Podcast appearances and mentions of mahvesh murad

Amanda and Jenn answer the second round of “Ask Us Anything” questions, in honor of hitting the 300 episode milestone! Follow the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Announcements 10th Anniversary limited edition BR merch! We're hiring! Links And Notes Intimacies by Katie Kitamura Don't Call it a Cult by Sarah Berman, Natural Mother of the Child by Krys Malcolm Belc McCann Dog Training's puppy series on YouTube Robert Cabral's YouTube especially if it's a protection breed (or even if you notice impulse control/excitement issues or the dog is big enough to be hard to handle) Puppies for Dummies by Sarah Hodgson Take a puppy class at the SPCA Xio Axelrod's Girl With Stars In Her Eyes Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories, edited by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl Smitten Kitchen pumpkin bread See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ya girls are back IN PERSON (for the recording) to bring you their May reads. This month's theme was historical fiction. Brindolyn went back to her comfort zone of horror reads with "Ring Shout" by P. Djeli Clark, and Karson ventured to a fictionalized 1920s Russia with "A Gentleman in Moscow" by Amor Towles. For June, our hosts will be soaking up some sun with beach reads. B will be diving into the sci-fi/fantasy anthology "The Djinn Falls in Love" compiled by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin, and Karson will be reading "Maine" by J. Courtney Sullivan. Read along and let us know what you think on Twitter at @ThatsLitPodcast, on Instagram at @ThatsLitPodcast and Facebook or email us at thatslitpodcast@gmail.com. You can find Brindolyn on Twitter at @Brindolyn and Instagram at @Brindolyn. And you can find Karson on Twitter at @kgaylet. And check out our new website at ThatsLitPodcast.com. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thatslitpodcast/support

Mahvesh Murad discusses the work of curating and editing anthologies of speculative short fiction, ethically, refusing the word 'diversity' for doing too little, too late.

At the beginning of the new year, Jonathan and Gary compare lists of books they're looking forward to in the new year, beginning with some novels appearing within the next few weeks (Charlie Jane Anders's The City in the Middle of the Night, Marlon James's Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Alastair Reynolds's Shadow Captain), and venturing further into the year with debut novels, sophomore novels sequels, fantasy, SF, collections, anthologies, and whatever else comes to mind, including some of our own forthcoming efforts.   We cover a lot of titles, but no doubt missed some and probably gave too little attention to others.  We'd be glad to hear about what we might have missed.          Here's a partial list of some of the books mentioned during the episode: ALASTAIR REYNOLDS • Shadow Captain • Orion/Gollancz, Jan 2019 (eb, hc) ALIETTE DE BODARD • The House of Sundering Flames • Orion/Gollancz, Jul 2019 (eb, tp) ALIX E. HARROW • The Ten Thousand Doors of January • AMAL EL-MOHTAR & MAX GLADSTONE • This Is How You Lose the Time War • Simon & Schuster/Saga Press, Jul 2019 (hc, eb) ANN LECKIE • The Raven Tower • Orbit US, Feb 2019 (hc, eb) ANNALEE NEWITZ • The Future of Another Timeline • Tor, Sep 2019 (hc, eb) ARKADY MARTINE • A Memory Called Empire • Tor, Mar 2019 (hc, eb) CHARLIE JANE ANDERS • The City in the Middle of the Night • Titan, Feb 2019 (tp) CHEN QUIFAN • Waste Tide • Tor, Apr 2019 (hc, eb) DAVE HUTCHINSON • Return of the Exploding Man • Rebellion/Solaris US, Sep 2019 (tp, eb) ELIZABETH BEAR • Ancestral Night • Orion/Gollancz, Mar 2019 (tp) FONDA LEE • Jade War • Orbit US, Jul 2019 (hc, eb) G. WILLOW WILSON • The Bird King • Grove Atlantic/Grove, Mar 2019 (hc, eb) GUY GAVRIEL KAY • A Brightness Long Ago • Penguin Random House/Berkley, May 2019 (hc, eb) JO WALTON • Lent • Tor, May 2019 (f, hc, eb) KAMERON HURLEY • Meet Me in the Future • Tachyon Publications, Jul 2019 (c, tp, eb) KAREN LORD • Unravelling • DAW, Jun 2019 (hc, eb) MAHVESH MURAD, ED. • The Outcast Hours (with Jared Shurin) • Rebellion/Solaris, Feb 2019 (tp) MARLON JAMES • Black Leopard, Red Wolf • Penguin Random House/Riverhead, Feb 2019 (hc, eb) N.K. JEMISIN • The City We Became • Little, Brown UK/Orbit, Sep 2019 (hc) NEAL STEPHENSON • Fall, Or Dodge in Hell • HarperCollins/Morrow, Jun 2019 (hc, eb) NINA ALLAN • The Silver Wind • Titan US, Sep 2019 (tp) RIVERS SOLOMON • The Deep • Simon & Schuster/Saga Press, Jun 2019 (hc, eb) SAM J. MILLER • Destroy All Monsters SARAH GAILEY • Magic for Liars • Tor, Jun 2019 (hc, eb) SARAH PINSKER • A Song for a New Day • Ace, Sep 2019 (tp, eb) SARAH PINSKER • Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea • Small Beer Press, Mar 2019 (c, tp, eb) SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA • Gods of Jade and Shadow • Del Rey, Aug 2019 (hc, eb) T. KINGFISHER • The Twisted Ones • Simon & Schuster/Saga Press, Sep 2019 (h, tp, hc, eb) TADE THOMPSON • The Rosewater Insurrection • Orbit US, Mar 2019 (tp, eb) TAMSYN MUIR • GIDEON THE NINTH • Tor, Oct 2019 (hc, eb) THEODORA GOSS • The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl • Simon & Schuster/Saga Press, Sep 2019 (hc, eb) VICTOR LAVALLE & JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS, EDS. • A People's Future of the United States • Penguin Random House/One World, Feb 2019 (oa, tp, eb) WILLIAM GIBSON • Agency • Penguin Random House/Berkley, Apr 2019 (hc, eb) YOON HA LEE • Dragon Pearl • Disney/Hyperion, Jan 2019 (ya, hc, eb) YOON HA LEE • Hexarchate Stories • Rebellion/Solaris, Jun 2019 (c, tp) ZEN CHO • The True Queen • Ace, Mar 2019 (tp, eb)   As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast and that you consider pre-ordering any of the books listed above, or any that you're looking forward to.

Amanda and Jenn discuss all the short stories in this week's special episode of Get Booked! This episode is sponsored by Random House. Subscribe to the podcast via RSS here, or via Apple Podcasts here. The show can also be found on Stitcher here.   Questions   1. I am a librarian who runs a book club for teens, one that reads primarily science fiction/fantasy/magical realism. I am looking for short story collections that would appeal to the group. Previous hits with the groups include The Martian by Andy Weir, The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, Jackaby by William Ritter, and Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman. --Alexandra   2. I've fallen in love with short stories through podcasts (like Levar Burton Reads or The Writers Voice). They're my favorite to listen to at work. I'd like some recommendations of must read authors or collections! More podcast recommendations wouldn't be amiss either. Thanks! -Catherine --Catherine   3. I normally hate short stories and have tried reading several collections hoping I could find a place for them in my heart. Most of the collections are YA and contain stories by various authors. While I'll like some of the stories, overall the reading experience isn't very good. Recently I decided to give another short story a try, so I read The Grownup by Gillian Flynn and it was not only the best short story I've ever read, but one of my favorite reads of the year. Can you recommend any short stories or collections that are similar to Gillian Flynn's writing or just have lots of twists and turns? Thanks! --Candice   4. Hello! Short stories are something I've always enjoyed writing, but I haven't read very many. I want to start to read them more so that my own writing will improve. The only short story I remember reading very vividly is The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. I read it in school and found it really brilliant. I'm looking for more literary style short stories that display the authors command of the prose and structure. Anthologies would be ideal, but I'm open to single story suggestions as well. Thanks! --Ira   5. Hi there- I've recently started reading short story and anthology collections, and I'm loving them. My recent favorite has been Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu. I'm interested in expanding into other genres though, but I'm having trouble finding many Sci-Fi/Fantasy collections. I've seen a number of Lovecraft's short story collections, but not much else. Especially not for Fantasy. Any recommendations for some action packed short stories? Bonus points for any possible YA fantasy short story collections- I found one recently and I'd love to find more! --Amber   6. Hi! I am a voracious reader and have really enjoyed listening to your recommendations since discovering your podcast :) My question... When reading fiction, I have historically preferred full-length books over short stories. However, I have recently read and loved several short story collections (Knockemstick by Donald Ray Pollack, Tenth of December by George Saunders, Five Carat Soul by James McBride), and now I want to expand my horizons in this category. What short story authors or collections would you recommend? I don't mind dark or creepy and the only genre I typically tend not to gravitate toward is romance. Thanks in advance! --Sally   7. Hello! I like reading short stories before bed-reading helps my mind unwind, but if a novel is too interesting I will stay up late reading rather than put it down. Short fiction has an obvious place to stop, but I’m running out of ideas to try next. I love Jhumpa Lahiri, and What it Means When a Man Falls From The Sky was Amazing. I also liked Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection of short stories, The Thing Around Your Neck. I read Carmen Maria Machado’s book, Her Body and Other Parties, as well as Helen Oyeyemi but found some of the stories too creepy for before bed. Do you have any more ideas for short fiction, ideally with a global perspective, that isn’t going to give me nightmares? Thank you! --Kara   Books Discussed The Merry Spinster by Mallory Ortberg (recently announced transition to Daniel, but book is listed under Mallory) A Gathering of Shadows by VE Schwab A Fine Summer's Day by Charles Todd Salsa Nocturna by Daniel José Older Slasher Girls and Monster Boys, incl. stories by Marie Lu and Leigh Bardugo and Kendare Blake What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah podcast: Reading Women Night at the Fiestas by Kirstin Valdez Quade We Show What We Have Learned by Clare Beams Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, edited by Sarah Weinman Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado Sorry Please Thank You by Charles Yu Tender by Sofia Samatar Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017, edited by John Joseph Adams and Charles Yu Gutshot by Amelia Gray Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri In the Country by Mia Alvar The Djinn Falls in Love And Other Stories edited by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin

Sharifah and Jenn discuss Dracula prequels, the Terminator franchise, speculative short story collections, and more. This episode is sponsored by Retrograde by Peter Cawdron, The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo, and Lit Chat.   News: Bram Stoker's relative Dacre writes first authorised prequel to Dracula Peter Jackson to adapt Mortal Engines New Terminator movie with Linda Hamilton Showtime lands comedy series written by & starring Jessica Williams as a sci-fi writer in Brooklyn   Books: The Djinn Falls In Love & Other Stories, edited by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula K Le Guin The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt Falling in Love With Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson

Amanda and Jenn discuss creepy reads, social justice ammunition, witchy reads, and more in this week's episode of Get Booked. This episode is sponsored by Girls Made of Glass and Snow by Melissa Bashardoust, Lit Chat from Book Riot and Abrams Noterie, and Brain Rules for Aging Well by John Medina. Subscribe to the podcast via RSS here, or via Apple Podcasts here. The show can also be found on Stitcher here.   Questions 1. Hi, I'm getting married in November after a short engagement but I've already noticed that my fiancé and my mutual male friends have seemingly gone from referring to me by my name to calling me 'his bird' or 'his woman' (f* that s*). Any recommendations on books about maintaining your identity as a real human being after marriage? As a wise woman told me recently, "the only downside to getting married is that you become someone's wife". Cheers! --Nia   2. Hi Amanda and Jenn! I have a travel request. I'm going to Valencia, Spain this fall to visit a friend, and know very little about the region. My favorite way to get to know a new city is through historical fiction. Do you have any recommendations of historical fiction set in or near Valencia? --Ellen   3. I am in the process of ending a relationship of almost twenty years and I am trying to adjust to the idea of living on my own for the first time since my early twenties (I just turned 40). I am looking for books that might help me sort out my feelings about this process. Fiction or non-fiction is fine. I already have All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg on my TBR pile. I don't have kids and don't want them but stories that include kids are okay as long as the main focus is on the the adult. Thanks in advance. --Rachel   4. Hi ladies! We are looking for book recommendations for our co-worker and friend Emily. Her birthday is on October 11th and she is a huge fan of your show (she is the one who introduced each of us to it as well) and of all things books. She loves to read pretty much everything and anything. We would like to get her a book or two for her birthday and would love some recommendations. She really enjoys horror, true crime, mystery, and literary classics. Some books she has recently read and enjoyed are Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, Insomnia by Stephen King, and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. (The three of us are planning on reading Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt per your recommendation from a previous episode, and are very excited by the way). Anything you could recommend would be great! Thanks in advance for your help! --Mallory and Jessica   5. Hey, Initially, I was asking for more books on race by #ownvoices because it's coming up in my classes so often, which are predominately white (and I am as well). What I'm now looking for is maybe some kind of history, memoir/biography, sociological study, really anything, that would be helpful in verbal combat with someone who is essentially the devil's advocate in a comment section, but believes in what he's saying. I know I won't change his mind but I'd like to have history and facts under my belt to help verbally kick his ass and destroy him. This MRA-dude, in a previous class, considered Janie sticking up for herself in Their Eyes Were Watching God 'terribly emasculating' for her husband and an awful thing to do to him. He is also *so sad* by our professor criticizing our country and most of our class agreeing with her (because apparently that's worse than Nazis - I made the mistake of creeping him on Facebook.) I own (but still need to read) They Can't Kill Us All, Rest in Power, and Warriors Don't Cry. I have read 12 Years a Slave, March Trilogy, Between the World and Me, and am anticipating We Were Eight Years in Power. I was originally thinking more along the lines of slavery and civil rights narratives, but now I think a better tactic would be to learn about the history of fascism and the constant fight for social justice. Any help is much appreciated, especially since he's not *technically* a Nazi and I can't just punch him during class. I love the show and have almost made my way through the all of the episodes! --Jane   6. This is a bit of a time sensitive request...One of my best friends has been married just over a year, and has recently found out that her husband wants a divorce. I really want to send her a book to help distract her... Any recommendations? She likes thrillers and YA fantasy. Bonus points if there's a strong feminist and/ or life will go on message. --Tina   7. I'm looking for some good Witch/female awesome themed books to get in the mood for fall and Halloween. I loved "The Discovery of Witches," "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" and "The Night Circus." I'd prefer something in the fantasy realm but am really open to anything I can drink with some hot apple cider! Thank you! --Radhika   Books Discussed Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams The Perfume Garden by Kate Lord Brown The Poem of The Cid by Anonymous Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton Single Carefree Mellow by Katherine Heiny Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward Blood of the Dawn by Claudia Salazar Jiménez The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein Fen by Daisy Johnson White Rage by Carol Anderson The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed (trigger warning for everything, basically) The Djinn Falls in Love, edited by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin Brimstone by Cherie Priest Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

  "If a Bird Can Be a Ghost" by Allison Mills -- published in Apex Magazine issue 99, August 2017. Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/ Allison Mills is a Cree and settler writer, archivist, librarian, and researcher with a thing about ghosts. Allison’s critical work has appeared in The Looking Glass and in Archivaria, where it won the 2016 Dodds Prize. She currently lives and works on unceded Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish land in Vancouver, BC. This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Our narrator this month is Amy H. Sturgis. Amy H. Sturgis earned her Ph.D. in Intellectual History from Vanderbilt University, teaches at Lenoir-Rhyne University, and specializes in Science Fiction/Fantasy and Indigenous American Studies. She is one of the staff members behind the Hugo Award-winning StarShipSofa podcast and the Editor in Chief of Hocus Pocus Comics. An Oklahoma native of mixed European/Cherokee background, Sturgis lives with her husband in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. Her official website is amyhsturgis.com. Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.  

”L'appel du vide” by Rich Larson -- published in Apex Magazine issue 98, July 2017. Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/ Rich Larson was born in West Africa, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in Spain, and now writes from Ottawa, Canada. His short work has been featured on io9, translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, French and Italian, and appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies along with most pro-paying SF markets. Find him at http://richwlarson.tumblr.com/ and support his writing via http://patreon.com/richlarson. This Apex Magazine podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

"Welcome to Astuna" by Pip Coen -- published in Apex Magazine issue 97, June 2017. Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/ Pip Coen is supposedly a neuroscientist. They even gave him a PhD and everything. But real brains are frustratingly complicated, so he often writes about fictional ones instead. In his spare time, he can be found playing poker, hitting the snooze button, or adding a new pin to his travel map. He is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop at UCSD, and his fiction has appeared or is upcoming in Apex and Compelling SF. In theory, he can be found at pipcoen.com. This Apex Magazine podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.  

"How Lovely Is the Silence of Growing Things" by Evan Dicken -- published in Apex Magazine issue 96, May 2017.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/ By day, Evan Dicken studies old Japanese maps and crunches data for all manner of fascinating medical experiments at The Ohio State University. By night, he does neither of these things. His fiction has most recently appeared in: Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Unlikely Story, and Flash Fiction Online, and he has stories forthcoming from publishers such as: Daily Science Fiction and Chaosium. Feel free to visit him at evandicken.com. This Apex Magazine podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.  

"Aunt Dissy's Policy Dream Book" by Sheree Renée Thomas -- published in Apex Magazine issue 95, April 2017.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/ Sheree Renée Thomas, a native of Memphis, is the author of Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press, August 2016), recently named on the 2016 James Tiptree, Jr. Award “Worthy” Long List, Shotgun Lullabies, and the editor of the World Fantasy Award-winning Dark Matter anthologies. Read her short stories and poems in Sycorax’s Daughters, Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany, Revise the Psalm, The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry, Mojo: Conjure Stories, An Alphabet of Embers, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, Jalada: Afrofuture(s), Callaloo, Obsidian, So Long Been Dreaming: Post-Colonial Science Fiction & Fantasy, Memphis Noir, and Harvard’s Transition. Find her @blackpotmojo or visit www.aqueductpress.com/authors/ShereeThomas.php. This Apex Magazine podcast was performed by Sheree Renée Thomas and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

”Waste” by Mary Elizabeth Burroughs -- published in Apex Magazine issue 94, March 2017.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/ Mary Elizabeth Burroughs is a graduate of Clarion Writers’ Workshop at UC San Diego and University of Mississippi’s MFA program. A native of Florida, she now lives in Sydney, Australia where she teaches English to high school students. Her published fiction has appeared in Black Static, Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism, and Bloodchildren: Stories by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars (Aqueduct Press). This Apex Magazine podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

  ”You Too Shall Be Psyche” by Rich Larson -- published in Apex Magazine issue 93, February 2017.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/ Rich Larson was born in West Africa, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in Spain, and now writes from Ottawa, Canada. His short work has been featured on io9, translated into Polish and Italian, and appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies as well as in magazines such as Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Interzone, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Apex. Find him at richwlarson.tumblr.com. This Apex Magazine podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.  

”Mag, the Habitat and We” by Lia Swope Mitchell -- published in Apex Magazine issue 92, January 2017.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/mag-the-habitat-and-we/ Lia Swope Mitchell is a writer, translator, editorial assistant, and PhD candidate in French literature at the University of Minnesota. Consequently she often feels overwhelmed by a multitude of small tasks. She lives in Minneapolis. This Apex Magazine podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

”Uncontainable” by Helen Stubbs -- published in Apex Magazine issue 91, December 2016.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/uncontainable Helen Stubbs writes stories that are dark with pointy edges published in anthologies and magazines including The Never Never Land, Midnight Echo, and Winds of Change. She interviews for Galactic Chat and the Australian SF Snapshot. In 2010 she won the Worldcon short story competition and in 2015 she won a Ditmar Award for Best New Talent in Australian SF. She’s a keen obstacle course racer (think Tough Mudder and Spartan) and loves zip-lining and hiking. Sometimes she climbs things she shouldn’t! Check out her blog or say ‘hi’ on Twitter to @superleni. This Apex Magazine podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

”Every Winter” by E. Catherine Tobler -- published in Apex Magazine issue 90, November 2016.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/every-winter/ Catherine Tobler has never slept in a haunted French villa — but you should ask her about the haunted house near her childhood home sometime. Among others, her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and on the Sturgeon Award ballot. Follow her on Twitter @ECthetwit or her website, www.ecatherine.com. This Apex Magazine podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week’s episode is a reading of a story from the world of Fire Boy—an urban fantasy set in contemporary Karachi, and writer and comedian Sami Shah’s first novel. Sami’s […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Zombies Run! co-creator and one of Granta’s Best of British Novelists Naomi Alderman is on the podcast this week to talk about her new novel The Power, in which women […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Andre Norton award winner and Nebula Award nominee Fran Wilde joins the podcast this week to talk about her Bone Universe novels, Updraft and Cloudbound. Both are available now from […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Genevieve Valentine—writer of Catwoman, Xena, The Girls At the Kingfisher Club, Persona, and Icon—is on the podcast this week, talking about constructed relationships, killing off characters, weaponised young women, Taylor […]

  ”Damnatio Ad Bestias” by Kristi DeMeester -- published in Apex Magazine issue 89, October 2016.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/damnatio-ad-bestias/ Kristi DeMeester received her M. A. in Creative Writing from Kennesaw State University in 2011. Since then her work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Black Static, The Dark, Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volumes 1 and 3, and several others. Her chapbook, Split Tongues, published by Dim Shores Press, sold out in early 2016. In her spare time, she alternates between telling people how to pronounce her last name and how to spell her first. Find her online at www.kristidemeester.com. This Apex Magazine Podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.  

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Author Marie Brennan is on the podcast this week, talking about dragons, amnesiacs and her new epic fantasy novella, Cold-Forged Flame. Available now from Tor.com Publishing, you can read an […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week, Mahvesh talks with writer Nisi Shawl about the Samuel Delany tribute anthology Stories for Chip, and her new alternate history novel Everfair—available now from Tor Books, you can […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Writer Laure Eve joins Mahvesh this week to talk about The Graces—available now from Amulet Books. In discussing the novel, the Laure and Mahvesh touch upon power plays between female […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Writer and editor Indra Das is on the podcast this week, talking about his novel The Devourers, which published earlier this summer from Del Rey—you can read an excerpt here. […]

”The Warrior Boy Who Would Not Suffer” by Alexandria Baisden -- published in Apex Magazine issue 88, September 2016.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/the-warrior-boy-who-would-not-suffer/ Abhinav Bhat is a writer from Jammu & Kashmir, India. He has jumped without a parachute. A fantasy novel popped out some way down, followed by a few short stories, one of which you are reading. We’ll let you know whether he goes splat or flies. He can be contacted midair at abhinavb2014@email.iimcal.ac.in. This Apex Magazine Podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week Mahvesh speaks with writer Victoria Schwab on her novel This Savage Song. The pair discuss balancing life and growing as a writer, and establishing who you are to […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Malka Older joins the podcast this week to talk about her novel Infomacracy, experiencing new cultures, and the state of politics. Infomocracy is available now from Tor.com Publishing—get started with […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week comedian, novelist and memoirist Sami Shah is on the podcast, talking about his latest book Fire Boy. The pair also discuss publishing multiple books without an agent, Pakistani […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week, writer Laura Lam joins the podcast to talk about her latest thriller False Hearts—available from Tor Books, you can read an excerpt here. The pair also talk about […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. The podcast returns this week with an interview with Margaret Atwood, in which she talks with Mahvesh about monsters, myths, wise old women, wicked witches, why everyone isn’t collectively freaking […]

  ”The Gentleman of Chaos” by A. Merc Rustad -- published in Apex Magazine issue 87, August 2016.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/the-gentleman-of-chaos/ Enjoy our interview with the author here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/interview-with-a-merc-rustad/ A. Merc Rustad is a queer transmasculine non-binary writer who lives in the Midwest United States. Favorite things include: robots, dinosaurs, monsters, and tea. Their stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Lightspeed, Fireside Fiction, Apex, Escape Pod, Shimmer, Cicada, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, and Wilde Stories 2016. Merc likes to play video games, watch movies, read comics, and wear awesome hats. You can find Merc on Twitter @Merc_Rustad or their website: http://amercrustad.com. This Apex Magazine Podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.  

"Lazarus and the Amazing Kid Phoenix" by Jennifer Giesbrecht -- published in Apex Magazine issue 86, July 2016.   Read it here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/lazarus-and-the-amazing-kid-phoenix/ Enjoy our interview with the author here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/interview-with-author-jennifer-giesbrecht/ Jennifer Giesbrecht is a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia where she earned her degree in History and Methodology. She’s a freelance editor, multi-disciplinary nerd, and a graduate of Clarion West’s 2013 class. Her work has previously appeared in Nightmare Magazine, XIII: ‘Stories of Resurrection’, and Imaginarium 3. This Apex Magazine Podcast was performed and produced by Mahvesh Murad. Music used with kind permission of BenSound.com! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a monthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Author James Smythe—recently nominated for a Clarke Award for Way Down Dark—joins the podcast this week to talk about trigger warnings, middle book syndrome, and his potential fantasy series ‘Dragatha […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week, writer and futurist Madeline Ashby joins the podcast! Our conversation touches on avoiding exposition, finding inspiration in Korean dramas, futurism, and Ashby’s new novel, Company Town, available now […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Writer Kat Howard is on the podcast this week to talk about cutting her teeth on short fiction, Kate Bush, story telling, and the sacrifices writers make. Her novel Roses […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Hugo award winning writer Thomas Olde Heuvelt joins the podcast today to talk about the familiarity in horror, witches, adjusting translations into his own voice, and his novel HEX. The English […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Writer Eugene Lambert joins the podcast this week to talk about evil twins, which apocalypse is most survivable, and his new SF YA thriller The Sign of One, which was […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week writer Seanan McGuire is on the podcast, talking about her new novella Every Heart a Doorway, writing and performing filk, having a tapeworm, and being bitten by a […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Writer of The Girl With All the Gifts, X-Men, The Ultimate Fantastic Four and Lucifer, Mike Carey—aka M.R. Carey—is on the podcast this week, talking about writing comics in existing […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week’s guest is writer Tim Lebbon, author of the Assassins series of dark fantasy novellas with Tor.com Publishing—Pieces of Hate is available now, and A Whisper of Southern Lights […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week novelist, short story writer and editor of io9, Charlie Jane Anders is on the podcast to talk about her latest novel, All the Birds in the Sky, managing […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award winner Sofia Samatar is on the podcast this week, talking about her award winning novel A Stranger in Olondria, its companion novel The […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week Mahvesh speaks to Hugo award winning writer Mary Robinette Kowal about the connections between telling stories via words and puppets, recording audio stories and her latest fiction, Forest […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Writer Molly Tanzer is on the podcast this week, talking about Lovecraft, Austen, grimdark, Narnia, subverting Westerns, and mixing cocktails. Molly’s latest novel, The Pleasure Merchant, is available from Eraserhead […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week, World Fantasy Award winner and series editor of the Apex Book of World SF Lavie Tidhar is on the podcast talking about his books, classic SF from writers […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week British Fantasy Award winner Sarah Pinborough joins the show to talk about YA fiction, whether trigger warnings are needed and her new YA crime thriller 13 Minutes (available February […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. This week Clarke Award winner Tricia Sullivan joins Mahvesh to talk about her latest novel Occupy Me (available now in the UK from Gollancz) and growing as a writer.   […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. Writer David Tallerman is on the podcast this week, talking about his new novella Patchwerk, the influence Labyrinth had on his work, graphic novels and how short stories were his […]

Welcome back to Midnight in Karachi, a weekly podcast about writers, publishers, editors, illustrators, their books and the worlds they create, hosted by Mahvesh Murad. The podcast returns after a winter hiatus with debut Tor.com writer Emily Foster on her new novella, The Drowning Eyes, American mythos, and building worlds far from the one you’ve […]

This episode is all me talking about what it was like to create and host Cabbages & Kings in 2015. Lots of gratitude for my listeners, identifying areas for improvement, and thinking about what might happen in 2016. No discussion of books. I talked about my reading in 2015 over on The Three Hoarsemen podcast.A few links:Discussing The Fifth Season with Troy & Khaalidah (and Troy's first appearance)Discussing Ancillary Justice with Ethan (pt. 1, pt. 2)Folklore with Mike UnderwoodComics with ParrishMiddle-Aged Women Aren't Coming of Age and a much better Rocket Talk episode with a similar premiseFangirl Happy Hour podcastGalactic Suburbia PodcastOut on a Wire (radio storytelling)Pilot (podcast of possible-podcast episodes)Cooode St. PodcastMy roundup of lots of podcasts I've listened toVision StatementContact Page (be a guest!)Wisdom of the CrowdsEpisode & Guest indexHalf-Dark PromiseEyes I Dare Not Meet In Dreams (LadyBusiness Review)A not-quite-transcript is below. These are the notes I read and occasionally ad-libbed:Navel Gazing 2015Here’s a year-end wrap up podcast. This isn’t about my reading. I did an episode of the Three Hoarsemen where I talked about that. Short version - I adored Grace of Kings, Fifth Season, Black Wolves & Sorceror of the Wildeeps, while being able to see flaws in a couple of them. This is a podcast where I look back at what Cabbages & Kings is and where I’d like to go in 2016. What I’m trying to do, what I’ve done so far, what went well & poorly, and where the show might go in the future. If you don’t want that episode, bail out now, and I’ll be back in 2016 with plenty of new episodes where I talk about books and stories.OK - What am I trying to doWhat went really wellWhere is there room for improvementWhat cool stuff could I do with a podcast in the future?What am I trying to doI started Cabbages & Kings on the theory that there are a lot of science fiction & fantasy podcasts out there, but there’s a kind of disappointing sameness that I felt left a hole for (among other things) a show that focused readers talking to readers about books, with minimal chit-chat and an editor at the least cutting out fumbles and uhms. And I figured I could make that.It’s worth saying right here that this isn’t either unique or necessarily a “better” format than others. Friends hanging out talking about what they love is basically a genre in and out of science fiction and fantasy: look at For Colored Nerds, Fan Bros Show, or the Accidental Tech Podcast. In the genre space, I love inviting the ladies of Fangirl Happy Hour and Galactic Suburbia and the Gentlemen of The Three Hoarsemen into my ears every few weeks just to sit & converse for a while. Arguably Cooode St. is a similar format podcast. I think the best Writing Excuses episodes are not only tighter than Cabbages & Kings, but usually inspiring and insightful even listening as just a reader. I know that Sword and Laser has created a community around their reading experience, and I think Mahvesh Murad is a fascinating interviewer whether or not I’ve heard of the author she’s got on. I’m also periodically reminded how many podcasts there are out there that I don’t know about. So Cabbages & Kings isn’t an attempt to be the “best” science fiction and fantasy podcast out there, just fill a hole I saw.According to my slightly more aspirational vision statement: Cabbages & Kings is an attempt to create exactly the podcast that I want to listen to. I want a podcast that makes science fiction and fantasy readers smile, pump their fists in recognition, and pause to consider a new idea. I want an excuse to work out ideas that are in my head and to interview a diverse group of other thoughtful readers. Cabbages & Kings is my attempt to contribute to the speculative fiction conversation in the format that I love the most. With Cabbages & Kings I hope to focus on books and stories that I love to read, and the experiences and reactions of other readers. All of this in under 30 minutes per episode, ending with a nostalgic look back at a favorite book.So, basically - I hate blogging because I get bogged down when trying to write words. I want to put a focus on the reading experience that readers have, and I’d like to talk about books in a way that can both gush about what we love and also apply a critical eye. I’ve found that the critical reading I like the most teaches me something about how to approach any new book or media, and I hoped to create some of that.What went really well?I’m going to take a moment to cheer for a moment! I put out 22 episodes in the 34 weeks between May 13 and the end of the year, not counting this one. That’s pretty cool!I really, really enjoyed having Ethan on to talk about Ancillary Justice - I think we got at elements of the ways Artificial Intelligence and Identity are handled that I didn’t see discussed very many places, but apparently there’s a philosophy class using Ancillary Justice to talk about those very topics, so clearly we (by which I mean Ethan) saw something interesting there.Troy Wiggins has been on twice - the podcast that we did with Khaalidah on The Fifth Season was a highlight of this year, and certainly in the first few months, our discussion of his history with the genre was one of my favorite episodes.Talking Short Stories with Nick Mamatas was great, and the discussion of folklore with Mike Underwood was fun to do & seemed to touch a few people when it came out.I was expecting to enjoy having fun & interesting people come on the podcast to talk about books. I was not expecting just how enjoyable it would be. Podcast recording evenings are some of my favorites. Getting a message out of the blue from Maureen Speller (who’s writing in Strange Horizons I’d recently discovered) letting me know very politely that I’d missed the point of the Buried Giant (which I confessed to at the time) and could we talk about it led to an almost two hour conversation, two of my favorite episodes, and a deeper appreciation of the book which is really the point of so much of this! You may have mixed feelings about the endless discussions of Grace of Kings, but for me, sorting out my thoughts about the book has been delightful. Plus I got to actually talk to Kate Elliott about the book (episode to come), and will hopefully get a chance to go over some of the themes with Ken Liu once I’ve finally put out the whole series of deep dives. So anyone out there thinking of starting a podcast - you get an excuse to ask your heroes and/or the smartest people you know to talk about your favorite topics for a while. It’s pretty awesome.Where is there room for improvement?So - I’ve put out some episodes I’m really proud of. I’ve gotten to have the thrilling experience of talking about fascinating topics & books with amazing people. Have I emphasized enough just how cool that it? It’s awesome!There’s something Tobias Buckell said a while ago on Twitter that I keep going back to (and I’m quoting from memory here, so hopefully getting the spirit if not the words) - that he hopes to be able to look back at his writing from 6 months ago and see flaws in it. That’s a sign he’s improving as an author. I haven’t listened back to many early episodes, but even week to week I find that when I listen back to the episode, I can usually see room for improvement. I tend to think about four areas where the show can get better. One is guests & topics which I’ll talk about more in a minute, but three are basically production related:First, there’s the actual interview. Do I hear my guest. Am I giving them space to talk & gather their ideas when that’s what’s needed. Can I listen and follow up on an interesting track. If there’s something *I* don’t understand, can I push them to be more clear? Notably, I had my mom to talk about middle-aged women as protagonists early on and was so invested in how *I* read (looking at worldbuilding and seeing the protagonist as an opportunity to reveal that world to the reader) that I didn’t really do a great job with the interview. (I’ll note that there’s a Rocket Talk episode with Kate Elliott & Emma Newman that touches on middle-aged women in genre stories which is worth listening to and which touches on some of the same topics). Listening back to the Ancillary Justice episode, I also didn’t really follow up on the most interesting things Ethan was saying. Live & Learn. I don’t think I’ve done a really a great job on any interviews yet, but I have at least learned to pause when I’m uncomfortable or confused & pursue a better line, or keep the guest talking. Editing afterwards ... Luxury! Luxury!Quick aside - in the Three Hoarsemen episode I was on at the end of the year with Andrea Phillips, the guys and Andrea did a really good job of pulling back threads that had been mentioned earlier and either building on them or questioning the premise. They heard each other, applied those statements to their experiences, and looked for common ground or interesting differences. It’s a skill or an art or something that I’m still learning the knack of, but at least I hear it sometimes now.Fine, so I’ve got an interview. How do I present it to you listeners? I’m not good at sticking to a time limit during the interview, so I’ve often got over an hour of audio that I’d like to turn into a 30 minute episode (which is about 28 minutes of content, and usually the significant book at the end chew up 1 to 3 minutes). I’ve been working on putting together a story structure. That was there in the first of the two Buried Giant Episodes as well as the comics episode that just went up. Ideally, I’m able to set up the interview with a story of who the guest is, what we’re going to talk about, and what the story of the interview is. Something like: After mostly reading prose fiction, I tried out a comic, and the experience was Exciting! and there were some similarities in the experience but there were important differences between the two media! This, ideally, gives you a hook to tell you why you care about the episode & what you’re listening for. I’m cribbing here extensively from a pretty neat podcast that Jessica Abel is putting out to support her book Out on the Wire: Storytelling Secrets of the Modern Masters of Radio, which has been really helpful in thinking about how to put out a podcast. Brief aside - the terrifying thing about doing heavyhanded editing is that I’m taking the words of someone I was talking to and trying very hard to understand and elicit responses from, and then I’m rearranging those words. And that means there’s the possibility that I’m misrepresenting them. Or missing something they thought was really important that I thought was less important. That’s already happened once (fortunately the guest took an early listen, something I offer everyone who comes on and suggested a couple tweaks), but if the best unanticipated surprise is the sheer joy I’m getting from having an excuse to sit & talk books with amazing people, the scariest unanticipated piece of this is taking other people’s words in my hands and doing something with them.So, thing 1 that I can still improve (that sounds so much better than stuff I’m often sucking at) is getting an interesting interview with my guest. Thing 2 is shaping the audio I’ve got into a story that’ll keep you engaged and set up the key moments or insights from the story.Thing 3 is actual post production audio. Making sure that things aren’t TOO LOUD or *too soft* and that the guest and I sound similar and transitions aren’t really ragged and all of the other stuff that you can do to work with audio to make it sound good. Despite growing up on NPR, Cabbages and Kings is never going to be something like Radiolab. I know I’ve had some moments that sound pretty awful, though. The Eye of the Tiger corny audio experiment was … a corny experiment. Was it awful? I only discovered compression (which helps make soft stuff louder and loud stuff softer) recently - before that I was balancing every second or two manually and that led to some really weird volume shifts. Truncate silence has also been a good tool to learn. I’m pretty sure I’ve still got a lot to learn about audio production. Problem is my preferred podcast client (shout out to Overcast!) does some silence truncating and audio leveling, plus I listen at about 1-and-a-quarter-speed (there are way too many great podcasts out there - 59 unlistened-to-episodes at last count.So, good audio? Bad audio? I probably couldn’t tell you. I am going to order a pop filter, though. And hopefully in 2016 the basic “two or more people are talking to each other and it should sound like they are having a conversation without distracting background noise and plosives” will get better. If anyone has advice on the technical aspects of getting better audio, please, please let me know.OK, so, there are the three pieces of “interviewing people”, “making you the listener care about the interview” and “making the actual sounds good”. All of those can be improved. I’m pretty sure I have improved all of these since the early episodes, and still has a way to go.Now let’s talk a bit about who comes on the show and what we talk about. I’m a pretty firm believer that the conversation is richer and better when many people from many backgrounds are talking. Episode 16 includes a bunch of us talking about how we got into science fiction & fantasy and making fun of my notion that reading Tolkien and then a bunch of Tolkien-clones from the 80s and 90s is the cliched way to engage with the genre. (Show notes will be full of links if you want to follow any rabbit holes). “Diversity” is sometimes a buzzword that hides as much as it obscures, but looking especially over time at the race, gender, and other backgrounds of the people I have on, as well as the topics we’ve chosen can be illuminating. So lets look back at the year:In 2015, I put out 22 episodes before this one. Two solo episodes & twenty with guests. Ethan, AFishtrap, Troy, and Maureen were all on twice.So 16 guests. 8 guys, 8 women. No one who identifies as genderqueer as far as I know.4 who weren’t white, and they were all black and american3 guests not in the US - one Canadian, one British, one american living in GermanyOne thing I’m trying to do is get out of my usual Twitter book discussion bubble. 6 Guests didn’t come on because I follow & chat with them about books on Twitter, though some of them are part of many of the same conversations I am.That gender parity was actually a pleasant surprise. All of the other numbers make we want to have a show that pushes to talk to more people outside the US, outside my comfortable Twitter bubble, and more people from historically marginalized backgrounds. I’ve got a stake in the ground this year. We’ll see how things change next year.So, what’d we talk about - Broadly speaking, we had some general discussions about reading history and common interests, like worldbuilding with Anna and small presses with Shana, focused discussion on specific topics like Short Fiction with Nick and Folklore with Mike, and then deep dives on specific books - The Fifth Season, Grace of Kings (sorry, there’s going to be more of this next year), Ancillary Justice, and The Buried Giant. These deep dives took up 8 of the 20 episodes with guests. Of the four books we went deep one, 2 were by women and two by men, and Ann Leckie was the only white author. The show right now *feels* to me like it’s heavy on in-depth book discussion, mostly because I let those get out of control and have so much great stuff to run. It’s a bit light on themed discussions, though there have been more of those recently (the discussion of Saga & Comics, Folklore and short fiction). In my head, I’d like to be getting about a third of the episodes to explore a theme or subgenre while referencing a few different exemplars, about a third going deep on a book (hopefully revealing some more universally applicable critical approaches) and about a third a grab bag of other reading experiences, and I don’t think I’m there right now.I’ll note that I interviewed 4 of the 5 white guys who came on the show about an in-depth topic - Nick on Short Stories, Aidan on Cover Art, Mike on Folklore and Carl on Queer Romance in the genre. All of these were really good episodes (in fact, Mike’s folklore episode consistently comes up when I ask people about what they’ve liked), but in contrast to the “general background” discussions with Troy and Akil, or the more back-and-forth dialog on worldbuilding that Anna and I had, there’s a trend that white guys come on to be experts at a thing. That’s something interesting to notice that I’d like not to see when I’m doing next year’s roundup.OK enough navel gazing about who talked about what. What am I thinking about going forward?I have a bunch of interviews done & waiting to be edited. An avalanche-load. A heavy mountain. A wince-inducing pile. It’s a little terrifying. I’m coming close to the sense that I have a process for these interviews - I listen to them, make notes, pick out key quotes, figure out the structure, then piece them back together. This process worked well when talking Saga with Parrish, so hopefully it’ll carry me through this batch & going forward. Content isn’t a problem. Figuring out a schedule I can keep is.So is finding guests. Especially finding guests outside of Twitter, outside the US, outside the usual suspects you might hear elsewhere. Maybe even guests who don’t share my political ideology but do share my love of this genre. I’ve got a lot of room to find interesting people whose voices I’m not hearing right now. If you are one, please let me know - there’s a contact form on the website, or send an email to contact@cabbagesandkings.audio.I’d also like to try an experiment with putting together a show that doesn’t require an interview. Skipping the logistics of getting 2 or 3 people together means a back-and-forth is harder, but there’s less chance of talking over each other and no need to navigate timezones. There’s a new link on the website: cabbagesandkings.audio/wisdom-of-the-crowds with hyphens between all those words (oh just check the show notes), where right now I’ve got a bunch of questions up about Dune because 2016 will be the 51st anniversary of it’s publication so this is the perfect time to do a Dune retrospective. Pick a few questions, answer them by recording your voice in the voice recorder of your choice. Share the audio via email, dropbox link, google drive or whatever else you please, and I may include the audio in an upcoming episode.This doesn’t have to be crystal-clear NPR quality audio. I’d suggest not recording outside in the wind, but talking into a phone headset that you’re not nervously playing with and moving around as I so often do would be fine. If you want to get fancy, real professional NPR reporters cover themselves up with coats or hotel sheets to record on the road. But record the audio & send it in. I’d love to hear what you think of Dune and put together an episode with wisdom gleaned from my listeners.I’m also often without a memory of a treasured book to close an episode, so if you’ve got one of those, let me know.Other experiments that may come - there’s a new show called Pilot where Stephanie Foo of This American Life puts out a single episode of something that *could* turn into a full podcast - a bunch of starter ideas. It got me thinking about what some of the other sounds missing from the genre podcasting sphere might be, so I may be trying a few things, including possibly a week or so of running very short morning bulletins. We’ll see.I’ve toyed with the notion of running reviews on the site. A crazy idea since I mostly don’t understand the point of a review, but I try to remember that “I don’t understand” can be an opportunity to learn, so maybe if I have smart people write & read reviews of books, I’ll get the point. Maybe?I’d kind of like to edit two other people talking about something, so take me the interviewer out of the equation. If you’d be interested in that, let me know.I’d like to be reading more short fiction next year, so maybe I’ll figure out how to incorporate that into the podcast. We’ll see.I’ve been hoping that after 25 or so episodes I’ll at least see a bit of a plateau. It’s comforting to think of Tobias Buckell’s “looking back & seeing room for improvement means I’m getting better”, but right now it also means that I kind of sucked at some aspects of this podcasting gig when I started. Hopefully sometime soonish I’ll have to actually work at getting better because I’ll have swiped the low-hanging fruit of awfulness. Then again, Parrish mentioned something about finding your stride around episode 100, so maybe I have a longer slog ahead of me.Regardless, starting Cabbages and Kings this year has been an incredibly fun and rewarding experience. I’ve had people contact me out of the blue because they liked what I was making & wanted to talk about books. I’ve got an excuse to talk to readers I respect and authors whose books I admire. Apparently people in Australia, Israel, and England all listen to the show, so that’s pretty cool! I have this awesome art of a cabbage with a crown on its head that looks badass and not like a destructive meteor anymore which was draft one. I’m really enjoying this. I’m really enjoying this in large part because every once in a while someone stops by the contact form or twitter to let me know that they’re listening & enjoyed something. I think I’ve only dropped the ball on a guest once, sorry about that. I’d love to hear from you. I’d love to hear what you like about the show. I’d love to hear what I can do better. I’d love to talk to you about this genre. If you’re listening now, you’re either somewhere without access to your podcast player controls, or a pretty dedicated listener, so let me know what I can do better. Next year will hopefully have a look ahead at reading plans, a discussion of representation within the genre, an episode on Uprooted, more Grace of Kings, quite possibly an episode on The Just City if I can bring myself to finish it, and hopefully a whole lot of other things that I can’t anticipate right now. No navel-gazing until the end of next year, though.I’ll close the episode by recommending two short stories. From early this year, Malon Edwards’ Half-Dark Promise in Shimmer magazine, set in an alternate Chicago and a girl with a steam-clock heart who needs to get home through the half-dark. Beautiful voice and use of dialect, and Sunny Moraine’s “Eyes I Dare Not Meet In Dreams” about women who’ve been fridged returning just to watch us. I’m not much of a horror reader, and I don’t know that either of these are really horror stories, but they’re tense, wonderful, and well worth a read. When I dive into short fiction next year, I’m hoping to be able to discover gems like thse on my own.Thanks for listening. Tweet me, email me, rate me on iTunes? Is that something people actually do? Recommend a show that you enjoyed to a friend who reads science fiction. And if I don’t have an episode that friend would like, tell me why not, or tell them to come on the show. Happy 2015, and hoping 2016 will be even better.Thanks!

"Six Things We Found During the Autopsy" by Kuzhali Manickavel -- published in Apex Magazine issue 76, September 2015. Indian writer Kuzhali Manickavel's short fiction collections are Things We Found During the Autopsy and Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings, and echapbook Eating Sugar, Telling Lies. Her work has also appeared in Granta, Agni, Subtropics, and elsewhere. This Apex Magazine Podcast was performed by Mahvesh Murad and produced by Lisa Shininger. Music used with kind permission of Oh, Alchemy! Apex Magazine Podcast, Copyright Apex Publications.

Coming Up Good Evening: 00:00:38 Rena Mason’s Ruminations read by Philip Oldham: 00:02:24 Osman T. Malik’s The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family read by Mahvesh Murad: 00:39:06 Pleasant Dreams: 01:08:40 Pertinent Links Rena Mason: http://www.renamasonwrites.com Usman T. Malik: http://www.usmanmalik.org Mahvesh Murad: http://mahveshmurad.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.