Closing the Curtains on 2021
Closing the Curtains on 2021
Cast of Wonders’ Annual Review and 2022 Awards Eligibility Post
Ten Years of Wonder
It’s been another busy year at Cast of Wonders. We didn’t quite dodge COVID, and we couldn’t gather together with our friends as much as we’d have liked, but we still had a chance to celebrate. 2021 was Cast of Wonders’ 10th birthday! Our little stage celebrated ten years of wonder last summer with a series of posts reviewing what makes a Cast of Wonders story special, and showcasing our favourite stories of the past decade.
This year, we published 25 pieces of original fiction and 20 reprints – a full list can be found further down the page. As always, you can find our individual favourite stories on our Staff Picks page, and a highlights package for 2021 will follow soon.
A big welcome!
2021 brought a number of new faces to the Cast of Wonders team – we recently welcomed Cami Adams, Tanya Aydelott, Rhian Bowley, Somto Ihezue, Cup Jacob, Amanda Khong, Samuel Poots and Ryn Yee to the team. We’re still on the lookout for a few more new associate editors, so watch this space for more news.
Award Eligibility:
Cast of Wonders is eligible for the Best Semiprozine Hugo Award, and Katherine Inskip is eligible for the Best Editor (Short Form) Hugo Award.
The stage is very much a team effort – joining Katherine backstage are Andrew K Hoe (Assistant Editor, Banned Books Week Guest Editor), Karissa Sluss (Assistant Editor), Jeremy Carter (Audio Producer), our stellar support team of Alexis Goble (art director), Amy Brennan (editorial assistant), Denise Sudell (community manager), and a full cast of associate editors (Cami Adams, Tanya Aydelott, Rhian Bowley, Amy Brennan, Alicia Caporaso, Umairah H., Somto Ihezue, Cup Jacob, Amanda Khong, Rey O, Samuel Poots, Emma Smailes, Denise Sudell, Ryn Yee)
If you are in a position to nominate or vote for short fiction awards, please consider the amazing stories we’ve been privileged to share with you in 2021! You can find links to each of these below. A number of our published authors are also in their first or second year of eligibility for the Astounding Award, and we’d strongly encourage everyone to check out their works, here and elsewhere.
Original Fiction:
Cast of Wonders published 25 0riginal stories in 2021, across 21 episodes:
- Cast of Wonders 450: Three Monsters that are not Metaphors, by Dani Atkinson
- Cast of Wonders 451: Unnamed, by Monte Lin
- Cast of Wonders 452: Porch Light for the Lonely, by Alyson Grauer
- Cast of Wonders 452: Bony Bonnie Dead Horse, by Shane Halbach
- Cast of Wonders 452: The Scribe’s Garden, by Reed Mingault
- Cast of Wonders 453: Langsuir, by Nadia Mikail (1st year of eligibility for the Astounding Award)
- Cast of Wonders 454: The Fairy Queen, by Lynn Buchanan (1st year of eligibility for the Astounding Award)
- Cast of Wonders 455: Toward the Sploff Zone, by Brenna Harvey
- Cast of Wonders 455: A Greevbinian Parent Abroad, P. G. Streeter
- Cast of Wonders 456: Armed With Such Stories, I Roamed Into The Woods, by Evan Marcroft
- Cast of Wonders 457: Just Like the Speeding Heart, by Osahon Ize-Iyamu
- Cast of Wonders 458: Rosie’s Ghosts, by Srikripa Krishna Prasad (1st year of eligibility for the Astounding Award)
- Cast of Wonders 458: The Boy Who Feeds the Birds, by Aviel McDermott (2nd year of eligibility for the Astounding Award)
- Cast of Wonders 460: More Than One Zodiac in High School, by Eliza Chan
- Cast of Wonders 461: Factory Mother, by Sid Jain (2nd year of eligibility for the Astounding Award)
- Cast of Wonders 463: Loving the Falls, by Marie Vibbert
- Cast of Wonders 464: Cats of Fortune, by Ivy Grimes
- Cast of Wonders 465: In Real Time, by Avra Margariti
- Cast of Wonders 466: Badass Neon Sparkle Powers, by Cara Masten Di Girolamo (2nd year of eligibility for the Astounding Award)
- Cast of Wonders 467: They Shall Find Home Once More, by Chelsea Obodoechina (1st year of eligibility for the Astounding Award)
- Cast of Wonders 468: On the Tip of Her Tongue, by Ember Randall
- Cast of Wonders 469: What If We Remembered?, by Amadin Ogbewe
- Cast of Wonders 472: AP Practical Literary Theory Suggests This Is A Quest (Or: What Danny Did Over Spring Break), by Isabel J. Kim (1st year of eligibility for the Astounding Award)
- Cast of Wonders 473: IF Trans THEN Mogrify, by Hailey Piper
- Cast of Wonders 480: The Umbra, by Johnny Caputo
Reprint Fiction:
In addition to our 2020 Staff Pick episodes and our birthday celebration event during the summer, the following seven reprint stories had their first appearance in Cast of Wonders in 2021
- Cast of Wonders 450: This is Not My Adventure, by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez
- Cast of Wonders 462: Straw-Spun, by Leah Cypess
- Cast of Wonders 470: Matches, by Sydney Paige Guerrero
- Cast of Wonders 471: The Storyteller’s Wife, by Eugie Foster
- Cast of Wonders 474: Little Free Library, by Naomi Kritzer
- Cast of Wonders 475: Miss Tansybaum’s Circus of the Moderately Peculiar, by T. Kingfisher
- Cast of Wonders 476: When Whales Fall, by Darcie Little Badger
Encore!
Finally, we’d like to say a massive thank you to our amazing audience – we’re thrilled that you’ve joined us in bringing these stories to the world! Do get in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Discord or the EA forum. Just don’t tell our sibling shows that we’re up past our bedtime…
