Episodes

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 wou...

The owner of a software company becomes very uneasy when he discovers someone close to him is trying to control his mind. Content Advisory: Swearing, manipulation, controlling relationship, deception, sex. * * * Credits: Music: Ergo Phizmiz , Chad Crouch, and Craig Kelman Rabbit Photo: Serious Fun Story and Narration: Christopher Gronlund

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.

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. * * * Credits: Music: ...

“Horus” is the first short story I’ve written in at least half a decade. (My focus in recent years has been novel-length fiction.) To get back to short fiction, my motivation was simple: write a story for my wife. My wife is a fan of parrots, so a story about an unemployed writer who lands her dream job, but gets more than she bargained for in the form of an African grey parrot named Horus seemed like a good way to go. “Horus” is almost the most downloaded episode of Not About Lumberjacks. I lik...

Sarah Nelson is an unemployed writer trying to find her next gig while dealing with her overbearing mother. Her world changes the day she answers an ad as a writer’s assistant for a famous author. With time to focus on her own writing and learn even more about the industry from her new mentor, everything seems perfect until the day Sarah gets more than she bargained for in the form of an African Grey parrot named Horus. Content Advisory: Swearing, an overbearing mother, and two instances of de...

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 Lumberjac...

Jerry Hachard was destined for big things, but left his family fortune behind for a quiet life of adventure and travel. When his parents are killed in an accident and he returns to his hometown, he’s amazed to find only one thing left to him in his parents’ will: a plastic Magic 8 Ball. Jerry’s brother got the family business, and his sister got the family fortune. The Magic 8 Ball seems like a strange thing to leave to the first child in the family. It’s only when Jerry’s life begins changing ...

They say truth is stranger than fiction. My reply to that is those who make the claim aren’t reading the right fiction. I understand where they’re coming from, though — sometimes life can get strange. Add to that writers being told to write what they know, and it’s no wonder so much fiction takes reality and skews it a bit to a point a writer can say, “What? That’s just a story,” when accused of writing about things that really happened. I tend to not pull from my life in the fiction in my life...

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. * * * Credits: Music: Ergo Phizmiz and Chad Crouch (aka Podington Bear) Soccer Goal Photo: Naphtali Marshall (Naphtali’s Personal Webpage) Story and Narration: Christopher Gronlund

With the monthly episodes of Not About Lumberjacks, I want to get into the story as quickly as I can and then close things out. Click play and you get a story. I know there are people who like hearing the story behind stories, though — or finding out what the people they listen to or read are up to. So for those people, I’ve made a new show called Behind the Cut. Behind the Cut is the companion to Not About Lumberjacks, and this is the first episode. I talk about the inspiration that led to wr...

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 fam...