2024 at Cast of Wonders
2024 in review
- Submissions window info: in addition to general submissions windows, we also opened to submissions for Halloween stories, our annual Banned Books Week event, and a limited-demographic window for Young Authors.
- We published 48 stories over 45 episodes – a total of almost 150,000 words. 28 stories were original, and 20 were reprints.
- We also produced seven re-issue episodes (6 Staff Pick stories, 1 Encore story)
- This year we published five (and a half) stories by Young Authors, and were the first publication credit for a number of other authors. Our youngest author is a middle-grader who co-authored a story with her father!
You can access all our 2024 original fiction at this link. At the end of December, we’ll be releasing our Staff Picks from 2024.
We welcomed several new associate editors to the team: Rebecca Ahn and Becca Miles. We also wish Somto Ihezue all the best and a fond farewell as he moves on to bigger and better things.
Highlights
- Award nominations: Cast of Wonders was nominated for the Outstanding Fiction Podcast Ignyte Award and the British Fantasy Award for Best Audio Work
- Forbidden Voices by E J Delaney was nominated for the 2024 Woollahra Digital Literary Award
- Park’s All-Night Ramyun and Snack Emporium by Seoung Kim was listed as one of the notable works of 2023 in the 2024 edition of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Hugh Howey and John Joseph Adams
- Milestones! We reached our 600th Episode in August this year, and celebrated with a story by a Young Author: Double Yellow Lines, by J. M. Bueno
- Team Kudos: Associate Editor Somto Ihezue was nominated for a Nommo award for his short story Like Stars Daring to Shine. Somto is also involved in an exciting collaboration with Innocent Chizaram Ilo on a short film (“On our Skin”) based on Innocent’s story Our Skin Will Now Bear the Testimonies, which was published by Cast of Wonders during our 2019 Banned Books Week event.
- Various Cast of Wonders crew represented the team at Worldcon in Glasgow – if you missed Associate Editor Samuel Poots’ academic presentation on Terry Pratchett in the Time of Steam-Engines: What Is Our Role in a Pre-determined Future? then you missed a treat! Editor Katherine Inskip moderated one of two panels on Book Bans and Moral Fascism, and was a panelist on the topic of The Conventions and Cliches of YA Fiction. Editorial Assistant and Associate Editor Amy Brennan entered the Masquerade with a well crafted Outlander-themed costume.
Special Events
Cast of Wonders also ran a number of special events through the year
- Banned Books Week – 3 stories selected for our annual event celebrating the freedom to read
- Lodestar and Hugo Spotlight episodes – 6 stories highlighting the short fiction of Lodestar Award nominees and Astounding Award nominees
- Halloween Special Event – 5 pieces of short fiction co-released with our sister shows
- Young Author Stories – 5 stories accepted from our limited-demographic submissions windows for Young Authors
We are looking forward to a baking-themed Christmas episode this year. Following that, the team will present their Staff Pick episodes for 2024.
