Podcast appearances and mentions of Ellen Kushner

We're on the old school track this episode as we tackle two classic Choose Your Own Adventure books from the mid 1980s, Prisoner of the Ant People by R. A. Montgomery, and Outlaws of Sherwood Forest by Ellen Kushner. But which will be better, the one that sounds like a 50s B-movie or the one that sounds like a 30s swashbuckler? Listen along to find out.

1 thumb up, 1 thumb down. Who's the hater? Welcome to Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint.Next month we start our next series read with N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season. Join us! And trust us, read it if you haven't.Tell us what you think - rereadersclub@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you haven't read Ellen Klages' Passing Strange, just do it. Then listen to us talk about how great it is.Join us next month for Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint.Give us a piece of your mind - rereadersclub@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Song for Sunken Streets by Evan Berkow, Read by Lanna Joffrey Nona is a loner living in a flooded Brooklyn. She's running away from her past and looking for hope. What she finds is a mermaid on a mission. The fate of New York City depends on their ability to see past their trauma. Evan Berkow is a writer of speculative fiction in the hours when he's not lawyering. His fiction has appeared in places such as Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and Flash Fiction Online. You can find him on Twitter @Evan_Berkow. Lanna Joffrey is an award-winning Iranian performer and writer who has worked throughout the United States and United Kingdom in theatre, film, spoken word and audio work. Her verbatim play, "Valiant" has received critical acclaim having toured throughout the UK and US and was published last year. For more info on her work please visit www.lannajoffrey.com When Two Swordsmen Meet by Ellen Kushner, Read by Wilson Fowlie In a cold, cobblestone city, when two swordsman meet, you never know what might happen--fame, glory, theft, dreams, love--but something always does. Ellen Kushner is the author of the queer fantasy classic Swordspoint, and other novels, including the World Fantasy Award-winning Thomas the Rhymer. Kushner has recorded her work as audiobooks for Neil Gaiman Presents. She lives in New York City with her wife, author and educator Delia Sherman, and a great many theater and airplane ticket stubs she is too disorganized to throw out. Wilson Fowlie lives in a suburb of Vancouver, Canada and has been reading aloud since the age of 4. His life has changed recently: he lost his wife to cancer, and he changed jobs, from programming to recording voiceovers for instructional videos, which he loves doing, but not as much as he loved Heather.

Special Delivery by Carlos Delgado, Read by Wilson Fowlie A Guatemalan delivery driver struggling to make it in a climate change affected Brooklyn where the fantastic is one cyber skin away, makes a delivery that goes very badly very quickly. Carlos Luis Delgado is a Brooklyn-based speculative fiction writer and editor. As a member of BSFW, he also leads workshops and writing classes. He's been previously published as part of My Father's Files, a mystery horror podcast. This is his second publication. How the Pooka Came to New York by Delia Sherman, Read by Wilson Fowlie A pooka, a mythical creature from Ireland, immigrates to America in the early 20th century, tricked and magically bound to a boy that, like all immigrants, is more than he seems. Delia Sherman is the author of numerous short stories and novels for both adults and younger readers, somewhere in the historical-fantastical-comical-romantic-feminist vein. She is or has been a teacher, an editor, a member of the Otherwise Award Motherboard, a co-founder of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, a judge of literary awards, a book store clerk, a gardener, a knitter, a cook, a traveler, and a flaming liberal. She lives in New York with fellow-writer Ellen Kushner and is working on an Endless Historical Novel. Wilson Fowlie lives in a suburb of Vancouver, Canada and has been reading aloud since the age of 4. His life has changed recently: he lost his wife to cancer, and he changed jobs, from programming to recording voiceovers for instructional videos, which he loves doing, but not as much as he loved Heather.

In der 17. Folge klauen wir für Kneipen, Tavernen und andere kulinarische Etablissements. Vor allem aber sind nacchi und Pete nicht alleine und freuen sich über Sandra Dahlhoff als Komplizin. Sie ist Co-Designerin des Erzählspiels Viva La Queerbar und das kannst du noch bis zum 17.03.23 auf Kickstarter unterstützen. Link dazu weiter unten! An Beute bringen wir unter anderem einen bezaubernden Berg, neurotische Anwält*innen und Gentlemens Clubs mit. Unsere Gästin Sandra findet ihr bei Mastodon und im Verlagstalk über das von ihr mitgeschriebene Spiel Viva la Queerbar. Hier das themengebende Crowdfunding für Viva la Queerbar. (MIttlerweile ist das Spiel erschienen und ihr könnt es unter anderem hier kaufen.) Unterstütze unseren Podcast auf ⁠Steady⁠ oder auf ⁠Patreon⁠. Zukünftige Live Raubzüge und viele andere Dinge findest du bei ⁠Twitch.⁠ Kommentare und eigene Raubzüge kannst du gerne per Mail schicken: ⁠mitvorteil@gmail.com⁠. Mehr Tipps und Tricks in Form von Videos bei ⁠Youtube⁠ und weitere Infos auf der ⁠Mit Vorteil Website⁠. Einen Blick hinter die Kulissen bekommst du auf ⁠Instagram⁠ und ⁠TikTok⁠. Auf Mastodon findest du ⁠Pete⁠ und nacchis "social kram" findest du ⁠hier⁠. Das Logo & Intro wurden von der wundervollen Aggi gemacht. Frische Beute Sandras Fang: Herstory von Jasmin Lörchner (Podcast) Skyjacks (Actual Play Podcast)  Family (Videogame) Petes Fang: Die Drei Musketiere von Alexandre Dumas (Hörbuch)Buch und Audible-Hörbuch nacchis Fang: DiceCourse Talk: Progressives Storytelling (Talkformat) Dies ist mein letztes Lied von Lena Richter (Novelle) Gender-Kram von Louie Läuger (Sachcomic) Raubzüge Sandra klaut: Der Zauberberg von Thomas Mann (Roman) The Fall of Kings von Ellen Kushner und Delia Sherman (Roman) Lost Souls von Poppy Z. Brite (Roman) pete klaut: Stammgäste: Ditsche, Ally McBeal und Star Trek DS9 (TV Serien) Die Bar bei AllyMcBeal Morn aus DS9 "So say we all”: Toasts und Zuprosten (Kulturelle Gepflogenheiten) Best Drinking Toasts and Cheers, Drinking in Medieval Fantasy und “So Say We All”. Midnight Asia: Eat. Dance. Dream. (Dokumentation) nacchi klaut: A Marvellous Light von Freya Marske (Roman) Der Gentlemen's Clubs Junes Food Court aus Persona 4 (Videospiel) Andere Erwähnungen und noch mehr Goodies: THE BIRDCAGE and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES: The Inside Story von Matt Baume (Youtube Video) Street Photography von Miyan_1980 (Instagram Account) Lord Peter Wimsey Romanreihe von Dorothy L. Sayers Havanna 8 (Echte Bar) Artikel über die Bar Drinks und Cocktails: Bloody Brain und Moscow Mule Ailing Away (Rollenspiel) Electric Six: https://youtu.be/IslF_EyhMzg Gay Bar (Song)A League of their Own (TV Serie)

We're back! Chris, Jenny, and Sarah are coming at you today to discuss their favourite reads of 2022. Get in touchTwitter | Instagram | Website | Voice messageBooks mentioned The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller Into the Woods by Tana French All the Acorns on the Forest Floor by Kim HooperThe Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman Riverside series by Ellen Kushner [with audiobooks directed by Neil Gaiman]On Writing by Stephen KingNew Animal by Ella BaxterThe Last Days by Ali Millar The Devourers by Indra DasThis Much is True by Miriam Margolyes Bodies of Light by Jennifer DownStuff mentionedChris' video interview with Ali Millar Miriam Margolyes on Graham Norton Support The Bookcast ClubYou can support the podcast on Patreon. Our tiers start at £2 a month. Rewards include early access to the podcast, monthly bonus episodes, tailored book recommendations and books in the post.  If you would like to make a one-off donation you can do so on Ko-fi.  A free way to show your support is to mention us on social media, rate us on Spotify or review us on iTunes.NewsletterSign up to our monthly newsletter for more book recommendations, reviews, new releases, podcast recommendations and the latest podcast news.Get in touchTwitter | Instagram | Website | Voice Support the showSupport the show

Some people work with partners. And some people like to work with their romantic partner. But whether you're romantically involved or not, there's techniques that could work for you. At WorldCon2019, Heidi Goody led the working couples of Peter Morwood and Diane Duane, plus Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner in discussing how to maintain working and romantic relationships — with the same person. =============================== Thanks for listening! I'll be back next Monday with more rambling ideas about writing. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with your friends and subscribe! You can find most of these posts over on my Blog (https://morganhazelwood.com) / Vlog/Youtube (https://youtube.com/MorganHazelwood) If you want to connect? Check out my Linktree (https://linktr.ee/morganHazelwood)

Autrice à succès avec sa série Riverside, où l'on retrouve A la pointe de l'épée, Ellen Kushner revient pour nous sur...

This is part two of my interview with C. S. E. Cooney about her publishing journey for Saint Death’s Daughter, featuring questions from my patrons. You can listen, or read the transcript below, and in case you missed it, part 1 of this interview is here! If you have not already devoured Saint Death’s Daughter in one day, like I did, I encourage you to check it out! It’s available as a printed book, an ebook, and an audiobook, and Claire does her own narration for the audio version!JuliaWelcome to the OMG Julia Podcast, where we talk about creative lives and processes. This is part 2 of my interview with C. S. E. Cooney about her journey to publication with Saint Death’s Daughter. We’re picking up this conversation after Claire told us about how she loves to read her first drafts aloud. JuliaI love that about you! I love working with you, because I've done work at the same time and place as you, and even if I'm not super productive during those times, I always love hearing what you've come up with. Because I feel like I've gotten a lot out of just talking through plots with you, even if I haven't been writing. ClaireI Do. I Love that part. Yeah.JuliaBecause I think that writing is a lot of different things, and some of that is getting the words actually down on the page, but some of it is actually just being in a place where you can think through story structure, and what is actually happening. And one thing that I've learned about myself over years and years and years of basically feeling like I must be broken because I don't write x words every day… Which, there is so much advice out there that's like, “You're not a writer if you don't write every single day.” And I don't. I don't write every single day. ClaireYeah, it's so harmful. Oh my gosh.JuliaI have to have a long period of time usually before any project where I just kind of like think about it. And now that I've learned that this is how I work, it really has made a huge difference for me. Because I know that if someone has asked me to write a story for an anthology or something, I can tell myself very clearly, “You know we have to write a story for this anthology. So, let's start thinking about that.” And then I go about my business doing other things, but I'll be working through the problem in the back of my mind. And I will do research and I'll do other things, but the whole time, what I'm really doing is the hard brain work of invisibly creating something inside my head that I don't even necessarily really fully understand until I actually start writing. And I won't be ready to start writing until it's ready.ClaireI feel like I do that process, but I do it in drafts rather than in my brain first. But I draft a lot, like 4 to 8 drafts sometimes, so it's like I write before I even know what I want to write, before sometimes I have an idea. And that makes a whole draft before my draft starts, but sometimes it's just like this vague, you know, itch. Or a character, or even like a feeling between two characters. Like, what is that? How do you make that? Like, I wanted to write a theater story and I knew what the theater troupe did. And I kind of knew the world they did it in but I didn't have characters you know like the troupe was almost like an entity but somebody still has to tell the story. There has to actually be a plot. And these elements of this theater troupe that does this thing in a world that does this thing… those were like the tensions grinding against each other. So I had the 2 major tensions, but what are the pieces at play within those tensions? And I didn't know that until I started, you know, wrote the first line, which came out of nowhere.JuliaRight? yeah.ClaireAnd then I figured my way through from there. But it's funny how much you can do with 2 grinding tensions. JuliaI mean, yes, as the actress said to the bishop. You can count on me for that 12-year-old humor. ClaireLOL. Anytime, Julia Rios.JuliaNo, but I find that for me, I used to be the kind of person who writes a zero draft that's not a first draft. It's the draft where I try to tell myself what I'm even writing, and it's a giant mess and completely often unsalvageable. So I have many, many old stories languishing on hard drives that are just like a complete mess. It doesn't do anything for me, and many of them are such a mess that I've never come back to them. It's like, it's not worth it. Now that I know that I kind of have to do this percolating thing, my drafts come out a lot cleaner. Which isn't to say that I don't end up having to change them and edit them. I do! It's just that my rate of unsalvageable muck is lower.ClaireThat's cool. You can actually work on it because you're not shuddering away from it.JuliaAnd because there's something to work on. I literally, because I tried to do NaNoWriMo many years, and I had so many attempts at it that just came out as just a mess. Not a mess that you're like, “Oh, this could turn into a good story!” Just like, what is even happening here? No one knows.ClaireHave you over have you ever tried to do a NaNoWriMo where you've spent all year thinking and prepping for it the way you do for a short story for an anthology?JuliaI think, yes, I have, and that's probably the one that came the closest to actually being decent. This was many years ago, though, and I say close to being decent, by which I mean, like, had a full story arc. And I don't think I finished the word count during NaNoWriMo. I definitely didn't finish the novel during NaNoWriMo, but I had been thinking about it a lot before I started it, and I did do a big chunk of it during NaNoWriMo. I don't remember if I did 50,000 words or if those 50,000 words ended up staying. I think I still have that saved somewhere, possibly in a Google drive. But it's the kind of thing that also it was so long ago. I haven't attempted NaNoWriMo in many years because I finally figured out that like, hey, you know what? Trying to push myself in that particular way isn't actually productive for me. ClaireYeah, that's what Ellen Kushner once called the cult of word count, which, I have to say, I mean, all these years later: Saint Death's Daughter! But it is not really the story I wrote in NaNoWriMo, though there are many elements… Like, you could see the origins there. JuliaI don't think it's a cult of word count. I think that it's a really useful tool for some people. I think it depends a lot on what kind of writer you are. ClaireYeah, I always wanted to do it again.JuliaI know people for whom they have a great time and they come out of it with something that they enjoy. And I know several self publishers who, like, a lot of the people who really are successful in self publishing can just crank out stuff and they are very prolific. They have an idea of what they want to do and they just sit down and do it, and they do that over and over again. And if you're really fast, doing something with a bunch of other people and knowing that everybody's doing it at the same time can be a very powerful tool.ClaireI've always wanted to do it again, and I never have, and I wonder why. It was like that 1 year in Chicago, and, I mean, I was commuting an hour both ways to the bookstore that I worked at. I'd come home and I remember that I would read a chapter of Jane Eyre (which I've read an umpteenth billion times) right before writing, because I couldn't get started without having read something, but I couldn't read something that I would get into too much, because I didn't want to lose all my time to reading something that I found super fascinating, but it had to be really good. Because it had to feed the writing itself. So Jane Eyre was the book of choice, and I would set a timer. I'd read for a half hour, and then I would try to do 2,000 words, and it was really interesting, and it created a lot of cool things. And I feel like I was like, “This is cool. This works.” If I did that every month, oh boy. What a writer I would be! And it made it feel possible to to be that kind of writer, and yet I've never been able to duplicate it.JuliaWell, the other thing I wonder is, for you, if that isn't the kind of thing that you can sometimes do in a sprint, but can't do in a marathon setting. And often when you're writing as a career, you're doing a writing marathon. You're not doing a writing sprint.ClaireYeah. Yeah, maybe I'll do it this year, though who knows? It would be cool. You know, it'd be cool if I wrote the next two drafts of Miscellaneous Stones —sorry, of Saint Death's Daughter. I still do call it by its old title, or just by her name, really— if I did both drafts as NaNoWriMo to start with, to give myself, like, starting time motivation. You know, like, here's the seed… and maybe if I start out with 50,000 words and I don't give myself 12 years, it won't turn into almost. 200,000 words. Maybe I could just kind of keep it in… But, you know, usually a second draft doubles. So like 100,000 words is not bad for a novel, you know. We could maybe keep it at that that.JuliaSo you mentioned NaNoWriMo, and you said that this is what came out of it. Was this actually your NaNoWriMo novel?ClaireIt was, but it wasn't the beginning. The beginning is further back than that, though I often count the first draft of Saint Death's Daughter as the NaNoWriMo. I think it was 2006. But, before that, was a short story in Phyllis Eisenstein's science fiction class at Columbia College, where there was the idea of a girl raised in a family of assassins. But it was a sci-fi story, and the butler was not a housekeeper, and it was not undead. It was a robot, a robot butler named Graves. So, before that, though… Several years before that, either I was just in college or just before college, my friend Kiri took me out shooting in the Arizona desert. We were both raised in Arizona. She said, “You're going to be a writer. At some point you probably will have to write about guns, so you should definitely shoot a gun sometime during your life, and I want to be the one to take you to shoot a gun.” So we went out to the desert to shoot guns, and we had noise canceling headphones and everything, but either mine weren't working or my ears are very sensitive or bullets are just that loud, but it was so loud that after the first shot I was getting heart palpitations and my hands were sweaty because I didn't want to hear that sound again. I was like, “Oh gosh, if this had a silencer on it I'd be a badass assassin, but it doesn't and I'm afraid of the sound. Wouldn't it be interesting if there was a character who was supposed to be an assassin, but was allergic to violence?”That was the idea, and I remember when it happened, and it didn't show up in a short story for several years, and it didn't turn into a NaNoWrio novel. But the idea has always been appealing, especially throughout all the media and books I've read, and still am reading, where violence is such a problem solving tool on a micro and macro scale. There are so many TV shows where, if you don't agree with someone, you punch them in the face, which is not how my life works at all. And then like on an epic fantasy scale, if you don't agree with someone, you invade their country and you kill all of their orcs or whatever, you know? And I just thought like what if she doesn't have that option? What else can we do if you don't have that option? How many workarounds does somebody have to figure out in their life? In a world like ours that's full of violence, but you're incapable of it? Not that you don't want to sometimes, but that even wanting punishes you?I mean, I still think it's an interesting idea. Thank goodness, because it's still enough of an idea to create two more books out of, I think. And then trying to turn it and look at it from a different point of view. What does violence mean? What does history mean? What is, like, not only the violence of a physical violence, but the violence of your own history? The lies and the biases and the prejudices you've been told? The violence of your own education? How seeing the world and growing a little older and thinking about things differently, and learning another language changes your mind, you know? So, I mean, I still think that's interesting. JuliaYeah, I mean I think it's very interesting. I think that you really do dive into a lot of those questions, and it's very cool to see Miscellaneous Stones exploring them.Yeah, I think this leads into… This is a good place to dig into a question from Francesca Forrest.ClaireOh, I Love her!JuliaThat's because she's delightful! So, she says, “I know Claire's journey with this novel is very long. I'd love to hear what the most important differences are between the novel now and the novel she started so long ago, and which things have remained the same or very similar over all the years.”ClaireThe first novel, that was 50,000 words almost exactly, was very cheeky. It's very lighthearted, and the violence is cartoonish, and the consequences are surface. It's as funny as I could have made it at the time, which isn't very. But what has happened since then? Well, many things. Many drafts, many years, and also Carlos. And one of the wonderful things about Carlos—so he caught me at about draft four, so he's been with it for more than half the book, more than half of the drafts. It was about eight full drafts till it hit the agent and went on submission, and then a couple more drafts from the editor. So, Carlos did many, many things for me, but the three things that stand out are:The child, DatuThe father, Mac The Scratches, the Scratch family So, in the original, the child, Datu, is like one of those anime 6-year-old genius serial killers. Do you know what I mean? Like, cold stone killer, acrobatics, dance on the edge of a leaf. Really funny and witty, but also six years old. And he was like, “She's a child. She's six years old. She may have been trained. You know, like, you see children gymnasts who are capable of amazing things, or children Broadway performers, or child actors who've won the Academy Award, and they are amazing. They're still children, and that level of savant genius has a toll, generally.” He kept being dissatisfied. He's like, “We've seen cartoon death child already. Like, what else have you got?” So, I think Datu’s really different.Mac, the father, really different. Because he's one of the only nurturing, moral male characters in the in the novel. And I think Carlos was just like, You know, give me more than brooding male / potential love interest.” Earlier drafts, he definitely was Lanie's love interest, and I've moved far away from that. Because it is more interesting. Satisfying romantically is one thing, and what I kind of like to read and am inclined to write. But what is more intellectually and emotionally interesting now is different. And he's like, “I don't think if one's sister has enslaved a man, got her child upon him, abused him in many ways, that it's very likely that that man will end up falling in love with you, unless it's super traumatic and ugly, you know?” Like, he was just so repulsed by it in a way that was so different from every romance novel ever that takes a damaged man and puts it with your protagonist and by the end he's not as damaged because love has saved him, or whatever. Like all of those tropes that I grew up with. So he kept saying that. He kept being dissatisfied. And, you know, his best friend Maggie once told me, “You have too high of an opinion of his high opinion.” But the truth is I do want his high opinion so badly, and it tells me something when I can make him cry or laugh. Like, it's working. That's what I want. And when I make him make a certain face like, this just isn't right! This doesn't feel good. “Give me something. Mac has to be better than that. You have to make him better.”So he really turned into, in many ways, a moral center. He's wrong sometimes. But he thinks about it, comes back, and says, “I was wrong about that.” You know, he's actually capable of growth. He has such an interesting internal life. And he and Lanie become like brother and sister, true brother and sister almost in spite of everything that happened to them. Consciously, to make this decision to be family, that’s something that is a huge difference from brooding man who turns into a falcon, totally damaged, awesome, scarred, so hot, ends up being the love interest that lightheartedly, coyly flirts with you at the end sort of thing. I still have that Mac inside of me, but he doesn't fit anywhere in the future of Lanie Stones. What does fit in is an increasingly interesting intimate. Not sibling the way she and her sister are siblings, but like, will be there for you if you need me. Always, and in both physical and spiritual ways. And then, the Scratches… There's like the huge major villain, which is the Blackbird Bride, which, I actually am a little in love with her, and I feel deep pity for her. But she's also, like, she just needs to be shaken some sense into, and she's not capable of being shaken sense into. She was not born that way. But the Scratches are the villains on the ground, or at least the antagonists. They are definitely working against the Stoneses, for reasons that are both apparent and mysterious. There's the front reason, like, you owe us money. And then there's the deep-seated, like, your family versus my family a hundred years ago, feudal reasons.But the nature of the scratches… They were very much like cartoon villains, and in the first draft, by the end, Lanie had turned them into like neon colored bunny rabbits. That was what her magic did. They ended up being a bunch of neon bunny rabbits that she sold to a circus or something like that. That was that story. It is not that story anymore. There's no magic that turns anybody into neon colored bunny rabbits, and there are severe consequences to the Scratches doing things the way they do. Which is, you know, sometimes with violence, and sometimes with arrogance, or with coldness, or with an uncompromising vision. And not everybody survives that.And the Scratches, once they have enough power to do so, change their name back to their true name, and they start to live by their own standards. They'd been sort of subsuming themselves for so many years, but like the nature of of culture and language again like they kind of represent a lot of that and they are very reasonable and and yet have been part of a people who have been very oppressed and downtrodden for. Hundred years so like there's a there's like they occupy a whole different space. So I would say those are the 3 and I blame Carlos for all of them but also just like living in the world a little longer than 27 years Ah also helped.JuliaYeah, I mean, I'll say one thing that I noticed a lot, reading the final version versus the the draft that I read so many years ago… because I think it was probably ten years ago that I read a draft of this. ClaireYeah.JuliaFor me, some of the things that stood out were just how much more real a lot of the world felt. And I don't mean like I could imagine being there, because I feel like you always have drawn worlds that I could imagine being in. They're very vivid. And your writing voice tends to draw people in that way. So it's normal to think, “Oh, I'm reading something by C. S. E. Cooney and I feel like I could just walk into this world.”But the realness was more of this sort of like… The sense that all of this frivolity was happening in the harmony and contrast with oppression and suffering and what those things specifically meant and how they tied into each other and fed each other on multiple axes. And I don't know if part of that is just your deepening life experience or part of that is having feedback from different people. But I think, like, you were talking about the character of Mac, and how he changed from being just like a hot scarred hawk guy and into someone who has become in a lot of ways a moral center, and I think that I noticed that with Goody Graves as well. ClaireYeah.JuliaIn the draft that I remember first reading, Goody Graves was just sort of like a loyal retainer who was always there and liked Lanie. And that's great and cool, and it's also you know, unexpected that your loyal retainer is going to be an undead, stone, statue person. But in this draft you you learn a lot more about who she is and her backstory and what she is capable of doing or not doing, and it makes it feel that much more real and rich because you have a lot more — there's a lot more to chew on, I guess.ClaireYeah, Amal said when she read it —this will always stay with me, “It’s like I can see your stretch marks.” You know like she's read so much, like you, I feel like she can see all the layers. I don't think she ever read an earlier draft. And I'm very aware of the draft you read, because you were the one who gave me the language of the many gendered god of fire, and I remember changing that because of how you were very gently like, “I don't think we use those words anymore.” And then I started thinking about gender in a different way, because, at some point in our lives, we have to start. You know like if you don't know something, there's a point where you learn it, and that was the point where I learned like, oh, a fire god, a many-gendered god of fire makes it much more interesting and open and like less like, “Oh, I don't want to touch that…” You know, like, you gave me my god of fire, Julia.JuliaOh, that's so nice! I love the way that worked out, by the way. And I really love that the inn that she sort of ends up working at has a history of having been a brothel at one point, and it's still actually there and informs the present of it today. And I love the character that's clearly Patty Templeton.ClaireDread! Yes, I want to write the novella that's mentioned in the footnote about Havoc Dreadnought. Havoc: the life and times of Havoc Dreadnoought, and how she… like there's a huge footnote about it, and yeah, I want that to be the title of a novella someday. JuliaI guarantee you you will have a built-in readership for that.ClaireYeah, I love the school. So there's an inn, and on top of the inn is a bakery, and on top of the bakery is a school, and the the school part had been a brothel, but they leave a lot of the brothel trappings to sort of, the footnote says, to lure people into higher education. To lure the unsuspecting into higher education. I feel like some of the cheekiness of the first draft, when I really just wanted to be Terry Pratchett and failed constantly. I'd lost a lot of the humor in many of the drafts to come, and then I just missed it so much that, very late in the drafting process… There was so much world-building and backstory that I wanted that didn't fit into the narrative flow, and so many jokes that I wanted to make that delighted me, so that's when the footnotes happened.I was like, I have to cut all this, ooh, but I could put it in a footnote and then make it even funnier! So that's what I did and I feel like Jasper Fforde, Terry Pratchett Susannah Clarke, you know, I think they sort of give you permission to do footnotes.And when I was younger, if a story had footnotes in it, I would actually not read them. It just didn't occur to me to do so. And I feel like if a younger person, or somebody who hates footnotes, read Saint Death’s Daughter through, they'd still get it without having to read the footnotes, but the footnotes are the parts that made me laugh out loud. And I don't easily respond to my own writing like that. But some of the footnotes still make me laugh.And I have to say that's what Carlos says. When he's writing, if he can make himself laugh out loud, he knows it's working, because it's like tickling yourself. It's a lot harder to do.JuliaYeah, I 100% agree with that. Okay, so last Patron question is, “I would love to find out what it was like finding an agent and how your agent helps you in your career.”ClaireOkay, yeah, it's so hard. I thought when I was first setting out to find an agent, I'm like, “I'm going to submit to an agent a day. No, five agents a day!” It's a numbers game —everybody says it's a numbers game— if you can get to a hundred submissions, your chances are so much higher than if you do ten submissions, but so is dating, they say. I don't know how similar or dissimilar they are, but what I found when I was submitting….First of all, it's sort of like the cover letter and the synopsis takes a lot of eyes and brains. You definitely want to get some friends on it, especially friends who've already gone through the process. For doing the synopsis, if you have three friends who've read your book, basically what I ask them is, “Could each of you write your version of a synopsis of my book and send it to me?” My friend Caitlyn is really good at that. So I think Carlos maybe did, and Caitlyn did, and I had my synopsis. And Caitlyn's really good at making my book sound like something somebody would want to read. I wrote a very stilted like, “And then, she very formally did this thing in an elucidating sort of way, and you know there was a villain…” or whatever. It just was very stiff, and she'd be like, “Kapow! Kablam! Exclamation point!” I mean it all felt like an exclamation point. It felt like an actual back of a book, and by reading her synopsis, I saw what was important or what stood out, or like, “Oh that's what it feels like to write a compelling synopsis. I think she left a few important things out which I will slip in and try to do it more in her style…” And then again if you have a third view, it's even better because then you can have a pretty hefty, true to the story synopsis in a way that you, as a writer, may be too close to write initially. So I say cover letter, synopsis… And cover letter is much like a cover letter for a submission for a short story, where you give your credits. So you have to make yourself look like you're worth reading the first chapter of, I guess. Which doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have a bunch of credits to your name, but you just have to, I guess, be confident, or know who you are, or at least be polite and professional. So anyway. All of that to say that I set out with this very what Caitlyn calls Big Book Energy. You know, I'm going to do all of this because it's a numbers game! And I found that like after submitting one, I had this terrible headache. My stomach was a mess. I had to go lay down, and the whole day was shot, and I was like damn it this is not how you win a numbers game! But I couldn't, emotionally, make myself do more than one a day, very rarely more than one a week, so it was a very, for me, slow process. I Still don't know, if I have to do it again, how would I do it. Because it would just… I'd hope I'd be tougher now. And I'd hope I'd make better lists and do things better, but actually I think it will always be hard, and it's what mood people are in how overwhelmed they are, how much they might like the thing that you're writing. And, boy, like books are so personal and so intimate. So I would say that I sent it out to a lot of people. I got very few responses. Some of the responses I got quick were just, “This is not for me. Didn't catch my interest.” And you try to think, “Ah, I didn't catch their interest. I am boring. Nobody loves me.” Eventually, I got a great response from one of the submission editors at New Leaf, I think they're called. I loved every single agent bio that I read, I loved their mission statement, I was like, “Oh, these people! I want these people to read my book and love me!” And it got to the submissions editor or agent, the one who reads things before they send it up to the main agent, like kind of to get you past the slush pile, and she just wrote back with such enthusiasm! And she's like, “I'm going to set it up to my boss right away!”Even just that stage, even to get any kind of feedback of that tone of voice that I'd been waiting for… I want the people who represent me to have that tone of voice! And it did get passed up to her agent, and I think she even was reading it, but I think she had a baby and a lot of things.And in that interim, when she was reading it and having a baby and life was happening, Markus Hoffmann at Regal Hoffmann & Associates also read it. And he was a suggestion of a writing friend, who said, “This is my agent. I really like him. just tell him I sent you.” So that was a kind of a Who You Know moment. It was Audrey Niffenegger, who I had met once at Columbia College Chicago. We were on a panel together. She had been a teacher there and I had been a student. She wrote The Time Traveler's Wife. So we were Facebook friends, but we had had literally no interaction since that one panel we were on, where we were on a panel but didn't really talk to each other, we just talked with each other. And she saw on Facebook when I was like, “Oh, this agent quest, it's such a slog.” You know, how one does when one's on an agent quest. She private messaged me and she said, “Try Regal Hoffman. I didn't know you didn't have an agent.” You know, like, tell him I sent you… So Marcus got back to me and he wrote an email. He said, “I quite like the first 50 pages. May I see the rest?” And then he wrote an email saying, “I would love to talk to you to tell you about this agency.” When I talked to him, I just loved him immediately. He said all the right things, and in such a tone of voice, very European. He's German, and just gentle and warm and really incisive, and had great questions, and… It's like that kind of person you want on your team, that he'll be the editor before your editor gets to you. He'll be the editor who makes the draft that makes the the publication happen. So just on all of those levels, I really clicked. So I wrote to the people at New Leaf, who still had my manuscript. I was like, “I'm sorry, I'm going with another agency.” And that agent had just read it and said, “Oh, I just finished it! I was about to write to you.” So I feel this very warm radiant feeling toward New Leaf, and I think I feel like if I had gone a little further in the process, maybe would have not been so emotionally wrecked by it, I would have gotten better at it. I would have gotten a tighter and tighter synopsis and cover letter. You know, it might have taken 50 or 100 more, but I think eventually it would have happened. That it happened this fast, I think, was due to the shortcuts of going to conventions, being on panels, that whole networking web that happens that you think will never happen that it's really hard to make happen on purpose. But Gene Wolfe once told me, “You know, all networking means is making friends.” And you don't really make friends with this cold eye of calculation of what your friends will do for you someday, you just sort of make friends who all love the things you love writing and reading, you know, and then sometimes somebody knows somebody who knows somebody, and that's one way to do it. But I think the other way also works. It just takes longer and has a toll. So I would say, working with my agent is amazing. I sometimes like think of him as like a ninja elven prince. Yeah, that's the space in my brain he occupies. He's sly, he likes things like talking up my book, and making deals, and like, going to parties. Things that I don't really know how to do, and don't really want to know how to do. he has people who do the contracts like, “Markus, can you look at this contract because it's scary?” And then he'll look at it, and he does things that I can't. I don't have the tool set, and I'm so, so grateful. And as Carlos and I have done some collaborative projects, It's been really fun, because Carlos's agent is DongWon Song and mine is Markus Hoffmann, but they used to almost work together at one point. They knew each other! And they met at a house party at our house, and they're like, “What are you doing here?” So they get to work together sometimes on mutual contracts and it's really nice that they already had a kind of warm, friendly relationship.JuliaOh, that is nice. So how long would you say it took from the time you started sending queries out until the time you ended up with an agent?ClaireIt's it's really hard to say because, like at one point I had sent it to an agent and he suggested these edits, so that took me six months to make the edits and turn it back in. He suggested more edits, and at that point, I thought, “Ooh. I liked the first round of edits a lot, but the second set of edits sounds like the book he wants is not the book I want to write.” And so I gently backed away very amicably and then started submitting again.And then there maybe comes a time where it's like, “Oh, I can't believe I ever thought that draft was worth submitting. I think I need to just sit down and rework it.” You know? So it was a lot of stops and starts, and it was years. I think I started submitting it at the fourth draft and it wasn't until like draft eight that it got an agent. That's at least a draft a year, so I would say maybe four years for that one. Some people don't ever start submitting until they are totally sure they're done. Me, I'm like totally sure I'm done after my first draft, and then two weeks later I'm like, “What was I thinking?” And you know then twelve years later it's ready…JuliaOkay, well thank you so much for talking to me about this. We didn't talk about your career as an Audiobook narrator at all, which is a sort of a separate thing from your writing career. Except for when you narrate your own books. ClaireYes, thank goodness.JuliaAnd so I want to close this out by asking how was the experience of narrating this novel as a narrator who is also the writer of the book? Did you always know it was going to be you? Did you really want it to be you? And what was the whole experience like?ClaireThat's a great question, and it has a complicated answer, so forgive me beforehand. So, if I could have gotten a world class, phenomenal, powerful narrator like one of the ones I listen to all the time, like Kate Reading, for example. Or who's the really famous one? Simon Vance. You know, somebody of that caliber. Then I would totally have wanted somebody else to narrate my audiobook. But most narrators are like me, where we're pretty good. We make a living, or we would make a living if we lived in a small town and had two roommates. But since I'm married to Carlos, you know, I make a living as far as I'm concerned, but not like a New York City living. Anyway, so if somebody is just going to be very good, and I know I'm pretty good, and I know how to pronounce all my made up words. So that part of my narrating writing brain is like, “I should probably do it unless they get somebody extraordinary.” Which sounds… I don't know how it sounds, but that's how my brain works. Now, Carlos, and my mother, and a couple people who love me very much have agitated strongly from the beginning that no matter if they got Kate Reading or Simon Vance, I should still be the one to narrate it, which I fight against because there's a part of me that is not arrogant enough to think that that my text couldn't be improved upon by somebody else. I would be eager to listen to a different interpretation. It's easier to listen to somebody else's voice than my own, even though I like my voice just fine. All of that to say, when we made this deal, Rebellion seemed very excited. They like having authors narrate their own work and that had been kind of a handshake agreement. And earlier this year, as we're getting closer to publication, it ran into some snags. Like, it's pretty expensive to hire a US narrator. They have people in-house. They have deals going on. So it was almost that I couldn't narrate it and they had some pretty good narrators lined up, and I was like, “Okay, well just make sure that they call me so I can give them the pronunciations of the words I made up.”But I was unhappy, I think, in that moment because I had been looking forward to it. for two years I'd sort of had it in my head I was going to do it. I'd been prepping for it, and so that felt like a little like, “Oh it's not going to happen. Okay.” And I had to readjust my thinking.But over the pandemic, instead of commuting to Connecticut to do my studio recording for Tantor Audio, they have a working relationship with a small studio that's just three miles from me, which I can walk to. Three miles is a big difference from a three hour commute to Connecticut and staying overnight for three or four days, which is what I'd been doing for the two or three years since I'd moved here before the pandemic. So I told my agent and Rebellion. I was like, “Well, there's this little studio I work with. They do all this amazing professional production work for all of these different companies. Here are their rates. Here's their email. Maybe we could work something out.”And the next thing I knew, they're like, “Okay, you're recording next week.”So whatever they worked out, whatever my agent did, and whatever all of the powers that be… Because of the pandemic, and because of this relationship, and maybe because I wrote the right email at the right time, all of this worked out so that I could I could actually record my audiobook. So it was a bit of a roller coaster right at the end, and it was right up at the edge of time of when we could record it to have it out concurrently with the book. All of which to say that I didn't have as much prep time as I had wanted, and yet I have been prepping for twelve years at this point.I wanted to make every day in the studio more than usually special. I really wanted to say this is the end of a very long journey of many drafts and many despairs and a lot of leveling up. And yet it felt like another day. If I didn't pay super close attention, it would just be another grinding week at the studio, and I didn't want that. So every day I dressed up to match the section of the book that I was going to be recording. I wore like a different little perfume that had a note of citrus in it because citrus is the smell of necromancy in my book, and I wore a piece of jewelry that usually a friend or a loved one had given me that had to do with the book. I really tried to make it not just a recording, but a celebration of a decade and a half of work. And it was a blessing, in that sense, to record my work, and to look at it in its final form, and to say, “Ah, well, this was a thing, and this is what that thing looks like, and now it's in my mouth, and it's for you in your ears for all of posterity.” And that's something, because you know we still listen to W. B. Yeats at the beginning of the twentieth century reading his work in his own voice. There are probably better actors to read his work, but it is something to have his poems and his own voice. And so now we have this work in my voice, and I feel that in this human pageant, it's something that is super special. Very pleased.JuliaI think it's great. I loved it, and I think you're a wonderful narrator. I think you're not giving yourself enough credit.ClaireOh, but not British, Julia!JuliaWell, no, you're not British, but you are someone with a huge background in theater, and training, and also a large amount of experience at this point in narration, and you know your stories better than anyone, because you did spend all of your twelve years refining this particular book.ClaireThat's what Carlos says, so you and Carlos… if you and Carlos say it, I know that you're both more right than I am because I trust your brains.JuliaI thought it was a wonderful experience listening to you read it, and if you're listening to this podcast and you like listening to things, go ahead and pick up the audiobook of Saint Death's Daughter, because it is really wonderful. If you like to read things on the page, the text is also there for you, and that is also wonderful. But if you like listening to Claire's voice, get that audiobook. Thank you Claire and, thank you so much for taking all of this time to talk to us and answer all of our questions.ClaireThank you so much. Julia.JuliaI hope everybody goes out and reads your wonderful book, which is full of horrifying things, and also great bits of humor, and wonderful humanity. ClaireThank you.JuliaThanks so much for listening. If you want to have the chance to ask your own questions, or request specific kinds of posts from me, consider joining my patreon which is at patreon.com/juliarios, or my substack, which is at omgjulia.substack.com All patrons and subscribers get early access to every piece of creative work I commission from other creators in my Worlds of Possibility project, and your pledges and subscriber fees go directly to help pay for those stories and poems, and for the cost of my equipment and my labor, because recording these interviews, and then editing the transcripts and editing the recordings and making them podcast-ready for you takes a lot of time and effort! I am a little later on this one than I had intended to be because I got COVID again! Oops! So that’s why my voice sounds a little hoarse right now. Luckily, I was able to get antivirals, so that is fine, and I am doing better, but it kind of threw a wrench in things and it really made me realize how much time and effort this kind of thing takes. It takes a lot! So, if you have been enjoying this, please do subscribe. Please, any amount that you feel like contributing will absolutely help keep things going for me. And I’m in the middle of accepting all the pieces I am going to accept for this wave of Worlds of Possibility, and I have some GREAT stories to share with you, so I can’t wait to get into that, too. Thank you for listening, and I’ll catch you next time!Thanks for listening, and I’ll catch you next time. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit omgjulia.substack.com/subscribe

Earlier this week, we were all stunned by the news of the tragic death of World Fantasy Life Achievement Award winner Patricia McKillip, whose luminous works have influenced and moved generations of readers and writers for nearly half a century. Jonathan and Gary are joined by McKillip's longtime friend, Ellen Kushner, herself a winner of World Fantasy, Locus, and Mythopoeic Awards, and by Campbell Award winner E. Lily Yu, We talk some about Pat's personal modesty and sharp wit, but mostly about her astonishing body of work, not only in fantasy but (as Lily points out) in her less familiar forays into SF. Like all tributes, it's probably inadequate to the work, but it's deeply felt by all of us.

Ellen Kushner joins us to discuss Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Wizard of Earthsea”, Choose Your Own Adventure books, the explosion of Tolkien's popularity, the feminist revision of Earthsea, wizarding schools, designing magic system limitations, Larry Niven's science brain, the teenage search for identity, wizards of color, normalizing protagonists belonging to marginalized populations, the Jewish inspirations on Riverside, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Ellen Kushner's "Swordspoint", typing up D&D character sheets on a typewriter, normalized gay content, the 80s crack epidemic, double- and triple-crosses, characters who think they're smarter than they are, playing a D&D game in the Riverside, gamifying Honor, staying true to social mechanism in the game, DCC Lankhmar, A Princess Bride, A Princess of Mars, and much more!

Angela Lemus-Mogrovejo joins us to discuss Ellen Kushner's "Swordspoint”, the indie tabletop roleplaying game scene, questioning why fantasy is wedded to the European medieval era, our patron polls, confusing characters with one another in political intrigue, relatable gay content, a shortage of female characters being given the spotlight, female characters as whores and laundresses, examples of noir prose, giving the generic fantasy tavern more character, making cool use of support characters, scholars of disappearance, and much more!

Mary Anne and Ben catch up with old friends Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner. In the first half of the episode, the hosts of MRAH speak to Delia about her balladic influences, formula fiction, and the process of writing Freedom Maze. In the last half of the episode, Ellen switches with Delia to talk about her book Swordspoint, the intricacies of collaborative writing, and more.  For show notes visit: https://speculativeliterature.org/episodes/#ep-19 If you enjoy this podcast, consider supporting us on Patreon. You can follow us on Twitter @mrahpodcast.

Fairies! Join the conversation on the Atoz forum. Support the network and gain access to over fifty bonus episodes by become a patron on Patreon. Want more science fiction in your life? Check out The Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast. Love Neil Gaiman? Join us on Hanging Out With the Dream King: A Neil Gaiman Podcast. Lovecraft? Poe? Check out Elder Sign: A Weird Fiction Podcast. Trekker? Join us on Lower Decks: A Star Trek Podcast. Want to know more about the Middle Ages? Subscribe to Agnus: The Late Antique, Medieval, and Byzantine Podcast. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

On this week's episode, we are once again answering YOUR burning questions, dear listeners! What We're Into Lately The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole Bareknuckle Bastards series by Sarah MacLean Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis The Untamed fanfic “vinculum” by Skadiseven Heaven Has A Road But No One Walks It by Silvestris The Return of Fitzroy Angursell by Victoria Goddard History Channel “documentaries” Tim's Vermeer The Witcher   Other Stuff We Mentioned Get Out Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman Good Omens (TV show) Nirvana in Fire Famous Fanfic Author Fahye Down to Agincourt series by seperis Word of Honor Isavalta series by Sarah Zettel Naruto Persona 5 Fic author Maldoror_Chant Feminine Pursuits series (The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics) by Olivia Waite The Covert Captain by Jeannelle M. Ferreira Proper English by KJ Charles  Mrs. Martin's Incomparable Adventure by Courtney Milan  How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole  Once Ghosted Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole  Codex Writers Forum The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett Tremontaine series by Ellen Kushner et al.  ”Glitter & Gold” by Barns Courtney The Queen's Gambit X-Men Teen Wolf Dragon Age: Inquisition Ranma ½ Criminal Minds you wait and you wonder who'll take on your odds by paperclipbitch A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske For Next Time The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo Content Warnings N/A Transcription The transcript of this episode is available here. Highest of fives to our wonderful team of scribes!  

Le scène d’action est un trope extrêmement fréquent des genres populaires, dont l’imaginaire ; elle présente des défis techniques particuliers, requérant une première discussion globale sur l’approche et les conseils fondamentaux. Tout d’abord, pour Estelle, l’action est trop souvent traitée à part, comme un passage obligatoire, alors qu’elle doit s’insérer naturellement dans le récit, et qu’elle présente en réalité les mêmes fondamentaux que le reste de la narration – enjeux, caractérisation, évolution des personnages. Pour Lionel, c’est une expression sous pression de la volonté de personnages et de leur approche de leur résolution des problèmes ; mais sa concision et la clarté qu’elle requiert en font les difficultés principales. Quant à Mélanie, ce n’est pas son truc… prouvant là encore que l’on peut tout à fait s’en affranchir ! Références citées - David Cook, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2e édition, Guide du Maître - J. R. R. Tolkien, Le Seigneur des Anneaux - David Gemmel - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons dangereuses - Ellen Kushner, À la pointe de l’épée

Choose Your Own Adventure Book 86 - Knights of the Round Table by Ellen Kushner illustrated by Judith Mitchell read by Jason Connie and Jeromy face hard decisions regarding a bucket girl, a boon, and a nice mom. But first, a fun dinner, and then, regicide! Support Choose Your Own Adventure: https://www.cyoa.com Twitter Facebook Youtube Spotify iTunes Stitcher Google Play Podbean Player.fm Visit us at: https://www.stupendousaurusrex.com Contact us at: stupendousaurusrex@gmail.com Stock media provided by timbeek/Pond5

Book Appreciation with Ellen Klages The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 41 In the Book Appreciation segments, our featured author will talk about one or more favorite books with queer female characters in a historic setting. In this episode Ellen Klages recommends some favorite queer historical novels: The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters Hild by Nicola Griffith Tremontaine by Ellen Kushner et al. Ellen also talks about The Tiptree Award [note: now the Otherwise Award] for genre fiction that expands or explores gender roles, which has long lists of recommended books going back 27 years. A transcript of this podcast may be available here. (Transcripts added when available.) Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/ Twitter: @LesbianMotif Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon Links to Heather Online Website: http://alpennia.com Email: Heather Rose Jones Twitter: @heatherosejones Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page) Links to Ellen Klages Online Website: Ellen Klages Twitter: @eklages Facebook: Ellen Klages

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Multiple award-winning author, editor, narrator, and radio personality Ellen Kushner chats with Gary about moving back to New York; ordering favorite children's and YA books from independent bookstores; reading Edward Eager, E. Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Joan Aiken; the brilliance of Frances Hardinge; group reading Shakespeare with friends online; the University of Glasgow's new fantasy study center; and odd historical genres like “silver-fork novels.” Books mentioned include: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken Night Birds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken Deeplight by Frances Hardinge The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho The True Queen by Zen Cho Silk & Steel: An Adventure Anthology of Queer SF&F with High Femmes & Dashing Women edited by Janine A. Southard (forthcoming)  

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. World Fantasy Award winner C.S.E. Cooney joins Gary to talk about the joys of rediscovering reading during these strange times; reading Don Quixote aloud; enjoying Ellen Kushner's forthcoming novel along with work by Sarah Monette / Katherine Addison, Martha Wells, and Sherry Thomas; finishing her first full-length novel; and collaborating with her husband on a screenplay. Books mentioned include: Desdemona and the Deep by C.S.E. Cooney Don Quixote by Cervantes (trans. Edith Grossman) Doctrine of Labyrinths Series by Sarah Monette The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison The Lady Sherlock Series by Sherry Thomas The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells Imperial Radch Series by Ann Leckie

Books on tape have been around for half a century, but audiobooks have exploded in popularity in the last decade. What is the appeal of the audio format? Which books and narrators do we enjoy the most? And does listening to an audiobook even count as reading? Books Mentioned: Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim, narrated by Kim Mai Guest The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, narrated by Frazer Douglas The Wicked King by Holly Black, narrated by Caitlin Kelly The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks, narrated by Simon Vance City of Lies by Sam Hawke, narrated by Rosa Coduri and Dan Morgan The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley, narrated by Simon Vance The Radium Girls by Kate Moore, narrated by Angela Brazil A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan, narrated by Kate Reading Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aaron, narrated by Vikas Adam Red Rising by Pierce Brown, narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe, narrated by Nick Podehl Free the Darkness by Kel Kade, narrated by Nick Podehl The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, narrated by Michael Page The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, narrated by Will Patton Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente, narrated by Heath Miller Dune by Frank Herbert, narrated by a full cast Minimum Wage Magic by Rachel Aaron, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch, narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith Hero Forged by Josh Erikson, narrated by Josh Erikson Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal, narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, narrated by Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner, narrated by The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien, narrated by Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchet audio drama The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, produced by Graphic Audio Rose Drive audio drama, produced by Raul Vega The Heart of Stone by Ben Galley, narrated by Adam Stubbs The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, narrated by Peter Kenny Find Us Online: Blog Discord Twitter Instagram Support Us: Become a Patron Buy us a Coffee Music: Intro: "The Legend of Iya" courtesy of https://philter.no Outro: "A Quest Unfolds" courtesy of https://philter.no Detailed show notes can be found at https://thefantasyinn.com

In which one of our co-hosts and his wife go off to Ireland and all they brought me is this… oh hey! Jamesons! Here’s your reading list, according to who drank with Chaz and Karen. … Continue...Episode Thirteen – World Con Dublin Recap

In this extra special bonus episode Matthew and Anna talk about a spreadsheet for forty minutes. Seriously! They go through all of the *punk subgenres from Stonepunk to Whalepunk and everything in between. You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Matthew Murray  The Spreadsheet Timeline of *Punk fiction subgenres Media Mentioned This Episode The Flintstones The Far Side RRRrrrr!!! Krogslist Playlist of all Krog videos Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda Elfquest The Black Tides of Heaven by J.Y. Yang  One Piece by Eiichiro Oda Carniepunk by Rachel Caine Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner  Wild Wild West Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic about Superman by Zach Weinersmith Fallout (series) The Scar by China Miéville Tank Girl Railsea by China Miéville Snowpiercer Why SNOWPIERCER is a sequel to WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY Mad Max (franchise) The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi  Under the Empyrean Sky by Chuck Wendig Dishonored Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld Links, Articles, and Things Göbekli Tepe Mathematics in medieval Islam Rococopunk is not only sillier than Steampunk, it's also more punk Aether (classical element) Kameron Hurley Suggest new genres or titles! Fill out the form to suggest genres or titles! Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, August 20th we’ll be discussing The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. Then on Tuesday, September 3rd we’ll be discussing the genre of Political Non-Fiction!

It's time to make some more choices! Thanks to a benevolent small business owner, we've been transported back to the time of Arthurian legend and must face the biggest choice of all: food service or secretarial work!Actually, we make plenty of fun choices in Ellen Kushner's CYOA riff on the Knights of the Round Table. So join us for a bunch of boons, magic, and mannerpunk!

It's time to make some more choices! Thanks to a benevolent small business owner, we've been transported back to the time of Arthurian legend and must face the biggest choice of all: food service or secretarial work!Actually, we make plenty of fun choices in Ellen Kushner's CYOA riff on the Knights of the Round Table. So join us for a bunch of boons, magic, and mannerpunk!

When two swordsmen meet, no one knows what to expect. It's a cold night in a cold city. Cold stone under cold starlight. He walks down a deserted street, sure of himself, sure of the weapon he bears. He's not altogether surprised when the stranger steps out of the shadows. “Hey,” he says to the newcomer. “You hungry? I'm going to friends with a fire and a big pot always bubbling on it.” By which we see that it's not just his sword that defends him, whatever he may think. The other stands very still. “You're not what I thought you'd be,” he says flatly. “Why not?” the swordsman asks, curious. | Copyright 2015 by Ellen Kushner. Originally published in Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany, edited by Nisi Shawl and Bill Campbell. Reprinted by permission of the author. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki.

With Antonia Quirke Asif Kapadia, the director of Amy and Senna, discusses his latest documentary, Diego Maradona, and reveals why he's never wanted to touch anyone more than he wanted to touch the footballer's legendary left foot. Sir Christopher Frayling talks us through the soundtrack of Once Upon A Time In The West and how Ennio Morricone was influenced by a symphony of metal ladders. In the latest edition of Pitch Battle, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw pitches a novel called Swordspoint to a panel of movie insiders, Lizzie Francke, Rowan Woods and Clare Binns. They decide whether Ellen Kushner's book is a suitable case for the movie treatment.

Statue of Liberty Adventure by Ellen Kushner

Amanda and Jenn discuss rich people problems, pregnant protagonists, book-slump busters, and more in this week's episode of Get Booked. This episode is sponsored by Book Riot Insiders, Love Letters to Jane’s World by Paige Braddock, and How Are You Going to Save Yourself by JM Holmes.   Feedback Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound by Grant Lawrence   Questions   1. Good morning, I'm going on a trip to France (Paris/Strasbourg) in November and looking for book recs for the summer, preferably historical fiction or mystery. We'll be visiting several palaces, so books related to the monarchy would be great. I'm pretty well-read on British/Scottish history but pretty ignorant on French history. (Totally on board for rich people problems :) Recent faves are the Lytton trilogy (Penny Vincenzi), Life After Life (Kate Atkinson), The Diviners series (Libba Bray), Rules of Civility (Amor Towles), Flight of Gemma Hardy (Margaret Livesey), anything by Tana French. I've checked off Atonement/the Nightingale/Everyone Brave is Forgiven. Thanks so much! Love the show! --Brittney   2. Hi Ladies! Like Amanda I really love the rich people problems types of books, from YA books like the Map of Fates series and Gossip Girl to The Vacationers, Rich and Pretty, The Nest, and most recently the Kevin Kwan series Crazy Rich Asians (amazing on audio). I love the fashion and luxury and over the top feel of these books, they’re just... fun and a nice escape from reality. Can you provide me with some recommendations (preferably contemporary settings)? --Jenn   3. Hey y'all! I love the podcast. This year I decided to read more and I love getting deep cut recs that I'd have never found on my own. I'm writing to ask about audiobook recommendations, specifically audiobooks with full cast productions such as American Gods, His Dark Materials, and Lincoln in the Bardo. I find that full cast productions are especially engrossing! Please no abridgments or dramatizations. I'm also not a huge fan of sci fi, I'm just not into space! Thank you so much :) --Bess   4. Greetings, magical unicorns! I am interested in books with pregnant protagonists. The kind where they are doing something badass. Not necessarily fighting crime or saving humanity, but living their lives and being kickass while also growing a human. Some examples that comes to mind are "The Fireman," "Persons Unknown," or even the latest Spider-Woman comic where Jessica Drew was a badass pregnant superhero. These ladies are not sitting around on fainting couches because they feel fragile. They're taking life by the horns and not letting a little thing like the miracle of life stop them. --Emily   5. Hi Jenn and Amanda! I moved recently and joined a new book group full of smart, engaged women in their thirties and early forties. All of us have full-time jobs and some of the members have young kids (one of the women has a full-time job, an 18-month old, AND is getting her MBA!) Needless to say, everyone has good intentions to read the books each month, but with everyone's busy schedules, sometimes only one or two of us actually finds the time to actually do it. I am hoping you can provide a couple of suggestions for books that will entice the entire group to read the whole book. We read fiction and nonfiction, although the group seems to prefer fiction, and nothing too long would help the cause. One of the group's absolutely favorite reads was A Man Called Ove and we recently read Three Junes by Julia Glass which the people who read it really enjoyed but some of the members tried to start it and couldn't get into it. Thanks for any suggestions you have! --Halle   6. I am an avid reader but, unfortunately, have not been able to read for the past few months. It's getting harder for me to get back to reading. I started with Beloved, but I found it heavy and not very engaging. My favorites include To Kill a Mockingbird and Eat, Pray, Love. Hoping that you can help :) --Shivani   7. Hi Amanda and Jenn, First, love the podcast! I recently finished The Magicians Trilogy and absolutely loved it! Could you please recommend more fantasy books like this series? I was originally drawn to the series because I had heard it was “Harry Potter for grown-ups” but what I really liked about these books was that they were moody and gritty in addition to whimsical, and the characters flawed and complex. If it helps, I also loved the Abhorsen books by Garth Nix and the Night Circus, and I disliked The Paper Magician and The Book of Lost Things. No YA please, and bonus points for a female protagonist. Thank you! --Heather   Books Discussed My Own Devices by Dessa (out Sept. 8) Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich (WIT: http://biblibio.blogspot.com/) Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran Versailles by Kathryn Davis Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea, translated by Marilyn Booth People Like Us by Dominick Dunne (his Recommended episode) A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (26 hours, have fun!) Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (audio rec’d by Nita Basu, 11 hours), trigger warning for suicidal ideation Heartless by Gail Carriger Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng The Wangs vs. The World by Jade Chang Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse The Poppy War by RF Kuang (tw: war crimes, rape, mandated sterilization, child abuse)

Sharifah and Jenn discuss the Nebula nominations, Black Panther, their favorite series, and more. This episode is sponsored by The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus, and The Philosopher’s Flight by Tom Miller.   News Discussed: This year’s Nebula nominations have been announced Black Panther Is A Box Office Smash!!!! Bonus: great round-up of thread on the African cultures featured in and inspiring Black Panther Sam Raimi to direct Name of the Wind adaptation? Shape of Water review Books Discussed: Swordspoint/Tremontaine by Ellen Kushner and now lots of other folks (related: Serial Box got a round of funding) Pluto by Naoki Urasawa and Ozamu Tezuka Discworld by Terry Pratchett (but particularly the Tiffany Aching series) The Patternist series by Octavia Butler

Skriva fantastik - Tor.com's Nielsen Hayden & Ellen Kushner Vässa pennorna och fantasin, för nu handlar om att skriva fantasy och science fiction! Från Tor.com, SFF-portal och eminent förlag, besöker oss Patrick och Teresa Nielsen Hayden. Dessa erfarna redaktörer har arbetat med bl.a. John Scalzi, Jo Walton , Cory Doctorow och Charlie Stross och guidar oss nu i sf-författandets universum. Vi hör också inspelningen från panelsamtalet "Writing LGBT in fantasy - Ellen Kushner & Delia Sherman" från Stockholm den 17 augusti 2017. Med höviskhet, värjor och en homosexuell huvudperson skrev Kushner med Swordspoint från 1987 in sig i fantasyhistorien. Idag är hon fantasyredaktör och skriver vidare om klanen Tremontaines öden, med sin fru och författare som Malinda Lo och Joel Derfner. Daniel tipsar om spel för den som vill berätta och gestalta tillsammans med familj, barn och vänner. Den röda tråden håller Gabriella i tillsammans med Maths Claesson, bokhandlare och författare med fötterna i Gamla Stan och tankarna i rymden. Vi berättar vad som fångar oss, vad vi ställer bort oläst och tipsar om hantverksböcker för aspirerande författare. 00:00:00 Programpresentation 00:01:03 Ett bokhandlarliv - Maths Claesson (Linux Uttagningen) 00:08:17 Interview: Teresa & Patrick Nielsen Hayden 00:44:41 Knep, knåp & att synas på hyllan 00:53:29 Speltips - When I Dream, ADventure Land, Äventyr 00:56:19 Böcker om att skriva & NaNoWriMo 00:59:51 Writing LGBT in fantasy - Ellen Kushner & Delia Sherman 01:43:59 Avslutning Våra tips: King, Stephen - On Writing / Att skriva Jordan, Robert - The Wheel of Time McHugh, Maureen - China Mountan Zhang Walton, Jo - Among Others Nielsen Hayden, Teresa - Making Book, Making Conversation Papashvily George and Helen - Anything can happen Spufford, Francis - Red Plenty Zelazny, Roger - The Great Book of Amber When I Dream (spel) Adventure Land (spel) Sagospelet Äventyr Grundbox (spel) Marks, Laurie - Elemental Logic LeGuin, Ursula - Steering the Craft Bradbury, Ray - Zen in the Art of Writing Kushner, Ellen - Swordspoint Sherman, Delia - Changeling / Neef och Bortbytingen Länkar: Tor.com Making Light - http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/ Inlägget "Slushkiller" - http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html Locus Magazine - locusmag.com NaNoWriMo.org - National Novel Writing Month Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop - http://clarion.ucsd.edu/ Ellen Kushner - https://twitter.com/ellenkushner

Women and Words Overview 4-10 Nov. 2017   Jove had a NaNoWriNoMo day because of tech issues; Andi would like someone in Australia to invite her for Christmas so she can experience it in shorts but agrees with Jove that an epic road trip across Australia would be cool, too. Also, serial fiction is seriously awesome.   4 Nov.: Women and Wordster Ann Etter did a reader’s perspective on books with family themes. Women and Words link HERE 5 Nov.: Author/playwright/webmaster/designer Mary D. Brooks stopped by to tell us about her work and latest serial play, “An Egyptian Treasure,” which is set in 1948. Mary also runs the Xena site AUSXIP.com. Women and Words link HERE Mary D. Brooks’ website 6 Nov.: Author and Women and Wordster Lynette Mae is on the NaNoWriMo journey this year, and hopefully it’ll kick her writing slump right where it counts. Go, LM! Women and Words link HERE More info about Lynette Mae HERE 7 Nov.: Author and brand new Women and Wordster Penny Mickelbury kicks off her tenure with us with a blog about the war on women. Women and Words link HERE Penny Mickelbury’s website 8 Nov.: Author Tessa Gratton stopped by to talk about serialized fiction, and her work with Tremontaine, the serialized fiction that is a prequel to Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint. Tremontaine is available through Serial Box. Women and Words link HERE Tessa Gratton’s website 9 Nov.: Author and Women and Wordster Fiona Zedde is on the road again, this time to Madrid, Spain. Women and Words link HERE Fiona Zedde’s website 10 Nov.: Author and humorist Fay Jacobs on Tai Chi, chai tea, and how nice it is not to wear an ill-fitting tu-tu. Women and Words link HERE Fay Jacobs’ website   NaNoWriMo continues, friends! Dirt Road Books has its second write-in on Nov. 11th on Facebook. Stop by the DRB FB page for details. And the deadline for the Lambda Literary Awards is Dec. 1. ALSO! Authors, if you’d like to participate in the Women and Words Hootenanny, SIGN UP NOW.   And here in the U.S., Nov. 11 is Veterans Day. Thank you, veterans, for your service.

Book Hype hosts Karen and Kristen welcome Julian Yap to discuss all things Serial Box! You can find Book Hype on Twitter at @BookHype. Check us out on Facebook! What we’re reading: The Simplicity of Cider by Amy E. Reichert Flow and Grip by Kennedy Ryan Play On by Samantha Young Post Captain by Patrick O’Brian Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins Serial Box and how it works: -Julian is the co-founder, and works every day as the logistical and scheduling guru. -Serial Box wants to be TV for books: Short, weekly episodes of a story, with each ‘episode’ being a contained story that contributes to the greater arc of the tale. -Serial Box has writer’s rooms just like TV. -The writer’s rooms give the writers a place to bounce ideas, speeding up the process quite a bit. -They definitely wouldn’t turn down a future adaptation of their work. -You can read and listen cohesively, and can switch back and forth seamlessly between the two, which is so great. -Diversity is very important to Serial Box, and that is reflected in both the stories themselves and the people behind the scenes. Upcoming releases: –Tremontaine season 3 premieres October 11, and is described as Three Musketeers meets House of Cards, and is led by Ellen Kushner. –Remade season 2 premieres November 15, is a lot like Lost, but is all teenagers who wake up in a post-apocalyptic world. -They are releasing the first season in podcast form so you can get caught up. 2018 and beyond:False Idols tells the tale of someone who goes around the world recovering ancient artifacts with a fantasy twist thrown in. –Born to the Blade is an upcoming epic fantasy serial. -Lots of content in 2018, including some hush-hush, very special projects. -Dream projects include a Veronica Mars-esque show, and maybe to be a platform for cancelled TV shows to continue their stories. -Maybe a Neil Gaiman story, more fantasy, and working with beloved authors to craft stories in a different way. Bookburners: –Bookburners tells the story of a team from the Vatican that goes around the world saving people from dangerous books that contain demons or monsters and store them in the Vatican vault for banned books. -Season 3 brings together some threads from the first two seasons. It’s all very exciting! -As the first project, this one holds a special place in Julian’s heart and was the learning curve for this new platform they were creating. Check out Serialbox.com, where you can read all the pilots for their current projects and learn more about what they have to offer.

If you live in the Kingdom of Cyriania, you've heard about the Feltrain Festival. The Feltrain Festival is an annual tradition in Cyriania, an all-night dance party, and one of the few that is, by tradition, unsegregated. All are welcome at Feltrain: Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Tanuki, Great Eagles, everyone. It's often held up as a sign of Cyriania's social progress, that ever since the fall of the Dark Lord Necron and the breaking of his bone throne, Cyriania has been moving forward. This year, however, that illusion was shattered when Huber Heknut walked up to the Feltrain Festival and pulled out a magic sword that released a poison gas that killed 50 people at the festival in a matter of seconds. Every tavern and inn conversation asks the same questions Should magic swords be banned? Or are magic swords an unalienable right? And what does the Raptor Queen have to say about all this?     The Voice of Free Planet X is written and produced by Jared Axelrod. This episode featured music by bensound.com. The Voice of Free Planet X theme is by Russell Collins. Episode art by Rachel Kahn. This episode could not have existed without the performances of Andy Holman and Phil Thomas of West Phillians, Ellen Kushner of Sound & Spirit, Jason LeVonn Richardson and  Kennedy Allen of The Black Tribbles, and the support of listeners like you. You can support the Voice of Free Planet X at patreon.com/axelrod. Keep up to date on everything Voice of Free Planet X-related by subscribing to "The Voice of Free Planet X-tra" at tinyletter.com/planetx.  The Voice of Free Planet X is distributed by Galactic Public Radio.

It's time to choose our adventure and celebrate the arrival of Spring with a trip to the Big Apple in Ellen Kushner's Statue of Liberty Adventure. This week's choices include quantum pants, Coffee Boy, and Dick Van Dyke's Worst Charlie Bit My Finger Impression (TM). The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are uniformly terrible. Any identification with actual persons, places, buildings, and products is purposeful because otherwise we wouldn't know what voices to use.

It's time to choose our adventure and celebrate the arrival of Spring with a trip to the Big Apple in Ellen Kushner's Statue of Liberty Adventure. This week's choices include quantum pants, Coffee Boy, and Dick Van Dyke's Worst Charlie Bit My Finger Impression (TM). The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are uniformly terrible. Any identification with actual persons, places, buildings, and products is purposeful because otherwise we wouldn't know what voices to use.

I get up close and personal with the hosts of other GPR programs: Xy Cuspidstahl and Murph Lopterrange of Wait, Wait, Don't, Just Don't, Cassandra Yondo of Eggs, Craz Ginko of This Betelgeusean Life and the incredible Indra Calphinate Helixion.But not all of them are people you want to be up close and personal with.   The Voice of Free Planet X is written and produced by Jared Axelrod. This episode featured music by bensound.com and Russel Collins. The Voice of Free Planet X theme is by Russell Collins. This episode could not have existed without the performances Kate Axelrod, Andy Holman and Phil Thomas of West Phillians, Jennifer Steen of Jennisodes, Edison Carter, Ellen Kushner of Sound & Spirit, and the support of listeners like you. You can support the Voice of Free Planet X at patreon.com/axelrod. Keep up to date on everything Voice of Free Planet X-related by subscribing to "The Voice of Free Planet X-tra" at tinyletter.com/planetx.  The Voice of Free Planet X is distributed by Galactic Public Radio.

Ellen Kushner joins us for the last episode of Season 10. Per the title, folks, it's time to be done. What does "done" mean? How do you go about declaring a project "finished" when you know there are still things wrong with it? How do you clear your head, your work space, and your life for the next thing you need to do? Out of Excuses: Per Brandon's plug in the episode, registration is open for the 2016 Out of Excuses WritingWorkshop and Retreat!

Ellen Kushner joins us for the last episode of Season 10. Per the title, folks, it’s time to be done. What does “done” mean? How do you go about declaring a project “finished” when you know there are still things wrong with it? How do you clear your head, your work space, and your life for … Continue reading Writing Excuses 10.52: Moving On, with Ellen Kushner →

A behind the scenes look at Tremontaine, with authors Ellen Kushner, Malinda Lo, and Joel Derfner.

Narrated by Justine Eyre (hosted by Ellen Kushner).

                             Welcome to Episode 149 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans.  In this episode we talk about a new publisher with a new approach to serialized fiction, SerialBox Publishing, with its founder Julian Yap and two of its well-known authors, […]

Our seventh podcast for November is “One Last, Great Adventure” written by Ellen Kushner and Ysabeau S. Wilce and read by Kate Baker. Originally published in Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan Strahan, 2013.

Our seventh podcast for November is “One Last, Great Adventure” written by Ellen Kushner and Ysabeau S. Wilce and read by Kate Baker.   First published in Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan Strahan, 2013. Subscribe to our podcast.

A short, impromptu review of The Witches of Lublin, the holiday radio play “by Ellen Kushner and a bunch of other people in the cast.” Download the Podcast (archive.org page) Marie’s blog The Witches of Lublin website  

This week, an interview from the terrestrial version of Radio Drama Revival – an interview with Sue Zizza (Sue Media Productions) the producer behind the ‘illuminated' audiobooks of Ellen Kushner (all of which have been nominated for Audie Awards, and one – Swordspoint- being a winner) and numerous prior productions. She is also a major […] The post Episode 378 – Talking “Hear Now” with Sue Zizza appeared first on Radio Drama Revival.

Kate and Elenchus talk about Ellen Kushner's Riverside books

This week we celebrate the Audie-award win (Audio Drama category) of Swordspoint, written by Ellen Kushner and produced by SueMedia Productions. Swordspoint is a tale of derring-do in the city of Riverside, where men live and die by the sword. We spoke with Ellen and Sue back in December about adapting Swordspoint as an illuminated […] The post Episode 335 – Privileged At the Swordspoint appeared first on Radio Drama Revival.

This week we invited award-winning actor, broadcaster, editor and writer Ellen Kushner to join us to discuss the excellent audiobook adaptation of her novel Swordspoint, which was recently released by Audible, her thoughts on the rise of audiobooks, and her many other projects.. The Witches of Lublin (Audible); and the audiobook of Swordspoint (US information; UK information). We would like to apologise for the audio quality of some of the podcast, which is a little below what we'd normally hope for.  Our primary recording of the 'cast failed, but we were saved by our newly installed backup recording system.  We continue our hunt for improvements, but in the interim thank Ellen, and look forward to seeing you all next week.

With the New Year upon us, we seek to capture one last audio gem from 2011: the new illuminated audiobook Swordspoint, directed and produced by Sue Zizza and narrated by the author, Ellen Kushner. This dashing audio adventure is further complemented by a full suite of actors including Dion Graham, Katherine Kellgren, Robert Fass, Nick […] The post Episode 259 – Illuminating Swordspoint's Daring-Do with Ellen Kushner and Sue Zizza appeared first on Radio Drama Revival.

Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman from the Interstitial Arts Foundation join Mary Robinette Kowal and Dan Wells to talk about the gaps between genres.

Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman from the Interstitial Arts Foundation join Mary Robinette Kowal and Dan Wells to talk about the gaps between genres.

"A la Pointe de l'Epée" par Ellen Kushner, publié aux éditions Calmann-Lévy. Vingt-sixième podcast de Fantasy au Petit-Déjeuner. Bon courage avec la grisaille et bonne lecture. Salvek