Kaleidocast

Judges Cave

Author: Eric Rosenfield's fiction has been published in Kaleidotrope, LORE, Lakeside Circus and 365 Tomorrows. His non-fiction has been anthologized in The Modern Library Anthology of New York Diaries and published in io9, The New Haven Review, The Comics Journal, and LitKicks.com among other venues. He currently works as the CTO of the serialized fiction service Serial Box.

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

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The Owl of Anatolia

Author: S. A. Chakraborty is a NY-based speculative fiction writer and history buff. Her debut, The City of Brass, is out now with Harper Voyager. Short-listed for the Locus, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards, The City of Brass is the first book in THE DAEVABAD TRILOGY, an epic fantasy set in the 18th century Middle East. She is an organizer with the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers’ Group, about which more information - including membership - can be found here.

Originally (and proudly!) from New Jersey, S. A. currently resides in Queens with her husband and daughter. When not buried in books about Mughal miniatures and Abbasid political intrigue, she enjoys hiking, knitting, and recreating unnecessarily complicated, medieval meals for her family. You can find her online most frequently at Twitter (@SAChakrabooks) where she likes to ramble about history, politics, and Islamic art.

She is represented by Jennifer Azantian at Azantian Literary Agency.

Actor: Lanna Joffrey is an actor, spoken word performer & writer who has worked throughout the US & UK. SELECT THEATRE: I Call My Brothers (The Gate), Muse of Fire (The Globe), The Profane (Playwrights Horizons), Timon of Athens (The Factory), Sonnet Walks (The Globe), Ironmistress (The Albany), Measure for Measure (The Factory), That Day (The Roundhouse), Rebecca Lenkiewicz's The Commune (CSSD), The Two Noble Kinsmen (Instant Classic Company). SELECT FILM: Druid Peak, Mad to Be Normal, Fishing Naked. AWARDS: IRNE Award, Ovation Award, New York Fringe Performance Award. TRAINING: Masters in Acting(Distinction), Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, BFA in Acting, Syracuse University, Company member of The Factory and Barefoot Theatre Company, lannajoffrey.com

Wallflowers:

An upscale shop has usurped what used to be NYC's infamous Limelight nightclub. Now the ghosts of the nightclub, looking for the artistic vitality that once was, take their vengeance on a salesgirl to whom the current dictates of fashion and beauty are everything.

The Author:

Lilah Wild is a graduate of Clarion West and her dark fiction has appeared in venues such as Pseudopod, Dark Tales from Elder Regions: New York, Niteblade, and Morbid Curiosity. Her fascinations include belly-dance dabbling, eerie synths, horror movie interior decorating, and running away to the beach. She lives in Queens amid a clamor of doom metal noodling and two cats. Visit http://www.leopardmoon.com for more info.

The Actor:

Jennifer Carter is an actor from Va, Ca, and Fl living and working in NYC. When not lending her voice to speculative storyscapes she can be seen on stage with many NYC theatre companies. Most recently as Dogberry in an industry reading of Turn To Flesh's new work THE MERRY WIDOWS OF WINDSOR. She also loves fighting; stage combat, that is, and this past winter fight directed Queen's Shakespeare and What Dream's May Co.'s productions of HENRY VI parts 1-3. She also enjoys pina coladas and getting caught in the rain. Follow her on Instagram @femme_du_lac_ and her website, www.jenncarter.weebly.com.

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The Story:

You don't understand, I loved her like nobody else in this world or the next. And she loved me. If she's missing, it's because Mr. Grooch has taken her.

The Author & Actor:

J.M. Plumbley writes fantasy, horror, and a blog about monsters. She's a graduate of the Odyssey Writers Workshop and has lived in several states and countries, but currently resides in Queens. Visit jmplumbley.com for more.

Seven Standpoints

Charming short poem about cultural differences when dealing w/ an alien, centered around sandwich issues.

The Author:

D. T. Friedman lives in Brooklyn with her cat, Kimble.

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The Emperor Mantis

A story of vengeance and resistance on the isle of ants. Never underestimate the small for they are legion and unforgiving.

The Author:

Essowe Tchalim is a writer of speculative fiction short stories and novels. He graduated from Brooklyn College, where he studied concepts of the soul and rituals of power from the Ancient Mediterranean. He currently works at Droga5, where he assists in producing TV commercials. When he is not writing or working, he is reading manga or trying to convince his friends to watch his favorite television shows. This is his first publication.

The Actor:

Lauren Harris is an author, narrator, and podcaster from Raleigh, North Carolina. She's also an assistant editor at Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. To find out more about Lauren, visit www.laurenbharris.com.

The Machine

For a pair of socks, a guide takes our narrator on a tour of The Machine (representing our world), as well as all the various groups that try to effect or control it.

The Author:

Phenderson Djéli Clark is an occasional speculative fiction writer. His short SFF stories have appeared in online venues such as Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Fantasy-Magazine, Fireside Fiction, Tor.com and several print anthologies including Griots and Hidden Youth. His debut novella The Black God's Drums will be published by Tor in August 2018. You can read his ramblings on SFF, diversity and more at his blog The Disgruntled Haradrim (www.pdjeliclark.com). He also tweets stuff: @pdjeliclark.

The Actor:

Michael Taylor is undeniably the greatest man in the world. He enjoys games, puzzles, and experiencing interactive theatre to improve upon the subtle, intricate, yet uniquely brilliant greatness of Michael Taylor's mind. ​​

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The Water Walls of Enceladus

Lily has contracted an extremely rare alien virus after contact with the Wergen, a species that worships and alores human beings. Lily's disfiguring condition makes her hideous to other humans, so she agrees to spend 5 years among the Wergen on Enceladus, but their cloying attention is driving her crazy, so she plots to escape.

The Author:

Mercurio D. Rivera’s short fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award and has appeared in numerous venues such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact (forthcoming), Asimov's Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Interzone, i09, Nature, Black Static, Abyss & Apex, Space and Time, and elsewhere. His work has been anthologized in Year’s Best SF 34, ed. Gardner Dozois Other Worlds Than These, ed. John Joseph Adams, Year's Best SF 17, ed. Hartwell & Cramer, Unplugged: The Web's Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy, ed. Rich Horton, Paradox: Stories Inspired by the Fermi Paradox, and Solaris Rising 2, ed. Ian Whates. His stories have been podcast at Escape Pod, StarshipSofa, and Beam Me Up and translated and republished in China, the Czech Republic, Poland and Spain. Tor.com called his short story collection Across the Event Horizon (NewCon Press), “weird and wonderful,” with “dizzying switchbacks.” Find him online at mercuriorivera.com.

The Actor:

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 does, however have a feature film hitting the festival circuit called Serious Laundry. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. See more about Tatiana at www.tatianagrey.com [email protected]

Unleashed Beauty:

An artist creates a biological work of art, only to discover that he's playing with forces he doesn't understand. Marriage, love, and ambition all play a role in leading to the catastrophic conclusion of this story.

The Author:

Nancy Hightower has been published in Joyland, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Sundog Lit, Word Riot, storySouth. Gargoyle, and Cleaver, and has written about politics and religion in HuffPost. From 2014-2016, she reviewed science fiction and fantasy for The Washington Post. She is the author of Elementari Rising (Pink Narcissus Press, 2013) and The Acolyte, (poetry, Port Yonder Press, 2015). She teaches at Hunter College and is working on a book about digital storytelling with Paul D. Miller for Duke University Press, as well as a memoir about growing up in the evangelical South.

The Actor:

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.

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The Blessed Days:

Two and a half years ago, the Blessings began, and everyone on Earth woke up covered in blood. It happens every night in sleep, and no one remembers dreams anymore. But one lucid dreamer's remembered dreams reveal the answer and open the gate to the underworld.

The Author:

Nebula Award, Shirley Jackson Award and World Fantasy Award finalist Mike Allen is author of the short story collections Unseaming and The Spider Tapestries and the novel The Black Fire Concerto. He’s also the editor and publisher of Mythic Delirium Books, home of Mythic Delirium magazine and the Clockwork Phoenix anthologies. He lives in Roanoke, Virginia, with his wife and co-editor Anita Allen, and two neurotic cats. You can follow his adventures as a writer at descentintolight.com, as a publisher at mythicdelirium.com, and as both on Twitter at @mythicdelirium.

The Actor:

Kevin Gilligan is an actor/writer/comedian who has been seen on SpikeTV, TVLand, Style Network, Travel Channel, TruTV, and Funny or Die. You may have seen him as Kevin the bisexual on the season premiere of Billy on the Street. He was also in the VisionFest and CineKink award winning film Broken Side of Time. He has written for HEEB Magazine and Geeks OUT, and co-hosts the Geeks OUT Podcast (available on iTunes & Libsyn). He produced and co-wrote his acclaimed web series Gigahoes, the first season of which is now on Amazon Prime, the second season to premiere later in 2018. He's performed at UCB, UCBEast, The Magnet, Gotham Comedy Club, and The PIT. Find more at www.KevinRyssGilligan.com

The Aliens Cloned Trent Darcell

The clone of a mid-level pop star recounts his newly rekindled musical career to his genetic forebear, who was abducted and cloned by extraterrestrials in a strange, but beautiful romp through the rock scene.

The Author:

ZigZag Claybourne wishes he’d grown up with the powers of either Gary Mitchell or Charlie X but without the Kirk confrontations. His work has appeared in Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Stupefying Stories, Vex Mosaic, FlashShot, The Reverie Journal, and a number of anthologies. His latest novel is The Brothers Jetstream: Leviathan. More at www.WriteonRighton.com.

The Actor:

Nick Dawson is an actor, singer, and acoustic guitar player based in NYC. [email protected]

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Oldish Woman Leaves Earth

A play: An "oldish woman" tells the story of the last days of humans on Earth before they are evicted and become intergalactic refugees.

The Author:

MARCY ARLIN’s spec fiction has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, perihelionsf.com, Kaleidocast Season 1 & 2, Diabolical Plots, Broad Universe Sampler, Man.In.Fest Journal of Experimental Theatre. She writes about international and American theatre, theatre for social change and immigrant artists at tcgcircle.org and is Editor of Czech Plays: 7 New Works. She has posts at Clarion: Writer’s Craft. In another life she is Artistic Director of the OBIE-winning Immigrants’ Theatre Project and has taught theatre at CUNY, Yale, Brown, University of Chicago, Pace. In another other life she was a Fulbrighter to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania. Her new favorite job is creative theatre workshops and coaching sessions for speculative fiction writers (BSFW, Lunacon). Marcy volunteers for PAWSnyc.org. She’d like to have a new website (now it’s immigrantstheatre.org) but does have an underused Twitter account @marcyarlin. Marcy lives in Brooklyn with a ghost and two cats

The Actor:

Kathryn Kates spent over 25 years in LA where she was a founder, acting member and producer of the award-winning Colony Theatre. She is probably best known for her recurring role on Seinfeld in the iconic episodes, "The Marble Rye" and “The Babka”. She currently recurs as Jason Bigg’s mother on Orange Is the New Black; also recurring in the Jennifer Lopez’ NBC hit Shades of Blue as Mrs Saperstein; and recurs as Judge Marlene Simons on Law & Order: SVU. She has performed on Broadway and off broadway, most recently in Labyrinth’s NICE GIRL; at NYTheatre Workshop in Food and Fadwa; on Theatre Row in Herman Kline's Midlife Crisis; and starred along with Greg Mullavey and Gaby Hoffmann in The Last Sader. [email protected]

The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory

When a cynical reporter goes to observe a unicorn from an alternate universe that now lives in ours, she encounters poachers, a forest ranger and a child used as a unicorn lure.

The Author:

Carlos Hernandez is the author of The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria (Rosarium 2016) and numerous works of short fiction, poetry, and drama, mostly in SFF. Look for his middle-grade novel Sal and Gabi Break the Universe from Disney Hyperion in March 2019.

The Actor:

Dyan Flores is a musical theatre writer and performer. She was a regular on the Chicago improv and sketch comedy scene before she moved to New York and shifted her focus to musical theatre writing. Dyan has performed with Halcyon Theatre, Impress These Apes, The Paper Machete, Beast Women Cabaret, iO Chicago and more. Dyan is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Writing workshop, and she has had shows performed at the New York Library for the Performing Arts, American Theater Company, The Metropolitan Room, Milk Can Theatre Company, and NYU.

Centaur's Lament

Centaur Chiron runs into trouble on the dating scene when women fetichize him for his horsey bits.

The Author:

After working as a story analyst, producer, and professional gambler, Ted Rabinowitz (a.k.a. Ted Mendelson) now writes marketing copy and speculative fiction, two entirely different kinds of imaginative literature. Ted is the author of The Wrong Sword, a comic fantasy. His latest short story, A Dog of Wu, appears in the March/April 2018 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

The Actor:

Rish Outfield is a writer, audio-book narrator, and podcaster who is host of the Parsec Award-winning Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine. He is fond of frogs, Mister Pibb, Ben Affleck, and has just written his first novel. Rish once went to Amity Island in order to cause a panic on the Fourth of July, but accidentally yelled, "Barracuda" instead of "Shark." It's true what they say: nobody reacted.

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The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory

When a cynical reporter goes to observe a unicorn from an alternate universe that now lives in ours, she encounters poachers, a forest ranger and a child used as a unicorn lure.

The Author:

Carlos Hernandez is the author of The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria (Rosarium 2016) and numerous works of short fiction, poetry, and drama, mostly in SFF. Look for his middle-grade novel Sal and Gabi Break the Universe from Disney Hyperion in March 2019.

The Actor:

Dyan Flores is a musical theatre writer and performer. She was a regular on the Chicago improv and sketch comedy scene before she moved to New York and shifted her focus to musical theatre writing. Dyan has performed with Halcyon Theatre, Impress These Apes, The Paper Machete, Beast Women Cabaret, iO Chicago and more. Dyan is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Writing workshop, and she has had shows performed at the New York Library for the Performing Arts, American Theater Company, The Metropolitan Room, Milk Can Theatre Company, and NYU.

This is the first episode of Season 2. I hope you enjoy it. We will begin releasing episodes to the public bi-weekly on July 10th.

The Story:

Jeffy has turned himself in for the murder of his friend Timmy over a rare card in a game. The murder is an accident, by black hole, and Jeffy, according to his mother, is the child of extra-terrestrial beings. But what happens to the lives of ordinary people while a child remains missing?

The Author:

N. K. Jemisin’s work has been multiply nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award; shortlisted for the Crawford, the Gemmell Morningstar, and the Tiptree. She has won a Locus Award for Best First Novel and Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards. In 2016, she became the first black person to win the Best Novel Hugo for The Fifth Season. Her short fiction has been published in pro-markets Clarkesworld, Postscripts, Strange Horizons, and Baen’s Universe; semipro markets Ideomancer and Abyss & Apex; and podcast markets (mostly Escape Artists) and print anthologies.

Nora is a member of the Altered Fluid writing group. Nora has been a counseling psychologist and educator, hiker and biker, and a political/feminist/anti-racist blogger. She currently writes the New York Times book review column Otherworldly, in which she covers the latest in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Find her at http://nkjemisin.com/ and on Twitter @nkjemisin

The Actress:

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 does, however have a feature film hitting the festival circuit called Serious Laundry. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. See more about Tatiana at www.tatianagrey.com

Hello Everyone,

As promised, here is the finale episode of my interview with Theodora Goss, and it's probably my favorite part. As you'll hear, we talk about Hungary as a fairyland, the politics of walls, Jane Austin as post apocalyptic required reading, and bears. But most important, we really get at Theodora's writer's journey, which is always personal, nuanced, and challenging for anybody who picks up the pen (keyboard? tablet? Smartphone?). Thank you, Theodora for your honesty, time, and of course your stories.

Everyone, go buy her book.

Also, look for me and the rest of BSFW at Readercon as we launch the Kickstarter for Season 2 of the Kaleidocast!

-Rob Cameron