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Announcement: PodCastle Is Trialling a Six Month Submissions Window


Greetings, writers of fantasy fiction!

We at PodCastle are due to open back up to general submissions in November. When we do, instead of our usual one month open period, we plan to open for six months, closing at the end of April.

This is a big change from our usual way of doing things. We hope that this longer period will make our submissions more accessible to authors, and workloads more manageable for our crew. As it is a trial, we anticipate a few bumps in the road while we learn what works best. Please bear with us if we take longer to respond than usual in this period.

All our usual Submissions Guidelines still apply.

We look forward to reading your stories, as and when you’re ready to send them to us. You’ve got plenty of time!

~ Wanini Kimemiah and Devin Martin, PodCastle Co-Editors

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PodCastle 913: Vedritsa of the River

Show Notes

Rated PG


Vedritsa of the River

by Adriana Kantcheva

 

The Kamchia river had grown turgid after a storm. I surfaced from my habitual pool and bent over the young girl as she lay washed on the bank, her limbs cold and pale as the settling twilight. A small tin boat lay near her half-opened hand — the reason she took a tumble into my river.

I paused.

Yes, though weak, a current flowed beneath the child’s skin; her heart still worked. I placed a palm on her chest.

The river water in the girl’s lungs had no choice but to obey me. I willed it out, and it obliged in a single great spurt. As if she had waited for just that, the girl’s eyes flew open, her hand clamping around my wrist with desperate strength. Her grip tightened while she coughed and choked to take that first breath. She finally managed, yet still she held onto me, her eyes — ah, those eyes the color of storm clouds — taking in my long, green hair, my crown of living dragonflies, my gown of moss and lilies. We stared at each other for an eternity. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 912: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – The Tanuki-Kettle

Show Notes

Rated G


The Tanuki-Kettle

by Eugie Foster

When Hisa was a baby, her mother called in a soothsayer to cast her daughter’s horoscope. The old woman pulled out her astrology charts and consulted them while incense turned the air blue with perfumed smoke. That day, the fortuneteller had a headache and was in a black mood. Though Hisa’s mother brought her a cup of hot, green tea and fanned her sweating brow, the old woman continued to scowl.

“This child will be too bold for her own good,” the fortuneteller grumbled.

“Is there nothing I can do?” asked Hisa’s distraught mother. “I could hire tutors to teach her the folly of brashness.”

“That is not sufficient.”  The soothsayer’s eyes lit upon the brimming teapot. “She must grow up to be a lowly tea girl.” (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 911: Mycelium

Show Notes

Rated PG


Mycelium

by Beth Goder

 

I only travel to the golden head when the dragonflies are in season. It’s Piack and me this year, rafting up the river past the lilies and arched trees. While I steer us through the river’s gentle snarls, he sings about lost keys to pass the time — he’s always had a thing about lost keys and the doors they’ll never open, the places we’ll never find.

“Are you going to eat what the head gives you?” asks Piack. He’s one year older than I am — nineteen. With the sun behind him, his form swims in light.

The dragonflies buzz around us, brush their wings against our faces.

Piack’s scent is like apples after harvest, and the soft smell of bark, and some deeper, stranger thing. The first time I saw him, he was running through flax fields for the joy of it. I dropped my basket to join him, feet smashing through fallen stems. We were two wild children, stomping across logs, burrowing into fleecy snow, cracking open walnuts like badgers and scuffling through the shells. That feels like so long ago, now.

He brushes dragonflies from my cheek, and as he cups his hand, it looks as if he’s catching the setting sun. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 910: Tusker Blue

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


Tusker Blue

by Lalini Shanela Ranaraja

 

You still remember the first time Hailé visited the pharmacy, because that was the day the rogue battle elephant overturned the village water tank and flooded five stores on Sacred Heart Road. The pharmacy was one of them, and you were bailing it out with a plastic jug, swearing a blue streak, when the bells jangled over the door. Without turning, you shouted, “As you can see, the pharmacy is closed today!”

“Please help me,” begged a voice hoarse with smoke, and you plunged your arm into the yellow water and cursed Raj, as you’d done frequently since the wedding, for leaving you to handle customers along with everything else. “If you just walk to Trincomalee Street, the surgeon’s office will be opening soon — ” (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 909: Resurrection Rum

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


Resurrection Rum

by Stephanie Malia Morris

After Kraus’s The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch

 

ALBEMARLE COUNTY, July 1927: WANTED! One ROBERT HOWARD for the MURDER of JOHN LITTLE. Physical description: NEGRO MALE of lightish hue, aged SEVENTEEN or EIGHTEEN, of LOW STATURE and AVERAGE BUILD, head PEANUT-SHAPED with CLOSE-CROPPED hair. Known to dress above his station in GENTLEMAN’S SUITS, outrageous HANDKERCHIEFS, and WING-TIPPED SHOES (stolen, all). Wanted also for the illegal possession and transport of RESURRECTION RUM across county lines. KNOWN ASSOCIATES: a gang of six or seven Negro rumrunners both MALE and FEMALE variously aged TWELVE to NINETEEN (descriptions, sketches below). DANGEROUS BY ASSOCIATION. REWARD $100 for information leading to hideout and/or capture. Suspect known to be ARMED and HIGHLY DANGEROUS. DO! NOT!! APPROACH!!! Report all sightings to the Albemarle County Sheriff’s Office at the following address: —— (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 908: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Said the Princess

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


Said the Princess

by Dani Atkinson

 

Once upon a time in a far-off land, in a tiny room, in a tall tower, at the centre of a vast and impenetrable maze, the princess Adrienna cocked her head and frowned.

“Who said that?” said the princess.

She looked around the tower room, but saw no one.

“This isn’t funny. Who’s there?” said the princess.

She crouched by the bed. Underneath it she found the chamber pot and a nervous brown spider. The princess shuddered. Straightening up quickly and dusting off her rosy skirts, she paced the circumference of the room, searching every inch. There were not many inches to search, as after all it was a prison, and not elaborately furnished or overburdened with good hiding places.

“Where is that coming from? Who are you?” said the princess, stopping by the barred window.

“No, really, who are you? And quit saying ‘said the princess’ after everything I say!” said the prin . . . Oh. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 907: Maintenance Phase

Show Notes

Rated PG


Maintenance Phase

by A.D. Ellicott

Mary woke in an unfamiliar bed, gasping for breath.

She recalled the shots, the dancing, the giggling stumble into a stranger’s apartment while they pulled off each other’s dresses. Her internal organs felt cramped up together, as though they were rats fighting for scarce space in the sewers. Her plan was to sneak home later in the night and return to her own form, but instead she’d slept shifted. She groaned and smacked her hand over her eyes.

“She wakes!” someone yelled from outside the open bedroom door. Her bedmate from last night walked in, red hair in a messy bun and spatula held aloft. “Want pancakes?” (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 906: DOUBLE EPISODE: The House, The Witch, and Sugarcane Stalks and To Pluck a Twisted String

Show Notes

Rated PG


The House, the Witch, and Sugarcane Stalks

by Amanda Helms

 

The house wakes from its somnolence as the witch trudges up the path made of tarts. Through its rock-candy windows, the house scans her figure for any signs of hurt. The witch’s errands in the city make her nervous. And the house, being made of her magic and therefore of the witch, worries along with her that the wrong person might recognize her, or simply think they do. “They say Creoles all look alike,” she’s said, bitter.

It astounds the house, that the witch could be mistaken for any other but herself. That someone could fail to identify her tightly coiling black hair, her agate eyes, her russet skin as the witch’s, and the witch’s alone. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 905: The Next Dead Wife

Show Notes

Rated PG-13


The Next Dead Wife

by Jeanna Mason Stay

 

Every time a new wife crosses my husband’s threshold, I tell myself this time will be different. This time I’ll go free.

As her body falls to the floor, I’ll seize my opportunity. As her soul rises from her body, I will snatch what should be mine — no cliched tunnel of light, just a doorway into the afterlife. But it will be my turn this time, my door. I’ll take it before she can.

Not that I’ve been able to yet. When the moment comes, I am frozen in place. I can only watch as she enters the door and disappears. And I hate her for it. (Continue Reading…)