Author Archives

Melissahttp://www.missmeliss.com
Dancing With Ghosts via Flash Prompt

TBM 1804.15 – Faeries, Ghosts, and Myths

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Dancing With Ghosts via Flash Prompt

Description:

#Audio. Three stories by The Bathtub Mermaid: Take Back the Light, Waltzing in the Woods, and Daedalus, Diminished.

Excerpt:

And everyone knows that you shouldn’t wade while wearing velvet. It soaks up the water and drags you down to the bottom of the sea.

The cold, dark Atlantic is unforgiving that way.

Links and References

  • Take Back the Light, read by Jeremy Bredeson. Read the story here.
  • Waltzing in the Woods, read by Melissa A. Bartell. Read the story here.
  • Daedalus, Diminished, read by Clay Robeson. Read the story here.
  • Clay Robeson info and social media links.

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is a mix of Chris Zabriskie’s “The Oceans Continue to Rise” from the Free Music Archive and Kevoy’s clip of whales off the coast of French Polynesia from Freesound.
  • Chris Zabriskie’s song is also used under the readings.

Contact:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:21 — 10.1MB)

Advent Candles

TBM 1712.25 DDOPAdvent-07: A Prayer for Social Justice

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Advent Candles

Description:

#Audio. Many voices, one common wish for peace and social justice

Excerpt:

Fill the hearts of mankind with the fire of your love, and with the desire to ensure justice for all.

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:28 — 5.8MB)

Christmas Piano

TBM 1712.22 DDOP-Advent-06: I Pray on Christmas

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Christmas Piano

Description:

#Audio. A mother finds solace in music during a delay at the airport.

Excerpt:

Kathleen stared up at the status board, and couldn’t help letting out a frustrated groan. Her flight had been delayed. Again. She liked her life as a road warrior, for the most part. She got to stay in lovely hotels, spend time in all the great cities of the world, and, she would probably never run out of frequent flier miles and first class upgrades. Flight delays, however, were something she would never enjoy.

Still, there were times when she longed to walk through the door to her own home to a sloppy, drooly greeting from her dog, a nearly ancient flat-coated retriever named Parker. (He was named after her childhood crush, Parker Stevenson, whom she used to watch every week on The Hardy Boys. No one, she thought, had ever made a better Frank.)

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Copyright: viperagp / 123RF Stock Photo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:43 — 10.0MB)

Menorah

TBM 1712.09 DDOP-Advent-05: In Every Age

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Menorah

Description:

#Audio. Happy Hanukkah! It’s the second night of Hanukkah, so this is a Hanukkah story.

Excerpt:

She played the chord again, and saw the children gathered around her focus their attention. And why not? They’d grown up with digital instruments: violins and cellos that relied on computer chips for their tone, guitars that made their sound through a wireless amplifier, and pianos that could be rolled into a cylinder the size of a zip-top sandwich bag. Her guitar didn’t have any chips, and it couldn’t be made smaller. It was wire and wood and care and love and history, and its lines were the only ones Sylvia had caressed since her beloved Harry had passed on five years before.

“I’m going to sing you an old song now,” she told them. “And you’re going to sing it with me. It’s in Hebrew. So, listen once, and then repeat.”

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Copyright: karaidel / 123RF Stock Photo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:51 — 9.9MB)

Copyright: arcticphotoworks / 123RF Stock Photo

TBM 1712.09 DDOP-Advent-04: Winter Flames

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Copyright: arcticphotoworks / 123RF Stock Photo

Description:

Sunday Brunch column for Modern Creative Life. An essay on the flames we light in winter.

Excerpt:

And yet, these winter holidays all have something in common as well – aside from the tendency to celebrate with incredibly delicious, albeit unhealthy foods. They all bring light to the longest nights of the year.

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Copyright: arcticphotoworks / 123RF Stock Photo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:20 — 5.6MB)

Poinsettias

TBM 1712.07 DDOP-Advent-07: Poinsettias

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Poinsettias

Description:

Flash-fiction written for 2016 Holidailies: A young woman and her grandmother add Holiday Magic to some seasonal plants.

Excerpt:

The inside of the greenhouse is a technological marvel, with heat lamps and misters and every kind of measuring implement ever invented to track growth rates and division patterns, to determine optimal climate zones and confirm hardiness. Even the ceiling was programmable on a section-by-section basis so that day-lilies could thrive next to night-blooming cactus if the Gardeners so desired.

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:11 — 8.0MB)

Album Cover: Earha Kitt Santa Baby

TBM 1712.05 DDOP-Advent-02: Only If It’s Eartha Kitt

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Album Cover: Earha Kitt Santa Baby

Description:

Flash-fiction: an aunt and niece discuss the holidays and Eartha Kitt.

Excerpt:

The older woman’s dithering lit a fire in her niece. “Aunt Lena you have been playing hermit at Christmas since I was sixteen years old. I’m twenty-six now, and Brian is probably going to propose on Christmas Eve, and I want my only aunt to be there.” She took a beat. “Besides, who else will I be able to mock all the cheesy Christmas music with?”

Links & References:

Only If It’s Eartha Kitt, at MissMeliss.com

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:54 — 4.9MB)

Cardinals

TBM 1712.03 DDOP-Advent-01: The Coming of the Cardinals

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Cardinals

Description:

Sunday Brunch essay from Modern Creative Life.

Excerpt:

Rather, I’m a backyard bird-watcher. I enjoy following the antics of the bully Blue Jay who drives the starlings and finches out of the trees, only for them to settle right back in. Winter comes with doves, one of whom insists that the birdfeeder is really her nest. She never stays in it for long, though. In spring and summer, we have robins and hummingbirds who buzz our windows and skim low over the puppy pool, stealing sips of water, or using it as a bath. (We don’t chlorinate the puppy pool.)

Links & References:

The Coming of the Cardinals at Modern Creative Life

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:38 — 10.3MB)

Forget Ophelia via Flash Prompt

TBM 1710.26 – Forget Ophelia (and other stories)

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Forget Ophelia via Flash Prompt

Description:

Three pieces of spooky short fiction, read by the Bathtub Mermaid and Friends.

Excerpt:

I, on the other hand, died in the prettiest way possible. No, not alcohol. Not pills either.

Consumption.

Oh, you call it tuberculosis these days, but when I was living, it was consumption.

Links & References:

It’s Raining Men

Accidental

Forget Ophelia

 

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:19 — 12.7MB)

TBM 1710.12 – Just Breathe (and other stories)

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Description:

Three pieces of spooky short fiction, read by the Bathtub Mermaid and Friends.

Excerpt:

I plunge backwards into the water. They always push you overboard in the split second when you forget to anticipate the shove. The theory is that if you can’t see the waves coming to greet you, you’re less likely to panic.

But I never panic.

Links & References:

Be Careful What You Wish For

Just Breathe

Biter Dot Com

 

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:40 — 14.3MB)