New Addition to the Site and Updates

New to the site, are audio files of the stories and poems I have shared. On the right side of the screen (or at the very bottom of the page if you’re using your phone) there is a list of Categories. If you select the category, “Free Stories and Poems,” three pieces should come up, “Heavyhearted,” “The Safest Place,” and “Silence Runs Dry.” I updated these posts to include miniature audiobooks. Now you can read the poem or story, or you can listen to it.

I kicked around the idea of adding this feature to my site since I started the website. Probably talking myself into adding it is more accurate. I love the idea, but reading my work out loud and recording it is another matter. But when it comes to writing, I always win over my fears.

Earlier this week, when I was discussing the idea with my writing group, and telling them that I was actually putting it into action, one of them said something quite lovely. In essence, she said that poetry was like music. It should be heard, not just read.

As a side note, in working on this project I discovered a few programs and a website that may be useful for your recording needs.

• Vocaroo is a free website that you can use to record without downloading a program, and it’s free. Once you have made a recording, you can then share it or download the audio file for later use. The main downside I found is that since there are no editing features on this site you can’t mess up. There’s no pause button. You have one chance to get it right, or you have to start over. With something short, this works great.
• WavePad and Audacity are both audio editing software, and they are free. You’ll have to experiment with them to see which one you prefer. I’m sure there are others out there, but these are the ones I tried. The thing I like about the audio editing software is that you can cut out pieces of the audio, and you can copy and paste pieces of audio together. I found this particularly handy when reading a longer piece. It’s easy to trip over words, to pause too long, etc.

Finally, I have some fantastic news. I recently had four pieces accepted. Three are poems and will appear in the next issue of Scarlet Leaf Review, which will come out Dec. 15th. And the other is a flash fiction piece that will appear in Page & Spine. Don’t worry, I’ll post links and more information when these pieces are available for reading.