Épisodes

  • 53 Hungry Waters by Robert E. Stahl

    53 Hungry Waters by Robert E. Stahl
    Jul 8 2025
    Today’s episode features a short story read by the author, Robert E. Stahl.Hungry Waters was originally published as the winner in the November (Halloween) 2024 issue of Flame Tree’s Flash Fiction Newsletter Contesthttps://www.flametreepress.com/newsletters/flame-tree-fiction-newsletter-november-2024-monster-masquerade/Robert E. Stahl recently released his first collection of short stories! We chat about the publishing process, the world of short (and long) story writing, horror movies, and meander down other ghoulish paths of creation.Learn how he made an award-winning short horror film, “Trick” for $2000!You can even watch it free, here. I provide most of my insights and interviews for free, but there are goodies for those who join a paid tier. Put on your swimsuit, and grab a tin foil hat. We’re going swimming in some dangerous waters. An interview with Robert E. StahlHorror author and movie producerAF: You're a full-time writer?RES: Oh, literally, like all day long.AF: That's hilarious. You must really love writing to then sit down and spend your extra hours back at the keyboard.RES: Oh, must I? Yes, I do. Sometimes the challenge is after a full day at work to find that urge to come home and do more writing. But that is why I'm here. I think that's why God put me on Earth is to write. So it's a blessing that I have that problem.AF: “Hungry Waters” won the Flame Tree flash fiction prompt, didn't it?RES: It did win. I submitted that for an open call that was called Monsters and Masquerade. It’s about a killer wave pool that's actually an alien in disguise and it's eating people. So yeah, I was happy to have that one picked up by Flame Tree. Super excited. That was my second win. Back-to-back in two months with Flame Tree. Which is an anomaly that I think rarely happens. And I've sent stories into Flame Tree since then and have not had them picked up. So my streak is officially over.AF: So let's talk about your collection. What made you choose a more traditional route versus indie?RES: Probably ever since I was a kid, I wanted to connect with a publisher. That was the white whale I'd built in my head of what I wanted for myself. I think a publisher can also give you a little gravitas when it comes to marketing—a little extra boost. They’re also a source that vets the stories. So they're curated.AF: So let’s talk about the incredibly visceral art you chose – or they chose – for it.RES: That is all me, girlfriend.AF: You have lovely teeth, and those teeth are pretty horrific.RES: You have to read the collection to understand why I chose teeth for the cover, but I was looking at some of the covers that JournalStone has done in the past. They do a great job with covers, but I wanted something a little different—something that would stand out, just being simple, a graphic and scary. So I landed on this idea of the teeth.AF: Have there been many pre-orders or how are sales so far?RES: I'm trying not to look at sales so far. It's only been on sale for about 10 days. So I'm trying not to just bog myself down with all that stuff. I'll check eventually, but right now I'm not really worried about it.AF: Let's talk about the movie making... tell me how that happened.RES: Sure. So I'd always been interested in filmmaking and I love movies and I love to write. About five years ago I started playing around with screenplays—just turning some of my own stories into screenplays just to see what it felt like. And then I got wind of a local film competition. It's in Dallas and for beginners. So, basically it's a competition where they give you a certain amount of time to make a movie. For example, three months. A short film that’s less than 10 minutes. So I started networking with some people that I met there, and all of a sudden I had a script. Then I had a director and a team. So the group of us just busted our butts. And in three months came up with a short film called Trick. We entered the competition, and to everyone's surprise, including mine—we won first place.AF: What sort of budget do you look at to make these kinds of movies?RES: Every little thing you do costs money. So you have (hopefully) some kind of funding. I funded a lot of it myself. I did a little GoFundMe and a lot of people contributed there also. And then I had some people donate their time—like some of the talent. The crew just donated their time to make this movie. I was lucky enough to find people that had a passion for film and we connected and shared the same passion and they were willing to do that with me. You always go over budget. It's really hard to manage all of that stuff.AF: So how much did Trick cost, if you don't mind me asking?RES: Trick was probably less than $2000.AF: What’s your next big writing goal?RES: Just to keep moving forward and taking on new things. I'm currently working on a comic book script. That's my goal for this month. I hope to do novels and novellas probably by the end of the ...
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    30 min
  • Top 3 reasons why I moved to SUBSTACK

    Top 3 reasons why I moved to SUBSTACK
    May 12 2025

    Why Substack is a no-brainer for fiction writers

    I came to Substack when MailerLite began charging me after I passed 1000 subscribers. Who knew how much AWESOMENESS I would find on this platform?

    Please take a peek at my short video, but here are the highlights

    * Your newsletter is delivered for free. And your podcast. Win. Win.

    * Discoverability! Substack is the new cool place to hang out for authors. My list doubled in just a few months.

    * Pretty dang simple to use. (Hey, if I could figure it out…)

    * The paid option is wonderful. You don’t have to use the pay wall, but you have the option to create tiers of supporters. I keep mine 98% free.

    * You actually own your list. If Substack vanished tomorrow, you still have your readers.

    * Really nice people hang out here.

    *

    If you want to join my little posse of paid subscribers, here’s that button!! You get free books, a free masterclass on ad copy writing, and my undying thanks.

    Basically: if you’re a storyteller, it’s a fun way to share your work, grow your fanbase, and find other weirdos just like you.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit angeliquemfawns.substack.com/subscribe
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    2 min
  • 52 A Monstrous Bid by Robert F. Lowell

    52 A Monstrous Bid by Robert F. Lowell
    Apr 25 2025
    How do you win Writers of the Future and what happens in Hollywood? This podcast features a short story read by the author, Robert F. Lowell.A Monstrous Bid was originally published in Flash Fiction Online in Feb 2024, can be read here:https://flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2024/02/19/a-monstrous-bid/Robert F. Lowell (Fred) is a friend from my writing group, and he just returned from the Writers of the Future gala because his story was a winner and can be found in Volume 41, which was just released! We’ve also shared a TOC in the LTUE anthology Dog Save The King.Here is his self-written bio:In previous professional lives, Robert researched and wrote about international relations, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism. He taught at universities in the US, Costa Rica, and Switzerland and was kissed by a dancing horse in Siberia. Now he expands the universe of online learning as an instructional systems designer and writes about swords, sorcery, robots, aliens, and magic rabbits as a member of the Wulf Pack Writers Group. He, his Lady Wife, and at least one dog live in a town with very expensive weather on California’s Central Coast and travel in search of enchantment. His friends call him Fred.Thanks for reading Writing & Selling Stories with Angelique Fawns! This post is public so feel free to share it.Get your bidding card ready, and let’s listen to this short sci-fi story before we peek behind the curtain at the Hollywood gala for Writer’s of the Future winners. A chat with recent WofF Winner, Robert F. Lowell AF: Our listeners have just heard “A Monstrous Bid”, can you tell them about your inspiration for the story?R.F.L.: A couple of years ago, Scott Noel, the editor of DreamForge, who’s a great guy, put out a call for stories featuring futures where material scarcity was a thing of the past. Of course I immediately thought, if there’s no scarcity, if everybody has everything they want, what conflicts could still exist that would make interesting stories? Would there still be any material things, or non-material things like status, that people would fight for? About the same time, Lady Lowell, my brother-in-law and his wife, and I went to an auction for vintage and classic cars. That made me think, what would people bid if there was no need for money? And those two ideas came together.BTW, I have another car-related story in the anthology “Magic Malfunction,” which debuted this month from Raconteur Press.AF: You just returned from your week in Hollywood! Give us an insider’s scoop of what happened there.R.F.L.: Writers of the Future is the world’s biggest amateur talent search for speculative fiction authors. There’s a parallel competition for illustrators. I was blessed to be one of the winners last year. There is a monetary prize, but the biggest prize by far is the weekend workshop in Hollywood. It was led by Jody Lynn Nye and Tim Powers, with contributions from giants of science fiction and fantasy, including Larry Niven, whose stories got me hooked on SF, Orson Scott Card, Katherine Kurtz, Kevin J. Anderson, Robert J. Sawyer, Mark Leslie Lefebvre. It was intense – sometimes they had us going from 8:30 until midnight. It ends with a gala dinner and awards ceremony, like the Oscars except more fun, where they announce the grand prize winners. My story “Kill Switch” didn’t win the Golden Pen, but my artist Jordan Smajstrla won for her absolutely brilliant illustration for my story.Seeing her illustration at the art reveal was the best part of the workshop for me. The worst part was the 24-hour story, because I like to plan my stories and let them simmer after I write a good draft. but I got through that and proved to myself that I could do it.AF: Tell us about your writing journey and your strategy for winning this contest?R.F.L.: I’ve been writing non-fiction for almost 40 years for various jobs and published a number of books and papers, but I’d always wanted to write a book that I would actually enjoy reading, and hope others would enjoy too. When covid hit, two things came together. One was that I started running online Dungeons & Dragons games, which I hadn’t done for decades, for my friends because we couldn’t get together in person. That got me thinking, “I’m spending so much time and energy designing characters and coming up with plots for a few friends, whom I love, why am I not doing that for readers? Second, covid marked the first time that I seriously thought I might die very soon, so if I was ever going to achieve my ambitions for writing, I better get started. So I took a creative writing class, went to the Life, the Universe, and Everything symposium for SFF creators when that began again after covid, found a great writers group in the Wulf Pack Writers, and started submitting stories to Writers of the Future.For “Kill Switch,” I was experimenting with different genres and mashups of genres, and thought I’d try a hard-boiled ...
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    44 min
  • 52 An Interview with Robert J. Sawyer & The Peking Man

    52 An Interview with Robert J. Sawyer & The Peking Man
    Apr 24 2025

    What is the secret behind the skull of the Peking man?
    Plus, how does one become the most famous sci-fi writer in Canadian history?


    Robert J. Sawyer is our guest today and he reads his award-winning story, "Peking Man."

    Robert J. Sawyer is one of only eight writers — and the only Canadian — to win all three of the world's top Science Fiction awards for best novel of the year: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He’s also won more Aurora awards than anyone in history.

    He recently received the L. Ron Hubbard Lifetime Achievement award in April at the 39th Annual Writers of the Future Awards Gala. His varied career includes script writing and television series production, including ABC’s Flash Forward which aired in 2009-2010.

    You can find his latest print novel, The Oppenheimer Alternative, a science fiction reimagining of history, on Amazon:

    The-Oppenheimer-Alternative

    The interview that follows the story is full of good advice for authors at any stage of their careers and some cautionary warnings about the advent of AI.


    Dim your lights, grab your nail file, and let's curl up for the award-winning horror-tinged tale, "Peking Man."



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit angeliquemfawns.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 h
  • Selling Stories to Writers of the Future

    Selling Stories to Writers of the Future
    Feb 28 2025

    How do you win Writers of the Future?

    Coordinating Judge Judy Lynn Nye answers a selection of questions put together by the Wulf Pack writing group.

    ADDED BONUS. Jody Lynn Nye also reads her story "Superstition."
    Superstition first appeared in Furry Fantastic an anthology featuring otherworldly animals published in October 2006.
    You can also find this story in her collection Cats Triumphant.

    Jody Lynn Nye is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction books and short stories, many of them with a humorous bent.

    Before breaking away from gainful employment to write full time, Jody worked as a file clerk, book-keeper at a small publishing house, freelance journalist and photographer, accounting assistant and costume maker.

    For four years, she was on the technical operations staff of a local Chicago television station, WFBN (WGBO), serving the last year as Technical Operations Manager.

    In 2016, Jody joined the judging staff of the Writers of the Future contest, the world’s largest science fiction and fantasy writing contest for new authors. She is now its Coordinating Judge.

    Learn more here:
    https://jodynye.com/

    Enter the writing contest here:
    Writers of the Future

    Check out the latest anthology here:
    L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Vol. 39

    Grab your favorite black cat, and let's curl up for a dark story with Jody Lynn Nye.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit angeliquemfawns.substack.com/subscribe
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    56 min
  • 51 Wyatt & the Whog + Rachel Luttrell!

    51 Wyatt & the Whog + Rachel Luttrell!
    Dec 23 2024

    This episode originally aired on Read Me A Nightmare 3 years ago! But I am sure many of you missed this magical and fun performance.

    Rachel Luttrell is not only an award-winning actor, but also my very best friend. Listen to the story and stay tuned afterward for a conversation about acting, life, and our friendship.

    NOW for the story:

    Wyatt is having the baddest of all bad days...And when he gets sucked into a magical world,it's about to become wildly worse. Read by Rachel LuttrellThis story is rated "PG"Wyatt & the Whog was written by Angelique Fawns and first published in the Mannison Press anthology, "Little Boy Lost". Rachel Luttrell is an actor and singer, and my lifelong best friend. She was born in Tanzania but moved to Toronto at the age of five. She's accomplished many wonderful things in her life, including performing the role of kick-ass warrior Teyla Emmagan in Stargate Atlantis. Check out her website and acting school at

    https://www.rachelluttrellstudio.com

    A few questions with Rachel Luttrell:

    AF: I love how engaged you were with the character, and I know you are voicing a novel for an author right now. What is it that you love about voice work?

    RL: I love VO because you can inhabit characters that you would never get the chance to perform on camera. I have always loved singing and playing with my voice is an extension of that. VO allows for that kind of play!

    AF: What kind character is your favourite to portray?

    RL: Hmmmm… my favorite character… That’s a tricky one. So many characters. Some intriguing with little screen time. Some on stage some on camera. There are even characters that I have only had the privilege of performing in class that I loved. But the character of Teyla was very fulfilling and fun. Teyla has certainly brought me the most love back. I am eternally grateful for that.

    AF: What did you think of Wyatt & the Whog? (gratuitous begging for compliments here. Lol.)

    RL: This story was so fun! My daughter, Ridley, just loved it. She wanted more! I love that it’s so accessible for all ages. What’s going to happen next? It reminds me of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Stumbling into a new dangerous realm as told from the perspective of a child.

    Thank you so much for joining Rachel and I today! If you want to learn more about her acting, cooking, and lifestyle, join her Substack here!



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit angeliquemfawns.substack.com/subscribe
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    38 min
  • 50 Losing Angel

    50 Losing Angel
    Dec 14 2024
    Welcome to (drum roll please) episode 50 of Read Me A Nightmare! Betty might be forgetful lately, but she KNOWS her daughter-in-law would never leave her son. Can she find Angel before it’s too late?Today, we are featuring a story starring one of my most popular protagonists, Betty, a detective battling dementia. (Based on my fierce mother-in-law, Linda Fawns).“Losing Angel” continues the tale that first began in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine with my very first pro sale, “Three Calendars.” “Losing Angel” was first published in a pro-pay sale to Mantelpiece Lit in April 2024, and is based on a vacation to Florida that I went on with my mother-in-law as she navigated the progression of her disease while tackling everyday life. Our voice actor is Karen Shute, who also played the role of Betty in the “Three Calenders” episode. Karen is a professional editor, voice actor, and she and I were co-creators/hosts of the Big Brother Canada podcast. Grab your beach towel, toast a bagel, and let’s go hunting for Angel.Angelique’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive my latest open short story calls (the best paying ones I just found!) Please upgrade! Bruce McAllister talks about VOICE and his writing journeyIt’s rare I “hero-worship” another writer, but it when it comes to Bruce McAllister, I am definitely star-struck. McAllister is a Hugo and Nebula nominated science fiction and fantasy writer. My first taste of his genius was the imaginative telling of an alien assassin “Kin” on actor Levar Burton’s podcast Levar Burton Reads.Issac Asimov himself says, “Bruce McAllister is one of the greatest talents working in the science fiction field today.”He published Stealing God and Other Stories in June 2022 which showcases how strong a role voice should play in a short story. He kindly agreed to chat with me about his anthology, writing process, and career. He even drops a few priceless pieces of advice for authors. AF: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today. Tell us what inspired your latest collection of short stories?BM: Though I’ve published three novels in my career, it’s the short story that’s always held my heart—from the Golden Age of Science Fiction short stories I read when I first started reading SF (and writing SF) through the experimental New Wave of SF’s 60’s and 70’s to the present. The form just won’t let go of me; it’s a Siren that, rather than dashing me on rocks in the sea, has always made me happy, made me feel guided by a muse of some mystic kind, and always rewarded me in my life. The loyalty has been worth it.A novel (as I learned from writing DREAM BABY) can be sprawling and epic and cover a lot of time and have many character points-of-view, and is a glorious thing because of these virtues, but the short story can achieve a kind of craft perfection—or at least the possibility of it—for an author when a novel has, as one writer friend put it, and as Faulkner, for one, would agree, “too many words ever to be perfect.” This isn’t to say that the short story will ever replace the novel; it won’t and it shouldn't, because novels take us away to magical places and keep us there when short stories just can’t—at least in the same rich embracing way. The short story is an American invention, they say, so I suppose I’m very American. My writing has always been mainly short stories, so collecting them—in the case of STEALING GOD AND OTHER STORIES collecting what people feel are my best “new millennium” science fiction, fantasy and horror short stories since my first collection—was natural; and I’m grateful to John Kenny at Aeon Press in Dublin, who also published by last novel, THE VILLAGE SANG TO THE SEA (which was a novel of linked stories—you can see the theme here), for making it happen.AF: How long did it take for you to create the collection, and what was your writing process?BM: As I said, all the stories in the collection are from the new millennium. They were written as I always write: a short story idea (and main character and “voice”) inspires me to write it; and by that I mean the emotion is pretty intense. I don’t “think” my way through the fiction I write—which people tell me puts me in a Bradbury camp rather than an Asimov camp by “method” and in turn brain-and-heart wiring. I write it and send it out and still, after nearly sixty years of publishing SF and fantasy, have no idea which editor it will click with. Some of my best stories (i.e., those destined to make a splash with people) have appeared in smaller venues, I should add—which means that it’s important, as some writers can be, not to be a snob: A good story needs a home, and once it finds one, all sorts of good things can happen. I’m not saying a venue with terrible writing is the place to go; just not to think that the profile height of the publication is more important than the quality of the story....
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    29 min
  • 49 Ink

    49 Ink
    Nov 23 2024
    What’s that dark spot on the wall?Ink 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 surprising...
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    18 min