Introducing our new associate editors!

Hello everyone! Please join us in welcoming some new faces at Cast of Wonders! They’re already hard at work at the slushface, excavating our future story diamonds. Welcome aboard everyone!

 

Tonya Bezpalko – Associate Editor

Tonya lives deep in the moose-infested wilds of Canada, where they are interested in everything but qualified for almost nothing. They are a sometime developer of MUDs, even in this day and age, and once released a Twine game about petting cats. One day, they’re going back to school for that linguistics degree, because they just love words that much. They’ve never seen an arts and crafts tutorial that didn’t make them want to do it too, no matter how impractical, and they will devour any book in front of them at an absolutely ludicrous speed. Give them the chance to, and they will pet your cat. Follow them on Twitter.

Alicia Caporaso – Associate Editor

Alicia is a marine archaeologist in New Orleans. Though she does not get to leave her desk too often, her technical specialty is using robots to investigate and study shipwrecks and other mysterious things in the deep sea. Most of her published writing is nonfiction, about North American archaeology and history, though her number of speculative fiction stories is slowly increasing. She lives with two little monsters who regularly take dog form and usually can be found, like most monsters, under her bed.

 

 

 

Trace Fontil – Associate Editor

Trace is a hopeful biologist that spends much of her time thinking about sentient trees and gods meddling in human lives. She is a university student, a speculative fiction writer, and a Florida(wo)man. You can find her buried under a stack of books and contemplating just how many ways the world can actually end, or alternatively, just shout into the air. You never know; she might be able to hear it.

 

 

William Heydt-Minor – Associate Editor

Will is a teacher and writer who currently resides in New York City at this stage in his peripatetic life. One day he will settle down in a self-sustaining earthship on a remote mountain top, but that day is not today. In his spare time, he enjoys walking, sleep, making risotto, and coffee. Follow him on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

Andrew K. Hoe – Associate Editor

Andrew teaches and practices Choy Li Fut Kung Fu and Tai Chi in Southern California, where he also writes speculative YA fiction. He has been a high school English teacher, an Assistant Language Teacher in Japan, and a college professor. His academic work in children’s literature can be found in The Looking Glass.

 

 

 

 

Shawn Proctor – Associate Editor

Shawn is a speculative fiction writer who earned his bachelors from Kutztown University and MFA from Rosemont College. He works and lives near Philadelphia with his wife, Hope, a dynamic duo of kids, and a clowder of cats. He is a member of Codex writers group and Critters, and adores weird pajamas. His fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Galaxy’s Edge, Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction, and Crab Orchard Review. Read more of his work at shawnproctor.com and follow him on Twitter @shawnproctor.

 

 

 

Rey O – Associate Editor

Rey works as an English teacher. She is recovering from gaslighting and C-PTSD, and is basically trying to learn how to be nice to herself full time. Her favorite indulgences are squeeing over cars and comics, collecting toys and second hand books, writing, learning languages, doing puzzles, and enjoying stand-up comedy. SFF and fairy tales are her favorite flavors. Follow her on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

Karissa Sluss – Associate Editor

Karissa lives with in North Carolina with her family and a hairy husky named Bonnie. Her favorite things are coffee, dark chocolate, Star Wars, and Princess Bride. By day she wrangles cases and hearing schedules for a small administrative court. At night, after cooking dinner, checking homework, and walking the dog, she writes and reads as much as possible. You can find out more about her writing online at karissalaurel.com, and she loves making friends on Twitter @karissalaurel.

 

 

Emma Smailes – Associate Editor

Emma hails from the banks of the not so coaley Tyne, which she loves as only a native Geordie Lass can. She enjoys fiction of almost all types, plotting, though never acting, to take over the world, and having sparkly fingernails. She does not have a cat, but does have a tiny cuddly toy hedgehog called Optic, who goes everywhere with her.

 

 

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 264: Little Wonders 14: Lyrical Beauty

Cast of Wonders 264: Little Wonders 14: Lyrical Beauty is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:50 — 33.8MB)

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Show Notes

The Little Wonders theme “Neversus” is by Alexye Nov, available from Promo DJ or his Facebook page.

The Best Busker in the World

by R.K. Duncan

“The best busker in the world never plays in the same place twice.  He is too busy searching.  But maybe, just maybe, you will hear him once.  If you hear him, you will have to see him, even if the first notes of his music drift to you from streets away, completely opposite from wherever you intended to go.  Once you hear a single note, it will draw you along like an invisible string, tugging at the knot in the center of your chest where you keep your secret fears and disappointments.  Wherever you find him— a dusty back street in a sleepy town, a bustling avenue in the rush-hour of a big city, a lonely campground haunted by only a few brave souls and stubborn wanderers— the sight will burn itself into your memory almost as deeply as the music.”

The old man sighed, and leaned back in his chair.  The corners of his mouth turned up, but the young woman couldn’t call it a smile.  His eyes were too sad for smiling.  They had been the first thing she noticed about him, catching her eye as they passed on the train platform.  She paid attention after that, more and more once she started digging, and those eyes had never changed.  They drew her irresistibly toward him, and his rich, careful voice held her there and pushed all other thoughts to the far corners of her mind.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 263: A Coat For Aodh

Cast of Wonders 263: A Coat For Aodh is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:33 — 35.5MB)

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Show Notes

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

A Coat for Aodh

by Ika Koeck

I have always hated the cold. It makes the simplest of tasks impossible. Trying to tighten the girth around a gelding that was holding his breath on purpose was already difficult with one weak hand and one bad leg. In the cold night, my numb hands simply refused to cooperate, and I was in the midst of heaving, puffing, and cursing the horse’s ancestors when Tipsy meowed and alerted me to a visitor.

I looked over my shoulder to see a young man of maybe fifteen summers, peeking from the side of the stall.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, removing his top hat. “I’m looking for Miss Callan.”

“She isn’t here,” I said, hopping on my good leg and clinging to the saddle when the gelding turned around to face the visitor. I had spent an entire day on my feet evicting a clan of swamp fairies from the city sewers; a nasty affair that necessitated some bloodshed and a very long debrief with Her Majesty’s Chief Constable. I was not in the mood to entertain anymore clients.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 262: My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy, age 7

Originally published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (Issue #30, August 2007)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:19 — 14.2MB)

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Show Notes

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

My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy, age 7

by David Tallerman

Fishfinger is my bestest friend in the whole world. And she says I’m her bestest friend too, even though she doesn’t have any other friends, but I’m still the best anyway so that’s okay.

Her name isn’t really Fishfinger, that’s just what everybody at school calls her, because they say she smells like fish and she looks a bit like a fish as well. And she does too but I still like her and anyway they all smell too so there. My mommy says it’s mean and I should call her her proper name but Fishfinger says she doesn’t mind, she does when other kids call her it because they’re mean and they don’t like her but I’m nice she says and I’m her bestest friend so it’s okay. But really her real name is Samantha.

Fishfinger hasn’t lived in my town very long, her and her mom and her dad, who I call them Mr and Mrs Fishfinger but that’s not really their names but I can’t spell their real names, they used to live in another town near the sea and that was called Innsmouth. Fishfinger says it was nice there and no one was mean to her at her old school because she wasn’t different there, and nobody said she smelled like fish, and but then they had to move but she doesn’t know why they did.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 261: Twice

Cast of Wonders 261: Twice is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: Self harm

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:36 — 26.3MB)

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Show Notes

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

Twice

by Levi Cain

In the beginning, there was a world and the world was Marya.

In every photograph littering my parents’ mantle, there are the two of us, smiling tightly under the heavy gaze of the camera. I am always standing just behind her, my hand cupping her shoulder. She is looking up at me, her own tiny hand reaching up to grasp at mine. Each of us is holding tight enough to be painful: afterwards, when we are finally allowed outside to play, we compare battle wounds. They faded almost instantly but we spent the night recreating them, stifling any winces we might’ve ordinarily made. We created a game out of it, racking up points for endurance and creativity.

“Minus five points if you flinch,” Marya would whisper under the covers, after we had faked being asleep so that our parents would not disturb us. She would cup her hands around one of mine and then bend my fingers gently backwards, watching my face intently for any changes. I wore a splint for the next few weeks but had not moved at all. Marya set it herself, her mouth curling with pleasure.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 260: Contractual Obligations

Cast of Wonders 260: Contractual Obligations is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:06 — 42.4MB)

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Show Notes

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

Contractual Obligations

by Jaime O. Mayer

Jiasi gripped the heavy skate, her eyes flicking first to the rust-spotted blade attached to the sole, then back to Emmaline, who watched her with a mischievous smile. “Maybe this is a bad idea.”

Emmaline rolled her eyes, a chuckle escaping her lips.

They sat on a lakeside bench while dozens of Valorie City’s citizens enjoyed the wintry morning. Children raced each other across the frozen surface, giving a wide berth to a pair of young men working on a broken down steamhorse midway through a sleigh ride. Jiasi recognized the Drayden coach by sound rather than sight; there was no mistaking the shrill, nasal whine of Lady Drayden as she barked orders at the men and criticized her daughter in the same breath. “Work faster! Allianne, stop waving your arms like a drunkard.”

Allianne’s response, voice light as her straw-colored hair, was inaudible as she wobbled around in a circle, arms held out for balance.

Emmaline’s lips quirked up in a smile. “A dance routine on ice? It’s an excellent idea.” She plucked the skate from Jiasi’s hands. “We just shouldn’t have said it where the Drayden Dragon could hear.”

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 259: Seer’s Salad

Cast of Wonders 259: Seer’s Salad is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:16 — 22.4MB)

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Show Notes

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

Seer’s Salad

by Barbara A. Barnett

There would be no snatching my laptop back from Diya. She slapped my hand every time I reached across the café table for it. I had been a keystroke away from deleting the amateur-hour comic panels cluttering up my hard drive–months of wasted effort that Diya was now inexplicably determined to keep reading. Her gaze remained glued to the screen as she shoveled forkfuls of salad from bowl to mouth.

“Tam, these are awesome,” she said, voice pitched at a chirpy, bird-like frequency. “It’s like George Romero meets Dostoyevsky meets Thelma and Louise meets an alien invasion flick.”

I shrugged. As much as I wanted to believe I had enough talent to create a successful webcomic, it was hard to take Diya’s encouragement seriously. I had seen her get equally excited over blueberry pancakes, after all.

(Continue Reading…)

Where to find Cast of Wonders in Helsinki

Hello all! If you’ll be taking part in the Worldcon 75 festivities next week, here’s where you can find Marguerite, Katherine and Jeremy. Come say hello!

EA Fan Meet-up

Wednesday at 3 p.m. in the fan lounge

 

 

 

 

 

Jeremy Carter

Non-Fiction Podcasts (Thursday at 1 p.m. in 216)

Clouds on the Horizon: Where Physics Might Be Changing (Saturday at 1 p.m. in 102)

 

 

 

 

 

Katherine Inskip

Clouds on the Horizon: Where Physics Might Be Changing (Saturday at 1 p.m. in 102)

 

 

 

Marguerite Kenner

Asexuality in YA (Thursday at 11 a.m. in 203a)

Countering Surveillance with Souseveillance (Saturday at 4 p.m. in 207)

Oral Storytelling on Audio (Sunday at 1 p.m. in 215)

 

 

 

Hope to see you in Helsinki!

Wanna Read Some Stories?

We’re recruiting! We’re looking to add additional associate editors (also referred to as slush readers) to our team.

Cast of Wonders is a SFWA short fiction market. We’re looking for associate editors who can read and comment upon at least five stories a week during three to four reading periods spread throughout the year. You’ll be asked to help us select engaging, diverse, well-written and thought-provoking stories from our unsolicited submissions queue. The most successful slushers will be familiar with our work and be able to identify a good fit. It helps if you’re familiar with our episodes and our submission guidelines. If selected, you will still be able to submit to Cast of Wonders (and any other Escape Artists podcast).

We’re dedicated to publishing fiction that reflects the entire spectrum of the human experience. We acknowledge the realities of unconscious bias and make our best effort to account for it during our review process, and expect every one of our associate editors to do the same. As an intersectional feminist publication, we want to explore the full breadth of genre fiction and dispel the assumption that ‘YA’ means ‘stories for teen girls’.

This is an unpaid, volunteer position. However we take lowering the barriers to publication and experience seriously, and do our best to help associate editors gain experience. We will happily write letters of recommendation or references for both academic and employment applications for our readers.

EA is a tight-knit, welcoming and inclusive group. We encourage you to ask around about us and our reputation, or contact us directly if you have any questions.

If you would like to join our team, please complete our Associate Editor application form and complete the requested exercise. We will be accepting applications until Thursday, 31 August 2017.
We hope to hear from you soon!
-Marguerite Kenner, Editor
-Dani Daly and Katherine Inskip, Assistant Editors

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 258: Victory Music

Originally published in Pank Magazine (2013)

More profanity than usual

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:46 — 22.0MB)

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Show Notes

Mermaid UK: http://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk
The Trevor Project: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

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

Victory Music

by Daniel José Older

One of my favorite moments ever was when the boy called me an Arab and you said, “She’s Sikh, fucknut” and then when he said “Oh, like hide and go-“ you broke his nose. I heard music playing, I swear to God, and it was victory music, your music: A dusty, unflinching beat, lowdown and grinding. It didn’t matter that my family’s not even technically Sikh anymore since my parents went born-again and I’m just whatever. I smiled for days after that moment, Krys. Days.

But so much has happened since then, so much gone wrong.

After that day I found you on the hill at the edge of campus. There’s a fence that cuts right through the summit of the hill and the other side is all wilderness and you and MagD would sit against that fence and watch everybody and murmur quietly. Used to want to hang with you guys so bad before you stood up for me and I finally got the guts to walk up there and just say Hey. And then it was us three, and MagD used to hate it when we called her that but she probably loved it too, and wherever she is now she probably introduces herself that way, with that big toothy grin on her that looks perfect and so out of place on her serious face.

Anyway, now you’re dead.

Is what they told me. That you died. I’m not trying to rub it in: I need to say it again and again so it feels true finally, because it’s been months and I still don’t believe it. In part because you were SO alive, so flesh and blood, and the thought of you not is just…it doesn’t fit. But mostly I don’t believe it because I still feel you, my friend, all around me. And anyway, that’s what I’m getting at, I wanted to tell you that you’ve saved my life at least twice. And once was after you died.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 257: Little Wonders 13: Death

Cast of Wonders 257: Little Wonders 13: Death is a Cast of Wonders original.

• Content Warning: Grief

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:09 — 50.3MB)

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Show Notes

The Little Wonders theme “Neversus” is by Alexye Nov, available from Promo DJ or his Facebook page.

Chrysalis

by Jennifer Lee Rossman

The love of my life died on July third, 1983, at the respectable age of one hundred and nineteen. Oldest man on Earth, according to the good Doctor Hippen.

I can’t say his death came as a shock; when a man reaches that advanced an age, only the absolutely delusional would suggest he buy denture paste in bulk. Still, I hadn’t expected it to happen so suddenly.

We had just begun a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle (always the optimist, my Edgar). One moment, he was looking for a piece of the sky, and the next, he found a piece of his very own. How convenient that his death would coincide with Lasagna Sunday, the bane of his existence.

With a heavy but unsurprised heart, I kissed him on the head and told him I would see him soon. Though a lady must never reveal her age, it’s safe to say the lease on my Earthly body was also on the verge of expiration.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 256: Phalium Arium Ssp, Amans

Cast of Wonders 256: Phalium Arium Ssp, Amans is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:23 — 13.1MB)

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Show Notes

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

Phalium arium ssp. anams

By Victoria Sandbrook

Nora tugged her gloves down further over her freckled wrists. Every other couple in line had linked arms, but John Reidy had not so much as inched his elbow towards her. She wasn’t sure what pained her more: the ache in her hands screaming that this parish carnival sideshow hid more magic than most or her inept suitor. The line could not move fast enough.

But nothing about this show was fast. Patrons shuffled between intricate, though fraudulent, displays: palm-sized peacocks with visible clockwork, chicken-sized dragon eggs wiggling as a hidden steam boiler hissed, monkeys that might as well have still had their old organ-grinder parts attached. Nora struggled not to roll her eyes. Dull, boring, badly engineered. And not a true cryptid to be seen. Everyone else had sighed, pointed, marveled. Only John Reidy seemed as disappointed as Nora. He’d polished his glasses, refolded his handkerchief in his pale fingers, and said “hmm,” three times.

Nora wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted.

(Continue Reading…)