Tynan Portillo presents…featuring the best horror stories of the 19th century…welcome to The Poe Show podcast. Narrated by Tynan Portillo.

Today’s episode, No Chapel Could Compare by our first guest author Nicholas Leonard.

Alice Billboard never thought she’d wear a wedding dress inside the asylum, and Frank Tabasco never thought he’d wear a suit in it either. But they were, and they were holding hands as they frolicked down the second oor hallway where Frank’s former bedroom was. Alice’s hem of her dress owed in the current that their running made, and uttered down ever so slowly when they stopped at the end of the hallway to catch their breaths.

“Oh, Frank, I can’t believe we’re doing this.” Alice implored in between gasps. Her voice was stuck inside a kind of prayer.

Frank sidestepped to face her, and an altar could’ve appeared then, breaking out of the tiles of the hallway oor to assist in their matrimony. He took her other hand. “We’re doing this, Alice. Right here. Right now.” His voice was not unsteady like hers was.

As her chest undulated, it seemed he didn’t have a breath to catch. His smile was steady while her rows of teeth disconnected in a drawbridge of lungwind. It was like wind going in and out of a castle, therefore the castle would never die with such airow. She never breathed like that when the asylum was in operation.

They had started their frolicking from the third oor hallway where Alice’s former bedroom was. It was an unconventional wedding. Their destination, the cafeteria on the rst oor, was still another staircase and another hallway away and Alice was already on the verge of being out of breath. It was a wonderful sensation though. 

Before they turned to the staircase leading down into the rst oor hallway, Alice’s eyelids went into a slant of worry. “How are you doing on your med withdrawals?”

His dove-wing eyelids batted worry off. “I’m ne.” He answered.
“You aren’t lightheaded or-or anything?”
“Alice, I swear I’m ne.” He squeezed her hands, an action that appeared sedating to her. He shook his head. “This is the happiest day of my life.”

She smiled; her drawbridge teeth closing.
“And you?” He asked. She shook her head, closing her lips in a kind of mischievous way but still smiling.
“Let’s go then.” He said, leading her to the staircase. He kept an eye on the hem of her dress to make sure that she or he didn’t step on it on the way down. It slid down the steps effortlessly just as dresses are intended to. It took away the asylum’s stale and clinical atmosphere, seeing the white tapestry of her dress ow down the steps. The sunlight breaking through the shattered windows in the stairwell made her dress all the more enchanted. The lights that no longer worked inside the asylum couldn’t take away the aura that the sunlight gave her dress. Gone were the days of white lab coats, here were the days of Alice’s wedding dress.

She held the railing while he held her hand.
“Watch your step.” He muttered. She didn’t reply because she was focused on the steps as well.
  They made it down, and crossed the first floor hallway where the more serious cases of patients used to be roomed. It was empty now. Every door to every room was ajar like confessional booths that haven’t been used in a long time. The bride and groom frolicked right past the rooms. They went at a slightly slower pace than they had on the other floors, but broke into a home-run sprint halfway down the hall. At this, Alice erupted in laughter. Frank smirked. He looked to the side to see her mouth open and her eyes squinting in a close as if they were running into a sprinkler, but all they leapt into was all the sunlight that finally flooded the asylum.

They stopped in the doorway, light on their backs as if it was an entrance to a church. Oh but no chapel could compare. The cafeteria was their chapel. They stopped to marvel at it despite having eaten there so many times before. It was ominous to see it empty. Nobody sat at the tables. Specks of glass glimmered beside the shattered windows. Silence had that eerie way of being actually heard making its way inside the cafeteria, moving like lost fog on the surface of a swamp.

Alice’s eyes made their darting all along the empty cafeteria. “I wonder where our bridesmaid nurses are.” She inquired. She inhaled a heavy breath, and exhaled it, remarking. “It feels we are the last people on Earth.”

She felt Frank squeeze her hand, perhaps his way of telling her that they might as well be. But then his hand slipped out of hers, and she was watching him span the cafeteria. He stopped on the other end and collapsed his hands together over his waist, standing the way a groom does, and he gave her a knowing smile. She smiled back, and wandered after him even though she didn’t have a bouquet.

“Alice Billboard,” Frank said through his cracked smile when she got to him, “do you take me to be your wedded husband?” 

“I do.” Alice said with a bobbing of her head. “And Frank Tabasco, do you take-”

The sound of a boot crunching on glass interrupted them, and they both turned their heads to see a young man with curly dirty blond hair holding a camera at his hip. He was just as amazed, as perplexed, to see them as they were to see him. The former silence of the cafeteria had found a place to go.

The man had diamond stud earrings that glistened white as snow, and wore a baggy t-shirt with jeans. Despite a trimmed beard, there was a boyishness to his face as though he had never grown up, but his muscular forearms betrayed that aspect.

He held his camera still at his hip. “I’m not intruding, am I?” He asked.

Alice hesitated with parted lips before looking to Frank to answer, but the cameraman filled the silence again. “I’m an urban explorer. I’m a Youtuber. I make Youtube videos.” He explained it as if he thought they wouldn’t understand English, and the looks on their faces made it seem that they didn’t understand him after all. “I figured I’d check out this uhhh asylum today.”

Neither Frank or Alice replied. They just looked at him. They felt they had been caught. They’d always wondered if people would be looking for them, but no one ever returned. It’s what kept them from frolicking up and down the hallways so openingly. No. They’d spent most days in a perpetual game of hide-and-seek.

“I feel I’m interrupting.” The man started backing away. “I’ll just... go.” 

“Wait.” Alice bidded. The man stopped backing away. Frank’s eyes darted from his bride to the man and back again. He shuffled in place while holding her hands, feeling he wasn’t allowed to let go of them seeing that they never finished being wed.

“We need a witness, right?” Alice asked Frank. He thought it over, studying the intruder whose camera had the air of a rifle.

“Witness?” He chirped, coming to life a little more. “Wait. Are you guys getting married?” His face broke in excitement. “No way!”

Frank and Alice looked at each other then back at him.
“I guess we could use a witness.” Frank muttered.
“Do you guys want me to say like the thing?” The man asked. “We are gathered here together, like that stuff they say at weddings.”

Frank and Alice shared another look before Frank asked. “Do you know the words?”
“From like movies and stuff.” He answered. “I think I do.” He slouched down to whisper to his camera.

“See, this is what you never know might happen when you go urban-X’n, guys.” He put his camera down on a table, made sure it was facing the bride and groom, and jogged over to stand with them. A “this is so cool,” settling in the wake of a murmur in his jog.

“Join hands, you two.” He said boisterously, even though Frank and Alice were already holding hands. They looked at him; an unexpected minister. He looked too young to even be a minister. “We are gathered here today to wed... uhhh-” 

“Alice Billboard.” Alice said, then gave Frank the chance to say his name as well, and the man continued.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to wed Alice Billboard and Frank Tabasco in this absolutely very cool abandoned asylum. Do you, Frank Tabasco, take Alice Billboard to be your lawfully invested wife?”

“I do.”

“And do you, Alice Billboard, take Frank Tabasco to be your lawfully invested husband?”
“I do.” Her eyes and smile beamed. She squeezed Frank’s hands.
“And by the power invested in me, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.” The youtuber declared, and took a proper step back.

They leaned into each other and caught each other’s lips as eagles catch each other’s talons in midair.

Their lips moved just as whirlwindily before disconnecting with a wet pop. The youtuber wanted to clap but he didn’t. He kept his hands locked behind his back like a child who was trying to be a beacon of good manners. He smiled when he saw the newlyweds smile at each other, and such a happy smile unlocked him. 

“You know what,” the youtuber only clapped his hands together once, “why don’t I treat you two to a wedding lunch?”

“Oh, but you have already done so much.” Alice said in a delightful protest.

“Come on.” The youtuber retorted in a delightful protest of his own. He waved his hand, shooing the air. “It’s nothing.” He said. “I wanna help you guys commiserate.” 

Perhaps it was the big word he used, or perhaps it was the happy moods they were in, but Frank and Alice Tabasco agreed. They had a sudden trust in him. His mannerisms and expressions -he was very expressive- were genuine. His eyes had a bulge to them, keen for noticing details in abandoned places, and he sure did find the most interesting thing he had ever found yet in any abandoned place; a man in a suit and a woman in a wedding dress marrying each other in an abandoned asylum. When he first heard their voices while he traversed the first floor hallway, he thought the asylum was haunted, and the discovery of them was so great that it almost cracked his camera lens, and then his camera lens would’ve looked like some of the windows that didn’t completely shatter out of their panes. Something about it surely cracked his heart; the scene of them in the abandoned cafeteria had chiseled his heart, it had nicked it like a mistake maken by a sculptor, a beautiful mistake.

He offered to put music on on his phone and leave the cafeteria for their first dance. Frank said he could stay and watch if he wanted, and Alice asked him to put on A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. All of this done, and the first dance commenced. The youtuber’s doughy smile baked in the sunlight that swam into the cafeteria, and the music-box-gures passed by his face when they swayed and circled and orbited on the tiled floor.

“Alright!” The youtuber sprung up clapping when the music ended and when the hem of Alice’s dress finished owing and settled down. “You guys hungry?” 

“A little.” Frank exhaled in synchronization with Alice’s excited “yes.”
 “Do you have a headache, honey?” Alice whined. Frank rubbed his temple. “A little, but just the usual.” “You guys get headaches?” The youtuber asked, an alertness in his big eyes.

“I do sometimes, although he gets them more.” Alice answered. “We’re coming off the meds they gave to us.”

“Wait, wait, you two were patients here?”

There was another silence in the wake of the youtuber’s question. Alice and Frank looked at him with the answer in their lost-world eyes. He asked another question.

“What happened to all the other patients?”

“The night of that tremendous thunderstorm,” Alice said in a hushed voice, “some of the patients panicked and ran out.”

“They broke the windows and everything.” Frank added on.

“Wow, and you guys been staying here ever since? You never left?” The youtuber asked. He sounded like a kid hearing the original version of a fairy tale for the first time. He looked and saw the newlyweds like they were a shattered Disney movie; real people behind magic animations.

Alice nodded.

“Why’d you two stay here?” He asked.

“Because,” Alice answered, “no chapel could compare.”

“Alright, my headaches got a bit better.” Frank said. He looked to the youtuber, and the youtuber saw

the groom half-close his eyelids as if to hold something in his head at bay. “We getting dinner?” Frank asked.

“Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.” The youtuber nodded.

Frank told the youtuber to be careful of the glass as they started exodusing out of the cafeteria and out into the asylum parking lot. The youtuber turned his camera off to save the battery as he put it, and he did this while Frank helped Alice over the bits of glass. Alice jumped in place when they were outside in the parking lot. Heaven’s approval splashed down upon her jolly face, and Heaven’s approval even rinsed itself along the ridges of Frank’s face as he watched his wife jump and jump in place. Her shriek of excitement echoed out onto the eld that surrounded the asylum, the desolate brown field.

Not a car was parked out there. Not a carriage was drawn up to take the newlyweds away, but their chauffeur the youtuber hobbled out of the cafeteria with his camera like a slung rie. He led them across the eld and into a surrounding forest. Frank was worrying about Alice getting mud on her dress, but the forest was dry and all there was on its floor was that orange wig of pine needles. It was a much prettier surface for her dress to slide across than the asylum’s tiled floors. Still, Frank assisted her as they followed the youtuber through the woods and to his car that was parked on the side of the road. Both Frank and the youtuber helped Alice get into the backseat in a way where her dress wouldn’t become snagged in the car door when it shut, and all the chickadees approved of this as they chirped their congratulations.

“Ahh, you like the car, right?” The youtuber said as he got in the front seat amongst the sound of the newlyweds buckling up. “I got this when I hit seven hundred and fifty thousand subs.”

Both Frank and Alice were a little too stunned to speak. They didn’t know what to say, so all they did was hold hands in the backseat.

“You guys wanna go to McDonalds?” The youtuber asked, bringing the car onto the road.

Alice gasped. “I love McDonalds! I haven’t had it in forever.”

“That okay with you, man?” The youtuber called over his shoulder, to which Frank nodded. “Alright,” the youtuber said, letting the car pick up speed, “on me.”

Because of the asylum’s remote location, it took about twenty or so minutes to find the nearest McDonalds, which was conveniently situated near trac lights. The youtuber pulled into the parking lot, which was appropriately filled, and Frank got out to help Alice out of the car. Her delight hadn’t vanished at all. She hadn’t seen the colors red and yellow since before she was admitted into the asylum. But, admittedly, an anxiety started to overtake the newlyweds as they followed the youtuber up to the front door. He opened and held the door for them. They entered.

A few patrons were eating as employees busied themselves in the back amidst the demands of the manager of the drive-thru. The smell of fries coming out from their bath of grease ushed itself against the newlyweds, and put them in a kind of stunned state.

The youtuber ordered two fish filets and then stepped back to let the newlyweds order, but it took a great difficulty for them to speak. Alice held Frank’s hand as she stuttered for a Big Mac, and Frank asked for two cheeseburgers in a short tone that sounded like he wanted to get it all over with. His face was almost red, having to speak to the person behind the register. But the employee at the register didn’t really pay any mind to this, and just typed in their orders before scurrying to the back of the kitchen after the youtuber paid.

Minutes later, the wedding party shuffled over to a table at the glass wall outlooking the trac lights. Alice stuffed her face with fries. Her cheeks puffed out. Frank took great large bites of his cheeseburger, but did so slowly like a brontosaurus might. The youtuber was seeing the remnants of the newlyweds’ asylum table manners. He thought it made them look like an adorable and discoordinated couple. For a moment, he imagined them in their sixties or seventies, sitting down to eat breakfast or dinner with the same mannerisms they were displaying now. It made him feel lucky to have been there to see the two marry, to help them marry and take them to McDonalds-

“Alice Billboard. Frank Tabasco.” A male voice came. The wedding party looked up from their food and white and yellow wrappers and little burger boxes. Alice and Frank were still chewing when they saw the police officer looking down at them. He looked down at something on an iPad he held then looked back at the newlyweds. “Are you two aware you are considered missing persons in the state of Maine?”

Frank swallowed a big and dreadful gulp. Alice did the same, nearly choking, and coughed before she spoke through her anxiety. “My name is Alice Tabasco.”

The police officer’s partner mosied up to join the scene. The youtuber was dead silent. He was stunned. His mouth was open. He wanted to say something, to say anything, to defend his new friends, but he couldn’t. The police presence was too overwhelming; a venom in the excitement of the day.

“Can you come and speak with us please? We can wait until you’re finished eating, if you’d like.” The officer’s partner said in a chippy manner, speaking to the newlyweds like they were kids.

“People have been very worried about you, you know?” The officer said. “A lot of people have been looking for you guys.”

Alice gave Frank a what will we do? look, but was only met by a vague expression of defeat in her husband’s eyes - and it wasn’t one of his headaches. He moved his head slowly to meet the officer and officer partner's glares, and explained. “We’re not missing anymore, officer.”

“We’ve never been missing.” Alice agreed with a slight shake to her head.

“Alright. We can clear that up.” The officer agreed, or it sounded like he agreed. “Like we said, just come talk to us when you’ve finished your meal.”

They weren’t so hungry anymore, but there was still some kind of hope in them that made them trust the officer and his partner. So, they got up, shuffled out of their seats and were brought outside into the parking lot.

The youtuber watched the officer take Frank to one end of the parking lot while his partner took Alice to the adjacent end. His eyes darted from conversation to conversation; sad parallel scenes in a silent lm. He watched Frank stand in silence as Alice seemed to be desperately trying to explain something to the ocer’s partner. But both the officer and his partner maintained disbelieving looks, despite the newlyweds’ attire. They were just patients.

Other patrons in the McDonalds started watching as well, especially when Alice started to cry after the ocer’s partner said something to her. It was some long explanation he gave, one that upset her. She turned around, biting on her nails, to see Frank, but Frank had his back turned to her and was listening to the officer explain something to him as well.

The youtuber went home that night alone. He had a trip to Cairo the next week that he had to pack for, but he went through the footage he had gotten that day instead. He watched Frank and Alice’s wedding video alone in the darkness of his room, the light of his laptop screen buzzing against his mellow face. He watched the footage of him creeping down the first floor hallway and coming to a halt before the cafeteria. On screen, Frank and Alice turned their heads collectively to the man behind the camera while they kept their hands joined. That scene, it singed itself into his head then. The way they turned their heads in unexpectedness, to him, it summed them up completely. The way they moved their heads in tune, in total synchronization-

He watched their first dance. His heart almost broke when he heard his voice tell them he was turning off the camera to save the battery. He wished he hadn’t. He wished he captured more of them. He hadn’t seen any of his friends’ relationships be the way that Frank and Alice’s was, even though he only witnessed them for just one day.

He shut his laptop, and thought for a little bit before going on his phone to scroll through Tiktok. He was too catatonic to do any editing. In fact, he never would edit the footage he took that day. He never would publish it either. He’s not even really sure why he hasn’t yet. He never would know what happened to Frank and Alice after they got into the ocer’s car. To him, they were just driven away out of the McDonalds’ parking lot; Alice looking out of the backseat window, looking through the glass wall of the McDonalds and looking at him as if to say thank you. He watched the car drive away, her face staying that way the whole time.

He would never know that Frank Tabasco and Alice Billboard were sent to separate institutions.

Alright, hello from The Poe Show, I’m your host Tynan Portillo and I have here our very first guest author Nicholas Leonard. And we just heard his story No Chapel Could Compare. Nicholas reached out to me and gave me permission to do some of his work and I really like No Chapel Could Compare, and I just thought that it had this great gothic feeling to it. It was themed very well. And I wanted to be able to talk to him and thankfully he decided to join us here. So, Nicholas, thank you so much for joining. Where can people find you on social media and see more about your work?

They can find a lot about me on my Instagram, which is @nicholasleonardbookedits and that’s pretty much where I do all my updates and stuff about my work.

Awesome. Do you plan on posting on any other forums or Facebook groups?

No, I’m kinda bad about that. I’m better at the writing part and networking and stuff.

Well great! Yeah and I really appreciate your writing for this story. I loved the mood that you set and I liked how each character had a distinct personality. So why is it that you write? What calls you do that kind of creative endeavor?

I just like it. Simple as that. Nothing fancy.

What do you like about it?

I kinda want to be like the writers that I like, like Edgar Allan Poe, you know? I want to emulate him and stuff.

Are there any other authors that have inspired you to write?

I recently got into short stories cause I got into Somerset Maugham, if you know him?

A little bit.

So, yeah, he kind of inspired me to start writing short stories.

Beautiful.

And what inspired you to write this piece in particular? Was it an idea you kind of got and just started going with or was there something that anticipated it?

I was going to write a poem about these two patients in an abandoned asylum getting married but it turned into a short story. And I always liked the setting of an abandoned insane asylum. It’s kind of cool.

Definitely. It was a very creepy setting. It had this, for me, a feeling of tension throughout the whole thing. I kind of thought that the two main characters, Frank Tabasco and oh what was her name? Uh, Billboard! Alice Billboard.

Yeah, Alice Billboard.

Yeah, I thought that they were going to, like, end up killing somebody or something because they were lunatics in a loony bin or something like that. But that was a really cool twist.

Yeah, kind of sweet.

Yeah.

Yeah, I’m glad you liked that.

So when did you start writing?

Five years ago. I was like eighteen and I started trying to do it professionally.

And do you write for a different reason now than when you began? Like, did it start out as a fun hobby because of just an initial curiosity?

Yeah, it kinda snowballed and now it’s like a big passion.

Do you want to be more well known as a poet? Or do you have a novel in the works? Or do you have other stories that you’re gonna look to do? 

I’ve been fooling around. I’ve been writing plays too. I have some self published novels but I think I’d like to be known as a poet first and foremost.

Known as a poet. Beautiful. And question about the story: what - why- what made you go with the names of Frank Tabasco and Alice Billboard? Really unique names right there.

I have trouble coming up with names and there was a bottle of Tabasco sauce in my room.

No way!

And I used billboard earbuds. Yeah so I just used those things for names.

I thought it was like, oh in the lore of this story they like, like he really likes Tabasco sauce but

Maybe he does.

I’m glad you asked that question cause I was excited about that answer.

And why…why do the characters go to McDonald’s? Like why do Frank and Alice like McDonald’s? Is that a personal connection in your life or to their story and their upbringing?

It’s kind of similar with the other question, it’s just kinda the first thing I thought of. Like, you know it’s just an easy place to go and eat.

Nice.

And then I really - like I said, I love that heartbreak ending where Alice and Frank are being torn apart essentially. And Alice says to the officer that she’s Alice Tabasco, right? But the final line says that they’re Frank Tabasco and Alice Billboard. So did you write that intentionally to show that it was a final separation and that they would never be together again?

Unlike the Billboard and Tabasco names, that was definitely intentional. Yeah I was definitely affected too by the ending, writing that.

Yeah, it was beautiful. And again, it came out of nowhere that these characters -  you know, they’re in this asylum and they have this beautiful love story. It’s such a juxtaposition to have such a creepy and inherently horror-like place become the breeding ground for romance. That’s really interesting.

Yeah, I kinda like that. Like I would like to do more stuff like that, like, juxtapositions like that.

Beautiful. Now what is the - to you, as the author, right? Because, me personally, reading through the story, the kind of overall message that I got is that love can come in different forms, that love should not be judged on who it’s for and how it evolves. But what is the point from your perspective as the author?

I wasn’t really looking to write a point about something. But I was just trying to break hearts, you know? Like, trying to write a heartbreak ending, like that. So it’s just kind of simple as that. But I do like what you give the story its meaning. I like what you say about it. It’s just meant to make you feel.

It reminds me of - oh I just did an episode but she wrote Leves Amores. I think it was Kathleen Mansfield. And she did a lot of writing like that. It was all about the experience of the character rather than a structured story that has A and B plots and all culminates in a big climax. She just wrote about characters feeling stuff.

Yeah, I mean, stuff like that, like A, B and C plots…structuring your story in acts, that definitely helps. But I’d rather read something good, with like good characters instead of a good plot.

And I’ve gotta say this cuz we’re on a Zoom call right now so the listeners won’t be able to see this but you’ve got a wall behind you that’s covered in pieces of paper with writing on them. Is that all different ideas and stories that you’ve written?

No, these are my sonnets. I have like 150 sonnets all about freedom and why humans are special and stuff like that.

Wow.

So I kind of have my whole room decked out in them.

Yeah, listeners, it’s like an entire wall, his entire wall is covered in sonnets. That’s insane! You do a lot of writing. How often do you write?

Oh, like every day.

Love it! I mean that’s the sign of true love, right? That you come back to something every day.

Yeah.

So is there someplace that I can read more of your sonnets? Do you have a blog or…

No, I probably should start something like that. But like I said, I’m pretty much only active on Instagram. I posted a couple of my sonnets there but…yeah I’ll have to look into making a blog or something like that for them.

Absolutely! I mean if you did then I know that plenty of people here would love to read your stuff. And I would also like to read, like, one or two of your 150 sonnets. That’s insane!

It was so wonderful to talk to you about this story. Is there anything else that you want to mention about this story, or about yourself as a writer and as an author?

So for this story, the abandoned asylum, I kind of got that idea from a novel I wrote called Cathartic Thunder. It’s on Amazon. And the first part of it takes place in the asylum before it’s abandoned and stuff. And if you’re looking for more of a backstory on why the asylum became abandoned you can find that backstory in that novel.

Wow, that’s crazy too, you’ve written a whole novel already!

Yeah.

Wow! And it’s Cathartic Thunder on Amazon?

Mm hm. You can get it in Ebook and paperback.

Wow, that’s awesome! I didn’t know you wrote so much!

Thanks, dude.

Well Nicholas thank you so much for joining us here on The Poe Show. Thank you so much for contacting me and letting me do your story on the podcast, I had such a fun time with it. And I think that the listeners if they want to see more of your stuff, you gotta head over to his Instagram. But I’m sure that plenty of people are now anticipating seeing a blog or something like that where they can see more.

Yeah, yeah I definitely gotta get to work on that.

Well thank you so much Nicholas.

Thanks for having me.

Listeners, check him out.

Hey again everyone, I hope you enjoyed this interview with Nicholas Leonard. Remember to follow him on Instagram @nicholasleonardbookedits

I want to mention a few things before we go.

First off, if you are an author and would like to hear your own stories on this podcast, you can contact me at poeshowpod@gmail.com, especially if you have stories that are similar to the gothic 19th century horror themes that this podcast focuses on. And it would be an opportunity for you to also talk about your work and what inspired you to write it, like what I discussed with Nicholas. I’d love to hear from you.

Secondly, the first official YouTube video is up on The Poe Show YouTube channel, where I review the accuracy of Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher to Edgar Allan Poe’s original stories. It’s a great show, great video, you can watch it now. Link to the video will be in this episode’s description.

Next, we got a fan mail message. It says: I’ve been a fan of your podcast ever since the Masque of the Red Death. I think that one is my favorite, but what’s yours and why? Do you listen more as the creator or just try to be an audience member?”

Thank you very much for listening and sending in fan mail, and if any of you listeners would like to text the podcast directly, just use the link in the description. To answer your question, I usually like to listen as an audience member and just enjoy it but I definitely criticize it more. And I don’t know if I have a favorite episode but I can give you my top 3.

My first favorite is The Masque of the Red Death. It was the first episode where I took some real liberties with the music production of this podcast and suddenly I fell in love with music composition. It made me realize more of what I could do for this podcast and it’s been very fun to create the music ever since.

My second favorite is actually a tie between The Yellow Wallpaper with Tessa Barth and The Dunwich Horror with That Was Horrorble. Working with Tessa was so much fun and she grasped the tone of The Yellow Wallpaper so so well, and our aftertalk was so much fun and I personally learned a lot about women's experiences. I also experimented with new tools in the music for that episode and I’m really proud of it for what I did in that time. And the Dunwich Horror…I mean, come on. Derek and Isaac are a couple of the best and funniest guys I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. All the voices they pulled out of their pockets to fill the characters of H.P Lovecraft’s story was insane and I feel so lucky to have worked with them.

Now I have to say, as of now, my most favorite episode is probably The Ghost’s Summons with Miles Broadhead. It was the first Victorian ghost story on the podcast, it for sure won’t be the last, and it’s one of the episodes on this podcast that, to me, just feels right. When I listen to it, I feel the tension in the air, I hear it in the music and I hear it in Miles’s fantastic narration. It’s just the right amount of suspense, build and relief, not to mention that Miles and I had such an interesting aftertalk about old stories and mediums of entertainment. I’d say a similar episode is probably The Fall of the House of Usher, that’s another episode that I think has the vibes of a tense, scary story from the 19th century.

Moving on, you may have noticed that the cover art for this podcast has changed. My uncle created a new logo for me and I really enjoy it. It’s similar to the old cover art but a little more refined I think.

Some of you may know this already but I used to have a Patreon for this podcast, and I uploaded some bonus content to it to document my learning journey for the podcast and new content that I was excited about. But no one joined, so even though you’ll hear it in old episodes, there is no Poe Show Patreon anymore. I deleted it. If you’d like to support the show though, The Poe Show is now on KoFi! It’s essentially the same thing but better!

The link to The Poe Show Ko-Fi profile is in the description of this episode, and you can click the Support the show link to get there as well. You can support the show, help me improve it, and even purchase downloads of the music that I create for this podcast.

That’s all for now. But you’ll hear from me again on the next episode of The Poe Show.