Narratives of the Weird is a paranormal ezine delivered to over 16,000 individual email addresses and is published every 2nd and 4th Friday. The newsletter may contain ghost stories, experiences with ufo/alien sightings, strange encounters or other weird phenomenon.
As much as we like to think we know whats going on in the world, there is always that little bump that gives us pause and makes us question reality. Almost everyone has had an experience that is strange and unexplainable. Here you will read the personal stories of common, everyday folks. These people have had a 'little bump' in their lives and are brave enough to share it with you.
I submitted a story but don't see it on your website
Narratives of the Weird doesn't work like a message board. The newsletters are planned six to twelve months in advance. Single paragraph tales are used in the content feed and are not archived or stored anywhere on the site. Stories submitted to me are read and kept in a database and stored for future use. Some are used immediately some are not. It is also possible that your story ran in one of the weekly mailings but has yet to be archived.
I noticed you haven't updated the archive, why?
In August of 2006 I had a computer failure and lost the entire database. At the time I was in the process of a large update to the archive when the failure occured and lost over a years worth of stories.
Why do you ask for donations?
Narratives of the Weird is 100% free. Everything I offer is free to use, but not free to offer. As the site grows, it costs more and more every month to offer the newsletter, archive and content feeds for free. Your donations help to offset that cost and keeps me from turning this into a pay per use newsletter and website.
Do you offer an advertising option?
Although I do offer the option, I abhor advertising and as a result I am very picky about who gets to advertise on my site. At this time there are no paying sponsors. Thankfully.
Why don't you charge membership fees?
I never will charge membership fees. Ever.
Do you hire professional writers?
Only on a very rare occasion. If someone presents me with a really great idea (providing it's true accounting of abnormal phenomenon), I will pay for an article. Yearly I may hire a professional or freelance writer to create a press release for the site.
Why don't you publish professionally written articles on a regular basis?
Narratives of the Weird was started as a place for regular folks to tell, anonymously, about an experience they've had that's beyond their understanding. It would destroy the essence of the newsletter if I strayed from that format. Should I ever move into a printed, rather than an exclusively online format, I will publish more 'traditional' articles.
What’s with the name SkumChiken?
Back in the day I worked with this guy who had these friends who had this miniature Chihuahua, this particular dog was also the runt of the litter and one of the ugliest dogs I've ever laid eyes on.
Well, they would take this dog *everywhere* and on days when it was a little on the chilly side, if they needed to run in to get something quickly, they would leave the dog in the car to sun itself on the dashboard. To be safe, they would leave his leash attached to the rearview mirror…
One day, somehow, the dog had wrapped itself in the leash. See it coming? Yup, the dog wound up hanging from the rearview mirror like a grotesque Chihuahua air freshener.
When they noticed, they panicked and started running toward their car shouting ‘Oh my god Scumchicken’s hanging!!!’.
Up until that point I didn’t know this tiny, ugly creature’s name and I just started roaring with laughter.
Hence the name SkumChiken.
