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Cast of Wonders turns 15 – Submissions Call

It’s our 15th birthday this summer, and to help us celebrate it we’re opening the stage doors to birthday-themed stories!
We’ll be open from the 15-21st March.

What we’re looking for:

  • Someone’s birthday is a central feature of the story.  This doesn’t necessarily have to be the protagonist’s birthday, nor does it need to be a 15th birthday.
  • A clear element of fantasy, science fiction, or speculative horror associated with birthdays.  Yes to age- or gift-linked magic/science/horror, no to weird stuff that could just as easily occur on any other day of the year.
  • 1.5-4k in length
  • All other Cast of Wonders submission guidelines apply

We have a number of submission calls this spring – authors are welcome to submit to all of them!

“As Brittle as Granite” nominated for an Aurealis Award!

We’re thrilled to share that Matt Tighe’s “As Brittle as Granite” has been nominated for an Aurealis Award for Best YA Short Story. The Aurealis Awards are Australia’s premier speculative fiction awards, and we couldn’t be happier for Matt!

You can read or listen to Matt’s story at Cast of Wonders Episode 646 – and why not check out some of his other short fiction stories, too?

2025 Aurealis Awards Shortlist Announcement

2025 year end editorial

2025 in review

  • Submissions window info: in addition to general submissions windows, we also opened to submissions for seasonal stories, our annual Banned Books Week event, flash fiction, and a limited-demographic window for Young Authors.
  • We will have published 43 stories over 41 episodes – a total of over 140,000 words. 27 stories were original, and 16 were reprints.
  • We also produced ten re-issue episodes (9 Staff Pick stories, 1 Encore story)
  • This year we published two stories by Young Authors, and were the first publication credit for a number of other authors. We have some great fiction by young authors already lined up for 2026!

You can access all our 2025 original fiction at this link. At the end of December, we’ll be releasing our Staff Picks from 2025.

We welcomed several new associate editors to the team: Adri Joy, Kit Caelsto, Elinor Wahl and Angela Zazueta.

(Continue Reading…)

Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers Expert Meetup: Amy Brennan

Oh wow! has it been two weeks already!?  Time is REALLY flying!  (I wonder if Escape Pod left the universal time adjustment matrix running on high again after a temporal experiment? Hmmm. Will have to ask!)

But back to the main reason I’m writing this.  Two weeks ago, I attended the Expert Meet Up Event hosted by the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers group in conjunction with the Octavia Project (who support young teens & tweens in Brooklyn area who are aspiring writers) and I was the invited expert!  The event was recorded for members who could not make it, but I thought I’d do a bit of a write up here too as it draws back the curtain on what happens at Cast of Wonders – always valuable knowledge for those wanting to be published here. (Continue Reading…)

Nommo Award 2025 Short Story finalist: Bodies of Sand and Blood

We’re thrilled to share that Plangdi Neple’s story Bodies of Sand and Blood is a finalist for the 2025 Nommo Award for Best Short Story!  The Nommo Awards recognise works of speculative fiction by Africans, and are nominated and voted on by members of the African Speculative Fiction Society.

Bodies of Sand and Blood was first published in April 2024 as episode 580 with narration by Brent Lambert and featured as one of our 2024 Staff Pick episodes with new commentary as episode 621

You can read the other excellent Nommo Award finalists via the links on the award’s press release page.

 

Many congratulations Plangdi!

Announcing our call for submissions for Banned Books Week 2025!

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.

Free a book butterflies freedom illustration

Joy that Sustains

 

It’s all too easy to doom-scroll these days. The world is facing a climate emergency amidst a global rise in fascism and prejudice.

For Banned Books Week 2025, we want to see stories of irrepressible joy. Show us the sparks that cannot be extinguished, the many facets of humanity in all its splendour. We are looking for stories that showcase the hopefulness and power of diverse voices, stories of music in dark times, stories that are unapologetic and inspiring.

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, and our standard rates apply (8c/word for original fiction, $20/$100 for reprints depending on length).  Submissions will be accepted from May 15-31 through our Moksha Portal – we can’t wait to read what you send in!

https://escapeartists.moksha.io/publication/cast-of-wonders/banned-books-week-2025/submit

Image by Alexa from Pixabay

Call for Submissions – seasonal stories

Cast of Wonders will be open to submissions of seasonal stories from the 1st-14th March 2025.

What’s a seasonal story?

This is our submission window for special dates throughout the year. Christmas, Valentines, Pride, Halloween, International Workers’ Day, Speak-like-a-Pirate Day, or any other date which is particularly meaningful to you or other people. These can be serious dates of remembrance or celebration, or more frivolous events (apparently 2nd May is World Tuna Day? Must remember to celebrate that with CatsCast!)

We’re specifically looking for our Christmas and Halloween stories for 2025, but will be open to submissions targeted towards other dates of interest.

Reprints or originals? Length?

Yes to both! Shorter fiction has slightly better odds than longer pieces owing to budgeting constraints.

Where can I submit?

Check out our full guidelines here. Our Moksha portal will appear here at the end of February.

 

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.