Ren Kujawa has hired on for an oral legacy project, transcribing interviews with the residents of a small Wisconsin town that was razed and relocated in the 1970s.

The audio files are almost too good, but something is wrong. At first it’s tiny things: strange instructions, files that grow longer after they've been transcribed, details that make no sense, silences that seem to repeat in the same place on different tapes, and strange out-of-context answers. But when her own name starts turning up in voices belonging to long dead people who could never have known her, the project stops feeling like history and starts feeling like a trap.

Transcription is the most experimental story I've ever written. I knew from the beginning the story I wanted to tell and the way I wanted to tell it. And that was the problem. Thematically, it's very much my kind of story — a mix of well-defined characters, weirdness, and entities beyond human comprehension — but stylistically it was so far outside my wheelhouse. I wanted that. I wanted to push myself. Or at least I thought I did. I swear, I gave up on this story half a dozen times.

That sounds bad, I know, but the truth is I give up on pretty much every story at least half a dozen times. And it's always the same. What looks like a story problem, turns out to be a me problem. The story is there, but it's underneath a ton of marble and sometimes I forget how to sculpt and have to teach myself all over again.
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Anyway, the story's done. I like it. And I hope it creeps you out.
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​There's a new Broadside in The PulpIt over at Pulptropolis.com. I've been intending to add a few more personal entries and this is exactly that. I hope you read it.

That's it for this week. Thanks and I’ll see you next time.

Barry Gregory​
09/13/2026

7041 Grand National Dr Suite 122, Orlando, FL 32819
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