By now, you’re sure to have heard about Artemis Rising 2! It’s a special month-long event featuring stories by some of the best female and non-binary authors in genre fiction, airing across all the Escape Artists podcasts in February 2016.

We’re very pleased to announce that EA has commissioned a special art print for Artemis Rising 2 by none other than Galen Dara!

Galen likes monsters, mystics, and dead things. She has created art for Uncanny Magazine, 47North publishing, Skyscape Publishing, Fantasy Flight Games, Tyche Books, Fireside Magazine, Lightspeed, Lackington’s, and Resurrection House. She has been nominated for the Hugo, the World Fantasy Award, and the Chesley Award. When Galen is not working on a project you can find her on the edge of the Sonoran Desert, climbing mountains and hanging out with an assortment of human and animal companions. Her website is www.galendara.com plus you can find her on Facebook and Twitter @galendara.

Here’s an example of her wonderfully thoughtful pieces, included in the 2015 Spectrum Fantastic Art annual.

Happy October, everyone!

We received a tremendous number of submissions from this year’s Artemis Rising call. Many thanks to everyone who sent us something — the quantity and quality of the stories has been extraordinary. In order to give proper attention to all the submissions we’ve received, we’ll be temporarily closed to new submissions beginning November 1. We expect to reopen our submissions portal in January 2016.

Thank you for your patience! We look forward to reading your stories.

Best,

Rachael K. Jones and Graeme Dunlop

PodCastle Co-Editors

During the month of September, PodCastle is looking for submissions to celebrate ARTEMIS RISING, a special month-long event across all three Escape Artists podcasts featuring stories by some of the best female and nonbinary authors in genre fiction.

For ARTEMIS RISING, PodCastle is looking to fill the entire month with original fantasy fiction. Payment will be $.06 per word.

Our sister podcasts are also taking original submissions for the event. Please visit Escape Pod for science fiction, and PseudoPod for horror.

Who Can Submit

Anyone who identifies as a woman, to whatever degree that they do. Nonbinary authors are also  welcome and encouraged to submit stories.

As always, we at PodCastle strongly encourage submissions from people of backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented or excluded from traditional fantasy fiction, including, but not limited to, people of color, LGBTQ authors, persons with disabilities, members of religious minorities, and people from outside the United States.  Our goal is to publish fantasy that reflects the diversity of the human race, so we strongly encourage submissions from these or any other underrepresented groups.

What to Submit

Send in your best original fantasy fiction between 2,000 – 6,000 words.

You can send PodCastle one submission for ARTEMIS RISING. If we have another story under consideration already in the general submissions queue, we’d be happy to consider an additional story for ARTEMIS RISING.

We do accept simultaneous submissions, with one exception: while you’re welcome to submit to all three ARTEMIS RISING calls (Escape Pod for science fiction and PseudoPod for horror), please don’t send the same story to more than one ARTEMIS RISING call at a time. Wait until you receive an answer, and then feel free to submit it to another Escape Artists call, if appropriate.

While we’ll be accepting a limited number of stories for ARTEMIS RISING, all stories will be considered for regular PodCastle too.

How to Submit

Start writing now, and keep an eye out for a special ARTEMIS RISING Submittable portal. Submissions will be open for the month of September 2015.

Please reference our usual submission guidelines for formatting.

Thanks, and we look forward to reading your stories!

Graeme Dunlop and Rachael K. Jones, Editors

Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, Guest Co-Editor

In January of 2015, editors Dave Thompson and Anna Schwind announced their retirement from PodCastle. New editors Kitty NicIaian and Dawn Phynix were scheduled to take their place in April. While they’ve been hard at work behind the scenes for the last few months, they’re unfortunately no longer able to take the helm at PodCastle as previously planned. We wish them all the best as they move on to new adventures.

In their place, Dave and Anna have tapped Rachael K. Jones and Graeme Dunlop as the new co-editors of PodCastle.

Rachael K. Jones is a PodCastle author, occasional guest host, and longtime fan. Since 2013, she served as Escape Pod’s Submissions Editor. She is excited for the opportunity to carry on Podcastle’s tradition of excellent, diverse fantasy fiction alongside Graeme.

Graeme Dunlop has been formally associated with Escape Artists since March 2011, starting with Pseudopod as Audio Producer. He’s an avid fan of PodCastle and has hugely enjoyed narrating there on a regular basis. Since February 2014 he has assisted as PodCastle Associate Editor. He looks forward to working with Rachael to continue bringing high-quality fantasy to the ‘Castle’s many fans.

PodCastle submissions will be temporarily closed during April while the upcoming schedule is arranged. We’re unable to proceed with the the previously scheduled quarterly themed anthology, but all open submissions will be read, considered, and responded to before we reopen for new submissions.

Have any questions? Graeme and Rachael can be reached at editor@podcastle.org.

Beginning February 20, Podcastle is using an online submission manager to streamline the submission and acceptance process and improve communications with authors and among our editors. The submission page includes guidelines for the current submission call and our current rates.

We will no longer accept submissions by email after 2/20/15, but please be assured that our editors will read and respond to any story that is already in our system – you do not need to resubmit!

Speaking of rates: Podcastle rates are increasing to 6 cents per word for original fiction and 2 cents per word for reprints. We hope authors are as excited by this as we are! Flash fiction (under 1000 words) remains a flat $20 per piece.

We are very excited by these changes, and expect that they will be of benefit to our authors – and listeners!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Initially, when we closed for submissions we also announced that we would be reopening on January 1. For various reasons, we’ve decided we’re going to wait a little bit longer to reopen. We’re not sure of the exact date yet, but we don’t expect it will too far off in the future, and will make plenty of noise when that date is announced.

Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to seeing your stories soon.

Best,

Dave Thompson and Anna Schwind,
Editors

This is a brief update on the status of our Artemis Rising submissions.

Initially, when the call for submissions was made, I had thought we’d be able to respond to them all by Christmas (yesterday). We received many more submissions than we’d expected, and as a result, we’re running a little behind. (This is not a complaint – we’re floored and delighted by the quality of submissions we’ve seen.)

As a result, we need to extend our response deadline for a couple more weeks. We plan to have responded to all of our submissions by January 9th.

We do apologize for the delay, and appreciate your patience.

This is going to be a very special month for PodCastle and all of Escape Artists. Thanks for participating in it with us!

Sincerely,

Dave Thompson and Anna Schwind,
Editors, PodCastle