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Cast of Wonders 216: This Story Begins With You (Banned Books Week)

Cast of Wonders 216: This Story Begins With You (Banned Books Week) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:14 — 33.5MB)

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Show Notes

The Comic Book Legal Defence Fund is a non-profit dedicated to protecting the First Amendment rights of the comics medium and is an annual sponsor of Banned Books Week. Founded in 1986, the CBLDF has managed and paid for the legal defense of artists, worked with libraries to resist challenged to comics and graphic novels, and undertaken advocacy work against unconstitutional proposed legitlation at the state and Federal level.

This Story Begins With You

by Rachael K. Jones

The story goes that your dad got a new job.

The story goes that you moved 5,000 miles away. You didn’t know anyone in your new town, and none of them knew you.

You had a best friend in your old town named Marco, but you left him behind. You had a playground on your old street. A favorite climbing tree. A secret hideout behind the garden shed made from plywood and latticed tree branches, papered with mildewed books the library had thrown out after the classics section flooded.

The story goes that losing all of this felt like a part of you had died. You cried a lot. That bothered your parents. You didn’t want them to feel guilty, so after a while you only cried when you were alone.

The story goes that you were the new kid in 9th grade. A well-meaning history teacher bumped a girl with an amethyst bracelet from her desk so you could take a seat near the front, but the girl’s friends glared at you, the intruder, the cuckoo squeezed into the wrong nest. You’d just arrived, and they already hated your guts.

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Cast of Wonders 199: Leapling

Cast of Wonders 199: Leapling is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:49 — 55.9MB)

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Show Notes

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

Leapling

by Nicole Feldringer

My brother, Jack, parks his beater at the beach lot. Beyond the windshield, dune grass blocks my view of the Gulf, and I shift in my seat. My thighs and shoulders are slick with sweat against the cracked vinyl. Jack turns off the car and sets the e-brake.

“You going to go to this thing or not?” His voice is gentle. If I asked, he would turn the car around and take me home. No, not home. To our new house, still scattered with unopened boxes on account of Mom’s insane hours at the Department of Transportation.

“I’m going.” I feel like I am standing on the verge of a back dive, a clear blue pool beneath me. The board, rough against my toes as I test the weight in my heels. “Any tips?”

“Be yourself?”

“Ha.” 

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Cast of Wonders 198: The Authorized Biography (Part 2)

Cast of Wonders 198: The Authorized Biography (Part 2) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:51 — 23.9MB)

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Show Notes

Show Notes

This week we present the conclusion of The Authorized Biography by Michael G. Ryan, narrated by Brian Rollins.

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

 

The Authorized Biography (Part 2)

By Michael G. Ryan

“My mom,” Betsy had written, “met Eugene Versace—no relation, it turns out—when she took our old dog Gator in to be put to sleep. Dad didn’t go that day. I was still in the hospital recovering from surgery, and at the age of four Jasper certainly could not have understood why our sixteen-year-old dog could not go on forever. So, Dad stayed with him at the house and kissed Gator goodbye in the driveway. So, Mom was alone with her grief when she met the veterinarian who would comfort her and then break up my parents’ marriage.”

“Fuck!” Toonby shouted, slamming the book closed. His eyes watered.

“Gator?” he called in a gentle voice. “Come here, boy.”

He could hear the golden retriever’s toenails on the hardwood floor in the hallway, and for the first time he imagined he could hear old age and world-weariness in that familiar sound. Gator poked his head around the corner, tongue wagging tiredly, and came to Toonby, pushing his head into Toonby’s open palm. Then he lay down at his feet as if the moment of affection were all he could endure. Toonby reached down, and the dog raised his head slowly into the touch. They stayed that way for some time.

“With a name like Eugene, he shouldn’t even be able to talk to a woman,” Toonby finally said, “let alone steal mine. For crying out loud, the man has his hands up cats’ asses all day long.”

Gator lowered his head again as if embarrassed at the thought.
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Cast of Wonders 197: The Authorized Biography (Part 1)

Cast of Wonders 197: The Authorized Biography (Part 1) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:40 — 26.5MB)

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Show Notes

Galen Dara’s amazing print for Artemis Rising is available on Society6.

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

The Authorized Biography

by Michael G. Ryan

In the beginning, Tim Toonby was bewildered to find his biography. Bewildered and ultimately alarmed.

It appeared Saturday morning on his front porch in an unadorned metal box, the fireproof kind meant for legal documents. No key. Tim Toonby had just stepped outside to leave the full diaper pail liner for the service, and in the age of letter bombs, he hesitated when he saw the box on the steps. He looked around as if the deliverer would still be nearby, waiting for the detonation, but the neighborhood was typically quiet—prefabricated homes with lawns of sod, flower boxes along porch railings, stone lions at the end of driveways as affectations of the neighbors’ aspirations. Toonby had them, too. It was a street for dreamers, not killers.

When he picked up the box, the lid wasn’t latched—it fell open, and he was suddenly looking down at his own face on the cover of a book inside. His own face, thirty years older, hair gone to gray, the crow’s feet at his eyes deep and sad. The black-and-white photo looked posed in a cheap hotel room where the nightstand’s drawer was pulled open enough to reveal a book, a Gideon’s Bible. But when Tim Toonby squinted at the picture, he could see that wasn’t right. He could just make out the text on the cover: Barnabas’s Bible by Timothy Toonby.

This was the book he had started writing six months ago. His first book, his hope for the great American novel, his dream of fame and fortune. The one his agent said would make him a household name.

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Cast of Wonders 196: She Sleeps Beneath the Sea

Originally published in Faerie (Issue 31, Summer 2015)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:29 — 31.8MB)

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Show Notes

Shveta’s inspirational image, La Dormeuse, by Alain Lacki.

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

She Sleeps Beneath the Sea

by Shveta Thakrar

She sleeps beneath the sea. Shh, shh, plish, splash. The susurration brushes past her unresponsive ears as the surf tucks itself below her chin, a sleek coverlet of warm salt water in shades of blue and green and bordered with seed pearls of foam. Reclining on her side, her dark tresses matted against the damp sand and one brown hand supporting her head, she hints at secrets in the mysterious tongue of slumber: a slight gasp here, a soft sigh there.

When she dreams, she finds herself in a world of glass. It is aquamarine, it is teal, it is turquoise and balmy and wet, and it is the sea, oh, the blessed, blessed sea. It is home, her home.

As she looks around, she begins to wonder. It is like this every time, this bubble world beneath the sea that has somehow become glass and mountains and castles. Everything cut from jewels, everything radiant in the sunlight spilling from above.

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Cast of Wonders 192: There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot (Staff Pick 2015)

Cast of Wonders 192: There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot (Staff Pick 2015) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:33 — 19.8MB)

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Show Notes

Every year in January, Cast of Wonders takes the month off to recharge our batteries, plan the year ahead, and highlight some of our favourite episodes. As part of joining the Escape Artists family, this year we’re pulling out all the stops. We’re running 10 staff pick episodes over the month, each one hosted by a different member of the Cast of Wonders crew.

We hope you enjoy slush reader Alexis’ Goble’s favorite story from 2015, There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot by Christian McKay Heidicker and narrated by Marguerite Kenner. The story originally aired March 15, 2015 as Cast of Wonders 159.

There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot

by Christian McKay Heidicker

Leticia Andrews saw the wizard hat on a Monday morning at 7:06 a.m. She was eating Lucky Charms in the kitchen nook. The hat was gray and tattered and sat in the window of her plastic princess house, which was in the backyard.

“MOM!” she screamed down the hallway. “DO I HAVE A WIZARD HAT?”

“Don’t think so! Unless Uncle Lewis . . .”

“DOES JAKEY?”

“Honey, I don’t know! I’m working?”

Jake, Teece’s baby brother, did not have a wizard hat. She was 96.2% sure. At least not one so pointy and floppy and not covered in glitter like the ones from Toys ‘R’ Us. Even though Teece had never seen one before, she knew the hat that currently sat in her princess house was a real wizard hat. And that meant things.

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Cast of Wonders 183: Hat Trick

Originally published in Oomph: A Little Super Goes A Long Way by Crossed Genres Publications

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:50 — 28.4MB)

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Hat Trick

by Beth Cato

“The pond is open today!”

No one else was in the kitchen, but I had to make the cheery announcement, even if it was just to myself. It was tradition.

Mom’s St. John Ambulance books sat on the table, one still flipped open. She’d just gotten a job as receptionist at the old folks’ home and they had her taking a first aid course. At the far side of the table, two mugs touched handles like old friends. Two packets of cocoa – the best kind, with the little marshmallows – lay flat behind the mugs. I grinned. The cocoa would wait until we got back from hockey.

She used to always set out four mugs. Maybe I could still pull down at least one more.

“Chuck?” My brother’s door was open a smidge. The lights were off and he was sitting in front of the computer. The faint light from the monitor cast a spooky glow on his face. “The pond’s open, remember? You want to come?”

In the funny light, it took me a second to realize his eyes were shut. His hands were folded on his lap, graceful like when we had to sit all proper in church. It’s not like he needed to touch the keyboard.
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Cast of Wonders 181: Fairy Bones

Cast of Wonders 181: Fairy Bones is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:20 — 44.5MB)

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Fairy Bones

by Guy Stewart

Owl hadn’t been real to her since she stopped reading WINNIE-THE-POOH on her thirteenth birthday. That day, she realized she had become Eeyore, losing her metaphorical tail in real life.

Later, her husband hadn’t been real to her since the divorce.

Even later, the rest of Clementine Dresden’s family had faded from her life one by one.

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Cast of Wonders 159: There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot

Cast of Wonders 159: There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:45 — 20.8MB)

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Show Notes

Learn more about the new LGBTQ podcast Glittership!

There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot

by Christian McKay Heidicker

Leticia Andrews saw the wizard hat on a Monday morning at 7:06 a.m. She was eating Lucky Charms in the kitchen nook. The hat was gray and tattered and sat in the window of her plastic princess house, which was in the backyard.

“MOM!” she screamed down the hallway. “DO I HAVE A WIZARD HAT?”

“Don’t think so! Unless Uncle Lewis . . .”

“DOES JAKEY?”

“Honey, I don’t know! I’m working?”

Jake, Teece’s baby brother, did not have a wizard hat. She was 96.2% sure. At least not one so pointy and floppy and not covered in glitter like the ones from Toys ‘R’ Us. Even though Teece had never seen one before, she knew the hat that currently sat in her princess house was a real wizard hat. And that meant things.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 158: This Is Your Problem, Right Here

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction (November 2012).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:14 — 11.3MB)

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This Is Your Problem, Right Here

by David Steffen

“This is your problem, right here.” The plumber’s deep voice resounded from beneath the maintenance hatch by the main pool at Cascade Reef water park. “You’ve only got one troll left. For a pool this big, you need fifty minimum, seventy-five if you want everything to run smoothly.”

“Pardon?” shouted Anita Westegard, the owner. “I only have one of what left?”

The plumber appeared beneath her. His arms were covered to the elbows with green slime. “Trolls. See?” He held one grimy hand up toward her holding a tiny skull. It was almost human in shape, with two thick tusks and curved ram’s horns. “Poor things must have been starved to turn on each other like that.”
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Cast of Wonders 157: The Seal King (Part 2)

Cast of Wonders 157: The Seal King (Part 2) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:26 — 28.0MB)

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The Seal King (Part 2)

by Jennifer Noelle Welch

Rattle rattle rattle rattle rattle…

Lou’s forehead hurts where it rests, mashed against the keel, and tracing the source of the sound, her brain awakens with a pinch. The coat is wrapped around her shoulders, and somewhere a steel cleat is vibrating. Raising her head, she remembers. The skiff, the size of a tiny teacup, spinning lazily towards the horizon. Are those really the first stars? had been her last thought, before her eyes swam and the darkness swallowed all.

In the stern, the seal king hugs his curled legs, shuddering uncontrollably, his eyes locked on her face.

“You did it,” she whispers. “How did you…”

Forming the words, he seizes, his voice fluttering into her head instead. S-swam. I had t-trouble pulling you back in. I’m s-sorry. He nods at her side, and Lou finds a bleeding scrape above her hip.

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Cast of Wonders 156: The Seal King (Part 1)

Cast of Wonders 156: The Seal King (Part 1) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:40 — 21.8MB)

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The Seal King (Part 1)

by Jennifer Noelle Welch

The girl with apricot-colored hair sits on a dock the color of driftwood, her back against a stone wall retaining the land against the push and pull of the sea. Buoys bob and clang. On this small peninsula on the shoulder of the Atlantic, close-set fishermen’s cottages cluster together for comfort. When the wind rakes the swells into whitecaps, yellow foul-weather waders lift on the clotheslines.

It is early September, and the saline haze of summer still hangs ripe and full over the harbor. Louellen, or Lou, as she is called, pulls the frayed cuffs of her father’s coat farther over her hands and presses her spine against the afternoon of too-busy family and heckling high-school classmates. The splashing kids have cleared the dock platform and small swimming beach for another season, leaving her mind to dance with everything and nothing.

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