Archive for Miniatures

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PodCastle Miniature 102: What the Sea Reaps, We Must Provide

Previously published in Diabolical Plots, and The Best of British Fantasy 2019, edited by Jared Shurin and NewCon Press.

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What the Sea Reaps, We Must Provide

by Eleanor R. Wood

The ball bounces off the tide-packed sand and Bailey leaps to catch it with lithe grace and accuracy. He returns to deposit it at my feet for another go. It’s nearly dusk; the beach is ours on this January evening. It stretches ahead, the rising tide low enough to give us ample time to reach the sea wall.

Bailey’s devotion to his ball is second only to his pack. He is never careless with it, relinquishing it only at my command or to give Bernie the occasional chase. Bernie brings up the rear, my shaggy bear, staying close but lacking Bailey’s fierce duty to his ball.

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PodCastle Miniature 101: National Geographic on Assignment: The Unicorn Enclosure

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National Geographic on Assignment: The Unicorn Enclosure

by Sarah Monette

In the unicorn enclosure, all five unicorns are clustered along the fence, batting their long eyelashes beguilingly at a troop of girl scouts. The girls ooh and aah and argue about which one is prettiest, and the unicorns trail them patiently down the perimeter line.

These unicorns are captive-born (two from San Diego, one from Brookyn, one from Mexico City, and the stud all the way from Manchester in an attempt to maintain genetic diversity in North America’s captive breeding program); they’ve never hunted anything but sides of beef. But they’re too smart not to recognize their natural prey, even through plexiglas. The zoologists call the behavior I’m witnessing “playing,” in the same way a domestic cat “plays” with a mouse. Seen from the mouse’s standpoint, it’s not much of a game.

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PodCastle Miniature 100: Seven Things That Oughtn’t Cut Me

Content Warning: Self-harm/suicide

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:52 — 8.0MB)

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Seven Things That Oughtn’t Cut Me

By Jessi Cole Jackson

They say troll girls appear only in brilliant shades of armored green. Their skin is faceted, unpierceable, and gleams in the sunlight like emeralds. They say we cannot be drab or fragile. They say we cannot bleed.

If only.

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PodCastle Miniature 99: Ghost of the Shoals

Spirits Tincturek, June 2016

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Show Notes

Rated R

Ghost of the Shoals

By Sandra M. Odell

Pharah Dupree always wore her hair up tight.

“You ever hear of Muscle Shoals, Manny?” she said one afternoon. We sat on the back porch steps of Rock Bottom Studios, her with a cigarette, me with a longneck Bud, thinking about how good it’d feel if she smiled my way. “Some of the best music in the world came out of Muscle Shoals, all the big names. Aretha, Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Wilson Pickett, Bob Dylan, Percy Sledge.”

The sun beat the sweat out of me and cut dusty shadows through the trees around the edge of the gravel parking lot. “Yeah. They say the Tennessee River’s what makes the Muscle Shoals sound.”

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