Podcasts about her own making

It's episode 202 and that means it's time for our One Book One Podcast Battle of the Books episode where we discuss A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher! You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray

It's time for our Summer Media Update! We're talking about podcasts, videos, books, comics, games and more that we've recently enjoyed! We discuss Balatro, Carter Vail, Catwoman, and beading! You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray

Children's books for young readers who have high reading levels and have difficulty finding just right books in terms of content (being sensitive enough with an engaging enough reading level) from Rowan via IGRealizing Shelf Help rarely gets questions dealing with books for children, the three booksellers - Emma, Jack and Kari - had a ton of fun discussing their answers to this very common question for indie booksellers. They created significant consensus when all three agreed that The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and The Winternight Trilogy would be great books to hand any child with a high reading level who is not quite ready for teen and adult topics. They also offered unique picks such as Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. We hope they help those of you who have children in your life who pose this dilemma.Shelf Help is a podcast where booksellers help you answer one of life's trickier  - and we'd argue extremely important - questions: what should you read next?  If you've got a reading dilemma, you can email us a question or voice memo at shelfhelpuv@gmail.com. We're here to help your shelves. Shelf Help is a collaboration between the Book Jam, a nonprofit designed to inspire readers; CATV Upper Valley media community (NOW LOCATED AT JAM, Junction Arts & Media); three Upper Valley bookstores: Yankee Bookshop in Woodstock, VT; the Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, VT; and Still North Books & Bar in Hanover, NH.  

This week, we're reposting two awesome interviews with authors who were just nominated for the Hugo Award. Our guest today was nominated 3 times for best short story, best novelette, and best novella. Today's guest is fantasy and science fiction author Catherynne Valente. Catherynne Valente is the writer of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (and the four books that followed it), Palimpsest, the Orphan's Tales series and so many books you've probably read or heard about. She's a New York Times bestselling author, winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Sturgeon, Eugie Foster Memorial, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus, Hugo awards, and more. Usually, in Geekdom Empowers we follow the paths of the geeks around the world who are not highlighted. And yet, Cat's path is exactly the path we talk about. She talks about how, with the power of social media, before it was called social media, she got from knowing no one to what she is today. Social media helped her every stage of the way, including today where her Patreon gives her financial independence from the publishers. It is the story of a rise to success of an author who came from nothing, knowing no one. It is the story of an author who made her own niche, who kept her style and authenticity, and who has withstood, as we'll see, quite a bit of terrible pushback from science fiction and fantasy fans. I think you'll enjoy this interview. It's fascinating. You can find Catherynne Valente here: Website: catherynnemvalente.com/ Twitter: twitter.com/catvalente Instagram: www.instagram.com/catvalente Geekdom Empowers comes out Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can find us here: Website: www.geekdomeempowers.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/geekdomempowers/ Twitter: twitter.com/GeekdomEmpowers Facebook: www.facebook.com/geekdomempowers TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@geekdomempowers

This episode we're talking about 2022: The Year of Book Two! (And sequels!) We discuss why we read (or don't read) sequels, favourite book twos, reading series out of order, and more! Plus: Shocking reveals that don't leave an impact because we've forgotten who the character is... You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards 2022: Year of Book Two Book 2 challenge on Storygraph Goodreads shelf (use “2022 Year Of Book 2”) Twitter hashtag: #2022BookTwo Instagram hashtag: #2022YearOfBook2 Media We Mentioned The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman (The Invisible Library #1) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (The Kingkiller Chronicle #1) Goosebumps by R.L. Stine (Wikipedia) Animorphs by Katherine Applegate (Wikipedia) Sweet Valley High by Francine Pascal (Wikipedia) Hogfather by Terry Prachett (Discworld #20) Doki Doki Literature Club! Cover Her Face by P.D. James Featuring Adam Dalgliesh Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane (Young Wizards #2) Info about New Millennium updates of the books Lirael by Garth Nix (Old Kingdom #2) The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente (Fairyland #2) Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games #2) Insurgent by Veronica Roth (Divergent #2) A Million Suns by Beth Revis (Across the Universe #2) Prodigy by Marie Lu (Legend #2) Witch Baby by Francesca Lia Block (Weetzie Bat #2) The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins The City We Became by N.K. Jemison (Great Cities #1) Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente (This used to say it was book one of the “Leningrad Diptych,” but that finally got removed as the second book doesn't exist.) A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (Wayfarers #2) Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (Enchanted Forest Chronicles #2) Startide Rising by David Brin (The Uplift Saga #2) Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb #2) The Thousand Eyes by A.K. Larkwood (The Serpent Gates #2) Supernova by C.A. Higgins (Lightless #2) Authority by Jeff VanderMeer (Southern Reach #2) How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland How We Live by Sherwin B. Nuland Short Circuit (1986 film) (Wikipedia) Links, Articles, and Things Sequel Rights: A Review of Locus Reviews “The absolute gall of any reviewer to start with the second book in a series and then complain that they don't understand what's going on, as though this is somehow the fault of the text!” Desert Island Discworld - Diane Duane and Jingo Episode 058 - The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making 12 Weird Fiction books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors to help our listeners diversify their readers' advisory. All of the lists can be found here. Hell Screen by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark The Houseguest and Other Stories by Amparo Dávila The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany Darker Than Night by Owl Goingback Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno The Famished Road by Ben Okri Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar Also check out our booklist of 12 New Weird books by BIPOC authors! Give us feedback! Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read! Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, February 1st when we'll be talking about Amish Romance! Then on Tuesday, February 15th we'll be discussing “What is a book?”

This week Jason chats with Catherynne M. Valente.She is the New York Times bestselling author of over two dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpsest, the Orphan's Tales series, Deathless, Radiance, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (and the four books that followed it). She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Sturgeon, Eugie Foster Memorial, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus, and Hugo awards, as well as the Prix Imaginales. Valente has also been a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with a small but growing menagerie of beasts, some of which are human.Her most recent book The Past is Red came out in July and is an Amazon Editor's Pick as Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, and coming in just a few weeks, early November still very much the spooky season, is COMFORT ME WITH APPLES, a terrifying fantasy/horror story.Comfort Me With Apples is a terrifying new thriller from bestseller Catherynne M. Valente, for fans of Gone Girl and Spinning SilverSophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze....But everything is perfect. Isn't it?

Today in botanical history, we celebrate a Spanish botanist, a Swiss poet and diarist, and an American industrialist. We'll hear an excerpt from a best-selling book where the main character is a 12-year-old girl named September. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that offers a year of fantastic wild flower paintings and notes. And then we'll wrap things up with a lab girl - a scientist whose incredible book was released just five years ago.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there's no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you'd search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Curated News New books: how designers see the world | Wallpaper.com | Jonathan Bell   Important Events September 27, 1777 Birth of Simón de Rojas Clemente, Spanish botanist, intellectual, politician, and spy. He is regarded as the father of European ampelography (the identification and classification of grapevines). Today a statue of Simón overlooks the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid. In the early 1800s, Simón taught Arabic. One of his students, Domingo Badía Leblich, invited Simón on an extensive trip through Africa from the Atlas Mountains to the Nile. Anticipating resistance from locals, Domingo and Simón disguised themselves as Muslims and even changed their names. Simón became Mohamad Ben-Alí. And at some point after joining the expedition, Simón learned the true reason for the trip: spying on North Africa for Manuel Godoy, the First Secretary of State of Spain. Simón went on to explore Andalusia before returning to Madrid, where he served as the director of the Royal Botanical Garden library. In 1820, Simón planted a collection of grapevines at the Madrid Royal Botanic Garden. To this day, Simón's grapes are among the wine and table grapes grown in the garden since the 18th century. Simón's herbarium contained 186 specimens of grapes, which remain in excellent condition. They are especially prized because they are the oldest collection of grapevines and because Simón collected them before phylloxera arrived in Spain. Today Simón's grapevine specimens have been genetically analyzed thanks to modern DNA testing.   September 27, 1821 Birth of Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss philosopher & poet. He is remembered for his Journal Intime, which he kept from 1847 until twenty-two days before he died in 1881. On August 26, 1868, he wrote, Say to yourself that you are entering upon the autumn of your life; that the graces of spring and the splendors of summer are irrevocably gone, but that autumn, too, has its beauties. The autumn weather is often darkened by rain, cloud, and mist, but the air is still soft, and the sun still delights the eyes, and touches the yellowing leaves caressingly: it is the time for fruit, for harvest, for the vintage, the moment for making provision for the winter. My life has reached its month of September. May I recognize it in time, and suit thought and action to the fact! He also wrote, A modest garden contains, for those who know how to look and to wait, more instruction than a library.   September 27, 1877 Birth of James Drummond Dole, American industrialist. Known as the “Pineapple King,” he founded the pineapple industry in Hawaii. His Hawaiian Pineapple Company (HAPCO) later became the Dole Food Company. In 1899, James made his way to Hawaii after graduating from Harvard. After realizing that the native Kona pineapple could not be grown commercially, he started growing a Florida variety known as Smooth Cayenne on sixty acres. The local newspapers scoffed at his idea. James persisted and hired help to create a machine that could process one hundred pineapples every minute. He also aggressively marketed pineapple in mainland America. Within twenty years, Hawaiian pineapples dominated the market. In the first half of the 20th century, the popularity of the pineapple upside-down cake further helped the pineapple become mainstream. In terms of their makeup, pineapples contain an enzymatic protein called bromelain - a chemical that prevents gelatin from setting. Once a pineapple is heated for canning, the bromelain is destroyed, which is why canned pineapple can be used successfully with jello. Today, Hawaii produces only .13 of the world's pineapple.   Unearthed Words She liked anything orange: leaves; some moons; marigolds; chrysanthemums; cheese; pumpkin, both in pie and out; orange juice; marmalade. Orange is bright and demanding. You can't ignore orange things. She once saw an orange parrot in the pet store and had never wanted anything so much in her life. She would have named it Halloween and fed it butterscotch. Her mother said butterscotch would make a bird sick and, besides, the dog would certainly eat it up. September never spoke to the dog again — on principle. ― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making   Grow That Garden Library Wild Flowers of Britain by Margaret Erskine Wilson This book came out in 2016, and the subtitle is Month by Month. Here's what the publisher wrote about this book: Margaret Erskine Wilson, late President of Kendal Natural History Society, was a keen amateur botanist and watercolorist. In 1999, she donated to the Society 150 sheets of water-colour paintings representing a thousand British and Irish plants in flower and fruit, painted in situ over many years and in various places. At the time she donated the paintings to Kendal Natural History Society, she wrote: Begun in 1943/4 for a friend who said, 'I might learn the names of flowers if you drew them for me, in the months they're in flower'! The result is this beautiful, previously unpublished book of all her accurate and informative illustrations, painted over a period of 45 years. Over a thousand British and Irish flowers are represented in this book, and it still today serves Margaret Erskine Wilson's original purpose - it is an easy way to learn the names of our delicate and beautiful wild flowers. This book is 176 pages of a year's worth of Margaret Erskine Wilson's extraordinary paintings, notes, the English common names, and the scientific names. You can get a copy of Wild Flowers of Britain by Margaret Erskine Wilson and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $12   Today's Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart September 27, 1969 Birth of Hope Jahren, American geochemist and geobiologist. In her work at the University of Oslo in Norway, she analyzes fossil forests dating to the Eocene. Her popular book Lab Girl (2016) is part memoir and part ode to nature. In Lab Girl, she wrote, There are botany textbooks that contain pages and pages of growth curves, but it is always the lazy-S-shaped ones that confuse my students the most. Why would a plant decrease in mass just when it is nearing its plateau of maximum productivity? I remind them that this shrinking has proved to be a signal of reproduction. As the green plants reach maturity, some of their nutrients are pulled back and repurposed toward flowers and seeds. Production of the new generation comes at a significant cost to the parent, and you can see it in a cornfield, even from a great distance.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: “For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.”

Today's guest is fantasy and science fiction author Catherynne Valente. Catherynne Valente is the writer of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (and the four books that followed it), Palimpsest, the Orphan's Tales series and so many books you've probably read or heard about. She's a New York Times bestselling author, winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Sturgeon, Eugie Foster Memorial, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus, Hugo awards, and more. Usually, in Geekdom Empowers we follow the paths of the geeks around the world who are not highlighted. And yet, Cat's path is exactly the path we talk about. She talks about how, with the power of social media, before it was called social media, she got from knowing no one to what she is today. Social media helped her every stage of the way, including today where her Patreon gives her financial independence from the publishers. It is the story of a rise to success of an author who came from nothing, knowing no one. It is the story of an author who made her own niche, who kept her style and authenticity, and who has withstood, as we'll see, quite a bit of terrible pushback from science fiction and fantasy fans. I think you'll enjoy this interview. It's fascinating. You can find Catherynne Valente here: Website: http://catherynnemvalente.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/catvalente Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catvalente Geekdom Empowers comes out every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can find us here: Website: www.geekdomeempowers.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/geekdomempowers/ Twitter: twitter.com/GeekdomEmpowers Facebook: www.facebook.com/geekdomempowers TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@geekdomempowers

This episode we’re talking about New Weird Fiction! Strap in, because we spend a lot of time discussing what this genre even is (or if it exists at all!). We talk about whether a genre needs more than two authors to be a genre, how to describe books in which the plot is not the point, “capital W” Weird vs “lowercase w” weird, and more! You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Things We Read The Etched City by KJ Bishop The Vorrh by Brian Catling Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval The Blood of Angels by Johanna Sinisalo The Broken Hours by Jacqueline Baker Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe by Thomas Ligotti Other Media We Mentioned The Yawhg - Friday Night Spooktacular Visual Novel Stream (Watch Matthew, Meghan, RJ, and Amanda play!) The Yawhg A Century of Weird Fiction, 1832–1937: Disgust, Metaphysics, and the Aesthetics of Cosmic Horror by Jonathan Newell Perdido Street Station by China Miéville Neuromancer by William Gibson Reply All podcast Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer  Uzumaki by Junji Ito Are You Afraid of the Dark? (Wikipedia) Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley She Walks in Shadows edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles  Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy by Transgender Authors edited by Casey Plett and Cat Fitzpatrick Download a PDF free (and legal!) British Library’s Tales of the Weird King City by Brandon Graham Prophet, Volume 1: Remission by a bunch of people Borne by Jeff VanderMeer The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle The Horror at Red Hook (Wikipedia) The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente Episode 058 - The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoët The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir Links, Articles, and Things H. P. Lovecraft (Wikipedia) LockedOutOfElfland’s definition of New Weird fiction Introduction: Old and New Weird Finnish Weird The Midnight Society (Twitter account) Tweet about Lovecraft Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals by BitterKarella Episode 019 - Weird Fiction (Book Club for Masochists) Episode 069 - Bizarro Fiction (Book Club for Masochists) China Miéville: Marxism and Halloween Men Writing Women (Reddit) 12 New Weird Books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here. Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline Temper by Nicky Drayden Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson Tentacle by Rita Indiana The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin The Night Cyclist by Stephan Graham Jones A Song for Quiet by Cassandra Khaw The Changeling by Victor LaValle Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado The Age of Blight by Kristine Ong Muslim Give us feedback! Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!   Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, December 15th for our Best of 2020 episode!   Then on Tuesday, January 5th we’ll be discussing the non-fiction genre of Sociology!  

Ep. #490- Contrary to the recent opinion of S.E. Hinton, graphic novels rule and they are an incredible way to enjoy a story. Whether it's a re-imagining of an existing book or something created entirely out of artwork, all graphic novels and comics offer something unique and stunning. In this chat, Adam is joined by Kristin and Marie from the OverDrive Team of Librarians. They get into a bunch of nonfiction comics and graphic novels, touch on web comics they love, and get on a soapbox about how all reading formats are equally awesome. This episode is sponsored by Jenny Life. Visit https://www.jennylife.com/pbn to get your free life insurance quote today. Books mentioned in today's episode Something New by Lucy Knisley Harrow County by Cullen Bunn Kent State by Derf Backderf My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf Thornhill By Pam Smy Check, Please! By Ngozi Ukazu The Daughters of Ys By M. T. Anderson The Low Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado The Family Romanov by Candace Fleming White Bird by RJ Palacio Crowded By Christopher Sebela They Called Us Enemy by George Takei Oak Flat By Lauren Redniss The Best We Could Do By Thi Bui Step Aside Pops by Kate Beaton The Wanderer By Peter Van den Ende Adulthood is a Myth by Sarah Andersen What the Night Sings By Vesper Stamper Big Mushy Happy Lump Nimona by Noelle Stevenson Eat, and Love Yourself By Sweeney Boo Taproot By Keezy Young The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

As if reading wasn't chaotic enough, this week we talk about reading challenges. What are they, which ones do we participate in, and what books are we planning to read for them? Books Mentioned: The Curse of the Mistwraith by Janny Wurts The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan Morning Star by Pierce Brown Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan Autonomous by Annalee Newitz The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller Circe by Madeline Miller Uprooted by Naomi Novik Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik Cinder by Marissa Meyer Rosewater by Tade Thompson Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner The Mere Wife by Maria Dhavana Headley Gay Future City of Lies by Sam Hawke Threadbare by Andrew Seiple Dungeon Born by Dakota Krout Forever Fantasy Online by Rachel Aaron & Travis Bach The Girl Who Navigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente Middlegame by Seanan McGuire Other Mentions: /r/Fantasy Book Bingo Asian Lit Bingo Thoughts on Tomes Read with Cindy Music: Intro: "The Legend of Iya" courtesy of https://philter.no Outro: "A Quest Unfolds" courtesy of https://philter.no Detailed show notes and full transcripts can be found at https://thefantasyinn.com

Today we talked genre snobbery: What is it and which subgenres are most often affected? Can literary fiction and fantasy fans ever agree on anything? Do romance and young adult books get an unfair reputation? We attempt to lay out our thoughts. Hosts: Hiu, Kop, Jenia, Tam Books Mentioned: Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip Middle Game by Seanan Mcguire We Lie with Death by Devin Madson Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James Carrie by Stephen King A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson Guns of the Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Cat Valente Twilight by Stephenie Meyer The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden Other Mentions: Krista D. Ball's “Is ‘Good' Good Enough? – Marketing's Effect on What We Read & How to Change It” Perpetual Pages booktube video debunking “I Only Read Good Books” Music: Intro: "The Legend of Iya" courtesy of https://philter.no Outro: "A Quest Unfolds" courtesy of https://philter.no Transcripts: Detailed show notes and full transcripts can be found at https://thefantasyinn.com

This episode we talk about Books That Changed Our Lives and Books That Haunt Us. We talk about comics, cooking, problematic faves, what caused us to study what we did in school, and more! 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 | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Questions we discuss Is there such a thing as a "life-changing book"? What do we mean when we use that phrase? What distinguishes a "life-changing" book from a "favorite book"? Do you have any "life-changing" books? Are there any books that haunt you? Media We Mention Unf*ck Your Habitat: You're Better Than Your Mess by Rachel Hoffman Sandman, vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, and Malcolm Jones III “Dramatically Different ‘absolute Sandman’ Recoloring Is Absolutely Necessary” Hark Podcast The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente Episode 058 - The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis Witch Baby by Francesca Lia Block Which Baby for the Billionaire? by Tiana Cole (I couldn’t find a book/sitcom/game show just called “Which Baby?!”) Which Witch Is Witch Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano Number 6 Fumbles by Rachel Solar-Tuttle Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible by Madhur Jaffrey Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Episode 006 - Books in Translation Dark Souls Deerskin by Robin McKinley The Girl Without Hands Cul de Sac: This Exit by Richard Thompson How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein Bitch (magazine) The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators by Char Booth Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce Uzumaki by Junji Ito Links, Articles, and Things Rural book borrowing in peril as libraries slam PC budget cuts Suggest a genre or book! Fill out the form to suggest a genre or book! Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, June 4th when we’ll be talking about the genre of Supernatural Thrillers! Then on Tuesday, June 18th we’ll each be pitching a book we think all of us should read and discuss on the podcast!

Gen and Jette talk about The Refrigerator monologues - Catherynne M. Valente's take on the trope of women being "fridged" to further the story of the men in their lives. Show Notes: Supernatural is guilty of "fridging" So is Peaky Blinders And... Daredevil, The OC, and The Amazing Spiderman Also - why hasn't Jette watched emo-Spiderman? The author that coined the phrase is Gail Simone, not Simon. our bad! Annie Wu is the awesome illustrator for the book Books - all by Catherynne M. Valente Deathless Space Opera The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Jeff and Rebecca respond to listener recommendation requests. This episode is sponsored by: Book Riot's TBR Park Row Books and Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners by Gretchen Anthony Care/of Bombas Books recommended in this episode: Yes We Still Can by Dan Pfeiffer How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik A Nation Forged by Crisis by Jay Sexton Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott A Separation by Katie Kitamura Bad Blood by John Carreyrou The Magicians by Lev Grossman James S.A. Corey’s Expanse series A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle Good and Mad and Eloquent Rage by Rebecca Traister American Overdose by Chris McGreal Not That Bad edited by Roxane Gay Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates Dog Songs by Mary Oliver Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley Flush by Virginia Woolf Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown Hammerhead by Nina Maclaughlin So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson Stamped from the Beginning by Ibrahim X. Kendi Lumberjanes The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Cat Valente Atlas Obscura's Guide for the World's Most Adventurous Kid

Sarah talks about 3 books that fall into the fantasy genre (or at least have some element of the fantastic within their story): The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente, and The Whole Town's Talking by Fannie Flagg.As always, if you enjoyed the show, follow us and subscribe to the show: you can find us on iTunes or on any app that carries podcasts as well as on YouTube. Please remember to subscribe and give us a nice review. That way you’ll always be among the first to get the latest GSMC Book Review Podcasts.We would like to thank our Sponsor: GSMC Podcast NetworkAdvertise with UsWebsiteITunes FeedGSMC YouTube ChannelTwitterFacebookInstagramBlogDisclaimer: The views expressed on the GSMC Book Review Podcast are for entertainment purposes only. Reproduction, copying, or redistribution of The GSMC Book Review Podcast without the express written consent of Golden State Media Concepts LLC is prohibited.

This month we all read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente as though we were a real book club! We talk about fairy tales, libraries, and book clubs that have met since the beginning of time. Plus: Spoilers, spoilers, everywhere! 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 | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Books We Read This Month The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente That’s it! Other Media We Mention The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead The Vanishing Year by Kate Moretti Six Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente Discussed in Episode 014 - Historical Fantasy Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis Dealing with dragons by Patricia C. Wrede Discussed in Episode 053 - Comedic Science Fiction & Fantasy Golden Compass by Philip Pullman The Princess Bride by William Goldman Earthworm Jim (TV Series) Into the Woods (Musical) Animal Man #26 by Grant Morrison and Chaz Truog Suicide Squad #58 by John Ostrander, Kim Yale, and Geof Isherwood The Bicycle (about a mountain goat) by Jerzy Harasymowicz I Hate Fairyland by Skottie Young Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente Greenglass House by Kate Milford The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin The Canning Season by Polly Horvath Links, Articles, and Things Snake People Inanna/Ishtar Wyvern HARK! – The Holiday Music Podcast Other book clubs that discussed this book Things Mean a Lot Escape Club The Big Idea: Catherynne M. Valente describes this book Questions What's a book that you like us to read in a future episode? Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts, follow us on Twitter, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, August 21st, when we’ll be talking about Non-fiction Food and Cooking! Then come back on Tuesday, September 4th, when we’ll discuss our travel reading habits.

This month our genre is Nordic/Scandinavian Noir! There’s coldness and darkness in fiction, blood on snow, screaming children, and we ask (and answer) whether Iceland has pizza. Plus: Brendan Fraser in Caveman, P.I.! 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 | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi | RJ Edwards Books We Read This Month Woman with Birthmark by Håkan Nesser My First Murder by Leena Lehtolainen Copper Heart by Leena Lehtolainen The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen The Keeper of Lost Causes (Film) Moscow Noir Akashic’s City Noir Series The Caveman by Jorn Lier Horst (plus all the rest of the William Wisting series that is currently translated in English) Suggested that you read the series in order. The first one with an English translation is Dregs Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir Yrsa Sigurdardottir takes viewers on a tour of Iceland Reykjavík Nights: Murder in Reykjavík by Arnaldur Indriðason The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund Interlude Special guest, Steve Thomas from the Circulating Ideas podcast! Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbø Joseph Brodsky: “The reason English-speaking readers can barely tell the difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is that they aren’t reading the prose of either one. They’re reading Constance Garnett.” Translation Wars - New Yorker article about translations of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky Episode 006 - Books in Translation Other Media We Mention The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist Let the Right One In (film) The Killing (Danish TV series) The Killing (U.S. TV series) The Snowman by Jo Nesbø Episode 043 - Page to Screen (Books turned into movies and TV shows) The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir Frozen Tracks by Åke Edwardson Oldboy (film) Matthew’s spooky hallway Dublin Murder Squad Series by Tana French Links, Articles, and Things Where is Scandinavia? By CGP Grey Episode 004 - Psychological Thrillers Ungdomshuset ("the Youth House") Freetown Christiania Iceland: Where one in 10 people will publish a book Literary Iceland Revels In Its Annual 'Christmas Book Flood' The statue of the monk hitting the seal Sæmundr fróði Icelandic names Hygge BAMF Girls Club: A live action video crossover series with Lisbeth Salander and Hermione (and more) Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts, follow us on Twitter, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, August 7th, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente. Then come back on Tuesday, August 21st, when we’ll be talking about Non-fiction Food and Cooking!

Amanda and Jenn discuss New England novels, book club options, immigration narratives, and more in this week's episode of Get Booked. This episode is sponsored by Bluestone and Vine by Donna Kauffman and The Beginning of Everything by Andrea J. Buchanan.   Questions   1. Hello, friends! My fourteen year old niece is going to be a senator one day and this July her other aunt and I are taking her on a road trip to eight New England universities including most of the Ivy Leagues. I am a folklorist and Other Aunt is an architectural historian, so together we are definitely into the old, the spooky, the magical, and the historical. We want to show her the coolest, weirdest, most inspired time ever. So far we have gotten The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell and would like to find more books that are in that vein -- entertaining and engaging and relevant to what we are road tripping through. Books about or by women and/or people of color are a gigantic plus. Some of the cities we'll be visiting include Boston, Salem, Plymouth, Providence, Portland, and Hanover. Thank you sooooo much! Looking forward to your recommendations! --Erin   2. I am traveling to the US for the first time (Brazilian girl, here) and I will be going to Atlanta for a work event. I don't know much about the city and would like some reading recommendations to get to know a little bit about it. If you can recommend some contemporary fiction - I looove walking through a city and finding places from books - that would be great. Since I have a History degree, I am totally down for history books as well. I am not the biggest fan of historical romances but I am glad to read them if they can help understand the place a little more. Thank you in advance. I really love the show and love getting my to-read list as immense as possible. Congratulations on doing a lovely podcast :) All the best, --Marília   3. Hello lovely ladies! It would be great if we could get some recommendations before June, but we understand you get a lot of requests so no worries if it's late. My book club reads two books with the same basic premise and compares how each author played with the concept. Past books include We All Looked Up & The Age of Miracles (coming of age in the apocalypse) and Annihilation & The Vorrh (mysterious forest changes you if you enter). We are currently reading a trio of portal fantasy with Every Heart a Doorway, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and Coraline. We are looking for suggestions for our next pair of books. You can get as creative as you want; we're open to anything. Bonus points for books with queer characters and nothing too depressing, please. Thanks and happy reading!! Dual Wielding Book Club --Lana   4. Hello! I am a fairly new listener to your show and love it, keep up the great work. So, I have had a hell of a year. My husband was diagnosed with cancer in January and passed away in April. My mother was diagnosed with Dementia in February. To say my life has been turned upside down is an understatement. I have always been an avid reader. I can read anything and usually do close to 100 a year. But, since all of this I only seem to be able to read books about death and dementia. I don't care if it is fiction or not, in fact I would like to bring some fiction into it as I have been leaning on Non-fiction so far. But they give me comfort. Since my husband passed I have started and put down about 30 books. The only 3 I have been able to read, and loved were: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande The Best of Us by Joyce Maynard The 36 Hour Day by Nancy L Mace I want more. As I said, fiction is fine too. Just being able to relate to the story is comforting right now. I love to read and have been so frustrated. I thought I could read some brain candy to help me escape, but I haven't been able to. So, acknowledging that I need to read this very specific niche, I thought I would pass it to you ladies for ideas. Thank you! --Andrea   5. Hi Amanda and Jenn, I have listened to you from day 1 and enjoy your podcast a lot. I wrote once before but it was roughly 120 podcasts ago so I think I might be cleared to ask again. Our immigration policy is clearly a long standing human rights violation and I hate it but I also feel really uninformed on what might be better so I'm looking for books. There are countries many of these asylum seekers are from (Honduras and El Salvador are referenced a lot) and I vaguely know the US has interfered in Central/Latin American countries over the years. My working assumption is we have contributed to the socio-economic issues but I'd like to be more informed on the history and what might be done to better stabilize the region. Additionally I'd like to read about how we as a country could have a more open and humane immigration system that didn't cage families and add to their trauma. I've tried some googling but it isn't working and while I'd love to go around tweeting at smart people asking them to help me that might be rude. Thanks! --Katie   6. I'm looking for a book club pick! To start, book club rules say that it should be by a woman with a female POV/focus. I recently turned 25 and am having a traditional Millennial mid-twenties crisis. I would love to read and discuss a book that talks about that kind of moment in a way that touches on my current struggles (recently quit a job, confused about life direction, romance on the back burner but is that really where I want it to be, am I a real adult yet.......?!?!) but that can also be enjoyed by the women in my book club who are rather past that moment (think age 30 and married with children). Please nothing that is overly goofy or dismissive or disingenuous or preachy. I would prefer something that is not based around only romantic relationship(s) or lack thereof but also isn't just about "single girl making it in the big city." I would like something that might end optimistically but doesn't tie everything up in a perfect neat bow, because life. I'm thinking of something kind of in the vein of The Bell Jar but without the complete mental breakdown. I feel like these parameters lean towards a novel or memoir, but a short story or essay collection would be totally welcome too. We've recently had a lot of success with short story collections in the book club. Am I being way too picky? Sorry! It's only because I don't know exactly what I am looking for and am currently in a major reading slump! Feel free to take some of these requests more lightly and just use your expert judgement. Thank you, thank you! --C   7. Hi! Firstly, I just wanted to say that I recently started listening to the show and I love it! I’m currently trying to make my way through the entire backlog, but I’ve only managed to listen to around 14 episodes so far but I’m determined to listen to them all. Anyway, I’m a big mood reader and now that summer’s here all I want to read is YA contemporary romance set during the season. I recently read Stay Sweet by Siobhan Vivian and loved it, especially due to the feminist themes in the book. Kasie West, Morgan Matson, Jennifer E. Smith, and Maureen Goo are all hit or miss with me and the only contemporary author I’ve consistently enjoyed is Sarah Dessen. Do you have any recommendations for YA contemporary romances with feminist themes? I prefer YA but I’m also willing to try adult if you know of any really good ones. Thank you! --Layla

This episode we discuss the American Library Association Annual Conference and the many galleys we got there! We talk about wrestling, ballet, leeches, cancer, demons, opium, boobs (twice!), Soviet magic, and much more. Plus: A super secret podcast guest! 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 | Steve Thomas from the Circulation Ideas podcast Advanced Reader Copies from ALA (Dates of publication are what we have available as of the recording of this episode and may change.) Giant Days by Non Pratt (Aug. 21, 2018) The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker (Jan. 15 2019) Anna really wishes she got this one :( No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs by Lezlie Lowe (Sep. 1, 2018) Batman: White Knight by Sean Murphy and Matt Hollingsworth (Oct., 2018) DC Black Label Drawn to Berlin: Comic Workshops in Refugee Shelters and Other Stories from a New Europe by Ali Fitzgerald (Oct. 16, 2018) Minding the Store: A Big Story about a Small Business by Julie Gaines and Ben Lenovitz (Oct. 30, 2018) The War in the Dark by Nick Setchfield (Jul. 17, 2018) Breach by W. L. Goodwater (Nov. 6, 2018) Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Tim Mohr (Sep. 11, 2018) The Governesses by Anne Serre, translated by Mark Hutchinson (English edition Sep. 25, 2018, in French 1992) The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, translated by Philip Gabriel (English edition Oct. 23, 2018, in Japanese 2012) Sheets by Brenna Thummler (Aug. 28, 2018) Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir and Steenz (already published) Interlude Special guest, Steve Thomas from the Circulating Ideas podcast! The Matthew Noe that Steve mentions in relation to a program on graphic medicine was actually interviewed on the Circulating Ideas podcast in May. Check it out! Here’s a video of the full conversation between Michelle Obama and Carla Hayden (Librarian of Congress) Becoming by Michelle Obama (Nov. 13, 2018) I Lost My Tooth! By Mo Willems (Oct. 2, 2018) Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward (Mar. 19, 2019) End Interlude Temper by Nicky Drayden (Aug. 7, 2018) The Good Demon by Jimmy Cajoleas (Sep. 18, 2018) Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne (Jul. 24, 2018) Hocus & Pocus: The Comic Book You Can Play! By Manuro and Gorobei (Sep. 4, 2018) Banana Sunday by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover (Oct. 23, 2018) King of Strong Style: 1980-2014 by Shinsuke Nakamura, translated by Jocelyne Allen (Aug, 2018) Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy (Aug. 7, 2018) No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America by Darnell L. Moore (already published) The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang (Oct. 9, 2018) How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler by Ryan North (Sep. 18, 2018) Do No Harm: Dangerous historical medical treatments from the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum Permanent Collection by Kate Lacour Obtained from the super awesome little New Orleans Pharmacy Museum About Betty’s Boob by by Vero Cazot and  Julie Rocheleau (already published) Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels (Sep. 18, 2018) Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux (Aug. 21, 2018) Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee (Oct. 23, 2018) Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates by Eric Jay Dolin (Sep. 18, 2018) How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone by Brian McCullough (Oct. 23, 2018) Matthew’s Posters A Clog in the Pipe: Data Collection and Transformation Issues in a Library Infrastructure Pilot Space for Listening: Using a library unConference as an alternative method of communication Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts, follow us on Twitter, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, July 17th when we’ll be discussing Nordic/Scandinavian Noir! Then come back on Tuesday, August 7th when we’ll be discussing The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente! (We’re all reading the same thing for once! Join us!)

This episode we’re talking about how we ended up working in libraries, literary inspirations for our careers, and what you should think about before you decide you want a to work in a library. Plus: The Library Fairy! Excel exams! Catalogue cards! 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 | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Books, Links, Articles, and Things The article from Matthew’s undergrad newspaper for which someone slept in the library (newly digitized!) The novelization of Batman and Robin that’s still in the the library Library Catalogue (and info about catalogue cards) The Music Man (the musical) Marian The Librarian CEGEP - “a publicly funded pre‑university college in the province of Quebec” The Providence Athenæum Subscription Library Anchor Archive Zine Library Discworld The Librarian This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson Second Life The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente We Are All Wyveraries: A Love Letter To Libraries Rupert Giles (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Lisa Simpson’s bookshelf: from the curator of Instagram’s Simpsons Library The Sword of Maiden's Tears by Rosemary Edghill (the Library student/elf novel Meghan mentioned) Readers’ Advisory for Library Staff Facebook Group Library Employee Support Network Facebook Group The On-Call Waltz Anna and Meghan’s zine about precarious library work Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts, follow us on Twitter, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, June 19th when we’ll be talking about Military Non-Fiction! Then come back on Tuesday, July 3rd when we’ll talk about other things we’re reading!

Our genre this episode is Comedic Science Fiction & Fantasy. We talk about anachronisms, comedy in sci fi/fantasy and sci fi/fantasy in comedy, "laugh out loud" funny vs. "clever" funny, and more!  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 | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Books We Read This Month Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North Choose Your Own Adventure (Wikipedia article) Nintendo Adventure Books Rutabaga the Adventure Chef by Eric Colossal Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede The cover with the ice cream Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja Scary Go Round by John Allison The webcomic The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex His tweet that was mentioned Debbie Reese's commentary posts Hark, Episode 165: Beats and Bimuelos - RJ’s podcast about holiday music where they discuss a song from Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh Terminal Alliance: Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse by Jim C. Hines Monster by A. Lee Martinez The Rook by Daniel O'Malley Other Media and Authors We Mention Terry Pratchett Discworld Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Jasper Fforde The Eyre Affair Christopher Moore Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five Piers Anthony “Themes of Pedophilia in the Works of Piers Anthony” on LitReactor Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente Lois McMaster Bujold Bad Machinery by John Allison Giant Days by John Allison, Max Sarin, and Lissa Treiman The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Ryan North and Erica Henderson The Cold Cereal Saga by Adam Rex Soulless by Gail Carriger Links, Articles, and Things Cyberpunk derivatives “Clockpunk portrays Renaissance-era science and technology based on pre-modern designs” Zip-A-Tone/Screen Tone Episode 6,  Books in Translation - For more on reading War and Peace The Magical Bureaucracies with the Most Paperwork Questions How much comedy do you like in your science fiction or fantasy? Announcements Anna and Matthew will be at ALA in New Orleans. Come say “Hi!” Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts, follow us on Twitter, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, June 5th when we’ll be talking about how (and why) we started working in libraries! Then come back on Tuesday, June 19th when we’ll be talking about Military Non-Fiction!

Amanda and Jenn discuss Southern fiction, Spanglish, portal fantasy, and more in this week's episode of Get Booked. This episode is sponsored by The Big Lie by Julie Mayhew and Book Riot Insiders. Bookstore Giveaway: bookriot.com/bookstoregiveaway   Questions 1. I love love love novels written in Spanglish, both because I'm working on my Spanish, but also because I, too, live in a different community in which most people with whom I interact are bilingual and books like Junot Diaz's are exactly how we talk, albeit in a different language. My favorite genre is literary fiction, but I would take recommendations for good mysteries, YA, essay/poetry collections, or, if they're very well-written, fantasy or sci-fi. Bonus points for evoking a strong sense of place that immediately makes me want to book a trip wherever the book is set. Note: I'm not good with animal death, so either steer clear of that or at least include a trigger warning. Thanks! --Sarah   2. Hello Book Riot! I work at a college, and like a lot of colleges, each year our school assigns a summer reading book for the first-year students. I am just curious what books you two would recommend. What book, fiction or nonfiction, would you want every new college student to read? Thanks! Love the podcast. --Mel   3. Hello Amanda and Jenn! I love your show and all of your recommendations. I have one that I don't think you've covered yet. Growing up, I've always loved Alice & all the other wonderful characters in Wonderland and now, more recently, Neil Gaiman's Coraline and her freaky little alternate reality. I feel similarly about Peter Pan and Neverland, though I didn't read those books (only watched the movies. Oops!) I think they all appeal to this childhood desire to find a secret room or portal (my most common nighttime dream) that is fun, exciting, colorful, magical, and adventurous. If I'm real, it also appeals to my desire to escape the stress and terror of the world. Do you have any recommendations for similar books? Thank you!! P.S. I have read Harry Potter, the Secret Garden, etc. and while I enjoyed these books, I'm looking for something a little different than these. I've thought about reading the Narnia series, but still don't think it's quite what I want. I think I'd prefer something with one main character, even if there is a strong supportive cast, and also something that is a quicker read. --Kristin   4. Hi Jenn and Amanda, I love the podcast and look forward to it every week. I feel like the last few books I've read have been stories to "get through." I enjoy them, but don't find myself savoring words for words alone. I also find that I haven't read much romance lately. Could you recommend something where the language is as decadent as chocolate and there might be some will they/won't they romantic speculation? Favorite books include The Sugar Queen, Jane Eyre, The Blue Sword, and A Tale for the Time-Being. Thank you! --Devin   5. I recently read and loved both Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton and Startup by Doree Shafrir, and this latest Uber scandal has got me interested in more behind-the-scenes tech company/startup books. I read Dave Eggers' The Circle when it first came out and thought it was just kind of okay (though it feels sacrilegious to me to criticize Dave Eggers) - I need some strong characters to really hook me into a story, though it doesn't matter if they're likable or not. I'm much less interested in the technology-is-world-changing angle than I am in the company culture angle. Fiction or nonfiction doesn't matter to me - I'm just looking for a juicy story. Thanks in advance! --Amy   6. I recently plowed my way through War and Peace and I loved it! However, I've realized that I know nothing about the Napoleonic Wars or Russian history. I prefer historical fiction but I wouldn't say no to some readable nonfiction either. Thanks! --Rachael   7.  I absolutely love Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I recently read Whistling Past the Graveyard which had a similar storyline. Can you recommend any other books similar with a child/preteen narrator, set in the south with difficult family life? Thanks in advance. Love the show! --Eboni   Books Discussed Jade City by Fonda Lee Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (Malinda Lo on Recommended) The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee Infomocracy by Malka Older Reset by Ellen Pao The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (Queen of the Night and Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas) Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison (ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS EVER) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

In Part Two of this file the prolific, multiple award-winning, New York Times bestselling author, Catherynne M. Valente, took a break at her spooky writer’s island to chat with me about her superhero origin story, earning street cred with readers, and her truly unique process. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! Since her first novel — The Labyrinth, published in 2004 — the hybrid author has gone on to pen over 24 volumes of both fiction and poetry across multiple genres (including fantasy, sci-fi, young adult, and horror). In addition to being published and anthologized in dozens of print and online journals, Catherynne has won or been nominated for every major award in her field, including the Hugo Award (for both a novel and a podcast), and been a finalist for both the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She is perhaps best known for her crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making — a book launched by a dedicated online fan community that went on to become a NY Times bestseller. The series — which recently concluded with book five, The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home — has been lauded by fellow author Neil Gaiman, and Time magazine called it, “One of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century.” The prolific author continues to find innovative ways to connect with her audience, and she recently launched a Patreon project called “The Mad Fiction Laboratory,” where she offers professional and personalized advice on the business and craft of writing, as well as a sneak peek at her multiple works-in-progress. If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews. If you missed the first half you can find it right here. In Part Two of this file Catherynne Valente and I discuss: Her love of Spotify playlists for writing inspiration Why the first draft doesn’t have to be perfect Her organizational hack for Scrivener writers Why your personal creative outlet is important for your sanity Where the author keeps her three Oxford English Dictionaries and 24 tarot decks Why writers need to read everything Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes If you’re ready to see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress — the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins — just go to StudioPress.com How Bestselling Fantasy & Sci-Fi Author Catherynne M. Valente Writes: Part One CatherynneMValente.com Catherynne M. Valente on Amazon Cat’s Patreon project – “The Mad Fiction Laboratory” Cat Valente on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Bestselling Fantasy & Sci-Fi Author Catherynne M. Valente Writes: Part Two Voiceover: Rainmaker FM. Kelton Reid: Hey, hey. Welcome back to the Writer Files. I am still your host, Kelton Reid, here to take you on another tour of the habits, habitats and brains of renowned writers. In part two of this file, the prolific, multiple award winning New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente, took a break from her spooky writer’s island to chat with me about her superhero origin story, earning street cred with readers, and her truly unique process. Since her first novel, Labyrinth, published in 2004, the hybrid author has gone on to pen over 24 volumes of both fiction and poetry across multiple genres. In addition to being published and anthologized in dozens of print and online journals, Catherynne has won or been nominated for every major award in her field, including the Hugo Award for both a novel and a podcast, and been a finalist for both the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She’s perhaps best known for her crowd-funded phenomenon, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, a book launched by a dedicated online fan community that went on to become a New York Times Bestseller. The series, which recently concluded with the fifth book, has been lauded by fellow author Neil Gaiman, and Time magazine called it, “One of the most extraordinary works of fantasy for adults or children published so far this century.” The prolific author continues to find innovative ways to connect with her audience. She recently launched a Patreon project called The Mad Fiction Laboratory, where she offers professional and personalized advice on the business and craft of writing, as well as a sneak peek into her multiple works in progress. In part two of this file, Cat and I discuss her love of Spotify playlists for writing inspiration, why the first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, her organizational hacks for Scrivener writers, why your personal creative outlet is important for your sanity, where the author keeps her three Oxford dictionaries and 24 tarot card decks, and why writers need to read everything. And if you missed the first half of this show, you can find it in the archives on Apple Podcasts and on WriterFiles.FM, as well as in the show notes. The Writer Files is brought to you by the all the new StudioPress Sites, a turnkey solution that combines the ease of an all-in-one website builder with the flexible power of WordPress. It’s perfect for authors, bloggers, podcasters, and affiliate marketers, as well as those selling physical products, digital downloads, and membership programs. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress now. That’s Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress. And if you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews as soon as they’re published. Her Love of Spotify Playlists for Writing Inspiration Kelton Reid: Input often equals output for highly prolific writers like yourself. Yeah, so it sounds like coffee is one of the things that kinda gets you in the mode before you sit down. Do you stick on headphones, or do you just kinda prefer silence? Catherynne Valente: Funny thing, I’ve changed a lot over the years. Because I used to write a lot in cafes, and I had my headphones on, and I always had to have 100 percent of my music library available on my laptop, to the detriment of any other storage on my laptop. But, then I would be in the office, I’d have to have music on, I d have to have playlists. And boy, these days, I can’t stand having headphones on when I work, because it makes my head feel compressed, like wrapped up in cotton. And I will go from either total silence … I do make a Spotify playlist for every book that I work on. Kelton Reid: Oh, nice. Catherynne Valente: Yeah. And basically what I do is, I search for keywords having to do with the story and then just dump all the music into a file, and as I work, I’ll remove things if they’re terrible. So for the Bronte book, I put Charlotte and Emily into Spotify, and every song that had those names in it, I put in … and Jane for Jane Eyre, things like that, I put into a file. And for the Mass Effect book, I just pulled all my favorite video game soundtracks into a playlist. So I’ll either listen to that or nothing, these days. I have to have a lot more peace around me. I used to be able to write with people in a Starbucks milling about all the time, that time is done. Kelton Reid: For sure. Spotify has come a long way too, in recent years. Catherynne Valente: It really has. Why the First Draft Doesn t have to be Perfect Kelton Reid: They have some spooky algorithms that can kinda almost guess exactly what you want to hear next. Well okay, so here’s the million-dollar question: How do you feel about writer’s block? Do you believe in it, is it a thing, have you ever had it? Catherynne Valente: Yeah, sure. Not being able to think of something is always a real thing. I tend to try and work on something else if I can’t figure out what to do. Writer’s block for me is more, I can’t figure out what the right plot point to do next is. So while I’m thinking of what to do next, I will either work on another project or go running or something. As far as just not being able to write at all, I’m not gonna say that doesn’t still happen to me, because it does. But I no longer really have the luxury of indulging that for more than a day or two, because I have a number of people relying on me turning in a manuscript. So, “You’ll get in trouble if you don’t do this,” is a great motivator. I used to be really focused on having the first draft be completely perfect. And I think I had a lot less problems when I let that go and started thinking, “You can fix it in post,” the way you can fix something in post-production in a movie. That’s what I always tell myself, You can fix it in post. The first draft does not have to be a work that inspires feelings of awe in people. It can have problems, and those problems can be fixed. So that’s helpful. I mean, I still try to make the first draft as good as I can make it, but I don’t necessarily refuse to go onto the next page until everything before it is right, anymore. Kelton Reid: I love that. Fix it in post. So it sounds like you are a Mac user? Catherynne Valente: I am, yeah. I am. Down in my office I have this … I love the computer I have even though it’s old, because it has a great story. So it s a 2008 all-in-one Mac desktop. I got it, because I posted, “Does anybody have a Mac desktop that they want to sell? Can’t afford to get one of the big schmancy new ones, but if somebody has one reasonably priced, I’m interested.” And Smith College, the librarians at Smith College emailed me and said, “We will trade you, we’re getting rid of all our library computers and replacing them, we will trade you one for a complete set of your books signed,” and I was like, Absolutely sold. No problem. Kelton Reid: Wow. That is so cool. Catherynne Valente: So my computer is from the library at Smith College. I do love it, and I have an Air laptop. Honestly, I travel so much that the lightness of the Air is really crucial. When I used to have an older, heavier laptop, I constantly had shoulder problems from carrying it everywhere. But I am a Mac user. I don’t know how much longer, given the changes they’re making, but for the moment. My gaming computer is a PC. Kelton Reid: Well, are you primarily Microsoft Word, or are you more of the Scrivener school? Catherynne Valente: I am all Scrivener, all the time. I am a Scrivener evangelist. I could not function without it. They better not ever stop supporting that program, or I’ll be in trouble. No, I love Scrivener. That was actually why I switched to Mac in the first place. All of my friends were talking about Scrivener at the time, they didn’t have a PC version, so I switched over to Mac to use that program. It’s great. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Catherynne Valente: It’s just spectacular. Her Organizational Hack for Scrivener Writers Kelton Reid: Yeah. And for the self publishing piece, obviously that’s a huge advantage to Scrivener, obviously. That’s cool to hear. You’re working on multiple projects across multiple genres, you’re doing the productive procrastination thing, where you’re just moving from piece to piece. When you get stuck on one, you move to the other. So how do you stay organized? Do you have any tips? Catherynne Valente: Very poorly. I am not a particularly organized person, so I’m pretty bad with that from time to time. But I will say that one of the things I use Scrivener for, if I have anything that’s a hack, this is my hack. At the beginning of every year I start up a new Scrivener file, and all of the short stories, talks, poems, essays that I write for that year, I do in that one Scrivener file, and they’ll appear in the sidebar as chapters in folders, but the folders will say “short fiction,” essays, poetry. So I can see at a glance, everything I have to do this year and everything I have done with the year. Which helps me think of the year as a unit and helps me be able to tell anybody what I have due or what I have eligible for awards or anything like that. So that is one of the big things I use Scrivener for as an organizational tool. Kelton Reid: Very nice, very nice. Well, how does Catherynne M. Valente unwind at the end of a long writing day? Catherynne Valente: Usually I’ll come home and have a cocktail and watch something and knit or crochet. I’m a big fiber arts crafter. So it’s very meditative, knitting and crocheting. I used to spin as well, but between a novel deadline and spinning yarn for Christmas presents, I developed carpal tunnel really badly a couple years ago. I’m the first person to hurt themselves on a spinning wheel since Sleeping Beauty, it’s ridiculous. So unfortunately, because that was actually incredibly debilitating, I’ve been afraid to pick up spinning again. But it’s very meditative, doing these sort of crafts. My brain just keeps going and going, so it’s kinda bad for me to work late at night, though I still do sometimes, because I won’t be able to sleep for like four hours after I stop writing, because my brain just keeps on going. Kelton Reid: Well, I’d love to pick your brain about creativity a little bit if you have time. Catherynne Valente: Sure, yeah. Why Your Personal Creative Outlet is Important for Your Sanity Kelton Reid: How do you personally define creativity? Catherynne Valente: I think if you’re making things, whatever those things are, you’re being creative. But the thing is, even if you’re not making things, even if you’re just an avid reader, and just always imagining and thinking about the stories that you read, that’s creative too. I think we are creative beings. There are very few humans who aren’t creative in some way. It’s just that in our culture, we define creativity in restrictive ways, I do it professionally, so I’m a creative. But a housewife who is always making these perfect birthday cakes, or making crafts for her kid’s party, that doesn’t count as creative to most people even though it absolutely is. I think that most human beings actually would freak out if they didn’t have some creative outlet. For a lot of people, that’s even sports. The people who paint their faces and go to all these games, sports are a big part of their world, they turn that into a creative exercise. I think most people get very, very unhappy if they can’t make something out of their own head into something real in the real world. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. It seems like your writing is the definition of creativity. But when do you personally feel most creative? Catherynne Valente: Right before I start a new project, I think, because I haven’t messed it up yet. It’s just perfect in my head, I haven’t messed it up by writing it. Because a lot of research and thinking and imagining goes into it before I start typing, so I feel very creative when I’m in the midst of research and discovering things and naming characters and places and all of that I really love. I cook a lot as well, so that’s definitely another creative outlet for me. I’m an avid cook, have been for most of my life. Kelton Reid: So do you feel like cooking is a creative muse for you? Catherynne Valente: Yeah, definitely. And it’s very different than writing, because it’s nonverbal and very sensual in the literal sense of involving all your senses, and physical, bubbling and sense and everything. So it can really ground you, I think. The Nougat Center of Human Experience Kelton Reid: Yeah. That’s interesting. I’ve heard other writers say that as well. It helps balance the very cerebral writing piece. So what do you think, in your estimation, makes a writer great? Catherynne Valente: An easy question. No, it’s not at all an easy question. Everybody has different writers that they think are great, so there’s obviously a wide range of answers on that. God, I’m gonna say it’s Emily Dickinson and I don’t know if it even really is. But I remember coming across a quote a long time ago by somebody who said that they felt as though a certain book had taken the top of their head off. And that’s what I’m always looking for. I’m always looking for a book that completely arrests me and makes me feel like my head’s been spun around and taken off. I’m always questing for that, I’m always digging through books. I have this little button from a book festival that says, “Go ahead, book, change me. Do it.” I’m like, That’s what I’m always looking for, that’s what I always want. And there are books that I feel that way about, and I may not even like anything else that that author has written. But then other people may like other books of theirs more than they do the one I love so much. Everybody is so different in terms of what they define greatness as. I myself, what am I looking for? I’m looking for nice language, and I don’t necessarily just mean nice as in pretty, but I will happily take good dialogue if that’s what’s there. I’m looking for a book that has something to say. I’m just looking for the juice, I’m looking for the nougat center of human experience dressed up with all of the wonderful trappings of genre. Kelton Reid: Yeah. I like that. Everything in there is grist for the mill. Do you have a couple faves right now that are just kinda sitting on your nightstand or that you’re just kinda obsessed with? A couple favorite authors? Catherynne Valente: Well, so last year I read Human Croquet, which is by Kate Atkinson, which sounds really messed up. Though it is a messed up book, less messed up than that title sounds. Human Croquet is apparently some type of Victorian party game, where people make themselves into hoops and somersault under each other and stuff like a kids’ party game. That book was so good, I read the entire thing on my phone. There’s a level of goodness in books, and read the whole thing on your phone is really high level. And I really loved it. I loved it to pieces. I read a lot of nonfiction books last year that I really enjoyed. Weir, Alison Weir and her book Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, I really liked a lot. And I’m rereading the Dirk Gently books right now. I mean, Douglas Adams is frustrating, because you can’t really top him. You’re not gonna do better at making a sentence or starting a book or really much of anything than Douglas Adams. It s the same with Terry Pratchett. You can’t do better than that, you can just sit back and admire. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Well, you did share already one best loved quote. Do you have any others, or one that sticks out that’s hanging over your desk or stuck in your head? Catherynne Valente: God, I don’t know what happened to it, I think I lost it when I moved, I used to have Jack Kerouac’s 29 Rules for Writing over my desk. Not anymore. But I’ve been reading some Dorothy Sayers lately. And she’s just incredible as far as quotes. If you want quotes about really pretty much anything, she is just extraordinary. She wrote around the same time as Agatha Christie, and the murder mysteries as well. She’s got one that I sent to all my friends, it’s something like, “Nothing makes one feel so cozy as reading about a ghastly murder on a rainy day.” And I think that that’s so true when it comes to the horror genre, which is one of my favorite genres. There is such a peculiar pleasure to reading about terrible things happening when nothing terrible is happening to you. It’s some kind of circle of schadenfreude. It’s not what I think humankind should be most proud of as a species, but it’s definitely an instinct we don’t address that much. I love quotations, I always have. I have several dictionaries with quotations in the house. My dad actually sent me a link the other day, apparently I have a page on BrainyQuote, and I felt complete. Because I used to be one of those kids that would walk around straight reading from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations like it was a novel. Where the Author Keeps Her Three Oxford English Dictionaries and 24 Tarot Decks Kelton Reid: Okay, before we wrap with advice to your fellow scribes, couple fun ones for you. I know that you have obviously an Oxford English dictionary, probably in the house. Catherynne Valente: Three. Kelton Reid: So you’ve got these ancient tomes of probably folklore and mythology, etc. that you dig into for inspiration. But you also mentioned reading an ebook on your phone. It sounds like you’re a hybrid reader, do you like one or the other? Catherynne Valente: For sure. Definitely both, I have a ton of books in my house. Half the reason I bought this house was all the walls are built-in bookshelves, so I have more bookshelf than book for the first time in my life. But I also have a Kindle, I really enjoy reading things on the Kindle. I tend to do a lot of my research nonfiction reading on the Kindle right now, because I can search for stuff that I vaguely remember coming across but forgot to put a bookmark in it. That’s really helpful, so I tend to do all that on the Kindle if I can, unless there’s a book that’s no available. But yeah, I definitely go back and forth. And with something like Human Croquet, I immediately bought a paper copy, because I loved it so much. If I love a book that I read on e-book I’ll get a paper copy. But I gotta say, I was very much like, “I will read print and nothing else forever. I gotta pay into the print publishing industry and put my money where my mouth is.” But I have to say that it’s really nice to be able to carry around a library of thousands of books in a little compact package, because I do travel so much. So that’s really nice to have when you’re on the road so often. So yeah, I’m definitely both. Because I do feel like there’s a lot of times I could get into a book if I was reading it in the print copy but I skim if I’m reading it in the e-copy. So it really depends. Kelton Reid: Yeah, no, I understand that sentiment completely. Do you have a favorite literary character of all time? Catherynne Valente: I mean … Kelton Reid: There’s no way you can do it. Catherynne Valente: Yeah, there really isn’t. There’s so many. It’s impossible. I could go anything from Susan from the Discworld books to Dionysus to Scheherazade to Jane Eyre, there’s a lot of characters that I genuinely love and would listen to anything they had to say. It’s like saying, What’s your favorite movie? I have answers, but it’s a more complicated question than that. Kelton Reid: Sure. I even hate the “name your top 10 movies” question. Catherynne Valente: It has to be divided by genre. Kelton Reid: Right. Okay. If you could choose one author from any era for an all-expense paid dinner to your favorite place in the world, who would you take and where would you take them? Catherynne Valente: So given the book I have coming out in September, it has to be Charlotte Bronte. And I think that I would take her to, oh God, am I gonna get it right? It’s the Angel at Hetton, I think? It’s a restaurant in Yorkshire which was featured in a television show called The Trip, which is one of my very, very favorites. And it is a very high end, Michelin starred restaurant, in the sort of there’s nothing around it. The Angel Inn, the Angel at Hetton. Nothing around it but moors for miles, but some of the most amazing food I’ve ever had, it’s just wonderful. And since Charlotte grew up in Yorkshire and is in many ways the voice of Yorkshire, I think she would be delighted to see Kelton Reid: For sure. All right, well, I’m sure we are running short of time, and I’ve asked you so many questions. But I have a feeling listeners are gonna want me to ask you do you have a writer’s fetish? Like, do you collect rare, weird first editions, or do you have, like I can’t imagine what you have hanging on the walls. Catherynne Valente: I have a lot of crazy stuff hanging on my wall. Actually, I would say that 85 percent of the stuff I have on the wall is created by fans of mine. Kelton Reid: Cool. Catherynne Valente: Which is very much on purpose. I never thought I did, because I always wanted to have these elaborate rituals to start writing and all of these objects and all that kind of stuff, and I always felt like it’s less work to just write the book. I even have a reputation for elegant, romantic writing, but I’m actually a very practical person in a lot of ways. But, it was pointed out to me when my partner moved in with me that, in fact, I have 28 tarot decks in this house. Kelton Reid: Wow. Catherynne Valente: And I’m reasonably sure there’s more he hasn’t found yet. So I think possibly I collect those without noticing that I was collecting them. Kelton Reid: Wow, that’s cool. That’s very interesting. That’s an interesting piece. You have a very, very interesting take on different characters that you would meet over a deck of tarot cards. Catherynne Valente: Yeah, absolutely. Kelton Reid: Well, before we wrap up with advice to your fellow writers, I just want to point back to your website CatherynneMValente.com, which I will link to in the show notes. The Patreon Mad Fiction laboratory, which looks like a lot of fun, and I will point back to that as well. You are on Twitter. Catherynne Valente: @catvalenti. Kelton Reid: Yeah. There’s so much out there to find. Amazing writing, actually found the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy from 2016, you got this short story Planet Lion, which is the complete opposite of the Fairylands stuff. Catherynne Valente: Yeah. It could not be more different. Kelton Reid: So cool, so cool to see. Catherynne Valente: That story’s what got me the Mass Effect contract. Why Writers Need to Read Everything Kelton Reid: Amazing. So much out there to find. So can you offer some advice to your fellow writers on just how to keep going, how to keep the ink flowing and the cursor moving? Catherynne Valente: For me the answer has always been the same, from when I was a kid to now, which is to read everything. I get so inspired reading fiction and nonfiction. I will read a page from a nonfiction book and like ghostwriting my other hand will have written a page of notes. And it’s so intensely inspiring. And especially in these See, now I’ll be an old lady, In these days of social media … But we do, we read these very short outtakes of people’s thought processes and things like Twitter are functionally infinite quip generators. And it’s not quite the same fertile ground as fiction, whether you read that on an ebook reader, or in print, or whatever. And I think that nothing inspires so much as reading. There was one of my English classrooms when I was a kid, had a sign on the wall that said, “In order to write a novel, one must turn over half a library.” And I think that’s incredibly true. One of the things I’m gonna talk about in Patreon that I feel like people don’t very much. Because people always talk about your first novel, but nobody wants to talk about your second. The thing is, I think people always turn over a full library for their first novel, because everything they’ve ever wanted to write is in that first novel somewhere, they’ve crammed it all in. It’s like a first album, everything you’ve worked so hard on for years. But then you have to turn over another half a library for the next book. And you usually have to do it a lot faster than it took to turn over that library for the first book. Much like the second album slump. So you have to keep going through those libraries, you have to keep finding new and healthful foods to put into your brain. And for me, there’s nothing as inspiring as reading. Kelton Reid: Ah, I love it. So much wisdom there and throughout. Thanks for taking the time, Cat, we really appreciate you coming on here to do this. Catherynne Valente: Absolutely, thanks for having me. Kelton Reid: Cheers. Thanks so much for joining us for this half of a tour of the writer’s process. If you enjoy The Writer Files, please subscribe to the show, and leave us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts to help other writers find us. And for more episodes, or just to leave a comment or a question, you can always drop by WriterFiles.FM and chat with me on Twitter at @KeltonReid. Cheers, talk to you next week.

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

Welcome to the first episode of the Chasing Creative podcast! In this short intro episode we’re giving you the rundown on what Chasing Creative is all about. We’re sharing where we’re at in our own lives, including our constant struggle against creative burnout. We chat about not having enough energy for creative projects at the end of the day, the ways we (kind of) prioritize our creativity, why we have a love/hate relationship with Twitter, and what you can expect from the Chasing Creative podcast going forward. Here’s where to find Ashley: Website: www.BrooksEditorial.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/brookseditorial Instagram: http://instagram.com/brookseditorial Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/brookseditorial Here’s where to find Abbigail: Website: www.InkwellsandImages.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/abbigailekriebs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbigailekriebs/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inkwellsandimages/ Mini Book Club Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente Quotes from the Episode “You can spend your time creating things, or you can spend your time marketing things.” -- Abbigail “I had this realization that all the podcasts I listen to have all these famous people they interview. And they have really great insights to share, but they don’t have action steps that someone like me---a regular person with a toddler---can take right now.” --- Ashley “It’s a difficult balance between ‘We make money and we’re surviving’ and ‘But we also want to be creative.’” --- Ashley “Nobody in school told us how to get up every day and continue to be creative.” --- Abbigail “Our society tells us that creativity is a nonessential. It’s a hobby you squeeze in when you have time or at the end of the day or maybe when you’re retired. The message of Essentialism tells creatives that if creativity is something that’s important to you, you need to make it an essential thing in your life. Make it a priority.” --- Ashley “We’re following through on an idea. This is good for us!” --- Ashley

Epigraph WORD Bookstore in Jersey City, NJ. Find her on the internet @BookArista. Introduction In Which We Discuss Rainbow Sidewalks, Binge-Reading, Going Broke on July 14th, and Adult Chocolate Milk [1:43] The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato [2:25] Dryland by Sara Jaffe (pubs 1 Sept 2015) [2:38] Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (pubs 15 Sept 2015)   [3:13] Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff Emma’s Read-Brag: 5 books in 1 day Lumberjanes Vol 1 by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen, and Shannon Watters We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Golden Compass Graphic Novel by Philip Pullman, adapted by Staephane Melchior-Durand (pubs 22 Sept 2015) All Our Pretty Songs by Sarah McCarry The Chronology of Water: A Memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch July New Releases!! [5:10] The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch (pubs 7 July 2015) IRL Bonus! Hang out with Kim at Lidia’s reading at Elliott Bay Book Company on July 14th. NYC-folk can catch Lidia in conversation with Kate Zambreno on July 21st at McNally Jackson. [6:03] Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (pubs 14 July 2015) Also mentioned: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian by E. L. James [6:44] Armada by Ernest Cline (pubs 14 July 2015) Also mentioned: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline [7:05] The Golden Specific by S. E. Grove (pubs 14 July 2015) Also mentioned: The Glass Sentence by S. E. Grove [7:30] Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (pubs 14 July 2015)  Drink(s) of the Day The Jules Verne (hat tip to Natalie, bartender extraordinaire at Barcade Jersey City): Stumptown Cold Brew with Chocolate w/ Kraken Black Spiced Rum Like Vodka for Chocolate: Vodka (probably from a plastic jug) w/ Yoo-hoo   Chapter I In Which Katelyn Sucks at Restaurant-Work and Begins a Career in Bookselling Instead, Your Hosts Discuss Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, and Emma Decides Her Next Tattoo Let’s visit Katelyn’s first bookstore, Bogart’s Books and Cafe in Millville, NJ!   Seriously, though, can we talk about their advertising? The Humphrey Bogart dog. Ponderers of meaning. Shiny happy people. I just... I can’t even. It’s so good. Ahem. Moving on to WORD... Join Katelyn’s book group, Much Ado About Classics, at WORD Jersey City or check out one of WORD’s other book groups in Jersey City or Brooklyn.  [16:40] Bookseller confession: Katelyn kinda hated A Christmas Carol: And Other Christmas Books by Charles Dickens [20:12] Katelyn’s favorite book of all time: Mort(e) by Robert Repino   [21:25] Post-Apocalyptic Fiction: The Dog Stars by Peter Heller Also mentioned: Echo of the Boom by Maxwell Neely-Cohen, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel [23:25] Bats of the Republic: An Illuminated Novel by Zachary Thomas Dodson (pubs 6 Oct 2015) Also mentioned: Featherproof Books   [25:48] Katelyn’s Station Eleven Book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams [27:55] Katelyn’s Wild Book: Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach [28:35] Kim’s Station Eleven/Wild Book: Adrienne Rich’s Poetry and Prose [28:51] Kim’s Desert Island Book: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson [29:27] Emma’s Station Eleven: Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link [29:55] Emma’s Wild Book: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente [30:08] Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente (pubs 20 Oct 2015)  Chapter II In Which We Discuss  Lying to Customers Handselling Strategies, Grad Gifts, and Rad Italian Women Writers [31:05] Katelyn lied about reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. But she remedied the situation, so it’s all good. [32:16] If you liked Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, you’ll love The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Not that Kim has read either. She just knows these things because #bookseller. [32:39] How about a literary horror novel about a plague of insomnia? Read Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun. [33:18] Or maybe a tough cool broad book? Grab Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg. [34:11] College grad required reading: Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps by Kelly Williams Brown [34:58] Katelyn’s epic grad gift Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Mort(e) by Robert Repino   [36:45] Katelyn purchased My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante from our friends at The Community Bookstore on Independent Bookstore Day. [37:12] Need more Italian writers? The First True Lie by Marina Mander [38:01] Emma yells at Katelyn because SHE’S NEVER READ HARRY POTTER. WHAT’S THE HOLD UP, KATELYN? [39:41] Mark Z. Danielewski (author of House of Leaves) is writing a ridiculously long 27 volume series, beginning with The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May. We talked about this for a lot longer but - unlike some people - we decided to edit. Chapter III In Which Kim Wonders What People Think of Her, We Get Really Suspicious of Green Things, and Customers Worry About Disappointing Emma [40:55] Kim gets freaked out by being handsold Tampa by Alissa Nutting [41:57] Katelyn’s impossible handsell: The New World by Chris Adrian and Eli Horowitz. Cutting people’s heads off and a story of sad marriages... what’s not to love? [43:01] Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy was released individually as three paperback volumes - Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance - before being released as a gorgeous single-volume hardcover edition, Area X. [44:12] People buy Uprooted by Naomi Novik from Emma, even though it’s in hardcover, to avoid making her cry. Real footage of a passionate bookseller handselling a book:   Originally posted by t4lkn3rdyt0m3 Katelyn’s favorite literary media: Book Riot The Podcast, All the Books, Two Book Minimum Epilogue In Which Katelyn Can Be Found In All Ways on the Internets Twitter: @BookArista Tumblr: @BookArista Instagram: @TheBookArista (note the definitive article) Website: www.BookArista.com You can follow Kim on twitter @finaleofseem, but she doesn’t really post much there, so you might as well just follow Emma at @thebibliot and call it a day. Also, read all of Emma’s posts at Book Riot, because she’s a nerd and it’s wonderful.