We are deeply honored to be considered for your nomination. 

Links to all of the stories included in our voter materials can also be found below; you can read and listen to the story directly from our website. All episodes include content warnings, which may contain spoilers.

Voter Selection Episodes

• PodCastle 902: Godzilla as a Young Man Named Mike.
  July 29, 2025, 4117 words; Author: E. M. Faulds; Narrator: Eliza Chan
  Duration: 0:39:55
  0:28:56: “He went on and on, relating wellness platitudes, positivity mantras, the benefits of exercise, discounted your pain and difficulty even waking up every morning, until finally something just gave inside you.

  Your neck grew longer, the protrusions at the back stretching your scaly skin so tight it seemed to glow an eerie blue. You made a sound like a distant freight train getting closer. You stretched and stretched until . . .”

• PodCastle 909: Resurrection Rum
  September 16, 2025, 4117 words; Author: Stephanie Malia Morris; Narrator: Dominick Rabrun
  Duration: 0:51:27
  0:16:21: ““You bring that boy back, and can’t you nor nobody else ever speak to him again. Not if you live to be a hundred, and him right there with you. You got that kind of love in you? You got that kind of hate?”

  “Same what you had for Pops?” When she said nothing, he leaned in. “Thank you, Grandmama.” Awkwardly, he kissed her cheek.”

• Podcastle 914: The Magnolia Returns
  October 21, 2025, 4060 words; Author: Eden Royce; Narrator: Laurice White
  Duration: 0:41:06
  0:32:53: “For the first time, the Magnolia saw itself.

  Saw itself as something more than what others called a worn-down shack, a wreck of a thing that at least had something to provide. In the eyes of this artist in the woods, there were its weather-beaten boards, lovingly rendered in hues of bluish-gray, front steps that needed careful navigation, a once-red door thrown wide in welcome.”

• PodCastle 910: Tusker Blue
  September 23, 2025, 6645 words; Author: Lalini Shanela Ranaraja; Narrator: Shweta Adhyam
  Duration: 0:57:22
  0:07:34: “The entire corner where Hailé collapsed was stained bright blue, and you scrubbed it for weeks with the coir brush, but the color never faded. On the day you lost the pharmacy Hailé’s blue was still there, a bright strip of sky obscuring the grout. There were so many memories on the floor by then that no one would ever notice Hailé’s unless they were looking for it.”
• PodCastle 913: Vedritsa of the River
  October 14, 2025, 7276 words; Author: Adriana Kantcheva; Narrator: Kat Kourbeti
  Duration: 1:04:40
  0:25:15: “I want to hear the Kamchia. A little of it has seeped into the Pup, and I promptly dip my foot in the puddle. If I’d been alone, I would’ve plunged overboard to sense the entirety of the tangled forest with my whole body. My water innervates everything: it gurgles in the swamps; it carries the swishing of aquatic snakes; it drips off leaves and beaks and paws.”
• PodCastle 924: Reverent
  December 30, 2025, 4055 words; Author: Leah Ning; Narrator: Ibba Armancas
  Duration: 0:35:00
  0:10:12: “Sit up with me,” I say gently. “Please.”

  She does, and the cumulus of her hair tumbles across her bare chest, her lips parted. I bring my fingers closer to her.

  “Open,” I whisper.

  I poke my fingers into her open mouth, and as she swallows the time I give her, she shivers, as if swimming into a cold pocket in a river.
  

• PodCastle 897: Oops! All Swords

  December 30, 2025, 3183 words; Author: Jessie Roy; Narrator: Kyle Akers
  Duration: 0:32:29
  0:16:32: “I take back everything I said about your soggy flesh brain,” Skully says while you freak out. “I’m impressed! You blew your soul right out of your body and into a deck of cards. No wonder they look so fucked up! They’re half tarot and half you.”

  “I’m not a deck of playing cards!”

  “Sure you are. It makes perfect sense.”

  It kind of does, and you hate that.