What is The Drabblecast?

We are an audio fiction podcast featuring short stories, flash fictions, drabbles, and twabbles. Our focus is Weird, off-beat, funny, eclecticism in science fiction, fantasy, and horror, hosted and often narrated by Norm Sherman. 

The Drabblecast ran its first episode in February of 2007. In the early days, Norm and college friends and then editors Kendall Marchman and Luke Coddington wrote most of the episodes. But soon a listenership grew, and the Drabblecast began publishing stories contributed by its fans. Later, professional authors got involved. Names like Tim Pratt, Mike Resnick, Ben H. Winters, and Mur Lafferty have appeared on the podcast.

After a molting and regrowing new limbs, Drabblecast relaunched following a successful Kickstarter in October of 2018.

The Drabblecast is the winner of the 2010, 2011, and 2012 Parsec Awards for Best Speculative Fiction Audio Magazine.

How do I listen?

To subscribe, click one of the links in the right column of this page (under Subscribe to the Drabblecast). If you want to start listening right away, you can click on our Episodes stream or check out our Editor’s Choice Episodes for a good primer.

Support Us

The Drabblecast supports itself mainly via a donation model, via our Paypal, and also now on Patreon! We receive contributions from listeners which we use to pay authors for the stories we run. One time donations to the Paypal are amazing, and if you are interested in accessing even more weird and listening to even more Norm, Patreon is the place you want to hang your disembodied head with the other disembodied heads. 

Should you be able to, we encourage and appreciate any and all donations. The larger our pot, the more we can publish, and the greater the pay rate we can offer to authors.

Feed your tender to our writhing mass of tentacles and see what terrible offspring emerge! The receipts you receive in the mail for these donations will not be cursed, but they may be a little wet from the mass of slugs we use to deliver our post. 

Submissions

We are always searching for the next great story, and to keep our audience trapped somewhere between ecstatic joy and unfathomable confusion, also know as the back rooms of the Plateau of Leng Travel Center and Vape Shop. 

See our submissions page for more information.

What others are saying about the Drabblecast:

I’m really quite impressed by the job Norm Sherman did narrating, which is higher praise than you’d think, because I’m extremely resistant to interpretations of my work that differ in any way from how it sounded in my head. But Norm’s interpretation works beautifully, and it taught me something about my own creation.
-Michael Swanwick

Over the years I’ve heard various books and stories of mine read by perhaps a dozen professional actors and at least that many amateurs. Some were okay, some were pretty awful. Until now there had only been one brilliant reading — by actor William Windom, some years ago. Then I listened to Norm’s rendition of “Blue” — and now there are two. I can’t imagine it being done any better. Thanks for a truly wonderful job.
-Mike Resnick

A powerful reading and good example of how a story can be transformed when told out loud and told out loud well.
-William Gibson

Staff

The tip of the spear is Norm Sherman, our charismatic host, producer, and primary narrator. Norm is a musician and an occasional hosts at fellow speculative fiction podcasting favorite EscapePod. You can buy his ever-so-enthralling CD here: www.cdbaby.com/cd/normsherman.

An enthusiastic group of volunteers (read: a bunch of esoteric demigods from around the cosmos intent on making you mad) make The Drabblecast run. We would be nowhere without the support of our listeners and especially our gracious donors. These fine individuals maintain a special role.

Tom Baker – Archivist, Digital Architect, Saint

Toy maker by trade, Tom fills the world with delight and mayhem. Finding no use for his 3rd grade education, he went on to create laser tag guns and Rock Band accessories to finance his fiction listening habits.

Bo Kaier – Art Director, Designer

UX Architect by day, depicter of sad clowns by night. The Drabblecast’s art director and frequent cover contributor, Bo Kaier, can be found at bokaier.com.

 

Marya Llovet – Assistant Editor

Marya Llovet currently studies Molecular Biology and Biomedicine – but is absolutely, positively, 100% not planning to become a mad scientist. Really. We promise. She lives deep in the woods near Winter River, CT.

Jocelyn Gerwig – Assistant Editor

Mom, historian, voracious reader of all things dark and strange, and a fan of felines.

 

 

A. R. James – Assistant Editor

A.R. James (she/her) is a queer, bisexual actor-writer of unsettling entrances and exits in the form of poetry, flash fiction, auto-fiction, screenplays and scripts; co-founder of Sonnet Sisters, Six Lips Theatre and The Podvangelist; and the voice of 3CC0 in Tin Can. Existing works include Unknown (Stairwell Books), Little Irritants (Analog Submission Press) and 100 Friggin’ Poems. Photo credit to Nicolas Laborie.

Piper – Assistant Editor

Piper is from Mississippi, where dirt roads wash to mud. Where August sunsets raise from earth the iron smell of blood. Where incumbents and insurgents meet to fill each other’s cup. Where goats, and wolves, and sheep alike bow heads before they sup. Where sacred harp til Sunday noon will baptize Saturday night. Where drinking swill from a copper still, seemed a sin so slight. Where cicadas sing in glad release from prison of dark earth? Or Where they weep to hide and keep from heat and stink of birth? When August can lead one to long for cool and dark and silent. When storm and sun will act as one, and pound the drum as a tyrant.

Lucas Strough – Assistant Editor

Lucas Strough is a writer, musician, podcaster and journalist living in Texas and dreaming of other places. He enjoys weird fiction, fermenting his own hot sauce and befriending animals.

Joseph Petris — Assistant Editor 

By day, Joe is an Electrician’s Mate in the United States Coast Guard and heavily involved in the horror community by night. When not trudging through the slush, he writes short stories (His work has appeared in several anthologies), reviews various fiction, and interviews authors, preferring to highlight lesser known works and writers. 

Timaeus Bloom – Assistant Editor

Timaeus Bloom is an author of speculative fiction from Alabama whose words have appeared in anthologies, magazines, and podcasts. A fan of the strange and fantastical (especially pulp!), he spends his free time laboring over just what to do with his free time. He is definitely not a wizard–probably.

Nichole L. Lightner – Managing Editor

Nichole L. Lightner (she/her) is a horror writer and editor living in the strange edges of Appalachia where abandoned mines and suburbs crawl all over each other. She likes liminal spaces and crumbling architecture, along with bad horror games. She collects Metallica tee shirts and rocks.