Writers, Start Your Engines: Submission Call Alert

September 25 through October 1st is Banned Book Week, an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and raising awareness of the immense social value of free and open access to information. We’ve run special episodes spotlighting the event in the past, such as Alex Shvartsman’s The Things We Leave Behind.

To celebrate, later this year (tentatively scheduled for April/May), Cast of Wonders will hold a specific submission call for new YA stories focusing on themes of overcoming censorship, access to information and the transformative power of literature in all its forms.

Full details will be availaible before the submission window opens and will include:

  • Two week submission window to be announced in April or May 2016
  • New stories only
  • Open to both flash and short fiction
  • Our regular pay rates ($0.06/word), submission guidelines and contractual terms will apply
  • We plan to purchase up to seven stories to showcase the week

We hope this inspires you, and we can’t wait to see your stories!

BBW-logo

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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: 33:58 — 31.3MB)

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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.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 195: The Tale of the White Tiger (Staff Pick 2015)

Originally published in Interstellar Fiction (May 2013).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:22 — 27.9MB)

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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 editor and host Marguerite Kenner’s favorite story from 2015, The Tale of the White Tiger by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt and narrated by Tracey Yuen. The story originally aired July 5, 2015 as Cast of Wonders 168.

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

The Tale of the White Tiger

by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt

Blind Li Xiao surveyed the marketplace. The sensor net embedded in his storyteller’s robes fed signals directly to his brain. The citizenship transponders exactly matched the number of heat signatures. A world firmly loyal to the Empire, then. Or one too afraid to act otherwise.

A passive scan showed at least two peacekeepers in the market. Probably more secret police. He would have to be careful in his story selection. Something from one of the official chronicles. Something he could use for his own purposes.

He beat his staff on the ground three times. The bells at the head chimed out their message. Be still and hearken. Blind Li Xiao is about to begin his tale. He chanted the introductory poem in his clear, high voice:

“When wicked ministers subvert the good,

“The Systems lose the beautiful and true.

“On Heaven’s River vast, White Tiger sails,

“Her course set by the pirate Madam Hu.”

An audience gathered in front of Blind Li Xiao. Children pressed close, their grandparents behind them. The young women and men stood at the edge, feigning disinterest or fearing entrapment. Blind Li Xiao swept the head of his staff in a broad arc as he spoke.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 194: Take A Good Look (Staff Pick 2015)

Originally published in Perihelion, October 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:28 — 29.8MB)

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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 Sally Gill’s favorite story from 2015, Take A Good Look by Holly Schofield and narrated by Stephanie Morris. The story originally aired August 16, 2015 as Cast of Wonders 174.

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

Take a Good Look

by Holly Schofield

Megan watched with dull eyes as Alan’s tendrils undulated above his head, making odd silhouettes on the garage wall. He grew more excited, his beige skin turned mauve as he finished his breakfast beer.

She rocked her lawn chair slowly back and forth in the early morning sun. She barely heard Alan as he went on and on about his most recent trip, to see the giant Easter egg statue in eastern Alberta, and the other attractions he’d visited since she’d left town last year.

“I took an, erh, hologram of the egg,” he told her gleefully, his voice thick with phlegm. “For my, erh, scrapbook.” His English was good but some things apparently didn’t translate well.

“It’s Dad,” she blurted out. “He’s dying.”

(Continue Reading…)

Artemis Rising 2 Print Available Now

Artemis Rising is the month-long celebration of female and non-binary authors in genre fiction run across three Escape Artists podcasts PodCastle for fantasy, EscapePod for science fiction, and PseudoPod for horror.

This year we have commissioned a special art print by legendary ilustrator Galen Dara. The print will be available for purchase through Society6 until March 31, 2016.

Artemis Rising 2 FINAL
Galen likes monsters, mystics, and dead things. She has created art for Uncanny Magazine, 47North publishing, Skyscape Publishing, Fantasy Flight Games, Tyche Books, Fireside Magazine, Lightspeed, Lackington’s, and Resurrection House. She has been nominated for the Hugo, the World Fantasy Award, and the Chesley Award. When Galen is not working on a project you can find her on the edge of the Sonoran Desert, climbing mountains and hanging out with an assortment of human and animal companions. Her website is www.galendara.com plus you can find her on Facebook and Twitter @galendara.

For Your Consideration

Hello everyone, this is Alasdair, the voice of Escape Artists. This is our 2016 metacast to present the stories we ran in 2015 which are eligible in the upcoming Hugo nomination season.

First, a quick plug four ourselves. All four EA shows – Podcastle, Pseudopod, Escapepod and Cast of Wonders – are themselves eligible in the SEMIPROZINE Hugo category.

Not Fancast. Not Fanzine. Semiprozine.

Yes, the categories are confusing and often overlap. Fancast as a category is traditionally dominated by commentary shows and sketch based audio programs. Take at look at the finalists over the last couple of years. Whereas the Semiprozine category is home to the types of publications we consider our publishing peers.

While there’s an argument to be made we could split the shows and compete in multiple categories to increase our chances, we don’t think benefits anyone. The division would be artificial at best, extremely difficult to explain given all four of our shows have harmonized pay rates and submissions policies, and smack of gamesmanship which doesn’t interest us.

Don’t get us wrong, we LOVED seeing Podcastle and Escapepod on last year’s Hugo long lists, and we’d be honoured for one of our shows to be a finalist. But that’s a decision that rests solely in the hands of you, our fans and supporters.

And just a note, Mothership Zeta doesn’t qualify this year because they’re too new.

Update: all of our editors (Graeme Dunlop and Rachael K. Jones at PodCastle, Shawn Garrett at Pseudopod, Marguerite Kenner at Cast of Wonders and Norm Sherman at EscapePod) are themselves eligible in the Editor, Short Form category.

These show notes contain links to a few different aggregation projects, where fiction fans are building cumulative lists of those eligible in the various categories. They’re great tools, and we’d like to thank David Steffen in particular for his efforts. We’ll also link to our Wikia page, containing links to all the stories mentioned.

And with that, we present the following for your consideration:

Editor, Short Form:

Marguerite Kenner

Cast of Wonders 2015 Short Story first publications:

• Aisha Bets Her Life on Magic by Jarod K. Anderson
• There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot by Christian McKay Heidicker
• Lost Socks by Lisa Montoya
• Above Decks by Terry Ibele
• Fairy Bones by Guy Stewart
• A Troll’s Trade by Sandra M. Odell

2015 reprints:

• The Mothgate by J.R. Troughton – originally published by Shimmer
• The New Kid Is Not An Alien by Bert Lowe originally published in the July 2015 issue of Spaceports & Spidersilk from Nomadic Delirium Press

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Cast of Wonders 193: Princesses Do Not Breathe Fire (Staff Pick 2015)

Originally published in Flagship Magazine (February 2012).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:30 — 26.2MB)

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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 assistant editor Jeff Hite’s favorite story from 2015, Princesses Do Not Breathe Fire by Sarina Dorie and narrated by Jeff Hite and family. The story originally aired July 19, 2015 as Cast of Wonders 170.

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

Read along with the text of the story.

Princesses Do Not Breathe Fire

by Sarina Dorie

When Princess Draciona was born, it was obvious something wasn’t quite right. She had emerald eyes and viridian hair. Most unusual of all was her scaly, moss-tinted skin.

“This baby looks a little like a . . . ahem . . . dragon,” said Prince Rupunzelson (named after his great-grandmother).

“No, no,” insisted his wife, Princess Penelope. “That’s just green eczema. She’ll outgrow it.”

Prince Rupunzelson nodded and decided to let his wife worry about it. He would rather think about battle.

But Princess Draciona did not outgrow her eczema. To make matters worse, when she started to teethe, she grew sharp, dagger-like fangs. When she didn’t get her way, she sometimes breathed fire.

“Princesses do not breathe fire just because they don’t get their way,” said Rupunzelson, who was king by now.

(Continue Reading…)

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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.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 191: Makeisha in Time (Staff Pick 2015)

Originally published in Crossed Genres, August 2014

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 26.6MB)

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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 audio producer Jeremy Carter’s favorite story from 2015, Makeisha In Time by Rachael K. Jones and narrated by Laurice White. The story originally aired August 30, 2015 as Cast of Wonders 176.

Makeisha In Time

by Rachael K. Jones

Makeisha has always been able to bend the fourth dimension, though no one believes her. She has been a soldier, a sheriff, a pilot, a prophet, a poet, a ninja, a nun, a conductor (of trains and symphonies), a cordwainer, a comedian, a carpetbagger, a troubadour, a queen, and a receptionist. She has shot arrows, guns, and cannons. She speaks an extinct Ethiopian dialect with a perfect accent. She knows a recipe for mead that is measured in aurochs horns, and with a katana, she is deadly.

Her jumps happen intermittently. She will be yanked from the present without warning, and live a whole lifetime in the past. When she dies, she returns right back to where she left, restored to a younger age. It usually happens when she is deep in conversation with her boss, or arguing with her mother-in-law, or during a book club meeting just when it is her turn to speak. One moment, Makeisha is firmly grounded in the timeline of her birth, and the next, she is elsewhere. Elsewhen.

Makeisha has seen the sun rise over prehistoric shores, where the ocean writhed with soft, slimy things that bore the promise of dung beetles, Archeopteryx, and Edgar Allan Poe. She has seen the sun set upon long-forgotten empires. When Makeisha skims a map of the continents, she sees a fractured Pangaea. She never knows where she will jump next, or how long she will stay, but she is never afraid. Makeisha has been doing this all her life.
(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 190: Home Isn’t (Staff Pick 2015)

Originally published in Flash Fiction Online.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:28 — 14.2MB)

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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 Katherine Inskip’s favorite story from 2015, Home Isn’t by Kelly Sandoval and narrated by Katherine Inskip. The story originally aired October 25, 2015 as Cast of Wonders 178.

Home Isn’t

by Kelly Sandoval

They tell him he’ll be happy when he gets there. It was wrong, what was done to you, they say. We’re making it right. You’re going home.

The kind ones, who call him Mark, are pleased. They have a party, with foods from his planet. He chews the edge of a gray leaf so bitter it closes his throat. He’s used to coke and animal crackers. You’re going home, they say. No more soda, no more sweets. No more rooms with white walls and bright toys. No more needles, treadmills, tests. Home.

They won’t tell him what home is, only what it isn’t. He pictures a toyless, colorless, cokeless expanse. He pictures fields of bitter gray leaves growing beside silver pools. He tries to picture others like himself, but he is the only one he knows. He populates his imaginings with mirror-reversed copies of his own face. Pale blue fur and liquid black eyes.

At night, he wraps his arms around his chest and makes low choking noises as he tries to cry. He’s never quite gotten the trick of it.
(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 189: Amicae Aeternum (Staff Pick 2015)

Originally published in Solaris’ The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 9, and Tor.com (March 2015)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:40 — 33.6MB)

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Show Notes

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 audio producer Rikki LaCoste’s favorite story from 2015, Amicae Aeternum by Ellen Klages and narrated by Rikki LaCoste, Isis LaCoste, and Fiona “Princess Scientists” Van Verth. The story originally aired April 19, 2015 as Cast of Wonders 164.

Amicae Aeternum

by Ellen Klages

It was still dark when Corry woke, no lights on in the neighbors’ houses, just a yellow glow from the streetlight on the other side of the elm. Through her open window, the early summer breeze brushed across her coverlet like silk.

Corry dressed silently, trying not to see the empty walls, the boxes piled in a corner. She pulled on a shirt and shorts, looping the laces of her shoes around her neck and climbed from bed to sill and out the window with only a whisper of fabric against the worn wood. Then she was outside.

The grass was chill and damp beneath her bare feet. She let them rest on it for a minute, the freshly-mowed blades tickling her toes, her heels sinking into the springy-sponginess of the dirt. She breathed deep, to catch it all—the cool and the green and the stillness—holding it in for as long as she could before slipping on her shoes.

A morning to remember. Every little detail.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 188: Above Decks (Staff Pick 2015)

Cast of Wonders 188: Above Decks (Staff Pick 2015) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:10 — 21.3MB)

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

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 and community manager Dani Daly’s favorite story from 2015, Above Decks by Terry Ibele and narrated by Phil Lunt. The story originally aired August 23, 2015 as Cast of Wonders 175.

Above Decks

by Tery Ibele

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

It felt like I had been here forever. A punishment for a crime I didn’t commit. Still, it was necessary just to save a few coins to buy a measly meal. Every day was grueling and today was worse. The muscles in my arms felt like they were going to snap. My shovel dropped to the floor with a clang. Sweat dripped into my eyes as I dared a quick break. The other boys kept shovelling. The huge furnace bulged as it was fed. Hot red steam billowed out of its pipes and clouded the air. Pulling off my shoes, I sat in a lump of coal and rubbed my aching feet.

“What are you doing?” whispered the boy next to me. “You’ll get us-“ The door burst open with a violent bang that sent a shiver up my spine. A large figure filled the doorway, blurred by the steamy air. It was the Coal Master. He was a black silhouette against the light pouring in from the deck. The dirty wooden floorboards shook as he stomped in. My heart beat so fast it nearly flew out of my chest.

(Continue Reading…)