ABOUT CHILLING TALES FOR DARK NIGHTS
Chilling Tales for Dark Nights is a horror-themed audio storytelling series and a popular YouTube channel of the same name. Chilling Tales for Dark Nights features a myriad of talented vocal performers and the work of dozens of independent and previously-published contributing authors. Chilling Tales for Dark Nights was created in 2012 by entrepreneur and author Craig Groshek, and since its inception has endeavored to bring audio theater “back from the dead.”
Specializing in the production of audio entertainment, short films and published works spanning a variety of fiction and non-fiction genres, the brand, known also as CTFDN, or simply as Chilling Tales – is perhaps most well known for its immersive high-quality audio productions, which feature full casts, professional voice acting, high-quality sound effects and customized musical scores.
The series is a product of Chilling Entertainment, LLC, and is executive-produced and directed by the company’s creator Craig Groshek, with sound design and original scores by renowned co-producer and voice talent Jesse Cornett, with additional production help from a team of independently contracted associate producers.
Chilling Tales for Dark Nights – and all of Chilling Entertainment, LLC‘s programs – are wholly independent and their production is made possible by the patronage of fans pledging monthly support (to sign up to pledge your support today, click here now), the generosity of large and small-business sponsors (for information on how you too can promote your company or products and support our program at the same time, visit our the Chilling Entertainment, LLC website for details), and through the sale of related merchandise and advertising revenue from the Chilling Tales for Dark Nights YouTube channel.
Patrons who support our program monthly enjoy instantaneous access to the our company’s entire spectrum of audio productions, as well as access to live events and advance copies of new releases. Listeners can sign up to support our work today at: www.chillingtalesfordarknights.com/support-us/
The material featured on Chilling Tales for Dark Nights is drawn from a variety of sources, and the producers of the program are proud to offer opportunities to first-time authors. The series further cultivates and encourages the production of new and never-before-seen material via its year-round acceptance of unsolicited story submissions and via occasional writing contests. Voice talent interested in being heard on the company’s myriad programs can also submit performances at any time for consideration through the website for The Simply Scary Podcast. Generic versions of medicines are legal in a many of foreign countries, including Mexica, and most countries of the European Union. In pharmacies you can buy priligy online all the remedies that are useful for treating you, prescription or non-prescription remedies, as well as many para-pharmacy products, such as beauty products, vitamins, pregnancy products and first aid.
As of late 2016 Chilling Tales for Dark Nights‘s flagship YouTube channel boasted 800+ video releases, 16.8+ million accumulated video views, and more than 153,000 subscribers, and has had the pleasure of adapting fiction penned by the likes of New York Times bestselling authors such as Rachel Simon and Bram Stoker award winners including Melanie Tem.
On the channel, listeners can enjoy not only a collection of full-cast productions, but also several series of podcast-style programs and stand-alone tales, including celebrity guest performances by the likes of Daniel Radcliffe, New York Times bestselling fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss, an experienced writer and expert Jamie Hooper, and multi-million subscriber YouTube personalities such as Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach, Cryaotic, Tay Zonday, and Rob Dyke. Notable series include Simply Scary – with its focus on single-narrator voice acted performances – and its hosted variant, The Simply Scary Podcast. As of October 2016, you’ll also be able to find the supernatural and real-life inspired “based on true events” program True & Scary Stories, as well as Camp Creepypasta, a summer camp-themed horror storytelling show.
Got questions, concerns, or feedback you’d like to share about the program? Get in touch via our contact page today!
Chilling Tales for Dark Nights’ audio and visual productions can be heard via its YouTube channel, as well as via its website, and its podcast programs can be found on iTunes and elsewhere, available for streaming to the smart phone or device of your choice. Regardless of where, how or when you listen, creator and director Craig Groshek and the rest of the CTFDN team invite you tune in and to turn off the lights…
Turn on the Dark.
THE HISTORY OF CHILLING TALES FOR DARK NIGHTS
Chilling Tales for Dark Nights began not as an audio entertainment project or as a podcast, but rather, as a literary concept.
In the mid-1980s, young aspiring author Craig Groshek, inspired by author Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series of books, set out to collect his own terrifying tales and to compile them into a book of his own. Still a minor at the time, Groshek sought out stories anywhere they could be found or heard: directly from friends and family, in public domain folkore, and in other collections of scary tales hidden in the dusty corners of nearby libraries.
For years, Groshek’s collection of stories remained nothing more than an unedited, hand-typed manuscript. Days became months, and then years, and the project saw little to no progress. Then, in 2004, while enrolled at a local University, Groshek, now older and (presumably) wiser, dusted off the old stories and revisited the idea of publishing the book, and with renewed vigor went back to work. He researched and collected for months, finding that a new wellspring of stories, urban legends and folklore had taken hold on the Internet. After painstakingly narrowing down his many selections, Groshek finally began the arduous task of rewriting the chosen stories.
Regrettably, the effort made in 2004-2005 did not result in the publication of a finished book, and the project was again put on hiatus. Then, in mid-2012, Groshek made a decision that would change his life, and ultimately, the lives of thousands of others, when, in October of that year, he made yet another decision to attempt the finalization of his long-planned story collection, and decided to self-publish and to produce an audio book of his collection in order to help it stand out from the crowd.
That October, Groshek registered the domain name www.chillingtalesfordarknights.com, and began putting together a plan to locate and hire voice actors to make his audio book dream a reality. Through that search, Groshek met voice actor Jonathan Jones, and the two struck up a quick friendship. Jones was the first to voice one of Groshek’s tales retold from folklore, a piece called Man-Eater, and the author was so impressed that he began working with Jones more closely.
From the end of 2012, inspired by his involvement with Jones, Groshek began to shift focus, away from the publication of his book, to the promotion of audio entertainment. Beginning by reposting other horror narrations with the authority of the content’s original creators, and then branching into original content from there, Groshek began to see a new future for the Chilling Tales for Dark Nights project. Publishing a book was no longer the primary concern.
By February of 2013, the idea that CTFDN would be positioned as an audio horror entertainment website took hold firmly, and Groshek set out with gusto to secure and/or produce material for the new venture.
By June 2013, things began picking up significantly, as Groshek made the decision to begin monetizing content on the flagship YouTube Channel, in order to transition the project from being strictly a hobby to being a business. That summer, Groshek opened up auditions on the CTFDN website, and he began taking submissions from authors directly. The final six months of 2013 were a whirlwind, as Groshek began to fully leverage his relationship with veteran voice actor Otis Jiry, and as he met the two men who would go on to become his executive producers: Jesse Cornett and Jeff Clement. Also that year, CTFDN was invited to produce the audiobook versions of the stories from horror author Kris Mallory’s anthology, Daylight Dims, and in October, the team announced their first-ever writing contest.
In November of 2013, Groshek and Clement spearheaded a plan to produce an elaborate full-cast production of the creepypasta horror story “Jeff the Killer,” a project which included more than a dozen voice actors, and which was the first truly comprehensive “full production” the team had done thus far. Earlier tracks had been single or two-narrator productions, and had utilized royalty-free music and sound effects. The team’s production of “Jeff the Killer” marked the start of a new era, in which the group began to shift into full-cast productions of all their stories, and where they began to take more seriously the quality of their final productions.
From the end of 2013, everything became a blur. The production and narrative team at Chilling Tales went through tremendous growth and change, as dozens of new talents were both added to and removed from the roster. Regular writing contests were launched in early 2014, a guest narrator program was launched in May of 2014, a members area was developed and launched in August of 2015, and in November of that same year two new simplified audio book series were launched, Otis Jiry’s Horror Storytime and Simply Scary.
In late 2015, the team launched its first foray into advertising-supported podcasting – a program entitled Chilling Tales: The Podcast – through a partnership with podcasting network PodcastOne. In late 2016, due to creative and professional differences the production team at Chilling Tales for Dark Nights made the decision to end their agreement with PodcastOne and asked that their agreement with them be terminated in order to allow the team to pursue meaningful independent projects again.
As of October 2016, the team plans to launch a series of new podcasts, including The Simply Scary Podcast, True & Scary Stories, and Camp Creepypasta. Additional programs and series will be devised in the future.
Late 2016 also marked another step for team: beginning to look into the development of the first ongoing, fully-animated horror-themed television series. A Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to develop the series is currently planned for February of 2017.