Kaleidocast

Treatment and Cure by Katie Story, Read by Lanna Joffrey

Your unexpected stay in the COVID wing takes a nightmarish turn. Something at the hospital is hungry.

Katie Story is a Brooklyn-based graphic designer, illustrator, and writer who fosters cranky, toothless cats. She studied creative writing at Pratt Institute and is a member of Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers.

Lanna Joffrey is an award-winning actor, spoken word performer and writer based in London who works extensively in the US and UK in theatre, film and has voiced numerous audio projects from video games to podcasts to audiobooks. For more about her work visit www.lannajoffrey.com

Clearly Lettered In A Mostly Steady Hand by Fran Wilde, Read by Tatiana Grey

It’s a disturbing, opaque trip into an old-fashioned freak show; directed by one of the people who plays a part in the show. But something is wrong and its not what you think.

"Two-time Nebula Award-winner Fran Wilde has (so far) published seven novels, a poetry collection, and over 50 short stories for adults, teens, and kids. Her stories have been finalists for six Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, four Hugo Awards, four Locus Awards, and a Lodestar. They include her Nebula- and Compton Crook-winning debut novel Updraft, and her Nebula-winning, Best of NPR 2019, debut Middle Grade novel Riverland. Her short stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, Uncanny Magazine, and multiple years' best anthologies.

Fran teaches for Vermont College of Fine Arts and also writes nonfiction for publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Tor.com. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and at franwilde.net. "

Tatiana Grey is a critically acclaimed actress of stage, screen, and of course...the audio booth. She's been nominated for dozens of fancy awards but hasn't won a single damned thing. See more at www.tatianagrey.com

Jean Genii by Randee Dawn, Read by Sally Hourigan

A Brooklyn lawyer unwittingly frees a genie from its lamp while cleaning out the closet of a deceased coworker, and uses her training and wits to find the happy ending that's so hard to come by.

Randee Dawn is a Brooklyn-based entertainment journalist whose debut novel, Tune in Tomorrow, about a fantastical TV reality show, published in August. She writes about show business for Variety, The Los Angeles Times, Emmy Magazine and Today.com and is the co-author of The Law & Order: Unofficial Companion. Find out more at RandeeDawn.com

Sally Hourigan is a Brooklyn-based actor and voice artist. She is a graduate of Seton Hall University, where she studied Theatre Performance and Communications. In addition to her VO work, she has appeared onstage in several NYC theatre festivals and off-Broadway plays, and recently made her on-camera debut in The Jane Doe Murders on Oxygen. When not performing, she enjoys running, cooking, baking, and playing with her tuxedo cat, Billie.

Cold Wind by Nicola Griffith, Read by Mary Rodgers

A woman enters a Seattle bar on a cold wintry night in the midst of the Christmas holidays, hunting for something…or someone.

Nicola Griffith is the multiple award-winning author of novels such as Hild, Spear, Ammonite, and the forthcoming sequel to Hild, Menewood. She lives in Seattle with her wife, Kelley Eskridge.

A career performer and storyteller, Mary Rodgers has acted in films, plays and musicals across the globe, and was the keyboardist and lead singer in an all-girl rock band for a number of years. In addition to her acting and music, Mary is also a published author of three novels, two in contemporary romance (Winner Take All and Freeze Frame, published as Mary B. Rodgers) and one in the technothriller genre (Project Catchstar, published as M. Rodgers).

No Version Like Home by Liam Burke, Read by Tatiana Grey

A group of activists stage an attack against an evil conglomerate. When their plan goes horribly wrong, an unexpected ally appears to guide them to safety through a string of alternate dimensions, offering a proposition that could prove the salvation or damnation of the multiverse.

Liam Burke is an independent author with a passion for juxtaposing biting humor along with the sharp teeth of horror, razor code of cyberpunk, and back alley deals of urban fantasy. When not crafting worlds, he’s playing in someone else’s via tabletop, LARP, or Digital RPGs. He is a proud father, and husband, and is still confused how he got so lucky in that regard.

Hold-Time Violations by John Chu, Read by Tatiana Grey

Ellie is on her way to visit her mother when her sister sends her to repair the skunkworks of the universe, one of many generated by the ancient machine beneath it all. When she finds the problem she'll have to make one of the hardest choices in her life.

Author John Chu is a microprocessor architect by day, a writer, translator, and podcast narrator by night. His story "The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere" won the 2014 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

Tatiana Grey is a critically acclaimed actress of stage, screen, and of course...the audio booth. She's been nominated for dozens of fancy awards but hasn't won a single damned thing. See more at www.tatianagrey.com

Sometimes the only way forward is through fire. The only way to stay true to yourself is to change. Sometimes that can change the world.

Read by Lanna Joffrey and Tatiana Grey, our grand finale comes from Amal El-Mohtar and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor. A poem of survival from Amal and a story of revolution's dawning from Merc. Resistance for the sake of love. Theirs are the words we truly need to hear, now more than ever.

"A Tale of Ash in Seven Birds" by Amal El-Mohtar, Read by Lanna Joffrey

Amal El-Mohtar is an award-winning author and critic. She's the science fiction and fantasy columnist for the New York Times Book Review and the author, with Max Gladstone, of This Is How You Lose the Time War. She lives in Ottawa.

Lanna Joffrey is an actor, spoken-word performer and writer working in the United States and United Kingdom based in London. She has earned a New York Fringe, IRNE and Ovation Award in Performance. And her verbatim play of women’s war stories, "Valiant" has traveled the U.K. and U.S. to critical acclaim. lannajoffrey.com

"Brightening Star, Ascending Dawn" by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, Read by Tatiana Grey

Merc Fenn Wolfmoor is a queer non-binary fiction author who lives in Minnesota, USA, with two adorable cats. Merc has had over 40 short stories published so far, many of which you can read for free via their website: mercfennwolfmoor.com.

Tatiana Grey is a critically acclaimed actress of stage, screen, and the audio booth. She has been nominated for dozens of fancy awards but hasn’t won a single damned thing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. See more about Tatiana at www.tatianagrey.com

We're not always aware of the world we're creating for ourselves and for others. We don't always understand our impact. But there is impact nonetheless.

Read by Tatiana Grey, Maria brings us a story of the world that crept up on us screaming for our attention.

Read by Lucie Pohl, Brit's story is about a hero who is rescued by the city she loves.

"The Kleptographer" by Brit E.B. Hvide, Read by Lucie Pohl

Brit E. B. Hvide is a writer and a Hugo Award-nominated editor. She studied creative writing and physics at Northwestern University. Originally from Singapore, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their dog. Follow her on Twitter @bhvide

Lucie Pohl is a German-born-NYC-raised comedian, actor, writer & creator of Edinburgh Fringe & OFF B'way solo hits 'Hi, Hitler', 'Apohlcalypse Now!' a.o. Lucie has been featured on NPR, in The NY Times and is also the voice of Mercy on Blizzard's Overwatch. Acting credits include Red Dwarf, Homeland and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

"The Scavenger's Nursery" by Maria Dahvana Headley, Read by Tatiana Grey

Maria Dahvana Headley is the New York Times-bestselling author of eight books, most recently The Mere Wife. Her new translation of Beowulf comes out from FSG in August, 2020. Her stories have been short-listed for the Nebula, Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, and Tiptree awards, and regularly appear in Year's Best anthologies.

Tatiana Grey is a critically acclaimed actress of stage, screen, and the audio booth. She has been nominated for dozens of fancy awards but hasn’t won a single damned thing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. See more about Tatiana at www.tatianagrey.com

The rarest and wisest characters tell their own tale and create their own mythology.

C.S.E. Cooney, Mimi Mondal, and Joshua A.C. Newman bring you characters that refuse to conform.

"The Foxgirl Cycle" by C.S.E. Cooney, Read by C.S.E. Cooney, produced by Jeremy Cooney and Stefan Mark Dollak

C.S.E. Cooney is the author of World Fantasy Award-winning Bone Swans: Stories. Her short novel The Twice-Drowned Saint is included in Mythic Delirium’s anthology The Sinister Quartet. Her forthcoming novel Saint Death’s Daughter will be out with Rebellion in Spring of 2022. Other work includes Tor.com novella Desdemona and the Deep, and short fiction and poetry in Jonathan Strahan’s anthology Dragons, Ellen Datlow’s Mad Hatters and March Hares: All-New Stories from the World of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, and elsewhere.

Aspiring dungeon master, audiobook engineer, podcaster, and musician, Jeremy Cooney draws inspiration from bawdy pirate tales, Irish and American folk music, sword and sorcery fantasy, and gritty science fiction. His projects include Hail the Void (a 5th Edition DnD podcast starring his companion, his brother, his mother, and his friends) and editing and production of the Gown of Harmonies audiobook by Francessca Forrest.

​The early music specialist Stefan Mark Dollak plays lutes, hurdy-gurdy, the pipe & tabor, the bladder-pipe, guitar, mandolin, pennywhistle, ukulele, harmonica, krummhorns, bass guitar, ocarina, and possibly other instruments. In addition to early music on period instruments, Stef has performed traditional folk music, classical, pop, world music, ambient, ritual, trance, and even a few showtunes.

"Sailing to the Underworld" by Mimi Mondal with Joshua A.C. Newman, Read by Jose Febus

Mimi Mondal is a Dalit writer of speculative fiction and social-justice nonfiction, and the Poetry and Reprints Editor of Uncanny Magazine. Her first anthology, Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler, co-edited with Alexandra Pierce, was published by Twelfth Planet Press in 2017. Mimi’s writings have also appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Anathema Magazine,The Book Smugglers, Podcastle, Daily Science Fiction, Scroll.in, and other publications. She is the recipient of the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship for the Clarion West Writing Workshop in 2015. More about her background, politics, literary tastes and editorial preferences can be found at this interview with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. Mimi lives in Manhattan and tweets from @Miminality.

Joshua A.C. Newman is a publisher, author, illustrator, game designer, graphic designer, and experimental musician. He lives in Arkham, Massachusetts with no cats and a suspicious pile of electronic components.

Jose Febus's credits include the short film " Not Guilty" for which the award of Best Actor was honored at the My Final Shot Production Film Festival. Other films include Attempted Burglary, Plurality and Chicago Boricua. Television credits include The Path, Blindspot, Law & Order, Law & Order Criminal Intent. Web Series - East Willy B. His Off-Off Broadway credits include O'Rex with the G&F Company, The Deep Run at PRTT and Acts of Mercy written by Michael John Garces at The Rattlestick Theater. Regional credits include Ana in the Tropics at the Portland Center Stage, Williamstown Theater and the Hartford Stage Co. [email protected]

"Is it ever too late to start living? Is it ever too late to find your love? E.C. Myers and Liz Riegel give two very different but oh so compelling answers to this question.

Stories read by the fantastic Bradley Robert Parks and introducing Q-Lim with a fantastically moving perfromance

Liz Riegel is a queer collage artist, sometimes-beekeeper, and writer who is endlessly inspired by the natural world.

​Bradley Robert Parks is a writer and sometimes singer, and founded the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers in 2010. His publication credits can be found on his website, bradleyrobertparks.com. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband and one perfect cat, Ms. Magoo.

"The Land of the Morning Calm" by E.C. Myers, Read by Q-Lim

E.C. Myers was assembled in the U.S. from Korean and German parts and raised by a single mother and the public library in Yonkers, New York. He is the author of six young adult novels, including the Andre Norton Award–winning Fair Coin, The Silence of Six, and RWBY: After the Fall. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, most recently A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Mother of Invention, and Feral Youth, as well as ongoing serials Orphan Black: The Next Chapter and Alternis from Serial Box Publishing. E.C. currently lives with his wife, son, and three doofy pets in Pennsylvania. You can find traces of him all over the internet, but especially at http://ecmyers.net and on Twitter: @ecmyers.

Q Lim was born and raised in South Korea, then moved to New York when she was 20 knowing nothing about Musical Theatre except that it was her dream. Q's most known for playing Tuptim on the 1st Broadway National Tour of The King and I, just after finishing her broadway debut in the production at Lincoln Center Theatre directed by a Tony Award winning director, Bartlett Sher. After the tour, she had the privilege of working with a legendary composer Jason Robert Brown on his new musical in the works, Farewell My Concubine. Q has starred as Luisa in The Fantasticks! She was also featured as a soloist in an annual concert of Broadway’s Rising Stars at a broadway concert hall, Town Hall and played her favorite Disney princesses; Jasmin, Mulan and Pocahontas on Disney Cruise Line.

At the core of every mind numbing horror, there is a joke waiting for its time to shine.

I dare you not to laugh out loud when listening to Kris Dikeman's perfectly paired story (read it with wine for the spit take), and Sam Schreiber takes you on a noir whodunnit with a werewolf too curious for his own good.

"A Singular Event, In Several Courses" by Kris Dikeman, Read by Mary Boughey

Kris Dikeman lives and works in New York City. Her stories have appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Analog and Mad Hatters and March Hares, among other places. She is currently at work on a novel about carnivorous plants. You can read more of her work at her website: www.krisdikeman.com.

A career performer and storyteller, Mary Rodgershas acted in plays, musicals, television and film and was the lead singer/keyboardist for an all-women's rock band for a number of years. She is also a published novelist and screenwriter, with a focus on near-future science fiction, contemporary romance and fantasy.

"Homo Homini Lupis" by Sam Schreiber, Read by Paul Karle

Sam Schreiber is a writer living in Brooklyn, where he teaches science fiction and fantasy at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. He is an active member of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers as well as an associate member of Science Fiction Writers of America.

Paul Karle is an actor living and working in New York City.

The past lives in the walls. It lives just over our shoulder. It stares at us without blinking. It stares from the mirrors. It can never just be. So neither can we.

Charlie Jane Anders and Bradley Robert Parks bring us two ghost stories. One takes lives while the other saves them, one punchline at a time.

"Sustenance" by Bradley Robert Parks, Read by Bradley Levine

Bradley Robert Parks ​is a writer and sometimes singer, and founded the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers in 2010. His publication credits can be found on his website, bradleyrobertparks.com. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband and one perfect cat, Ms. Magoo.

​Bradley Levine is a NYC based actor, creator, and producer. Recent stage credits: James & the Giant Peach (James, The Argyle Theatre), Casse Noisette (world premiere, Bridge Street Theatre), Camp Rolling Hills (NYMF). Original Devised pieces include: Gathering Sparks (Bangkok Exploriment Festival/ Theatre Row), Down the Urinal Hole & Around the Corner (Dixon Place, KC Fringe). Training: BA Acting, Pace University; The William Esper Studio; The Grotowski Institute in Poland. IG: @bradley_levine

"Ghost Champagne" by Charlie Jane Anders, Read by Kim Rogers

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of The City in the Middle of the Night and All the Birds in the Sky and the co-host of Our Opinions Are Correct, a podcast about the meaning of science fiction, with Annalee Newitz.

Kim Rogers is an EMC actress and entertainment industry executive. She lives with her husband in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and can be heard at the top of every episode of the Kaleidocast.

What happens to the not-heroes when the story's over? Max Gladstone and Ted Rabinowitz peak through the window of those characters who must live without the benefit of plot armor.

"Centaur's Lament," by Ted Rabinowitz, Read by Rish Outfield

Ted Rabinowitz Ted Rabinowitz is an author and copywriter whose previous careers include electrician, script reader, and professional card player. His first novel, The Wrong Sword, was published in 2012, and his writing has appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Business International Money Report, the Valley Sun, Hollywood Scriptwriter, and elsewhere.

Rish Outfield is a podcaster, writer, and audiobook narrator who loves Horror, the word "chalupa," Star Wars, Sean Connery, and hopes to be remembered for his lovely singing voice . . . despite his many monstrous crimes.

"Late Nights at the Cape and Cane" by Max Gladstone, Read by Wilson Fowlie

​Max Gladstone has been thrown from a horse in Mongolia and nominated for the Hugo, John W Campbell, and Lambda Awards. A narrative designer, writer, and consultant, Max is the author of the Hugo-nominated Craft Sequence (starting with THREE PARTS DEAD and most recently continuing with RUIN OF ANGELS). His short fiction has appeared on Tor.com and in Uncanny Magazine. He has written games, comics, and interactive television, and is the lead writer of the fantasy procedural series BOOKBURNERS. Max’s most recent projects are the intergalactic adventure EMPRESS OF FOREVER, and, with Amal El-Mohtar, the time travel epistolary spy-vs-spy novella THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR.

Wilson Fowlie lives in a suburb of Vancouver, Canada and has been reading aloud since the age of 4. His life has changed recently: he lost his wife to cancer, and he changed jobs, from programming to recording voiceovers for instructional videos, which he loves doing, but not as much as he loved Heather.