‘I always stood a rapt audience when he spun these tales, and he relished the attention, I could tell. It made us so happy to be a part of the telling together.’
Instead of a single story this week, I’m giving you some snippets – flash fiction from the mind and the pen of a friend of mine. The styles and subjects vary, but there’s a connecting theme between the pieces I’ve selected: the relationship between father and child. I hope you enjoy them.
Show notes:
The Room Next Door is a wonderful collection of flash fiction and assorted writings by Nicolas Papaconstantinou, published by Markosia. I have used the title here as a convenient catch-all, but in actual fact only 3 of the 4 selected pieces appear in the collection: Driving Baby Home, That is His Name it is Not Mine, and As Every Father Ever Did. You can purchase The Room Next Door via the links at Markosia or add it to your next Amazon order via Nic’s associate link if you prefer. The final story, God Kings, will appear in his next collection. You can find early drafts of Nic’s writing on his website, Elephant Words, alongside some fantastic guest pieces. You might even find a bit of my work jammed in there.
The future:
The Room Next Door is my eighth audio piece as ‘Fine-toothed Comb Productions’, and the sound quality should be greatly improved now I’ve upgraded my equipment. I’m still learning the ropes in terms of narration, audio editing, soundscaping, and the like, but I will be adding Narration and Audio Editing to the available Services here at The Fine-toothed Comb in 2022.
My plan is to release one new recording each month up to Jan 2022. I have stories booked in from Alice J. Black, and James Bennett. That leaves space for authors in December and January. If you have a tale you’d like me to narrate (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. You’ll get a copy of the file to host/use as you wish one month after release. I make no money from this run of test-pieces, but please do check with your publisher before volunteering; I don’t want to fall foul of any legal disputes.
Sound design and attribution:
Intro and Outro music 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-Key.
This month I also used additional snatches of music in between the stories. These are Driving Home for Christmas, by Chris Rea / The Chain, by Fleetwood Mac / Azathoth, from Dreams in the Witch House.
Further Reading:
If you enjoyed The Room Next Door, you may enjoy my other performed readings – available for free on my Audio page.
If you would like me to record some of your work, talk to me via my Contact page.
If you’re a podcaster who wants help editing the audio, I’d be happy to discuss rates and work out a schedule.