and actor on the award-winning "Bell's in the Batfry" podcast, which can be found at http://thebatfry.libsyn.com/

We are always looking forward to discovering our next writer, so if you are interested in contributing, please send us your short story of fewer than 5,000 words to [email protected]

Thank you for listening!

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by C. Mack Lewis.

Narrated, Edited, and Mixed by John Bell. 

LINKS: https://cmacklewis.com/

Be sure to follow and tag The Hidden Gems Podcast on Facebook. 

More information about your host at CMackLewis.com