Strange Stories of the Sea

This week’s episode brings us two strange stories from the sea. The sea offers the perfect setting for short stories: it’s dramatic, vast and by extension mysterious. We only know a fraction of what actually lives in its depths. No wonder then, that it captured the imagination of the authors featured in this episode. 

Featuring:

‘Over the Side’ by W.W. Jacobs (00.46), narrated by Olivia. This story was first published in 1905 and describes the eerie, supernatural experience of a sailor who falls overboard. It can be found in our Pirates & Ghosts Short Stories collection. 

& ‘A Poison of Bodies Beneath the Water’ by Spencer Orey (17.10), narrated by Nathan Chatelier. Published within our Lost Atlantis Short Stories collection, this narrative imagines a closed off society of mermaids who will stop at nothing to maintain the purity of their species. 

Biographies:

William Wymark (‘W.W.’) Jacobs (1863–1943) was largely known for his deeply humorous and horrifying works. His first volume of stories, Many Cargoes and  ‘The Monkey’s Paw’,  are the works for which he is probably most famous. 

Spencer Orey is a graduate of the 2021 Odyssey Writing Workshop and a finalist for the Writers of the Future Contest. His short fiction appears in Tales from Fiddler’s Green. He has a PhD in cultural anthropology, with academic interests in magic, mobility, and media dreams that he likes to weave into speculative stories. He grew up in dry New Mexico and dry California and is happy to live in rainy Denmark with his wife and kids. Find him online at spencerorey.com or on X @spencerorey.

Nathan Chatelier is a British voiceover artist with almost fifty audiobooks recorded alongside thousands of other projects, from video games to the Mean Girls West End trailer. Check out his demos here.

This episode is hosted by Bea.

‘Over the Side’ was first published in 1897, in Today and appears in Pirates & Ghosts Short Stories (Flame Tree Publishing, 2017).

‘A Poison of Bodies Beneath the Water’ is © 2023 Spencer Orey and appears in Lost Atlantis Short Stories (Flame Tree Publishing, 2023). 

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator) and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.