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2025 Year End Campaign and Escape Pod 20th Anniversary Recap!

It’s that time of year again! If you like what we do and would like to support us in bringing you even more incredible short fiction, our year-end campaign will be running from December 1st to 31st!

Thanks to some of Escape Artists most generous supporters, this year, we have a Matching Gift Fund of $10,000. That means your support will have twice the impact. Every dollar you donate will be matched 1:1! We want to take this opportunity to thank a few of our recent major donors: the Turner Family, the van Verth family, and the Scalzi Family Trust.

What’s more, if you subscribe or renew your current subscription, or gift a subscription, to Patreon by December 31st with the code 2025YEC, you’ll get a 10% discount off your first month or annual subscription for 2026! Give yourself or the audio fiction fan in your life the gift of ad-free enjoyment for the year ahead! Monthly donations ensure we can plan ahead with a reliable income, which means we can publish more original stories, devote more time to editorial excellence, plan for the future, and more.

Head over to our Paypal Giving Fund to donate without fees, check out our Patreon subscription options, or check out other ways to support us! (Continue Reading…)

2024 Year-End Campaign

Hello, everyone!

As we edge closer to the end of the year (whoa!), it’s time for Escape Artists Foundation’s annual end-of-year fundraising campaign!

This year, several of EA’s most generous supporters have pledged to match every donation between now and the end of 2024 up to a current total of $7000 USD! This means that between now and December 31st, your support will have twice the impact; any amount you donate will be matched 1:1. We hope to unlock the entire matching fund by the end of the year, which we can only do with your incredible support!

If you’d like to support us in publishing more original speculative fiction, planning more ambitious projects, and compensating our magnificent crew, here are some options to donate:

  • Paypal Giving Fund: EA is registered as a US 501(c)(3) charity through the Paypal Giving Fund, which means all transaction fees are covered and we get the entirety of your donation.
  • Subscribe or gift a subscription: ‘Tis the season for gift-giving, both for yourself and your family and friends! With a subscription, you will have twice the impact not just for today but the rest of 2025! And don’t forget—we are running our annual discount, where you can get a 12-month subscription for the price of 11. 
  • Other ways to support: Prefer to make a one-time donation another way? Check out our support page for more donation options!
  • Have questions or need help? Want to contribute to our match grant and see your donation encourage additional support? Email us at donations@escapeartists.net.

And depending on where you are, your donation might be tax-deductible!

Whether you have been a member of Escape Artists’ community since 2005 or just started following, now is the perfect time to start supporting us because your gift will have twice the impact. 

As always, thank you for supporting our mission to bring free and accessible speculative audio fiction to a global audience. We couldn’t do what we do without you!

Recent Issues

Over the past several months we’ve struggled with timely payments to the authors and narrators who trust us with their work. We knew there would be delays and bumps with our transition to a non-profit, but we want to be transparent about what’s been happening, what we’re doing to correct it, and some actions others can take. (Continue Reading…)

Congratulations to Premee Mohamed!

EA is thrilled to congratulate Escape Pod assistant editor Premee Mohamed for winning the 2021 Nebula Award for her novella “And What Can We Offer You Tonight”!

Congratulations also to EA alums Darcie Little Badger and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki for their wins, Troy L Wiggins for his Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award, and all the winners and finalists.

Ignyte Award Nominations!

The 2022 Ignyte Awards finalists have been announced, and EA is honored to have returned to the Best Fiction Podcast list with three finalists — PodCastle, Escape Pod, and PseudoPod!

Congratulations to Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Eleanor Wood, Sofia Barker, Matt Dovey, Peter Behravesh, Jen R. Albert, Cherae Clark, Summer Fletcher, S.B. Divya, Mur Lafferty, Valerie Valdes, Benjamin C. Kinney, Premee Mohamed, Summer Brooks, Adam Pracht, Tina Connolly, Alasdair Stuart, Shawn Garrett, Alex Hofelich, Kat Day, Karen Menzel, Chelsea Davis, Marty Perrett and the entirety of the Escape Pod*, PseudoPod, and PodCastle teams!

This marks PodCastle’s third and Escape Pod’s second years in a row as Ignyte finalists.

Congratulations also to Shingai Njeri Kagunda for her Best Novella nomination for And This is How to Stay Alive, along with EA alums Cherae Clark, Darcie Little Badger, Zin E. Rocklyn, and Troy L. Wiggins for their nominations!

Congratulations to all of the brilliant finalists!

The 2022 #IgnyteAwards are open for public voting from now through June 10th, and will be presented on September 17th.

*2021 Escape Pod guest editor Brent C. Lambert is a member of the administration team for the Ignyte Award. To avoid any conflict and with his agreement, he has not been listed for this nomination. However the Escape Pod team absolutely feel his work contributed to Escape Pod’s 2021 success (such as its Hugo nomination that includes his name), and thank him for his grace and humility.

EA Stands in Solidarity with the Palestinian People

EA stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their right to freedom, justice, equality and self-determination.

We encourage everyone to educate themselves with vetted and trusted sources like decolonizepalestine.com, and to support the Palestinian people’s calls for social media exposure and  protest tactics such as the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement.

We also want to call out the special Palestine Issue by Strange Horizons, and request that all our fellow publications and podcasts take this moment to support and highlight Palestinian creators and contributors.

Where to Find EA at CoNZealand Fringe

In addition to Worldcon, this year there is a Fringe program of complementary genre fiction programming at European-friendly times outside Worldcon programming hours. All items are being livestreamed on YouTube, so are available either live or can be watched later. Transcripts will also be made available.

You can learn more about #CoNZFringe at its website.

  • Alasdair Stuart will be moderating Fanzines Online: Fan Publications in the Age of Social Media on Tuesday, 28th July at 8 pm BST
  • Marguerite Kenner will be a panellist on Genre Podcasts: Beyond the Basics on Thursday, 31st July at 8pm BST
  • Katherine Inskip will be a panellist on Making Space for the New: How YA Trends Predict Cultural Shifts in SFF on Saturday, 1st August at 8 pm BST

March 2020 Metacast

Transcript

(Alasdair) Hi everyone, Alasdair here.

We’re not going to ask how you are right now, because we have a pretty good idea. You’re fine. You’re FINE. You’re the same version of fine as everyone right now, the one Aerosmith sang about. The one where you’re alternately anxious, terrified, furious and calm.

We empathise. We’re the same. (Continue Reading…)

Pardon Our Electrons

One of the challenges of being a positively ancient podcasting company by modern standards is the pace at which technology and common practice advance. We’re currently retrofitting swaths of our back catalogs to bring them up to modern standards, including SSL certificates. Unfortunately, some podcatchers are interpreting this as the episodes being ‘new’ and pushing them to audience feeds.

(Continue Reading…)