This is Episode 3 of Terrornado Alley, a presentation by Horror in the Heartland, a chapter of the Horror Writers Association, organized by chapter president Tommy B. Smith .
At the end, I read my story, “They Never Listen,” which first appeared in Ghost Parachute.
Give this a listen if you have a few minutes. And the other episodes too, where you can hear about ghost lights and hauntings.
Make sure to hit the like button on the video. Thank you!
I prepared this reading for the online book launch of Best Microfiction 2025. The story first appeared in the stellar flash fiction journal Wigleaf.
The reading is from the Indian Creek Trail at Giant City State Park in Southern Illinois. The caves along the bluffs there are referred to as shelter caves. The wildflowers are from Giant City (the black-eyed Susans) and the pink ladies are from the Quetil Trail near Alto Pass. The coyote is from Coyote Creek.
This version—complete with head bonk and head shake—was probably my 25th take. I had a good one from further back in a different section of cave, but something happened with my phone mic and I had no sound. Grrr!
I’ve said it’s handy I had a cave to film in, but really, the caves in the area inspired the story. I was at a local dive bar called Fuzzie’s one night—and understand I say dive bar with deep affection—and met a guy who literally was living in the caves south of the bar. Interesting dude.
Anyway, this video is 2 minutes long. I’d love to hear what you think of it!
I read this story, A Mother Could Go Mad, in the wine cave at Walker’s Bluff, one of our local wineries. The additional footage of a doe and her fawn is from Coyote Creek, which wraps around Underhill, where my husband and I live.
The story first appeared in Tilted House.
The germ of the story was from a newspaper article about unusual circumstances surrounding the return of a young soldier’s body to his family. I hope you enjoy!
The SIU School of Communication Studies hosts Epiphanies: performances of flash fiction.
They are staging a selection of my stories!
This is one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me. I can’t wait to see new perspectives on my stories, and to see them staged and read in a performative environment!
If you are local to me, I really hope you can make it. February 6-8, performances at 7 p.m. in Marion Kleinau Theatre. (That’s upstairs from McLeod Theater, if you aren’t familiar.)
Thank you Craig Gingrich-Philbrook and Shelby Swafford — and the SIU Carbondale School of Communication Studies — for launching this project!
Snow day! This is like a Michigan snow down here in Southern Illinois today. And a great change from the ice storm we had just a few days ago that knocked out our power for 75 hours. Just pure snow joy!
I’ve been waiting for a snowy day to make this reading video. The first take was good—but a snowflake on the lens made it blurry. It took me another half a dozen takes to get it right. As good as I can do, anyway.
The bit in this story about the vehicle crash is mostly true. It’s a story I heard in a town where I lived for a couple years. I wanted to write it into a bigger story but every attempt failed. And then one day I was enjoying a solo lunch at a café, half-heartedly eavesdropping as writers tend to do in such environments, and I heard a woman giving her friend several reasons she was reluctant to break up with her boyfriend even though she knew the relationship wasn’t working. Bingo.
This is filmed in a section of the Shawnee National Forest near my house.
Here’s a link to the story: https://sleetmagazine.com/selected/ferrell_v12n1.html
Somewhere I heard the expression “teaching the dead to talk with us.” I don’t think, really, that’s quite what was said. I don’t know that “the dead” were involved at all. But the minute I thought it, I knew I had a story.
I’ve been watching shark videos and reels in the way many people watch funny cats or goats in pajamas. I see people who are shark experts swimming with sharks. I admire them.
And I wonder if there are consequences to messing with the order of things.
I don’t have the answers. Just a story. Here it is.
This story first appeared in Feed Lit Magazine.
This is my second reading for the Best Microfiction 2023 virtual launch. I love seeing the different approaches all the writers take to presenting their stories. I like to hear how a writer presents a story, how they placed the emphasis in a sentence or how they read a bit of dialogue. It can make me consider a story a whole new way.
This reading is from a bluff favored by rappelers in Giant City State Park. It’s a great place for a micro-hike, as it only takes a few minutes to get to the top of the bluff. Also, the meadow at the bottom really shows off the height of the bluff nicely. It’s not mountains, but it sure is beautiful.
The story first appeared in 805 Lit + Art. I’m so grateful for it’s first home, and also that they nominated the story for Best Microfiction—and of course that the Best Microfiction editors chose it!
I took the Blue Ridge Parkway from Blowing Rock to almost Asheville on my way home from my first AuthorCon / Scares That Care event. I stopped as often as I could to take in the view, or to hike a short ways, half a mile or so, on some of the trails. I stopped here at the Chenoa View to do a reading of my story Harbinger, which appears in Root, Branch, Tree: 2020 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology.
After I finished reading, it occurred to me I might have read that one at a boat ramp, since a boat ramp is not only part of the setting, but also where I got the idea for the story.
Once upon a time, I lived in a duplex not quite a mile from Cedar Lake in Southern Illinois. Before I had a kayak, I’d walk my dog down to the lake, or sometimes, drive there instead of going straight home after work. It was a chaotic time in my life (when isn’t it though) and sometimes I needed a minute to sit by the water before going home. The idea for this particular story started when I drove to the boat ramp during a nighttime thunderstorm. I sat there in my truck, watching the lightning flash over the lake and listening to the dark-moving clouds rumble, and thought about what it’s like to lose someone you’ve already lost.
In this story, I mean for the end to be ambiguous. Why does GraceAnn make her deal, and with whom? Does she want her sister to go soon so she won’t suffer? Or is GraceAnn bitter? Does she really wish it was her instead?
I hope you enjoy the story!
A foggy early January day and mysterous atmosphere led me to drive around looking for cool places to hang out. It’s not hard where I live. I found a spot near the Panther Den Wilderness area not far from a really cool attraction, the Shawnee Bluffs Canopy Tour, a zipline and suspension bridge site.
This story, Renaissance, is a re-write from an older, much longer story I wrote several years ago and shelved. I knew I wanted to do something with it. What needed to happen, as it turns out, was for me to whittle down the word count to just less than half of the original — and then to do that again.
The story appears in Legerdemain: National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2021, edited by Santino Prinzi and Nod Ghosh. It’s really an honor to be included in the anthology.
