Posts Tagged ‘Marguerite Kenner’

A Huge Announcement: Cast of Wonders is joining Escape Artists!

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Hello everyone, Marguerite here!

Two years ago, Graeme and I had an idea. I was taking over as editor and host, and along with Barry we were trying to come up with ways of expanding our audience as well as the formats and types of episodes we could produce.

Some of those changes you’ve already seen, like the introduction of the Little Wonders flash episodes and our Camp Myth serial. Others haven’t been as visible – bringing aboard additional audio producers and slush readers. We stepped up our convention presence in 2015, with appearances at Nine Worlds in London, WorldCon in Spokane, and we’ll be at FantasyCon later this month in Nottingham.

All leading up to what today I am thrilled and humbled to announce. Cast of Wonders is about to take one giant step out into the larger genre fiction world, arm in arm with some of the best respected podcasters in the business. In 2016, Cast of Wonders will be joining the Escape Artists family of podcasts, home to Podcastle, Escapepod, and Pseudopod. Did you know that the three shows combined currently have a listenership of over a quarter of a million downloads a month? Combine that with the newly launched Mothership Zeta digital magazine, and EA is one of the largest genre fiction markets out there. There’s no place better suited for Cast of Wonders’ unique and wonderful young adult stories.

You can listen to EA’s owner, Alasdair Stuart, and myself talk about the announcement in Part 1 of their annual metacast. (Listen to Part 2 and Part 3 as well – free stories!)

This also means that, as far as I know, Cast of Wonders is about to become the first PRO RATE paying young adult short fiction audio market. That’s right everyone, once the transition is complete, Cast of Wonders will be offering SFWA pro rate payments on all new fiction. Plus stepping up our reprint rates. We’ll have new contracts as well, which we’ll post an example of for our authors to review as part of the migration.

We don’t have exact dates available to share just yet. To prepare for the change-over we’ve closed to submissions, and we’ll announce when we’ll be re-opening as soon as possible; I’m thinking December is likely right now. There are lots of details still to iron out, and I’d like to prepare a list of great example stories for the EA audience to get to know what we’re about here at Cast of Wonders. If you have some favorites you think should be included, let us know.

Thanks everyone. From all of us, we hope you’re as excited as we to finally be able to take Cast of Wonders to a new professional level of audio fiction and entertainment. We’ll keep you posted as the details are confirmed. And as always – thanks for listening!

2015 Parsec Finalists!

The 2015 Parsec finalists have been announced, and Cast of Wonders has again made a fine showing!

Best Speculative Fiction Magazine or Anthology Podcast

Cast of Wonders edited by Marguerite Kenner
Pseudopod edited by Shawn M. Garrett
Seminar: An Original Anthology Show edited by Pendant Productions
The Uncanny Magazine Podcast edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas
The NoSleep Podcast edited by David Cummings

Note: Due to errors by the Parsec Committee, “Shimmer” by Amanda Ca. Davis is no longer a finalist in the Small Cast (Short Form) category.

Congratulations to all the finalists! It’s an amazing list this year, with lots of friends and colleagues from the podcasting community represented.

The winners will be announced September 5 at DragonCon.

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 173: Timelines

Originally published in Orb Speculative Fiction Volume 1 (2000)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:02 — 32.2MB)

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Show Notes

This story marks our fifth appearance of Cy De Gerch. You can find all her previous adventures here.

Timelines

by Rick Kennett

As Utopia Plain accelerated away, Captain Brown switched from aft view to forward where the star field was beginning to blue-shift. On the weapons repeater beside him the Terran ship was sliding into the sights. The repeater’s identification lights were on, blinking insistently.

At fire control Lieutenant Cy De Gerch stared at her weapons screen and said, “Range to targets now four point five million and closing.”

Across from her, Lieutenant Peters flipped back the plastic cover on the I.F.F. override and jabbed his finger down on the sensor panel. It lit with the words Genetic Code confirmed.

“Identification Friend or Foe override operating, sir,” he said.

“Range four million and closing,” said Cy.

(Continue Reading…)

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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: 22:42 — 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 151: Master Madrigal’s Mechanical Man (Staff Pick 2014)

Originally published in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, issue 29 (May 2012).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:07 — 15.7MB)

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Show Notes

Every year in January Cast of Wonders takes a break to catch our breath, plan out the year ahead, and highlight some of our favourite episodes from the year just passed.

We hope you enjoy Marguerite’s favorite story from 2014, Master Madrigal’s Mechanical Man by Scott C. Mikula, which originally aired March 23, 2014 as Cast of Wonders 120.

Master Madrigal’s Mechanical Man

by Scott C. Mikula

I tried to shut out the crowd’s roar, but the thunder of a thousand feet pounding above us in the arena stands rose until I could feel the breastplate of the mechanical swordsman vibrate beneath my touch.  Master Madrigal gestured with his palsied hand for me to replace the automaton’s helmet, but I hesitated to examine the delicate inner workings. Just one small adjustment

A cuff to the back of my head arrested my motion.  “We have spoken of this, Cetta,” said Madrigal. “There is no problem with the balance.”  He crossed his arms, tucking his useless right hand out of sight beneath his sleeve.

I persuaded my mother to send me to her uncle Madrigal after his illness, when I was just twelve years old.  The word apprentice was never used. Girls did not apprentice to craftsmen like Madrigal, and I don’t think he would have taken an apprentice in any case.  He referred to me as his hands. My deft fingers did the work his no longer could.
(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 150: Little Wonders 7 – The Season of Goodwill

Cast of Wonders 150: Little Wonders 7 – The Season of Goodwill is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:47 — 12.6MB)

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Show Notes

You’re listening to Little Wonders, our thematic flash fiction collections. This week we bring you our final episode for 2014, and lucky number 150 – a pair of stories for the inspired by the Season of Goodwill.

The Secret Ingredient Is

by Emmalia Harrington

Susan stirred the pot of soup, frowning. Hunger was supposed to be the best seasoning, but the jar was empty and there was no time to prepare more. Besides, Great-Aunt would hate it if they served something like that to guests.

Stepping away from the stove, she scanned the shelves yet again. There was salt, garlic, peppercorns, nutmeg, allspice…nothing spoke to her. Rocking back on her heels, she tried to think of what Great-Aunt would do.

The first order of business would be to run to the garden to pull up the biggest, freshest and most colorful vegetables, and see how many eggs she could muster from the quail. Once that was done, Great-Aunt would run to the shopping district to wrangle an excellent price for smoked tea. She would follow this victory by purchasing fish that still smelled of the water, and filling her basket with bread still steaming from the oven.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 147: 30 Minutes for New Hell (Part 2)

Cast of Wonders 147: 30 Minutes for New Hell (Part 2) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:23 — 26.0MB)

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30 Minutes for New Hell

by Rick Kennett

Part 2

He checked the clock again.

Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven …

From his vantage point at the weapons console at Com, Lieutenant Frank Peters looked first at the forward access hatch, then at the aft access hatch, speculating. Yes, he thought. Forward hatch. Definitely. It was slightly further from Scans, but more direct. And the Professor was nothing if not direct.

He leaned back and listened to the building power-song of the drive firing gravity rings down the hull, faster and faster, acting on every atom simultaneously, causing no g forces within.

Twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two …

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 146: 30 Minutes for New Hell (Part 1)

Cast of Wonders 146: 30 Minutes for New Hell (Part 1) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:32 — 24.3MB)

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30 Minutes for New Hell

by Rick Kennett

Part 1

What are they doing?

Cy De Gerch leaned forward and peered at the scene on one of her repeater screens. A few minutes ago, there in the middle of a New Hell desert viewed from a high-orbit drone, the Dhooj’s vehicle had suddenly stopped – skidding on its six balloon tyres, spraying red dust. Yet none of its crew, clad in their vacuum suits and transparent helmets, had so far emerged.

Which was odd, and Cy knew it. Ever since their landing on New Hell two days ago the Dhooj had been trundling along, setting up experiments, making observations, reporting excitedly back to their home world thirty million kilometres sunward like the pioneers and explorers they were. Energetic creatures, the Dhooj, not ones to just sit. Didn’t they have geological samples to take? Water probes to drill? Low g sports to play?

On impulse Cy shivered and pulled her grey tunic closer about. There was a desert wind blowing down there. She could feel it even from so distant an orbit. The scene was too much like home, too much like Mars. And well she knew that Martian winds blew forever cold.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 131: Survivor

Originally published in Fat Girl in a Strange Land (2011).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:58 — 29.3MB)

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Survivor

by Josh Roseman

Wen slumped against a crystal formation and stared up at the dark sky, lit only by greenish-gold auroras. Sweat ran down into her eyes and made her clothes cling in uncomfortable places. She wanted to sit down, wanted to take off the pack for a few minutes, but the last time she’d done that, her feet had ached even worse for the respite.

No. Better to stay standing.

She caught her breath before taking a measured swallow from the canteen that hung at her side. Gulping the water would be a mistake; in this state, she’d just throw up. Staying calm, that was the key.

One more swallow, though she ached to drain the whole thing, and then back onto its clip.

Wen’s borrowed comm pinged. Four hours to sunrise. Four hours until the witchlight above her head gave way to the burning white orb that would blast her with heat and radiation until she was nothing but a memory.

Four hours to live.
(Continue Reading…)

2014 Parsec Finalists!

The 2014 Parsec finalists have been announced, and Cast of Wonders has again made the cut! This year we’re finalists in two categories:

Best Speculative Fiction Story: Long Form

Broken by Cedric Johnson and Veronica Giguere
Camp Myth: Phoenix Watching by Chris Lewis Carter (from Cast of Wonders)
Fire on the Mound by William J. Meyer
The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 5: Shores beyond the World by Abigail Hilton
Secret World Chronicle by Mercedes Lackey, Dennis Lee, Cody Martin, Larry Dixon, and Veronica Giguere
Tales of the Left Hand, Book 3 by John Meagher

Best Speculative Fiction Magazine or Anthology Podcast

Cast of Wonders edited by Marguerite Kenner
The NoSleep Podcast edited by David Cummings
Pseudopod edited by Shawn M. Garrett
Seminar: An Original Anthology Show edited by Pendant Productions
Toasted Cake edited by Tina Connolly

Congratulations to all the finalists, and especially Cast of Wonders alumns Tina Connolly and Veronica Giguere, and our good friends at Pseudopod!

The winners will be announced August 31 at DragonCon.

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 120: Master Madrigal’s Mechanical Man

Originally published in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, issue 29 (May 2012).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:09 — 13.9MB)

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Master Madrigal’s Mechanical Man

by Scott C. Mikula

I tried to shut out the crowd’s roar, but the thunder of a thousand feet pounding above us in the arena stands rose until I could feel the breastplate of the mechanical swordsman vibrate beneath my touch.  Master Madrigal gestured with his palsied hand for me to replace the automaton’s helmet, but I hesitated to examine the delicate inner workings. Just one small adjustment

A cuff to the back of my head arrested my motion.  “We have spoken of this, Cetta,” said Madrigal. “There is no problem with the balance.”  He crossed his arms, tucking his useless right hand out of sight beneath his sleeve.

I persuaded my mother to send me to her uncle Madrigal after his illness, when I was just twelve years old.  The word apprentice was never used. Girls did not apprentice to craftsmen like Madrigal, and I don’t think he would have taken an apprentice in any case.  He referred to me as his hands. My deft fingers did the work his no longer could.
(Continue Reading…)