Far Fetched Fables

First Story: “The Dream Eaters” by A.M. Dellamonica

Mo Cottonsmith had just turned sixteen when she started Lopside Fashions, with cash she stole from a neighborhood fizz dealer. The money wasn’t enough to sustain a business, but Mo counted on getting lucky. She believed in making her own luck, too: thanks to a roving copcam, her first creation just happened to debut on all the morning news shows.

The dress was daffodil yellow with simulated dewdrops on the bodice and a chainmail hoop skirt. Mo’s pal Juanita Jones was modeling, and the footage showed her fighting off a couple of deviants.

A.M. Dellamonica has recently moved to Toronto, Canada, after 22 years in Vancouver. In addition to writing, she studies yoga and takes thousands of digital photographs. She is a graduate of Clarion West and teaches writing through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

Dellamonica’s first novel, Indigo Springs, won the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her most recent book, Child of a Hidden Sea, was released by Tor Books in the summer of 2014. She is the author of more than thirty short stories in a variety of genres; they can be found on Tor.com, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and in numerous print magazines and anthologies.

Her website is at alyxdellamonica.com.

Second Story: “The Flying Woman” by Meghan McCarron

The flying woman is just a little bit glamorous. I don’t know if the flying came before the glamour or vice versa, but her beauty is airy, and her flying has style. In this picture, she wears her hair long and wavy. Her nose flips up at the end, like a ski jump, and her skin is ruddy from the wind. She’s a more beautiful woman than I am. I don’t mind. If the image were a daguerreotype, she would seem mysterious. If it were a bust, she would seem noble. If it were a holy card, she would be a saint. But the image is a photograph on my wall, and when people see it, they all say, Who is that? She looks so far away.

Meghan McCarron’s writing has recently appeared in The Collagist, The Toast, and Gigantic Worlds, and her short fiction has been a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy awards. A food and restaurant obsessive, she is the editor of Eater Austin.

You can find her online at meghanmccarron.com and also on Twitter.

About the Narrators:

Heidi Hotz is not just another voice. She’s a voiceover artists with a range of personalities that varies from mom to the business corporate, to the friendly girl next door. She has been in the industry for more than 10 years, and has worked on TV commercials, radio, documentaries, audio fiction, and narration in general.

You can find her online at LinkedIn.

Sarah Frederickson was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting — both onstage and off — and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St. Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music Business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

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Flash Fiction: “Fool’s Fire” by Hayley E. Lavik

It’s the cold mud that wakes me, and the taste of duckweed in my throat. In my mouth, my nose, my ears. It fills my lungs, creeps behind my eyes. I burst through the slime with a half-formed scream.

I retch until I feel empty, hollow, withered. Stagger to my feet, knee-high in the sticking black mire. The mud keeps oozing from my eyes. Fetid bog slime on my arms, my breasts, my mother’s finest dress. Torn bodice, rent seams in starlight. Embroidered with weed, black mud in a putrid train behind me. But where is he?

Hayley E. Lavik writes fantasy novels and short fiction, most likely involving swords, things with teeth, and women who get shit done. She lives in rainy Vancouver, BC.

You can find her at www.hayleyelavik.com and also on Twitter.

Main Fiction: “Justice” by Suzan Harden

The tinkling bells that lined her cloak announced the girl’s presence as I ate my breakfast. “Justice Anthea, may I speak with you privately?”

Most Orrin inns were incredibly noisy, but the crowd here grew even more boisterous. It wasn’t often a priestess of Love addressed a priestess of Balance in a public business. Not that I could tell if her cloak was the appropriate red silk. At least, not the way most people saw the color. But the clientele went out of their way to speak loudly and ignore us.

The dry musk of pigs underlaid her expensive perfume. I spooned the last bit of eggs into my mouth. Even if her odor hadn’t given her away, she didn’t bother to sit or give her name as an equal should.

Maybe she was too cocky about her deception. Or she was too frightened.

Suzan Harden grew up on a working farm in Ohio Amish country, though she’s not Amish. Mucking out pig stalls gives a girl lots of time to make up stories. She currently lives in southeastern Texas with a husband who believes writing is a practical career option, a kid who thinks she’s too enamored with zombies, and a beagle who wants his belly scratched.

You can find her online at www.SuzanHarden.com

About the Narrators:

Sarah Frederickson was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting — both onstage and off — and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St. Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music Business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

Deanna Sanchez is a voice over talent and actress, performing professionally for 14 years. She has voiced various commercials, industrials, and characters, and specializes in the “sexy voice” of powerful female roles. An avid fan of science fiction since her grandfather gave her a copy of Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky when she was 9, she feels greatly privileged to help bring this story to life.

While pursuing a voice talent and acting career, Deanna also consults in Geographical Information Systems and develops custom mapping applications for real estate and other industries. Her background in IT management does not prevent her from owning multiple old computers, some with Windows 98 still running. Three-dimensional visualization of spatial data is a favorite pastime, and she has spent many hours translating real-Earth elevation data into unique 3D worlds. Deanna’s voice over demo can be heard at the Lambert Studios website, an outstanding full service recording studio.

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First Story: “The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats” by Scott Lynch

“I took up the study of magic because I wanted to live in the beauty of transfinite mathematical truths,” said Rumstandel. He gestured curtly. In the canyon below us, an enemy soldier shuddered, clutched at his throat, and began vomiting live snakes.

“If my indifference were money you’d be the master of my own personal mint,” I muttered. Of course Rumstandel heard me despite the pop, crackle, and roar of musketry echoing around the walls of the pass. There was sorcery at play between us to carry our voices, so we could bitch and digress and annoy ourselves like a pair of inebriates trading commentary in a theater balcony.

Scott Lynch is best known for the Gentleman Bastard sequence of novels, comprising The Lies of Locke Lamora and its sequels. Scott is a World Fantasy Award nominee and the winner of the 2008 Sydney J. Bounds Best Newcomer award from the British Fantasy Society. He lives in the middle north of the United States, where he has also been a volunteer firefighter since 2005. “The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats” was first published in the 2013 anthology Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan Strahan.

He exists online at www.scottlynch.com.

About the Narrator:

Mark Nelson has been recording audiobooks since 2006, starting as a Librivox volunteer and later for such producers as Audible, Audible Frontiers, Hachette, Wonderaudio, and Iambik. Recording as Mark Nelson and as “Harry Shaw”, he’s narrated more than 50 commercial audiobooks, including classics, horror, mysteries, and contemporary and classic science fiction. He still regularly contributes to Librivox, which he credits for getting him out of Human Resources and into something useful.

His website is markdouglasnelson.com

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First Story: “The Price of Glamour” by Steve Berman

London, 1844

Tup Smatterpit sat on the back of a chestnut seller’s cart, his back warm from resting against the stove. Tup had sprinkled a pinch of powdered glamour over himself, and the old coster driving the wagon believed him to be one of the countless children that roamed Covent Garden’s marketplace, rather than one of the Folk. As the donkey slowly pulled the cart through the crowd, the gentle sway and the constant tick-tocking of his waistcoat was lulling Tup to sleep.

Steve Berman is the author of nearly a hundred published essays and short stories. His newest collection, Red Caps, features a sequel to “The Price of Glamour”. He lives in southern New Jersey, the only state that has an official devil.

You can find him online at SteveBerman.com.

Second Story: “The Magikkers” by Terry Dowling

Twice upon a time there was someone named Samuel Raven Pardieu. The first to bear the name was a nineteenth century blacksmith who tried his hand as a toother during the Napoleonic War. In the morning following the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, while collecting teeth from the newly killed to sell to dentists in the big cities, he was spotted by an English patrol and shot as a looter.

Terry Dowling is one of Australia’s most respected and internationally acclaimed writers of science fiction, dark fantasy and horror, and author of the multi-award-winning Tom Rynosseros saga. He has been called “Australia’s finest writer of horror” by Locus magazine, its “premier writer of dark fantasy” by All Hallows and its “most acclaimed writer of the dark fantastic” by Cemetery Dance magazine. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series featured more horror stories by Terry in its 21-year run than by any other writer.

The award-winning US genre newspaper Locus calls him a “highly original” writer, “the most noted prose stylist in Australian speculative fiction” and regards his work as placing him “among the masters of the field.”

Dowling’s award-winning horror collections are Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (International Horror Guild Award winner for Best Collection 2007), regarded as “one of the best recent collections of contemporary horror” by the American Library Association; An Intimate Knowledge of the Night (Aphelion 1995) and the World Fantasy Award-nominated Blackwater Days (Eidolon 2000). His most recent titles are Amberjack: Tales of Fear & Wonder (Subterranean 2010) and his debut novel Clowns at Midnight (PS Publishing 2010), which the Guardian called “an exceptional work that bears comparison to John Fowles’s The Magus.”

Dowling has written three computer adventures (Schizm: Mysterious Journey, Schizm II: Chameleon, and Sentinel: Descendants in Time), and co-edited The Essential Ellison and The Jack Vance Treasury among many other titles. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

His homepage can be found at TerryDowling.com.

About the Narrators:

Eric Luke is the screenwriter of the Joe Dante film Explorers, which is currently in development as a remake, the comic books Ghost and Wonder Woman, and wrote and directed the Not Quite Human films for Disney TV. His current project Interference, a meta horror audiobook about an audiobook… that kills, is available free on iTunes and at Quillhammer.com.

Graeme Dunlop is a software solution architect and voice actor living in Melbourne Australia. He is the sound producer for the horror podcast Pseudopod, and used to host the YA podcast Cast of Wonders. You can find him on Google+ and he occasionally tweets as @kibitzer on Twitter.

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“Childrun” by Marc Laidlaw

The first thing Gorlen heard, as he mounted toward the walled village at the top of the rise, was the sound of children, their voices tumbling down the rutted track to greet him long before he saw a single villager. This meant his first sight of the pinched grey roofpeaks and ochre chimneyspikes above the wall came accompanied by the peculiar mix of dread and longing that he always felt at the sound of children playing. Were they laughing in delight or screaming in terror? It was an old question, and in the first and most memorable instance — when the correct answer had actually mattered — he had guessed wrong. He had lived with that mistake ever since.

These days, Marc Laidlaw is mainly known as the writer of the Half-Life videogame series, but early in his career he wrote a handful of novels and many short stories of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. For several decades he has also been telling the occasional, episodic tale of Gorlen, the bard with the gargoyle hand. “Childrun” is the third of them.

He can be found online at marclaidlaw.com

Narrator:

Larry Oliver is a professional voice artist who enjoys reading, hiking, yoga, Zumba, and cooking. He has narrated several audio books available on audible, Amazon, and iTunes, as well as documentary films, commercials, corporate training videos, and much more.

You can find him at LarryOliverVoiceover.com

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First Story: 

“The Last Worders” by Karen Joy Fowler

Charlotta was asleep in the dining car when the train arrived in San Margais. It was tempting to just leave her behind, and I tried to tell myself this wasn’t a mean thought, but came to me because I, myself, might want to be left like that, just for the adventure of it. I might want to wake up hours later and miles away, bewildered and alone. I am always on the lookout for those parts of my life that could be the first scene in a movie. Of course, you could start a movie anywhere, but you wouldn’t; that’s my point. And so this impulse had nothing to do with the way Charlotta had begun to get on my last nerve. That’s my

other point. If I thought being ditched would be sort of exciting, then so did Charlotta. We felt the same about everything.

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels and three short story collections. The Jane Austen Book Club spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s previous novel, Sister Noon, was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Her debut novel, Sarah Canary, was a New York Times Notable Book, as was her second novel, The Sweetheart Season. In addition, Sarah Canary won the Commonwealth medal for best first novel by a Californian, and was listed for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize as well as the Bay Area Book Reviewers Prize. Fowler’s short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award in 1999, and her collection What I Didn’t See won the World Fantasy Award in 2011. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children and five grandchildren, live in Santa Cruz, California.

She is the co-founder of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and is the current president of the Clarion Foundation (also known as Clarion San Diego).

You can find her online here.

Second story:

“Tales from the City of Seams” by Greg Van Eekhout

In the hills above the city, among the ruins of the old zoo, the kids come to screw. They cage themselves inside the animal enclosures and kick away the cigarette butts and the crushed beer cans and the brittle snake-skin condoms, and then, with the city glittering below, they fill the hot-smog nights with their whispers.

They are not alone.

There is a sort of cave in the hillside behind the picnic grounds. It used to be the bear grotto, but over the decades, the cave has grown deeper. It goes far back,

now, and down. Over the grotto’s entrance hangs a sign that says something to the effect of Abandon hope, all ye who enter.

Greg van Eekhout writes fiction for adults and kids. His work includes the “California Bones” contemporary fantasy series,, starting with the novel, California Bones, and continuing in January with Pacific Fire. His other books are The Boy at the End of the World, Kid vs. Squid, and Norse Code. He lives in San Diego and actively trolls the beach for weird creatures.

You can find him online at Writing and Snacks and tweet him at @gregvaneekhout.

Narrators

Sarah Frederickson and Anthony Babington

Sarah was born in Oregon in the United States, and was raised in beautiful Minnesota. At a young age she realized her passion for musical performance and the creative arts. Sarah spent most of her childhood singing and acting — both onstage and off — and affecting various accents for fun.

She soon found herself competing in local, state and national forensics competitions (that’s competitive speaking). Her experience and awards landed her a forensics scholarship to Bethel University in St.Paul Minnesota, where she continued to compete as well as train other speakers at the collegiate level. Sarah graduated with a degree in Music business and Audio Production. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Australia for a one-year holiday. During that time she became smitten with an Australian man who asked her to stay, and four years later the couple live and work in Australia, going on adventures, writing music and reading stories to their cat.

Anthony is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

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First Story: 

“America is Coming!” by Dario Ciriello

“Nice day for the end of the world. Any sign yet?”

Salvatore’s voice at his side startled Peppino. A few moments ago his friend had been flat on his back on the scrubby ground with his right hand curled around an empty wine bottle, snoring gently. Peppino shook his head.

The two friends watched as the rising sun beat a familiar copper path on the tranquil sea, spilling warmth over the world. Across the gulf, beyond the mountainous headland silhouetted in the rising sun’s glare, the deserted capital of Palermo held its breath and waited for the end of history.

America was coming!

Dario Ciriello is a professional author and editor whose nonfiction book Aegean Dream, the bittersweet memoir of a year spent on the small Greek island of Skopelos (the actual Mamma Mia! island), was a UK travel bestseller in 2012 and has recently been published in Poland. His first novel, Sutherland’s Rules, a thriller with a shimmer of the fantastic, was published in February 2013. A collection of Dario’s short Science Fiction works, Free Verse and Other Stories, was released in June 2014. He is currently working on his second novel, another thriller.

Dario has also edited several novels as well as three critically-acclaimed anthologies for Panverse Publishing LLC (www.panversepublishing.com), of which he is the Executive Editor. He lives with his wife in the Greater Los Angeles Area.

You can read an interview with Dario here, and find him on Facebook and Goodreads.

“America is Coming!” is available for Kindle here.

Second story:

“The Forest” by Kim Wilkins

My brother and I turned fifteen on the same day, but we are not twins.

His mother is my stepmother; his stepfather is my father. We were raised together from the age of seven. We squabbled over toys, mocked each other’s weaknesses, screamed red-faced that we hated each other in one moment and pored over comic books together the next. All this familiarity, however, was not proof against attraction.

My brother’s name is Hansel. On the day he turned fifteen, he was half-boy, half-man. He wore his hair long, and could almost be mistaken for a girl, except that his body had begun to change. His long limbs were becoming dense with muscle.

Kim Wilkins was born in London, and grew up by the seaside in Australia. She is the author of seven supernatural thriller novels for adults, five psychic crime stories for young adults, and five fantasy books for children. She has won Australia’s Aurealis Award four times, and has a PhD in writing. Her novels include The Infernal, Grimoire, The Resurrectionists, Angel of Ruin, and the Gina Champion Mystery series. Her most recent novels are Rosa and the Veil of Gold, Giants of the Frost, and The Autumn Castle.

Visit her official site Fantastic Thoughts.

Narrators

Todd Flatland and Nikolle Doolin

Todd is many things: A lover, a fighter, a comedian, an actor, an improviser, and a film critic. Telling stories is one of his favorite things, so narration naturally felt like a fun and challenging enterprise. He lives in Idaho, and has been married to his amazing wife Kristie for 9 years.

Nikolle writes fiction, poetry, and plays. Her work has appeared in the Wilderness House Literary Review, Tales to Terrify, 3:AM Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, Flashshot, and the literary anthology Wilderness House Literary Review – The Best of Volume 3. Additionally, her stage plays have been presented in festivals.
Nikolle is also a voice actor who has performed for various media. She produces a podcast called Audio Literature Odyssey in which she narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more. Furthermore, Nikolle has performed contemporary narrations for Tales to Terrify, Crime City Central, and The NoSleep Podcast.
She projects herself online at NikolleDoolin.com.

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First Story: 

“The Swan Pilot” by L.E Modesitt Jr.

I eased myself into the control couch of the ISS W.B. Yeats, making certain that all the connections were snug, and that there were no wrinkles in anything. Then I pressed the single stud that was manual, and the clamshell descended. You could call a trans-ship a corade or a cockle guided by will across the sea of endless space. You could, and it would be technically wrong. Technically wrong, but impressionalistically right, and certainly the way it feels when you’re alone in the blackness, balancing the harmonics and threading your way from the light matter and dark matter and faerie dust of overspace, guiding the ship and all it contains out from light and into darkness and then on to another minute isle of solid warmth once again. Or you could refuse to call it a ship at all, nor the ocean it sails a sea.

L.E. Modesitt, Jr., is the New York Times best-selling author of more than 65 fantasy and science fiction novels – including four fantasy series, especially the Saga of Recluce and The Imager Portfolio – a number of short stories, and numerous technical and economic articles. His novels have sold millions of copies in the U.S. and world-wide, and have been translated into German, Polish, Dutch, Czech, Russian, Bulgarian, French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, and Swedish. His first story was published in Analog in 1973, and his most recent book – Heritage of Cyador – was just released. His next book, out next March, will be Madness in Solidar. Read more at www.LEModesittjr.com

Second story:

“The Stone Man” by Nancy Kress

JARED Stoffel never even saw the car that hit him. He ollied off the concrete steps of the Randolph Street Rec Center down onto the street and was coming down on his skateboard when wham! his butt was smacked hard enough to rattle his teeth and Jared went down. A second before the pain registered, he threw up his arms to shield his face. The Bird-house went flying—he saw it in the air, wheels spinning, a moment before his body hit the street. All at once he was smothered under a ton of stones he couldn’t breathe he was going to die and someone was screaming but it was mostly the rocks—God the boulders flying to land on top of him, un­der him, everywhere . . . Everything went black.

Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-three books, including twenty-six novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won five Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Most recent work is YESTERDAY’S KIN, a short novel about a surprising about genetic inheritance (Tachyon, 2014). In addition to writing, Kress often teaches at various venues around the country and abroad; in 2008 she was the Picador visiting lecturer at the University of Leipzig. Kress lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Cosette, the world’s most spoiled toy poodle. You can learn more at http://sff.net/people/nankress/

Narrators

Gareth Stack and Anthony Babington

Gareth is a writer and performer who creates comedy series and documentaries for Irish radio. He has been published in Analogue Music Magazine, This Is Not Where I Belong, In Transit, Piranha! Magazine, Explore Magazine, Blue Ireland and Albedo One. You can find him on the web at http://garethstack.com, and on twitter @Garethstack

Anthony is a voice in the internet’s head. He looks almost, but not quite, exactly how you expect him to. He currently resides in Houston, Texas, but hastens to add that it was not his idea. He can be found on Google Plus.

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First Story: 

“Nightship” by Kim Westwood

Here the linen smells of mice and the men of old boots. I lie beneath a slaughter of ferals, cushioned in my guilty comforts and waiting for this black-caulked hulk to sink; but it glides like death along the briny channels of a shrouded city half-submerged – a Grey Zone, neither sea nor shore.

Past my porthole other nightships slice the mist thickening on dank canals. Blunt-nosed, barnacled, they nudge from lock to lock, deals done and deliveries made under cover of perpetual fog.

Kim Westwood developed her distinctive visual prose style while working as a theatre performer and deviser. Darkly poetic, her stories have a preoccupation with humanity’s capacity for destruction and equal instinct for survival. Most are set in an alternative reality Australia. Of this she says: ‘My imagination has a chemical reaction to living on Terra Australis, and responds strongly to its particular properties.’ Kim won her first Aurealis Award in 2002 for her short story ‘The Oracle’. Since then her stories have been chosen for Year’s Best anthologies in Australia and the US, for ABC radio broadcast, and taken out the Judges’ Prize at the Scarlet Stiletto Women’s Crime Fiction Awards. She is the recipient of a prestigious Varuna Writers House Fellowship for her first novel, The Daughters of Moab (2008). Her second novel, The Courier’s New Bicycle (2011), has been described as a ‘disturbingly credible and darkly noir post-­cyberpunk tale’. It won an Aurealis and a Ditmar award, was shortlisted for both the Ned Kelly and Davitt crime fiction awards, and made it onto the Honor List of the James Tiptree Award. Thanks to a state arts grant, she is currently writing the sequel. You can find out more either at www.kimwestwood.com or at www.harpercollins.com.au

Second story:

“Smoke and Mirrors” by Amanda Downum

The circus was in town.

Not just any circus, either, but Carson & Kindred’s Circus Fabulatoris and Menagerie of Mystical Marvels. The circus Jerusalem Morrow ran away to join when she was nineteen years old. Her family for seven years.

She laid the orange flyer on the kitchen table beside a tangle of beads and wire and finished putting away her groceries. Her smile stretched, bittersweet. She hadn’t seen the troupe in five years, though she still dreamt of them. Another world, another life, before she came back to this quiet house.

Amanda was born in Virginia, and has since then spent time in Indonesia, Micronesia, Missouri, and Arizona, with brief layovers in California and Colorado. In 1990 she was sucked into the gravity well of Texas, and hasn’t managed to escape. Yet.

She lives in a garret in Austin, and can be found haunting absinthe bars. She isn’t dying of consumption, but does suffer from “cedar fever.” Her day job sometimes lets her dress as a giant worm.

She still occasionally mans a derelict blog, but for Proustian minutiae you’re better off finding her on Facebook. She doesn’t speak of herself in the third person there. Usually.

About the Narrators: 

Nikolle Doolin writes fiction, poetry, and plays. Her work has appeared in the Wilderness House Literary Review, Tales to Terrify, 3:AM Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, Flashshot, and the literary anthology Wilderness House Literary Review – The Best of Volume 3. Additionally, her stage plays have been presented in festivals.
Nikolle is also a voice actor who has performed for various mediums. She produces a podcast called Audio Literature Odyssey in which she narrates classic literature by the likes of Austen, Poe, James, and more. Furthermore, Nikolle has performed contemporary narrations for Tales To Terrify, Crime City Central, and The NoSleep Podcast.

Catherine Logan had many years of training in theatre and voice in her youth – then many years of teaching acting, drama, writing and English literature as a grown-up. She has taken plenty of workshops and has studio experience in narration, commercial and animation voiceover work. Catherine is now involved in a second career which takes her back to her first love.

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First Story: 

“Keeper of Memory” by Todd Lockwood

Daen screamed until the monster’s teeth crushed ribs against ribs. Blood poured from his lungs, a bright flower unfurling  on the pavestones.  He bolted upright. A tree root scraped his back as he tried to crab backwards, but his feet were entangled in his blanket. He sat still, surprised to feel moss and short grass under the heels of his hands. A soft hush surrounded him, the landscape shrouded in fog that deadened sound and confused distance, rendering trees and stones into ghostly shadows ofbthemselves. Panting, he rubbed his face with pale fingers and blinked away the blur in his eyes. His sweat grew cold in the damp air.  Gods, what a dream!

Todd Lockwood creates his images with a mystic combination of acrylics, oils, Corel Painter, Photoshop, blood, epithets, secret incantations, and gin. His designs involve images derived from fantasy and science fiction, fantasy role-playing games, his dragon fetish, years of playing Dungeons & Dragons and watching mother nature, his love of mythology and the transformations of myth in religion. Um…. He is also disturbed by writing about himself in the third person.
Todd Lockwood’s illustration work has appeared on NY Times best-selling novels, magazines, video games, collectible card games, and fantasy role-playing games. It has been honored with multiple appearances in Spectrum and the Communication Arts Illustration Annual, and with numerous industry awards. Always known for the narrative power of his paintings, Todd now turns his hand to writing, and is working on a novel to be published by DAW Books at a date still to be determined.  You may view his art at his website, http://www.toddlockwood.com, keep up with him at http://www.tolo.biz, or get chummy at https://www.facebook.com/artoftoddlockwood

Second story:

“Awakening” by Valjeanne Jeffers

The nine year girl ran to catch up with them. “I want to go Father!” she called. “I want to practice too!”  Adegoke, a muscular giant of man, turned to face his daughter. “You can’t go Nandi,” he said sternly, but there was compassion in his brown  eyes. 

“But why?”

Adegoke took her chin in one of his big hands. “Because my flower, you are a girl.  You’re not meant to fight and the ancestors would be angry with me if I trained you for battle.  Besides, think of how dirty you’d become!”

“I don’t care!”

“Nandi you’re my daughter, the daughter of a king,” Adegoke continued patiently. “One day you’ll marry a handsome prince, he will take you away to live in a new palace. Your every wish will be granted. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“No!” tears rolled down Nandi’s cheeks. “It sounds horrible! I don’t want to leave you and Mama! I want to stay here and fight!”

Valjeanne Jeffers is the author of the SF/fantasy novels: Immortal; Immortal II: The Time of Legend; Immortal III: Stealer of Souls; Immortal IV: Collision of Worlds; The Switch II: Clockwork (includes books 1 and 2); Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective; Colony: Ascension An Erotic Space Opera; and Voyage of Dreams: A Collection of Otherworldly Stories. She was a contributing author during the 2014 Octavia Butler Arts and Activism Celebration (organized by Tananarive Due); and she was the 2007 semi-finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award. Valjeanne’s fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies including: Steamfunk!; Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology; LuneWing; PurpleMag; Genesis Science Fiction Magazine; Possibilities; 31 Days of Steamy Mocha; Pembroke Magazine Issue no. 39; Revelry; The Ringing Ear; Liberated Muse: How I Freed My Soul Volume I; Drumvoices Revue; Say it Loud: Poems About James Brown; and Griots II: Sisters of the Spear. She is co-owner of Q&V Affordable Editing, and more of her work is available at www.vjeffersandqveal.com

Narrators

Sam Walter and Miss Bee

When he is not traveling across the US looking for the finest BBQ, Sam spends his time learning all about the latest and greatest in the world of craft beer. He hosts the West Lot Pirates podcast which focuses on college sports, primarily college football. He lives in Chicago with his wife and their adorable cat.

Miss Bee was introduced to the world of professional narration while working as a studio monitor for the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) in Louisville, Kentucky. While at APH Miss Bee was involved in the production of more than 450 Talking Books for the National Library Service of the Library of Congress. Miss Bee, whose baccalaureate degree is in Mass Media Arts and Mass Communications, has been engaged in providing American Disability Act compliant audio services for the blind and print handicapped as both a vocation and avocation since the 1980s.
She is responsible for introducing Spanish language programming for the blind during her tenure as a radio control board operator for the Georgia Radio Reading Service for the Blind and Print Handicapped (GARRS). In addition to voicing, proofing, editing, mastering and publishing audio files via the Internet as audio books and eBooks, she also creates mp3 audio for eLearning, training, audio signage, tours and mp3 audio devices including CD and computer platforms.
Currently, Miss Bee also hosts a monthly podcast that surveys the African-American press for the Audio Internet Reading Service of Los Angeles (AIRS-LA). Her website is http://MissBee4VO.com

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