Kaleidocast

Monsters know you better than they know themselves. Val Rigodon and Zin E. Rocklyn bring you stories inspired folklore and heartache.

"Little Red" by Val Rigodon, Read by Tony Perry

​Val Rigodon is a poet, writer, and occultist from Brooklyn, New York. She is a 2019 Poets’ House Fellow and a member of Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers. She is also a J.D candidate. One day she hopes to own a house by the sea. Val is extremely honored to have her story featured on the Kaleidocast.

Tony Perry is an actor and singer-songwriter. He narrated the film Lost and Found, and the audio comic The Captain Punishment Adventure Hour. He has performed in English and Yiddish, and he’s happy to talk about all things Doctor Who.

"Summer Skin" by Zin E. Rocklyn, Read by Laurice White

​Zin E. Rocklyn is a 2017 VONA, 2018 Viable Paradise (22), and 2020 Clarion West student. Her work can be found the anthologies Forever Vacancy, 2017 Bram Stoker Nominated Sycorax's Daughters (of which her story Summer Skin was long-listed for Best of Horror 2017), Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters, Brigands: A Blackguards Anthology, and Nox Pareidolia; the zine Weird Luck Tales No. 7, and tor.com. Her non-fiction essay “My Genre Makes a Monster of Me” is in Uncanny Magazine’s Hugo Award-Winning Disabled People Destroy SF&F 2018 issue. Her website, terizin.com, is currently under construction. In the interim, follow her on Twitter @intelligentwat."

Laurice White​ is an actress, poet, writer, and student of the art of Voice Over.

Memories of a country that never was, and the world behind the door at the top of the stairs. Nothing every trully belongs to us. Sarah Pinsker and Nikki C Smith give us bitter sweet stories that complicate the narratives we tell ourselves.

"That Our Flag Was Still There," by Sarah Pinkser, Read by Stacie Chaiken

Sarah Pinsker's novel A Song For A New Day won the Nebula Award for best novel, and her collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea won the Philip K. Dick Award. She has been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, and more. She lives in Baltimore with her wife and dog. Find her online at sarahpinsker.com and on twitter @sarahpinsker.

Writer-performer Stacie Chaiken’s full-length solo plays include The DIG, What She Left, and Looking for Louie. Saint Vibiana, Pray4US and Don’t Flinch !! are part of Yovaar : Porciuncula, an ongoing performance/excavation of the block where she lives in Downtown Los Angeles. ​

"All The Things You Will Never Know," By Nikki Caffier Smith, Read by J.M. Plumbley

Nikki Caffier Smith lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their two cats. Her poetry has been published in Typishly.

J.M. Plumbley writes fantasy, horror, and a blog about monsters. She is an active member of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers and a proud graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. The bulk of her spare time is spent defending her keyboard from her cat. Find her online at jmplumbley.com.

The meek shall inherit the Earth. Carmen Maria Machado and Sondra Fink tell us how the world ends. But every ending is also the beginning of something new.

"The Hungry Earth" by Carmen Maria Machado, Read by Tony Perry

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. In 2018, the New York Times listed Her Body and Other Parties as a member of "The New Vanguard," one of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Her essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Vogue, This American Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Tin House, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, Michener-Copernicus Foundation, Elizabeth George Foundation, CINTAS Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She is the Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia with her wife.

Tony Perry is an actor and singer-songwriter. He narrated the film Lost and Found, and the audio comic The Captain Punishment Adventure Hour. He has performed in English and Yiddish, and he’s happy to talk about all things Doctor Who.

"The Verge of Utopia" by Sondra Fink, read by Lanna Joffrey

Sondra Fink is a writer whose published work appears on posturemag.com and brooklynherborium.com. She is an organizing member of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers and currently at work on a young-adult dystopian fantasy novel. “The Verge of Utopia” is her first published work of fiction.

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

Here producer and Season 2 story runner, Sam Schreiber, chooses one of his favorite episodes that you may have missed and gives you the backstory behind the episode. Stories, and context, and quotes, oh my!

Featuring commentary from Wilson Fowlie.

"Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology"

A group of academics initiate a project to "imagine" a fictional country, only to find that their collective imaginings have coalesced into a very real country with very real history, culture, and geopolitical significance. The story takes the form of one of the academics' writings, which take a harrowing and intimately personal turn.

The Author:

Theodora Goss is the World Fantasy and Locus Award-winning author of the short story collection In the Forest of Forgetting (2006); Interfictions (2007), a short story anthology coedited with Delia Sherman; Voices from Fairyland (2008), a poetry anthology with critical essays and a selection of her own poems; The Thorn and the Blossom (2012), a novella in a two-sided accordion format; the poetry collection Songs for Ophelia (2014); debut novel The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (2017), and sequel European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman (2018). She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Crawford, Seiun, and Mythopoeic Awards, as well as on the Tiptree Award Honor List. Her work has been translated into twelve languages. She teaches literature and writing at Boston University and in the Stonecoast MFA Program. Visit her at theodoragoss.com.

The Actor:

Wilson Fowlie has been reading stories out loud since the age of 4, and credits any talent he has in this area to his parents, who are both excellent at reading aloud.

He started narrating stories for more than just his own family in late 2008, when he answered a call for readers on the PodCastle forum. Since then, he has gone on to become PodCastle’s most prolific narrator, reading or appearing in over 30 episodes.

He’s also narrated for many other podcasts, including all of the other Escape Artists ’casts, StarShipSofa and other District of Wonder podcasts, Beam Me Up, Cast Macabre, Dunesteef Audio Fiction magazine and the Journey Into… podcast. He fits in all this narrating between his day job as a web developer in Vancouver, Canada, acting in local theatre productions and looking for voice acting jobs.

The Right to Bear Arms

A near future, near-dystopia: the narrator is an army ve| with a government issued prosthetic arm. When it starts to malfunction, he goes to a specialist who builds him and two other disfigured vets a new state of the art arm for free.

The Author & Narrator

Zak Zyz is a SF fantasy writer who lives in Brooklyn and fixes things for a living. When he's not writing, he hosts the Surreal Symphony, a live internet talk show with today's best and brightest speculative fiction authors where they talk about politics, genre, and all manner of riveting topics. He also hosts a late night call-in pirate radio show, and runs Strategically Correct, an awesome board game club.

Zak is the author of many short stories and novels including Survival Mode, Zan & Ink, and the Master Arcanist. If you liked this story, you can support his work on Patreon or buy his books on Amazon.

The Right to Bear Arms

A near future, near-dystopia: the narrator is an army ve| with a government issued prosthetic arm. When it starts to malfunction, he goes to a specialist who builds him and two other disfigured vets a new state of the art arm for free.

The Author & Narrator

Zak Zyz is a SF fantasy writer who lives in Brooklyn and fixes things for a living. When he's not writing, he hosts the Surreal Symphony, a live internet talk show with today's best and brightest speculative fiction authors where they talk about politics, genre, and all manner of riveting topics. He also hosts a late night call-in pirate radio show, and runs Strategically Correct, an awesome board game club.

Zak is the author of many short stories and novels including Survival Mode, Zan & Ink, and the Master Arcanist. If you liked this story, you can support his work on Patreon or buy his books on Amazon.

Not That Kind of Dream Girl

A man at the crossroads of good and evil is perfect prey for the City.

The Author:

Evan Berkow is a writer of speculative fiction in the hours when he's not lawyering. His fiction has appeared in a bunch of places, such as Strange Horizons, Escape Pod and Crossed Genres Magazine. He's a member of SFWA, Codex, and the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers critique group.

He lives in Pleasantville, NY, with his wife, kids, and a small menagerie consisting of two enormous gray cats and one adorable rescue dog. You can find him on Twitter @Evan_Berkow or email him at eberkow (at) gmail (dot) com.

The Actor:

Lora Nicolas is an actor and singer based in New York City. Originally from Manila, Philippines, she moved to NYC when she received a scholarship to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) for musical theatre.

She eventually went to play her dream role since she was five years old--Kim in Miss Saigon--at the beautiful Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, NJ, and again in Midtown Arts Center in Fort Collins, CO, for which she won a BroadwayWorld Denver Award for Best Actress.

Her other favorite roles include Anita in West Side Story, Joanne in Rent, Lucy in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, Janet Van de Graaff in The Drowsy Chaperone, Christmas Eve in Avenue Q, and Meg in Little Women. She also originated the role of Hannah in Vital Theater's StinkyKids--Off Broadway Alliance Award Winner for Best Family Musical. She has worked and toured all over the U.S., and has recently performed in three concerts in Tochigi and Tokyo, Japan and will be returning in the summer.

She is a huge geek for the sci-fi and fantasy genres, and "casually cosplays" for fun. (Follow her Instagram @dailycasualcosplays). She is very passionate about diversity in art and media, and her ultimate dream is to do a project that could get her at a Comiccon panel in front of a room full of her "peeps".​

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The Story

Our detective goes South of the Rio Grande to solve a mysterious murder that's fishier than...well...fish.

The Author:

One sunny day in January, Art Center College of Design handed Fred Stesney a BFA in illustration. That led to a long career as an advertising copywriter, a short one as a radio producer and audio engineer, and a new beginning as a writer, artist and illustrator. He – and please pardon him for writing about himself in the third person – lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and son.

https://fredstesney.wordpress.com/about-2/

Twitterer @fredstesney

Touch That Dial:

THEY are coming for you and there's nothing you can do. Or is there?

Author:

Michael Philip Wells grew up in Michigan and lives in Brooklyn, New York. His story "A Chinatown Ghost Story" will be published in the upcoming fiction issue of Nang, a new and beautifully eccentric print magazine devoted to Asian cinema. He has been working on a large-scale fantasy novel since well before the invention of the podcast, and writes extremely intermittently about film at EveryoneLikesMovies.blogspot.com.

The Actors:

We have an ensemble cast of actors and producers. Kim Rogers (http://podcastle.org/people/kim-rogers/), Sam Schreiber, Bradley Robert Parks, Jessica Plumbley, Zin E. Rocklyn (https://twitter.com/intelligentwat), Ted Rabinowitz (http://www.thewrongsword.com/), Rob Cameron, Marcy Arlin, Tatiana Grey (http://www.tatianagrey.com), and introducing Tony Perry (Tonyperry.com).

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Classified Ads:

A whimsical series of classified ads set in a world rich with classical high fantasy tropes.

The Author:

Elliotte Rusty Harold is originally from New Orleans to which he

returns periodically in search of a decent bowl of gumbo. However, he

currently resides in a secret mountaintop laboratory on a large island

off the East Coast of the United States. His short fiction has

appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Crossed Genres, Daily Science Fiction, and numerous anthologies. He has also written over twenty nonfiction books, most recently The JavaMail API and Java Network Programming, 4th edition, both from O’Reilly. He is a member of SFWA, the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, and the Brooklyn Bird Club.

The Actor:

Paul Karle is an actor living and working in New York City. He loves cats and Star Trek. Find him at www.paulkarle.com

Sabbath Wine

A poignant story taking place in the radical Brooklyn twenties of a friendship between a Jewish girl and an African-American boy, centered around a Sabbath dinner. Their parents find common cause in their experiences and losses from prejudices and bigotries.

The Author:

Barbara Krasnoff has had short stories appear in over 30 print and online publications, including “Sabbath Wine,” which was published in Clockwork Phoenix 5 and was a finalist for the 2016 Nebula Award for short stories. Other publications where you can find her work include Mythic Delirium, Abyss & Apex, Space and Time, and Apex, among others .

​When not producing weird fiction, she earns her living as a freelance tech writer. And just for fun, she investigates what the animals and objects in our world are really thinking in her daily Backstories series on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (#theirbackstories). She is a member of the Tabula Rasa writers group and can be found at BrooklynWriter.com or on Twitter as @BarbK.

The Actor:

Kim Rogers is an EMC actress that currently resides in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. During the day, she can be found at Samuel French, INC where she has the pleasure of assisting Professional Theatres around the world with all of their theatrical needs. At night, she can be found flitting about the theatre district or anywhere in the West Village that will let her belt out a showtune.