We’ve all heard of H.G. Wells. The famed British author, best known for his science fiction novels and short stories. Many of which can be found in Flame Tree’s anthologies. However, have you ever thought about what would happen if you used a time machine to travel back in time to meet the man behind those well-known words?
Featuring:
‘Shaping Things to Come’ by Dominick Cancilla (01.00), narrated by Nathan Chatelier. We found this one in our collection ‘Time Travelling Short Stories’. This is a clever story that considers the literary implications of time travel.
‘The Ghost’ by Catherine Wells (18.38), narrated by Olivia. One of the shorter stories in ‘The Open Heart’, a collection of H.G. Wells’ wife’s work that was published earlier this year. A classic horror story, full of atmosphere and whimsy.
Biographies:
Dominick Cancilla is currently living in Santa Monica, California. His previous works include dozens of short stories, one book of philosophy, and one novel, Revenant Savior. He’s also a rather extreme fan of Disney parks and his most recent works – a pair of travel guides for vampires and other unusual creatures planning Disney vacations – include advice for theme-park-visiting time travelers.
Catherine Wells (1872–1927), born Amy Catherine Robbins, worked as a teacher and studied at Tutorial College, Holborn where she met and later married H.G. Wells. She is regarded as a great supporter of her husband’s literary outpourings, while she was in fact herself a serious writer, quietly creating her own stories and poems, long-neglected until now.
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.
This episode was hosted by Bea.
Our previous episode on Catherine Wells: https://flametr.com/4eqaOT7
‘Shaping Things to Come’ is ©2017 Dominick Cancilla and appeared in Time Travel Short Stories (Flame Tree Publishing, 2017).
‘The Ghost’ by Catherine Wells was first published in The Book of Catherine Wells in 1928 but more recently appeared in The Open Heart (Flame Tree Publishing, 2025).
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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
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The Flame Tree Myth and Fiction podcast is created and © copyright 2025 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd.