With the contract signed, I can make the announcement: horror fiction podcast Pseudopod will be featuring my short story “The Orchard of Hanging Trees” in an upcoming episode.
In a turbulent environment where genre publishers come and go, Pseudopod has kept bringing their listeners a short story just about every week for five years now (with no signs of slowing down). Past podcasts have included work by folks like Glen Hirshberg, Lavie Tidhar, and Simon Strantzas.
Wil Wheaton has blogged about Pseudopod, calling it “one of my favorites” and “pretty damn awesome”.
All of this is just my way of saying: it’s a venue I’m proud to be associated with.
I know there’s a lot of hand-wringing that goes on about the future of the short story and the future of genre publishing and how all is Doom and Gloom. There’s a lot of pining away for the good old days when [insert name of defunct horror magazine] appeared in your mailbox every other month like clockwork and the smell of the tabloid/pulp paper was intoxicating and sometimes, if the print was fresh, it’d rub off on your hand, etc.
I know. I feel that way too, sometimes.
It’s easy to think that because magazines are struggling, the short story is struggling, too. Easy, but mistaken. Pseudopod is an example of technology enabling the horror short story to reach a whole new audience outside of our little (sometimes insular) community. I’m thrilled that my work will be appearing in this sort of medium, accessible via iTunes (or the Pseudopod webpage).
No word yet on when “The Orchard…” will be podcast. Stay tuned.
