It’s a busy week at Escape Artists Central, as usual. We’ve got new episodes for you from three shows, a festive treat from a fourth and a reminder that Mothership Zeta Issue 1 is still available with issue 2 coming soon too.
The Winter Festival by Evan Berkow, read by Kate Baker
Originally intended for Cast of Wonders, Evan’s story is one of those beautiful pieces that implies so much while saying just enough. It’s gentle, dystopian, terrifying once you look at it and has a world view that’s unique. It’s a brilliant piece read by one of the best narrators in the business and it’s up right now.
The winners of our most recent forum based Flash fiction contest show just how uniquely suited horror is to that particular format. Lena’s story is a touching, and chilling, piece about living on the terminus between adolescence and adulthood and what happens when we refuse to cross it. Nathaniel’s is a beautifully understated, minimalist story about an apocalypse that we can barely perceive even as it cuts us off from everything. Finally, Jon’s piece is a terrifying curdling of self help tapes. Alone they’re amazing pieces. Together they’re extraordinary.
The Wedding of Snow, Earth and Salt by Kate Heartfield
And speaking of amazing Flash…Podcastle excel at multi voice stories and this one, is one of the very best. Wilson, Graeme, Rachael, Peter, Khaalidah, Jennifer and Arun all nail the precise, rich prose that Kate Heartfield gave us. It’s a beautiful story, rich with metaphor, language and implication and the Podcastle team do a wonderful job on it.
The Mothership Zeta team are putting select pieces from each issue up on the website as a taster for the magazine. This is pretty much the perfect MZ story, Sarah combining sweeping ideas with a wonderful sense of humor and my favorite last line in months.
Marley and Cratchit by David Steffen
Cast of Wonders takes January off from original programming and run staff picks instead. Those will kick off shortly but this is such a great story I’d be mad to not mention it. I’m a sucker for Dickensian fiction at the best of times (And worst of times, couldn’t resist) and trust me this really is the best of times. It’s a great story filled with the festive chill and vibrancy that the crappy weather this year absolutely denied us. It’s one of David’s best, and one of the best performances my Dad’s ever turned in so make sure you check it out.
And that’s the EA week. As ever you can find our back catalogues on line through the links so do dive in and, if you can, please subscribe, donate and maybe throw us a review at itunes. It all helps to keep us doing what we love and as you can see, we really, really love what we do.