Bewildering Stories Editorial

by Jerry Wright

Of Anthologies and Audio Files

Well, finally, the finalized version of the First Bewildering Stories Anthology is available. It went OFF-LINE shortly after we put up the link on our homepage. Well, of course. That is just to be expected. Lulu (the printer/publisher) had some website problems, and Bob Blevins had to make some changes in the anthology which now has 27 stories instead of 28. Just... Life, the Universe, and well... Everything. Pfui. Anyway, order the book, have your friends order the book, have the dog, and all of the neighborhood pack order the book. Attack!

What's next? Watch this space!

And Audio files... I mean WOW! Bob Sellers Jr. sent an e-mail to Don and me about the possibility of doing podcasts of BwS stories. We kicked it around a bit, and VOILA! we ended up with... lessee six stories available for download. Who'd a thunk it? And guess what? It isn't all that hard. At least the "technical side" isn't all that hard.

So, what do you need? Well, a computer would come in handy. But assuming you HAVE a computer (and if you don't, what's going on? Are you reading this at the library? Perhaps...) then all you need is some recording software, and a microphone. You can be as inexpensive or as wildly crazy as you desire, but guess what? There is some really nice recording and mixing software out there for free! And you can get a mic that works alright for under $20.00.

So... Software. Right now, I'm using "Audacity" available free from SourceForge ( audacity.sourceforge.net ). Bob Sellers Jr. is using a program called "REAPER" (Rapid Environment for AUdio Prototyping and Efficient Recording) (Just shoot me now... I mean really...) anyway, it is available from www.cockos.com and Bob swears by it. Right now, we are at version 0.9something, and when it hits version 1.0 and above it will cost, though the author says it will be very reasonable.

Some other tools are available from Australia! Available free from www.rich.com.au is the very powerful, very cool "Switch" program which allowed me an EASY conversion of Mike Leier's Windows wma file to the more universal mp3 file (which was also smaller!)

Along with "Switch" you may download a number of tools for recording, ripping, burning, etc. although I believe you have to pay for those eventually. Anyway, the URL is http://nch.com.au/switch/index.html. Have at it, and enjoy.

More to come shortly...