Be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!
Sometimes the weight of everyday life catches up with you and, instead of posting the story you intended to post, you end up sharing something older.
Some thoughts about twists in stories, the rush of everyday life, and how sometimes the best defense against it all is simplicity.
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An exhausted single father comes to grips with his children and dating issues during a visit to his psychologist.
Content Advisory: Swearing, parental expectations.
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Credits:
Music: Ergo Phizmiz and Chad Crouch
Story and Narration: Christopher Gronlund
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While Not About Lumberjacks exists to share my short fiction, behind the scenes I’m always working on bigger things. I’m currently working on the second draft of a novel called A Magic Life.
A Magic Life is about a girl born in the circus in the 1920s and her rise to fame as a magician in the 40s and 50s.
Cynthia Griffith, who edited Episode 4 of Not About Lumberjacks — fan-favorite “Horus” — narrated the first chapter of A Magic Life.
To give you a taste of something bigger, I thought it would be fun to share the first chapter here.
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In this behind-the-scenes look at the latest episode of Not About Lumberjacks, I talk about the real-life events that became the basis for the story — and how it was developed from there.
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Dicky Wingfeld has it all: a great job, a loving wife, and a new house. But Dicky also has a problem: a father who cannot seem to stop collecting junk.
One morning when Dicky’s father, Richie, appears at his son’s bedroom to ask if he’ll help him track down a couple Great Danes he saw running loose in a field, Dicky finally figures out why his father’s yard looks like the county dump.
Content Advisory: Swearing, smoking, depression, hoarding, loss of mother to cancer.
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Credits:
Music: Ergo Phizmiz and Kai Engel
Field and Tree Photo: John Mark Arnold
Story and Narration: Christopher Gronlund
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You don’t think, “What does the voice of a Magic 8 Ball sound like?” until you’re faced with recording a story in which the old toy is a character. I didn’t think about any of the voices in “Mr. Knowitall” until I was sitting before the mic, recording. This episode of Behind the Cut is all about turning the voices heard in our heads when reading to ourselves into something physical for people to hear.
A little departure with this episode: no sneak peek of the next episode of Not About Lumberjacks. I don’t want to give too much away with the next story (other than it’s about an unemployed writer who lands her dream job, only to discover it comes with more than she bargained for in the form of an African grey parrot named Horus), so…you get a bonus story called “Be a Man.”
“Be a Man” is probably the shortest story I’ve written…and definitely one of the most brutal as well.
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A mechanic is happy to hear his son wants to sign up for football; that is, until he realizes what his son really means is soccer…
Content Advisory: Swearing, alcohol use (including a child drinking), smoking, shooting a gun, teasing, violence.
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Credits:
Music: Ergo Phizmiz and Chad Crouch (aka Podington Bear)
Soccer Goal Photo: Naphtali Marshall (Naphtali’s Personal Webpage)
Story and Narration: Christopher Gronlund
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Welcome to the first episode of Not About Lumberjacks, a monthly fiction podcast by me, Christopher Gronlund. Sometimes the stories I tell contain truths, but most of the time, they’re made up. Sometimes the stories are funny — other times they’re serious. Occasionally, the stories are just plain odd. But you have my word about one thing: I will never — EVER — share a story about lumberjacks.
This month, it’s a Thanksgiving tale about an English bulldog named Gutterball. Gutterball (and the family who loves him) must contend with the dog’s bad habit of eating everything in sight.
I hope you enjoy this all-ages tale.
Content Advisory: Gutterball does die…
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Credits:
Music: Ergo Phizmiz
Bulldog photo by Click
Story and narration: Christopher Gronlund
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