stories

Story Hour, intro to Harmony & Dissonance & “The Most Natural Thing In The World” (read by the author, 29 Apr 2026—with author Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece!)

Douglas Gwilym guest hosts Tales to Terrify with Douglas Smith & Joshua Ramey-Renk (3 Apr 2026)

Frank Oreto’s It’s Dark In Here released, with an introduction by Douglas Gwilym (14 Oct 2025)

Douglas Ford’s audiobook for Who Dies First released–narrated by Douglas Gwilym (13 Oct 2025)

Douglas Gwilym on Baltimore Book Festival’s horror panel with Nicole Wolverton, Darius Jones, & M’Shai S. Dash (13 Sept 2025)

Story Hour, “Sock”, “Andro ki Kari: A Recipe”, & “Yeah You, Come Here” (read by the author, 30 Jul 2025—with author Mar Vincent!)

Ken MacGregor’s Some People I Have Killed released, with an introduction by Douglas Gwilym (18 Jun 2025)

Douglas Gwilym guest hosts Story Hour, with Robert Nazar Arjoyan & Can Wiggins (11 June 2025)

Shoreline of Infinity, “Yeah You, Come Here” (Jun 2025)

Douglas Gwilym guest hosts Story Hour, with Christa Carmen & Gregory Frost (9 Apr 2025)

Story Hour, “Teapot” & “Glory & the Xstacy 3000 Ultra” (read by the author, 26 Feb 2025—with author Shelley Lavigne!)

Ghostlight: The Magazine of Terror, “I Open Myself Up” & “Difference” (poems, Nov 2024)

Story Hour, “Wooden Teeth” & “Howl” (read by the author, 23 Oct 2024—with author Sam Rebelein!)

Tiny Frights podcast, A New Life In Red (read by Anne Calvert, Aug 2024)

Story Hour, “They Take Our Best” (read by the author, 24 Jul 2024—with author Kristy Park Kulski!)

Shelter of Daylight: “Old Growth” (January 2024)

tiny frights, “A New Life in Red” (poem, October 2023)

BUY IT NOW!

The Midnight Zone: NOVUS MONSTRUM (editor, with Ken MacGregor, August 2023)

Illumen Magazine, “Before You Are Gone” (poem, Autumn 2023)

Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction, “Bottleneck” (1 Sept 2023)

Third Flatiron Publishing’s Rhapsody of the Spheres anthology, “Matryoshka” (15 August 2023)

Galactic Terrors, “Old Growth” (excerpt, read by the author, July 2023)

Tales to Terrify podcast: “Poppy’s Poppy” (28 July 2023)

Tall Tale TV, “Grange Ghosts” (2 June 2023)

The Chamber: “Grinny: Free to a Good Home” (March 2023)

Lucent Dreaming, Issue 12: “Sock” (March 2023)

Tales from the Moonlit Path: “Inverted Snow” (27 Dec 2022)

Diet Milk’s In The Bleak Midwinter (a gothic advent calendar): “Wooden Teeth” (16 Dec 2022)

Horror Writer’s Association’s Mental Health Initiative: “The Barrette” (June 2022)

Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine: “Poppy’s Poppy” (April 2022)

Tales to Terrify podcast: “Bassist Wanted” (December 2021)

LampLight Magazine: “Year Six” (September 2021)

Bloody Disgusting’s CREEPY podcast: “A Murder of Trees” (their Patreon, September 2021)

Black Hare Press’s 666 anthology: “Substitute” (August 2021)

Blood Moon Rising Magazine, issue 84: “Bassist Wanted” (July 2021)

Novel Noctule, issue 17: “The Great Pour” (narrative poem, May 2021)

Danse Macabre’s DM du Jour: “Bassist Wanted” (Nov 2020)

Dark Fire Fiction: “Howl” (Oct 2020)

Tales from the Moonlit Path: “Grange Ghosts” (Oct 2020)

Triangulation: Dark Skies (managing editor, Jul 2019)

Knee Deep In Little Devils anthology: “Halloween Haiku” (Oct 2018)

Triangulation: Harmony & Dissonance (editor, SCROLL DOWN FOR INTRO STORY!, Sept 2018)

Triangulation: Appetites (editor, Aug 2017)

Triangulation: Beneath the Surface (assistant editor, July 2016)

Dammit, I Learned a Lot from That Son-of-a-Gun: “The Offer” (Jun 2014)

Springs Skull Zine! numero uno: “HJM [Hulga Jean McDonough]” (2012)

… plus, three episodes of the podcast Alan & Jeremy Vs. Science Fiction:

Episode 2, discussing Blaize M. Kaye’s “Sulky” (Oct 2017)

Bonus Episode 1, “Year in Review” (Jan 2018)

Episode 13, discussing Blake Jessop & Phillip Trippenbach’s “Martian Raga” (Sep 2018)

I can’t believe your grandmother gave you that damn harmonica. The whole drive home, you were breathing in and out of that thing, making sounds that left your father in fits. We had to stop for a potty break, and I picked you up and gave you a little perch on a rest stop picnic table and explained.

“It’s like flying a
plane. The really important part, sweetie, is getting off the ground, and then
you just have to get the thing landed again, right?” Your eyes were wide.

“If you start here,”
I showed you just where to find the ‘C’, “and always bring it back to the
beginning at the end, it will sound like music.”

Which of course sounds
insane, and your response was to watch me very closely and move your mouth like
a fish. And in a minute we were back in the car and you weren’t playing. I kept
glancing in the rear view mirror, trying to figure you out, and you just looked
thoughtful.

We were getting off the
interstate when I heard you say my name. We were getting a light drizzle, but I
turned off the wipers to be able to hear you better.

“Just like a story, right
Mommy?”

Took me a minute to put
it together but “Yes,” I told you, “it’s just like a story. Get the plane off
the ground, take it somewhere, and get it on the runway again. A song is
kind of like a story. Good thinking, dude.”

“Do they come from the
same place, Mommy? Songs and stories?” you asked. I lied and said I didn’t
know.

And now it’s the middle
of the night and I guess I’m not surprised to hear the sound of the harmonica
coming in over the air conditioner’s white noise. I stand with my head resting
against the door frame for a minute, trying to maintain that delicate balance
with my footing that keeps the squeaky floorboards from giving me away.

The sounds I’m hearing
are impossible.

Short little bursts of
melody. Nothing crazy-complex or anything. But repeated. New melodies coming to
rest on top of the old. Counterpoint and harmony. The sound of two, and then
four, and then a dozen first graders noodling on a harmonica at once.

Am I dreaming? Have I
lost my mind? The surface tension between not wanting to disturb you and my own
breathless, panicked curiosity breaks, and I turn the knob and lean in. Always,
the fear with this maneuver at this time of night is that the light will be on
and you’ll be bouncing off the walls in non-sleep. But the lights are not on.
For a moment, I struggle to see you. There’s too much motion.

Pieces of construction
paper are flying around the room. The pages are intricately laced with words,
your signature backward ‘B’ evidenced everywhere (the teachers all tell us not
to worry about this until you’re seven), but my brain can’t quite grasp the
words, because of the motion and the madness of it all. The pages are doing a
dance in the air.

I spot you. You’re
wearing those
jammies, the ones I secretly hate, and your hair is whipping around your face.
Impossibly, improbably, you are standing over the wicker clothes hamper, pulled
to the center of the floor from its usual place in the corner behind the door.
There’s something inside, and the something is lighting up your face, both
giving you an expression of joy and casting a fiery
orange light there. The harmonica drops from your hand. The music is all
around, like a chorus of crickets.

“They do come from the same
place, Mommy. And it’s wonderful.”

Your motion is
quick—decisive. I leap from the doorway as soon as I catch that it’s happening.

There is a FOOSH sound as
the air is sucked out of the room for an instant. Construction paper and
stuffed animals rain down on me. And then I am standing over an empty hamper.
My ears have popped and my eyes begin to water. I peer down into the
rectangular space.

You did it.

I’d never been able to do
it again, but you’ve done it. Of course you have. My heart
nearly bursts, and I’m crying. I do what there is to do. I sit down on the
floor in your room—criss-cross applesauce—and fan the pages out in front of me.

I begin to read.

Douglas Gwilym
Pittsburgh, 2018

[intro to Triangulation: Harmony & Dissonance, copyright 2018]