PseudoPod 532: Flash On The Borderlands XXXVI: Artemis Rising Showcase“Nothin’ ever seems to turn out right/I don’t wanna grow up”
Tom WaitsWhen First He Laid Eyes by
Rachael K. Jones“When First He Laid Eyes” first appeared in
Fireside, February 2016. Sometimes what is scariest in the world is what we normalize. This story is for the women who have lived this reality.
RACHAEL K. JONES is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Athens, GA. Her work has appeared in dozens of venues, including
Strange Horizons,
Escape Pod,
Crossed Genres,
Daily Science Fiction, and
PodCastle. She is a
SFWA member, an editor, and a secret android. Follow her on Twitter
@RachaelKJones.
Your narrator –
Tatiana Grey is a New York City based actress of stage, screen, and of course, the audio booth. She adores traveling and counts her lucky stars that acting and dancing have taken her all over the United States, to Montreal, Vancouver, Ireland, and Holland… but she loves coming home to New York where it all started. Equally at home speaking heightened language in a corset, in a leather jacket spouting obscenities, and as a dancer she has been compared to such dark, vivacious heroines as Helena Bonham Carter, a young Winona Ryder and Ellen Page. This depth and facility with multiple genres garnered her a
New York Innovative Theatre Award Best Featured Actress nomination for her work in
The Night of Nosferatu. Her facility with accents has landed her quite a few audiobooks and numerous on-camera roles including the role of Evgenya in the award winning
I am A Fat Cat. Tatiana is a proud member of
Actor’s Equity Association.
A girl’s first stalker is always a cause for celebration. She will phone her mother with the big news and spill the story in a tangle of words, voice raw with emotion.
“E
yes That See Everything” by
Karen Bovenmyer“Eyes That See Everything” is a Pseudopod original.
Karen Bovenmyer earned an MFA in Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Program in 2013, and she was awarded the 2016 Mary Shelley Scholarship by the Horror Writers Association.
She spent many hours as a kid among beaten earth and bare roots avoiding predators and whispering to imaginary people of various moralities. She never had a pet rabbit, but she did have a hamster named Chucky Cheeks who wanted to be an astronaut. This story is dedicated to everyone who found animals and inanimate objects easier to communicate with than fellow homo sapiens. Karen is the Nonfiction Assistant Editor for Mothership Zeta, Escape Artists’ new e-zine and has been having a spectacular time helping set up the first issue. Check out book, short story, and movie reviews, a “Story Doctor” article from award-winning science fiction author James Patrick Kelly, and a science column from a real astronomer—as well as plenty of fabulous fresh stories from amazing authors both new and experienced.
Your narrator –
Jen R. Albert is an entomologist, writer of science fiction and fantasy, gamer, and all-around geek. She is co-editor at PodCastle and submissions editor at Uncanny Magazine. Her first story appeared in
Mad Scientist Journal in June of 2015
“’Back off, retard.’ Jeanne and Stacey block the hallway to the bathroom, arms outstretched, hands knotted together so they make a human chain. ‘This toilet’s for normal kids.’
“Max is angry. I feel him heavy in my pocket, but I don’t want to get in a fight and pee my pants, so I pick Luke instead. I pull him out and his feet get caught so I have to untangle him while they taunt me.”
Standard Procedure by
Dagny Paul“Standard Procedure” first appeared in the anthology
For Mortal Things Unsung.
DAGNY PAUL is a teacher, writer, failed artist, and comic book geek living in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana. Follow her for no good reason on Twitter
@dagnypaul.
Your narrator –
Laurice White – is a recent theater graduate and long time theater student, and has read stories for
Podcastle, Pseudopod, and most recently for John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey on
The End is Nigh and
The End is Now, the first two volumes of
The Apocalypse Triptych.
”When you turn twelve, they take out your teeth. Before that they’re bendy and kind of see-through and can’t do much damage, but after they get hard and brittle. And sharp.
“Today is my twelfth birthday.”
Us, Here by
Victoria Winnick“Us, Here” is a PseudoPod original. “A while ago I ran a roleplaying event, tabletop style, that explored a character’s dysphoria and body-anxiety through this kind of “meatscape” environment, basically exaggerating and inflating all of the points of greatest unease, making the internal external. I’d been thinking of incorporating that idea into a more discrete story for a while, and this seemed like a great time to do that”.
VICTORIA WINNICK is a writer, editor, and chef, living in Calgary, Alberta. When she’s not doing one of those things, she’s usually making plans about the next time she can. In the past, she’s written educational books for children, and magazine articles on sex, culture, and music, and she’s also an associate editor here at
Pseudopod. In lieu of a personal plug, she asks that if you’re enjoying what you’re hearing in this, or any other episode of
Pseudopod, that you please consider subscribing and helping to keep these excellent stories from diverse authors coming, week after week.
Your narrator –
Jen Roper – lives in Atlanta, GA. She works as a software engineer. Some day she will probably embed SETI on your thermostat and in your car assuming someone else doesn’t beat her to the punch. In the meantime, her hobbies include drinking and knowing things and making pop culture references. She also enjoys long walks after dark and seeking out Eldritch abominations in an alternate reality known as “pocket monsters”.
“We are crawling. The space around us is tight and hot, and beads of muggy condensation run down our face – positive feedback ramping up the heat and the wet until the difference between breath and sweat is lost. Finally we’re out, gulping air and lying sweatslick on flesh that heaves beneath us, skin sticking on skin and apart as we breathe, and the ground breathes beneath us.”
Listen to this week's Pseudopod.