Main fiction: "Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!" by John Kessel

Born in Buffalo, NY, novelist and story writer John Kessel is emeritus professor of literature and creative writing at North Carolina State University, where he taught courses on literature and creative writing and helped found the MFA program in creative writing.

His fiction has received the Theodore Sturgeon, Locus, James Tiptree Jr./Otherwise, Ignotus, and Shirley Jackson awards, and twice received the Nebula award. The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel, was published in 2022, and his The Presidential Papers appeared in PM Press’s Outspoken Authors series in 2024.

He lives with his wife, the novelist Therese Anne Fowler, in Raleigh.

This story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sept 1981.

Narrated by: Will Stagl

Will Stagl lives in his adopted home of Tucson Arizona where he is a creative professional by day and proudly recruits talented voice actors for StarShipSofa whenever duty calls. He shares a birthday with Mark Twain, Billy Idol and Winston Churchill, who will all be raising a pint together at the end of this month in celebration.

Fact: Looking Back At Genre History by Amy H Sturgis

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Main fiction: "Spintered/Splintering" by Rhiannon Rasmussen

Rhiannon Rasmussen is an author and illustrator of dark speculative works, not all of which involve exoskeletons. Rhiannon’s fiction has appeared in venues including Lightspeed Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and as Magic: the Gathering official web shorts. Visit rhiannonrs.com or @charibdys on Bluesky.

This story first appeared, in a slightly different form, as a download via Gumroad and itch.io, 2022.

Narrated by: Diane Severson

Diane Severson is a lyric soprano specializing in Early Music, specifically Baroque and medieval music and loves her work teaching people to sing. She has narrated for Escape Pod, PodCastle, Cast of Wonders, Pseudopod, and Tales to Terrify. Diane has been involved in the Speculative Poetry Scene since 2010, she is membership chair of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association and is a passionate promoter of genre poetry. The best place to find her is on the web because she tends to pick up and move to another country at the drop of a hat. She and her family currently reside in Buckinghamshire, England.

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Main fiction: "Quirks" by Marie Vibbert

Hugo and Nebula nominated author Marie Vibbert’s short fiction has appeared in top magazines such as Nature, Analog, and Clarkesworld, and been translated into Czech, Chinese and Vietnamese. Her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats, was long listed by the British Science Fiction Award and her work has been called “everything science fiction should be” by the Oxford Culture Review. She also writes poetry, comics, and computer games. By day she is a computer programmer in Cleveland, Ohio.

This story first appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November 2017.

Narrated by: Mark Nelson

Mark Nelson began audiobook narration in 2006, and now has over 180 titles at LibriVox, and recording as “Harry Shaw,” more than 100 for Audible. While Mark mainly records sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles, he has also ventured into the classics, including Hugo and Dostoyevsky.

Fact: Looking Back At Genre History by Amy H Sturgis

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Jay Caselberg is an Australian author and poet whose work has appeared in multiple venues worldwide and been translated into several languages. From time to time, it gets shortlisted for awards or appears in Year’s Best volumes. He currently resides in Germany.

This story originally appeared in Interzone, June 2003.

Narrated by: Nobilis Reed

Nobilis Reed is the host and narrator of the podcast, “This Kaiju Life” which is entirely safe for work, and the editor and creator of the podcast, “Nobilis Erotica” which is entirely NOT safe for work. In addition, he occasionally narrates audiobooks, publishes novels, and pretends to have “spare time.”

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Main fiction: "Movie Night" by Matthew Kressel

Matthew Kressel's many works of short fiction have or will soon appear in Asimov's, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Tor.com/Reactor, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in many other publications and Year's Best anthologies. His far-future novel Space Trucker Jess (Fairwood Press) is scheduled for late 2025. And his Mars-based science fiction novella The Rainseekers (Tordotcom) will appear in early 2026. Alongside Ellen Datlow, he runs the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in Manhattan. And he is the creator of the Moksha submissions system, used by many of the largest fiction publishers today. Find more at his website: matthewkressel.net.

This story is original to StarShipSofa.

Narrated by: Will Stagl

Will Stagl lives in his adopted home of Tucson Arizona where he is a creative professional by day and proudly recruits talented voice actors for Starship Sofa whenever duty calls. He dedicates the narration of this story to the loving memory of his Mother, Nancy Stagl

Fact: Looking Back At Genre History by Amy H Sturgis

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Brian Trent is the award-winning author of the sci-fi thrillers Redspace Rising and Ten Thousand Thunders, and more than a hundred short stories appearing in the world's top fiction markets, including in the New York Times' bestselling Black Tide Rising series, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Galaxy’s Edge, and numerous year’s best anthologies. Trent lives in Connecticut. His website and blog are at www.briantrent.com.

This story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2020.

Narrated by: Mary Murphy

Mary is a New York based actor/voice-over artist. She loves the world of audio drama and is delighted to be back on board the StarShipSofa. She has performed in theatre, film, TV, animation, radio, and video games. A few of her recent credits include the one-woman play An Evening With Lola Montez, It’s A Wonderful Life, a streamed performance of the piece Near Nellie Bly, Divination of The Three for Asheville Fringe, and the audio dramas Frontier Gentleman, Chinook, and Newfield. She can be heard voicing various characters for Disney, GoKidGo, LeapFrog, the Center For New American Media, Audible, and Audimance. She has also been a regular performer on the audio drama series Fireside Mystery Theatre, The NoSleep Podcast, The Wicked Library, To the Manor Borne By Robots, and Campfire Radio Theater. marymurphyonline.com

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Edward M. Lerner is the author of eighteen SF novels and many shorter works. The final novel in his InterstellarNet trilogy won the inaugural Canopus Award “honoring excellence in interstellar writing,” while other stories have been nominated for Locus, Prometheus, and Hugo awards. 2023 was a banner year for him, with two new novels published. Those are On the Shoals of Space-Time and Life and Death on Mars.

This story originally appeared in Deco Punk, 2015.

Narrated by: Diane Severson

Diane Severson is a lyric soprano specializing in Early Music, especially Baroque and medieval music. Diane has been involved in the SF Poetry Scene (yes, it’s a thing) since 2010. She has narrated for StarShipSofa, and PodCastle. She produces the sporadic podcast, Poetry Planet and is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She is a staff blogger for Amazing Stories Magazine focusing on Science Fiction Poetry. The best place to find her is on the web because she tends to pick up and move to another country at the drop of a hat. She and her family currently reside in Paris.

Fact: Looking Back At Genre History by Amy H Sturgis

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Angela “A.G.” Slatter is the author of the gothic fantasy novels All the Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns, and The Briar Book of the Dead (Titan Books); the supernatural crime novels Vigil, Corpselight and Restoration (Jo Fletcher Books); twelve short story collections, including The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings; the novellas Of Sorrow and Such, Ripper and The Bone Lantern; and a Hellboy Universe collaboration with Mike Mignola, Castle Full of Blackbirds. She’s won a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, a Shirley Jackson Award, three Australian Shadows Awards and eight Aurealis Awards, and been shortlisted for the QLA Courier Mail Book of the Year Award. Her work has been translated into Bulgarian, Dutch, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, Czechoslovakian, Hungarian, Turkish, French and Romanian. angelaslatter.com

This story originally appeared in Dark Discoveries #35, 2016.

Narrated by: Monica Pierce and Rikki LaCoste.

Monica Pierce is a nerd. A nerd with a background in both sci-fi and musical theatre; she is also a wicked Dungeon Master and the newest member of The Seanachai Group—a motley gang of storytellers from Toronto Canada, founded by Rikki LaCoste, who is both a veteran narrator for StarShipSofa and an unrepentant nerd himself. And as far as we can tell, Rikki may not, in fact, be made of tin.

(The narrators would like to apologise to all English speakers of the UK for our use of the Toronto British dialect - a Canadian/Harry Potter hybrid. However, we are all quite convinced that this would be the Received Pronunciation spoken in the south of England by the 2200s CE.)

With many winks,

Rikki LaCostem

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