It's that time of year again, so SpellCast is bringing you a special holiday episode to supplement your celebrations - or help you escape from their stresses. With our second podcast play's debut and holiday filks rounding out the episode, we hope you'll find it as unforgettable as we do.

- We ease into the holiday spirit with an Artist's Corner as Venessa asks Margie (cauldroncakebkr) for tips on holiday baking.

- "Letters and Maps" makes its fandom debut as our second podcast play. It will be available to read on FictionAlley on December 25.

- As a special episode treat, the hosts review two fics for the episode: Lady Ravenclaw's, A Black Christmas and Cedar's, One for Each Night.

Along the way, listen for filks sung by Zorb, Sidney, and Venessa: - Zorb channels the Basilisk for "Change 'Em to Rock" by Caius Marcius; Sidney brings us Lavender's point of view in "Won-Won Baby" by Lilac; Venessa finishes with "Norbert Roasting on an Open Fire." You can read more holiday filks at the Harry Potter Filks site.

Whether and whatever you celebrate, we hope you're enjoying the holiday season. Let us know if SpellCast brought you seasonal cheer at our LiveJournal, MySpace, or FAP forum!

It's the twelfth month of the year and the twelfth episode of SpellCast! Coincidence? We'll never tell.

In this episode:

- We conclude our Futures of Entertainment conference report with Gwendolyn Grace's interview with Diane Nelson from Warner Brothers.

- In the Podcast Spotlight, Sidney chats with Marisa and Anna from The Remembrall Live, a British Harry Potter podcast.

- Zorb talks with a few beta readers, Emily and Linda, about the beta's role in the fan fiction creative process.

- For the Fan Fiction Review, the hosts discuss 'How I Lost My Pink Bunny Slippers' by twin_v.

Enlightening '07 is calling for people - check it out on the Knight Bus forum in FicitonAlley Park!

Don't forget that Hot Topic have released shirts with You-Know-Who from the recently released preview poster - they're available for pre-order now!

You can listen to Episode 12 by clicking on the link below or through iTunes. For more information or to leave comments and feedback regarding SpellCast, check out our forum on FictionAlley Park, as well as our LiveJournal and MySpace pages.

We hope you enjoy the show, and please remember to vote for us on PodcastAlley!

Hold onto your pants! In episode 4 of SpellCast Creativity we intend to rock your socks off!

This week, we have three fan fiction readings:

- Five have a Magical Time, written by Lazy_Neutrino and read by Elanor Isolda

- Shelter, written by Magnolia Mama and read by Gwendolyn Grace

- Amsterdam, written by DrT and read by Jason Fraser

Also, we feature a brand new segment, Wizrock News, provided by Wizrocklopedia, as well as a wizarding rock song "And then I Died", performed by the Moaning Myrtles.

SpellCast Creativity welcomes all fan fiction entries with a PG-13 rating or below, so if you'd like your favourite fic to be heard, flick an email over to spellcast@fictionalley.org.

Enjoy!

Sorry about the probably somewhat nonsensical string of characters at the bottom of this post, but we need to do it to 'claim' the podcast on our account at Podcastalley (no relation to FictionAlley). Don't forget, you can vote for SpellCast as your favorite podcast here

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-7e145c6bb3afc7cef4d922d8366cf82a}

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Also, we're looking for experienced beta readers to participate in a round table discussion on the process of editing fanfic; if you want to participate and you have Skype and a microphone, post a comment here!