Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 462: Straw-Spun

Previously published in Sword & Sorceress 27, November 2012

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:02 — 44.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Straw Spun

by Leah Cypess

‭Alina unfolded the letter slowly and with great care:‭ ‬it was very old,‭ ‬and‭ ‬felt thin and fragile under her steady fingertips.‭ ‬Her heart was pounding in a way unfamiliar to her,‭ ‬and not just because of the whispers she had heard on the way to the throne room:‭ ‬gold to straw from two passing courtiers,‭ ‬the end of‭ ‬the peace from a duke to a lady,‭ ‬Rumpelstiltskin‭ – ‬she hadn’t turned fast enough to see who’d said that.

She had come to the‭ ‬sitting room to ask her father about the whispers,‭ ‬but‭ ‬before she could say a word,‭ ‬he had handed her the letter.‭ ‬She smoothed out the last fold and‭ ‬focused on the ornate,‭ ‬flowing script‭ ‬so similar to her own.

The king was watching her.‭ ‬She‭ ‬composed her face and read. (Continue Reading…)

10th birthday image

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 459: Ten Years of Wonder

Previously published as Cast of Wonders Episode 53

murder, revenge, threat of sexual assault

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:34 — 38.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

With so many episodes to choose from, how can we possibly decide on what to pick as our birthday encore story?

Marguerite’s favourite episode of all time is Kulturkampf by Anatoly Belilovsky, narrated by Hans Fenstermacher – we released this as an encore story, in episode 360.

Mine — at least this week — is episode 381, The Lie Misses You by John Wiswell, narrated by Athena Haq.

Jeremy, our long-suffering audio producer, would choose the marvellous Why I Spared the One Brave Soul Between Me and my Undead Army, by Summer Fletcher, narrated by Katherine Inskip – this was episode 355, and a staff pick for 2019.

However, the story we’ve chosen to highlight today is our founding editor Graeme Dunlop’s selection:

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 416: The Wolf and the Woodsman

Originally published on the author’s blog

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:32 — 42.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

The Wolf and the Woodsman

by T Kingfisher

Here. Listen.

I’ll tell you a story.

Listen.

Once upon a time there was a girl. She was probably about twelve or thirteen, but that was an age when children were older than their years and expected to do real work and help with the harvest, so perhaps she was only nine or ten.

Her hood wasn’t red. Red dye is expensive and doesn’t hold well, and nobody who had to dye it themselves would make a red cloak for a child who could be expected to outgrow it by autumn. That was added later because it alliterated. It wasn’t a riding hood, either—the only horse she ever rode was the broad-backed giant that drew her father’s plow. Still, we make do. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 412: Eight to the Eighth

Cast of Wonders 412: Eight to the Eighth is a Cast of Wonders original.

Spiders

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:40 — 21.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Eight, to the Eighth

by Liam Hogan

Spider was fed up. Fed up, and upside down. She hung from a web in the darkest corner of Witch’s cottage, swinging back and forth in the most fed up manner she could fashion.

Each time she swung she scowled with all eight eyes at the torn open envelope with the Royal crest on the side table below. Witch’s gilt-edged invitation to the Palace Ball, the social spectacular of the year, had arrived that very morning.

Spider knew exactly how things would go. How the annual event always went. Witch would not, of course, RSVP. If pressed, she would say how terribly busy she was, and how she definitely hoped to make it, but she really couldn’t say for certain until much closer to the date. But she wouldn’t RSVP later on, either. Instead, Witch would turn up at the Summer Palace of the King and Queen of Freyen-Noyen, on the night of the Ball, invitation in hand, and claim she’d found herself unexpectedly free of an evening and she trusted her gracious hosts wouldn’t mind her unannounced attendance?

(Continue Reading…)

Text message from story

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 390: The Tale of Descruptikn and the Product Launch Requirements Documentation

Cast of Wonders 390: The Tale of Descruptikn and the Product Launch Requirements Documentation is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:39 — 30.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

The Tale of Descruptikn and the Product Launch Requirements Documentation

by Effie Seiberg

Once upon a time there was an associate project manager named Jaime. She knew she was lucky to have this job – so many others in her graduating class were still juggling nanny gigs and catering gigs and tutoring gigs and so many side hustles they could’ve been a dodecahedron.

It was at a small company that ostensibly helped foreign students find scholarships for American colleges, but actually if you looked closely you could see that the company didn’t do much and was just a vanity project so the founder could say he was innovating and disrupting and other such nonsense buzzwords. Considering how little the company actually accomplished, Jamie was astonished that she was the one hundredth person to join the team. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 388: The First, the Second, the Third

Cast of Wonders 388: The First, the Second, the Third is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:41 — 33.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

The First, the Second, the Third

by Katherine Kendig

In the winter, the mornings are colder inside than out. Lily sings at the window, her voice wending its way toward the barn, the willow grove, the creek, as pure as the snow it floats over. Her breath frosts as she sings, her gaze fixed on the horizon where the church is the only part of town we can see. Margot huddles in bed, her hair tousled over her face, shivering. Margot has never been able to stand the cold.

“Celia,” she says to me, lifting the blanket a little so I can crawl in beside her. We lie side by side and listen to Lily sing until our stomachs rumble and we go downstairs to make breakfast. Lily refuses to sing while she is working, but she hums under her breath as she makes porridge, and in my mind I am humming too. Margot insists on having jam with breakfast every day, even though she knows the jam will run out long before spring. Lily insists on reserving a jar of rhubarb for herself, so that she can savor it on special occasions, long after Margot has devoured the rest of it.

I don’t care much about the jam. I begrudge my tongue its sweetness.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 387: The Rose Sisterhood

Cast of Wonders 387: The Rose Sisterhood is a Cast of Wonders original.

Abusive relationships. Murder.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:24 — 20.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

The Rose Sisterhood

by Susan Taitel

My Sisters and I await the next girl. She will be beautiful. We always are. We hope she’ll be the one to break the curse, that she will have the wherewithal to see our master as he truly is. To succeed where we all failed.

We do not know when she will arrive. We hope it will be soon. It is not good for our master to go too long without a companion. We Sisters are not company.

As we wait, I try to console our newest Sister. It was only a flinch. I assure her she still has a role to play. There are clothes to mend, meals to prepare, and roses to prune. She won’t be comforted yet — her bones are too fresh. I know she will adjust to her new station in time. We all do.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 297: Where You Get Your Ideas (Artemis Rising 4)

Cast of Wonders 297: Where You Get Your Ideas (Artemis Rising 4) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:50 — 21.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Cast of Wonders is proud to present the fourth annual Artemis Rising event through March 2018! We have four original stories for you this year, guest-edited by assistant editor Katherine Inskip and associate editor Alexis Goble. This year’s artwork by Geneva Barton.

Artemis Rising is an annual month-long event across all four Escape Artists podcasts, celebrating the voices of women, non-binary, trans, and marginalized gendered authors in genre fiction. The resulting lineup is an incredible collection that celebrates the strength, ingenuity, and brilliance of the artists, the characters they create, and the performers that bring these stories to life. It also features the hosting, editing and production talents of a rotating cast. Part of the project’s mission is to give opportunities and experience in these publication roles traditionally held by men.

Don’t miss the full month of Artemis Rising stories across the Escape Artists podcasts!

Where You Get Your Ideas

by Megan Lee Beals

Bells chimed in the empty storefront that waited for us at the top of the stairs. The boss closed her eyes and tilted her head to assess their tone.

“Iron, pitched low, minimal tuning. It’s probably high fantasy up there.”

I shrugged over the collection of banshee skulls I was cleaning for a future wind-chime. “Cool.” I was her subordinate, and the fantasy upstairs would need a young apprentice to cast aside before she could make a grand entrance as some wizened old shopkeeper.

Were it the eerie insectoid hum of space-opera, I’d answer as the rookie, but the roles are pretty much the same.
(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 275: Perdita, Meaning Lost

Cast of Wonders 275: Perdita, Meaning Lost is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: Discussion of miscarriage

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:25 — 23.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

Theme music “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available from Promo DJ or his Facebook page.

Perdita, Meaning Lost

by Edd Vick

When Ailsa and her husband the King lost their firstborn daughter to the fairy maid who spun gold from heather, they were broken in heart and sought their child in every way they knew. They offered rewards, they sent freemen and peasants to scour the country, diplomats and spies to seek her in other lands, and rogues and privateers to search the seas. They consulted witches and wizards, wise crones and learned fools, and even a talking horse; who truth to tell was not nearly so intelligent as he claimed.

As hard as the king and his men searched, Queen Ailsa searched all the more, for it was her indolence that had lost the child. All she had done was guess several names a day until time ran out. Too late she heeded a chambermaid repeating a song the spinner had sung. By then her daughter was gone.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 99: Little Wonders 3 – Scary Stories

Cast of Wonders 99: Little Wonders 3 – Scary Stories is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:04 — 24.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Come With Me

by Beth Hull

Everything about her suggested impermanence.

Maybe that’s why we were drawn to her.

It wasn’t just the ethereal blond waves of her hair, or the goth-pale skin of her slender hands. It was her total, absolute ease at being the new student in our tightly-knit prep school.

She drifted into junior home room on a lotus-scented breeze.

Every guy sucked in a breath, and the girls—we don’t know what the girls were doing because we could see only her.

“Come with me,” she said, singling each of us out. For a day, for an hour, for a week we were her best friends, her lovers, her confidantes. But none of us knew anything about her—not where she was from, not the school she went to before ours, not even her name.

“Call me Beatrice,” she said.

“I’m Circe,” she said.

Morgan. Hermione. Rebecca. Medea. Anne. She was all; she was none.
(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 93: Little Wonders 2

Cast of Wonders 93: Little Wonders 2 is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:01 — 21.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

This episode marks the second time Cast of Wonders has aired poetry. Our first was the excellent Eggs Under Moon from Episode 29, where three different narrators brought you their interpretation of the one poem.

Golly

by Laura DeHaan

A girl and a boy stood at opposite ends of a clearing in the woods. As the girl’s family lived nearby, and she felt it was therefore her clearing, she spoke first. “What’s your name?”

He was a handful of years older than her, with knees and elbows and eyebrows he’d eventually grow into. “Raff,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“Goldilocks,” she said, and looked it.

“That’s a dumb name,” he announced without deliberation. “I can’t take you serious with a name like that.” Indignation made her sputter. He went on carelessly, “Want to play?”

Goldilocks’s family was one that had fled the Eastwise Kingdom after the Bad Enchantment had settled there, and she hadn’t met any other children since. “All right,” she allowed. “But I’m going to call you Ruffian.”

“I’m going to call you Golly,” he said, and Goldilocks needed no other enticement to follow his cry of, “Catch me if you can!”
(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 62: The Quarrel of the Monkey and the Crab

The Quarrel of the Monkey and the Crab from a book called Japanese Fairy Tales (published 1908) compiled by Yei Theodora Ozaki.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:45 — 17.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

The Quarrel of the Monkey and the Crab

by Yei Theodora Ozaki

Long, long ago, one bright autumn day in Japan, it happened that a pink-faced monkey and a yellow crab were playing together along the bank of a river. As they were running about, the crab found a rice-dumpling and the monkey a persimmon-seed.

The crab picked up the rice-dumpling and showed it to the monkey, saying:

“Look what a nice thing I have found!”

Then the monkey held up his persimmon-seed and said:

“I also have found something good! Look!”
(Continue Reading…)