Author Topic: CoW Ep. 223: The Oulough  (Read 2376 times)

danooli

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on: December 31, 2016, 04:01:36 PM
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 223
Click here to read the text of the story

Tags: art, belief, Cast of Wonders, community, empathy, family, Fantasy, foster parents, Francesca Forrest, Jeremy Carter, Julia Rios, learning, Modern Fantasy, wishes, Young Adult fiction



Kaa

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Reply #1 on: January 01, 2017, 08:42:32 PM
Nice story. Love the dynamic between the aunt and the niece. And her reframing of Tina's parents' mistakes as just that -- mistakes. Misaimed and misfired talents. Very nicely done.

I invent imaginary people and make them have conversations in my head. I also write.

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Reply #2 on: January 09, 2017, 03:55:08 PM
Huh, interesting.  I particularly liked the gradual describing of the creature by individual features.  I liked the starburst beak the best, though it did make me wonder what circumstances might make that configuration a natural selection advantage.  Some kind of pockmarked soil filled with tiny burrowing insects?  Then can probe more than one with beakpoints simultaneously?