Podcastle, Episode 900 for Tuesday the 15th of July 2025.

Sour Fruit by Gillian Knox, read by Karen Menthol, selected and produced by Devin Martin.

Rated PG-13, with content notes for domestic abuse and the death of a parent.

Good morning, good day, good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to podcast with a flying castle of fantasy fiction.

I remain your host, Matt Dovey, and I so often start these intros by saying it's my privilege to present a story for you today, and I do always mean that.

This is a position and a responsibility I take seriously, and I never forget that it is a privilege.

But today, I really super-meagre mean it.

Today it is my absolute privilege to present Episode 900 for you, a podcastle original for our Disability Pride and Magic Month, and one that genuinely stopped my breath when I read it, because it is such a personal gut punch.

It's the perfect story to mark a centenary episode like this, as it encapsulates so much

of what we try to do here.

It's about showing an underrepresented narrative, illuminating a marginalized experience

with a story about trying to engender empathy through fiction, using our little platform

to lean our weight on the moral arc of the universe and bend it towards justice.

So I'm honored to present today's story for you.

Sour Fruit by Gillian Knox, narrated by Caramenzor.

It is worth saying, because I really don't say it often enough, that 900 episodes does not happen by magic.

It is not manor from the heavens, a gift from the universe where each episode pops into being on a Tuesday.

It takes a lot of folk, a lot of

time and care and graft to keep the castle flying, from the slush readers to the

masthead, saw all the admin involved in the engineering decks of the mothership at

escape artists. And, of course, our authors and narrators. And we are mighty, mighty

proud that we managed to pay everyone involved in the endeavour.

...