Posts Tagged ‘Marguerite Kenner’

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Cast of Wonders 365: Blame it on the Bees

Cast of Wonders 365: Blame it on the Bees is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:23 — 34.7MB)

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Blame it on the Bees

by Rachel Menard

I can’t find it. Digging through my drawer, shoving aside patchy band shirts and pilled hoodies, I feel for the soft fabric of one, very important Sex Pistols tank top. My fingers hit the base of the drawer. No shirt.

Maybe it’s in my bed.

For the first few weeks, I slept with it wrapped around my pillow, cheek pressed to the chipping paint on the logo. That was when it still smelled like Haley, like strawberries and her baby powder deodorant. When I closed my eyes, I could see her in it, the way the soft cotton hugged her body. She’d left it here because we’d gotten caught in the rain on the way home from the skate park. I’d slid it off her wet skin, around her draping curls of strawberry blonde hair, and kissed the lingering rain drops on her shoulders. She tasted like salt and cool rain.

A pain hits me in the gut. I need that shirt. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 364: Remember to Breathe

Cast of Wonders 364: Remember to Breathe is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:30 — 22.0MB)

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Remember to Breathe

by Matt Dovey

Vikram watches with growing uncertainty as Isaac turns round and around, searching for a landmark in the heavy fog. Neon signs glow through it like stars, tinted green by the algae: it’s like a rainbow galaxy surrounds them, dotted with light. They may as well be floating in a nebula cloud for all they can see of San Francisco anyway.

Vik signs a question. Their face-masks muffle whispers, and they dare not raise their voices and alert any drones. They’re not stupid. Every SF kid knows sign language for fog running, and Vik has picked it up fast since moving here from Sacramento.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 362: Hare’s Breath

Originally published in Shimmer, Issue 39 (2017)

Content Warning: discussion of medical procedures and suicide

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:08 — 28.0MB)

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Show Notes

This episode is part of our 2019 Summer Spotlight, showcasing the work of the year’s major award finalists.

Shimmer is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine.

Many thanks to Shimmer for the use of their issue cover art for this episode.

Sweden Admit to Racial Purification (from The Independent)

“The so-called sterilization laws were instituted by the Swedish parliament in 1934 and 1941. Both allowed sterilization without consent under certain conditions. The reasons (indications) to perform sterilizations were threefold: eugenics (race/genetic hygiene), social and medical. Of the total number of sterilized individuals, 93 percent were women.”

From the report “Steriliseringsfrågan i Sverige 1935 – 1975” / “The issue of sterilization in Sweden 1935–1975,” issued by Socialdepartementet / Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Sweden, March 2000.

Hare’s Breath

by Maria Haskins

1947, Västerbotten, Sweden

It’s Midsummer’s Eve and even this close to midnight there’s no darkness, only a long, translucent dusk that will eventually slip into dawn.

Britt and I are fifteen, and she has just come back from That Place, the one the adults won’t talk about even when they think I’m not listening. Something’s happened to her there, but I don’t understand what it is, and she can’t find the words to tell me.

We’re sitting on the wooden fence near my family’s potato patch, looking down the slope at the red-painted barn and stable, watching the hare. He sits upright on his haunches by the forest’s edge, ever watchful, bending now and then to nibble grass and clover, grey-brown fur all sleek and trim, long ears turning.

The hare reminds me of Britt: dark eyes watching to see if you’ve come to kill it; long legs always ready to run.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 356: Little Wonders 20: 2018 Flash Fiction Contest Winners

Cast of Wonders 356: Little Wonders 20: 2018 Flash Fiction Contest Winners is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:23 — 21.9MB)

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Show Notes

Dream Foundry is a new organization helping all professionals, especially beginners, working in the speculative arts. Back their Kickstarter to make sure they last and grow, and to get yourself some nifty rewards.

 

Website: www.dreamfoundry.org
Twitter: @dream_foundry
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dreamfoundryorg/
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dreamfoundry/dream-foundry-2019-hatching

An Economy of Words

by Wendy Nikel

Growing up so far from the wordfields, I’ve learned to appreciate the few words I have, so as the fitting for Baron Kensington’s festival garments drag on, I cringe at each wasted remark.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 355: Why I Spared the One Brave Soul Between Me and My Undead Army (Artemis Rising 5)

Cast of Wonders 355: Why I Spared the One Brave Soul Between Me and My Undead Army (Artemis Rising 5) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:38 — 30.4MB)

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Why I Spared the One Brave Soul Between Me and My Undead Army

by Setsu Uzume

I am loathe to admit that the ambush was masterful. Not only had the bounty hunters slain my contacts, but they had done so in the right order — dispatching the Ritualist before she had any corpses to animate. Had I come on horseback, they would have had me, too.

In addition to my dead allies and their hobbled wagon, I counted four hunters lumbering through the dark. Big lads, experienced and well-equipped, but given the style of their breastplates they had come from the west — tracking the cultists and not me. It made them slow and ill-prepared to face me in my glory. I whirled, my shadow splitting off to pierce kidneys and slice the backs of their knees while I led them a merry dance through dead leaves and bracken. One of them even turned, his blade slashing a wide arc, but shadows have no heads to remove. Him, I killed the quickest.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 354: Wordslinger, Wordwreaker (Artemis Rising 5)

Cast of Wonders 354: Wordslinger, Wordwreaker (Artemis Rising 5) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:22 — 35.6MB)

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Wordslinger, Wordwreaker

by Amanda Helms

The wordslinger first came into Lasthope on the back of a scarab the size of a large pony, during the worst flaying-wind storm in a generation.

Mind, we didn’t know then that she was a wordslinger, or even that she was a she. I didn’t witness it direct, but later one of our regulars told me of her, all bundled up in hat and gloves and too-big cloak, on account of them winds, you see. She climbed off her scarab with the stiffness of someone too long in the saddle. But like any rider worth her salt, she saw to her mount afore she came into the saloon, which is where I first saw her myself.

Me and Ruby were on a break, letting my babe Arlie grab at and occasionally suck on the tassels of our gowns. Spurs jangling, the wordslinger ambled to the bar as she pulled back her cloak–she had two canteens slung on her belt, one on each side–then, slowly removed her hat and, slower yet, peeled off her gloves. Waiting to see if anyone’d comment on her color, I reckon, for the raggedy leather of her attire was just a few shades lighter than her own skin.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 353: With Cardamom I’ll Bind Their Lips (Artemis Rising 5)

First published in Uncanny Magazine (April 2017)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:33 — 34.1MB)

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With Cardamom I’ll Bind Their Lips

by Beth Cato

In the spring after the war’s end, the soldiers’ spirits began to wander home, and Lady Magdalena bound their lips with cardamom so that they could not speak.

“These souls walked for months, their only thought to return home. You must remember, little of their personality remains at this point. They are solid enough to nudge furniture and not sink through the floor, but they’re not fully here.”

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 352: Barter Queen (Artemis Rising 5)

Cast of Wonders 352: Barter Queen (Artemis Rising 5) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: Profanity

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:50 — 33.3MB)

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Barter Queen

by Sarah Pauling

Soledad lets Gabe do the introductions because most strangers see him as the more respectable sibling. His attentive green eyes stare from under thick lashes, and his hair lies flat even when it’s desperately in need of a cut.

“We want Queen Mary’s protection,” he says, brazen as anything. Soledad tries not to stare at the ground. Gabe squeezes her hand.

“What can you give her?” the man at the door asks. Huge firearms dangle from his sides.

“We got guns, for one thing. And we’re mechanics. We can fix things. Bikes.”

The bouncer taps a finger against his forearm. “What kind of bikes you mean? Motorcycles or the other ones?”

“No engines,” Gabe says, firm and deliberate. “The kind that’ll last when there’s no gas left.”

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 351: The Angel (Artemis Rising 5)

Cast of Wonders 351: The Angel (Artemis Rising 5) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: Terminal illness

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:14 — 43.7MB)

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The Angel

by Kate Cobey

I: Sterile

“Just don’t treat her like anything less than a person,” Mama fretted from the front row of the cab. Never mind that this was the fourth time we’d come to see her, and we’d heard the same plea every single time. Cautiously, Mama asked the white hospital archway next to her, “May we enter?”

“Card?” responded the building.

“You don’t need to be so formal. It’s just a robot,” Nina complained from the back. “It’s aaaall robots, here.”

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 348: Radio Free Heartland (Staff Picks 2018)

Originally published in Cast of Wonders 331, November 19, 2018

Content Warning: Sexual abuse

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:23 — 39.4MB)

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Show Notes

Every year in January, Cast of Wonders highlights some of our favorite episodes from the previous year. It’s a great chance for us to take a bit of a breather, and let you, our listeners, catch up on any missed back episodes with new commentary from a different member of the crew.

Our final Staff Picks 2018 episode is hosted by editor Marguerite Kenner.

Radio Free Heartland

by Corey Mallonee

When the car was just a distant cloud of dust above the corn fields I turned to Smoke and told him, “You ought to know I shot someone.”

“We all do things we regret,” he said, without looking up from the circle he was drawing in the dirt. His radio sat in the middle of the circle, tuned to nothing, just a hiss of static. It was made of something he called Bakelite, which I guess is a fancy kind of old plastic. It was brown like it was supposed to look like wood.

“I didn’t say I regret it,” I said.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 339: The Penelope Qingdom (Staff Picks 2018)

Originally published in Cast of Wonders 321 for September 21, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:11 — 42.8MB)

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Show Notes

Every year in January, Cast of Wonders highlights some of our favorite episodes from the previous year. It’s a great chance for us to take a bit of a breather, and let you, our listeners, catch up on any missed back episodes with new commentary from a different member of the crew.

Today’s episode is hosted by associate editor Amy Brennan.

The Penelope Qingdom

by Aidan Moher

It was during the particularly frozen-solid Prince George winter of ’91, a few days after the new neighbours had arrived, that I first stumbled into the Penelope Qingdom. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 338: Earn Your Breath (Staff Picks 2018)

Originally published in Cast of Wonders 294 for Artemis Rising 4, March 6, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:56 — 33.3MB)

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Show Notes

Every year in January, Cast of Wonders highlights some of our favorite episodes from the previous year. It’s a great chance for us to take a bit of a breather, and let you, our listeners, catch up on any missed back episodes with new commentary from a different member of the crew.

Today’s episode is hosted by community manager Dani Daly.

Earn Your Breath

by Jaime O. Mayer

Liith had fought the Snake Island raiders every summer since her fifteenth year and had yet to taste defeat. She had dueled the boat-men of the north with their fish-belly white skin and won the pair of metal knives envied by many a man in her village. Yet, it was the sight of the latch on the cookshack door that filled her with dread. Gray Stone’s village elders said fate could not be changed, and she would rather die than prove them right. But each passing day brought her twentieth year closer, and her throat remained bare of a breath mark. (Continue Reading…)