Podcasts about Andre Norton Award

Tonight we're chatting with David Bowles and Guadalupe Garcia McCall about their new book Secret of the Moon Conch, about a modern-day young woman and a young 16th-century Aztec warrior who each are going through their own adventures and learn they can communicate across time.David Bowles is an award-winning Mexican American author and translator from Texas. His books include The Smoking Mirror, Feathered Serpent Dark Heart of Sky, and They Call Me Güero. He has been published in the New York Times, School Library Journal, Strange Horizons, English Journal, Rattle, Translation Review, and the Journal of Children's Literature. In 2017, he was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters, and in 2020, he co-founded #DignidadLiteraria, a social justice movement advocating for greater Latinx representation in publishing. Find him at davidbowles.usGuadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of Under the Mesquite, Summer of the Mariposas, Shame the Stars, All the Stars Denied, and Echoes of Grace. She has received a Pura Belpré Author Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, and the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children's Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades. She advocates for literacy and diverse books. She lives with her husband in Texas. Find her at ggmccall.com. This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4268760/advertisement

Tony speaks with Author Guadalupe Garcia McCall in advanced of her reading at the Latino Bookstore at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center as well as the new manager of the Latino Bookstore: Alma Pina. Born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of several young adult novels, some short stories for adults, and many children's poems. Guadalupe has received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children's Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades. Fluent in both English and Spanish, Guadalupe is a compelling speaker who has visited many middle schools, high schools, universities, festivals, conferences, and organizations all over the country. In 2016, she was invited to give a writing workshop and a keynote address at the Sirens Women In Fantasy Conference. In the spring of 2017, Guadalupe was selected as the Inaugural Artist in Residence by the Arne Nixon Center where she visited local high schools and taught courses at California State University Fresno. Also in 2017, Guadalupe gave the keynote for the National Latino Children's Literature Conference in San Antonio, Texas. In 2018, she gave the keynote at the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts Conference in Galveston, Texas. In 2021, Guadalupe had the honor of moderating the panel, Hispanic Heritage Month Authors Series, Celebrating Latino Experience, History, People, & Cultures, US Department of Education's Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA with the White House Initiative on Advancing Education, Equity, Excellence and Economic Opportunity (WHIAEEEE), Washington DC. However, her greatest distinction came when her alma mater, Sul Ross State University (SRSU), selected to feature her image and biography on their Living the Dream II – Cultural Pride on Campus mural outside of the Gallego Center. Thanks to Roxana Guzman, Multiplatform Producer Rodrigo Bravo, Jr., Audio Producer Radame Ortiez, SEO Director Marc-Antony Piñón, Graphics Designer Leti Lopez, Music Director Bryan Parras, co-host and producer emeritus Liana Lopez, co-host and producer emeritus Lupe Mendez, Texas Poet Laureate, co-host, and producer emeritus Writer and activist Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, hosts Latino Politics and News and the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on 90.1 FM, KPFT, Houston's Community Station. He is also a political analyst on “What's Your Point?” on Fox 26 Houston. He is the author of the forthcoming book: The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital. www.Librotraficante.com www.NuestraPalabra.org www.TonyDiaz.net Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records Website | http://baydenrecords.beatstars.com

Wine: 2019 Aldina Vineyards Pinot Noir BIO:Born and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of several young adult novels, some short stories for adults, and many children's poems. Guadalupe has received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children's Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades. She was born in Mexico and moved to Texas as a young girl, keeping close ties with family on both sides of the border. She is a full-time author and abuelita and lives with her husband in South Texas. Find her online at ggmccall.com.Instagram

Daniel José Older sits down with me to talk about his fatherhood journey. We chat about the values he looks to instill into his son. Daniel shares how being a good listener is key to being a good father. After that we talk about his new book, Ballad & Dagger and why this book means so much to him. Next we talk about his books in the Star Wars: The High Republic Series. Lastly, we finish the interview off with the Fatherhood Quick Five. About Daniel José Older Daniel José Older, a lead story architect for Star Wars: The High Republic, is the New York Times best-selling author of the upcoming Young Adult fantasy novel Ballad & Dagger.  He also wrote the sci-fi adventure Flood City, the monthly comic series The High Republic Adventures. His other books include the historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, The Book of Lost Saints and the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series. He also wrote Star Wars: Last Shot, and the Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, including Shadowshaper, which was named one of the best fantasy books of all time by TIME magazine and one of Esquire's 80 Books Every Person Should Read.  Daniel won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, The World Fantasy Award, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, and the Mythopoeic Award. In addition, He co-wrote the upcoming graphic novel Death's Day. You can find more info and read about his decade long career as an NYC paramedic at danieljoseolder.net.  About The Art of Fatherhood Podcast  The Art of Fatherhood Podcast follows the journey of fatherhood. Your host, Art Eddy talks with fantastic dads from all around the world where they share their thoughts on fatherhood. In addition, you get a unique perspective on fatherhood. You hear from guests like Joe Montana, Kevin Smith, Danny Trejo, Jerry Rice, Jeff Foxworthy, Patrick Warburton, Jeff Kinney, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Kyle Busch, Dennis Quaid, Dwight Freeney and many more.

Tonight we're chatting with Guadalupe Garcia McCall on her new book The Keeper from HarperCollins.Inspired by a terrifying true story, acclaimed author Guadalupe Garcia McCall creates a twisty tale about a boy desperately trying to survive in a new town with a secret past.James always knew moving from Texas to Oregon was going to be horrible.. But no sooner have he and his family arrived in their "perfect" new home in their "perfect" new town than he starts getting mysterious letters from someone called the Keeper. Someone who claims to be watching him. Someone who is looking for “young blood.”Born and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of many young adult novels and children's poetry. Guadalupe received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children's Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at George Fox University and lives with her husband in the Pacific Northwest. She is an advocate for literacy, diverse books, and Own Voices.

Tonight we're chatting with Guadalupe Garcia McCall on her new book The Keeper from HarperCollins.Inspired by a terrifying true story, acclaimed author Guadalupe Garcia McCall creates a twisty tale about a boy desperately trying to survive in a new town with a secret past.James always knew moving from Texas to Oregon was going to be horrible.. But no sooner have he and his family arrived in their "perfect" new home in their "perfect" new town than he starts getting mysterious letters from someone called the Keeper. Someone who claims to be watching him. Someone who is looking for “young blood.”Born and raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of many young adult novels and children's poetry. Guadalupe received the Prestigious Pura Belpre Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children's Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, among many other accolades. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at George Fox University and lives with her husband in the Pacific Northwest. She is an advocate for literacy, diverse books, and Own Voices.

Claribel & Kat discuss how they decide on what project to work on next. And then they interview Award Winning and NYT Bestselling author, Malinda Lo, about her experience in the industry, her advocacy for diversity in kidlit, and what it was like going back to a shelved project and revising it years later for publication. ABOUT MALINDA: Malinda Lo is the National Book Award-winning, bestselling author of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, which which was named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, and was a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist. Her debut novel Ash, a Sapphic retelling of Cinderella, was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Andre Norton Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and was a Kirkus Best Book for Children and Teens. She has been a three-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Malinda's short fiction and nonfiction has been published by The New York Times, NPR, Autostraddle, The Horn Book, and multiple anthologies. She lives in Massachusetts with her partner and their dog. • FOLLOW MALINDA: website | Twitter | Instagram • Last Night At the Telegraph Club • Add A Scatter of Light on Goodreads • FOLLOW CLARIBEL: Twitter | Instagram | Youtube | TikTok • www.claribelortega.com • Check out all of Claribel's books • PRE-ORDER Witchlings (April 5, 2022, Scholastic) • FOLLOW KAT: Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok • www.katchowrites.com • PRE-ORDER Once Upon a K-Prom (May 17, 2022, Disney) • Check out Kat's Books • FOLLOW WRITE OR DIE: Twitter | Instagram • Write or Die Episodes • Join our WorDie community! • Learn more about Write or Die --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/writeordiepodcast/support

Join Justin and Paul as they discuss the upcoming film CRYPTO with Amy Duboff and James Fox. When a burned-out game developer uncovers a mysterious message embedded in a cryptocurrency algorithm, her quest for answers quickly devolves into a deadly game of cat and mouse. COMING 2022 STARRING Mikayla Iverson DIRECTED BY James Fox SCREENPLAY BY Amy Kay DuBoff & James Fox More about the movie: https://www.crypto-movie.com Watch the Teaser HERE. ABOUT THE GUESTS AMY DUBOFF: Amy Kay DuBoff is an award-winning and USA Today bestselling author specializing in sci-fi and space fantasy. Dubbed by her readers a modern “Queen of Space Opera,” she is most known for her acclaimed Cadicle Universe. The second book in her standalone Dark Stars Trilogy, A Light in the Dark, was a 2018 Nebula finalist for the Andre Norton Award. Amy's short fiction has been published by NewCon Press, Seventh Seal Press, and numerous indie publications. Amy co-wrote the feature film screenplay for CRYPTO (2022), a sci-fi technothriller now in post-production. JAMES FOX: Native American and Californian, James Fox is a natural storyteller. After graduating from the Academy of Art in San Francisco, with a BFA in Directing, he became the Founder of Dawnrunner Inc. and has championed the company through numerous award-winning projects over fifteen years. As a writer, Fox devotes his energies to the careful crafting of compelling characters and diverse worlds.

Episode 53: Malinda Lo is the bestselling author of the National Book Award finalist Last Night at the Telegraph Club, which received eight starred reviews and was named by Oprah Magazine as one of the 50 Best LGBTQ Books That Will Heat Up the Literary Landscape in 2021. Malinda's debut novel, Ash, a Sapphic retelling of Cinderella, was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Andre Norton Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for Children's/Young Adult, and was a Kirkus 2009 Best Book for Children and Teens. Before she became a novelist, Malinda was an economics major, an editorial assistant, a graduate student, and an entertainment reporter. She was awarded the 2006 Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for Excellence in LGBT Journalism by the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association for her work at AfterEllen. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and has master's degrees from Harvard and Stanford Universities. She lives in Massachusetts with her partner and their dog.Support the show (http://whyyounodoctor.com/podcast)

"Is it ever too late to start living? Is it ever too late to find your love? E.C. Myers and Liz Riegel give two very different but oh so compelling answers to this question. Stories read by the fantastic Bradley Robert Parks and introducing Q-Lim with a fantastically moving perfromance Liz Riegel is a queer collage artist, sometimes-beekeeper, and writer who is endlessly inspired by the natural world. ​Bradley Robert Parks is a writer and sometimes singer, and founded the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers in 2010. His publication credits can be found on his website, bradleyrobertparks.com. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband and one perfect cat, Ms. Magoo. "The Land of the Morning Calm" by E.C. Myers, Read by Q-Lim E.C. Myers was assembled in the U.S. from Korean and German parts and raised by a single mother and the public library in Yonkers, New York. He is the author of six young adult novels, including the Andre Norton Award–winning Fair Coin, The Silence of Six, and RWBY: After the Fall. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, most recently A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Mother of Invention, and Feral Youth, as well as ongoing serials Orphan Black: The Next Chapter and Alternis from Serial Box Publishing. E.C. currently lives with his wife, son, and three doofy pets in Pennsylvania. You can find traces of him all over the internet, but especially at http://ecmyers.net and on Twitter: @ecmyers. Q Lim was born and raised in South Korea, then moved to New York when she was 20 knowing nothing about Musical Theatre except that it was her dream. Q's most known for playing Tuptim on the 1st Broadway National Tour of The King and I, just after finishing her broadway debut in the production at Lincoln Center Theatre directed by a Tony Award winning director, Bartlett Sher. After the tour, she had the privilege of working with a legendary composer Jason Robert Brown on his new musical in the works, Farewell My Concubine. Q has starred as Luisa in The Fantasticks! She was also featured as a soloist in an annual concert of Broadway's Rising Stars at a broadway concert hall, Town Hall and played her favorite Disney princesses; Jasmin, Mulan and Pocahontas on Disney Cruise Line.

BUCKETS OF BLOOD!!! Yes, we're kicking off the second half of the conversation with Daniel Jose Older by exploring the inspiration for Jedi Master Torban Buck... Punch it! Here's Daniel's official bio: Daniel José Older, a lead story architect on the Star Wars cross-platform initiative The High Republic, is the New York Times bestselling author of the sci-fi adventure Flood City, the Middle-Grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, The Book of Lost Saints, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, Star Wars: Last Shot, and the award-winning Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, which won the International Latino Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, and named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read and one of Time’s best fantasy books of all time. He co-wrote the upcoming graphic novel Death’s Day and writes the monthly IDW comic book series The High Republic Adventures. You can find more info and read about his decade long career as an NYC paramedic at http://danieljoseolder.net/. He's also on Twitter: https://twitter.com/djolder/ And TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@danieljoseolder ***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.*** 

I'm thrilled to finally debut this episode! Daniel and I had this conversation back on January 19th, but since we were talking about his Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures, I needed to hold this until after issue #1 came out, which was earlier this week. Punch it! So, we'll start by talk about about the notion of a "lead story architect" (see in his bio), about adapting his writing style for the comics space, and much more... Here's his official bio: Daniel José Older, a lead story architect on the Star Wars cross-platform initiative The High Republic, is the New York Times bestselling author of the sci-fi adventure Flood City, the Middle-Grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, The Book of Lost Saints, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, Star Wars: Last Shot, and the award-winning Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, which won the International Latino Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, and named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read and one of Time’s best fantasy books of all time. He co-wrote the upcoming graphic novel Death’s Day and writes the monthly IDW comic book series The High Republic Adventures. You can find more info and read about his decade long career as an NYC paramedic at http://danieljoseolder.net/. He's also on Twitter: https://twitter.com/djolder/ And TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@danieljoseolder ***I'm listener supported! Join the community at http://Patreon.com/sw7x7 to get access to bonus episodes and other insider rewards.*** 

INTERVIEW WITH KATE MILFORD Kate Milford is the New York Times bestselling author of The Thief Knot, as well as Greenglass House (winner of the Edgar award for juvenile literature, long-listed for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, and a nominee for the Andre Norton Award and the Agatha Award for Children’s/YA). We talk about: • What makes a good mystery? • Do you write a mystery differently than any other kind of novel? • What are 3 things every mystery should have? • What are 3 things every mystery writer should avoid? • Self-aware ironmongery • Here’s a mystery: 9 books and two kids - how? Check out our amazing self-led course, Revision Power at writingforchildren.com/revisionpower

Today, we have a discussion of fiction and writing in the COVID-19 pandemic with Malka Older and Malka’s brother Daniel Jose Older.Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Middle Grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, Star Wars: Last Shot, The Book of Lost Saints, and the award winning Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, which won the International Latino Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature,the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, and named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person ShouldRead. He is a lead story architect on the Star Wars: The High Republic cross platform initiative. You can find out more at http://danieljoseolder.net/Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and academic. Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she has more a decade of experience in humanitarian aid and development.Her research interests include intra-governmental relations in crises; the paradox of well-funded disaster responses;measurement and evaluation of disaster responses; and the effects of competition among actors in humanitarian aid. Malka Older’s science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, Book Riot, and the Washington Post. She is also the author of the sequels, Null States (2017) and State Tectonics (2018). Her short story and poetry collection And Other Disasters was released in late 2019. 

Warm welcome to our new listeners, let's continue and build upon the momentum surrounding the active work to create a just and equitable system for the black community. Head over to our page of resources of recommended learning: https://88cupsoftea.com/learn/   You can follow us on Instagram @88CUPSOFTEA to keep up with our latest posts and Instagram stories where we announce new episodes and essays,  feature our favorite quotes, and host Instagram Story takeovers by some of your favorite authors. So make sure to head over to https://www.instagram.com/88cupsoftea/ so you don't miss out on the next takeover!  --------------------------------------- Curious to discover the best practices for character development and plotting when crafting a series? Or how to know when it’s time to start or stop writing your story? How about the important role inspirational research serves when trying to get to the heart of your story? We talk about it all and more with Daniel José Older. Daniel is the New York Times bestselling author of the Middle-Grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, Star Wars: Last Shot, and the award-winning Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, which won the International Latino Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, and named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read.  We begin our conversation discussing how he discovered his creative voice at a young age through drawing, music, and storytelling. We learn about his college days and becoming an EMT to keep him financially stable while working on his craft. We have an honest conversation about the uncertainty of relying on your writing as your main source of income and the moments of instability that it can bring.   Further in, Daniel talks about his path to becoming a published author, pushing past rejection, and the importance of mentorship and community during this time. He shares plotting and character development tips for writing a series and the important role inspirational research serves when crafting your stories.  And later, we talk about how writing is about listening to yourself and to those around you, being intentional about knowing when to start and stop your story, and why it’s crucial to understand what’s most important in your story so you can be committed to the things that matter the most and be flexible to change other parts to ultimately get to the heart of your story.  Please say 'Hi' to Daniel on Twitter! https://twitter.com/djolder Head over to his shownotes page at https://88cupsoftea.com/daniel-jose-older to find the resources and books mentioned in his episode, tweetable quotes, and the timestamps of highlights throughout the entire conversation. 

Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Middle Grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, Star Wars: Last Shot, and the award winning Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, which won the International Latino Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, and named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read.  Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/344 In this episode, Daniel discusses: -What it was like to be a New York City paramedic. -What the Jedi can teach writers when it comes to finding their voice. -How the essence of being a writer is not what you’ve read in books but what you’ve experienced in your life. -The importance of listening in writing and other creative pursuits. -Making the transition from paramedic to full-time writer. -Persevering despite Shadowshaper getting rejected 40 times. -The support he received from Sheree Renée Thomas, Tananarive Due and Nathan Bransford. -Writing the Other. -Why we shouldn’t italicize other languages. -Using humor. -The advice that changed the entire trajectory of Shadowshaper. -Why everyone should write a book (but not everyone should publish one). -Why he spent the last year not writing. -Finding comfort in writing his Ambulance Stories. Daniel's Final Push will inspire you to go back to the stories that you had in your mind as a kid!   Quotes: “The idea of sitting down and writing a book seemed so free.  Because it was just me and the laptop.” “That’s why I write.  The world is destroyed and very much on fire.” “The bones and blood of being a writer is what you’ve lived, not what you’ve read.” “I feel like I’m writing to get the world to be what I know it to be.” “I just didn’t know if it was in me to write a good enough book to be worth writing a book.” Links mentioned: 12 Fundamentals of Writing The Other (And the Self) [Buzzfeed] Writing Begins With Forgiveness: Why One of the Most Common Pieces of Writing Advice is Wrong | Seven Scribes Ambulance stories Sierra Santiago and the Invisible City - Daniel José Older - Wattpad Connect with Daniel: Website / Twitter / Instagram / Tumblr On the next episode: Piper Thibodeau: Website / Instagram Join the discussion in the Facebook group!

Main Fiction: "Glass Eyes, Steel Hands, Metal Mind"This story is original to StarShipSofa.Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son. Her poetry has received Rhysling, Dwarf Star, and Pushcart nominations; her short fiction has appeared in InterGalactic Medicine Show, Compelling Science Fiction, and Pseudopod. For more about her work, including her Edda-Earth novels and her forthcoming poetry collection, The Gates of Never, please see edda-earth.com.Narrated by David D. LevineDavid D. Levine is the author of Andre Norton Award-winning novel Arabella of Mars (Tor 2016), sequels Arabella and the Battle of Venus (Tor 2017) and Arabella the Traitor of Mars (Tor 2018), and more than fifty SF and fantasy stories. His story “Tk’Tk’Tk” won the Hugo, and he has been shortlisted for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and Sturgeon. His stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, Tor.com, numerous Year’s Best anthologies, and his award-winning collection Space Magic.Fact: Science News by J J Campanella See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Even the fastest ship in the galaxy can’t outrun the past... THEN: It’s one of the galaxy’s most dangerous secrets: a mysterious transmitter with unknown power and a reward for its discovery that most could only dream of claiming. But those who fly the Millennium Falcon throughout its infamous history aren’t your average scoundrels. Not once, but twice, the crew of the Falcon tries to claim the elusive prize—first, Lando Calrissian and the droid L3-37 at the dawn of an ambitious career, and later, a young and hungry Han Solo with the help of his copilot, Chewbacca. But the device’s creator, the volatile criminal Fyzen Gor, isn’t interested in sharing. And Gor knows how to hold a grudge.... NOW: It’s been 10 years since the rebel hero Han Solo last encountered Fyzen Gor. After mounting a successful rebellion against the Empire and starting a family with an Alderaanian princess, Han hasn’t given much thought to the mad inventor. But when Lando turns up at Han’s doorstep in the middle of the night, it’s Fyzen’s assassins that he’s running from. And without Han’s help, Lando—and all life on Cloud City—will be annihilated. With the assistance of a young hotshot pilot, an Ewok slicer prodigy, the woman who might be the love of Lando’s life, and Han’s best and furriest friend, the two most notorious scoundrels in the New Republic are working together once more. They’ll have to journey across the stars—and into the past—before Gor uses the device’s power to reshape the galaxy. ABOUT THIS AUTHOR... Daniel José Older is the New York Times best-selling author of the young adult series The Shadowshaper Cypher, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, and the middle-grade historical fantasy Dactyl Hill Squad. He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Shadowshaper was named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic, and hear his music at his website, on YouTube, and on Twitter.

Diana M. Pho and I chat about her career in publishing from her time as an international marketing assistant with Hachette to her eight years and counting as an editor with Tor Books. She walks me through the process of selecting a submission, building a presentation for it to convince her house to publish the book, and the process of actually editing and shaping the project. She also gives me some tidbits on what's happening with Robert Jordan's WHEEL OF TIME series and its next installment. This is another wonderful episode packed with quality content and you'll want to listen to it at least twice. Diana M. Pho is a two-time Hugo-nominated editor at Tor Books and Tor.com Publishing, though she’s worked in the publishing industry under various hats for the past decade. She’s also an academic scholar, activist, performer, and general rabble-rouser elsewhere. Her talented list includes Robyn Bennis, Alex Bledsoe, P. Djeli Clark, Marie Cruz, Lara Elena Donnelly, Thoraiya Dyer, A. J. Hartley, Margaret Killjoy, Kari Maaren, and Prentis Rollins; she also works with the best-selling The Wheel of Time® series and George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards universe. Books she has edited have gone on to win the Thriller Award (Steeplejack, for Best YA), the Ditmar Award (Crossroads of Canopy, for Best Novel) and to become finalists for the Nebula, Lambda Literary Award, Shirley Jackson Award, and Andre Norton Award for Young Adult. In the steampunk community, she is best-known for running Beyond Victoriana, an award-winning, US-based blog on multicultural steampunk. She has published numerous articles on science fiction and its community. She has been interviewed for many media outlets about fandom, including CBS’s Inside Edition, MSN.com, BBC America, the Travel Channel, HGTV, and the Science Channel. MiddleGradeNinja.com BeyondVictoriana.com

Daniel José Older and I chat about his bestselling young adult series SHADOWSHAPER CYPHER and his new middle grade series, DACTYL HILL SQUAD. And STAR WARS, of course, including what it was like to get to read the SOLO script early. Daniel José Older shares information about his process, marketing tips, and how to present an authentic version of yourself to the world. And his adorable dogs make cameo appearances. This conversation was an absolute treat and it's not to be missed. Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Middle Grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, Star Wars: Last Shot, and the award winning Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher, which won the International Latino Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers' Literature, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, and named one of Esquire's 80 Books Every Person Should Read. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic and hear his music at http://danieljoseolder.net/, on youtube and @djolder on twitter. MiddleGradeNinja.com DanielJoseOlder.net

Watch the video here. In conversation with Dena Heilik, Department Head of Philbrick Hall, the fiction department of the Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia.  Kevin Hearne is the author of the New York Times bestselling Iron Druid Chronicles, the ancient-Celtic-meets-contemporary-mayhem action-adventure series featuring 2,000-year-old Atticus O'Sullivan. In his latest adventure, the immortal Irishman dodges traps in ancient Egypt and soul-stealing demons at a Kansas carnival. Chuck Wendig's many works include the YA Heartland series, Blackbirds, and the Atlanta Burns books; the Emmy-nominated digital narrative Collapsus; a popular blog, terribleminds.com; and several celebrated books about writing. Wendig's New York Times bestselling Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy tells the canon story of the events that occurred between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. Fran Wilde's Nebula Award-nominated debut novel, Updraft, won the 2016 Andre Norton Award and the Compton Crook Award. Cloudbound is the second installment in the inventive Bone Universe saga, a series that explores a lofty society of towers populated by residents who strap on wings and soar the skies in search of their destinies. (recorded 7/14/2017)

Jade City combines what its author, Fonda Lee, calls the 3 Ms: mafia, magic and martial arts. Lee’s talent for depicting complex characters struggling with both internal and external conflicts earned Jade City nominations for the Nebula and Locus Awards. The book is her first written for adults. (Her previous books, Exo and Zeroboxer, were written for young adults and both were shortlisted for the Andre Norton Award). Set in the fictional post-colonial nation of Kekon, Jade City (Orbit, 2017) introduces readers to an economic system governed by family-run clans, where power is obtained through conventional assets, such as the loyalty of businesses and politicians, as well as through use of the gemstone jade. Jade’s special powers include strength, agility and the ability to deflect weapons. But to harness these powers, a Green Bone warrior needs both an innate affinity for jade and extensive training. Lee says jade was “the natural choice” for a magic substance. “In Eastern culture, jade is considered more valuable than any other substance. It’s been referred to as the stone of heaven.” It was also a natural choice for Lee—who has black belts in karate and kung fu—to require Green Bones to undergo years of practice before they’re allowed to use jade on the streets. “One of the things I find frustrating/annoying about some fantasy stories is this idea that the magic is just given and you are just born with it, or you … get the magic sword and now you have the power. As any martial artist knows, achieving a level of proficiency involves a long arduous amount of discipline and schooling.” In her New Books interview, Lee discusses her characters’ struggles with tradition and the challenge of balancing their personal desires with familial responsibilities. She also offers insight into the writing process—specifically, how she managed to polish an epic tale told from multiple viewpoints into a fast-moving page-turner. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jade City combines what its author, Fonda Lee, calls the 3 Ms: mafia, magic and martial arts. Lee’s talent for depicting complex characters struggling with both internal and external conflicts earned Jade City nominations for the Nebula and Locus Awards. The book is her first written for adults. (Her previous books, Exo and Zeroboxer, were written for young adults and both were shortlisted for the Andre Norton Award). Set in the fictional post-colonial nation of Kekon, Jade City (Orbit, 2017) introduces readers to an economic system governed by family-run clans, where power is obtained through conventional assets, such as the loyalty of businesses and politicians, as well as through use of the gemstone jade. Jade’s special powers include strength, agility and the ability to deflect weapons. But to harness these powers, a Green Bone warrior needs both an innate affinity for jade and extensive training. Lee says jade was “the natural choice” for a magic substance. “In Eastern culture, jade is considered more valuable than any other substance. It’s been referred to as the stone of heaven.” It was also a natural choice for Lee—who has black belts in karate and kung fu—to require Green Bones to undergo years of practice before they’re allowed to use jade on the streets. “One of the things I find frustrating/annoying about some fantasy stories is this idea that the magic is just given and you are just born with it, or you … get the magic sword and now you have the power. As any martial artist knows, achieving a level of proficiency involves a long arduous amount of discipline and schooling.” In her New Books interview, Lee discusses her characters’ struggles with tradition and the challenge of balancing their personal desires with familial responsibilities. She also offers insight into the writing process—specifically, how she managed to polish an epic tale told from multiple viewpoints into a fast-moving page-turner. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jade City combines what its author, Fonda Lee, calls the 3 Ms: mafia, magic and martial arts. Lee’s talent for depicting complex characters struggling with both internal and external conflicts earned Jade City nominations for the Nebula and Locus Awards. The book is her first written for adults. (Her previous books, Exo and Zeroboxer, were written for young adults and both were shortlisted for the Andre Norton Award). Set in the fictional post-colonial nation of Kekon, Jade City (Orbit, 2017) introduces readers to an economic system governed by family-run clans, where power is obtained through conventional assets, such as the loyalty of businesses and politicians, as well as through use of the gemstone jade. Jade’s special powers include strength, agility and the ability to deflect weapons. But to harness these powers, a Green Bone warrior needs both an innate affinity for jade and extensive training. Lee says jade was “the natural choice” for a magic substance. “In Eastern culture, jade is considered more valuable than any other substance. It’s been referred to as the stone of heaven.” It was also a natural choice for Lee—who has black belts in karate and kung fu—to require Green Bones to undergo years of practice before they’re allowed to use jade on the streets. “One of the things I find frustrating/annoying about some fantasy stories is this idea that the magic is just given and you are just born with it, or you … get the magic sword and now you have the power. As any martial artist knows, achieving a level of proficiency involves a long arduous amount of discipline and schooling.” In her New Books interview, Lee discusses her characters’ struggles with tradition and the challenge of balancing their personal desires with familial responsibilities. She also offers insight into the writing process—specifically, how she managed to polish an epic tale told from multiple viewpoints into a fast-moving page-turner. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since their establishment, the Nebula Awards have proven a trusty guide to what the next generation will consider a classic. Take for example, the inaugural award for Best Novel, which went to Frank Herbert for Dune in 1965. Dune‘s impact can be measured in countless ways–not only in the loyalty of critics and fans (who have left in excess of half a million ratings on Goodreads) but in the proliferation of sequels, prequels, movies, TV shows, games, and more. The 2015 Best Novel winner, Naomi Novik (for Uprooted), joins the ranks of science fiction and fantasy’s greatest authors, including Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, Connie Willis, William Gibson, Octavia E. Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson and many more. But the Nebulas, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, recognize more than novels. Award categories include stories, poems, and dramatic presentation. The abundance of categories and nominees posed a challenge for Julie E. Czerneda, the editor of the newly-released Nebula Awards Showcase 2017 (Pyr, 2017), which anthologizes the winners of the 2015 awards. Although Czerneda had free reign to decide what to include in the anthology, she still had to fit everything within a strict word count. Fortunately, Czerneda knows a thing or two about getting a book to print. As an accomplished anthology editor and author–her ninth and final novel in The Clan Chronicles series, To Guard Against the Dark, is out this month–Czerneda relished the freedom she had as editor of the showcase. Every editor gets to put their stamp on it. “I’m the first one to put in novel excerpts for all the novels nominated,” Czerneda says. Another first for the current anthology: the winners in all the major categories are women. In addition to Novik for Best Novel, Alyssa Wong won for Best Short Story, Sarah Pinsker for Best Novelette, Nnedi Okorafor for Best Novella, and Fran Wilde received the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. The Damon Knight Grant Master, which recognizes a distinguished career, was C.J. Cherryh. This year’s editor, of course, is also a woman. For Czerneda, editing the showcase allowed her to celebrate a field to which she herself has made significant contributions. The publication of her new book, To Guard Against the Dark, marked to the exact day the launching of her career as a writer in 1987 with the publication of A Thousand Words for Stranger. As it turned out, A Thousand Words became the first book in The Clan Chronicles. “Nine books, 1.6 million words later, I’m finishing it,” Czerneda says. “I like to leave possibilities, but I like to get to a good ending.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications for a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since their establishment, the Nebula Awards have proven a trusty guide to what the next generation will consider a classic. Take for example, the inaugural award for Best Novel, which went to Frank Herbert for Dune in 1965. Dune‘s impact can be measured in countless ways–not only in the loyalty of critics and fans (who have left in excess of half a million ratings on Goodreads) but in the proliferation of sequels, prequels, movies, TV shows, games, and more. The 2015 Best Novel winner, Naomi Novik (for Uprooted), joins the ranks of science fiction and fantasy’s greatest authors, including Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, Connie Willis, William Gibson, Octavia E. Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson and many more. But the Nebulas, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, recognize more than novels. Award categories include stories, poems, and dramatic presentation. The abundance of categories and nominees posed a challenge for Julie E. Czerneda, the editor of the newly-released Nebula Awards Showcase 2017 (Pyr, 2017), which anthologizes the winners of the 2015 awards. Although Czerneda had free reign to decide what to include in the anthology, she still had to fit everything within a strict word count. Fortunately, Czerneda knows a thing or two about getting a book to print. As an accomplished anthology editor and author–her ninth and final novel in The Clan Chronicles series, To Guard Against the Dark, is out this month–Czerneda relished the freedom she had as editor of the showcase. Every editor gets to put their stamp on it. “I’m the first one to put in novel excerpts for all the novels nominated,” Czerneda says. Another first for the current anthology: the winners in all the major categories are women. In addition to Novik for Best Novel, Alyssa Wong won for Best Short Story, Sarah Pinsker for Best Novelette, Nnedi Okorafor for Best Novella, and Fran Wilde received the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. The Damon Knight Grant Master, which recognizes a distinguished career, was C.J. Cherryh. This year’s editor, of course, is also a woman. For Czerneda, editing the showcase allowed her to celebrate a field to which she herself has made significant contributions. The publication of her new book, To Guard Against the Dark, marked to the exact day the launching of her career as a writer in 1987 with the publication of A Thousand Words for Stranger. As it turned out, A Thousand Words became the first book in The Clan Chronicles. “Nine books, 1.6 million words later, I’m finishing it,” Czerneda says. “I like to leave possibilities, but I like to get to a good ending.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications for a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since their establishment, the Nebula Awards have proven a trusty guide to what the next generation will consider a classic. Take for example, the inaugural award for Best Novel, which went to Frank Herbert for Dune in 1965. Dune‘s impact can be measured in countless ways–not only in the loyalty of critics and fans (who have left in excess of half a million ratings on Goodreads) but in the proliferation of sequels, prequels, movies, TV shows, games, and more. The 2015 Best Novel winner, Naomi Novik (for Uprooted), joins the ranks of science fiction and fantasy’s greatest authors, including Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, Connie Willis, William Gibson, Octavia E. Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson and many more. But the Nebulas, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, recognize more than novels. Award categories include stories, poems, and dramatic presentation. The abundance of categories and nominees posed a challenge for Julie E. Czerneda, the editor of the newly-released Nebula Awards Showcase 2017 (Pyr, 2017), which anthologizes the winners of the 2015 awards. Although Czerneda had free reign to decide what to include in the anthology, she still had to fit everything within a strict word count. Fortunately, Czerneda knows a thing or two about getting a book to print. As an accomplished anthology editor and author–her ninth and final novel in The Clan Chronicles series, To Guard Against the Dark, is out this month–Czerneda relished the freedom she had as editor of the showcase. Every editor gets to put their stamp on it. “I’m the first one to put in novel excerpts for all the novels nominated,” Czerneda says. Another first for the current anthology: the winners in all the major categories are women. In addition to Novik for Best Novel, Alyssa Wong won for Best Short Story, Sarah Pinsker for Best Novelette, Nnedi Okorafor for Best Novella, and Fran Wilde received the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. The Damon Knight Grant Master, which recognizes a distinguished career, was C.J. Cherryh. This year’s editor, of course, is also a woman. For Czerneda, editing the showcase allowed her to celebrate a field to which she herself has made significant contributions. The publication of her new book, To Guard Against the Dark, marked to the exact day the launching of her career as a writer in 1987 with the publication of A Thousand Words for Stranger. As it turned out, A Thousand Words became the first book in The Clan Chronicles. “Nine books, 1.6 million words later, I’m finishing it,” Czerneda says. “I like to leave possibilities, but I like to get to a good ending.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications for a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’d love to keep 88 Cups of Tea going strong, please consider supporting us through our Patreon membership. We added EARLY ACCESS TO INTERVIEWS for our Super Storyteller patrons in the $8.88 tier. Your kind support at any of our tiers is so helpful. A heartfelt thank you in advance. https://www.patreon.com/88cupsoftea --- In today’s new episode, we have Holly Black, the author of bestselling contemporary fantasy books for kids and teens. Some of the popular books that many of you recognize her from are the “The Spiderwick Chronicles” and The Modern Faerie Tale series. She’s also hugely popular for “The Coldest Girl in Coldtown” and the Magisterium series. Holly’s been a finalist for an Eisner Award, and the recipient of the Andre Norton Award, the Mythopoeic Award and a Newbery Honor. In the episode, we talk about the importance of understanding your character’s oppositions to move your plot forward, how to make the most out of critique groups and get the best constructive feedback for your story, the importance of being a part of a community that understands the ups and downs of the industry and ways you can find that community for yourself, and the characteristics you want to ideally find in your critique partner. We also discuss how to overcome self-doubt as a writer and Holly shares a bunch of writing tools that help set writing goals. We dive into what it means to fast draft and how it pushes you past your critical eye to finish your first draft. For listeners especially focused on the craft of writing, you are going to freaking love today’s episode because Holly also shares how she starts a story with a character and a feeling, and how that navigates her to write the rest of the novel with an image in mind that evokes that specific feeling. Holly unpacks why it’s crucial to describe the fantastical elements at the same level of reality when writing contemporary fantasy, and how to craft narrative voices that resonate with your intended audience by thinking about what you cared about during that age. Heads up: This episode is so good. Say 'Hi' to Holly on Twitter! Check out the books and resources mentioned in her episode by clicking here! Happy listening! Xo, Yin PS. Do you know anyone who would love our conversation? Please share this episode to help spread the word! --- If you enjoyed this episode, I’d really love your support in growing our community by subscribing to us on iTunes, and leaving a rating and review. These specific steps help to increase our visibility on iTunes which really helps new listeners discover us. A huge heartfelt thank you for your time and support! You can click here to go directly to our iTunes page! --- Would you love to support our show with some 88 Cups of Tea swag? Grab our limited edition mug (signed by yours truly) here! --- Meet fellow members in our community and check in about your WIP, and join in on other bookish talks and 88 Cups of Tea related things! You can really feel the love and support in our Facebook community. You also get the opportunity to submit your questions for upcoming guests on the show. Click here to join our private Facebook group! IMPORTANT NOTE: Be sure to have a clear profile picture of yourself. If not, send over links to either your Twitter or Instagram. Fill out the 3 questions that pop up as soon as you join. To protect our group's safe space, these steps help us weed out any spam/fake profiles/creepers. Can't wait to meet you! --- Warm welcome to our new listeners, be sure to check out our archive of episodes by clicking here! --- “A lot of times we are doing things that have nothing to do with our writing until someday it does.” -Holly Black (Click to tweet!) “Write for your reader-self, not your writer-self.” -Holly Black (Click to tweet!) “The more real that you can make the real world, the more real the fantasy is going to feel.” -Holly Black (Click to tweet!) --- WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN TODAY'S EPISODE:  How Holly discovered her love for fantasy and folklore How writing a manuscript also serves as a journey of self-discovery The importance of understanding your character’s oppositions to move your plot forward How to make the most out of critique groups and get the best constructive feedback for your story The importance of being a part of a community that understands the ups and downs of the industry and ways you can find that community for yourself The characteristics you want to ideally find in your critique partner How to overcome self-doubt as a writer Holly shares writing tools that help set writing goals Holly walks us through the technique of fast drafting and how it pushes you past your critical eye to finish your first draft Starting the story with a character and a feeling and writing the rest of the novel with an image in mind that evokes that specific feeling Why it's crucial to describe the fantastical elements at the same level of reality when writing contemporary fantasy How to craft narrative voices that resonate with your intended audience by thinking about what you cared about during that age

This week, we're joined in the studio by Daniel José Older, author of the New York Times bestselling Shadowshaper, an urban fantasy for young adults that follows the adventures of Sierra Santiago, a Brooklyn teen with supernatural powers. Daniel is also a musician, an artist, and a former paramedic. We're talking with him about his latest book, Shadowhouse Fall, and about his efforts to bring more diversity to children's literature.Additional Resources: Learn more about Shadowshaper and Shadowhouse FallLearn more about Daniel José OlderFind Daniel José Older on TwitterGuests:Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher (Scholastic), the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series (Penguin), and the upcoming Middle Grade sci-fi adventure Flood City (Scholastic). He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and yes, the World Fantasy Award. Shadowshaper was named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read.Special thanks:Music composed by Lucas Elliot EberlSound mix and editing by Daniel Jordan and Christopher JohnsonProduced by Emily Morrow 

This week, we're joined in the studio by Daniel José Older, author of the New York Times bestselling Shadowshaper, an urban fantasy for young adults that follows the adventures of Sierra Santiago, a Brooklyn teen with supernatural powers. Daniel is also a musician, an artist, and a former paramedic. We're talking with him about his latest book,Shadowhouse Fall, and about his efforts to bring more diversity to children's literature. Additional Resources:  Learn more about Shadowshaper and Shadowhouse Fall Learn more about Daniel José Older Find Daniel José Older on Twitter Guests: Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher (Scholastic), the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series (Penguin), and the upcoming Middle Grade sci-fi adventure Flood City (Scholastic). He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and yes, the World Fantasy Award. Shadowshaper was named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. Special thanks: Music composed by Lucas Elliot Eberl Sound mix and editing by Daniel Jordan and Christopher Johnson Produced by Emily Morrow  

The prolific, multiple award-winning, New York Times bestselling author, Catherynne M. Valente, took a break at her spooky writer’s island to chat with me about her superhero origin story, earning street cred with readers, and her truly unique process. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! Since her first novel — The Labyrinth, published in 2004 — the hybrid author has gone on to pen over 24 volumes of both fiction and poetry across multiple genres (including fantasy, sci-fi, young adult, and horror). In addition to being published and anthologized in dozens of print and online journals, Catherynne has won or been nominated for every major award in her field, including the Hugo Award (for both a novel and a podcast), and been a finalist for both the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She is perhaps best known for her crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making — a book launched by a dedicated online fan community that went on to become a NY Times bestseller. The series — which recently concluded with book five, The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home — has been lauded by fellow author Neil Gaiman, and Time magazine called it, “One of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century.” The prolific author continues to find innovative ways to connect with her audience, and she recently launched a Patreon project called “The Mad Fiction Laboratory,” where she offers professional and personalized advice on the business and craft of writing, as well as a sneak peek at her multiple works-in-progress. If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews. In Part One of this file Catherynne Valente and I discuss: How to write a novel in three to ten days The story behind her four-month “circus” book tour and the birth of a viral bestseller Her love of performance Previews of her three wildly different upcoming projects The umbrella cover museum that doubles as her office Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes If you’re ready to see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress — the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins — just go to StudioPress.com How Bestselling Fantasy & Sci-Fi Author Catherynne M. Valente Writes: Part Two CatherynneMValente.com Catherynne M. Valente on Amazon Cat’s Patreon project – “The Mad Fiction Laboratory” James Patterson Teaches Writing Cat Valente on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Bestselling Fantasy & Sci-Fi Author Catherynne M. Valente Writes: Part One Voiceover: Rainmaker FM. Kelton Reid: Welcome back to The Writer Files. I am your host, Kelton Reid, to take you on yet another tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of renowned writers. This week the prolific, multiple award-winning, New York Times bestselling author, Catherynne M. Valente took a break at her spooky writer’s island to chat with me about her superhero origin story, earning street cred with readers, and her truly unique process. Since her fortuitous first novel, The Labyrinth, published in 2004, the hybrid author has gone on to pen over twenty four volumes of both fiction and poetry across multiple genres, including fantasy, sci-fi, young adult, and horror. In addition to being published and anthologized in dozens of print and online journals, Catherynne has won or been nominated for every major award in her field, including the Hugo Award, for both a novel and a podcast and been a finalist for both the Nebula and the World Fantasy awards. She is perhaps best known for her crowdfunded phenomenon, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, a book launched by a dedicated online fan community, that went on to become a New York Times Bestseller. The series, which recently concluded with a fifth book, has been lauded by fellow author Neil Gaiman, and Time Magazine called it, “One of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century.” The prolific author continues to find innovative ways to connect with her audience and she recently launched a Patreon project called The Mad Fiction Laboratory where she offers professional and personalized advice on the business and craft of writing, as well as a sneak peek into her multiple works in progress. In part one of this file, Cat and I discuss how to write a novel in three to ten days, the story behind her four month circus, book tour, and the birth of a viral bestseller, her love of performance, previews of her three wildly different upcoming projects, and The Umbrella Cover Museum that doubles as her office. The Writer Files is brought to you by the all the new StudioPress Sites, a turnkey solution that combines the ease of an all-in-one website builder with the flexible power of WordPress. It’s perfect for authors, bloggers, podcasters, and affiliate marketers, as well as those selling physical products, digital downloads, and membership programs. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress now. That’s Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress. And if you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews as soon as they’re published. And we are rolling once again on this show with a special guest, and Catherynne M. Valente is here today, multiple award-winning, prolific, New York Times Bestselling author of over a dozen works of fiction and poetry. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule, I know you’ve got a lot in the hopper, to chat with listeners about your fantastic work and your process as a writer. It s real exciting to talk to you today. Catherynne Valente: No problem, thanks for having me. How to Write a Novel in Three to Ten Days Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. I m extremely inspired by your story as a writer. I know you ve done a lot of stuff and I kinda wanna chat about, I guess maybe, for listeners who aren t familiar with you and your fantastic journey to where you are today. Can you kind of give us a little bit of your, just your origins as a writer and how you got your start? I know you’ve done a ton, a ton of stuff. Catherynne Valente: My very minor superhero origin story? Kelton Reid: Yeah. Catherynne Valente: My first novel came out when I was twenty five, so twelve years ago, and it was called The Labyrinth. It came out with Prime Books, which is a small press, independent press. I had really only just graduated from college a couple of years before and I had heard about NaNoWriMo, which was just, or nano-WRY-mo, I always say nano-REE-mo, and I know it’s wrong. It had just started. I was only in its second year and I had just graduated and I was working as a professional fortune teller in Rhode Island. Kelton Reid: Wow. Catherynne Valente: In a genuine, tall, gothic tower, called the Old Armory, in Newport, Rhode Island. I hadn’t really been writing a lot while I was in college, because I was in such an academically rigorous program that I just, I had sort of fallen away from it. Most of what I had done, up until writing that first novel, was poetry. And by most I mean all, except for one short story I was required to write for class. I had done poetry my whole life. But I wanted to see if I could write a novel. I didn’t know if I could, but I thought, “What do I have to lose? I’ll give it a shot.” It was October instead of November, and I didn’t want to wait. And I was 22 so I was full of piss and vinegar, and didn’t know I couldn’t do things yet. So I said, “Thirty days is for wimps. I’m gonna do it in ten.” Kelton Reid: Wow. Catherynne Valente: And I did. Which seems fully insane to me now. Between tarot readings I would pull out my laptop, my little, tiny laptop, and work on this book. And of course I hadn’t even thought about publishing it. I just wanted to see if it was something I could do. I submitted it to a few independent publishers, I knew it was too weird for a big New York publisher, and didn’t really get any … I got a lot of rejections saying, “This is the most beautiful thing we’ve ever read, and we’re definitely not publishing it.” So, at 22, I didn’t really know what to do with that. So I gave up for a while and just put it away. And then I was living in Japan, my then husband, ex-husband, was a naval officer, and I started a LiveJournal. One of the people that I got to know on LiveJournal was Nick Mamatas, and he had just published his first book, so I left a comment on his LiveJournal asking who I should be submitting to, not asking him to look at my work or anything, just, Who’s out there that likes to publish weird stuff? He gave me a list and I said, “Yeah, they’ve all rejected me. Except for Prime Books and they’re not open to submission.” He said, “No, they are. They just don’t want to read slush. So send me your book, and if I like it, I’ll send it on.” And I did, and he did. And I actually got an email from Jeff VanderMeer saying, “They’re going to publish your book. I want to write the introduction. So when they email you to tell you they’re going to publish your book, tell them you want me to write the introduction.” So that was sort of how that first book happened. It was all very much out of the blue. My second book, which I also published with Prime Books, was for the Blue Lake 3-Day Novel competition, in which you’re supposed to write a novel in three days, which is really a misnomer, because it’s supposed to be 30,000 words, which is not a novel by anybody’s definition. The prize for that contest is a publishing contract. I did not win that prize, but Prime published that second book. And then I gave them a manuscript, and, in an act of great magnanimousness, my editor said, “This is much more commercial than anything else you’re writing and I’m going to send it to my friend at Bantam.” Bantam Spectra. And that was the manuscript that became The Orphan’s Tales. Bantam Spectra took a year and a half to get back to me. They said, “We really like it, but we want to see the second book in the series. Which should be fine, because your editor says it’s almost done.” I had not begun this book. I don’t know where my editor got that idea. So my last four months in Japan, as I was preparing a transpacific move, was me trying so hard to finish this book. Just about setting foot back in America, I got an offer from Bantam, and that was my first big New York book. That’s sort of how it all got started back in the early 2000s. Kelton Reid: Geez, and that’s not even that long ago, but … Catherynne Valente: No, I mean, it is and it isn’t. It feels like a lot longer ago than it is, and it doesn’t in a very strange way. Time is weird once you get older. The Story Behind Her Four-Month Circus Book Tour and the Birth of a Viral Bestseller Kelton Reid: Sure, it have a hyperbolic effect at times, when you think of it like that. But, you’ve won or been nominated for every major award in your field, which means you’ve written across these different genres, primarily Fairyland novels, which you’re very well known for. You’ve got all these other fantastic speculative pieces, and you’ve published in multiple award-winning publications. You’ve just done so much, so the prolific nature of it is that it seems like you’re working all the time, or writing all the time. Or that may be just my impression, looking at your resume and all the stuff you’ve done. But anyway, the crowdfunded phenomenon, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, is fascinating to me, because it started on LiveJournal, you mentioned LiveJournal, and you crowdfunded it and it became this New York Times Bestselling book, that then Neil Gaiman blurbed. Can you talk a little about that? Catherynne Valente: Yeah, so I had been going on with Bantam Spectra for another book after The Orphan’s Tales, and unfortunately six weeks before that book was supposed to come out, it’s called Black Wednesday in publishing, the 2008 crash had happened and half of publishing in New York was laid off. So my editor called me and said she had been laid off. It actually turned out that Bantam Spectra ceased to exist that day. It was reorganized back into Random House. And so there was nobody there to pick up the phones. We knew, because you kinda get three strikes in New York. You have three books that fail, you’re gonna have a real hard time breaking in again. And The Orphan’s Tales hadn’t failed. It won a lot of awards and was very critically acclaimed, but it hadn’t had stellar sales. So we had a very strong feeling that if Palimpsest, which was the next book, failed, that was it. So I and my partner and a dear, dear friend of mine named S.J Tucker, who’s a singer-songwriter, decided to make it as much of a success as we could, with knowing that there was one person sitting in a secretarial desk at my publisher s. And there was just nobody to do the work. We got a blurb from Warren Ellis and there was just nobody in the office to tell them to put that on the cover of the book. That’s what happened to publishing during this time, and nobody could sell a book. Unless you were already this massive bestseller, there was no way you could sell a book at the end of 2008, beginning of 2009. So we toured from Maine to Los Angeles for four months, selling this book out of the back of S.J’s tour van. We had all these reading concerts. S.J did an album based on Palimpsest, and she would sing and I would read. We picked up performers everywhere. It was the circus. And everywhere we went, people kept asking me about this one part of Palimpsest, because the main character in that book, her favorite novel from when she was a little girl was The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. It was not real. It was just meant to be a little character piece in Palimpsest. Which is a very adult book, by the way, with a capital A and three Xs. And the first paragraph from Fairyland is in Palimpsest and nothing else. But, as part of trying to do everything we could for this book, we made an alternate reality game, and one of the easter eggs was an Amazon order page for Fairyland, or of a cover that I had mocked up out of an Arthur Rackham drawing and everything. And so people were like, “They’re all out of stock on Amazon. Where do I get a copy of this?” I m like, “Well, you’ll notice the url still says CatherynneMValente.com. This is just something we post-modern kids do from time to time.” But people just kept asking where they could get it. And when I got home my partner had been laid off from two jobs, or got laid off from two jobs within six weeks of each other. And we had just moved to Maine not even six months before, and didn’t really have the money to move again to a better job. And so I was like, “Alright, well I’m gonna do a serialized novel then, on my website. And I’ll just put up a little donation button, and hopefully we can pay our rent and get some groceries this month.” And I went through my notes while I was looking for something that I didn’t think I would lose anything if I published it myself. Because back then, Kickstarter hadn’t started up yet, or if it had, it would have just started. Kindle was only just beginning to be a thing. There’s very much a feeling that if you self publish something, you were giving up the possibility of a big publisher. So I thought, “Well, nobody would ever publish a children’s book that was so connected to an adult book with a capital A and three Xs. So I’m not losing anything if I do Fairyland. And everybody wants to read Fairyland. I’ve been hearing about it for months now.” So I did. Her Love of Performance Catherynne Valente: Every Monday I posted a chapter of Fairyland and I recorded myself reading it, which actually turned out to be … I did it because I love to read out loud and I’m good at it, I was an actress most of my life, but it turns out that I have a lot of vision impaired readers who, for the first time, could take part in this viral thing, because they could listen to it. And I had a little donation button that said, “Give whatever you think the book is worth. If you don’t think it’s worth anything, don’t worry about it. If you don’t have any money, don’t worry about it, just enjoy it.” And it went viral within twenty four hours. Boing Boing was doing pieces on it, and io9 and Neil Gaiman linked to it. And it just became this huge thing that saved us, in a very very real and tangible way. I remember being at a convention right after it really hit, and somebody in the audience asked, “Well, you realize you can’t go back and change anything, because you’ve already posted it online.” And I said, “Oh, s***.” It had never occurred to me that that was gonna be a problem. I kept a couple weeks ahead of the posting schedule, but again, much like writing The Labyrinth in ten days instead of thirty, I just ran ahead with something without knowing that I couldn’t do it and it worked out incredibly well. It won this Web Fiction of the Decade Award, up against Girl Genius and Dr. Horrible and XKCD and all of these things which are far more well known than me, even in the organization that runs that, even in their roundup, they’re like, “We don’t understand what happened. We don’t know what this is, but apparently you do.” And it won the Andre Norton Award long before it, a year before, it ever came out in print, which is administered with the Nebula Awards for YA. Before it finished posting online, my agent found an amazing publisher for it, Feiwel and Friends, And it debuted at number eight on the New York Times list. It’s genuine magic. I still don’t really have … People ask me all the time how to do what I did, and the answer is, “I don’t even know if I could do what I did.” It was just a perfect storm of people feeling helpless and wanting to help, of me having a lot of cred from having published traditionally for so long, and a lot of adult readers who had never been able to share my work with their kids, and hopefully the quality of the work, and just who picked it up and ran with it. A lot of things had to come together to make it happen, and it was incredible. Kelton Reid: Wow, wow. It’s surely an inspiring story, to say the least. You’ve got this fan community that is dedicated, a large online following, in addition to everything you have out in the world. So, is the best place to find all of your works at your website, then? Catherynne Valente: Yeah, CatherynneMValente.com. Catherynne is spelled funny. Kelton Reid: It’s a great spelling. Catherynne Valente: Thank you. And I’m very active on Twitter at @CatValente. Kelton Reid: I’ll link to that. I’ll link to both. And of course, you’ve got a more recent development that’s not technically publishing, but it is a Patreon project that you just started up. It sounds like The Mad Fiction Laboratory, which you’re offering advice on the craft and business of writing there, which is really cool to see. So I’ll link to that as well. Did you want to say anything about that? Catherynne Valente: Yeah, so we’ve just started this. This is, like, the third day that it’s existed. And basically, it’s every month, I will be, for subscribers, patrons, I will be putting out an essay, as you say, about the craft and business of writing. But a funny one that makes it entertaining. Important to note, because a lot of those things are just so dry. I remember when I was first starting out just reading endless, endless articles about how to write a hit book and how to get an agent and how to write a good sentence. And most of them, like the best you could hope for, is if it was written in a very serious inspirational tone. And I would often feel exhausted after reading it, like, “Oh, I really want to be a writer, but oh man. I just feel so much pressure from ” Even the inspirational stuff just made me feel like failing at being what that person wanted me to be. So I wanted to write these essays that are very funny and lighthearted that still give that information and a little more motivational oomph. But also, patrons will be able to get excerpts of whatever I’m working on that month. So for example, I just released on the feed today, the first chapter of a book I’m working on that’s so secret, it hasn’t even been announced yet, and I can’t even tell you the title. The patrons know the title now and they can see the first chapter. Kelton Reid: Oh, that’s cool. Catherynne Valente: We haven’t even told anyone it exists yet. So a lot of really exclusive material will be available through the Patreon, as well as teaching people what I have learned after 13 years in the industry. So it’s a little bit of me, it’s a little bit of everyone else, and hopefully we can make mad science together. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. I’m kind of imagining it being like the opposite of the James Patterson Teaches Writing MasterClass where he looks so serious and like, you know, these closeups of his forehead and … Catherynne Valente: Yeah, no, I’ll have bangs so you don’t see any of my forehead. But, I mean, writing is a serious business and it can be incredibly stressful, so I think that making it a fun as possible is the way to get things done. Because if you feel great pressure of creating literature for the ages, and then running a small business, which is what writing is. It’s really hard to come home from work at the end of the day and start up that mountain. Previews of Her Three Wildly Different Upcoming Projects Kelton Reid: For sure, for sure. Well, that’s great. We’ll definitely link to that and point listeners at that one. So you hinted at some secret stuff coming up, but I understand that you have three books coming out this year. Catherynne Valente: I do. They could not be more different, either. So in June, June 7th, The Refrigerator Monologues is coming out. Which is, I like to describe it as, “The vagina monologues for super heroes’ girlfriends.” So it basically takes these tropes of the girl in a refrigerator, which was coined by Gail Simone to describe all of these women in superhero comics who are murdered or maimed and raped and driven crazy and lose their powers, in order to further the plot line of the male hero, rather than that being important because it happened to them. So because I don’t have the right to Gwen Stacy or Harley Quinn or, you know, any of the characters that had this happen to them in comics, I had to just go ahead and create a completely cohesive, superhero cinematic universe of my own. No problem. And so, if you are a big comic book fan, you will have a thousand Easter eggs in this book and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about, and if you’re not, they all stand alone. There’s a beautiful comic for each section done by Annie Wu, who’s an amazing comic artist, and I’m so, so excited for it. It’s so different than anything else I’ve ever done. I think I’ve dropped more F-bombs than I ever have in a book before. So I really hope people like that. I also have Mass Effect: Annihilation coming out. I have done a Mass Effect tie in book for the new game, Andromeda, that’s coming out in March. The book’s not coming out in March. The book’s coming out later in the year. And The Glass Town Game is coming out September 5th, which is my next middle grade book. And that one I describe as the Brontë children go to Narnia, Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë, Ann Brontë, and their brother Branwell. When they were little kids, before they became these famous writers, when they were little kids they were just like any other geeky kids that you know now, and they made this fantasy world that they kind of LARPed, RPGed. They created this world that’s build out of a child’s understanding of British politics and the Napoleonic Wars and Yorkshire fairytales and all of this crazy stuff. And they wrote in world magazines that were published by their characters. It’s incredible. We still have a great deal of it. And there’s just so much there. The idea of The Glass Town Game, Glass Town is the name of this world, is that they actually went there, that it’s a real place that they actually visited as children. That’ll be coming out in September. Kelton Reid: I love that. So you haven’t been very busy. Catherynne Valente: No, not at all, no. Mostly just sitting back and eating chips. The Umbrella Cover Museum that Doubles as Her Office Kelton Reid: All right, well I’m sure that listeners are eager to hear about your day to day productivity. So how much time, per day, are you getting ready to get into the mode or researching stuff before you start to write? Catherynne Valente: It really depends on whether I’m on deadline or not. I’m on a pretty tight deadline right now, so I will say it does take me quite a while to sort of get into the space. I live on a spooky island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. So I have my house, but my house is filled with animals and a partner and a million distractions. So there’s this place, I’m pointing, you can’t see ’cause it’s a podcast, that I’m pointing towards it, out my window, but down by the waterfront on the island is this little tiny building which, during the summer, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, is an Umbrella Cover Museum, or The Umbrella Cover Museum. It’s a museum for the little sacks that your umbrellas come in that you lose immediately and they all end up here in Maine. But she doesn’t live here. She just lives here in the summer, so for the rest of the year it’s my office. So I go down there, and usually I go down to my office and I spend at least an hour making myself coffee, poking around in my notes, posting to Twitter, and then I sort of ease into work. So it usually takes me an hour or so to get into the right space. On a deadline I’ll be down there every day. But when I don’t have a severe deadline, it’s pretty important for me, in my creative process, to have fallow periods where I’m not pumping out word counts everyday. So, I need to be reading other people’s books, I need to be watching new shows and movies and things like that. I never know how that kind of stuff is gonna feed in. That super secret project I was talking about, I ended up binge watching a bunch of British comedy panel shows, and it actually ended up helping me get into the right voice for this project in a huge way without ever meaning to. I just really like British panel comedy shows. And all that stuff is really important, so I don’t take the dictum of, “You must write every day,” completely seriously. For a creative mind, especially if you’re somebody who works on a lot of projects at once, like I do, I think that the time that you’re not working can be as valuable, as far as getting the juices flowing, as the time that you are working. Kelton Reid: Yeah, for sure. That creative process obviously involves those important steps of putting information out Putting information in, excuse me, the preparation and incubation phase, and then you kinda have the elimination and you sit down and you spit it out. Catherynne Valente: You are what you eat. Kelton Reid: Thank you so much for joining us for this half of a tour of the writer’s process. If you enjoy The Writer Files, please subscribe to the show and leave us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts to help other writers find us. And for more episodes or just to leave a comment or a question you can always drop by WriterFiles.FM and chat with me on Twitter at @KeltonReid. Cheers. Talk to you next week.

On this bonus episode of #WizardTeam, Robyn and Bayana talk with New York Times bestselling author Daniel José Older. Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of Salsa Nocturna, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, and the Young Adult novel Shadowshaper, a New York Times Notable Book of 2015, which won the International Latino Book Award and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, and named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic and hear his music at danieljoseolder.net, on youtube, and @djolder on twitter. Join us as we talk Daniel's books, publishing, writing, and of course Harry Potter! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wizardteam/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wizardteam/support

King Tideby Alison WilgusSome particular trick of the moon, the weather, and the Earth's closeness to the sun had pulled the tide all the way to 5th Avenue, a good half-block further uphill than usual. The city had put out an alert, so Jordyn knew to clear out the basement ahead of time. Their landlord was smart enough to have the foundation sealed years ago—that would be fine—but there wasn't much to be done for cardboard boxes and old futons. Those had to be kept above the tide line, or they were garbage.Full Transcript appears under the cut:----more----[Intro music plays]Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 10 for June 11, 2015. I'm your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you.It's only been a few days since I uploaded last week's episode, but I'm back. One of the other things that happened last weekend is that the Nebula Awards were given out. If you're not up on a lot of the science fiction awards, these are given out by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and are voted on by the professional writers who are members of that organization.I'll provide a link to the complete short list in the transcript, (Nebula Awards) but I'd also like to congratulate the winners on the show.So!The winner of Best Novel was Jeff VanderMeer for Annihilation.Novella - which is like a really short book - went to Nancy Kress for Yesterday's Kin.Novelette - which is like a really long short story - went to Alaya Dawn Johnson for "A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai'i"And short story went to Ursula Vernon for "Jackalope Wives."The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult SF&F went to Alaya Dawn Johnson for Love Is the Drug.Congratulations to all the winners!Our story this week is "King Tide" by Alison Wilgus.Alison Wilgus is a writer of comics and prose, and currently working on nonfiction graphic novels for First Second Books. She also draws her own comics about space, cats, monster hunting, and very occasionally herself. She lives in Brooklyn.She is also one of the co-editors at The Sockdolager, which is a semiprozine at sockdolager.net. You may also remember the comics anthology called Beyond, which is an all-ages queer science fiction and fantasy comics anthology edited by Sfé R. Monster and Taneka Stotts. Alison wrote one of the comics for that anthology, which was illustrated by Anissa Espinoza. You can find more information about Beyond at beyondanthology.comKing Tideby Alison WilgusSome particular trick of the moon, the weather, and the Earth's closeness to the sun had pulled the tide all the way to 5th Avenue, a good half-block further uphill than usual. The city had put out an alert, so Jordyn knew to clear out the basement ahead of time. Their landlord was smart enough to have the foundation sealed years ago—that would be fine—but there wasn't much to be done for cardboard boxes and old futons. Those had to be kept above the tide line, or they were garbage.Her girlfriend, Mia, had paused on the first floor landing to breathe, a disintegrating tomb of Jordyn's family albums clutched in her hands. Its weight eased for a moment as she rested an edge on the railing. "We should toss these," Mia had said. "You digitized them years ago.""Oh, but it's not the same," Jordyn had said, and it wasn't.Now she sat cross-legged on their bed while Mia showered, a stack of albums on the duvet beside her and another open in her lap. She peered at the careful handwriting under each photograph, names and dates and in-jokes, most of them incomprehensible. The photos had been taken with cell phones and carefully printed out, an anachronism even then. Her grandmother had pressed hard when she wrote, and as Jordyn ran her fingertips over the pages she could feel indentations beneath the ink. The album smelled of dust and old glue and a worrying hint of mildew.Jordyn had copied one—taken a photo of a photo, found a place up in Bushwick that still did small print jobs, bought a silver frame secondhand at the Brooklyn Bazaar—and set it on the wooden dresser beside their bed. Her grandmother had taken it decades ago, when her mother was a little girl and the Gowanus canal only rarely ventured out onto the streets.In the photo, a small, smiling version of Jordyn's mother sat on the stoop of her grandparents' house. She was an almost-copy of herself: curly black hair, brown skin, freckles on her cheeks and bare shoulders. The house was yellow brick, with white-washed iron bars over the windows and a little flower garden tucked between the concrete stoop and the stairs down to the cellar. Her grandparents had bought it in the 1970s for very little money, and, at the time the photograph was taken, were rightly smug about their foresight. Back then they could have sold it for a million dollars to developers who'd have cheerfully replaced it with a narrow stack of condos.They'd stopped using the cellar after Hurricane Oscar. Hurricane Andrea had ruined the curtains and the carpets on the first floor, and they’d been forced to sell the house for little more than it cost to buy a new car.Jordyn lived just up the hill, now. The yellow house in her picture wasn't large—two stories and a basement—but on most days, its top story rose out of the lagoon. She liked to look at it from her roof in the late afternoon, when the warm golden sunshine made it look buttery and romantic. Like it had sounded in her mother's stories, back when she was still alive to tell them.The pipes thumped as Mia turned off the water. She walked out the bathroom in a cloud of steam, her stout brown body naked and dripping as she toweled off her hair. "Moon's out," she said.Jordyn closed the album in her lap and set it on top of the others. The bed creaked as she slid to the edge, tucked her feet into her slippers, stood up; she stretched her arms above her head and her muscles resettled. "It's a King Tide," she said. "Highest this year. By a lot."Mia pulled her head through a cotton tee shirt. "We should drink a couple beers on the roof.""Hah! In winter?"Mia shrugged.Jordyn opened the door to their apartment, then turned the lock so that the deadbolt would catch on the frame and keep the door ajar. Theirs was the top floor; they climbed one flight of steep marble stairway to the roof. Two bottles clinked together in Mia's hand, held by their necks between her fingers.The winter had been mild, but little mounds of rotten snow hid in the shadows, and Jordyn rubbed her arms through her sweatshirt as she walked across the tarpaper. Through the steam of her breath, she looked out over a city of brick and stone and water. Behind her swelled the high-rent higher ground of Park Slope, dry townhouses climbing up the hill to Prospect Park, Flatbush, Windsor Terrace, Crown Heights. Neighborhoods that emptied this time of year, when everyone escaped to their condos in Georgia.Before her, an archipelago.Real estate agents had started calling it "Gowanus Beach," which Jordyn thought was pretty misleading, even by real estate standards. At least when people said Red Hook was "The Venice of Kings County" that evoked a useful image: water-stained townhouses and floating wooden walkways, plastic kayaks tied up in front of corner bodegas, tanned women in sundresses puttering around in little zodiacs with outboard motors, the East River lapping at second story windowsills. "Gowanus Beach" implied sand, maybe sea-smooth stones, even the muddy shore of a lake. Nothing about "beach" said crumbling asphalt, or concrete gnawed away by the tides, or exposed rebar skeletons crumbling into rust, or the bloated carcasses of cheap student furniture bobbing up from drowned garden apartments.The wind was wet and heavy. Jordyn shivered and looked down at the rippling gray water. The tide had swallowed her grandparents' house entirely.Mia popped their bottles open on the low brick wall of the facade. They stood in the cold and looked at the city, at the full moon in the blue evening sky, at the waves. A trash barge puttered along the street below, pausing every half-block for building supers to add to its load. Jordyn could hear the siren of a fire boat, but couldn’t see the boat itself, nor the smoke.Jordyn took a sip from her beer, which was warm and tasted of hops and cardamom. "The tide's supposed to drop all the way down past Fourth Ave," she said. "I thought I might go for a walk."Mia pursed her lips. "It'll be dark.""It hasn't gone out this far in years.""Still." Mia nursed her beer in silence for a while, time measured out in the swish-pop of her sips. "When was your last tetanus shot?""Couple years ago. Remember? I fell off Madison's dock."Mia sighed. "Wear your reef shoes, all right?"The sirens faded. Jordyn stepped into the warm space beside Mia's body and slid an arm around her thick waist, tucking her hand into the far pocket of Mia's coat. "I'll be fine," she said.Anticipation kept Jordyn from sleeping soundly, and she woke before her alarm. She had dreamed about riding the old subway system her mother had told her about. She dressed by the amber light of the street lamps, pulled a coat on over her wetsuit, slipped her feet into her reef shoes. Kissed Mia on the forehead and closed their bedroom door.Mia had set the big flashlight to charge before they'd gone to bed. Jordyn took it, and her set of keys, locked up the apartment, descended the stairway in rubber-soled silence, and stepped out onto the empty sidewalk. The water was gone, but the tree wells were frozen with mud.As Jordyn walked downhill toward Fourth Avenue, below the usual tideline, she had to pick her away around soggy timber, hunks of old insulation, rusted soda cans, tangled knots of plastic shopping bags—the usual trail of city detritus left behind by high tide. She passed under the elevated boardwalk running along the east side of the avenue, a tourist attraction some mayor had built when she was a little girl. The wreckage of a gull had caught on one of the pilings.Beyond the boardwalk, crumbling asphalt dissolved into a sort of coarse black gravel, bits of the roadbed mixed in with the sand and soil and stones that had once supported it. In places, the steel tubes and concrete cylinders of the old infrastructure were exposed—gas lines, water mains, sewers, electricity. Round black holes gaped open, liquid noises echoing up from underground. Most of the old manhole covers had been stolen by trophy hunters years ago. Jordyn chose her steps carefully, eyes on the ground.Once she reached the buildings on the far side of the avenue, she paused to look behind her. Only the foolish or the desperate would eat anything fished out of the Gowanus lagoon, but the boardwalk was crowded with seafood restaurants hoping to capitalize on the maritime atmosphere. Their neon signs still winked at her from above shuttered doors and windows, criss-crossed by the black silhouettes of utility lines.The canals of the lagoon were lit, but not well, and the low tide made the landscape unsettling and strange. Buildings were taller than she remembered; boats moored in shallow water now rested on the ground.The lagoon had retreated to a few yards below the avenue. Jordyn switched on the flashlight and waded in one cautious step at a time, careful not to shift her weight forward until she was sure of her footing.The water was cold. Her toes were numb within half a block, but that was fine. The soles of her shoes were tough enough for nails and glass, and she didn't have far to go.In the LED glow of her flashlight, the yellow brick house looked almost white. For a disoriented moment, she wondered if she'd gone down the wrong street, or misremembered which side of it the building was on. Someone—a thief, an interim owner, the tide—had taken the bars from the lower-story windows. And the brick was striped with stains, each line a marker of the lagoon's creeping progress uphill.But the black iron numbers hanging above the door were the same. This was thehouse, reclaimed from the tide, if only for tonight. From this stoop, her mother had watched the water come.Jordyn was up to her waist in the lagoon. Her feet still had some feeling left, and she poked around with them under the night-black water, looking for the first step. Finding it, she climbed the uneven stairs, water running down the legs of her wetsuit and dripping from the saturated hem of her coat, to finally sit on the stoop, her back against the font door. Her feet were still in the water, and it tickled as it lapped around her ankles.She dried her hands off on her hair, then tugged her phone out of a waterproof pouch in her jacket. She held it up in front of her, looked into its little black eye, and smiled.END"King Tide" was originally published by Terraform in December of 2014.This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.Thanks for listening, and I’ll have another story for you on June 18th.[Music plays out]