Stories from the Hearth Calum Bannerman

A love letter to Gojira, a post-Cold War parable, a tale of confinement, escape, and approaching catastrophe. Mother Pearl and the Nuclear Disaster is all of these things and more. It is the story of a child born into nuclear winter, a community obsessed with a giant pearl, a president with a woefully short memory, and a world entirely unprepared for the end.

Bumps in the night. Shrieks through the wall. Strange smells in the hallway. A long-empty flat suddenly occupied by a reclusive and rather... furry individual. Upstairs neighbours are - let's face it - a nuisance, an anomaly, the bane of all apartment blocks. But when an urban fox moves into the flat upstairs in a crumbling Glasgow tenement, the residents face their most unruly neighbour yet. A Scottish folktale for modern times; a whimsical look at life as a 21st century city dweller.

An old woman with her can of spray paint invokes the anger of the Argentinian government, a group of armed civilians, and an American newsroom run by some questionable characters. At the core of what becomes an international crisis lies an ancient cave painting: hundreds of human hands overlapping each other. A painting to which the old lady feels drawn, and which might just hold the key to the secret art of floating.

Detective-Inspector Rosa Dubois is half-magic, half-human, and ever since she got blipped up here to the City of Black Clouds she's been searching for a case. A real case. With you (Igor the guinea pig familiar) by her side, Rosa bites off more than she can chew when a mysterious witch comes to town in this neon-noir, magical crime-fighting comedy.

It's our very first birthday! Come gather round the fire with us once more in this special birthday short story. Take a look at what the future holds for Stories from the Hearth, and learn how you can be a part of it. Wrap yourself in some fiction and hunker down by the hearth, it's getting cold out there.

Avery is about to turn 28, which means that soon she'll have lived longer than her father, the legendary rock-star Kash Bauer, ever did. She's been dealing with that fact all year, and this morning she can't seem to escape it. By the boughs of a larch in autumn, Avery Bauer seeks the answers to her questions. Dealing with depression, mania, and suicide, this is a story about mental health, family, and the healing power of closure. This episode is dedicated to the memory of my friend, M.S.