i am not making this up podcast – Tracy S. Morris

Author Edgar Allan Poe is known for some of the best horror fiction around. He's also a bit of a sad sack for whom things never seemed to go right. In the days leading up to his death, he vanished. He was found in clothes that didn't belong to him, unconscious. Though he did wake, no one could make sense of his ravings before he died. Join author Melanie Miller Fletcher and I as we discuss our favorite theories about what might have happened to Poe.

Author Melanie Miller Fletcher is my special guest for this episode. Join us as we discuss the birth of Science Fiction and the modern vampire (A.K.A. the Byronpire).

Though the Robert Browning poem The Laboratory is a fictional poem, it may be based on a true event. A scandal that swept 17th century France, leading all the way to the Sun King's inner circle, and right to the doors of his official mistress.

There is a story of a girl who is locked away in a tower and forbidden to see her one true love.  But this is no story about a signing princess with a talking animal friend.  And the king in this story is the bad guy.  

When you’re a high-profile figure, your life isn’t really your own. This can even be true of elected officials. Particularly martyred elected officials. Such was the case with Abraham Lincoln, who was sent on a farewell tour after his death that would have been worthy of any rock band.

When he was born, about 1342 BC, Tutankhaten’s life wasn’t his own. But the boy who would become known to us as Tutankhamen would be especially noteworthy because even in death his story isn’t his own.

Imagine if you were 11 years old, and your April fool's prank got out of hand. So out of hand that it spawned a major religion? This actually happened to Kate Fox. She, along with her two sisters, Maggie and Leah ended up helping to found the Spiritualism movement after a practical joke got out of hand.

Robert Johnson is known as the king of Blues and the granddaddy of Rock and Roll, influencing some of the biggest names in music from Bob Dylan to Eric Clapton. Johnson's life is shrouded in myth, and fans have filled in the gaps with even more myth. Legends say that he sold his soul at a crossroads in Mississippi to gain his legendary guitar skills.

Go anywhere in the world, and ask people what they think of Americans, and the word "cowboy" is likely to pop up. How is it that a brief 50 year period involving the least populated part of the United States has come to define the country as a whole? You can thank - or blame depending on your viewpoint, a man named Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West show.

Recently it was announced to the world that in May of 2017, the Ringling brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus would be rolling up it's tents for the last time. P.T. Barnum revolutionized entertainment for a country that was just starting to have leisure time. But One thing Barnum is not known for, but maybe should be, is the many, many times a building that he owns burned down.

If I asked you to name a badass warrior princess, you might mention Xena or Wonder Woman. But one real life woman left them all behind. Her name was Khutulun, and she was the great-great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan.

In 1857, if a New Yorker wanted to get away from the city, he or she would go to a cemetery. That all changed with the establishment of Manhattan's Central Park, and it's architect and superintendent, Frederick Law Olmsted.

I Am Not Making This Up: Ep. 15 Would The Real Anastasia Please Stand Up?

Agatha Christie is the bestselling author of all time.  Her works outsell Shakespeare, J. K. Rowling, and Stephen King.  Even if you’ve never read her work, you’ve probably heard of Murder on the Orient Express, or And Then There Were None. But a greater mystery sits at the heard of Christie’s life.  In 1926, after an argument with her husband, Christie got into a car and vanished, kicking off an 11 day manhunt.  At the end of it, Christie was found at a spa under an assumed name. When questioned the author had no idea that she was Agatha Christie.

Out of all the fairy tales known worldwide, Beauty and the Beast, or “La Belle et la bete” as it is known in French, may be one of the most popular.  The themes of the fairy tale are even recycled in such popular and well-known works as The Phantom of the Opera and Twilight. Versions of this story appear around the world, and may date back 4,000 years, making Beauty and the Beast a literal tale as old as time.