Spawning Fish Tales

The woman and her dog were not regulars at the coffee shop I frequented. I never saw them before that day; believe me, I see everything. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

There is a spot in the Sangre de Christo Mountains where you can see all the way out across the north-eastern plains of New Mexico for a hundred miles. This is where the four men of our story were setting up camp one early May evening. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

I’m excited to share with all subscribers (paid and free) the first of hopefully many animated versions of Spawning Fish Tales by my friend Lilia Olson.Check out her website, and learn more about her and her work.Enjoy the video and I’ll be back with a new Tale next week!Read the original story here… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

An age-old fable told from the perspective of 2026. I'm not sure if listening to it will make any difference, but listen and then you decide for yourself. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

A short story about not knowing the story of the people we encounter. By Paul Kulpinski This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

A poem for the 250th Anniversary of the Founding of the United States of America, by Paul Kulpinski This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

The only way to be truly good is to choose to NOT do what is bad. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

A Short Story about fear and courage by Paul Kulpinski. Writing takes courage. Writing poetry takes even more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

D. Emma Cracy gives birth to two unusual twin boys and the world will be their oyster, or so she thinks.A short story about the fragile nature of human rights by Paul Kulpinski. Spawning Fish Tales This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

Bootstraps, The Self-Made Man | Part III. Lawrence sees himself as a self-made man and in the end what does he actually make of himself? A fictional story of greed, social hierarchy, and society. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

Bootstraps: Pulling Yourself Up - Audio Version | Part II of a III Part Story. Lawrence looses his footing as his island purchase starts to slip away from him.A fictional short story about greed, social status, and society. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

Lawrence Edward Betterman the Fifth goes in search of an island to buy for himself, because "he's gone far too long without one." When he explores one potentially suitable island, he discovers it may be something more than it seems.Part I of a III Part Story This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

I have to admit, I’m scared.  I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing here or how writing on this Substack will work out.  Even though I’ve been formally trained in filmmaking and storytelling and have been communicating in various roles throughout my life, I’m still feeling doubts.  I doubt my writing is “good enough” or even worse that I’ll be rejected by you.  It’s taken me my whole life to recognize falsehoods like these doubts.  Hidden in the shadow of my psyche, they only serve to hold me back.  Still, the voice is still there, nagging, lying.  The voice will never go away, but I can quiet it and when I do my confidence returns.It reminds me of an experience I had when I was a child of about 8 years old... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe

Happy New Year to you, or as I like to view it a Happy Solar Return. For my comments today, I’d like to focus on the solar calendar rather than our man-made social calendar. This time of year marks the point in our Earth’s orbit around the sun to when the days start becoming longer - in the Northern Hemisphere. For those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, well sorry about that. But, here’s what’s interesting when you stop and think about it for a moment - which is what these annual celebrations are all about, really. Think about it:The Earth endlessly orbits around the sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. And the winter’s solstice marks just one major point of that yearly orbital path through space. And when you take a step back, our Sun is also moving (and taking us along with it) - our Sun is orbiting around the galactic center of our Milky Way galaxy at 514,000 miles per hour. Step back a little farther and our entire Milky Way galaxy is traveling through space at over 1.3 million miles per hour! So quite literally we are space travelers and our planet Earth is our space craft. Have you ever considered that before?As humans we’re hard-wired to focus on patterns and cycles - like days (the single rotation of the earth in 24 hours); or years and seasons (the single orbit of the Earth around the sun). It’s easy to overlook the fact that over the course of each cycle, each minute, each second - we are actually, physically occupying a new place in the universe than we did in the last cycle - or minute, or second. So while any point in the cycle may seem familiar, the present moment will always be at a new point in space in our journey of space travel.That reminds me of the point I hope I made in my short story Journeying (if you missed that one here’s the link), the point of the story being a seeming paradox - that for all the things that feel the same there are infinite differences that make everything unique. And for all the differences we notice, things are more similar than we’d like to admit - no matter where you go. No matter how much of a grind your daily life feels like, each one is wondrously different if only because in that one day we have travelled over 36 million miles from where we were the day before! That’s a lot of difference and a lot of change.Speaking of change, I have a couple of new ideas for Spawning Fish Tales that I want to share with you. The whole point of doing this experiment of Spawning Fish Tales for me is to have fun, to wonder, to improve and refine my storytelling skills, and to share those ideas and stories with you. I hope you’re having as much fun with them as I am - I suspect you are because you’re still here with me, and I thank you for that!The first new idea comes in the format of this video actually. I’ll be collaborating with a long-time friend and artist Lil Olson who will be animating selected stories for retelling through video. We’ll be posting those videos here on Substack and after that maybe on YouTube. You can check out her website here.Second, if you’d rather listen than read Spawning Fish Tales, I’ll be making an audio version of each story or poem for you. Those will be available on this Substack and hopefully on all the other places where you find your podcasts and audio - once I figure out that detail.Finally, if you and enough of the other readers are interested I’m going to try hosting live video discussions to talk about a particular story, or the process I use in coming up with story ideas, or what ever else you might like to talk about. That one is totally an evolving project and I expect it will be really fluid in forming and evolving - but should be really exciting.Now all of this will take additional effort on my part and others. So, to honor that effort I’ve created a new subscription structure where - if you’re able and willing - to upgrade to a paid subscription for as little as $5 per month. With the new subscription, in addition to the regular stories and poems you receive in your inbox already, you’ll get immediate access to the audio stories, the animated video stories from Lil Olson, and participation in the video discussion groups and on-line chat threads. And most importantly, you’ll get that splendid feeling of knowing that you are helping support the success of Spawning Fish Tales.Now if that sounds like a big shift - it’s really not, because you can keep your subscription as it is - no change - and continue to receive my weekly stories to your inbox as you have been. Like our space travel through the universe, the more that things seem different, the more they’re the same.I’m excited by these new ideas, and I’m sure they’ll evolve too as we progress through the year.Looking ahead to next week, I’ve got a story for you about a man named Lawrence Edward Betterman, V who goes in search of an island to buy for himself, because he’s gone far too long without one. It’s made me laugh to write it, and I hope it brings a smile to your face as well. So don’t miss it!Until then, I hope you have a fantastic week and remember - as my mother always told me - “Make sure you smile. Smiles are free, and they can make such a positive difference for the person you smile with.” And like my Mom also said, “show some teeth!” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spawningfish.substack.com/subscribe