Episode 223: The Oulough by Francesca Forrest• Narrated by
Julia Rios• Audio production by
Jeremy Carter•
A Cast of Wonders original!Francesca Forrest has lived in the United States, England, and Japan and used to boast about having given birth to children on three continents. If she’d started earlier, she might have tried for births on the rest. Currently she works as a copy editor, spending as much of her free time writing as possible. She’s had short stories and poems published both online and in print, along with one novel,
Pen Pal. She also volunteers as a tutor in a medium-security jail. She loves knowing which plants in a landscape are edible and the folk names of wildflowers. You can follow her
online and on
Twitter.
Julia Rios is a writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in several places, including
Daily Science Fiction,
Apex Magazine, and
Goblin Fruit. She is a fiction editor for the Hugo-nominated magazine,
Strange Horizons, and co-editor with Alisa Krasnostein of Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories, and the Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction 2013. Follow her
online and on
Twitter.
“Are there any bandages in this house?” Tina asked. “I’ve found an oulough, but it’s hurt.” She likes to do this: come into my—sorry, make that our—bedroom when I’m trying to study and ask me for something.
Tina’s not my little sister. She’s my half-niece, I guess you’d say. Her mom is my half-sister Shari. If you were ever to hear any authority figure talking about Shari, you’d hear things like “poor impulse control” and “bad choices.” One of those last landed in her in jail, and that’s how Tina came to be living with my mom and me and telling me about a wounded oulough.Click here to listen to Episode 223Click here to read the text of the storyTags: art, belief, Cast of Wonders, community, empathy, family, Fantasy, foster parents, Francesca Forrest, Jeremy Carter, Julia Rios, learning, Modern Fantasy, wishes, Young Adult fiction
