Join me, Sadie Hartmann, aka “Mother Horror”, each month as I take a deep dive into the back catalog of PseudoPod episodes. My first choice is a recommendation from the PseudoPod “About” page: THE PIT by Joe R. Lansdale.

I chose this episode for 3 reasons:

1. Joe Lansdale.
2. The description boasts that Lansdale describes this story as “Alice in Wonderland meets Southern Gothic”
3. I was hoping the narrator would have a ‘Cigarette and Whisky’ flavored Southern drawl, and I was not disappointed.

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The British Fantasy Society shortlist has been announced, revealing that both PseudoPod and PodCastle have both been nominated under the Best Audio category! We are honored to share a list with a number of truly stunning artists, not just on the audio shortlist, but the entire list of British Fantasy Award nominees.

Now, please note that we are Dream Warriors hoping this will be the Season of the Witch. Or maybe our Ragnarok. Third time’s the charm!

Also, our Hostus Mostus Alasdair’s weekly pop culture newsletter, The Full Lid, has gotten a nonfiction nomination!

Please join us in congratulating our hardworking editorial teams on this awesome recognition.

The British Fantasy Awards are typically presented each year at Fantasycon, which (under normal circumstances) takes place in Glasgow, Scotland in October.

There are a number of short stories in anthologies and collections that deserve to get in front of more readers. We want to shine more light across our community and widen our circle to make room for more writers and readers. In specific, PseudoPod has penciled out space in a large portion of November and early December 2020 to support this effort.

Publishers, please send us your collections and anthologies, specifically those that have been or will be published in 2020, and identify any stories original to that publication.

Authors, ask your publisher to send us the book; if they’re not interested, we still want you to submit your story here — just include the collection or anthology title in the cover letter for your individual story. (Continue Reading…)

For your consideration we present the Escape Artists stories that ran in 2019 which are eligible in the upcoming award nomination season.

Below are links to some aggregation projects, where fans are building lists of those eligible in the various categories. They’re great tools, and we’d like to thank all the contributors for their  efforts.

• Escape Artists Stories eligible for Award Nominations (2019)
• Hugo Nominees for Best Semi-prozine and Best Stories (2019 stories for 2020 consideration)
• Renay’s Spreadsheet of Doom

The list of individual stories for PseudoPod follows in order of publication:

2019 first publications:

• 634: Viens Jouer Avec Moi by Lisa Baldinelli
• 634: End of the Line by Paul Alex Gray 
• 635: Last Week I was Esther by Deborah L. Davitt
• 640: What Throat by Annie Neugebauer
• 641: A Song for Wounded Mouths by Kristi DeMeester
• 642: The House that Dripped Character by B.G. Hilton 
• 651: The Coven of Dead Girls by L’Erin Ogle
• 654: A Real Death by Kurt Hunt
• 654: Kintsugi by Bo Balder 
• 655: Black Matter by Vivian Shaw
• 660: Tiny Teeth by Sara Hans
• 661: The Happiest Place by Kevin Wabaunsee 
• 666: Breaking the Waters by Donyae Coles
• 668: Baby Fingers by Franklin Skinner
• 668: Polaroid, 1979 by Lora Gray
• 672: In Regards to Your Concerns About Your ScareBnB Experience by Effie Seiberg
• 676: Things My Father Taught Me by Rhoads Brazos
• 678: The Boy Who Killed His Mother by Rosemary Hayes

Reprints of stories originally published in 2019:

• 663: Birds of Passage by Gordon B. White, originally published in TWICE-TOLD: A COLLECTION OF DOUBLES, edited by CM Muller, Chthonic Matter Press in February 2019
• 673: Venio by Gemma Files, (novelette) originally published in Vastarien Spring 2019
• 679: The Woman Out of the Attic by Gwendolyn Kiste, originally published in Flame Tree’s Haunted House anthology in January 2019
• 682: Pomegranate Pomegranate by Jack Westlake, originally published in Black Static #69 in May 2019. It was reprinted in the August 2019 issue of The Dark.

Want to share your opinions about our 2019 roster? Vote for your favorite stories here: https://forms.gle/BAMPFphJJnQYXfyL8 (Continue Reading…)

The stars are right again, and what an age-old cult had failed to do, a band of innocent authors has accomplished. After vigintillions of years the Flash Fiction Contest is loose again, and ravening for delight. Each week, batches of stories will be released into gladiatorial pits to fight for supremacy. The floor will be churned to mud with the blood of the fallen until the mightiest stories remain for your delight and dread. Head over to the forums, take up your stone, and join us in the harvest festivals of the October Country. (Continue Reading…)

The original paraphernalia for the Flash Fiction Contest had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Stuart, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Lieberman spoke frequently to the forum members about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. (Continue Reading…)

Our story calendar for 2019 is almost completely buttoned up, and we are starting to slot stories into the 2020 calendar. What follows is our plans for submissions for the remainder of 2019.

As identified on our Submissions Page, we will be open for one more review period right around Halloween: October 25 through November 3. Please see the Escape Artists Prime page for the announcement and any updates regarding the current status of Artemis Rising.

Across the globe, the dreams of the artists are causing many a restless and feverish night. Someday soon the call would come, when the stars were ready. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Flash Fiction Contest; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Flash Fiction Contest would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

A special Flash Fiction contest portal will open on Submittable at midnight Eastern on 8/10 and close at midnight on 8/31. If the portal disappears, submissions are formally closed and will not reopen. (Continue Reading…)