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Read Me A Nightmare

Read Me A Nightmare

By: Angelique Fawns
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 "Read Me A Nightmare" brings strange short stories to life. A fan of Twilight Zone? Tales from the Crypt? Mixing genres, these tales come from the realms of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and comedy. A writer yourself? Stay tuned after the readings for interviews with editors, publishers, voice actors and other interesting folks in the industry. Visit www.fawns.ca to learn more. Please --if you enjoy the episode, leave a review!

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Episodes
  • 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 mins
  • 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 mins
  • 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 mins
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