Posts Tagged ‘Barbara A. Barnett’

image of aurora in the arctic

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Cast of Wonders 535: The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen

This story was first published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue 124, June 2013

Death, bereavement, harm to animals

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The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen

by Barbara A. Barnett

In the town of Svalgearyen, on the thirty-third day of the months-long winter night, Grandma Marit abruptly cast her knitting aside and marched toward the door.

“It’s my time,” she declared—a pronouncement that elicited a whimper from Gunther, the bushy little sheepdog who had been curled up at her feet.

Her granddaughter, Adda, set her own knitting down with far more delicacy but also a great deal of surprise. “Where are you going?”

“Well,” Grandma Marit said as she heaved herself into her heavy winter coat, “I can’t die here, now can I?” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 327: Memories of Mirrored Worlds

First published in Daily Science Fiction July 5, 2013

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Show Notes

Check out The Drabblecast Reborn!

Memories of Mirrored Worlds

by Barbara A. Barnett

At midnight on her ninth birthday, Alison Marie was crowned Queen of the Nightlands; she decreed that flowers should glow in the dark and that bats should dine with her at supper. At midnight on her tenth birthday, she was named Keeper of the Secret Word, which she whispered to her trusted steed, a giant frog who galloped through the moors. On her eleventh birthday, Alison Marie was worshipped as Goddess of the Sky. She spread her dragon wings each night and breathed the stars to life with fire. But at midnight on her twelfth birthday, Alison Marie became the daughter of a widowed man, and she made no more visits to her other lives.
(Continue Reading…)

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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…)