Author Topic: CoW Ep. 225: Little Wonders 9 - The Four Stewpots & Her Path Lay Forward (& 231)  (Read 3317 times)

danooli

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 1745
    • Who Doesn't Love Stories?
Episode 225: Little Wonders 9 – Comfort Food



• Authors: D K Thompson and Shane Halbach
• Narrators: Tina Connolly and M K Hobson
• Audio production by Jeremy Carter
The Four Stewpots is forthcoming in And Welcome Back, D K Thompson’s first collection.
Her Path Lay Forward is a Cast of Wonders original!

Dave Thompson is a good name to know if you spend any time around Escape Artists. (So is “California King,” or “Easter Werewolf”…) He’s a pretty awesome guy, even if he disparages pumpkin beer. He lives outside Los Angeles with his wife and three terribly photogenic children. While he can tweet up to 175 characters, he refrains from using this power for chaos. Together with co-editor Anna Schwind, he ran PodCastle for five years before stepping down to focus on his own writing in 2015. This story is forthcoming in Dave’s first collection And Welcome Back, which he successfully Kickstarted last year. You can find two of his audio book narrations on Amazon: Norse Code by Greg Van Eekhout and Briarpatch by Tim Pratt. Follow him online or on Twitter.

Tina Connolly is the author of the Ironskin trilogy from Tor Books, and the Seriously Wicked series, from Tor Teen. Ironskin, her first fantasy novel, was a Nebula finalist. Her stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and many more. Her narrations have appeared in audiobooks and podcasts including Podcastle, Pseudopod, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and her Parsec-winning flash fiction podcast Toasted Cake.

(edit: This is also Episode 231, as  as Associate Editor Sally Gill’s Staff Pick for 2016!)


Review: The Four Stewpots
by Darcy E. (14 friends, 27 reviews) 1 star out of 5
I've been coming to uptown for the past year since getting a new job and moving to Whittier, and somehow had never seen The Four Stewpots before. I'm actually not a stew fan. I like my food fresh. Soup is okay, some days. Stew? Bleh. It’s been sitting for ages - this place actually suggests one pot they have is a thousand years old. Bon Apetit? But my daughter's first report card had come home from junior high - she'd done exceptionally well - she wants to be an astronaut, a monster make-up artist, a superhero, a cryptozoologist, or a cartographer of parallel universes - whatever she decides to do she'll be brilliant, and so as a reward, I let her pick. She saw The Four Stewpots as we were driving down the street, right next to Undercity Comics, and demanded we go there. Again, I do not like stew, but I am a supportive and proud mother who wants to encourage my daughter's academic achievements, and realize that it isn't always about me. At least, until it's time to write the Yelp review.  


 
*******************************************


Shane Halbach lives in Chicago with his wife and three kids, where he writes software by day and avoids writing stories by night. His story Downsizing Pluto appeared in Cast of Wonders Episode 106, all the way back in December of 2013. Additionally, his fiction has appeared in Analog, EscapePod, The Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction, and elsewhere. He blogs regularly, or can be found on Twitter.

M K Hobson has switched things up recently. While she continues to write, she has been dallying with a newfound love of photography. She’s also been traveling quite a bit, and as a matter of fact today’s story was recorded at Timberhouse in Ottowa, an urban castle and creative paradise. You can find her online and on Twitter.

“What do we do?” whispered Oliver. “What do we do, what do we do?” Tears continued to leak from his red-rimmed eyes.
“We’ll do what we must,” said Agnes. She looked around at the remaining residents of Thistlepatch huddled in one of the few intact buildings. Most of the other buildings has been reduced to ash or smashed to kindling by the dragon.


Click here to listen to Episode 225
Click here to read the text of The Four Stewpots
Click here to read the text of Her Path Lay Forward

Tags: Cast of Wonders, comfort food, D K Thompson, determination, expectations, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, food, Jeremy Carter, Little Wonders, M K Hobson, obligation, reviews, Shane Halbach, stereotypes, Tina Connolly, Young Adult fiction
« Last Edit: February 08, 2017, 10:36:38 PM by danooli »



Kaa

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 620
  • Trusst in me, jusst in me.
    • WriteWright
Two good stories. I kinda want to eat stew, now...

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

About writing || About Atheism and Skepticism (mostly) || About Everything Else


Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Ha!  Speculative Yelp review.  Spot-on, snarky fun, which says a lot more about her than about the restaurant.

And I liked the grandma vs. the dragon story as well.  I have a soft spot for badass little old ladies who soldier on where heroes may cower.



Fenrix

  • Curmudgeonly Co-Editor of PseudoPod
  • Editor
  • *****
  • Posts: 3996
  • I always lock the door when I creep by daylight.
Two tasty dishes!

My favorite Yelpers are those who have quit blogging and use reviews as opportunities for storytelling. I also love the accurate reporting from the unreliable narrator. One of my favorite authorial tricks!

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


Cynandre

  • Palmer
  • **
  • Posts: 37
  • I May be Addicted to Words...
    • Cynandre
I would really like the recipe for Pig Soup, please.

 

Insanity takes it's toll. Please have exact change.