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Palestinian Voices Month

PodCastle is extremely proud to present Palestinian Voices, our special month of stories by Palestinian authors. We will be publishing one of these fabulous stories every week during November 2024, and we’re so excited to get to elevate these authors and to share their talent, creativity, and voice with the world at a time of such horrific oppression for the Palestinian people. This month is about celebrating and uplifting Palestinians, and I hope you’ll join us to read and listen to these four fantastic tales from four terrifically talented writers:

 

“Al-Kahf” by Beesan Odeh, narrated by Zeina Sleiman

“Handala. The Olive, The Storm, and the Sea” by Sonia Sulaiman, narrated by Peter Adrian Behravesh

“Badia’s Magic Water” by Maya Abu-Alhayyat, narrated by Mahtab Chenevix-Trench

“The Witch of Endor” by Karim Kattan, narrated by Amal Singh

 

We’re also thrilled to be featuring beautiful artwork by Iasmin Omar Ata, based on Sonia Sulaiman’s “Handala. The Olive, The Storm, and The Sea.” Iasmin is a Middle Eastern & Muslim award-winning comics artist, game designer, and illustrator who creates art about coping with illness, understanding identity, dismantling oppressive structures, and Arab-Islamic futurism. Their recent graphic novel, Mis(h)adra, has resonated with readers and reviewers alike with its vivid and searingly honest account of epileptic lived experience. Iasmin has been reviewed by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, The Electronic Intifada, Library Journal, NPR, and such; they’ve taught & spoken at the New York Public Library and Harvard University. They thrive on dedication, dreams, and hard work — and believe wholeheartedly in the healing power of art. They are an Ignatz Award winner and an Excellence In Graphic Literature Award finalist, and their newest graphic novel, NAYRA AND THE DJINN, is now available in stores everywhere.

Our cover art design is by Matt Dovey.

 

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PodCastle 863: Cast of Wonders Trick-Or-Treat Episode – The Illusionist’s Tent

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:10 — 29.5MB)

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The Illusionist’s Tent

By H. K. Payne

 

I was told we had the night off, but I guess no one told you kids that. Tell me, whose idea was it to come trick-or-treating through our camp? I suppose it was yours, since you’re the only one here. You do realize we’re a bunch of broke circus performers, don’t you? Well, since you’re here, we might as well get this over with. Which do you want: the trick or the treat?

Treat? All right, let’s see. What have I got… Here you go. A handbill folded into the shape of a bird.

What do you mean, it doesn’t look like a bird? It’s a swan, obviously.

You have some nerve, showing up outside a man’s tent on his night off, demanding a treat and then insulting his paper-folding abilities. Yes, I know it’s not a very good paper swan, but what do you expect? This isn’t my area of expertise. You’re the one who came to an illusionist asking for a treat.

(Continue Reading…)

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PC 862: FLASH FICTION EXTRAVAGANZA: Canine Companions

“A Strange and Terrible Wonder” Previously published by Zooscape

“The Dog Who Buried the Sea” Previously published by Flash Fiction Online

“What Wags the World” Previously published by Daily Science Fiction

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:13 — 51.6MB)

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Show Notes

“A Strange and Terrible Wonder” Rated PG

“The Dog Who Buried the Sea” Rated G

“What Wags the World” Rated G

A Strange and Terrible Wonder

by Katie McIvor

 

The dog bus makes its rounds once a year through the lands of myth. Starting in the north, in the early morning — so early it’s barely yet light — the bus rolls up to a middle-of-nowhere sign by the roadside. In the misty grey dawn, in the shadow of the hill which mounts into blackness above, the Cù Sìth is waiting. Its haunches twitch on the wet grass.

As the bus approaches, the Cù Sìth emits three sharp, haunting barks, which for miles around cause children to wake from their sleep and huddle in their blankets, sheltering their heads beneath the safety of pillows.

The door wheezes open. Onto the first step come the Cù Sìth’s paws. The smell of stagnant water precedes it. Up close, the dog’s fur is a dark, bog-like green, the colours of the endless moor. Its eyes burn with a spectral gleam. The driver nods hello, and with a whine the Cù Sìth bumps its nose up into his hand. Its claws click on the vinyl as it makes its way down the aisle. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 861: A Most Lovely Song

PodCastle 861: A Most Lovely Song is a PodCastle original.

Content warnings for war, parental death, assault, a racial slur, and references to torture, genocide, and terrorism.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:24 — 71.1MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13

A Most Lovely Song

by Albert Chu

 

It’s 1939, and the drone of piston engines fills the sky over Chungking. The G3M bombers are right overhead, close enough for people to see the red hinomaru emblazoned beneath their wings. They release their bombs, one by one, and the explosions rattle the earth, and they flatten the buildings, and in their wake, they leave behind the dead.

Now, a boy cries, “Baba! Baba!”

He’s crouched by a pile of rubble, trying in vain to pull a lifeless arm out from under it. Nobody’s around; only the shattered buildings witness his struggle.

He doesn’t notice the straggling G3M until its shadow passes over him. As he looks up in alarm, he hears the whistle of the falling bomb. He’s stuck staring, frozen, at the sky. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 860: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Something Wicked This Way Plumbs

Previously published by Shimmer and as PodCastle 128

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:42 — 46.8MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

Something Wicked This Way Plumbs

by Vylar Kaftan

Oh, the watercooler jug? Yeah, I get some questions about that. Not a lot of visitors here in my office, but most people notice it right away. It reminds me how important plumbing skills are. Never know when they’ll save Halloween. Or your life.

It happened last year. I’d come into the office early, because I was on deadline—and a month behind on bills. To make things worse, my girlfriend had the flu, and I’d promised to be there by 5 to take her boys trick-or-treating. So here I was in the men’s restroom, at 7:30 on Halloween morning. I shook out a few drops, zipped my pants, and went to the sink. It’s one of those two-faucet deals with handles on each side and a wide central spigot. I turned the cold water tap.

Candy streamed out of the faucet like the entrails of a slaughtered piñata. The sink filled with Skittles, candy corn, and jellybeans. They rattled against each other as they spilled over the basin’s edge. Startled, I turned the faucet off.

(Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 859: John Gladwin Says…

Originally published in The London Magazine, August 1928.

Content warnings for the off-screen deaths of a spouse and sons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:22 — 49.1MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

John Gladwin Says . . .

by Oliver Onions

 

If we are to believe John Gladwin, the oncoming car made no attempt to avoid him, but held straight on. It held on at top speed, he says, for the first he saw of it was the sudden blinding gold of the afternoon sun on its screen, almost on top of him. He was not woolgathering or thinking of anything else at the time, and he had been for years a teetotaller. As for there not being any other car there at all, he naturally scouts the idea, for if there had been no other car why should he have made that violent and instinctive swerve? He did swerve; something hurtled past him; into the hedge and through it he and his car plunged; and where a moment before the white secondary road had run straight as a ruler for miles, he found himself on soft green, still at the wheel, his screen unbroken, his engine still running.

He says that his first thought was this — people ought not to drive like that. All was quiet on the road behind him, but the fellow could hardly be out of sight yet. John Gladwin came to life. He climbed as quickly as he was able out of the car and pushed through the hole he had made in the hedge.

Properly speaking he had not come through the hedge at all. He had broken through a thin part of it, a gap, thinly tangled over, and his car had come to rest on an old grass-grown track beyond. He looked first down the long white road. There was no sign of any other car, and no other roads ran into it. Then he looked at his own wheel marks in the dust, and they rather scared him. Heavens! What a mercy he had been crawling along! It would be just as well to report a lunatic who drove like that.

(Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 858: Roti Time Travel

PodCastle 858: Roti Time Travel is a PodCastle original.

Content warnings for grief, addiction, and the deaths of a spouse and child

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:46 — 48.2MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13

Roti Time Travel

by Joshua Lim

 

You put a strip of roti in your mouth and chew —

— and now your living room is wreathed in shadows by the angry grey skies outside the windows. Your son crawls across the floor, chasing after the ball which rolls under the sofa where you sit. He looks up at you with large pearly eyes, saliva dripping from his lips. “Appa.”

From the kitchen you hear the clatter of utensils. Your wife is spooning baby food into a container. You attempt to move, but your body is rooted to the sofa. All you can do is stare at your son’s pure, innocent face, wishing you could remain like this forever. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 857: Ecdysis

PodCastle 857: Ecdysis is a PodCastle original.

Content warning for ableism (including ableist language) and scenes of a sexual nature

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:32 — 46.6MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R

Ecdysis

by Samir Sirk Morató

 

My husband never got over being a lindworm.

Understandably. For over two decades, he was a serpent wider than an oak barrel and longer than a warship; for under two years, he’s been human. Had someone changed me from a shark-swallowing, black-and-blood-banded titan to a naked, knobbly beast with limbs, I would’ve killed them and myself, even if we were wed.

Yet wed we were. Our betrothal was as crushing as my husband’s past coils: because he was a princess-eating monster, he needed to be murdered; because he was a princely man, he needed to be married.

“My eldest needs a bride or a coffin,” the queen told my father. “He’s forbidding his younger brother from marrying before he does, and no more princesses will come. We’re out of options. Surrender your daughter.” (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 856: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Clouds in a Clear Blue Sky

PodCastle 856: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Clouds in a Clear Blue Sky is a PodCastle original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:49 — 57.9MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13

Clouds in a Clear Blue Sky

By Matt Dovey

It were a clear blue day, what with the factory shut for the funeral and wake.

Colin was slumped in the pub garden’s swing, his straw hair sticking out every which way despite his mam’s best efforts with the Brylcreem. Me and Trev were stood by quiet, our hands lost in the oversized pockets of our borrowed suits. Trev’s cheeks had gone red and purple in the heat, his top button still done up and straining against his neck.

Mark came back out the pub with a plate of sausage rolls that he offered round.

“What’s it like in there?” I asked.

“Grim,” said Mark. “Your Uncle Gareth’s lost his jacket, and then he says it doesn’t matter compared to losing Colin’s dad, and then he starts crying again. Seen it happen three times while I were at the buffet.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. “Best mates, weren’t they?”

Colin grunted, swung himself a bit harder, but said nowt.

“Here, Colin,” said Mark, holding the plate out. “Fancy a sausage roll?”

Colin shrugged, carried on almost as if he hadn’t heard. Then he got up and stomped to the picnic bench and drank his Coke back in one go, then slammed the glass down so hard we all flinched thinking it’d smash.

“This is shit,” Colin said. “Really shit. Shit shit shit.” (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 855: Shim Hyeon and the Ocean God

PodCastle 855: Shim Hyeon and the Ocean God is a PodCastle original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:45 — 50.9MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

Shim Hyeon and the Ocean God

by Seoung Min Kim

 

“They usually send maidens.”

The Ocean God’s voice is a deep and resonant drawl. The whole palace smells of brine and sealife, like the fish market back in Inju. There are lights, but not from candles or lanterns — it’s a faint luminescence radiating from the walls. Shim Hyeon has his forehead pressed to the cool stone of the palace floor, but even if it was raised, he could not see the throne clearly from this distance.

“What is your name?”

“I am known in the village as Shim Bongsa.” Shim the Blind — and only for the past ten years since his eyes clouded, but the village must not remember him as he was before. He doesn’t let his true name leave his tongue. (Continue Reading…)