Guten tag! It’s freezing here and snow is covering the ground like pretty little drops of frozen water.
My short story Fingerprints on the Blind Tour is available to pre-order through issue #1 of Clash Magazine, have a peek and get yours!
Here’s a little video of updates, including some very good news I got yesterday. Hurrah!
Good day and a merry afternoon. You can purchase my Victorian set weird fiction horror type story here. There are weird drugs, cults and spooky things so enjoy!
Merry afternoon to you, or whatever time you exist in. I continued my experiment with mouth noises by talking about weird and interesting books I’ve read.
Everything mentioned:
Laura Lee Bahr, Angel Meat
Matt Payne, Robot God/Hybrid Brain
Andrew J Lambie, Carnival Of The Flesh
Junji Ito, Snow White
Hello my little bar stools!
Afraid I can’t write too much because I am suffering some serious lady time issues. I’ve shared fiction podcasts and writing advice podcasts, now allow me to share some true story, factual and informative podcasts that stray on the creepy, weird and dark side.
Here is the latest episode of the podcast that focuses on weird episodes of history, The Dancing Plague. Mass Hysteria is a particular fascination of mine, and podcast creator Nathaniel Lloyd seeks to question “Can we trust history as we have received it?”
2. Criminal
This is a fantastic and informative true crime podcast, focusing on different and often unusual stories each episode. In Eight Years we discover being a Harry Potter fan isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
3. Monster Talk
Presented by Skeptic Magazine, this podcast presents the cultural and scientific story of cryptozoology.
4. Sawbones
Hilarious husband and wife team (she’s a doctor) take a humorous look at medical mishaps and odd cures of the past. In this episode they explore the man who couldn’t stop eating, including a cat, a puppy, a snake, an eel, offal and poultices:
Three friends discuss crime and mystery theories, often with a focus on the weird. Being a writery type I chose the temporary disappearance of Agatha Christie, but there’s a lot to choose from:
Genuinely informative and in-depth horror podcast for film buffs and nerds, this goes beyond the usual horror fan chit chat and discusses film making and horror as an art. This episode is about beautiful black and white flicks Night of the Hunter and The Innocents:
Hosted by writer/performer/general weirdos Dr Bramwell and David Mounfield, each episode features different speakers offering “a portal into the fringes of culture; its mavericks and pranksters, adventurers and occultists, artists, comics, eroticists and even the odd chef,” all before a live studio audience. Of course I picked the Sherlock Holmes episode.
Merry holidays one and all! I’m going to take two weeks off after today but, never fear, I shall leave you with the wonderful words of some of my favourite writers.
Lately I’ve been doing a series of story readings called The Onesie Tales in which I read whilst wearing full length pajamas and no make up. There’s no massive reasoning behind this other than my pajamas are very comfortable and I’m quite lazy. I’ll be continuing this in the New Year so if you’d like to join me subscribe to my youtube channel to be notified of the next one.
In the meantime here are readings of surrealists Leonora Carrington, Haruki Murakami, Algonquin Round Table wit Dorothy Parker and Gothic weird lady Daphne du Maurier. Enjoy!
P.S. The ending of the first video is very embarrassing. I didn’t realise I was still recording and I talk in a silly voice to my boyfriend Bill and look for my glasses like a drunk aunt at Christmas.
Bonjour! I hope you’re well, it’s been so long since we last spoke. A whole several hours. Dry your eyes because yet another podcast with a weird fiction story of mine was released last night. They’re like buses!
They kindly said of it: “Madeleine Swann’s disturbing, difficult, beautiful story reaches towards the complexities of the human condition, whether they have conditions or not.”
Follow this link to listen and to see my story in it’s written form. Enjoy!
Hello my little lonely partnerless socks found on the floor which I pair with another 
partnerless one! I have a new short story in the absurdist/bizarro anthology Tall Tales With Short Cocks 5 (Rooster Republic Press) and hopefully you will find it very funny. Here’s what the publisher has to say about it:
“In the fifth installment of Rooster Republic’s flagship anthology series, we have some really tremendous fiction. It’s great. You can’t beat fiction like this. A lot of kids come up to me and they tell me how great they think this fiction is. I believe them. Believe me, it’s a great collection with some fantastic authors giving us their best work. I believe me.
Why don’t you? You too good for all this fun, freaky, and far-out fiction? Maybe go read a book about bird watching, you voyeuristic pervert. This anthology is for connoisseurs who are sick of watching birds. They want to look at words—not at our fine feathered friends. Though, if I’m being honest, I’ve never met a bird I would call my friend. Sure, those doves helped me move. BUT I GAVE THEM BIRDSEED. Real friends don’t demand food from you. They just help you move, wish you luck, and then leave forever until you need them again. The stories in this anthology will be great friends. You can read them, put them back on the shelf, and pull them out whenever you feel like it. Or if you don’t feel like it, they aren’t going to call you up and be all like, “Hey, wanna get something to eat at that new taco cart I saw on the corner of Johnson and Johnson?” That would be the end of American fiction, I can tell you. Not that all the authors in this collection are Americans. Some are UKish, and some, I assume, are also good people. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Chickens Are Birds. Rooster Republic 2016!!!!!”
So there we are, clearly you need this in your life, and here it is!
Merry new day to you all! I was much amused by this unexpectedly fascinating documentary, essentially the most entertaining bits of the trial of Joan Collins (she of the shoulder pads, 80s soap operas and 70s British horror movies) vs her publisher Round House.
As the info for the doc says on YouTube, watch out for the grey haired lady who seems confused over whether she’s in a courtroom or doing stand up. See also Joan Collins prepare for battle in her best early 90s war garb.
It’s an aspect of publishing we don’t often think about, the possibility of being sued for doing a terrible job. Is it even fair? The court must decide…
Today’s pretentious book picture is brought to you by Utopia coffee shop in Southend, Essex. Books, hipster decorations and brilliant drinks oh my! 
Good day my lovely packets of weird flavour crisps that you’re not sure if you’ll like at first but turn out to be really good. I’ve read a bunch more weird books so join me on my wild ride. P.S. I’m on rather a lot of painkillers so forgive me if I gibber nonsensically like a drunk aunt on Valium.
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle. 
The thing I enjoyed most about this modern weird fiction tale was the characterization. Black Tom, a man from 1920s Harlem, is completely believable and draws you into his story of finding a strange book for an even stranger old white man.
Set in the Lovecraft universe, it offers a unique perspective in that the author is an African American man. The dedication is to Lovecraft himself and ‘all (the author’s) complicated feelings towards him.’
Sunruined by Anderson Prunty. 
This collection of short stories has a gothic Halloween flavour to it, I could almost smell the Autumn leaves. Or perhaps I was just desperate for Autumn to begin.
They may not always be outright horror, in fact some are probably dark fantasy or whatever the kids are reading these days, but they’re always beautiful and very imaginative. Don’t worry, there’s no vampires, but there are screaming trees and predatory women.
While The Black Stars Burn by Lucy Snyder. 
It’s very shallow but the main reason I bought this book was because of it’s beautiful cover. LOOK AT IT! Then I was pleasantly surprised by the stories.
There are a number of genres here but mainly science fiction and weird, two of my favourite things. The author uses these strange set ups as a backdrop for everyday feelings, such as the woman in mourning who goes on a space voyage. The ending of this one is wonderfully dark, by the way, as are many of them. Read it!
The Teratologist by Edward Lee and Wrath James White. What a pair of sick puppies. I took a picture of my face whilst reading the second page. THE SECOND PAGE!
Generally I would say this kind of thing isn’t my cup of tea as the grossness is kind of an endurance test, while the aberrant sex gets a little tiresome. However something about it kept me reading. It sounds like I hated it but I really didn’t, I found the story quite fascinating. Two men, a journalist and photographer, are invited to the house of a wealthy man who secretly collects deformed people and religious leaders and feeds them lust enhancing drugs in order to offend God and bring him to Earth.
I think I enjoyed it, but seriously, only read if you have a strong stomach.
The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Mellick III. 
I expected a very different book to the one I got. I thought I’d be reading a gross, immature comedy with not too much depth, but entertaining. It was entertaining, but it was also a very sweet and heartfelt look at relationships and the odd little things that make us love a person and, often, why relationships don’t last.
It is occasionally a bit gross, such as when the main character oils up to dive inside his girlfriend’s nether regions to explore the strange world within, but sex and love is sometimes gross and messy and we can’t explore these topics without getting a bit dirty.
There we have it! I won’t be posting next week as I’m having a holiday in my house, but you have plenty to be getting on with. Adieu!
My tiny (10,000 word) surreal, bizarro, weird and any other adjective erotica novelette was released today with New Kink. Sometimes I get the urge to write rude things and, being me, they end up just as odd as the usual stuff.
P.S. My artistic partner in crime and cuddles Bill Purnell did the front cover, he’s a very clever pickle.
Here’s the Amazon link.
New Kink proudly presents…
Before you get too excited, let’s give this video a shot. The beloved Sauda Namir reads an excerpt for us in a series called Bizarro Bedtime.
Bizarro Bedtime: S3 E4: Madeleine Swann from Sauda Namir on Vimeo.
With a gorgeous cover from artist Bill Purnell, and a lot of kink packed in a small package, let’s see what she’s about.
“Lillia Gardens is the largest erotic resort in several dimensions. It’s home to colourful flora, weird creatures and time travelling visitors, all ready and willing to get filthy – like Wonderland or Oz but smuttier.
Each story follows a woman from a different era who recieves a mysterious card inviting them to the Gardens, including Sam, a modern Western woman in a failing relationship; Aysun, a member of a Sultan’s harem and Itzel, a Mayan princess. Overseen by their mysterious guide Rex, a rainbow half-man half-bird, they experience all the strange and wonderful things the resort has to offer from vagina seats in the park to a sensory depriving tube.
But it can’t be sunshine and orgasms for everybody, and the Garden needs payment…”
Madeleine Swann 