Listen Up: “Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite” Receives Otic Makeover

post for blog, header

So here’s a first for me:  one of my (early-published) short stories, “Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite” (originally appearing in the summer, 2011 installment of the British Fantasy Society Journal), has been refashioned in the form of an audible episode at Max Ablitzer‘s engrossing endeavor, Horror Tales.

Horror Tales has produced a series of top-notch episodes from writers Caleb Stephens (“The Wallpaperman”), G.D. Watry (“The Mosaic”), Timothy G. Huguenin (“The Unknown Thing”), and T.E. Grau (“Transmission”).

Each episode is expressly created by Ablitzer, who invests calculating care into the crafting of each story’s transition.  All tales are accompanied by the ambient underscore of music, and textured with the swaying draperies of eerie sound effects.

House for quote.jpg

According to Ablitzer, seven episodes have been planned, with an eighth under consideration.  As of early November, 2018, Horror Tales continued to chart around the world, entering Great Britain’s “top fifty” in iTunes; and the podcast also recently attained the following impressive international iTunes standings:

  • Paraguay:  #1 (Arts)
  • Singapore:  #2 (Literature)
  • Costa Rica:  #4 (Literature)
  • United States:  #30 (Literature)

The Horror Tales Podcast submission guidelines are found here.

BFS Journal, Summer 2011

Summer screaming reading program

Well, friends, it’s here:  The BFS Journal, summer 2011 edition—a darkly diverse collection of voices, each an envoy for their literary fields of fantasy, science fiction and horror (yours truly representing the latter).  Echoing chairman David Howe’s sentiments in his introduction, the intent of this installment is to provide “some entertainment, some laughs, and some chills for the Summer months.”

Tomislav Tikulin

The vivid cover artwork was the eerie brainchild of Tomislav Tikulin, a Croatian digital illustrator whose creations have been featured on numerous magazines and novels.

Edited by Peter Coleborn, Andrew Hook, Ian Hunter, and David A. Riley, the BFS Journal is a triumvirate of Prism, New Horizons, and Dark Horizons.  Here’s the lineup:

Prism

  • Editorial by David A. Riley
  • Ramsey’s Rant by Ramsey Campbell
  • Book Reviews edited by Jan Edwards and Craig Lockley
  • Graphicky Quality edited by Jay Eales
  • Media Reviews edited by Mathew F. Riley
  • “The Mark of Fear” by Mark Morris
  • “Profondo Probert Column 5” by John Llewellyn Probert
  • Mary Danby Interviewed by Lou Morgan

New Horizons

  • “In The House of Answers” by Allen Ashley
  • “Grey Magic For Cat Lovers” by Jan Edwards
  • “The Sound Down By The Shore” by Douglas J. Ogurek
  • “Beached” by Eric Boman
  • “The Hawthorne Effect” by Adrian Stumpp

Dark Horizons

  • “Heaven & Helvetica” by Gavin B. Nash
  • “Late in the Day” by Adam Walter
  • Mostly in Shadow: Lesser-known Writers of Weird Fiction, Part 2 by Mike Barrett
  • “Ten Things We’re Going to Have to Live Without After the Apocalypse” by Allen Ashley
  • “The Pet Peeve” by Rick Kleffel
  • “Cellar” by J.R. Salling
  • “Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite” by Clint Smith
  • “A Guttering of Flickers” by Michael Kelly
  • “The Secret in the Village of Dragonsbreath” by Annie Neugebauer
  • “The Last Dance of Humphrey Bear” by James Brogden

It’s humbling to be in such good company with writers like Ramsey Campbell, Rick Kleffel (The Agony Column), and Michael Kelly (editor, Shadows and Tall Trees).  “Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite” was a short story whose nascent draft was something I concocted back in 2006.  I’ve been searching for a home (haunted or otherwise) for this story for a few years now, and I’m honored to have found that home alongside my fellow contributors in the BFS Journal.

Stay tuned for some “wicked” news out of South Africa later this summer.  Until then:  ‘night ‘night…sleep tight…