Read Me A Nightmare

By: Angelique Fawns
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  • Summary

  • "Read Me A Nightmare" brings strange short stories to life. A fan of Twilight Zone? Tales from the Crypt? Mixing genres, these tales come from the realms of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and comedy. A writer yourself? Stay tuned after the readings for interviews with editors, publishers, voice actors and other interesting folks in the industry. Visit www.fawns.ca to learn more. Please --if you enjoy the episode, leave a review!

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Episodes
  • Inked

    Inked
    Nov 23 2024
    What’s that dark spot on the wall?Inked was written by Akis Linardos and first published in Maul Magazine in September 2022. Sadly, Maul Magazine is defunct. Then I bought the story and reprinted it in my Cursed & Creepy anthology.Check out Cursed & CreepyIn a cove of a Greek island, Akis was born a sane infant but has since then grown to enter the chaotic world of adults--a choice he deeply regrets. His stories delve both into epic worlds and ones of extreme darkness. Find him at Apex, Dread Machine, Flame Tree, and numerous anthologies. https://linktr.ee/akislinardosPete Lead is our voice actor, and you can learn more about this incredible start-up genius here. He’s also writes compelling short stories. I bought one from him as well, called Review of Bondi Beach by Henry the Shark.https://petelead.com/Tuck yourself in and turn the lights down for this short horror story…Akis and I at World Fantasy Con..Akis Linardos is one of my short story writing friends and we’ve been tackling the markets together. Self-labeled “Author, Scientist, 33% Human,” he has a unique approach and has attempted some very cool experiments. I finally met him IRL at World Fantasy Con this October and he was just as intriguing as expected. He has managed to get many miles out of his story Ink. Let’s learn a bit more about this growing concern in the spec world.AF: What was your inspiration for InkAL: There is this game called Bendy and the Ink Machine—a horror of cartoon characters coming alive to haunt their creator. Besides that, I had a leaking ceiling in the toilet at the time of writing this in Barcelona. So Ink must have emerged from the thought: “What if it was leaking because my upstairs neighbors were doing something FUCKED?”AF: I bought this story for my Cursed & Creepy anthology, but I wasn’t your first sale. Tell us about your tales many homes.AL: This one was actually my very first “pro-pay” sale. It was bought by Maul Magazine back in 2022, and since then has also been features in Tales to Terrify podcast.AF: When did you first decide that you wanted to become a writer? Describe your journey to this point.AL: It was in 2019 that I first started writing. Before that I had dabbled with drawing, piano, and guitar, but nothing scratched that itch quite like storytelling did so I followed that much more passionately. It was a lot of self-learning with internet resources, then I found editors within the community that helped me understand the industry better (primarily Alex Woodroe, Avra Margariti, and Rebecca Treasure). What put me on the map initially was my Apex sale at 2022, then my writing momentum picked up wildly with an average of 2.3k words daily in 2023 and a wild number of submissions as well. It was a bit of a manic period following months of major depression, so I guess I turned a dark time into a powerful boost for growth!AF: Who are your influences?AL: A lot of the primary influences are actually not writers but mostly manga artists Junji Ito, Kentaro Miura, Hayao Miyazaki, Hajime Isayama, and video game designers such as Hidetaka Miyazaki. I do have some literary works to mention though, especially dystopian novels such as 1984 and Brave New World, and also the Song of Ice and Fire, and Name of the Wind. Finally, there’s the Greek mythology and ancient Greek writers that I was familiar with from a young age. I think you can see my affinity for mythology in a lot of my work, including Ink.AF: You recently released a Cosmic Horror Chapbook. Tell us about it. How did you market it? Have you made many sales?AL: Yes! Crooked Gods! I pitched it around social media and made a teaser trailer about it with royalty-free images! Not many sales at all!Check out Crooked Gods hereAF: You've found incredible success in the short story world. What are your secrets?AL:* I don’t judge my work.* I don’t rewrite after something is done never mind what personal rejection might say. Better use that time and that feedback to inform my writing of the next.* I keep submitting everything, everywhere, all the time. (and all at once but we don’t talk about that)AF Do you have any advice/tips for writers who wish to make sales to pro-speculative markets?AL: Understand the mathematics of the submission system. 100 rejections are not a reflection of your work, but a statistical inevitability. Which in turn means you have to submit like a damn monster.You don’t have to write every day, but it is definitely a good idea to set at least one period (could be 3 or 6 months) where you do write over 1000 every day. This would show you that you have the capacity to do it, it will improve your confidence as a writer.To make the former possible and to also improve your confidence, you must shut down the critical voice of your brain. Once you stop judging what you write at the moment of writing it, you will write much faster and have more fun with it. You will also be taken down unlikely paths and make ...
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    18 mins
  • 48 Peggy's Hungry Haunted Clown

    48 Peggy's Hungry Haunted Clown
    Nov 11 2024

    Welcome to Episode 48 of Read Me a Nightmare, I’m Angelique Fawns, your host. Today I’m sharing a creepy tale featuring a Haunted Circus and a bloodthirsty clown.

    Peggy’s Hungry Haunted Clown first appeared in It Was All A Dream 2: Another Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes Done Right, released this August by Hungry Shadow Press.

    This is a gorgeous anthology with custom art for each story and I share the TOC with some phenomenal writing friends of mine, including Yelena Crane and Amanda Cecelia Lang.

    Check out the show notes for the link to check out the book.

    My inspiration for this story was watching the transport trucks carrying rides trundle into the little town of Sunderland for the annual Maple Syrup Festival.

    Kristi Stewart does a fantastic job bringing this Middle-Grade Horror story to life. She’s a professional voice actor and frequent performer for this podcast.

    Prepare to meet a clown just as terrifying as Stephen King’s Pennywise as we all head to the circus.



    Get full access to Angelique’s Substack at angeliquemfawns.substack.com/subscribe
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    23 mins
  • 47 Body Count - Halloween Special

    47 Body Count - Halloween Special
    Oct 27 2024
    This guy tried to pick up the wrong witch…Body Count was written by myself and recently published in DreamForge’s Dark Visions magazine, its annual Halloween treat. You can read the story for free here:https://bit.ly/Body-Count-A-FawnsBody Count is read by Kelly Pidgeon, one of the best voices in the business. No one does a tough guy character like he does. Kelly is also a member of the band, Boats Against the Current. You can listen to their music here:https://boatsagainstthecurrentmusic.bandcamp.com/Jane Noel created the art piece above, and I absolutely love it.Check your shoes for dead mice, and get ready to grin like a dang Cheshire cat.Scot Noel from DreamForgeHow does an author sell to DreamForge? Firstly, I recommend joining the Dreamcasters. https://dreamforgemagazine.com/dreamcasters/This is one of my favourite writing groups and the monthly meetings have helped me hone my craft immensely. Plus I’ve made some wonderful lifelong friends. (Many of whom I met for the first time this October at World Fantasy Con! Including Jane and Scot Noel.)Here are more hints right from Scot Noel pulled from past interviews I’ve done with him:AF: When looking to buy for your magazine, what is your perfect story? SN: That’s easy, the perfect story generates a powerful emotion in me when I read it, and I either end the tale with a big smile or in tears. Tears not necessarily because it is sad, but because something powerful and resonating happened, like an affirmation that the future is not lost, humans are not doomed, and the Human Adventure is Just Beginning. Oh, and don’t: * Start in Medias Res, especially if that means lots of explosions and chaos- don’t care. * Bore me with expositions and explanations that you think are world-building. * Misuse dialog as a way to make your point or an alternative way to exposit, instead of to reveal the mental state of the speaking character. * Use unusual names, words, or ways or speaking that do not make your story more engaging, but do provide a speed bump or road block to smooth reading. * DO keep the reader with the actions of the protagonist and engage us with their challenges and emotions as they face the problems you’ve set before them. AF: Your website says, “Our tales revolve around those individuals and groups who bring meaning and value to the world, whose actions are of consequence, and whose dreams are the vanguard of things to come. Whether you call that Solarpunk, Hopepunk, or just DreamForge stories, you’ll find them here.” What is "Hopepunk"? SN: We were well into the development of DreamForge when I started looking around to see if anyone else was sharing a more hopeful vision of the future. In that search, I found author Alexandra Rowland, author of A Conspiracy of Truths and A Choir of Lies, and whose novel In the End I was reading at the time. As I learned, Alexandra first coined the term Hopepunk in 2017. In a Den of Geek article, she went on to say: “Hopepunk is a subgenre and a philosophy that says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.” It was catching on, and even as we prepared our first issue of DreamForge, I could see that people were using the term in relation to hopeful fiction. At DreamForge, we don’t think of ourselves as a Hopepunk publication, but we do believe we’ve published some Hopepunk stories, as well as Solarpunk (where humanity overcomes present day challenges to achieve sustainability). The two terms often seem to show up together, being part of a growing optimistic radicalism. AF: Any advice for writers submitting to DreamForge? SN: The one piece of advice for writers submitting anything to anywhere is to read the publication! That doesn’t mean you have to go spend a lot of money; if you cast your net wide enough and give it a try, there’s usually someone who can loan you a copy, and many of today’s stories can be found free online. I know writers wonder if they are making a nuisance of themselves or are getting a bad reputation with the editor when they submit story after story that gets rejected. The answer is no. As editor of DreamForge, I’ve sent back a lot of stories to authors who tried again and again, yet I just didn’t have a place for those stories or perhaps they just didn’t quite rise above the others I chose. But I enjoyed the stories and respected the authors. When I did get mildly peeved, it was when it was obvious that the writer knew nothing about us, and we were simply on their “making the rounds list.” I don’t mind being the 5th or 25th publication on your list; that’s practical. What I do mind is when you gave no consideration to what we publish and then get upset about it when we send it back. We’re not here for stories about seduction, revenge, and murder, or to read screenplays, children’s books, and novel ...
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    22 mins

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