Fantasy Podcasts

Fantasy

One night, I woke to the sound of my mother’s voice, as I did when I was a child. The words were familiar to my ear, they matched the voice that formed them, but it was not until I had opened my eyes to the dark of my room and my husband’s snoring that I remembered the words were calling me away from my warm bed and the steady breathing of my children, both asleep in their own rooms across the hall. “Because I could not stop for death,” my mother used to tell me, “he kindly stopped for me.”

In Apr. 2013 (Issue 35)

Fantasy

The Bolt Tightener

by Sarena Ulibarri

Author spotlight

“There are one thousand eight hundred bolts total,” the old man said. “You’ll work every night until sunrise. Always go in order. Never skip a bolt.”

In Mar. 2013 (Issue 34)

Fantasy

Lily Red

by Karen Joy Fowler

Author spotlight

One day Lily decided to be someone else. Someone with a past. It was an affliction of hers, wanting this. The desire was seldom triggered by any actual incident or complaint but seemed instead to be related to the act or prospect of lateral movement. She felt it every time a train passed.

In Mar. 2013 (Issue 34)

Fantasy

The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest

by M. Bennardo

Author spotlight

A loon called this morning, loud and clear in the cold hours before dawn, but it was not that which woke me from my sleep. As I opened my eyes, the bay and the beach were wrapped in heavy blackness, invisible clouds shutting out any hint of starlight above. For a moment, I lay in my lean-to, breathing heavily under the shaggy bison skin blanket.

Illustrated by Galen Dara

In Feb. 2013 (Issue 33)

Fantasy

Prolegomenon to the Adventures of Chílde Phoenix

by Marly Youmans

Author spotlight

Perhaps you’ve heard an anecdote about a child named Cresencio who was skipping barefoot between hills of corn when a shallow bowl in the field, long turbulent with mutterings, broke into pieces. Cresencio spied a tongue of smoke, like the mockings of a demon; he bent, staring into the jagged mouth that was about to spatter the nearby trees with sparks and set his childhood on fire.

Illustrated by Galen Dara

In Feb. 2013 (Issue 33)

Fantasy

Purity Test

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Author spotlight

My feet are scraped and bleeding, my slippers shredded and almost useless. The dress hangs in tatters around me. No longer white, it still bears the pearls along the bodice, and I hope I can keep them close and sell them in whatever town I find myself in. Provided I find a town. Provided I ever leave these woods. I have traveled for two days, surviving on puddle water and berries, hoping that the sounds I hear behind me aren’t my father, Roland, and the dogs.

In Jan. 2013 (Issue 32)

Fantasy

Daltharee

by Jeffrey Ford

Author spotlight

You’ve heard of bottled cities, no doubt—society writ miniscule and delicate beyond reason: toothpick spired towns, streets no thicker than thread, pin-prick faces of the citizenry peering from office windows smaller than sequins. Hustle, politics, fervor, struggle, capitulation, wrapped in a crystal firmament might reclaim the land, stoppered at the top to keep reality both in and out. Those microscopic lives, striking glass at the edge of things, believed themselves gigantic, their dilemmas universal.

In Jan. 2013 (Issue 32)

Fantasy

Family Teeth (Part 6): St. Polycarp’s Home For Happy Wanderers

by Sarah Langan

Author spotlight

Sheila Halpern got her looks from her Momma, who died pushing her out. Died before, even, but still kept pushing. “You’re the prettiest thing in the whole darn world,” her daddy told her the day he put her on the train for the St. Polycarp’s Home for Happy Wanderers, his age-soft teeth all chipped so everything sounded muffled. She was eight years old, lice riddled, and 90% liar like her daddy.

Illustrated by Galen Dara

In Dec. 2012 (Issue 31)

Fantasy

Family Teeth (Part 5): American Jackal

by JT Petty

Author spotlight

He watched her legs approach in the mirror and smiled down at the butter melting on his pancakes when she sat on the stool beside him. “You’re free to sit anywhere you like, but I can’t much promise to be good company,” he said.

Illustrated by Galen Dara

In Dec. 2012 (Issue 31)

Fantasy

A Princess of Spain

by Carrie Vaughn

Author spotlight

Catherine of Aragon, sixteen years old, danced a pavane in the Spanish style before the royal court of England. Lutes, horns, and tabors played a slow, stately tempo, to which she stepped in time. The ladies of her court, who had traveled with her from Spain, danced with her, treading circles around one another—floating, graceful, without a wasted movement.

In Nov. 2012 (Issue 30)