An urgent update on the status of Escape Artists, its three podcasts, our plans for the future, and why we desperately need your help getting there.
Mailing Address:
Escape Artists, Inc.
P.O. Box 83
Woodstock, GA 30188
Additional music provided by D-Form – http://www.reverbnation.com/dform.
Sound effects provided by users kasa90 (http://freesound.org/people/kasa90/) and TasmanianPower (http://freesound.org/people/TasmanianPower/) of FreeSound.org.
Rated PG: Contains riddles
Bronze-plated dragons with snapping shrapnel teeth guarded the landings. Those who weren’t eaten faced a wind-up Sphinx that spat out ticker-tape riddles. She hated it when they answered incorrectly; the Sphinx’ broken voice-recorder played back their dying screams for hours, until she went out and gave it a kick.
Rated PG: Contains a Rush of Sugary Sweetness (No Corn Syrup or Artificial Flavoring!)
They line up before Laurana, forty baked-clay heads atop forty bodies built of metal cylinders. Every year she casts and fires new heads to replace those lost to weather, the wild, or simple erosion. She rarely replaces the metal bodies. They are scuffed and battered, over a century old.
Every morning, the island sun beating down on her pale scalp, she stands on the maison’s porch with the golems before her. Motionless. Expressionless.
She chants. The music and the words fly into the clay heads and keep them thinking. The golems are faster just after they have been charged. They move more lightly, with more precision. With more joy. Without the daily chant they could go perhaps three days at most, depending on the heaviness of their labors.
This month is cane-planting season. She delegates the squads of laborers and sets some to carrying buckets from the spring to water the new cane shoots while others dig furrows. The roof needs reshingling, but it can wait until planting season is past. As the golems shuffle off, she pauses to water the flowering bushes along the front of the house. Placing her fingertips together, she conjures a tiny rain cloud, wringing moisture from the air. Warm drops collect on the leaves, rolling down to darken pink and gray bark to red and black.
Rated PG: Contains Riddles, Greed, and Death
by Lord Dunsany, who is dead.
Read by Steve Anderson, who is not.
There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx.
On the eve of the New Year, Rachel Swirsky and Dave Thompson talk about the Changing of the Guard and what’s in the works at PodCastle. An excerpt is included with the post. The full text of the metacast will be available at the forums. Feel free to extend your well wishes to any of the editors there.
from Rachel:
“I always knew that I wouldn’t be with PodCastle forever. Last summer, I decided that, as much fun as PodCastle was, I really needed more time to write. I’ve been very fortunate to enjoy some success with my writing career, from publishing two novellettes at Tor.com to signing a contract for an upcoming collection through Aqueduct Press, Through the Drowsy Dark.
So I went to Anna Schwind and Dave Thompson, who I had cleverly invited to the cast with this eventuality in mind, and asked if they’d be interested in taking over as editors. Happily they agreed, and they’ve been training with me for the last couple months.”
from Dave:
“Anna and I were asked to come aboard PodCastle earlier this year as deckhands, and I have to tell you, working with Rachel and Ann Leckie has been a dream come true for us. We’re both love Escape Artists in general – Anna fell in love with Escape Pod waaaaaaaaaaaay back when it was the only podcast in the family, and she heard Greg van Eekhout’s killer piece of flash “Airedale”. My first EP was Pete Butler’s “Squonk the Dragon”….
We’re going to miss Rachel. Rachel built this podcast from the sky up….
As for Anna and I? We’re not going to be sitting back in an underground hatch punching a button every 108 minutes. Nope. We’re thinking about raising ourselves an avanc, harnessing the monster, and seeing what this PodCastle has in her.
It’s gonna be a wild ride, and we hope you’ll continue on with us for the next chapter of this adventure.”
PodCastle editor Rachel Swirsky introduces three new features:
Flash Fiction Fall: wherein a flash episode will be aired once a week along with the feature episode, beginning with a set of four fables by Peter Beagle. Flash fiction fall will let PodCastle work through the archive of flash episodes which we’ve inherited from Escape Pod, getting the stories off the shelf where they’ve been gathering virtual dust and out where they belong – before the listeners.
Holiday-themed stories: for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and election day.
PodCastle Giants: special long episodes that will air once every three months, giving fantasy the room it needs to luxuriate.
PodCastle editor Rachel Swirsky talks about the vision for PodCastle, the team behind it, the arc for the first few months of stories, and the launch on April 1.
LINKS:
PodCastle official site: https://podcastle.org
PodCastle forums: http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?board=57.0
PodCastle livejournal (with slush updates): http://podcastle.livejournal.com
CONTACT:
Submissions: https://podcastle.org/guidelines/
Music credit: “Light Longing” by Catya Maré. Courtesy of the PodSafe Music Network.
Things are Officially Getting Rolling. We’re going to cast the first episode on April 1. An April Fool’s Day joke, you ask? I’ll let you determine that for yourselves.
What proof do I have that this is for real? Well, check out our opening line-up. Barring crises with contracts or reading, behold what you’ll listen to for the first six weeks. Notice that in addition to weekly full-length fiction, we’ll be airing flash every two or three weeks.
EPISODE 1 – April 1: “Come Lady Death” by Peter Beagle
Bonus Flash – April 4: “Stone Born” by Loreen Heneghan
EPISODE 2 – April 8: “For Fear of Dragons” by Carrie Vaughn
EPISODE 3 – April 15: “Run of the Fiery Horse” by Hilary Moon Murphy
Bonus Flash – April 18: “Pahwahke” by Gord Sellar
EPISODE 4 – April 22: “Goosegirl” by Margaret Ronald
EPISODE 5 – April 29: “The Girl with the Sun in Her Head” by Jeremiah Tolbert
Bonus Flash – May 2: “Giant” by Stephanie Burgis
EPISODE 6 – May 6: “The Dead Girl’s Wedding March” by Cat Rambo
You’ve found the future home of PodCastle, the world’s first fantasy audio magazine. We’re still in site development right now, but look here for news and details as we prepare to launch our podcast in October.
If you’re a writer, please be sure to check out our submission guidelines as well. We’re open to submissions immediately. If you have any questions, you can contact us at editor@podcastle.org.
Thanks very much, and you’ll be hearing from us soon!