D. K. Wall

The tornado was real. The photo of it wasn't. I pride myself on never falling for anything — but this one caught me. Being duped has me wondering if any of us can trust what we're shown anymore. 📖 Read Fake Photo. Real Disaster. on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock. Note that the title image is NOT the faked photo that is the topic of this Musing.

Before The Hitman had a single sentence, it had a rectangle. This week's Musing traces how a rough pencil sketch of a dive bar — drawn without knowing why — became the opening chapter of a novella, and what that says about how stories actually start. 📖 Read Hitman Doodles on my website Click here to download your FREE excerpt of The Hitman novella mentioned in this episode Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

After our recent move, I discovered my government-assigned address means nothing to the post office, the DMV, or anyone else until each office decides, on its own schedule, to accept it. A Schrödinger's address, if you will, real or not depending on your perspective. Join me for a wry look at technology's broken promises, and what it takes to prove you live where you live. 📖 Read Schrödinger's Address on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

We all have them: the boxes that survive every move but never get unpacked. Tangled cords, foreign coins, a bag of business cards for people we've long since lost touch with. This week, a look inside the last ten boxes—and why we can't throw any of it away. 📖 Read The Last Ten Boxes on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

A night light for safety seemed like such a bright idea. Unfortunately, I failed to account for a few things lurking in the shadows—starting with the shadows themselves. Here's how my genius home upgrade lasted exactly one night. 📖 Read Bright Idea. Too Bright. on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

The Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, 1776. Except they didn't. That famous giant signature didn't happen until August. So why do we celebrate the Fourth? Join novelist D. K. Wall for a short, mostly-true musing untangling the gloriously messy story of how America picked the day to celebrate its birthday. Twelve minutes. Bring a sparkler. 📖 Read 250 Years Ago... More or Less on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

Everything about modern customer service is designed to help us—except the part where we actually get help. This week, I descended into the purgatory of automated phone systems and evil chatbots in my quest to reach a real person. The technology might have been built to serve us. Or, more likely, to save companies money. Either way, we can only endure the indignities to find the holy grail, the one thing machines can't replace. 📖 Read Press One for Purgatory on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

Everything in this 1983 movie is obsolete—except the part that matters. This week I rewatched WarGames and took a nostalgic, slightly cranky tour through the dead technology inside it: arcade quarters, acoustic modems, floppy disks, payphones, and pull-tabs. It's the gadgets that time forgot, the prices we used to pay for a long-distance call, and the one thing in the movie that still hasn't aged a day. 📖 Read Shall We Play a Game? on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

Best friends, inseparable, until one day they weren't. Two boys in my neighborhood have gone their separate ways, and I don't know why. Or what will happen next. So I imagine endings for a story whose truth I'll never know. How would you write their next chapter? 📖 Read A Fading Friendship on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

Time moves differently in a warm, still room. Liam counts the minutes to escape, certain it will last forever. The clock has other ideas. A short tale about the daydream we never quite outgrow—the one where freedom is always just a few minutes away. You might recognize the feeling. 📖 Read Tick Tock on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

I lost a point in college for writing "to boldly go." Turns out the grammar guides say otherwise, and I've been splitting infinitives ever since. Join me as I take a friendly swing at one of the most persistent grammar myths in the English language. Where did it come from? Why won't it die? And what do Chicago, Dreyer, and a certain starship captain have to say about it? Pull up a chair. This won't hurt a bit. 📖 Read To Boldly Split That Infinitive on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

Who puts carpet in a Jeep Wrangler? This week, a mostly-true investigation into Siberian Huskies, dog hair magnets, and the great cargo-liner conspiracy. 📖 Read Who Puts Carpet in a Jeep? on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

I promised my Ever Patient Partner in Life I'd do something. I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget. You can probably guess what happened next. The curse of to-do lists strikes again. Will I ever get organized? 📖 Read Note to Self on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

My doctor believes a man of my age should deal with exploding oatmeal and gelatinous blobs. My mostly true experience with psyllium husk. 📖 Read Of Exploding Oatmeal and Gelatinous Blobs on my website 📚 Curious about the reference to Mad Maverick McDougal and his band, Exploding Oatmeal? Check out my novel, Sour Notes. Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

Our anonymous hero rescued a lost dog. Then he asked for my help. The rest—chaos, tree rats, and fumbled phone calls—is mostly true. 📖 Read The Anonymous Hero on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

Pollen crushes me every year. The watery eyes. The clogged sinuses. In my suffering, a story sprung to mind. What if aliens invaded during allergy season? 📖 Read Essentially Harmless: The Pollen Files on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

One brazen bear. Three Siberian Huskies. A hiking trail blockade. A shriek echoing through the mountains. Just another day in Asheville. 📖 Read Brazen Bear Breakfast Blockade on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

Why was I racing around the yard before dawn, clad only in my pajamas, shrieking like a barefoot lunatic? I blame a certain Siberian Husky. 📖 Read Barefoot Lunatic: My Predawn Spectacle on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app Photo of Landon © D. K. Wall Music licensed through Adobe Stock

The New York Times recently profiled a person who claimed to publish 200 novels in a year with the assistance of AI. That article inspired this week's tale: a Faustian bargain between soulless creation and the simple belief that writers write. 📖 Read Writers Write on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app All images and music are licensed through Adobe Stock.

Why do some books imprint a hum in our souls? Project Hail Mary echoed a classic that sparked the same wonder as watching the moon landing. 📖 Read That Old Familiar Hum: From Rama to Hail Mary on my website Your contributions support the cost of this commercial-free podcast. Thank you! 🎧 Subscribe to Musings and Tales on your favorite podcast app Title Image: A photograph from the James Webb Telescope of the Nebula PMR 1, aka the “Exposed Cranium” nebula. Public domain photo. Credit to: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI). For more information, visit https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/webb-studies-cranium-nebula/ Music licensed through Adobe Stock.