I found out this morning that my short story, “Doors”, which first appeared in GUD Issue 6, is now up, in podcast form, at PodCastle. This is now the second of my stories to appear there and I’m very happy to see it, and hear it, there. As much as I enjoy narrating for them, I enjoy having my stories up even more.

That being said, I have to say that I find it hard to listen to narrations of my stories. I have to listen to the narrations that I do – for editing purposes at the very least – but hearing someone else read my fiction produces a strange kind of dissonance. PodCastle always does a great job in selecting readers – this has nothing to do with that – I think it’s just hearing my own words which is the problem.

I am a little heartened, though, that this is something other people deal with. At a recent agency retreat I heard that other people have issues with it as well.

On the other side of the microphone, there are some other narration projects that I’m working on to hopefully announce soon.

I have some writing-related news from the past few weeks.

First off, my story, “The Case of the Wounded Heart”, which I enjoyed the hell out of writing, is now available in the anthology, A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes from Lethe Press. I’ve mentioned the anthology here before, but it takes characters from the Holmes mythos (including, of course, Holmes and Watson) and imagines them (or reveals them, perhaps) as gay. I haven’t had a chance to read it, but I’m dying to get my hands on it. It’s available now here or at Amazon .

Second, while the story was accepted a while ago, I finally signed the contract for my story, “The Burning Bridge to Heaven”, which will be appearing in Abyss & Apex next quarter. I will, obviously, link to it when it’s up. It’s a kind of British 60’s X-Files story and was also a lot of fun to write.

Finally, I also signed a contract for my story, “Doors”, which will be narrated as a podcast on Podcastle. “Doors” was originally published in GUD Issue 6 and, though I usually don’t have favorite stories, is probably one of my favorites.

That’s all for now.

I recently narrated another podcast for Podcastle – Tending the Mori Birds by Caroline M. Yoachim. This one’s a short one, but I enjoyed reading and narrating it quite a bit (despite dealing with an impending move and a persistent cough). Check it out if you get the chance.

I’m behind in posting about this, but earlier this week, my story, “Card Sharp”, went up on Podcastle. I’ve narrated podcasts for Podcastle before, but this is the first time I’ve had a story of my own go up. The narration, by Wilson Fowlie, is excellent. I’m really pleased.

So far the reaction on the forums has been positive, so I’m pleased with that as well.

And, I can mention, that I’m working on a sequel…

I just realized that I’ve been remiss in mentioning another bit of writing news. However, now that I’ve signed the contract I can reliably state that my story, “Card Sharp”, from The Way of the Wizard anthology, is going to be narrated at Podcastle. I’ve done several narrations for the site before, but this will be the first of my own stories to receive that treatment. I’m looking forward to hearing it.

I’ll update when it goes live (I assume) later this year.