Podcasts about best fancast

How can language help shape your worldbuilding? We're not necessarily talking about conlang here -- that can certainly be part of worldbuilding, but it doesn't have to be, and many works of speculative fiction manage perfectly fine without invented languages. But the words you choose in description and dialogue will also communicate something to your reader. There are so many ways that words can create the vibes for your world: the aural quality of different languages, choosing character and place names, the cadence and flow of sentences, and the conscious emulation of other genres or eras. We also explore what the conceptual availability of certain ideas, technologies, or worldviews may mean for the vocabulary, idioms, and metaphors of a culture. Being very intentional about word choice can help a writer communicate a location's aesthetic, let a reader know what to expect from a book's tone, help reveal character through dialogue, and even drop information about all your other worldbuilding in quick and subtle ways. And since we are huge word nerds, we delight in examining all of it! The episode begins, however, with a 15-minute diversion into how much we love Shakespeare, so -- enjoy that! And happy birthday, Bill! We are also delighted to announce that we are, for the fifth year in a row, a Finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Fancast! Anyone who has a WSFS membership for this year can vote, and we would love your consideration. Membership costs $50 and gets you access to the voters' packet, digital versions of almost everything you'll find on the Finalists lists -- novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, poetry, and even audio and video. [Transcript for Episode 153 -- Thank you, Scribes!]

A perennial question that our listeners often have is: How do you organize your worldbuilding? Do you have templates to use? Charts to fill out? Once you start imagining all your fantastic choices, how do you keep track of them all and then weave them along with your plot? Well, the answer to all of this, as with so many writing questions, is "do what works for you" -- but how do you even figure out what that is, or if it's the same from one project to the next? In this episode, guest M.J. Kuhn joins us to share tips, tricks, and tidbits from her new worldbuilding workbook! Whether you start world-first, character-first, plot-first, or some hybrid, it can be useful to put some structures around how you develop your worldbuilding ideas. Those structures might be particularly useful when you get stuck or lost within your project! They might help you find the world-related obstacles you want to put in your characters' paths, the trees you want to chase them up, the rocks you want to throw at them. Careful attention to how you worldbuild can also help you revise your ideas over time, from project to project. Many tools can be adapted to your individual writing style and habits! We also want to remind you that, at the time this episode goes up, you still have two days to submit your ballot for the Hugo Awards! And we would love your consideration for Best Fancast. [Transcript TK] Our Guest: M.J. Kuhn is a fantasy writer by night and a mild-mannered marketing employee by day. She lives in the metro Detroit area with her husband Ryan, a dog named Wrex, and the very spoiled cat Thorin Oakenshield. 

It's the start of our sixth season! And we've got some projects going on. The Traveling Light anthology, which we Kickstarted -- with the help of many of you listeners! -- at the start of the fifth season, is now almost complete! We've finished the page proofs and are about to turn this into a Real Book. In this episode, you'll get to hear from the anthology authors about their amazing, exciting, super-creative contributions! And if you missed the Kickstarter, fear not! It will be available for purchase in both physical and ebook form, and you'll be able to pre-order that soon. So what are we launching this year? A Patreon! That's right, we are finally creating a way for our magnificent, lovely listeners to support the podcast. We're hoping this will just help us cover some basic costs of podcast hosting, graphic design, maybe even putting together a Real Website! And in exchange, patrons will get some exclusive content and merch. We've got four tiers: Beetles, Crustaceans, Megafauna, and Kaiju. If you'd like to help us keep doing what we're doing (and maybe even zhuzh it up a bit more), check them out! And of course, this podcast is its own ongoing massive project! We are so, so grateful to all of our amazing guests who have joined us to talk about so many different aspects of worldbuilding. We're thrilled to be able to have these conversations about craft and imagination, and we're delighted that so many listeners enjoy it, too.  And hey! If you want to see us, we're gonna be some places! Hopefully the full team will be in Glasgow for WorldCon, August 8-12, and some of us will be in Austin for ArmadilloCon, September 6-8. (And if you'd like to help make sure Marshall gets to WorldCon, he's running a GoFundMe!) Voting is also still ongoing for the Hugo Awards, and we would love your consideration for Best Fancast! Because winning in Scotland would be really fun. Thanks for all your support! Here's to another great season!

Massive worlds require massive worldbuilding -- or do they? Sometimes, a narrower, character-centric scope can create a tight and compelling narrative while still crafting an expansive world. Guest Rebecca Roanhorse joins us to discuss how knowing your characters can help you konw your world. What does it mean to let character lead worldbuilding? How does that define your scope and how much worldbuilding you show the reader? How does this change wth a single versus a multi- POV story? When you let character lead, how do you avoid a world that feels like it was constructed solely to be an obstacle course for that one character to move through? We discuss technique for all this and more! Sidebar: It's still Hugo voting season! You've got until Saturday, 20th July 2024, 20:17 GMT to vote -- and you can vote as long as you become a Glasgow 2024 member by then. We are again on the ballot for Best Fancast, and we would love your consideration! [Transcript TK] Our Guest: Rebecca Roanhorse is a New York Times bestselling and Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Award-winning speculative fiction writer. She has published multiple award-winning short stories and novels, including two novels in The Sixth World Series, Star Wars: Resistance Reborn, Race to the Sun for the Rick Riordan imprint, and the epic fantasy trilogy Between Earth and Sky. She has also written for Marvel Comics and games (Echo, She-Hulk, Werewolf By Night, MoonKnight, and Chee'ilth) and for television, including FX's A Murder at the End of the World, and the Marvel series Echo for Disney+. She has had her own work optioned by Amazon Studios, Netflix, and AMC Studios.  Find her Fiction & Non-Fiction HERE. She lives in Northern New Mexico with her husband, daughter, and pup. She drinks a lot of black coffee. Find more at https://rebeccaroanhorse.com/ and on Instagram at @RebeccaRoanhorse.

"Traditional" fantasy novels often hold themselves to a pre-gunpowder/pre-steampower level of tech. So, what's fun about setting a fantasy world in an era that has anything from the printing press to cell phones? Guest Hana Lee joins us to explore incorporating the technological into the magical world! How can the harnessing of magic be similar to or dissimilar from channeling other kinds of power, like electricity? What story-driving tensions and conflicts can arise from eras of rapid change? And what sort of unholy terror might you create if you introduce magitech-bros into a world? As a sidebar: It's Hugo voting season! And the voting packet is absolutely stuffed with amazing reading, listening, and viewing material. All ballots must be received by Saturday, 20th July 2024, 20:17 GMT -- and you can vote as long as you become a Glasgow 2024 member by then! We are again on the ballot for Best Fancast, and we would love your consideration! [Transcript TK] Our Guest: Hana Lee is a biracial Korean American fantasy author. By day, she makes her living as a software engineer. She's always loved the dark, the gothic, and the occult, so there's usually a picturesque ruin of some kind lurking in the background of her novels.  Her childhood was spent trekking across the United States, from Southern California to the Midwest and back to the West Coast again. She generally considers her hometown to be Portland, OR, mostly because it's home to her favorite bookstore (Powell's Books).  She graduated from Stanford University with her B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science in 2018. Her family includes a partner and two ridiculously fluffy cats. They live in sunny Mountain View, CA, a stone's throw from Google HQ.  Hana's debut novel, ROAD TO RUIN, will be published by Saga Press in spring 2024. 

Making fantasy worlds into living, growing worlds means giving them a history of change and growth and shifts in technology and culture, not to mention governments and borders.  We talk about building history, historical ages and generational shifts, as well as diving into what are the historical ages in the world of the MNG, and how has it grown? Also! It is Hugo Award voting time! And we would love your consideration for Best Fancast. [Transcript TK]

For the fourth year in a row, the Worldbuilding for Masochists podcast – co-hosted by Henrico citizen Cass Morris – has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fancast. The Hugos recognize excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy and are awarded by the World Science Fiction Society at each year's WorldCon. The Hugo Award ceremony will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, this August during WorldCon. The podcast, which began in 2019, takes readers, writers, and world-creators alike through all the elements one might consider when building alternative worlds, whether they are fantasy, science fiction, or role-playing-inspired....Article LinkSupport the Show.

It's been a while since we spent some time in the world of the MNG! So in this episode, we apply some topics from recent episodes as well as some worldbuilding staples to the cultures we've been developing in our ongoing co-created world. We play with nifty biology! We consider the monstrous! We think about love and education and phases of growth! How does Mirraden conceputalize and use the Gates? What is courtship like in Fjallanir? What legends scare a Griastan? In this episode, we do some applied worldbuiding! Also! It is Hugo Award voting time! And we would love your consideration for Best Fancast. [Transcript TK]

When you're creating your world and bringing it into a story, how much do you let show? Guest John Hartness joins us to discuss balancing the off-page and on-page elements, and how that balance might shift based on what kind of a world you're working in and what sort of a story you're telling. How do you ensure that the worldbuilding serves a purpose and serves the characters? In this episode, you'll also get a peek behind the publishing curtain! John discusses running Falstaff Books, a publisher known for making space for authors at "the weird kids' table." That ethos translates into his work as an editor and publisher, and it's led him to think and talk about worldbuilding in different ways than when he's writing his own works! Sidebar: It's Hugo Award nomination season! If you're a nominating sort of person and you enjoyed the podcast in 2023, we'd love your consideration for Best Fancast. [Transcript TK] Our Guest: John G. Hartness is a teller of tales, a righter of wrong, defender of ladies' virtues, and some people call him Maurice, for he speaks of the pompatus of love. He is also the award-winning author of the urban fantasy series The Black Knight Chronicles, the Bubba the Monster Hunter comedic horror series, the Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter dark fantasy series, and many other projects. He is also a cast member of the role-playing podcast Authors & Dragons, where a group of comedy, fantasy, and horror writers play Dungeons & Dragons. Very poorly. In 2016, John teamed up with a group of other publishing industry ne'er-do-wells and founded Falstaff Books, a small press dedicated to publishing the best of genre fiction's “misfit toys.” Falstaff Books has since published over 50 titles with authors ranging from first-timers to NY Times bestsellers, with no signs of slowing down any time soon. In his copious free time John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees and playing Magic: the Gathering. John's pronouns are he/him.

We've talked before about the difference between aesthetic-driven genres, like sci-fi and fantasy, and structure-driven genres, like mystery and romance. So what happens when you want to build a world just ripe for all your favorite romance tropes? How can your world create the obstacles to your characters getting their happy-ever-after? Guest Gwenda Bond joins us to talk about the love of worldbuilding and worldbuilding for love! A lot of writing romance means dealing with reader's expectations in a slightly different way than some other story-types. How useful are the sub-genre distinctions that might shape those expectations -- fantasy romance, romantic fantasy, fantasy with romance, romantasy, paranormal romance -- from the writer's perspective? And why are some SFF readers still worried that sex and romance might get cooties on their genre? In this episode, we look at how romance can hybridize with so many different forms and flavors of fantasy writing, and what choices writers make when directing the reader's attention more towards the romance or more towards the fantasy. Sidebar: It's Hugo Award nomination season! If you're a nominating sort of person and you enjoyed the podcast in 2023, we'd love your consideration for Best Fancast. [Transcript TK] Our Guest: Gwenda Bond is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including the first official Stranger Things novel, Suspicious Minds, the Lois Lane YA series, and the romantic comedies Not Your Average Hot Guy, The Date from Hell, and Mr. & Mrs. Witch. She has a number of forthcoming projects, including a magical art heist book, The Frame-Up. Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Locus Magazine, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. She co-founded and chairs the nonprofit Lexington Writer's Room, and lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe, and a veritable zoo of adorable doggos and queenly cats. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or join her newsletter at www.gwendabond.substack.com.

Once again, it's time for an awards eligibility roundup! This episode's transcript appears in full below:   Hello, and welcome to Tales from the Trunk: Nominating the works that did make it. I'm Hilary B. Bisenieks.   Listeners, it's somehow that time of the year again, where awards nominations are upon us, and so I have once again reached out to all the wonderful guests who make this show what it is to round up works they'd like to receive your attention for nominations.   To begin, Tales from the Trunk is eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Fancast.   Sarah Gailey, who most recently joined me for our 100th episode retrospective, is eligible for Best Graphic Story for Know Your Station, and for Best Fanzine for their excellent Stone Soup.   Leigh Harlen, who joined us in August of 2021, is eligible for Best Novella with A Feast for Flies.   Dee Holloway, who joined us last May, is eligible in various categories. Her eligibility post is linked in the show notes.   Juliet Kemp, who just joined us most recently a few weeks ago, is eligible for Best Novel with The City Revealed; Best Novella with Song, Stone, Scale, Bone; Best Short Story with “Just As You Are;” and Best Series for The Marek Series. Their eligibility post is linked in the show notes.   Maya MacGregor, who appeared on the show in April of 2022, is eligible in Best Novel and Best Young Adult Novel categories for The Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will.   Freya Marske, who appeared here in October of 2021, is eligible for Best Short Story with a version of the very story that she brought to this fine podcast, “One Version of Yourself, At the Speed of Light.” She is also eligible for Best Novel with A Power Unbound and Best Series for The Last Binding.   Sam J. Miller, who joined us in January of 2022, is eligible for Best Short Story with "If Someone You Love Has Become a Vurdalak."   Premee Mohamed, who last joined us in the summer of 2021, is eligible for No One Will Come Back For Us in various short story collection categories and for “Imagine Yourself Happy” for Best Short Story. Her eligibility post is linked in the show notes.   Annalee Newitz, who joined us for a book tour last January is eligible for Best Novel for The Terraformers.   Aimee Ogden, who joined us twice last year, most recently in August, is eligible for Best Novella for Emergent Properties. Her eligibility post is linked in the show notes.   Malka Older, who joined us at the start of this season in March of last year, is eligible for Best Novella with The Mimicking of Known Successes and for Best Short Story with both “The Plant and the Purist” and “The Dangers We Choose.”   C.L. Polk, who last joined us in February of last year, is eligible for Best Novelette with Ivy, Angelica, Bay, which you can read right now on Tor.com.   Caitlin Starling, who last joined us in October of last year, is eligible for Best Novel with Last to Leave the Room and Best Short Story for “Caver, Continue.” Her eligibility post is linked in the show notes: Twitter | Bluesky   Steve Toase, who joined us back in April of 2021, is eligible for Best Short Story with “Crumpled.” His eligibility post is linked in the show notes.   Rem Wigmore, who last joined us in August of 2022, has an eligible novelette, Lightrunner's Gambit, and a novel, Wolfpack.   Fran Wilde, who joined us in January of 2021, is eligible for Best Novella for The Book of Gems, Best Short Story for “The Rain Remembers What The Sky Forgets,” and Best Short Story for “No Contingency.” In addition, she would like to recommend From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi, in which “No Contingency” appears, to be considered for anthology and related media categories. Fran, along with Julian Yap, are eligible for Best Editor, Short, for their work at Sunday Morning Transport, which is itself eligible for Best Semiprozine.   If you've made it this far, I'd like to sincerely thank you for listening and nominating over the years. Your support means so much to me and all of my guests.   Next month, we're closing season five of this show out with a book tour appearance by Canadian author and definitely not a lorge beetle Premee Mohamed and a trunk reading from Jo Miles. Please note that due to some scheduling conflicts, Premee's episode will be releasing on February 8th rather than the 1st.   Also, season 6 is almost upon us! I'm still hammering out guests, so stay tuned to see what amazing authors join me!   Tales from the Trunk is mixed and produced in beautiful Oakland, California.   Our theme music is “Paper Wings,” by Lillian Boyd.   You can support the show on patreon at patreon dot com slash trunkcast. All patrons of the show now get a sticker and logo button, along with show outtakes and other content that can't be found anywhere else.   You can find the show on Bluesky at trunkcast dot bsky dot social, and I post at hbbisenieks dot bsky dot social.   If you like the show, consider taking a moment to rate and review us on your preferred podcast platform.   And remember: don't self-reject.

Hey all, a fun announcement: This podcast is a finalist for the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fancast! Woo! My buddy Colin jumped on a quick call with me since he was the one who noticed the nominations were announced. Thanks to everyone who nominated, and congrats and best of luck to the other nominees! … Continue reading "Shortlisted!"

It's time to get specific -- about magic! When you're building a magical system for your fantasy world, there's a lot to consider. Where does it come from? Who can access it -- everyone, or just some percentage of the population? Does it come naturally, or does it have to be trained? All of these choices will affect how magic is perceived, valued, and used in society. In this episode, we poke at all these considerations and make some choices for the expression of magic in our co-created world. Also! If you're eligible to nominate for the 2023 Hugo Awards, then as of the time of posting, you've still got a few days to get your ballot in! We'd love your consideration for Best Fancast.

In the midst of a season full of amazing guests, we take a little breather to reflect on some of the recent topics and to apply them to our co-built world! The world of the MNG is complex and interconnected, which makes it absolutely ripe for thinking about matrices of power and privilege. So, we think about geography and space; we think about gender and gender roles; we think about magic; we think about the intersections of identity that might matter both in our world and in the smaller societies within the world. Then, we ask: How does the existence of the MNG complicate or simplify dynamics of power and identity? We also would like to take a moment to remind listeners that we are again eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Fancast! Nominations are open until April 30th, so if you were a member of ChiCon 8 or if you are a member of Chengdu WorldCon, we would love your consideration!

It's awards time again! A full transcript of the show is included below.     Hello, and welcome to Tales from the Trunk: nominating the works that did make it! I'm Hilary B. Bisenieks.   Friends, it's been another amazing year for science fiction, fantasy, horror, and beyond, and I'm here once more to let you know about some of the amazing works by my fantastic guests, which you can nominate for this year's awards!   Andi C. Buchanan, who joined us in April of 2022, has a number of eligible works including their novel, Sanctuary, and the essay “Human not machine: how autistic writers are writing new space for themselves.”   A link to their eligibility post is included in the show notes. https://andicbuchanan.org/2022/12/18/2022-publications/    C.L. Clark, who just joined us in December, is eligible in most novelette categories for "Your Eyes, My Beacon: Being an Account of Several Misadventures and How I Found My Way Home," published in Uncanny May/June 2022   Amanda Cook, who joined us in June of 2022, has six stories eligible for short story categories: “The Impossible Task of Bringing Water,” “Germinating Everyday Magic,” “Weaving Serenity,” “Lily and Ink,” “Print a Soul in Six Easy Steps, a Primer by Clover Silverbrook,” and “When Dreams Do Show Me Thee.”    A link to her eligibility post is included in the show notes. https://acooksbooks.com/2022/11/28/babys-first-awards-eligibility-post/   Marion Deeds, who made her debut on this show in May of 2022, has an eligible novella, Comeuppance Served Cold, which you can hear an excerpt of on that episode, along with an eligible novel, Golden Rifts.   Ruthana Emrys, who appeared on the show in July of last year, has an eligible novel, A Half-Built Garden, and her column, Reading the Weird, is eligible for Best Related Work.   A link to her eligibility post is included in the show notes. https://twitter.com/R_Emrys/status/1592598551364005888   Sarah Gailey, this show's patron saint, joined us again last year in support of their eligible novel, Just Like Home. Among their other eligible works are their newsletter, Stone Soup, and their original comic miniseries, Know Your Station.   A link to their eligibility post is included in the show notes. https://sarahgailey.com/awards-eligibility-2022  Victor Manibo, who joined us in December of 2021, is eligible for his debut novel, The Sleepless.   Freya Marske, who joined us in October of 2021, is eligible in the various novel categories for A Restless Truth, the excellent sequel to her 2021 debut, A Marvellous Light.   Sam J. Miller, who joined us last January, has an eligible novella, Kid Wolf and Kraken Boy, as well as a collection, for such awards as have categories for collections, Boys, Beasts & Men.   Scientist, and definitely not a multi-colored beetle, Premee Mohamed, who last joined us in August of 2021, is eligible for Best Series for the first time for her Beneath the Rising series, which concluded with eligible novel The Void Ascendant. She also has several eligible short stories, including “All That Burns Unseen.”   Her eligibility post is included in the show notes. https://www.premeemohamed.com/post/2022-eligibility-post   Aidan Moher, who joined us back in October after far, far too long, is eligible with Fight, Magic, Items for Best Related work. He's also eligible for Best Fanzine for Astrolabe, and for Best Fan Writer for his work all over the place.   Aidan's eligibility post is included in the show notes. https://astrolabe.aidanmoher.com/p/2022-award-eligibility-hugos-nebulas   Hailey Piper, who joined us to open season four of the show back in March, has an eligible short story, “We Frolic Within the Leviathan's Heart,” a novella, Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing, and a novel, No Gods for Drowning. C.L. Polk, who will be returning to the show next month, has an excellent eligible novella, Even Though I Knew The End.   dave ring, patron saint of queer small-press publishing, is eligible for Best Editor, short form, for his work on Baffling Magazine as well as many other fine publications. His work with Marianne Kirby on Neon Hemlock Live is also eligible for Best Related Work.   A link to dave's eligibility post is included in the show notes. https://www.dave-ring.com/news/2022/11/18/2022-eligibility-post   Valerie Valdes, who joined us again this past August, is eligible for Best Novel (Science Fiction, where applicable) for Fault Tolerance, for Best Series for Chilling Effect, for Best Short Story for both “Team Building Exercise” and “Working from Home,” and for Best Semiprozine for Escape Pod, which she edits with Mur Lafferty.   Val's eligibility post is linked in the show notes. http://candleinsunshine.com/news/awards-eligibility-for-2022/    Fellow Warren Wilson alumnus Fran Wilde has various short stories eligible but is most excited to be eligible, for the first time this year, for Best Editor, Short Form, for her work at The Sunday Morning Transport!   John Wiswell, excellent human being, has many, many eligible short stories, including “D.I.Y.” and “Demonic Invasion or Placebo Effect?”   John's full eligibility post is linked in the show notes. https://johnwiswell.substack.com/p/all-the-short-stories-i-published   Finally, I have 100% more eligible work this year than last! In addition to this very show, Tales from the Trunk, which is eligible for Best Fancast and other podcast and audio categories, I also published a game, All Our Yesterdays, which is eligible for the Nebula Award for Best Game Writing.   Thanks so much for tuning in, and thank you to everyone who nominates and votes in any of our genre's awards! That's very cool of you.   Join us again next week, when my guest will be Juliet Kemp!   Tales from the Trunk is mixed and produced in beautiful Oakland, California.   Our theme music is “Paper Wings,” by Lillian Boyd.   You can support the show on patreon at patreon dot com slash trunkcast. All patrons of the show now get a sticker and logo button, along with show outtakes and other content that can't be found anywhere else.   You can find the show on Twitter and Tumblr at trunkcast, and I tweet and tumbl at hbbisenieks.   If you like the show, consider taking a moment to rate and review us on your preferred podcast platform.   And remember: don't self-reject.  

We've talked about big holidays and religious observations before, but what about the small, weird, highly-location-specific festivals and traditions that might dot the landscape of your world? From cheese-rollings to local saints' days to parades to "hey, all our squash came ripe at once, guess we better do something with it!", how do the people in your world make their lives a little more interesting with periodic celebrations? We also invent some tiny, specific festival occurrences for our co-created world! Transcript for Episode 80 (Would you like to join our scribal team and get early access to episodes? Shoot us an email at worldbuildcast@gmail.com for details!) Hugo Voting is now open, and we'd love your consideration for Best Fancast! The Hugo packet, which you get for an Attending or Supporting membership, gets you an absolutely boggling amount of reading, viewing, and listening material. Your hosts will also be at ChiCon 8 for the Hugos, and before that we'll be at ArmadilloCon in Austin, TX -- so if you'll be at either, please come say hi!

We kick off our fourth year of the podcast with a conversation about how to fill in the rest of your world, beyond the immediate scope of your plot. What's outside the borders your characters are familiar with? What's beyond the woods we know? Is it "here there be dragons" or a highly-detailed map with every corner marked? Your methods of showing that may vary depending on if your characters are isolated village folk, citizens of a bustling port town, or merchants moving through many cosmopolitan surroundings. Choices you make here can both create a fuller, more lived-in world and help a reader get inside a character's perspective. Also! In this episode, we set ourselves a pretty big goal for the fourth season. Be sure to listen to the end to find out what it is! Also also! Hugo Voting is now open, and we'd love your consideration for Best Fancast! The Hugo packet, which you get for an Attending or Supporting membership, gets you an absolutely boggling amount of reading, viewing, and listening material. Your hosts will also be at ChiCon 8 for the Hugos, and before that we'll be at ArmadilloCon in Austin, TX. Transcript for Episode 79 (and hey! Our scribes would love some more assistance. If you're interested in joining the team, please email us!)

Hey guess what!! We are nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Fancast!! We're excited and screaming and don't want to hurt your ears, so turn down that volume!  Thank you so much to everyone who nominated us, and who listens, likes, comments, shares, leaves reviews - we are over the moon!

After reminding listeners that the deadline for Hugo nominations is fast approaching on March 15 (and reminding them once again of the eligibility of this podcast for Best Fancast and of Jonathan for Best Editor, Short Form), we move on to the much-discussed, record-setting Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter, and the question of whether it really matters to anyone other than Sanderson and his readers. Acknowledging that Sanderson readers are fully likely to get exactly what they are expecting, this led us into a brief discussion of reader expectations, also the topic of a recent essay by Molly Templeton on Tor.com. While occasionally we come across a book with almost no prior knowledge or publicity, most books come with expectations based on the author's previous work, or even the publisher's reputation. Some of the authors discussed here, and some that Jonathan and Gary are currently reading or expecting to read, include Guy Gavriel Kay, R.F. Kuang, Kelly Barnhill, Nghi Vo, John Crowley, and Karen Joy Fowler. At the end, we touch briefly upon the question of history in fiction, and the different strategies of using entirely fictional characters, almost entirely historical figures, or a mixture of both.

Yeah buddy! It's awards season once again! And just like we have every year since the show started, we've got a roundup of eligible works from past guests! This episode's full transcript, with links, is below.   Hello, and welcome to Tales from the Trunk: nominating the stories (and other things) that did make it. I'm Hilary B. Bisenieks. Listeners, it's that time of year again, where we're all looking back—maybe frantically—on what we did last year and what we consumed as awards nominations open up. To help with that, I've once again reached out to all of my past guests to see if there's anything they'd like me to mention on this show. The full transcript of this show will also be in the show notes, so don't worry if things go by fast. To start off, I know I've tweeted about it, but I want to thank every single one of you who nominated this show for Best Fancast last year. I'm still in a bit of shock that this show made it to the Hugo award long list. This year, Tales from the Trunk is eligible for Best Fancast for the Hugos and, until January 21st, r/Fantasy's Stabby Award for Best Audio Original - Nonfiction. It would be a huge honor to get your nominating vote for either award. John Appel, who joined us on book tour last summer, is eligible for both Best Novel and Best Debut Novel in the science fiction category, where applicable, for Assassin's Orbit. Nino Cipri is eligible in the Best Novella category for Defekt, the sequel-ish follow up to 2020's Finna. R. K. Duncan, who joined us way back in our very first season, has five eligible short stories, which you can find in his awards eligibility post, linked in the show notes. Of those, “Her Black Coal Heart a Diamond in My Hand” is dearest to his heart. Sarah Gailey, one of this show's staunchest and most long-time supporters, has The Echo Wife, eligible for Best Novel, and their limited series, Eat the Rich, eligible for Best Graphic Story and other comics categories. Sarah Hollowell (you didn't think you'd get one of these Sarahs without the other, did you?) is eligible for Best Novel, Best Young Adult, and Best Debut Novel for A Dark and Starless Forest! Tyler Hayes (Tyler, please forgive me for putting you slightly out-of-order) has the story “The Devil You Don't” eligible for Best Short Story. Jordan Kurella has both a story and an essay eligible this year! Their story, “Personal Histories Surrounding La Rive Gauche, Paris: 1995-2015” carries content warnings for mentions of suicide and psychological abuse, and is eligible for Best Short Story. Their essay “Un/Reliable: Reflections in The Drowning Girl,” which carries content warnings for discussion of mental illness and suicide, is eligible for Best Related Work. L. D. Lewis, who joined us this past spring, is eligible in a bevy of categories! Her stories “From Witch to Queen and God” and “Dizzy in the Weeds” are both eligible for Best Short Story. FIYAHCON 2021, like the 2020 version, is eligible for Best Related Work, meanwhile, and the Hugo Award-winning FIYAH Literary Magazine is eligible for Best Semiprozine. Sarah Loch has a number of stories and essays eligible, all of which you can find in her eligibility post. Of those, she'd like to particularly highlight “How Dungeons & Dragons Helped Me Escape a Cult” for Best Related Work. Jennifer Mace, the English One, is eligible for Best Fancast for Be The Serpent—and I should mention that this is their final year of eligibility—along with Freya Marske, the Australian one, and Alex Rowland, the American One. Additionally, Macey's poem, “letters from the ides” is eligible wherever speculative poetry awards are given, and her poem-story, “Birds Are Trying to Reinvent Your Heart,” which is eligible for Best Short Story. Speaking of the Australian One, Freya Marske, who joined us in the traditional serpent month, October, is eligible for Best Novel and Best Debut for A Marvellous Light. Preeme Mohamed, who joined us again this summer, has had quite the year as far as novellas go! These Lifeless Things, And What Can We Offer You Tonight, and The Annual Migration of Clouds are all eligible for Best Novella. Additionally, A Broken Darkness is eligible for Best Novel. You can find a link to her full eligibility post in the show notes. C. L. Polk has an eligible story, “The Music of Siphorophenes,” and a novel, Soulstar, and, in a first for guests of this show, their Kingston Cycle, consisting of Witchmark, Stormsong, and Soulstar, is eligible for the Best Series Hugo. dave ring has a trio of eligible works this year: The Hidden Ones is eligible for Best Novella, “Top Ten Demons to Kill Before The World Ends” is eligible for Best Short Story, and Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness is eligible for Best Anthology! Elsa Sjunneson is eligible for Best Fan Writer for her editorial column at Uncanny Magazine, where she's just finished her tenure as nonfiction editor (Uncanny is eligible for Best Semiprozine). Additionally, “Ocean's 6” is eligible for Best Short Story, and Being Seen is eligible for Best Related Work! R. J. Theodore has two stories eligible for Best Short Story, “A Ship With No Parrot” and “The Coven of TAOS-9.” Additionally, Underway is eligible for Best Novella, and Self-Publishing Formatting Guidelines is eligible for Best Related Work. Finally, I would be remiss not to mention that We Make Books, which Rekka hosts with Kaelyn Considine, is eligible for Best Fancast! Rem Wigmore, who joined us for an impromptu Oceana Month is eligible for Best Novel with Foxhunt. Fran Wilde, who joined us way way back at the start of 2021, would like to highlight “Unseelie Brothers, ltd.” which is eligible for Best Novelette. You can find other things she wrote and read last year on her blog, linked in the show notes. Finally, last, but most certainly not least (and who would have thought that we'd have so many W-names?), John Wiswell would love for you to read and consider his novelette “That Story Isn't The Story.” His other eligible works can be found on his site, linked in the show notes. 2021 was absolutely a wild year, but I hope that this episode helps jog your memory of some of your favorite things, or maybe even introduces you to a brand new favorite that you missed the first time around. I'm deeply grateful for your consideration of this show or any of the works mentioned on this episode, as are all the amazing, talented creators behind those works. As mentioned at the top of the episode, links to all of the works mentioned, along with any eligibility posts, whether specifically called out or not, will be in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you to all of the amazing creators who have been a part of this show over the past three seasons! Tales from the Trunk is mixed and produced in beautiful Oakland, California. Our theme music is “Paper Wings,” by Ryan Boyd. You can support the show on patreon at patreon dot com slash trunkcast. All patrons of the show now get a sticker and logo button, along with show outtakes and other content that can't be found anywhere else. You can find the show on Twitter at trunkcast, and I tweet at hbbisenieks. If you like the show, consider taking a moment to rate and review us on your preferred podcast platform. And remember: don't self-reject.

The Coode Street Podcast kicked off in May 2010.  Over the next 568 episodes Jonathan and Gary, and far too many friends of the podcast to be named here individually, talked about a shared love of science fiction, fantasy, and horror in all of their many forms.  Just a week ago, the members of the World Science Fiction Convention awarded the Coode Street Podcast with the Hugo Award for Best Fancast.  This time out we take a moment, on the very edge of the holidays, to say thank you. Thank you to everyone out there involved, no matter how small or how large your contribution to our ongoing conversation. We will ever be in deeply in your debt for your support. We'll be back in 2022, but for now we'd like to wish you a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season and a thoroughly magical New Year. See you again soon!

Picture it: It's a sweltering summer day, ninety degrees in the shade, heat mirages glimmering on the horizon. Can your characters strip down to their skivvies? Roll up their sleeves? Hike up their skirts? Or might they be shamed for so much as unbuttoning their collar? What cultural factors of religion, economy, gender, and sexuality play into that decision? In this episode, we discuss conventions of modesty, nudity, bragging, virtue-signalling, and other details of culture that you can use when building a multi-faceted and nuanced fantasy world! We also take a few moments to (immodestly) discuss our new status as Hugo Finalists for Best Fancast and to introduce ourselves to new listeners! Transcript for Episode 49, with thanks as ever to our wonderful scribes!

Happy new year, everyone! It's been awards season for a hot minute already, but it takes a little while to do a roundup for all my guests who are interested in being a part of it, so here we are! Works mentioned in this episode: When We Were Magic, by Sarah Gailey Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey “We Don’t Talk About the Dragon,” in The Book of Dragons, by Sarah Gailey “Drones to Plowshares,” by Sarah Gailey “Tiger Lawyer Gets It Right,” by Sarah Gailey “Everything Is The Hunger Games Now,” by Sarah Gailey Here's the Thing  Sarah's awards post  “Raff and the Scissor-Finger,” by R. K. Duncan “Clever Jack, Heavy with Stories,” by R. K. Duncan “For Every Jack,” by R. K. Duncan "Witness," from Fireweed: Stories of the Revolution, by R. K. Duncan R. K. Duncan's awards post  Prime Deceptions, by Valerie Valdes Chilling Effect, by Valerie Valdes The Archive of the Forgotten, by A. J. Hackwith The Library of the Unwritten, by A. J. Hackwith Finding Faeries, by Alexandra Rowland Be The Serpent  Beneath the Rising, by Premee Mohamed “Everything As Part Of Its Infinite Place,” (Patreon-locked) by Premee Mohamed “The Redoubtables,” by Premee Mohamed “Restoration of function to Biochemical Structure 34 using iterative molecular construction techniques: teaching an old dome new tricks,” by Premee Mohamed “An Empathy of Fear,” by Premee Mohamed The Big Idea: Premee Mohamed, John Scalzi's blog, March 2020 Whatever, John Scalzi's blog Premee's awards post  “And All the Trees of the Forest Shall Clap Their Hands,” by Sharon Hsu “Upon What Soil They Fed,” by Jennifer Mace “In the Salt Crypts of Ghiarelle,” in Silk and Steel, by Jennifer Mace Silk & Steel: A Queer Speculative Adventure Anthology  "saltwashed," by Jennifer Mace “Open House on Haunted Hill,” by John Wiswell Machina, by Fran Wilde, Malka Older, Curtis C. Chen, and Martha Wells   A transcript of the show is below: -- Before we get started, a quick reminder that I’ll be returning as a guest on the next episode of We Make Books, which should be hitting the feed on January 5th, talking about the process of trunking things. A huge shout out to Rekka and Kaelyn for inviting me back on the show! [“Paper Wings” plays] Hello, and welcome to Tales from the Trunk: Reading the stories that didn’t make it. I’m Hilary B. Bisenieks. It’s awards season once again, and while I’ve already made my obligatory awards post on social media, that doesn’t do a whole lot if you don’t follow me or the show on Twitter. So once again, I’m collecting awards information for the show and all interested guests here in the feed. This show, Tales from the Trunk, is once again eligible for Best Fancast and is my only eligible work for 2020. Sarah Gailey, who appeared on our very first episode in March of 2019, is eligible for the Lodestar and other YA awards for When We Were Magic. They are eligible for Best Novella for Upright Women Wanted, (one of my favorite books of the past year). In the Best Short Story category, they have the following eligible stories: “We Don’t Talk About the Dragon,” “Drones to Plowshares,” and “Tiger Lawyer Gets It Right.” They are eligible for Best Related Work for their essay “Everything Is The Hunger Games Now,” and for Best Fan Writer for their newsletter, Here’s the Thing. A link to their awards post will be in the show notes. R. K. Duncan, our May 2019 guest, has three stories eligible for Best Short Story: “Raff and the Scissor-Finger,” “Clever Jack, Heavy with Stories,” and “For Every Jack.” Additionally, their poem, “Witness,” is eligible for various poetry awards. A link to their awards post will be in the show notes. Valerie Valdes, our July 2019 guest, is eligible for Best Novel for Prime Deceptions, the excellent sequel to last year’s Chilling Effect. A.J. Hackwith, who was on the show in September of 2019, is in her second year of eligibility for the Outstanding Award for New Writers. The Archive of the Forgotten, the sequel to last year’s stellar debut, The Library of the Unwritten, is eligible for Best Novel. Alex Rowland, who came on the show in October of 2019, is eligible for Best Novella for Finding Faeries, and Best Fancast for Be The Serpent, along with our October 2020 guest, Jennifer Mace. Premee Mohamed, who joined us in November of 2019, is eligible for Best Novel for her debut, Beneath the Rising. The following are eligible for Best Short Story: “Everything As Part Of Its Infinite Place,” “The Redoubtables,” and “Restoration of function to Biochemical Structure 34 using iterative molecular construction techniques: teaching an old dome new tricks.” She is eligible for various nonfiction awards for her essay “An Empathy of Fear,” and her appearance on John Scalzi’s “Big Idea” feature on his blog, Whatever. A link to Premee’s awards post will be in the show notes. Sharon Hsu, our December 2019 guest, is eligible for Best Short Story for “And All the Trees of the Forest Shall Clap Their Hands.” Macey, AKA Jennifer Mace, who joined us in October of this year is eligible alongside their podcasting compatriots, Alex Rowland and Freya Marske, for Be the Serpent in the Best Fancast category. Macey’s stories, “Upon What Soil They Fed” and “In the Salt Crypts of Ghiarelle” are both eligible for Best Short Story. Silk & Steel: A Queer Speculative Adventure Anthology is eligible for the World Fantasy Award for Best Speculative Anthology, and “saltwashed,” is eligible for poetry awards. John Wiswell, who joined us in November of 2020, is eligible for Best Short Story for “Open House on Haunted Hill.” Finally, Fran Wilde, who will be joining us on the show in two weeks, has the Serial Box serial, Machina, eligible for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, along with Malka Older and Curtis C. Chen. Links for eligibility posts, as applicable, along with all the works mentioned on this episode will be available in the show notes. Tales from the Trunk is mixed and produced in beautiful Oakland, California. Our theme music is “Paper Wings,” by Ryan Boyd. You can support the show on patreon at patreon dot com slash trunkcast. All patrons of the show now get a sticker and logo button, along with show outtakes and other content that can't be found anywhere else. You can find the show on Twitter at trunkcast, and I tweet at hbbisenieks. If you like the show, consider taking a moment to rate and review us on your preferred podcast platform. And remember: don't self-reject. [“Paper Wings” plays]

In This Episode The Book Evangelists discuss The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders as part of reading and listening to the 5-star SF/FF audiobooks and books that we have recommended to each other recently. Lissa has been talking up this book constantly for six months and claims it is a climate change tidally-locked planet #hopepunk found family snuggling book. "If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams... And from there, it's easy to control our entire lives." Set on a planet that has fully definitive, never-changing zones of day and night, with ensuing extreme climates of endless, frigid darkness and blinding, relentless light, humankind has somehow continued apace -- though the perils outside the built cities are rife with danger as much as the streets below. But in a world where time means only what the ruling government proclaims, and the levels of light available are artificially imposed to great consequence, lost souls and disappeared bodies are shadow-bound and savage, and as common as grains of sand. And one such pariah, sacrificed to the night, but borne up by time and a mysterious bond with an enigmatic beast, will rise to take on the entire planet--before it can crumble beneath the weight of human existence. description from the publisher This blog post is spoiler-free. On the podcast, we discuss The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders in detail and our discussion in the podcast is filled with minor and major spoilers, so please read the book before you listen if you are into that kind of experience. We'll be here for you when you finish! Quotes from The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/64654648-the-city-in-the-middle-of-the-night "I like that the quotes that you read -- they're all conflictual -- this is not a book where you can rally around one particular quote. One particular quote is not going to be enough for us to rally around. We're going to have to re-examine our thinking over and over and over." - Lissa Characters and Places How does the world-building work? How are these places described? January, Xiophante, Argelo, The City in the Middle of the Night Which characters do we like? Who scares us? Who is our favorite character? Who are we shipping together? Who do we worry about? Who surprised us? Sophie, Mouth, Bianca, Alyssa, Hernan, Barney, Crocodiles/Gelet Science Fiction as Self-Help This is a good self-help book for learning more about: Friendships, Love, Betrayal, Boundaries, Trust, and people using each other for good or using each other for bad. This book illustrates all of those things really, truly. "People don't hurt each other enough in traditional romance novels to have the level of depth that this book has." - Lissa's endorsement for why reading The City in the Middle of the Night is better, post-divorce, than reading her typical stack of escapist romance novels Subscribing to Their Newsletters As all good readers know, when you really like the author's book, sometimes you might check out their website, their twitter, their podcast, their agent.....because those are all source of additional book news and recommendations! Lissa's subscribed to DongWon Song's newsletter Publishing is Hard (and loves it!) Lissa starting listening to Charlie Jane Anders podcast Our Opinions are Correct at least 10 days before it won the Hugo for Best Fancast and Marian had it queued up. #earlyadopters Next episode: Marian is preparing to possibly write a cozy mystery. So, for next time, we will read an Agatha Christie novel, specifically Murder on the Orient Express. Music Credit: The music used during transitions in our podcast is adapted from: Jazzy Sax, Guitar, and Organ at the club by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/58382 Ft: geoffpeters

The Borg attempt a new strategy for recruitment, and Zarlene finds it difficult to resist. Bonus improvised as a warm-up on January 13, 2019 from a suggestion by Brandon Makaryk via Facebook Edited by Eric Scull Starring: Sean Kelley as Borg Mary Cait Walthall as Zarlene Zonalzon News: Are you a Hugo Nominator? Do you have a friend who is a Hugo nominator who you've been meaning to recommend Improvised Star Trek to? Hugo nominations are due March 15, and Improvised Star Trek would like offer itself up for your consideration in the category of Best Fancast! And whether you are or not, we have a list of some of our best eps of 2018 on our website. We'll be doing a live podcast performance at C2E2: March 23 on the CAH Comedy Theater Stage - keep an eye on our SM for details. New reviews since November: tersegal, Anna Poulton, Slitherclaw, rangatology, Jadzia, Hellywood, JamesZa, CaptainRyan007; big thanks! LLAP

As you may have heard, there's been a slight rearrangement of episode topics, due to the fact that the audio of our original recording of Episode 26 (witches!) was haunted. Therefore, this week we're talking about, well, exactly what it says on the tin. In other words, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat. Our tentpoles this week are The Shape of Water, "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hillside" by James Tiptree Jr, and "Bro: discover new talent." by Laylah (Homestuck fic). What We’ve Been Reading A Civil CampaignWarrior’s ApprenticeKomarrThe Priory of the Orange TreeThe Perfect Assassin“More Tomorrow”Band SinisterRuin of KingsInto the Spider-VerseNirvana in Fire Other Stuff We Mentioned Game of ThronesDragonriders of PernWorldCon (Dublin 2019) and eligibility for the Best Fancast category of the Hugo AwardsVenomZelda: Breath of the WildNaruto“I Belong Where the People Are: Disability and The Shape of Water”  by Elsa Sjunneson-HenryPan’s LabyrinthHomestuck“La Belle Dame sans Merci”“Hood and Glove” by Fahye, Yuri/Otabek fic"Writer Wednesday: A Guest Post by Daria Defore" (the monsterfucking article Freya quotes)Jupiter AscendingGuardians of the GalaxyMass EffectAvatarWriting the Other [book] by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia WardWriting the Other workshopsthe Greek myth of Galatea and PygmalionLeda and the SwanRon Weasley/Spider fanfictionThe Hobbit by J.R.R. TolkienOglaf by Trudy Cooper & Doug BayneTam LinTithe by Holly BlackSpinning Silver by Naomi NovikBe The Serpent drinking game by MagaliBeauty and the BeastEast of Sun, West of MoonThe Bastard’s Lying to You, a Be The Serpent episode on unreliable narrators“Women Men Don’t See” by James Tiptree Jr.Pacific RimEdge of TomorrowPacific Rim: Uprising   For Next TimeAnd I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry PratchettTranscript:The transcription of this episode can be found here. Three cheers for the scribes!!!  

We (Gary and Jonathan) went to WorldCon 76 in San Jose a week or so ago, or at least we were around while the convention was on and engaged in activities that overlapped with the convention. It seemed like a great convention. We had a great time. All the people we know who were there had a great time. We'd like to thank all of the organisers, the programmers, and the people who ran a great Hugo Awards.  Our congratulations to all of the winners and especially to the team at Ditch Diggers who picked up the Best Fancast award. A shout out too to the people who came to our Kaffee Klatch, which went surprisingly well. This week a quick-ish episode, our first back together in a month or two. We talk Hugo winners, cannon, and other stuff. If you love a ramble, this ones for you. And we will work on that list for you. Promise!

Mur and Matt come to you live from the mud room of Morgan Freeman's trophy solarium (because they haven't earned the right to go inside yet). Ditch Diggers has been nominated for a Hugo Award! You did it! Mur and Matt will go up against the likes of The Coode Street Podcast and Tea & Jeopardy in Helsinki for Best Fancast (even though we're all professionals. Because there's only one podcast category)! Thank you to all Ditch Diggers listeners who supported the show and don't forget to vote for Mur and Matt for the Hugo itself! It's listener's choice! Mur and Matt select questions from their listeners to address in detail as the topic of the show. First up, for those who write many kinds of things, which writing medium/format to focus on when you being pursuing freelance writing as a serious job. Blogging? Books? Screenwriting? Should you focus on one thing or two things or all of them? Secondly, Mur and Matt talk about writing prep, everything from outlining to creating playlists. What's necessary for the task ahead and how much is too much? Regular Twitter and email Q&A.  

Mur and Matt come to you live from the mud room of Morgan Freeman's trophy solarium (because they haven't earned the right to go inside yet). Ditch Diggers has been nominated for a Hugo Award! You did it! Mur and Matt will go up against the likes of The Coode Street Podcast and Tea & Jeopardy in Helsinki for Best Fancast (even though we're all professionals. Because there's only one podcast category)! Thank you to all Ditch Diggers listeners who supported the show and don't forget to vote for Mur and Matt for the Hugo itself! It's listener's choice! Mur and Matt select questions from their listeners to address in detail as the topic of the show. First up, for those who write many kinds of things, which writing medium/format to focus on when you being pursuing freelance writing as a serious job. Blogging? Books? Screenwriting? Should you focus on one thing or two things or all of them? Secondly, Mur and Matt talk about writing prep, everything from outlining to creating playlists. What's necessary for the task ahead and how much is too much? Regular Twitter and email Q&A.  

Her Last Breath Before Wakingby A.C. WiseShe is a city haunted by a ghost.When the architect dreams, her sinews are suspension bridges, her ribs vaulting arches, her bones steel I-beams, and her blood concrete. In her dreams, the city is pristine and perfect. She is perfect.The architect has a lover who is afraid to sleep. At night, the lover lays her head against the architect’s chest. Instead of breath and pulse, she hears the rumble of high-speed trains.Full transcript after the cut.----more----Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 21 for February 2, 2016. I am your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you.Today's story is "Her Last Breath Before Waking" by A.C. Wise.Before I get to the story, I just wanted to mention that GlitterShip is currently eligible for the Best Fancast category of the Hugo Awards. I wasn't really sure if GlitterShip was a "fancast" or a "semiprozine" but I thought I should check just in case anyone asked me.That said, if you like GlitterShip, the best thing you can do is tell your friends to start listening. If they're interested in LGBTQIA short fiction but are unable to access audio (or just don't like it!), they can read all of the GlitterShip stories on our website at glittership.comA.C. Wise's short stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Apex, Shimmer, and, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2015, among other places. Her debut collection, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again, was published by Lethe Press in October 2015. In addition to her fiction, she co-edits Unlikely Story, and contributes a monthly Women to Read: Where to Start column to SF Signal. Find her online at www.acwise.net.Our guest reader this week is Amanda Fitzwater.Amanda Fitzwater is a dragon wearing a human meat suit from Christchurch, New Zealand. A graduate of Clarion 2014, she’s had stories published in Lethe Press’ “Heiresses of Russ 2014”, “Daughters of Frankenstein: Lesbian Mad Scientists”, and recently an essay in Twelfth Planet Press’ “Letters to Tiptree”. Look out for stories coming soon from Shimmer Magazine and The Future Fire. As a narrator, her voice has been heard across the Escape Artists Network, on Redstone SF, and Interzone. She tweets under her penname as @AJFitzwater   Her Last Breath Before Wakingby A.C. WiseShe is a city haunted by a ghost.When the architect dreams, her sinews are suspension bridges, her ribs vaulting arches, her bones steel I-beams, and her blood concrete. In her dreams, the city is pristine and perfect. She is perfect.The architect has a lover who is afraid to sleep. At night, the lover lays her head against the architect’s chest. Instead of breath and pulse, she hears the rumble of high-speed trains.The architect stands on the balcony of her close apartment looking over the city-that-is and seeing the city-that-might-be. She smokes thin cigarettes and mentally replaces the burnt-out factory and its blind-eye smashed windows with a row of gleaming, silver towers. Once she builds them, her towers will scrape the stars.“The city is rotten,” she says; she doesn’t turn around.“I like the city,” says the architect’s lover, so softly she might not be heard. “It’s where we met.”But the architect isn’t listening. Her hands sketch forms on the air, rewriting the view with shimmering art deco buildings, glistening fountains, and wide, chilly plazas.The architect’s lover creeps outside to stand beside the architect. She hates visiting the architect here; it’s too high. The wind plucks at her. She doesn’t like seeing the city spread out this way, reduced to brick and wood, stone and smudges of light. Her own apartment is close to the ground, where she can step out the door and feel worn cobblestones beneath her feet.Sometimes, even though she knows the architect would disapprove, the architect’s lover goes outside barefoot. She stands in her doorway and breathes in the stench of factories, blanketing the city in smoke. She breathes in the crackling, golden scent of fresh bread from the bakery on the corner. She breathes in the rotting geraniums in her neighbor’s window box. But most of all, she breathes in the stink of the river, because once upon a time it smelled like the promise of a new world.On those days, the architect’s lover curls her toes around the worn-smooth cobbles and drinks in the life of all the people who came before her — every horse’s hoof, every shoeless urchin, every factory-man and whore, every rainfall wearing the cobbles as round as they are now. It makes the city feel alive. It comforts her.More than once, she has tried to show the architect her city, the one she sees with her feet curled around the cobblestones, but the architect only frowns. The architect has plans. The architect’s lover would re-write the city with new-forged memories; the architect would re-write it with glass and chrome.The architect slides her arm around her lover’s waist, drawing her closer to the view, but she’s still looking at the city.“One day this will be beautiful,” the architect says.The architect’s lover looks at the architect instead of the city — the plane of her cheekbones, the sweeping lines of her neck and throat, the dark spiral of her hair.“It’s beautiful now,” she says.In the morning, the architect’s lover finds plans scattered throughout the apartment. She lay beside the architect all night, listening to the high-speed rumble of dreams moving under the architect’s skin. The architect couldn’t have drawn the plans. She must have shed them from her body in her sleep like unwanted skin.In two weeks, a tower rises where the architect’s hands traced the air, even though there have been no work crews, no scaffolds, no sound of hammers and nails. Like the plans, the architect must have dreamed it, brought it into being by force of will.The architect’s lover cannot remember what stood there before the tower, if anything at all. This makes her weep, sitting alone in a café near the river, where the architect will not see. The architect’s lover wants to remember everything about the city, imprint it on her bones: here is where she held the architect’s hand, there is where they watched long barges pole down the canal. If she can keep the city from changing, maybe she can keep the architect from changing as well.People pass the café where the architect’s lover sits, but no one seems to notice the tower. It has always been there. They take it for granted; this is the way the city is meant to be. When she tries to ask about it, people merely shrug. They walk faster; they look at the architect’s lover with strange, indulgent smiles. They shake their heads before going about their days.The next time the architect’s lover visits, the architect calls her out onto the balcony. She points to the tower that has always been there.“You see?” the architect says, indicating the top of the tower, a pyramid of glass all lit up with giant spotlights and faceted like a jewel. “One day I’ll buy you a diamond bigger and brighter than that one. I’ll string stars around your waist and wrap moonlight around your throat. I’ll drape you in fur and put pearls and feathers in your hair. You’ll never want for anything.”The architect’s lover shudders; she imagines drowning under all that weight.The architect’s lover still longs to become the architect’s wife some day, even though she fears she will die of neglect if she does, so long as she doesn’t die of a broken heart first. She has tried not to love the architect every way she knows how, but her heart keeps circling back to the day they met. It is a fixed point in time, and for the architect’s lover, it will never change.They were both strangers in the city, recognizing in each other someone else who had not yet learned to call it home. They discovered it together, exploring every street, every alley, every rooftop and doorway. As they did, the architect’s lover wrote each location on her heart, remembering the way the architect looked when she touched that lintel, this railing. The architect’s lover never saw the city until she saw it through the architect’s eyes, and now they are inextricably intertwined. After so long adrift, these twin points, architect and city, anchored her. In the secret places inside her skin and her bones, her name for both architect and city is home.What secret name the architect has for her, the architect’s lover does not know. This, she does know: The architect never learned to name the city home and she will rewrite all the places they’ve ever been together — the smoky café where they first met, drinking absinthe and watching bloated corpses float down the river; the crumbling bridge where they shared their first kiss, the architect tasting of heady wine and the architect’s lover tasting of nothing at all; the factory where they first fucked, the rough brick against the architect’s lover’s back, and broken glass crunching under their boots. Even the rotten pier where the boats that brought them both from different places long before they knew each other first landed.Even so, the architect’s lover cannot fall out of love.All the places she has written on her heart will vanish. Her heart will remain. But when those places are gone, who will they be — the architect and the architect’s lover? Who will they be, separate and together? With no history, what hope can there be for their future?The architect’s lover is afraid the architect will rewrite her if she falls asleep. So she stays awake, eating cold, tart plums the color of new bruises. She smokes cigarettes she can’t stand the taste of, and drinks coffee so thick the spoon stands on its own when she forgets it halfway through stirring.She does all these things and tries not to think of the architect’s hands on her body when they fuck, placing causeways in the curve of her hip, a spiral staircase winding around her spine, a domed cathedral to replace her skull.She can’t tell the architect of her fear. She can’t tell her she’s afraid, or she’ll lose the architect even sooner. She is losing her. Has lost her. Will lose her again and again. She wants to lose her, and yet the architect’s lover is afraid of coming unmoored again, losing the only place she can call home.So instead she tries to imagine making herself vast enough to hold a city entire, her arms long enough to encompass bridges and canals, wrapped so tight nothing will ever crumble. Even in her dreams, in the rare moments she lets herself sleep, she fails.These are the architect’s dreams.One: She replaces her bones with scaffolding. Her eyes become window glass, shattering sunlight. Her jaw sings a bridge’s span, made musical by the tramping of a thousand feet. All through her are tunnels, connecting everything. Her veins are marble. Her foundation stone. Her heart a cavernous station thundering with countless trains. She is vast and contains multitudes. And she is beautiful.Two: She is very young and playing on the river bank with her brother and her cousin. It is summer and they are barefoot, squishing mud between their toes, feeling the wet, green life of fish and frogs and stilt-legged birds. They break off reeds from the shore and whip-thin branches from the overhanging trees, weaving them into impossible, organic structures. She is not the architect yet, in these dreams, but hers are always the strongest buildings. Her brother and cousin are too impatient, their fingers too quick. They splinter the reeds, snap the wood, and throw the wrecks into the sun-glinting water. They don’t want it badly enough. Her constructions can withstand anything, bound by her force of will.Three: She is very old, but ageless. Her skin, stretched taut over bone-that-is-not-bone, is so thin the light shines through it. There is metal everywhere she can fit it. She has carved away as many pieces of herself as she can and still walk, still breathe. She has cut windows in her flesh, replaced skin with glass so the delicate structures within, the winding catwalks and promenades, are visible. She is light, so light, but she abhors the body that remains, holding her down.At night, she calls her children to her. They come creeping from the shadows, their fingers bloody from tearing her city apart by day and building it anew as dusk falls. Metal spines protrude through their skin. Electricity sparks in their bones, makes their eyes glow. They never speak, but they crackle. She has given them whips to hold, downed power lines with frayed copper ends. At her bidding, they flay her, drawing blood from her remaining skin. She closes her eyes, cries ecstasy from a throat clogged with emotion. They are so perfect, her beautiful children, but it is never enough.She is never enough.Four: In her house near the river, she lies snugged tight between her brother and cousin, breathing in their dreams. Elsewhere in the house, her mother, father, and uncle snore. The door bursts open, shatters, raining splinters. Her family, all of them, is dragged from their beds, pushed barefoot into the snow.She can see her breath as they are marched, all in a line, to the river and forced out onto the frozen surface. Under the snow, the ice is impossibly blue, and under the blue, the water is impossibly black. She is separated from everyone but her mother, who grips her hand so tight their bones grind together, and refuses to let go. There are other families, nearly the whole village, teeth chattering, shivering, confused. One man protests, and a soldier in his warm coat and fur hat breaks the man’s nose with the butt of his gun. The man makes a choking noise. He spits blood on the ice, and one yellow-white tooth. He doesn’t protest again.One of the soldiers wears a star on his hat. He barks a command in a language she doesn’t understand, and two of his men go to either end of the shivering line. They walk slowly, with their guns drawn, and shoot every third person they come upon.One, two, three. Crack. One, two, three. Crack. Her father, uncle, and cousin are sixth, eighteenth, and twenty-first in line. Her mother is thirtieth, and she is thirty-first.Each bullet is the sound of the ice cracking, her heart breaking, the feel of her mother’s cold-chapped hand grinding against her bones then letting go as the force of gravity and the terrible color of blood upon the snow pull her down.Her brother survives. She survives. The solider with the star on his hat lays a heavy hand on her shoulder. He leans forward and breathes in her face, against her ear. His breath, the only hot thing on the frozen lake, smells of sausage and cheap whiskey.“Go,” he says. “Go, and take your brother with you. I want you to remember. I want you to carry this moment with you wherever you go.”There are tears on her lashes, freezing in place. She will never let them fall. They are perfect, inverted globes, holding the last image of her family. If they fall, they will shatter, and her family will be lost forever.This is what the architect dreams.The city changes. Weak and rotten flesh is scraped away to reveal shining bone. Towers rise. Bridges cross and re-cross the city. A train thunders from uptown to midtown and beyond, rattling windows paned in sparkling glass.The architect recruits an army of children, urchins with dirty fingers. The architect’s lover sees them in the shadows of old bridges, chipping away fragments of old stone. She sees them in the streets, hurling those chunks of stone through dirt-streaked windows, exploding brick dust from ancient buildings, hastening decay. She sees them digging between the cobbles, pulling them like teeth, prying between ancient boards until they snap. Their fingers are everywhere.She listens to the architect’s plans. She listens to the trains run beneath the architect’s skin when she sleeps. The city will never be finished, never be done. By night the children will build it up, by day the children will pull it down, and put new, shining structures in its place when the moon rises again.The city will never be complete. The architect will never be complete.Although they have never spoken of it, the architect and the architect’s lover disagree.To the architect’s lover, the river smells of promise, a particular promise that smells of her mother’s skin — fried onions, boiled cabbage, and harsh soap.To the architect, the river is the smell of sickness. It is the feel of her brother’s fevered skin under the palm of her hand. The river is the color of his eyes, glazed, muddy silt from its bottom occluding his sight. It is the sound of him parting blood-cracked lips at the end, rattling out one last breath, and calling her by her mother’s name. It is the memory of him surviving the ice, and dying — as so many others did — on the refugee-choked boat carrying them to a new life, a new shore.The architect is determined she will stitch the river closed. Her thread will be iron and steel, binding up the city’s wounds, sealing her brother’s ghost underneath its skin like a bruise, where it needs must fade.Sometimes the architect likes to imagine she never touched down on the city’s shore. When her brother died, she climbed up on the rail of the boat, crowded with so many stinking refugees, and let herself fall into the churned, muddy water. She sank, rag doll arms and legs drifting loose around her, hair trailing like weeds. She breathed out and out, silver bubbles rising toward the surface, the only bright and beautiful thing in all the muck. She did not jump, but sometimes she wishes she did. Sometimes, even though she knows it is not true, she convinces herself she did jump. The river swallowed her whole. Some other girl, a drowned girl, a ghost, entered the city in her place.At her core, who the architect truly is, is different. She is still under water, still exhaling, watching those bubbles rise. She is waiting. And one day soon, she will breathe in, light, perfect, and stripped clean. She will breathe in. And wake.She tries to tell her lover these things, but she knows her lover doesn’t hear them. Somewhere, somehow, they lost their way. They met in one city, and somewhere along the way, they diverged. They look at the city now, and they see different things. The architect wonders if she can ever build a bridge strong enough to pull her lover across. And if she can’t, what will happen to them, then?The architect’s lover takes to drinking. She drinks in cafes and bars along the ever-changing river, which she scarcely recognizes anymore.Is that the place where she met the architect? Or was it over there? What of the factory, the stone bridge? What of the taste of the architect’s skin, smoky with the factory’s ghosts, sweat-slick beneath her lover’s lips? What of absinthe cradled on the architect’s tongue, and their hands held palm to palm — so tight — bone to bone? So tight they will never let go. Where are the echoes of their heels cracking in rhythm, one, two, three, as they run from one place to the next, running wild into the future?The architect’s lover doesn’t recognize herself anymore. She doesn’t know where she fits — not on the streets, where cobbles no longer rise to meet the arches of her feet; not against the architect, where sharp juts of bone meet her fingers in place of the soft hollow of a throat, the gentle curve of a hip, or the warm swell of a breast.She drinks and she smokes until her memories blur, until their edges round and grow soft like the scarcely-remembered thousand-year cobble stones. The architect’s lover shouts at strangers, her words slurring as she tells them of factories and piers and bridges that never existed.She tells them of home.When she slips up and says she is the architecture’s lover, not the architect’s, no one corrects her.She is a ghost, in love with a city.And in time, because she is afraid and she doesn’t know how to fall out of love, the architect’s lover takes home a beautiful boy whose name she can’t be bothered to remember. She fucks him precisely because it means nothing. Smoking still more cigarettes, eating chilled and bruised plums, watching him sleep, she is terribly afraid she’ll marry him one day. Still never knowing his name, the architecture’s lover will use up her body bearing the beautiful boy’s children. Children who will become the monsters of the architecture’s dream.The architect, the architecture, is all angles and planes now, the glint of steel, concrete skin. The architecture’s lover doesn’t recognize anything anymore. She is a stranger in a city she once loved, a city that held so much promise. A city she called home.The architect’s lover remembers her mother putting her on a boat. There were so many boats in those days, all leaving from different places, but all traveling to the city — a place of promise, a place of dreams. She remembers clinging to her mother’s skirt, sobbing and not wanting to let go as her mother’s hands — red and blistered from washing — urged her up the wooden gangway.“It’s a better life,” her mother told her. “You’ll have opportunities I never had, things I can’t give you. You’ll be happy there, in time. Promise me you’ll try.”She remembers gripping the ship’s rail so hard her knuckles turned white, leaning out over the churning water, waving and straining her eyes until her mother was only a vanished speck on the horizon. Landing on the city’s shore didn’t take the pain away, but stepping from the boat’s swaying deck onto firm land once more, the architect’s lover straightened her spine, keeping her promise to try. Determined to make her mother proud.This is not the city she once called home.This city is hostile. It is like the place she came from, on a boat, so long ago, a place that pushed her out, not wanting her anymore. It does not love her. It barely knows she’s alive.And yet, still, she cannot fall out of love.The architecture’s lover looks at the beautiful boy whose name she doesn’t know, and tries to love him. Silent tears run down her cheeks; she doesn’t remember why.The architect stands on her balcony high above the shining city. Her city. Towers stab defiant at the sky, bridges stitch old wounds closed, trains hum deep underground, and the winking glass that is everywhere catches the sun. Strong and true, it will never crack, never break, never crumble.Her skin is planed clean, scraped thin. Still, it is too heavy for her bones. But there is time, she knows. This is only the beginning.The architect shades her eyes, and looks toward what was once the river. People stride along what are no longer banks, small as ants from up here. They are laughing, smiling. Women, sleek in cool silk the color of her towers. Men, in crisp suits the color of ice cream that will never melt. Their teeth are impossible in the sun. They don’t remember a life other than this one. She has made it so.Everyone should have the luxury of forgetting the times when they weren’t as happy as they must be now.Still, something tugs at the edges of the architect’s mind. There is a ghost in the city. The shadow of towers, spewing smoke, and the memory of a kiss, and salt-tasting skin against her lips haunt her mind. Before her marble skin, before the columns of her spine, the tension bridge of her jaw, before the diamond pane windows of her eyes, wasn’t she someone else? Wasn’t there someone who knew her as she was, and loved her just the same?There, amid the ant-bustle on the once-shores, is a lone girl. Her feet are bare and spattered with mud. She is looking straight at the architect, across all the distance, and the people part around her like water breaking around a stone. Like she isn’t there.The architect wonders: Is that her? Or someone she used to know?Even though she can’t see them from her balcony, the architect knows: The girl’s eyes are the color of stirred silt, and blue ice. There are weeds in her hair. She raises her hand — a drowned girl, waiting to breathe, waiting to rise from the river and come ashore — and waves to the architect, but she does not smile.The architect’s lover leaves the café. She is utterly lost. She recognizes nothing here.She goes toward the water, some vague memory pulling her. But the map written on her skin is muddled. The streets, everything she thinks she knows, has been re-written.The architect’s lover is looking for someone, but she doesn’t know who. No one looks familiar here. Except…Except there is a girl, standing and looking across the water. It is a girl the architecture’s lover almost knows. The girl has eyes like silt and ice. They remind the architect’s lover of home.The architecture’s lover raises her hand, catching the girl’s attention. The girl looks at her, and the architect’s lover falls to her knees. A name catches in her throat and stalls. She can’t remember. She weeps, and doesn’t know why. In her mind, there is one word, echoing persistently and meaning nothing: Home.The architect stands on her balcony, and looks at the girl and the water. For a moment, the architect thinks there is something she has forgotten. Then she puts the thought from her mind.Soon the city will be perfect. She will tear it down and rebuild it until it is so.The architect turns. She does not raise her hand to the girl on the shore. Or the weeping woman on her knees by the girl’s side.The architect goes inside. And she does not say goodbye.END"Her Last Breath Before Waking" was originally published in 3-Lobed Burning Eye in December 2013.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 be back on February 16th with "Into the Nth Dimension" by David D. Levine.

Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith talk to me about their YA novels (Stranger and Hostage), and C.S.E. Cooney talks to me about her music project, Brimstone Rhine.First, a congratulatory note to all the Nebula nominees this year! Many OA members on that list, which is full of awesome people and awesome stories! Special congratulations to Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette), Ann Leckie, Ken Liu, Richard Bowes, Rachel Swirsky, Sarah Pinsker, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Aliette de Bodard, Alyssa Wong, Sam J. Miller, Usman T. Malik, Carmen Maria Machado, Ursula Vernon, and Eugie Foster (who passed just after her last story was published). Hugo nominations are open until the 10th of March. If you are an attending or supporting member of Sasquan, or if you attended or supported LonCon last year, you should be eligible to nominate! I (Julia Rios) personally am eligible in Best Editor Short Form for my work with Strange Horizons, and on Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories. I'm also eligible in Best Fancast for this very podcast as well as for The Skiffy and Fanty Show, and Strange Horizons is eligible in Best Semiprozine. There are a bunch of other super worthy OA member projects, but I wanted to give another special shoutout to Catherine Lundoff's series on LGBT SF History over at SF Signal. I believe she's eligible for best fan writer for that series. Stranger and Hostage are the first two books in the Change quartet, set in a post apocalyptic LA. Rebel and Traitor (books 3 and 4) should be out later this year and early next year respectively.Prisoner, Partner, and Laura's Wolf are Rachel's three books featuring werewolf marines, hot sex, and PTSD. You can download Prisoner for free.Angel in the Attic is Rachel's lesbian werewolf romantic comedy.Brimstone Rhine is C.S.E. Cooney's made up rockstar alter ego, who is crowdfunding two EPs right now on indiegogo. Rewards include things like Claire's books (in addition to the music of course). For a free taste of Claire's Witch's Garden world, you can read "Witch, Beast, Saint" in Strange Horizons. The books that are part of the Brimstone Rhine campaign rewards include The Witch In the Almond Tree, The Breaker Queen, The Two Paupers, and Bone Swans. The Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadors are one of C.S.E. Cooney's other music  and storytelling projects, which, if Brimstone Rhine ends up hitting far beyond the initial funding goal, might also produce an album of Distant Star Ballads.

This morning Lonestarcon, the 71st World Science Fiction Convention, released the 2013 Hugo Awards Ballots.  The Coode Street Podcast was nominated for Best Fancast, and we would like to thank everyone who nominated us. As part of the Hugo Awards discussions, we invited fellow nominee and Coode Street regular Kij Johnson, to join us in the Waldorf Room once more to chat about the ballot, the nominees, and all things Hugo. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

THE SHOW NOTES Check out Captain Disillusion’s videos.Thanks everyone... Best one yet! Vibraphone: The Musical Narrated by Richard Saunders “Relics” – Rob Hinkley“Some say…” Keisha & Marvin“Stalking” – Carmen D'Cruz“Ms Information” – Ice-nine (formerly The New Icepicks, formerly Bruce Press and The Icepicks, formerly Icepick and the Icetray, formerly The Icepick Family Singers) ie Bruce, Julie, Ben, & Allie Press“A Bad Impersonation of William Shatner performing a George Hrab song” – Arkle“12 Days of Geologic Christmas” – Brian “No E” Mahony“The Tell-Tale Podcast” – Damian Handzy"A One Act Play" – Stephen Whelan and Matthew Champion“An e-mail from Australia” – Kylie Sturgess aka Podblack“Trebuchet AU” – The Schenectady-Sydney Trebuchet Consortium “Theo” – Michael Fridman and Mat Jones“An Anniversary Toast” – Bill “Reggie” Kaplan   Show close * * * * * * * * * * * * FANCAST NUMBER THREE:Overseen and constructurized by: Carrie PVibraphone: The Musical theme by: Milton Mermikides Cover art by: Brian "No E" Mahony CAPTAIN DISILLUSION: Part 1 of 5 Part 2 of 5 Part 3 of 5 Part 4 of 5 Part 5 of 5 ........................ Geo's Music: stock up! The catalog at iTunes The catalog at CD Baby .................................... Sign up for the mailing list: Write to Geo! Score more data from the Geologic Universe! Get George's edition Non-Coloring Book at Lulu, both as download and print editions. Have a comment on the show, a Religious Moron tip, or a question for Ask George? Drop George a line and write to Geo's Mom, too! Ms. Information says, "Best Fancast anywhere evah! You kids are extraordinary!"