Toasted Cake 261! In which we sing.

At 0600 hours, Aurora brews coffee, intensifies the lights to 800 lumens, and heats the ship to an optimal 70.2 degrees, all according to protocol.

This story first appeared right here in Fireside.

Jenn Reese writes speculative fiction for readers of all ages. Her middle grade books include A Game of Fox & Squirrels (Henry Holt, April 2020) and Above World (Candlewick), a finalist for the 2012 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

TC261-symphony-for-the-space.mp3

PS: AND WITH THAT, we come to the last episode of the RUN OF HOPE season. Thanks for listening, and be safe and well until next time! <3

Toasted Cake 259! In which we skate the spell.

I fell the first time I tried the spell. The magic broke, snapping a crack into the ice and getting me a three-day ban from the rink by the angry ex-almost-pro who drove the Zamboni.

This story is original to Toasted Cake.
Kristen Koopman is a graduate student, writer, and nerd.  Her interests include blatant escapism, overanalyzing anything and everything, playing with her dog, and enough garlic to kill vampires at twenty paces.  Other stories of hers can be found at Kaleidotrope and forthcoming in GlitterShip.  She is definitely not two smaller Kristen Koopmans in a trenchcoat.


TC259-snow-queens-discount.mp3

Toasted Cake 258! In which we arrange our features in a neutral expression.

"I am experiencing an unpleasant digestive reaction to something I ingested this morning and my primary spousal relationship is suffering a breakdown which is causing me emotional distress."

This story first appeared on Darusha's Patreon.

M. Darusha Wehm is the Nebula Award-nominated and Sir Julius Vogel Award winning author of the interactive fiction game The Martian Job, as well as the science fiction novels Beautiful Red, Children of Arkadia, The Voyage of the White Cloud, and the Andersson Dexter cyberpunk detective series. Their mainstream books include the Devi Jones' Locker YA series and the humorous coming-of-age novel The Home for Wayward Parrots. Darusha's short fiction and poetry have appeared in many venues, including Terraform and Nature. Originally from Canada, Darusha lives in Wellington, New Zealand after spending several years sailing the Pacific.



TC258-fear-of-lying.mp3

Toasted Cake #257! In which we attempt the parallel parking maneuver.
360-degree camera coverage. Radar, inertial compass, GPS. Independent all-wheel drive, nanoceramic brakes. 5G, sat-phone, and UHF communications. Air bags everywhere. And the worst student driver in the history of the automobile.
This story is original to Toasted Cake.
Laurence Raphael Brothers is a writer and a technologist. He has published around 30 short stories in magazines such as Nature, PodCastle, the New Haven Review, and Galaxy's Edge. His WWI-era fantasy novel Twilight Patrol and his romantic noir urban fantasy novella The Demons of Wall Street were both just recently published. Follow him on twitter: @lbrothers or visit laurencebrothers.com for more stories that can be read or listened to online.

TC257-learners-permit.mp3

Toasted Cake Podcast #254! In which we hold our breath.
When we rounded everybody up for the register, Maude and Julie were sheepish. They only wanted this one thing, this battered white box of . . . craft parts?
This story first appeared in Sabr Literary.

Christi Nogle's short stories have been produced on podcasts such as PseudoPod, Escape Pod, The Wicked Library, and Tales to Terrify. Christi teaches college composition and lives in Boise, Idaho with her partner Jim and their dogs and cats. Follow her at christinogle.com or on Twitter @christinogle .

TC254-packet-c.mp3

Toasted Cake Podcast #253! in which we try to raise fully functioning adults.
Whether you are adopting by chance because you found the smoking crater on your property or whether you volunteered for the Zeptonian Childcare Service, congratulations and thank you!
This story first appeared in Podcastle.
David Steffen is a writer, publisher, editor, and software developer. He is the editor of Diabolical Plots and the Long List Anthology series, and he runs The Submission Grinder, a donation-supported website to help writers find publishers for their work. You can find him on twitter @diabolicalplots.

TC253-zeptonian.mp3

Toasted Cake #252! In which we connect.
When I got to Mario Reyes's dorm room, I heard him scuffling around, opening and closing drawers as if he had a girl coming over.
This story first appeared in Factor Four Magazine.
Katherine Quevedo was born and raised just outside of Portland, OR, where she works as an analysis manager and lives with her husband and two sons. Her fiction has appeared in Short Édition's Short Circuit, Harbinger Press Flash Fiction Fridays, Thrilling Words, 87 Bedford, and elsewhere. When she isn't writing, she enjoys watching movies, singing, playing old-school video games, belly dancing, and making spreadsheets. Find her at katherinequevedo.com.

TC252-exchange.mp3

Toasted Cake #251! In which we get out the hard-boiled egg.

This one November my mom went missing and me and Andy and his other friend Meg tried to fill in for her because my mom is the moon.

This story is original to Toasted Cake.

Megan Lee Beals is fostering mason bees in her modest city garden, sewing things which attempt to defy physics, and forgetting to pull the bread out of the oven. She lives in Tacoma Washington with her husband and one formerly feral cat. You can read more of her stories at meganleebeals.com.

TC251-moon-errata.mp3