My story “The Astronaut,” from Tales of Falling and Flying, is on the WORDTheatre Short Story Podcast right now, as read by actor Jason George (of Grey’s Anatomy fame). The episode also features Cassidy Freeman (from The Righteous Gemstones) reading Meg Howrey’s story “She Floats 1969.” It’s the Nov 19 episode, and you can find it on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Busy couple weeks over here! I went out to Baltimore and met with the English and Honors students at CCBC-Essex, read them stories, answered a lot of questions (and said “I don’t know” to a lot more), walked around the inner harbor, ate a lot of great food, and visited the American Visionary Art Museum (which is one of the coolest museums I’ve ever been to (even if it did make me sob in public a couple times)). Came home and did an interview with Jason DeHart for his podcast Words, Images, and Worlds, which you can find on Spotify, or watch here on YouTube, agreed to be the judge of the 18th National Indie Excellence Jurors Choice Book Award, which you can read about here, did a reading of a new story called “The True Story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree” at VIFCA (the Virtual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts), and then sold that story to Joey Grantham, editor of the new journal R&R, which will be published via the Relegation Books website starting in January of 2024.

Most importantly, a project I’ve been working on for years with composer Nathan Hudson went live on Kickstarter! We’re raising money to record an album of original contemporary classical chamber music that Nathan has written based on and/or inspired by my stories! We have a lot of cool rewards at various tiers to give away, and a lot of money to raise—so please, check it out and give if you can!