Just over a year ago, I sold a story to Pseudopod, the weekly horror podcast. And now, it’s finally up!

I want to stress that this is a horror story, in a horror podcast. As the host, Alasdair, is fond of saying: horror fiction is specifically designed to make you feel uncomfortable. If you don’t like that feeling, perhaps skip listening to this one and wait until my next sale comes around.

If you would prefer to listen to only my story (and honestly, my story is not that frightening; only 4 or 5 people killed, max! I promise!) you can skip to around the 22 minute mark. But I warn you, the story immediately after mine will make you squirm in absolutely every sense of that word.

So, warnings out of the way, sit back and enjoy a story about how love can make you blind, how you always want the best for your children, and why you should never, never wind that mainspring.

I’m very pleased to announce the sale of my story “Lullabies for a Clockwork Child” to the horror podcast Pseudopod.

I’ve been listening to Pseudopod for a long time (I first blogged about them going on 3 years ago), and it simply can’t be beat for horror audiofiction. I actually write a decent amount of horror, but this is the first I’ve sold.

I have a very active imagination (you might say over active) and therefore as a child I suffered a deep-seated fear of the dark. I spent most every night of my childhood scared witless, and had all sorts of tricks to “forget” to turn the light off. When I was older I slept with the tv on every night so as not to be alone in the dark. (I should say it was rather being NOT alone in the dark that bothered me, but I digress…)

Naturally, I was drawn to horror like a moth to a flame, tempting fate a little too often even though I knew it was a terrible idea and I would regret it later. I tried to ignore my natural fascination, but unfortunately my best friend Chris was also a bit of a horror buff and he subjected me to hours and hours (and hours) of horror movies until eventually I sort of inoculated myself against the genre.

At that point I sort of threw in the towel and said, “Why not?” immersing myself in horror movies, novels, and short stories, and burning myself on that particular flame over and over and over again. What can I say? I guess on some level I like to be terrified.

As always, I’ll keep you posted when it goes up, and in the meantime feel free to check out some of the other creepy tales over at Pseudopod.