September’s podcast guest star is author and editor V. Castro!

V. Castro is the celebrated author of Mestiza Blood, The Queen of the Cicadas and several short stories in our anthologies. She finds her inspirations in Mexican folklore and the urban legends of Texas.

In this episode, recorded at London Book Fair, Nick and V. chat all about their passion for storytelling, folklore and dark fiction.

And the best part? You can hear more from V. next month in our LIVE AND SPOOKY celebrations where she'll be back on the Myth & Fiction Podcast to talk about editing Flame Tree's upcoming anthology, Latin American Shared Stories! This stunning book will be going on sale on the 21st of October.

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator), Shilpa Varma and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.

In today’s episode, we are taking a look into the veil between worlds, the margin between the living and the dead. Is it really so clear which side is which? Or is this veil thinning all the time, in memories we inherit, and in those moments when we brush close to the other side?

Featuring

‘Our Bones Were the Mortar’ by Anjali Patel (01.25), read by Cheryl S. Ntumy. A story from our African Ghost collection, which follows a woman who wants nothing to do with her family’s legacy of necromancy - until she feels the weight of thousands of enslaved souls buried beneath Manhattan.

‘A Visit to the King of Ghosts’ from Hawaiian folklore and recorded by W.D. Westervelt (11.49), read by Shilpa. A narrative where a man's spirit separates from his body to wander the ghostly realm. Borrowed from Flame Tree’s Quests & Journeys.

Biographies

Anjali Patel is a Black and South Asian speculative fiction writer. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in Escape Pod, Uncanny Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, khōréō, The Deadlands, and others. Find her at anjali.fyi or all socials @anjapatel.

W.D. Westervelt (1849–1939) was an American author and pastor. He settled in Hawaii in 1899 and served as the Corresponding Secretary for the Hawaiian Historical Society beginning in 1908. He is considered one of the foremost authorities on Hawaiian folklore in English.

Cheryl S. Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of speculative fiction and has appeared in Black Friday, FIYAH Literary Magazine, Apex Magazine and World Literature Today.

Learn more about Shilpa Varma and her role at Flame Tree here.

This episode was hosted by Olivia.

‘Our Bones Were the Mortar’ is ©2021 Anjali Patel and was originally published in Khōréō (2021), but more recently appeared in African Ghost (Flame Tree Publishing, 2024).

‘A Visit to the King of Ghosts’ was recorded from Hawaiian folklore in 1915 by W.D. Westervelt, but more recently appeared in Quests & Journeys (Flame Tree Publishing, 2024).

#podcast #shortstories #necromancy #ghosts #folklore

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator), Shilpa Varma and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.

As any fans of Flame Tree will know already, we pride ourselves on being a publisher of speculative fiction. We’ve covered the founding genres of SFF on this podcast already but perhaps we’ve given slightly more attention to our horror and fantasy short stories, but not today. Today we’re journeying to the future on the back of two of our Science Fiction stories. Brace yourself for worlds where technology has slipped beyond human control, and crime reigns in the skies.

Content Warning: This episode contains depictions of sexual violence.

Featuring

‘Aphrodite T-100’ by Anne Wilkins (01.57), read by Nathan Chatelier. A future where robotoids rule and select human subjects for fertility experiments. This story can be found in our brand new collection: Robots Past & Future Short Stories.

‘The Aerial Burglar’ by Percival Leigh (25.15), read by Bea. Often regarded as the first Steampunk short story, this tale blends Victorian aesthetics with ‘futuristic’ steam technology. Borrowed from our Swords & Steam anthology.

Biographies

Anne Wilkins is a sleep-deprived teacher in New Zealand, who writes in her spare time (which she has very little of). Her love of writing is fuelled by copious amounts of coffee, reading and hope. Anne is supported in her writing journey by her ever-patient husband, her two wonderful daughters and two feline writing assistants.

Percival Leigh (1813–89) was an English comic writer born in Haddington. He studied medicine at St Bartholomew’s before abandoning this profession to engage in a writing career.

Nathan Chatelier is a British voiceover artist with almost fifty audiobooks recorded alongside thousands of other projects, from videogames to the Mean Girls West End trailer. Check out his demos.

This episode was hosted by Olivia.

‘Aphrodite T-100’ is ©2025 Anne Wilkins and appeared in Robots Past & Future Short Stories (Flame Tree Publishing, 2025).

‘The Aerial Burglar’ by Percival Leigh was first published in The Comic Album: A Book for Every Table (1844), but more recently appeared in Swords & Steam (Flame Tree Publishing, 2016).

#robots #ai #steampunk #shortstories #dystopian

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator), Shilpa Varma and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.

Transformation lies at the heart of every great story. Sometimes this takes the shape of a mentality shift or character development, but today’s stories examine transformation in its most literal meaning - the physical. We’re talking skin to fur and nail to claw - humans who have been forced to succumb to the beast within.

Featuring

‘The Stag’ by Kate Wilmot (01.34), read by Olivia. A reinvention of an ancient tale that was already bursting with gore, revenge and extreme emotion. This can be found in Flame Tree’s Moon Falling anthology.

‘The Swan-Children of Lir’ by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (19.08) , read by Amanda Benzecry. An Old Irish Legend that is thought to be the inspiration for the ballet, Swan Lake, this story is brimming with jealousy, endurance and faith. Borrowed from Shadows on the Water.

Biographies

Kate Wilmot is a new writer based in the UK who likes to twist familiar themes with horror to tell something new. She is an archaeologist who turns to history and myths for inspiration, drawing on the remains and stories of people that have survived for millennia. Her work is highly influenced by her childhood in the eastern Mediterranean where the landscape and its past provided the perfect place for her passion for stories to grow.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson was a key figure in the US abolitionist movement. . He served heroically on the Union side in the Civil War before becoming a friend and mentor to the poet Emily Dickinson (1830–86). He himself wrote more prosaic works in history and memoir, but unleashed his imagination in Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic (1899).

Amanda Benzecry (voice actor) regularly narrates books for Audible, is on the panel for the RNIB and is a frequent contributor (both as a narrator and a writer) to TNF Soundings, providing audio material for the visually impaired.

This episode was hosted by Bea.

‘The Stag’ is ©2024 Kate Wilmot and appeared in Moon Falling (Flame Tree Publishing, 2024).

‘The Swan-Children of Lir’ was originally published in Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic, Macmillan (1899), but more recently appeared in Shadows on the Water (Flame Tree Publishing, 2024).

#transformation #metamorphoses #swanlake #stag #moon

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator), Shilpa Varma and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.

Today we're diving into the shadows cast by crowns, where love and power dance their oldest, most dangerous waltz. Because here's what Disney never tells you: every court has its secrets, and every crown sits heavy with the weight of what rulers will do to protect what they love.

Featuring

Naked Villainy by Joshua K. Haarstad (02.31), read by Nathan Chatelier. A story about a king who discovers that protecting his son means rewriting the very nature of truth itself. This tale can be found in Flame Tree’s Epic Fantasy short story anthology.

Cinderella by Brothers Grimm (30.34), read by Bea. In the Grimm version, there are no fairy godmothers with sparkling wands. There's only a girl, a tree that grows from tears, and birds that see when everybody else chooses blindness. This fairytale can be found in Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales.

Biographies

Joshua K. Haarstad began writing after graduating from the University of Minnesota, where he primarily studied literature, writing, film, Spanish, and English. He resides in Minnesota and prefers to spend his winters avoiding the cold with as large a book as he can find. His favourite genre is fantasy, but he also loves horror, mystery, and science fiction.

German academics, folklorists and authors Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859) are best known for their collection of fairy tales, which, next to the Luther Bible, remain the most well-known and widely distributed text in German cultural history.

Nathan Chatelier is a British voiceover artist with almost fifty audiobooks recorded alongside thousands of other projects, from videogames to the Mean Girls West End trailer. Check out his demos.

This episode was hosted by Shilpa Varma. To find out more about our writer-in-residence and her role at Flame Tree, click here.

‘Naked Villainy’ is ©2019 Joshua K. Haarstad and appeared in Epic Fantasy (Flame Tree Publishing, 2019).

‘Cinderella’ by Brothers Grimm was first published in 1812 as ‘Aschenputtel’ in Kinder- und Hausmärchen and later appeared in Brother Grimm Fairy Tales (Flame Tree Publishing, 2019).

#storytelling #fairytale #brothersgrimm #epicfantasy #cinderella #lqbtqfiction

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator), Shilpa Varma and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.

In our August Special episode Olivia delves into the horror genre with the guidance of award winning authors and editors, Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan.

Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan were the editors of Flame Tree’s Folk Horror. A collection of stories that covers a wide range of mythologies and dark corners from around the world. Five of its short stories were selected from open submissions and the remaining twelve were commissioned from authors including Neil Gaiman, John Connolly, Adam L.G. Nevill, Alison Littlewood and Jen Williams.

Their upcoming book Witchcraft Short Stories is due to be published in January 2026.

Biographies

Paul Kane is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author and editor of over a hundred books – such as the sellout Hooded Man omnibus, Hellbound Hearts, Wonderland (a Shirley Jackson Award finalist) and The Gemini Factor. Find out more at his site shadow-writer.co.uk which has featured Guest Writers such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Olivie Blake and Guillermo del Toro.

Marie O'Regan is a Shirley Jackson, Australian Shadow and British Fantasy Award-nominated author and editor. She is co-editor of anthologies including the bestselling Hellbound Hearts, Cursed, Twice Cursed and The Other Side of Never and is also Managing Editor of PS Publishing’s novella imprint, Absinthe Books. See more at marieoregan.net

Desert Island Books

Paul’s Desert Island Books:

1. The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
2. Dune by Frank Herbert
3. The Rats by James Herbert
4. Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells
5. Rush of Blood by Mark Billingham

Marie’s Desert Island Books:

1. Thin Air: An Anthology Of Ghost Stories chosen by Alan C. Jenkins
2. Bag of Bones by Stephen King
3. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
4. Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
5. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
6. The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

This episode was hosted by Olivia.

#folkhorror #folklore #horror #interview #author #editor #LondonBookFair

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator), Shilpa Varma and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.

A creator god, a trickster folk hero, a wily spider and a heroic symbol of resistance, Anansi is a fascinating figure within West African folklore. This episode contains both an original folkloric story and a modern depiction of Anansi from our Myths, Gods & Immortals series.

Featuring:

‘The Secrets of Jamestown Lighthouse’ by Benjamin Cyril Arthur (01.15), read by Cheryl S. Ntumy. In this story we’ve got a gang of kids who are sneaking around, sticking their noses into things that are way beyond them, but who can resist breaking the rules when there’s an adventure at stake? Borrowed from ‘Anansi’ in our Myths, Gods & Immortals series.

‘How Anansi Became a Spider’ from the Dagomba people of West Africa (30.25), read by Essay Kidane. Though also featuring the character of Anansi this is a traditionally told folkloric narrative. We found this morality tale in our book ‘African Myths and Tales’.

Biographies:

Benjamin Cyril Arthur is a prolific writer who holds a degree in English and Linguistics. He is a winner of the 2020 Samira Bawumia literary prize in Ghana. His short stories have been published by Tampered Press, Lunaris Review, Ama Atta Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing, Lọúnlọún etc. When not writing, Benjamin works as an amateur photographer.

‘How Anansi Became a Spider’ was sourced from the Dagomba people in West Africa. The stories in African Myths and Tales come from a range of sources, mostly contemporaneous with colonial times, written by Europeans but often based on their first-hand accounts of tales narrated to them by natives. More details can be found inside African Myths and Tales.

Cheryl S. Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of speculative fiction and has appeared in FIYAH Literary Magazine, Apex Magazine and World Literature Today. She's also been shortlisted for the Nommo Award for African speculative fiction, the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship.

This episode was hosted by Bea.

‘The Secrets of Jamestown Lighthouse’ is ©2025 Benjamin Cyril Arthur and appeared in Anansi (Flame Tree Publishing, 2025).

‘How Anansi Became a Spider’ appeared in African Myths and Tales (Flame Tree Publishing, 2019).

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator), Shilpa Varma and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual violence.

What happens when someone who was never supposed to speak suddenly finds their voice? Today we're exploring that question through two very different lenses - one brutally contemporary, one ancient as the changing seasons. Both ask us to listen to voices that were meant to stay silent forever.

Featuring:

‘Vessels and Warnings’ by Gabrielle Emem Harry (1.45), narrated by Cheryl S. Ntumy. A powerful narrative where remembering your own name becomes an act of rebellion. This story can be found in our African Ghost anthology.

‘The Rape of Persephone’ by Homer and Hesiod (17.28), narrated by Amanda Benzecry. A myth from Ancient Greece, where a young woman is taken against her will, a mother's grief changes the world and compromises must be made. Borrowed from our Greek Myths and Legends collection.

Biographies:

Gabrielle Emem Harry is a Nigerian speculative fiction writer. She writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, slipstream and anything with a fabulist bent and is most interested in crafting stories that sit in the gaps between genres, refusing to be strictly defined. She was selected as a 2023 Literary Laddership for Emerging African Authors Fellow and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Solarpunk, Apparition, Omenana, Isele and more.

‘The Rape of Persephone’ was derived from Hesiod’s Theogony. Hesiod is often credited with beginning the Greek mythical tradition, he lived and composed around 700 BC. Theogony deals with the origins of the world and the gods.

Cheryl S. Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of speculative fiction and has appeared in Black Friday, FIYAH Literary Magazine, Apex Magazine and World Literature Today.

Amanda Benzecry (voice actor) regularly narrates books for Audible, is on the panel for the RNIB and is a frequent contributor (both as a narrator and a writer) to TNF Soundings, providing audio material for the visually impaired.

This episode was hosted by Olivia

‘Vessels and Warnings’ is ©2023 Gabrielle Emem Harry and was originally published in Apparation Literary Magazine in 2023 and appeared in African Ghost (Flame Tree Publishing, 2024).

‘The Rape of Persephone’ appeared in Greek Myths & Legends (Flame Tree Publishing, 2022).

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator), Shilpa Varma and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.