PodCastle 476: Clay And Smokeless FireWelcome to PodCastle’s first Eid issue.
by
Saladin Ahmedread by
Khaalidah Muhammad-Alihosted by
Farah RishiFirst published in Slate Magazine
Rated PG-13Qumqam stood upside-down atop a cellphone tower, twirling at its pinnacle on his fingertip. When the humans had first started to besmirch the Earth with the things, Qumqam had thought them hideous. But he’d come to love dancing on them the way he’d once loved dancing on ziggurats.Click
here to continue reading.
Saladin Ahmed was born in Detroit. His debut novel THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON, praised by George RR Martin as ‘a rollicking swashbuckler,’ received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the Nebula Award for Best Novel. THRONE won the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and has been translated into a half-dozen foreign languages.
Saladin’s poems and short stories, nominated for numerous awards, have appeared in publications ranging from Slate to Callaloo to BuzzFeed, and have been widely anthologized and translated. His essays on politics, geek culture, and Muslim American issues have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Salon. He lives near Detroit, and is currently writing BLACK BOLT for Marvel Comics.
Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and three children. By day she works as a breast oncology nurse. At all other times she juggles, none too successfully, writing, reading, gaming, and gardening. She has written one novel entitled
An Unproductive Woman available on Amazon. She has also been published in or has stories upcoming in
Escape Pod, Diabolical Plots, and Fiyah! Magazine. Khaalidah also coedits Podcastle.org where she is on a mission to encourage more women to submit fantasy stories. Of her alter ego, K from the planet Vega, it is rumored that she owns a time machine and knows the secret to long youth. She can be found online at
http://khaalidah.com and on Twitter at @khaalidah.
Listen to this week’s PodCastle!