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 ..read more

Toasted Cake 260! In which maybe we procrastinate? Just a little? Jen's final sociology paper was due tomorrow, so she was procrastinating. This story first appeared in Galaxy's Edge, and a slightly longer version is available to read on Curious Fictions. Effie Seiberg is a fantasy and science fiction writer. Her stories can be found in the "Women Destroy Science Fiction!" special edition of Lightspeed Magazine (winner of the 2015 British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology), "The Best of Galaxy's Edge 2015-2017", Analog, Fireside Fiction, and PodCastle, amongst others. She lives in the San Fra ..read more

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 definitel ..read more

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 detec ..read more

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 ..read more

Toasted Cake 256! In which we ride. Araana picked a sticky seedpod off his coat and stepped out of the brambles, onto the surface of the wide and flat road left over by an empire long past. This story first appeared on Bogi's patreon. You can find Bogi at Bogi reads the world, dot com! Bogi is also bogiperson on a variety of social media. TC256-wind-lashed-vehicles.mp3 ..read more

Toasted Cake #255! In which we make breathable air. It wasn't a new idea. But as soon as mother said out loud "we should wrap the Moon"--so close, so dead, but with resources hidden under dust and rock--father and his scientists started figuring out how to do it. This story is original to Toasted Cake. Once a Silicon Valley software engineer, Curtis C. Chen now writes speculative fiction and runs puzzle games near Portland, Oregon. His debut novel Waypoint Kangaroo (a 2017 Locus Awards Finalist) is a science fiction spy thriller about a superpowered secret agent facing his toughest mission y ..read more

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 ..read more

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 @diabolical ..read more

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 ..read more