Announcing our call for submissions for Banned Books Week 2023!

Every year in September, Cast of Wonders celebrates Banned Books Week, an annual international event celebrating the freedom to read and raising awareness of the immense social value of free and open access to information.

Joining the editorial team for this year’s call is Cast of Wonders Associate Editor, Simon Pan. Thank you, Simon, for the wonderful theme this year!

Guiding Sparks Between the Words: How Stories Illuminate the World Around Us

In times of conflict, division and change, it is more important than ever to build bridges of understanding.  We most commonly encounter the stories of others through news articles or in classrooms, kept at a scholarly or journalistic distance and often biased to favour privileged perspectives. Our own truths may also remain unvoiced and unknown, misunderstood even by those around us.

When it comes to illuminating these truths, stories have a key part to play: they help us to learn and appreciate things from perspectives we might never otherwise consider, and allow us to reshape our own experiences within the transformative lens of fiction. When we share our stories, we guide sparks of kinship and understanding, using narrative and emotion to help others experience a small window into another’s reality.

For Banned Books Week 2023, we want to see stories of discovery, of learning, of misconceptions unraveled, and how stories can serve as a guiding light to help us understand a new perspective, or to teach us valuable lessons when all other methods fail us. What that something is…well, that is up to you!

At Cast of Wonders, we welcome stories that portray the full spectrum of human experience. We don’t challenge stories; we want stories to challenge us! Cast of Wonders looks for stories that evoke a sense of wonder, have deep emotional resonance, and have something unreal about them. We aim for a 12-17 age range: that means sophisticated, non-condescending stories with wide appeal, and without gratuitous or explicit sex, violence, or pervasive obscene language.

Preference for this submission window is under 5,000 words with an absolute limit of 6,000 words. Flash submissions under 1.5k are also very welcome!

Submissions must adhere to Cast of Wonders guidelines.  Submissions will be accepted from June 1 to June 14 through our Moksha Portal – we can’t wait to read what you send in!

image of female fantasy warrior

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 537: More Real Than Real

This story was first published in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine in June 2021

Swearing: one f-word

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:00 — 70.8MB)

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More Real Than Real

by Greta Hayer

The marketing team’s representative met us at a tavern in-game. Or his avatar did, wearing a drab grey suit that stuck out in the high fantasy virtual world. He held a laptop and typed furiously as he walked toward KeeperX, Ovid, and me.

“Our team has put together your first promo video as sponsored players,” he said and set the laptop on the bar table. Without ceremony, he pressed a key, and it began.

In the promo video, KeeperX was wearing his best armor, all glint and gold in the sunlight. He’d been filmed for the advertisement at that perfect golden hour, and he looked like a hero.

I couldn’t help but laugh, elbowing the KeeperX standing by my side. (Continue Reading…)

old books, herbs, pestle and mortar

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 536: Little Wonders 38 – Advice

Cast of Wonders 536: Little Wonders 38 – Advice is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:02 — 29.2MB)

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A Letter to A Bully’s Mother

by Priya Sridhar

Dear Opal’s Mom:

This is Jem, Opal’s classmate. Last week, you asked my Magical Cupcake club to make two hundred cupcakes for Opal’s birthday–chocolate chip and peanut butter. Even though you pay well, I would have refused on behalf of the Magical Cupcake Bakers. The girls outvoted me since we need the money for new cooking equipment. My friends made all the cupcakes in the school kitchens and used my mom’s bakery ovens when we ran out of room in the ones used for cooking classes. That explains the taste you complained about on BakeHub this morning. As you wrote in your post, it was my special touch you were paying for–and that was missing.

Enclosed are a few extra cupcakes for you and Opal’s dad. These I did make, cardamom vanilla, with some hints of ginger from infused milk. This proves that I haven’t “lost it”, as you posted, my Jersey family baking touch. (Continue Reading…)

image of aurora in the arctic

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 535: The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen

This story was first published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue 124, June 2013

Death, bereavement, harm to animals

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:52 — 59.9MB)

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The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen

by Barbara A. Barnett

In the town of Svalgearyen, on the thirty-third day of the months-long winter night, Grandma Marit abruptly cast her knitting aside and marched toward the door.

“It’s my time,” she declared—a pronouncement that elicited a whimper from Gunther, the bushy little sheepdog who had been curled up at her feet.

Her granddaughter, Adda, set her own knitting down with far more delicacy but also a great deal of surprise. “Where are you going?”

“Well,” Grandma Marit said as she heaved herself into her heavy winter coat, “I can’t die here, now can I?” (Continue Reading…)

dragon art

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 534: Lavender, Juniper, Gunpowder, Smoke

 First published in Apparition Lit Magazine on October 15, 2021

Bullying

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:48 — 54.2MB)

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Lavender, Juniper, Gunpowder, Smoke

by Alyson Grauer

They are always at my heels, this pack of girls who might as well be wolves. No matter how hard I try to ignore them, pretending they haven’t hurt my feelings, I can’t seem to shake them off. They stalk me in the hallways between classes, each girl smelling of plastic flowers, raspberry, and freshly applied nail polish. The scent chokes me in the school’s enclosed cinderblock halls. I miss the woods of home.

“Hick,” Marie’s voice whispers at my back.

I glance back to see Marie’s wide smile, her teeth white as the moon. Hannah, lean and narrow-boned, slouches beside her. (Continue Reading…)

chinese bao

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 533: The Time Traveler’s Cookbook

Cast of Wonders 533: The Time Traveler’s Cookbook is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:35 — 43.7MB)

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The Time Traveler’s Cookbook

by Angela Liu

  • Day: 4202
  • Place: Northern Laurasia (later known as Mongolia)
  • Time: 66,000,000 BC (late-Cretaceous Period)
  • Meal: Magnolia and Grilled Oviraptor

Mom’s cookbook recommends tenderizing the meat so I fashion a club from a young cycad, but I might as well be beating a rock with a feather.

Don’t eat dinosaur. Just don’t. Mom marked it as a must-have, saying it looks and tastes “like an exotic giant chicken,” but just getting to the meat has been a nightmare. The skin’s teeth breakingly-tough and the sucker hooked me in the thigh with one of its nasty claws during the hunt. I’ve staunched the bleeding with Happy Time Traveler’s super medical glue, but holy hell it still hurts. (Continue Reading…)

A hand holding an oak seedling

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 532: The Hidden Forests of Earth and Mars

Cast of Wonders 532: The Hidden Forests of Earth and Mars is a Cast of Wonders original.

climate change and ecological collapse

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:24 — 53.0MB)

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The Hidden Forests of Earth and Mars

by Anna Zumbro

Seventeen hours before some of us are to launch on a nine-months-and-forever journey to Mars, my little brother Enoch lands on my tricked-out Park Place and even he knows before counting his cash that he can’t pay the rent. We’ve been lowballing him so he can stay in the game (he’s six), but I bankrupted my dad last turn on this square so he knows what’s coming.

His face twists into a pout, then calms with obvious effort. Kids who are going to Mars have to learn to bounce back from disappointment. He knows that, too.

“It’s a good thing,” my stepdad Hugh says, sweeping Enoch’s money toward me. “There’s an old astronaut tradition that you should lose a game before you launch. Uses up your bad luck.” (Continue Reading…)

Submissions Schedule update

We’ve decided to push back our Banned Books Week submission window to the second half of May, and our next general submissions window to July.

We will be opening as scheduled in the second half of April to young authors only, i.e. authors under the age of 20 as of the end of April.

See our schedule page and submissions guidelines page for more information.

abstract crown

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 531: Crown Prince

Cast of Wonders 531: Crown Prince is a Cast of Wonders original.

Ableism

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:15 — 23.5MB)

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Show Notes

Cerebral Palsy Awareness

Crown Prince

by Melissa Mead

Behind a gauze screen, Crown Prince Manu slumps in his cushions. He’s grateful for the screen, hiding his lapse from Father’s petitioners. It takes so much energy to maintain his Stupid Body in anything like a posture of alertness. The more effort he puts forth, the more it writhes about. The law says that he, the Only Royal Son, must be present at all official proceedings, but behind the screen no one can see him if he chooses to save his energy for listening. He always listens. And remembers. (Continue Reading…)

A city, flooded by rising seas, in ruins

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 530: Because Change Was the Ocean and We Lived By Her Mercy

originally published in Lightspeed Magazine in December 2017

swearing (including the f-word), and references to drug use

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:16 — 71.8MB)

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Because Change Was the Ocean and We Lived By Her Mercy

by Charlie Jane Anders

1. This was sacred, this was stolen

We stood naked on the shore of Bernal and watched the candles float across the bay, swept by a lazy current off to the north, in the direction of Potrero Island. A dozen or so candles stayed afloat and alight after half a league, their tiny flames bobbing up and down, casting long yellow reflections on the dark water alongside the streaks of moonlight. At times I fancied the candlelight could filter down onto streets and buildings, the old automobiles and houses full of children’s toys, all the waterlogged treasures of long-gone people. We held hands, twenty or thirty of us, and watched the little candle-boats we’d made as they floated away. Joconda was humming an old reconstructed song about the wild road, hir beard full of flowers. We all just about held our breath. I felt my bare skin go electric with the intensity of the moment, like this could be the good time we’d all remember in the bad times to come. This was sacred, this was stolen. And then someone—probably Miranda—farted, and then we were all laughing, and the grown-up seriousness was gone. We were all busting up and falling over each other on the rocky ground, in a nude heap, scraping our knees and giggling into each other’s limbs. When we got our breath back and looked up, the candles were all gone. (Continue Reading…)

two geese in a space station corridor

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 529: Little Wonders 37 – Seeking Connections

Cast of Wonders 529: Little Wonders 37 – Seeking Connections is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:33 — 40.8MB)

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Show Notes

Birding With My Human was originally published in Nature Futures on July 7th, 2021.

Haunting the Docks

by Marie Vibbert

No one comes to my dock anymore. It’s so empty I can hear the ping of metal struts relaxing. The sounds of life elsewhere on the station, transmitted through multiple bulkheads, are muted, inchoate moans. I cycle through checks on systems unperturbed by human hands. I tidy what is already tidy.

I’m so bored. I power on a tug-drone.

“Aft Supplemental Dock Petty Tug Drone 2 reporting for duty. You can call me Pettie!” Her voice abruptly loses its chipper tone. “Oh, it’s you.” (Continue Reading…)

abstract leaf fractal in shades of blue, pink and purple

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 528: Notes from a trans-inclusive gender apocalypse

Cast of Wonders 528: Notes from a trans-inclusive gender apocalypse is a Cast of Wonders original.

Use of the f-word, gender dysphoria, mild elements of body-horror

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:00 — 59.2MB)

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Notes from a Trans-Inclusive Gender Apocalypse

by Ember Randall

May 10

Firestorm (12:05 PM): You know, given all the possibilities for an apocalypse, this wasn’t the one I expected us to see. At least not first.

Kazumi (12:31 PM): Did you see the good news, though? The Bureau for Magical Mismanagement think they’ve isolated the cause! Some sort of ritual gone wrong, something targeting men–and they think they’ve even identified which story the group was using for a basis for it! They’re calling for any female practitioners who are willing and able to come to Spiregate to join a ritual to undo it.

Firestorm (12:35 PM): Only female mages, huh? (Continue Reading…)