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The Strange Recital

The Strange Recital is an audio anthology of short fiction. It is not genre-specific and delights in perceptions of reality that warp and fold in unexpected ways. The literary works we showcase might be odd, humorous, or surreal.... They might remind you of Borges, Nabokov, Kafka, Pynchon. Or none of the above.
 
Each podcast episode features one writer and runs about 25 minutes. It includes a story reading – the Recital – a brief musical interlude, and an author interview with a twist – the Post Recital. Subscribe to get a new episode twice a month. It's free.

Dec 10, 2023

"I have endeavoured to present the public with accounts of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, and of his singular intelligence, his vigour and his courage. He often joked with me that his great fame was due solely to my embellishments..."

Dr. Watson at last reveals a never-before-told adventure in which Holmes faces a...


Nov 12, 2023

"Ed Marks woke from another dream about his wife. She’d been standing in front of him, wearing a white gown that rippled in a breeze he couldn’t feel. In her arms she held a baby, too small and raw-looking to be alive." 

 
A man can't sleep. He's alone in the night. What is that sound, forever repeating from the...


Oct 15, 2023

"Wheels of a Delta 88 spin fast on winter-ravaged Upstate roadways. Fallow fields, half-encrusted in snow, the rest furrowed in frozen field-rot and iced-over mud, unfurl themselves on either side of a moonlit ridge."

 
March 1986. Richard Manuel of The Band doesn't know he's dead. His double drives the lonely Catskills...


Sep 17, 2023

"The beautiful girl, my own girlfriend, lay on her back, needle in her hand. Her arm tied up with her underwear, pulled tightly with her teeth. She was unconscious." 

 
What if art in a gallery could show us a dying person's inner experience? Would we learn anything? A photographer who chases death tells his...


Aug 20, 2023

"The first time Ava saw Angelo naked was on their wedding night (11 May 1860) when he strode into their bedroom, accidentally revealing to her startled eyes that from the waist down he had the hindquarters of a stallion."
How should a young woman feel about her new husband's true nature? Horses are good! This excerpt...