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PodCastle Miniature 001: Stone Born

PodCastle Miniature 001: Stone Born is a PodCastle original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:38 — 3.2MB)

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Show Notes

Rated G. Contains children, school buses, and elves.

An Escape Pod flash fiction contest submission.
Flash Fiction Contest thread for Stone Born

*According to wikipedia, the word miniature is derived from the Latin minium, red lead, and is a picture in an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript. We thought it was a good way to describe very short stories with a fantasy theme: a word that indicates brievity, manuscripts, and a medieval atmosphere.

Stone Born

by Loreen Heneghan

They weren’t friends — she being a girl. Plus she had a crooked smile, a  snorting laugh, and a face like some stone-age ax. Even so, he and Brenda were the last kids on the bus route out past those cliffs. Mark let her sit with him when all the other boys were gone. He’d heard her parents were fighting over her, too. Fighting mean.

They never talked about that. As they rumbled along, Brenda taught him to look forward, never turning, even when the faces were like a crowd at the edge of the road. It was cool, like seeing into a strange, goblin world.

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PodCastle 1: Come Lady Death

First appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, 1963

Contains…well, Death.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:20 — 28.4MB)

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Come Lady Death

by Peter S. Beagle

But in time her own parties began to bore her, and though she invited the most famous people in the land and hired the greatest jugglers and acrobats and dancers and magicians to entertain them, still she found her parties duller and duller. Listening to court gossip, which she had always loved, made her yawn. The most marvelous music, the most exciting feats of magic put her to sleep. Watching a beautiful young couple dance by her made her feel sad, and she hated to feel sad.

And so, one summer afternoon she called her closest friends around her and said to them, “More and more I find that my parties entertain everyone but me. The secret of my long life is that nothing has ever been dull for me. For all my life, I have been interested in everything I saw and been anxious to see more. But I cannot stand to be bored, and I will not go to parties at which I expect to be bored, especially if they are my own. Therefore, to my next ball I shall invite the one guest I am sure no one, not even myself, could possibly find boring. My friends, the guest of honor at my next party shall be Death himself!”

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PodCastle Metacast #1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:00 — 4.1MB)

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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.

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PodCastle to Debut on April Fool’s Day

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

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Welcome!

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!