Season One: Episode 14 (15 February 2021)

Classroom Conservation is a short story from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read the story: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/childrens/classroom-conservation

Podcast website: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

• Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
• Apple Books:     https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
• Rakuten Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead

Story Insight

I wrote Classroom Conservation when I was living in England in 1992.

Looking back at my 1992 diary, it was a productive year for me writing-wise. In addition to this short story, I wrote many other stories for magazines and writing competitions. One of these was A Moving Sculpture, which I’ve shared on Tall And True and narrated for the Tall And True Short Reads podcast.

I also wrote a radio play and a couple of travel pieces. And I even submitted a job application to be a research writer for the Rough Guide to Singapore and Malaysia!

My writer’s life during this period was up and down emotionally. I experienced the highs of finishing and submitting a piece of writing and the lows of rejection letters. And at times, it was a lonely existence. I wrote about this in two Tall And True blog posts: Days of Gentle Rejections and Writing Can Be Lonely.

Classroom Conservation was written for a BBC Radio 4 environmental program, Costing the Earth, which is still in production. I enjoyed writing the story and exploring a schoolchild’s perspective on conservation.

But it’s a shame that almost 30 years on many do not heed the teacher’s message: “Our planet is sick, and we need to help make it healthy again.”

I hope you enjoyed this story and got some ideas about conservation. You can read Classroom Conservation and all my short stories and other writing at TallAndTrue.com.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will be in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, check your feed for earlier episodes.

Please subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite listening app. And don’t forget to tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

• Classroom: https://freesound.org/people/craigsmith/sounds/480708/
• Kids laughing: https://freesound.org/people/Ben%20Keaton/sounds/430815/
• Clock ticking: https://freesound.org/people/gecop/sounds/522119/
• School bell: https://freesound.org/people/13FPanska_Stranska_Michaela/sounds/378394/

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity. Thanks to Josh (VoiceOverMaster) Meyer for Audacity recording tips and tricks.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.

Acast Podcast Supporter Page

Support this show https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.

Season One: Episode 13 (4 February 2021)

The Gift is a short story from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead. At the end of the episode, Robert provides an insight into the story, which he wrote for Furious Fiction in December 2020.

The show notes include links to The Gift on Tall And True and the podcast’s theme music and sound effects.

Read the story: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/short-stories/the-gift

Podcast website: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

• Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
• Apple Books:     https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
• Rakuten Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead

Story Insight

The Gift was my December 2020 entry for the Australian Writers’ Centre’s monthly short story competition, Furious Fiction. The 500-word story for December had to:

• Include a GIFT of some kind
• Open with a first sentence containing only THREE words
• And use the words PALM, MATCH and ROSE.

The email with the competition brief from the Writers’ Centre arrived on the afternoon of Friday 4th. And I had 55 hours to write my short story before the midnight deadline on Sunday 6th.

But as I later tweeted, I “wrote” it while walking my dog that Friday evening. By the time I got home, I had fleshed out the characters and plot and ticked off the criteria. All I had to do was get the words out of my head and into my computer.

Yes, there were the usual edits and tweaks. However, The Gift was one of (if not the!) most fully-formed stories I’ve ever written in such a short time frame. And I submitted it 12 hours before the deadline.

I hope you enjoyed my furiously written short story. Did you hear the words PALM, MATCH and ROSE, and did you guess the GIFT? You can read this and all my short stories and other writing at TallAndTrue.com.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will be in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, check your feed for earlier episodes.

Don’t forget to tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website. And please subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite listening app.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non-Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

• Male laughter: https://freesound.org/people/Eneasz/sounds/119459/
• Female laughter: https://freesound.org/people/sagetyrtle/sounds/33658/
• Party background voices: https://freesound.org/people/dbspin/sounds/396684/
• Footsteps on wooden floor: https://freesound.org/people/Anthousai/sounds/398782/
• Champagne cork: https://freesound.org/people/ultradust/sounds/166923/
• Clock ticking: https://freesound.org/people/gecop/sounds/522119/
• Door closing: https://freesound.org/people/sgcardinal/sounds/395753/

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity. Thanks to Josh (VoiceOverMaster) Meyer for Audacity recording tips and tricks.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.

Acast Podcast Supporter Page

Support this show https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.

Season One: Episode 12 (25 January 2021)

The Al-Rabie Hotel is a short story from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read the story: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/short-stories/the-al-rabie-hotel.

Read Syrians Love Peace: https://tallandtrue.com.au/travel/syrians-love-peace.

Podcast website: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com

Support the podcast: supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

• Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
• Apple Books:     https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
• Rakuten Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead

Story Insight

The Al-Rabie Hotel is the short story I wrote in November 2020 for the Australian Writers’ Centre’s monthly Furious Fiction writing competition. For November, the 500-word story:

• Had to take place at a HOTEL
• Include a PHOTOGRAPH
• And the words: COLLAR, GLOOMY, POLICE, RHYTHM, and SAPPHIRE.

I was working on a travel piece when the brief arrived, based on ten days I spent backpacking in Syria in 1995. In addition to my travel journal from that period, I had pulled out photos to use in the piece. And one was of me sitting in the courtyard of the Al-Rabie Hotel in Damascus.

My journal had an entry about meeting a well-travelled American in the hotel courtyard, whom I’d described as a “know-all”. But I’d also noted we had a good conversation when I steered it towards “subjects on which he had knowledge as opposed to those where he had an opinion”.

There was also an entry about another traveller who had offered to write a letter for me to give a hotel manager in Amman, Jordan, to claim a book he’d left for safekeeping.

I used the photo and journal entries to create a mystery short story set in the Al-Rabie Hotel. As for the words from the brief, did you hear them in the story? Here’s a tip: I used each word once.

I’ll leave it to your imagination what Klaus’s envelope may have contained. However, it’s worth mentioning, the black market and security forces were ever-present during my time in Syria in 1995.

I hope you enjoyed your short stay at the Al-Rabie Hotel. You can read the short story and my travel piece on Syria, Syrians Love Peace, at TallAndTrue.com.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will be in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, please check your feed to listen to earlier short stories.

Don’t forget to tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website. And please subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on your favourite listening app.

Podcast Theme and Podcast Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

• Woman’s voice: https://freesound.org/people/pyro13djt/sounds/365613/
• Birdsong: https://freesound.org/people/Dre83/sounds/180876/
• Fountain: https://freesound.org/people/Tritus/sounds/202915/
• Loud voices: https://freesound.org/people/PhonosUPF/sounds/488163/

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity. Thanks to Josh (VoiceOverMaster) Meyer for Audacity recording tips and tricks.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.

Acast Podcast Supporter Page

Support this show https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.

Season One: Episode 11 (10 January 2021)

“Her” is a short story from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read the story: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/microfiction/her

Podcast website: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

• Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
• Apple Books:     https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
• Rakuten Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead

Story Insight

I was living in England in 1992 when I had a dream that felt so real it reminded me of the 3rd Century BC Chinese philosopher, Chuang Chou.

One night, Chou dreamed he was a butterfly, “fluttering hither and thither, enjoying itself to the full of its bent”, unaware he was Chou.

When Chou awoke, he was himself again. But after that, he observed, “I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”

I’ve never dreamed of being a butterfly. But I have had vivid dreams of flying (unaided), sitting on a bus (naked), and standing dumbstruck on a stage (because I didn’t learn my lines). And I’ve also dreamed of visits from departed family and friends, even a dear old dog. The experience always feels real and evokes real emotions.

It was the same for my dream in 1992. When I woke, I was confused about where I was and whether what I had dreamed had happened. Was it a dream or a memory?

At the time, I was experimenting with form in my writing. And I used the dream to write “Her“. It’s part reality, I lived and worked in Brighton, and part fiction. I was thirty when I wrote “Her” and any relationship from twenty years ago would have been a school ground romance. But mostly, “Her” is a surreal interpretation of my vivid dream.

It’s unlikely Chou was a butterfly who dreamed he was a philosopher. And I’ve never followed an old flame into the English Channel.

I hope you enjoyed my short dream. Please subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite listening app. And don’t forget to tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will be in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, please check your feed to make sure you haven’t missed any of the earlier short stories.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

• Seagulls: https://freesound.org/people/plantmonkey/sounds/377107/
• Shingles: https://freesound.org/people/dickiedrummer/sounds/368390/
• Crowded beach: https://freesound.org/people/Sheyvan/sounds/476099/
• Waves: https://freesound.org/people/amholma/sounds/376802/
• Underwater: https://freesound.org/people/SRJA_Gaming/sounds/545205/

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity. Thanks to Josh (VoiceOverMaster) Meyer for Audacity recording tips and tricks.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.

Acast Podcast Supporter Page

Support this show https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.

Season One: Episode 10 (22 December 2020)

Escape to the Beach is a short story from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read the story: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/microfiction/escape-to-the-beach

Podcast website: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

• Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
• Apple Books:     https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
• Rakuten Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead

Story Insight

I wrote a version of Escape to the Beach in 1991, when I lived in England, as the entry requirement for a local tutor-led writers’ circle.

The tutor panned my short story as “too vague”. And looking back, it was vague and flowery and had an unbelievable premise. In the original version, the forsaken wife, Megan, had remotely dispatched her philandering husband, Edward, by using medieval magic, which she had studied at evening classes!

Setting aside the silly storyline, almost thirty years on, I still loved the contrast between Megan’s dream and her response to the phone call. And so I re-worked my short story, and with middle-aged insight, added her desire to shut out reality and escape to the beach.

I hope you enjoyed Escape to the Beach. Please subscribe to the short story podcast and rate and review it via your favourite listening app. And don’t forget to tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will be in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, please check your feed to make sure you haven’t missed any of the earlier episodes.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non-Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

• Seagulls: https://freesound.org/people/plantmonkey/sounds/377107/
• Waves: https://freesound.org/people/amholma/sounds/376802/
• Phone ringing: https://freesound.org/people/robotjay/sounds/275163/
• Switch: https://freesound.org/people/EricsSoundschmiede/sounds/457410/
• Phone hung-up:  https://freesound.org/people/DrNI/sounds/164035/

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity. Thanks to Josh (VoiceOverMaster) Meyer for Audacity recording tips and tricks.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.

Acast Podcast Supporter Page

Support this show https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.

Season One: Episode 9 (13 December 2020)

The Cruise Ship is a short story from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.

Read the story: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/short-stories/the-cruise-ship

Podcast website: https://www.tallandtrueshortreads.com

Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads

Buy Robert’s short story collections online:

• Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
• Apple Books:     https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
• Rakuten Kobo:  https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead

Story Insight

I wrote The Cruise Ship in September 2020 for Furious Fiction, a monthly 500-word short story competition run by the Australian Writers’ Centre. September’s brief was:

•  The story had to be inspired by the photo of a ship deck

•  Begin with the letters SHO

•  And include the words SCORE, SLICE, SPRINKLE, STAMP and SWITCH.

The ship deck photo had me thinking of cruise ships, and that led me to write another COVID inspired story, based loosely on the Ruby Princess debacle in Sydney, in March 2020. I know someone who travelled on that cruise with his wife. And while thankfully neither of them got sick, his Facebook photos of the Captain’s farewell party made it look like a germ factory, even without coronavirus!

The letters SHO gave me the first word SHOULD, as in, “Should have done this years ago.” As for the other words, did you hear them in the story? Each is mentioned once and in the order, SCORE, SLICE, SPRINKLE, STAMP and SWITCH.

The 55-hour submission deadline for the #FuriousFiction competition ends at midnight on the first Sunday of the month. Although I had a fair idea of what I wanted to write, thanks to the usual weekend duties and distractions, and inevitable short story edits, I submitted my September entry with only one last furious minute left on the clock!

I hope you enjoyed this short journey with The Cruise Ship. Please subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite listening app. And don’t forget to tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.

The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will be in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, please check your feed to make sure you haven’t missed any of the earlier episodes.

Podcast Theme and Sound Effects

Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.

Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:

• Ship horn: https://freesound.org/people/monotraum/sounds/208714/
• Seagulls: https://freesound.org/people/plantmonkey/sounds/377107/
• Bar ambience: https://freesound.org/people/lunchmoney/sounds/380200/
• Bottles chinking: https://freesound.org/people/LampEight/sounds/259671/
• Slot machine jackpot: https://freesound.org/people/JoannaLuna/sounds/448842/
• Dance music: https://freesound.org/people/cgoulao/sounds/431538/
• Waves: https://freesound.org/people/amholma/sounds/376802/

Production Notes

Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity. Thanks to Josh (VoiceOverMaster) Meyer for Audacity recording tips and tricks.

Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.

Acast Podcast Supporter Page

Support this show https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads.