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The Shrine Tree

July 11, 2025   Programming

The Shrine Tree by Judith Cullen — Fri­day, July 11th, 2pm SLT/Pacific Time

Audio real­i­sa­tion by Judith Cullen and Richard Elen

CEH Pro­duc­tions is proud to present The Shrine Tree, a sto­ry by Judith Cullen, cre­at­ed as an audio pre­sen­ta­tion by the author and fel­low CEH part­ner Richard Elen.

Like 2018’s Arrivals & Depar­tures, The Shrine Tree was inspired by one of the stun­ning vir­tu­al envi­ron­ments cre­at­ed by lead­ing artists and design­ers for the annu­al Fan­ta­sy Faire in the vir­tu­al world of Sec­ond Life, which rais­es tens of thou­sands of dol­lars every year for the Amer­i­can Can­cer Society’s Relay For Life. Indeed, the envi­ron­ment for The Shrine Tree was cre­at­ed by the same design­ers – Sharni Aza­lee and Mar­cus Inkpen of The Look­ing Glass – as cre­at­ed Erst­while Sta­tion, the set­ting for Arrivals & Depar­tures. And, like the lat­ter, The Shrine Tree was writ­ten as part of the annu­al Fan­ta­sy Faire Lit­Fest, where writ­ers are invit­ed to con­tribute sto­ries and poems inspired by the envi­ron­ments of Fan­ta­sy Faire.

The Shrine Tree tells of a man who has earned a unique rep­u­ta­tion as a prob­lem-solver – a “fix­er” – thanks to his abil­i­ty to remain emo­tion­al­ly detached from the prob­lems he is work­ing on. He can see through the emo­tions that cloud peo­ples’ judge­ment to find a solu­tion, thanks to that leg­endary detach­ment. He believes he has left the com­pli­ca­tions of the emo­tion­al realm behind him… but under the spell of an increas­ing­ly mirac­u­lous place, it becomes evi­dent that this may not, in fact, be the case.

The Shrine Tree is read by Judith Cullen and Richard Elen, and was record­ed and pro­duced by Richard Elen. The episode includes music by Gabriel Fau­ré, arranged by Ben Par­ry and Bene­dict Mad­den, cour­tesy of Audio Network.

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