Author Topic: CoW Ep. 192: Staff Pick 2015 – There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot  (Read 2664 times)

danooli

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 1745
    • Who Doesn't Love Stories?
Episode 192: Staff Pick 2015 – There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot by Christian McKay Heidicker

Narrated by Marguerite Kenner
Audio production by Rikki LaCoste
A Cast of Wonders original!

Every year in January, Cast of Wonders takes the month off to recharge our batteries, plan the year ahead, and highlight some of our favourite episodes. As part of joining the Escape Artists family, this year we’re pulling out all the stops. We’re running 10 staff pick episodes over the month, each one hosted by a different member of the Cast of Wonders crew.

We hope you enjoy slush reader Alexis Goble’s favorite story from 2015, There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot by Christian McKay Heidicker and narrated by Marguerite Kenner. The story originally aired March 15, 2015 as Episode 159.

Leticia Andrews saw the wizard hat on a Monday morning at 7:06 a.m. She was eating Lucky Charms in the kitchen nook. The hat was gray and tattered and sat in the window of her plastic princess house, which was in the backyard.

Click here to listen to Episode 192
Click here to read the text of the story

Original Episode 159 Notes:
Christian McKay Heidicker’s work has appeared in Spinetinglers, Solarwyrm, and two separate publications called Defenestration, a word that implies throwing something out the window, which Christian hopes doesn’t mean anything about his future. His first book THE KING OF ARCADIA will be published by Simon & Schuster in the summer of 2016. You can find more of his work on his website.


There Are No Marshmallows in Camelot is a Cast of Wonders original.

Tags: Cast of Wonders, Christian McKay Heidicker, King Arthur, magic, Marguerite Kenner, marshmallows, Modern Fantasy, Rikki LaCoste, school, spells, Staff Pick, trickery, wizards, Young Adult fiction



Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Haha, I had kindof forgotten this story since I read it, but I re-read it so that I could comment on the story thread and I found it quite fun.  Even if she didn't get to learn magic, it's super cool to know that you saved the die by reading a book and finding it there for you to read. 

Practically speaking, I'm a little surprised that some editor hadn't edited the marshmallows out of the books at some point, considering the anachronism, unless the timeline was changed so that it wasn't an anachronism anymore and Merlin actually was the inventor of marshmallows?   But a story like this need not be entirely practical, so even if it doesn't totally make sense, I still like it.




TrishEM

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 208
Ha, when Leticia told Merlin that the story couldn't change because it was closed up in a book, I was thinking NOOOOOOOOO! I liked how Heidicker had Leticia realizing her error by showing the letters and words spilling out of the story.
Leticia isn't a very good little girl, and she still has some lessons to learn, but she feels quite real. Fun story.



Devoted135

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1252
Very fun! I really liked the book imagery, and the callback of her mostly-forgotten adventure in the middle of a random English class. Also, how awesome would it be to be able to perfectly toast marshmallows at will?