What is The Drabblecast?

We are a weekly audio fiction podcast featuring short and flash fictions from a variety authors. Our singular focus is off-beat, funny, eclecticism in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

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 suffering a smidge of podfade the 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.

Donations

The Drabblecast supports itself via a donation model. We receive contributions from listeners which we use to pay authors for the stories we run.

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

We accept donations via PayPal as single time lump sums, or if you’re able, the coveted monthly contribution, of $5 or $10. The $10/month subscription gets you access to the coveted exclusive B-Sides feed!

Feed your tender to our writhing mass of tentacles and see what terrible offspring emerge in the coming weeks!

Submissions

As the future unfolds The Drabblecast will continue to assert itself as the standard-bearer among fiction podcasts, always searching for the next great story, and to keep its audience trapped somewhere between ecstatic joy and unfathomable confusion.

The Drabblecast is a paying fiction market, an award-winning one, and befittingly choosy. 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

Norm Sherman

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 escaped carnival folk) 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.

Bo KaierBo KaierArt 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.

 

Tom Baker

Tom BakerArchivist, 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.