This month’s performed reading is Christmas Fare, a short story by Pippa Bailey. It may seem an odd time of year to put out this kind of tale, but for our main character, it’s Christmas every day. Originally written with a ‘Hallmark Cinematic Universe’ kind of thing in mind, Pippa takes some familiar tropes and has some good gory fun with it.

 

Show notes:

As mentioned in the end credits, Pippa Bailey is primarily published by Pugnacious Press.

She has written some special pieces for The Wicked Library podcast, and is also features in their print anthology, 13 Wicked Tales.

Christmas Fare is my fourth audio piece as ‘Fine-toothed Comb Productions’. Right now, it’s a hobby more than anything else. I’m learning the ropes in terms of narration, sound editing, soundscaping, mixing and the like, with a view to eventually adding Audio Production to the Services you can hire me for, here at The Fine-toothed Comb. I hope you enjoy it.

I welcome constructive feedback, so please feel free to leave comments below, email me at dion [at] thefinetoothed [dot] com or reach out via social media if you’d prefer.

The future:

My plan is to release one new recording each month for the rest of 2021. I already have stories booked in from Andrew Freudenberg, Steven Chapman, Alice J. Black, and Nicolas Papaconstantinou. That leaves space for authors in October, November and December. If you have a tale you’d like to hear me tell (between 4000 and 6000 words long) then please do drop me a line. All I ask is the flexibility to edit slightly for my ease of performance, and to be able to freely host the audio file on my website.

Sound design and attribution:

All music and sounds are used under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License.

My regular Intro music is called The Fifth Life, by Circus Marcus.

My regular Outro music is called Post Bellum, by Dee Yan-Kee.

Both were sourced at Free Music Archive.

Unlike my previous two pieces, I was unable to source a generic soundscape to cover the whole piece. I’ve patched together something from various car noises, screams and the like. Do they add to or distract from the reading? Perhaps you’ll let me know your thoughts.

Those sound effects are as follows:

Renalt Road Trip (sic), by NLM

Car Foley, by Sighleeee

Idling Car, by 1San

Child’s Scream 5, by J.Zazvurek

Scream#6, by Arnaud Coutancier

Crowd Panic, by Belthazarus

Thump3, by Theshaggyfreak

Car Wipers, by Devy32

They – and a great many more – can all be found at Freesound.

If you enjoyed Christmas Fare, you may also like my previous recordings:

Swimming Out To Sea, by Penny Jones

The Shape Off The Bow, by Lex Jones

From Tappet Woods, by Dion Winton-Polak