Flickers on the Wall: Cinematic Angels

I can’t say that I’ve been feeling particularly holy of late, yet I admit to a fascination with angels, and being who I am, a fascination with angels in short film. Those powerful, inexplicable, often death-dealing, messengers of God have had an odd history in cinema. Biblically, they are awe-inspiring, but in movies […]

Audiobook Fix: The Dark Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft is an author that I didn’t read when I was young. I’m not sure why, because I treasured a Poe collection I owned, and I liked Stephen King quite a bit. I was no stranger to horror. Whatever the reason, I didn’t pick up a Lovecraft collection until I was out […]

Distillations: Breaking the Line

Once upon a time, it was easy for both poets and readers to know where to expect a line break. The rhythm of the meter shows it and by the rhyme you would know it. However, the previous example is an example of why this approach is less common today. It takes a great amount […]

The Day Job: Carpe Penicullus

I experienced a chilling moment while on a flight this year. The attendant said, “If Denver is your final destination, thank you for traveling with us.” She creeped me out. “Final destination,” indeed! Bill Bryson writes in A Short History of Nearly Everything that “Even a long human life adds up […]

From the Podosphere: April 2008

The highlight of April’s podcast short fiction must be the long-awaited launch of PodCastle, the latest offering from Escape Artists, bringing their output up to three podcasts and completing the main genres of speculative fiction: SF, horror, and now fantasy. I was privileged to narrate PodCastle’s inaugural story myself, Peter S. Beagle’s “Come Lady Death” […]

Flickers on the Wall: Needing a Little Zombie Love

My Blood again is rushing
I feel I might be blushing
My face is turning red
I have never felt so un-undead
In the world of independent short film, no critter pops up its nasty little head more than the zombie. I’m being too conservative. Forget creature films; my completely unreliable survey (I asked me) shows there […]

Audiobook Fix: Novellas from Audible Frontiers

As I’ve watched audiobooks climb in popularity over the past several years, I’ve wondered why short fiction hasn’t caught on more with listeners. Not short stories, generally, but rather novelettes and novellas, which, in my opinion, is where a lot of the best science fiction lives. On audio, most novelettes and novellas end […]

From the Podosphere: Escape Artists 2008 First Quarter Round-up

Before getting to this month’s reviews, I’d like to thank John Dodds for his care in piloting From the Podosphere since its inception. It’s a privilege to be taking over his excellent column.
In the coming months, I hope to highlight some diverse sources of short podcast fiction, but it can’t be denied that the […]

The Day Job: Quitting It

Keep telling yourself, it’s not about the money.

When I first got it into my head that I wanted to be a writer, I had a pretty specific (if contradictory) vision of what that would be like. On one hand, the life looked incredibly romantic. You know, that sensitive Byronic picture of the writer […]

Distillations: Explorations of Hunger

In this month’s Distillations column, we explore three poems involving different twists on the mundane experience of eating and the experience of hunger. The narrators in each poem are human, and the food being discussed is not particularly exotic: risotto, soufflés, and mother’s milk. However, each poem shows hunger from an unexpected direction.