Podcast appearances and mentions of Nick Mamatas

Nick Mamatas has newly released an anthology called 120 Murders. A nod to an old MTV show in title, the stories collectively bleed thematically deep into the alternative rock scene of the 1990s, with touches of noir here, fantasy there, and universal transgressive fiction with characters that tell the truth about life as they perceive it. … Continue...Episode 215 – 120 Murders with Nick Mamatas

Mark covers the news, at the Long Island Convention of Horror, in three separate interviews Convention Correspondent Stephanie Lombardo interviews Authors Anastasia Garcia, Nick Mamatas, and Maitland McDonagh, Mark has his EMcon report, plus Jenny Feldy interviews Author Nkrumah Mensah

Gun fest come to the Authors Quill one of a kind show you should check it out The balance of Kevin's work has been hands on with weapons, first as a custom gunsmith, in the U.S. Military. He served in Company A (The President's Guard) of the Third Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) where his duty was to maintain a very wide variety of modern and antique military weapons, including 77 Brown Bess flintlock muskets. The latter weapon resulted in him being the last armorer in the U.S. Army qualified to knap* flints after training at the Smithsonian Institution and Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Kevin Dockery's further military career included time as a Designated Marksman in the President's Guard, a Mechanized Infantryman, squad leader on an 81mm Mortar, and Platoon Sergeant in an Infantry Company. He spent time during the first Gulf War as a support contractor on the Fox chemical/biological/nuclear scout vehicle. Since that time, Kevin Dockery has written several reference books on small arms as well as worked professionally as a custom gunsmith for a number of years. His specialty as a gunsmith was the production of customized pistols with particular expertise in the Smith and Wesson revolver lines and the M1911A1 as well as rebarreling and rebuilding military-style weapons including the Find out more at: DockeryArmory.comWhat if the United States went to war with the People's Republic of China? How would these rivals fight for supremacy on land, sea, air, and across the stochastic streams of time? What wonder weapons would be unleashed? What horrors would emerge from the irradiated sludge of the South China Sea? What heroes would rise and forever change the course of history? Tread into the deepest and darkest dimensions of the multiverse, gaze through a kaleidoscope of fractured realities, and bear witness to the disturbing visions of World War III from today's greatest minds in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Stories by: Larry Correia, Steve Diamond, David Drake, Nick Mamatas, Brian Trent, Martin L. Shoemaker, Blaine L. Pardoe, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Julian Michael Carver, D.J. Butler, David J. West, Sean Patrick Hazlett, Deborah A. Wolf, Stephen Lawson, Erica L. Satifka, Rob McMonigal, Brenda Clough, Kevin Ikenberry, Brad R. Torgersen, T.C. McCarthy, Nadia Bulkin, Freddy Costello, and Michael Z. Williamson. About Sean Patrick Hazlett Sean Patrick Hazlett is an Army veteran, writer, editor, and finance executive in the San Francisco Bay area. He holds an AB in history and BS in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and a

Margaret reads Mia a sci-fi story about what people will do for free power and war. And about hacker clowns.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Margaret reads Mia a sci-fi story about what people will do for free power and war. And about hacker clowns.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What Is Happening To StarShipSofa in 2023Hey up,Just wanted to wish you all have MASSIVE and amazing Happy New Year for 2023. It truly means a lot to know you are still out there and still listening to my little podcast that I started nearly 17 years ago. That makes me so proud just to type those words. And... the big thing... we are still going after all these years thanks to you.So... not just a massive thank you but a Ultra Massive thank you.But... I'm hellish selfish and I want StarShipSofa to keep going well into the future but I simply can't do it without your help. This show has lasted all those years because you have all supported me and StarShipSofa...... please please... help us with a donation to keep StarShipSofa's engines running. At one time hit 500 Patreon supporters. We have dropped now to 305There's two ways to support:One off donation... go here.And... Monthly via Patreon... go here.With the excellent Nick Mamatas as editor picking the stories and Will Stagl choosing the narrators StarShipSofa has a formidable team pushing out some truly amazing science Fiction. Long may it last... and it will with your help!As ever,Tony C SmithSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/starshipsofa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S8 Ep14   Kameron and Mur aren't bitter at all. But we do mention Nick Mamatas' Starve Better. Kameron Hurley's site   August 22, 2022 | Season 8 Ep 14 | murverse.com Copyright 2022, Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

Episode Notes Strangers In A Tangled WIlderness can be found at here or on twitter @tangledwild. You can support this show by subscribing to our Patreon. A more reader friendly copy of the story can be found at https://www.tangledwilderness.org/featured/the-great-armored-train Along with amazing art by Robin Savage. This story appeared in Nick Mamatas's collection The People's Republic of Everything, published in 2018 by Tachyon Publications. About the author: Nick Mamatas is the author of seven novels, including Love is the Law, I Am Providence, and the forthcoming Hexen Sabbath. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, and many other venues. Nick is also an anthologist; his books include the Bram Stoker Award winner Haunted Legends (co-edited with Ellen Datlow), the Locus Award nominees The Future is Japanese and Hanzai Japan (both co-edited with Masumi Washington), and Mixed Up (co-edited with Molly Tanzer). His fiction and editorial work has been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and International Horror Guild Awards. Mamatas lives in Oakland, California. About the interviewer: Margaret Killjoy is a transfeminine author and editor currently based in the Appalachian mountains. Her most recent book is an anarchist demon hunters novella called The Barrow Will Send What it May, published by Tor.com. She spends her time crafting and complaining about authoritarian power structures and she blogs at birdsbeforethestorm.net. The theme music is also by Margaret Killjoy. Show art is by Robin Savage The Host is Inmn Neruin. You can find them on instagram @shadowtail.artificery **Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness 2: The Great Armored Train by Nick Mamatas** Inmn Neruin: Hello and welcome to Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness...the podcast. I'm your host Inmn Neruin and I use They/them pronouns . Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is a collectively run publisher dedicated to producing and curating inclusive and intersectional culture informed by anarchistic ideals. This can include stories, fiction, poetry, memoir, non-fiction, theater pieces, comics, books, pop culture analysis, recipes, music, history, podcasts...and occasionally essays and theory. We are looking for content that doesn't know where it fits in, for people that don't know where they fit in. On this podcast we have audio versions of our monthly featured zine read by a brilliant voice actor along with interviews with the author. If you would like to hold in your hands a hard copy of our monthly feature, please consider subscribing to our Patreon where you will be mailed a lovely zine once a month along with other occasional trinkets to add to your horde. Our Patreon helps make things like this podcast possible as well as supporting other podcasts we put out like Live Like The World Is Dying. It also helps us pay authors of the monthly features, transcribers, artists, editors and translators. So if you like what you hear, please consider subscribing at Patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. If you would like to submit a piece that you think would shine nicely in our little dragon horde, please visit Tangledwilderness.org for our submission guidelines! This month, we are kind of cheating…We bring to you a previously recorded episode of the now on-hold podcast We Will Remember Freedom. In this re-print episode, one of our collaborators, Margaret Killjoy talks with Nick Mamatas about his short story The Great Armored Train. We feel this story is more relevant than usual considering Russia's current invasion of Ukraine. This story pits Trotsky's giant armored train against polish folk magic. I really loved this story mostly because it's simple and I love learning about magic within resistance movements, but I also appreciate a good critique of State Communism. Much like State Communism  paraded this idea of liberating the people, while building a power base for a new oppressive state, Putin claims to be trying to save Ukraine from itself, going so far as to parade that idea that he hopes to de-nazify it. A facist claiming to free people from other fascists. Seems sketchy.  And much like during the  reign of the Bolsheviks or the quarrels of any nation states, the common people are usually who suffer most and are used as pawns. But as in this story, resistance can be…phantasmal and there have always been echos of stateless worlds, tremors of a bell rung long ago, now ever ringing, “Land to the Peasants” as the  Black Army emblazoned on their battle standards as they fought for a free-territory in Ukraine almost exactly one century ago in conflicts with Bolsheviks and Monarchists. Our hearts go out to the Anarchists and anti-authoritarians organizing in  Ukraine and Russia right now, and those of you fighting on the frontlines, organizing evacuations, refugees and medical support, for those who stayed and for those who fled and of course for those who fell. We hope the fantasy and comedy of this story can offer some levity and hope within this ongoing conflict, and those exactly like it happening all over the world, and hope if people can empathize with Ukrainian people right now they can see the similarities between this conflict and those in places like Palestine, Syria, and Rojava to name a few. So remember, sharpen your talons, listen for the echos, and keep fighting.  *For a print version of the story please visit http://tangledwild.org * Inmn Neruin: That was Margaret talking to Nick Mamatas about “The Great Armored Train.” Please check out the online version for this story as well as other content at [http://tangledwild.org](http://tangledwild.org). You can even see some amazing artwork done for the story by our artist Robin Savage. I've heard many stories of Ukrainian women offering sunflower seeds to Russian soldiers, so that when they die at least something beautiful and useful will grow. I hope so much to hear stories in the future of seeds that spontaneously burst to life inside tanks, consuming them and rendering them useless except as homes to wayward critters.  If you would like to learn more about this conflict in Ukraine and those like it, check out our friends at the Final Straw Radio at [https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/](https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/) for interviews with Ukrainian Anarchists, as well as our friends at [http://Crimethinc.com/](http://crimethinc.com/) for histories and interviews with Russian and Ukrainian Leftists, Anarchists and anti-authoritarians. If you would like to support anarchists and anti-authoritarians in Ukraine right now check out a link tree for Ukranian mutual aid group Operation Solidarity at [https://linktr.ee/operation.solidarity](https://linktr.ee/operation.solidarity) and an Anarchist armed detachment The Black Headquarter at [https://linktr.ee/Theblackheadquarter](https://linktr.ee/Theblackheadquarter) Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast please go tell someone about it. Whisper it in their ear, put it on at work, write a review and feed it to the ocean, cry its name to the gloaming daring an owl to answer. If you would like to support us as well as the authors, translators, editors and artists that we work with please consider subscribing to our Patreon. Subscribers receive at different levels: access to digital copies of our archived zines and features, digital copies of new work, Patreon-only content, discounts of printed work and monthly printed copies of our featured zine mailed to you along with whatever else we feel like that month. You can find us at Patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness or check out our website for more free content, including blogposts, zines, books, games, comics, how-to guides and other works we have to distribute. We can be found at TangledWilderness.org or check us out on twitter @Tangledwild. And as always, if you don't want to or can't contribute financially please rate and review us, and tell a friend. We like having friends. You do incredible things that we are endlessly marveled by. We would especially like to thank these friends: Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Micaiah, Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Natalie, Kirk, Hugh, Nora, Sam, Chris, and Hoss the dog for making this podcast and so many other projects possible. If you feel like a stranger that would like to find their story a home in this tangled wilderness consider submitting it; the pages are thirsty.  Next month, we bring to you something a little bit different. I will be talking with Celeste Inez Mathilda of Liminal Spaces about their zine “Taraxacum Officinale: Dandelion. Break the Binary. Migration is Beautiful” as well their views on the ethics of wildcrafting. Stay Well. We hope you come back. Find out more at https://strangers-in-a-tangled-wildern.pinecast.co

This week's show brings you an original commissioned HP Lovecraft mythos story by Nick Mamatas called “When the Sun Hits.”  Afterwards, Nick talks about the story in an Author's Note and Norm gives everyone an existential crises in a Drabble News presentation on The Boltzmann Brain. When the brain is liberated from the body, only […] The post Drabblecast 457 – When the Sun Hits appeared first on The Drabblecast.

Episode Notes This episode contains explicit language as well as some graphic violence. Strangers In A Tangled WIlderness can be found at here or on twitter @tangledwild. You can support this show by subscribing to our Patreon. The author is Margaret Killjoy and she can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. A more reader friendly copy of the story can be found at https://www.tangledwilderness.org/featured/welcometopenumbracity Along with amazing art by Robin Savage. The game Penumbra City is set in the World of Harrow. To find out more you can find them on twitter @worldofharrow or on instagram @PenumbraCity The Host is Inmn Neruin. You can find them on instagram @shadowtail.artificery The theme music is also by Margaret Killjoy. Show art is by Robin Savage TRANSCRIPT Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness 1: Confession To A Dead Man by Margaret Killyjoy Inmn Neruin: Hello and welcome to Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness...the podcast. I'm your host Inmn Neruin and I use They/them pronouns . Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is a collectively run publisher dedicated to producing and curating inclusive and intersectional culture informed by anarchistic ideals. This can include stories, fiction, poetry, memoir, non-fiction, theater pieces, comics, books, pop culture analysis, recipes, music, history, podcasts...and occasionally essays and theory. We are looking for content that doesn't know where it fits in, for people that don't know where they fit in. This podcast will provide audio versions of our monthly featured zine along with interviews from the author. It's possible we will use this for other formatted content in the future, but for now…it's for our monthly featured zine. If you would like a hard copy of our monthly feature, please consider subscribing to our Patreon where you will be mailed a lovely zine once a month along with occasional other goodies. Our Patreon helps make things like this podcast possible as well as supporting other podcasts we put out like Live Like The World Is Dying. It also helps us pay authors of the monthly features, transcribers, artists, editors and translators. So if you like what you hear, please consider subscribing at Patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. If you would like to submit a piece that you think would find a good home in our annals, please visit Tangledwilderness.org for our submission guidelines! This month, we're excited to bring you a short story by Margaret Killjoy entitled “Confession to a Deadman.” The story is set in the fictional World of Harrow, the setting for an up and coming table top role playing game called Penumbra City that Strangers will be publishing. In lieu of an interview with Margaret about the story, we will instead have a brief introduction to the game and the game world of which me, her and a collective of other wonderful nerds are co-creators of. If you would like to see some amazing artwork for the game by Robin Savage, please visit our website, or check us out on Twitter or Instagram. There's a black fog that hangs over the city, and it's not as metaphorical as you might hope. It's coal dust. Somewhere up through that smoke, there's a glorious silver city hovering in the sunshine—but don't concern yourself much with the floating quarter, because the likes of you will never see it. Groundside, orphans dig through rubble and trash to scavenge the parts to fix their motorcycles, street poets sell fungus and brawl over territory, and bureaucrats ride black horses to midnight salons where they plot the death of the god king. The graveyard's been squatted by immigrants now for longer than you've been alive, and there's a gang of nihilist ex-marines who seem intent on blowing up half of everything. Penumbra City is an upcoming tabletop role playing game set in the mysterious world of Harrow. Designed and imagined by a collective of queer and trans weirdos obsessed with bringing to life alternative worlds, gigantic mycelium, social rupture, and occult magic, this roleplaying game is both a game world setting and mechanic system. The game features a unique roll under dice system, class based character creation, theater of the mind combat, and a rich social and economic mechanic called Reputation for navigating the many factions of Penumbra City. Modeled in the Old School Rival style of RPGs, Penumbra City is meant to feel gritty, and at times grim, while offering a simple set of game mechanics and placing emphasis on non-mechanic based character development and storytelling. Penumbra City is a city-state within the larger world of Harrow. A once powerful city-state, Penumbra withers in a long decline and is governed by a multitude of vying factions. From anarchist squatter punks and urchin street gangs, to bourgeois secret societies and the powerfully militaristic Church of Athe players navigate a complex social web fueled by reputation instead of money. Set in a world that takes nods from 1880-1930s industrial eras, the world of Harrow is heavily impacted by both technology and magic, from coal-fueled engines and airships to occult magic and mycomancy. Although technology is roughly analogous to early industrial eras it leans heavily into the fantastical; Harrow is a world where both radios broadcast phonograph recordings and building-sized mechanical computation devices called difference engines predict the future. Here, coal not only fuels trains, it fuels exoskeletons and motorcycles that could explode at any moment. Magic and technology alike have a cost. Rip open a passage to the Ether to speak with the dead and you better hope you don't get trapped there, summon demons to inhabit the discarded remains of birds and you'd better hope they don't betray you, eat fungi to commune with rats but watch out for the mushroom sickness. The god king Athe, lurking above, upset that he's losing control, enslaves angels to make the Silver City float. Below the city, in the depths of the undercity, a giant fungal entity is growing, biding its time, slowly corrupting the minds of more and more of the populace. Players are led through the streets of Penumbra City by a Game Master. This game has a class-based character system dedicated to class war. To create a character, players choose from one of the 18 classes. Every class is linked to a faction in the city, and most factions are part of one of three coalitions that vie for control of the city: the Revolutionists, the Establishment, and the Reasonable... Here is a brief description of the classes: Clacker: A hacker who builds strange distributed computers to consult like oracles. Fights with wind-up bombs. Corsorian Knight: A knight of an anarchist order who fights in a terrifying calm and determines her own tenets. Doggirl: A motorcycle riding, house-squatting, live-fast-die-fast mechanic who sings in tongues and knows that one day his bike is gonna explode underneath him. Ex-Marine: When you leave the elite Steam Corps you're supposed to turn in your bolt thrower and your steampowered exoskeleton, but the Ex-Marine must have forgotten. Fungalian: A street poet who deals fungus both legal and illegal, who can bolster her comrades and get high on mushrooms to go into a battle frenzy. Fisher: A bounty hunter who hunts for fish in the sea and people on the land, fighting with trident and net. Gaslamper: The elite of the upper middle class belong to a secret society that meets in graveyards, rides black horses, fights with crossbow and sword cane, and recently turned their attention to the overthrow of the godking. Goeticist: A demon summoner who tries to get along with the murderous, ravenous beasts they bring into the world. Gunslinger: The Outsiders, originally from the nearby mountains but forced from their homes generations back, are a culture of mechanics. Their fighters build and modify their own guns. Labor Thug: Sometimes you just gotta fight some scabs. Labor thugs are brawlers who are skilled with improvised weapons, can throw anything, and are masters of free running. Lordling: It ain't easy being the kid of a rich bastard. Well maybe it is easy. The Lordling is down here slumming and it turns out privilege can still get you embarrassingly far in this world. The Lordling has all the right gear, can get out of jail with a favor from their father, and can win people over by spreading around the silver. Occultist: She wears all black, she likes bombs, she talks with the dead, she's got a phantasmal familiar, she reads tarot, and she curses anyone who fucks with her. Patchworker: Everyone is scared of these doctors. They can do wonderful and horrible things with scalpels. They can also slap some fungal paste onto a patch of skin they cut off a corpse, put that bad boy right onto your wounds, and heal you up. It even works most of the time. Rat King: The orphans who live in the shadow of the Silver City are damn weird. The Rat Kings are the damn weirdest of them. They eat mushrooms that let them commune with rats, who swarm over them like living armor and can attack their enemies. Skip: In a city of chaos, it's the kids who know their way around. Skips are youth who know every nook and cranny or they know someone who does. They can call upon others to help them in battle, but mostly they're just good at not getting hit. Theurge: The rich fucks up on the silver city have to do something with their time, and the Theurges like to pass the time by enslaving angels and bending them to their will. Hand of God: The war is going badly, the church has never been less popular. These priests glow with otherworldly power. They pull loaves of bread from thin air. They reach into the heavens above and wrestle angels to the earth, and slaughter them as sacrifice to their God which in turn allows them to perform miracles. Hogsmen: When someone crosses the Lords of the New Order, it's the Hogsmen who clean up the mess. Pigs are smart. Pigs can track. Pigs can eat. Oh, lord can they eat. Invetigator: Running a war means information. Information means investigators. Trained in spycraft, infiltration, hypnotism, investigators fight with knives, guns, and sheer force of will. Underknights: The Underknights are the elite monster-hunting, trash-living-in force of the Gloaming. They serve the King Beneath the King, but more than that, they serve their righteous cause. It's not their fault that no one believes them about the great unknowable fungal threat beneath the city. Choose a class, jump on your Dogswheel, join the Revolutionists, see what the god king has in store… We now present, “Confession to a Dead man,” narrated by Bea Flowers. Bea Flowers: “Confession to a Dead man” A World of Harrow story set in Penumbra City by Margaret Killjoy. Narrated by Bea Flowers “No, see, you've got it all wrong,” Alecti said, laughing a little even though rain water dripped down on her through the leaky carriage roof, even though she couldn't reach the drops to wipe them off because of her handcuffs, even though the cheap lawman's carriage hit yet another pothole and her face cracked against the wood of the door. “I didn't kill that guy. He was dead when I got there.” “No?” “Yeah, I mean, I would have killed him. Tried to, even. Just missed my chance.” The man sitting on the bench opposite of her just stared, waiting for her to say more. He was wiry. So was his beard. He was nearly enveloped by his thick wool overcoat, but a hint of his pale gold uniform snuck out near his collar. Alecti could just make out the insignia on his lapel–a sword crossed with a shepherd's crook. “It's a cute name,” Alecti said. “I'll give you that.” “What?” “The King's Boy's and Girl's Club. It's a cute name. Like, you're just a bunch of bootlicking murderous cops. Was the irony intentional? When you came up with the name?” “I don't know,” the man said. “It was before my time. Maybe. That's not what matters.” “What matters?” Alecti asked. Blood was starting to trickle down from her right nostril. It tickled. “What happened tonight is what matters,” the man said. “If you didn't kill the Reverend, who did? Tell us what you know, we'll let you walk.” “Oh, honey,” Alecti said, “I don't like when you lie to me.” “Who says I'm lying?” the man asked. “If you didn't kill him, we'll just hold you at Hazard long enough to get everything sorted, let you go.” “The only thing we agree on,” Alecti said, licking her blood off her upper lip, “is that you're going to let me go.” The road sounds changed, from mud and gravel to cobble, and Alecti looked out the tiny window. She couldn't make anything out through the rain and grime, but she knew they must have made it to Penumbra North. At this snail's pace, it was another thirty or forty minutes before they reached Hazard Penitentiary. Alecti and her friends didn't spend much time in Penumbra North. “Where the streets are made out of street and the people are made out of misplaced loyalty,” she said aloud. “What?” “Nothing.” “Tell me what happened,” the cop said again. “Yeah, fine,” she said. No reason not to. Besides, she'd missed her therapy appointment that week because her therapist Joan had been on a bender with that squatter from the South Docks, the Doggirl. What was his name? Doggirls all had stupid names like Wrench or Carborateur or Petunia or whatever. Petunia, that was it. Had a nice bike. Didn't even explode very often, so he claimed. He was cute. Couldn't blame Joan for missing the session. “Yeah, fine, I'll tell you what happened. But only because I'm going to kill you.” So it started like every good evening does, at a party thrown by the anarchists. The fun anarchists, of course, the Erreni. Not the boring anarchists, the Corsorians. Or those, you know, don't-call-us-anarchist anarchists from the North Docks who are even more boring, the Industrial Workers of Harrow. It started at a party. It was a good party. Mostly on a rooftop, one of those weird theaters in the shadow of Triumph Tower, so you've got the sunset coming pretty through the ash haze over the factories and you've got the stupid glow from the stupid silver city which I do not like admitting is pretty. Some of the Clackers were up from their warrens trying out those bulbs you run electric through and they glow all handsome and light the evening up and most of them don't even explode. There was a troupe over from the Dead Quarter doing a pantomime, plus half an orchestra over from the Outs with their heirloom cellos and shit. So I'm having a good time, because I love all of that shit. I love the shitty mushroom beer that's all we've got to drink because your god's dumb war got the farms all blown up and Athe forbid he bother importing some barley. I love the potluck snacks everyone brings. Who knew you could fry a rat in so much oil that it tastes good, who knew you could grow hot peppers on the top of Triumph Tower where a little bit more sun peeks in. You know what I love most of all about those parties though? I love that we fucking have fun, despite how hard you and your immortal bag of dicks of a boss god try to make us suffer. I love that we still have music even if we barely have food. I love when you fail to take things like that away from us. I know what you're gonna say to that. You're not trying to make us suffer. You're trying to, what, bring us all back into His grace, so we can win the war, rebuild the farms, and go back to living boring lives of quiet mediocrity like we supposedly had like seventy years ago, right? Get people trusting that money will feed us instead of us feeding each other however we can. Return the flock to the fold. Well, you've got to get a new metaphor, because there are no flocks of sheep anywhere anymore. They all got slaughtered for food ten years ago and all their fields have been bombed to shit for half my life. But anyway, the party. Party good. That's not the part you want to hear about, I guess. Who am I to deny your last wishes? You want to hear about the Reverend Lamin Hend the XIV. You wanna hear about who it was who decided his ear would look better with an itty-bitty teeny-tiny spike stuck into it till it hit the brain. I mean, let's be honest lots of us would have decided that. But you wanna hear about the guy who actually pulled it off. Who wasn't me. So at the party, I'm there with my friends. Malice, she was a marine before she went AWOL. Kept her armor, and her trauma. Pretty useful in a fight. Which is good because she gets us in a lot of them. Sanny, the rat king, god they're weird. Most people who use they/them pronouns use them singularly, right? Sanny uses them plural. Athe has the royal we, since he's a godking, says “we do not approve of you lot having fun with the one and only life you have on this planet” and “we are not amused by your mockery” and all of that, right? Sanny uses the uh, the vermin “we.” When you talk about Sanny, you're talking about the human kid buried under all those rats but you're talking about the rats too. Love Sanny. And Losa was there of course. Honestly I'm not so sure about Losa. Are we even friends anymore? We hang out together, sure. Do crimes. But we haven't talked in ages, not like, really talked. God, you know, it really feels good to just get to open up about this stuff. Say all the stuff that usually just lives inside my head. I really appreciate that. I appreciate you. I just want you to know that. You're going to be inside a kind of living nightmare soon enough, which you deserve because you're trying to lock me up in a cage, but I just want you to know that you're appreciated as a person even if not as a cop. Losa is a patchworker. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, back-alley surgeon who flays corpses and mixes up fungal paste and sews the skin of dead people onto living people in order to heal wounds. You're thinking a scary bitch with a scalpel who doesn't think a thing about ripping the bones out of living people. You're thinking right! Losa is a scary bitch who does all of those things. Also a hell of a dice player, and a good cook, and would you believe it or not an honest-to-Athe vegetarian. And we really did used to be close. I was at all three of her weddings and the four resultant funerals. But after that time in the basement of that club fighting all those giant centipedes, you know, it just hasn't been the same. Plus I think she's jealous of how close I've gotten with Malice. Or maybe it's the other way around. So the four of us are at this party and I'm just trying to have a good time but Malice is all “we need a mission let's do a mission” and Losa is kissing up to her about it so she's like “yes, look at me, I'm Losa, and I will temporarily pretend like I share your ethical framework and worldview in order to get closer to you and drive a wedge between you and Alecti” or at least that's what I assume she said, because suddenly she wants a mission too. Guys, can't the mission sometimes just be get drunk and maybe high and maybe just maybe Athe forbid get laid? No, no, no. It's time to do crimes for the good of humanity or whatever. I look at Sanny but they're just feeding bits of mushroom to those rats and their eyes started spinning and they whispered “whatever happens, we're in.” So that's how I knew I wasn't going to get laid at the party, because every single one of those bitches would have died a thousand times over if it weren't for my spooky ass saving them with a well-timed curse or a jaunt into the Ether. We find a guy with the Erreni who knows everyone. I guess that's repetitive. All the Erreni know everyone. We find a guy, he's cute but I'm not allowed to see if he's down to fuck because we've got work to do for some dumb reason, and he says there's this… elbow guard. I know you know what I'm talking about, I know you care more about that fucking thing than you do about the life of poor dear Reverend Lamin Hend the nine-hundred-and-fiftieth of his name or whatever. I know that's why you followed us. Anyway, the cute guy, he tells us, and everyone else at the party besides, about this elbow guard. Holy to the Outsiders. Ancient. Made out of granite and quartz in the ceremonial style. Let's see if I got this chain of events right. Lamin had this tenant, old Outsider lady who'd gotten tired of sleeping in a crypt in the Dead Quarter and had tried to do things proper and get a room in North Penumbra. Only now that there's no money and everything is favors and reputation and shit, Mr Hend doesn't really like unprestigious guests so he got it into his head that she owed him something, so he marches into her house and picks up the most valuable thing he sees, like the prick that he is. The elbow guard. He takes it to the Esteemed to see what it's worth, only I think a Skip saw that go down, and now the whole city knows. They especially know about how there's an inscription the damn thing and half of it is written in that language Outside and half of it is written in whatever the fuck weird language related to Old Penumbran that no one can read that's scrawled across the whole undercity. So… valuable. To lots of people. So first, yeah, the idea is we're just gonna steal the damn thing. Get it back to the Outsiders where it belongs. It's the right thing to do. And sure none of us would mind that they'd be grateful and maybe let us use their gunsmithies sometimes. Then Losa though, see she grew up on the streets mostly, because her mom was from Penumbra North, she's like a fourth-generation patchworker. You see where I'm going with this? You remember when your little King's Boy's and Girl's Club rounded up the patchworkers, called them unholy, drove them out of your territory? What was that, ten years ago? When, you know, Losa was ten? Well, guess who her mom's landlord had been, guess who had told you all about Losa's mom in the first place? Lamin Hend the fucking Fourteenth. Sorry, Reverend Lamin Hend the fucking Fourteenth. He ain't so revered as his title implies, not by most of the city. Losa says her bit about what happened to her and what do you know, half the party has stories about this guy. Hired some thugs–not you, other thugs–to blow up a pie shop run by the Lords of the New Order that was competing with one he had interest in. Ain't too good to the people he hires, either–it was one of those thugs he'd hired who was at the party, turns out Hend tossed him to the Lords as soon as it was convenient. His friends rescued him. Funny thing, about friends. It's nice to have friends. Anyway. More and more people saying this shit. He's a bad landlord, a shitty boss, awful to the people he fucks, just not a redeeming bone in that man's body. So pretty quick we go from let's rob this guy to let's kill this guy, you know how that goes, and a couple of Doggirls are around with their bikes, one of em even has a sidecar, and they figure what they hell why not go for a joyride or I guess a killride up to Penumbra North, find this guy's house, swap around his insides and his outsides, grab the stolen elbow guard, wham bam thank you ma'am all in a good night's work. Nope. You fucks are on the prowl. Good thing the Doggirls are smarter than you lot, avoid your patrols like six times. We stop in an alley by the canal, hop on up to the second floor balcony, the door was wide open. How the hell Malice climbs in all that powered armor, dragging a goddammed boiler, the world will never know. I swear to Athe I've never seen her strength fail her. And here's where it gets good, right? Here's where you start to care? The damn man is already dead. Looks like he's sleeping except there's blood on the pillow. I know a thing or two about a thing or two and while everyone else is just like “what the fuck happened here?” I can tell them that like… Okay bear with me. You know the world is made up of three worlds, right? I know Athe tries to keep you in the dark on basic cosmology. But three worlds. Form a triangle. We live on the Material. Then there's the Ether, which is where I guess you could call them angels live. Then the Rot, where, you know, demons. We touch both other planes and each of those other planes touches ours and the other one. A triangle. It's not your dumb hell-earth-heaven linear hierarchy–you've been lied to. So us humans live on the Material, right? But we're made out of stuff that transfers from one to the other. What you call your higher soul and your lower soul, which are dumb words for it. I say it's Agape and Thelema and maybe those are dumb words for it too, who knows. When you die your stuff moves on. Agape does the circle clockwise, heads over to the Ether till it heads over to the Rot till it heads on back to the Material. Thelema goes counterclockwise, over to the Rot, then the Ether, back to here. You get the idea. What's this got to do with ear spikes? See back before your fucking godkings ascended, people here knew a thing or two about the planes and more people than just us weirdos could communicate across those borders, and those people, whose name is lost to use probably forever–in my society, the Hermetic Order of Nothing, we call them the Forgotten people. Which yeah I know isn't super original but it's descriptive I guess. Those people, the Forgotten people, they used to kill people by jamming spikes into their ears. That's my point. It's kind of classy, isn't it? Not much mess. Didn't even wake the guy up. You should try it sometime. Well, not you. You shouldn't, you're a cop. You shouldn't kill people. Or exist. I'd say “or quit your job and find new friends” but it's too late for that. So there we are, and I'm trying to explain Agape and Thelema to everyone and they're kind of ignoring me because everyone does when I talk about that stuff, and Malice is looking through the guy's bedroom and it's like a dumb goddammed museum in there, complete with stolen artifacts behind glass with plaques. A rusty old sabre from Kirik, a Rothean prayer book, and, oh, get this, a human skull labeled as having once belonged to a “chieftain of Sor.” Can you believe it? Now you're just staring at me. You don't get it. Sor doesn't have chieftains. Never did. The whole country is built on a plateau no one was able to reach until the godking Sor lifted his people up with his mighty magic or whatever. Come on. Their whole religion is based on that. How do you not know that? Sor is even friends with Athe right now, you should know that. And there's a glass case where the elbow guard should be, but of course it's empty because someone stole it, probably whoever ear spiked our good friend, and of course the plaque is just a handwritten piece of paper because there hadn't been enough time to find an engraver. It says “elbow guard, probably important.” We're all having a laugh about the chieftain skull until a rat runs in and looks up at Sanny and Sanny looks down at the rat and they turn to us and tell us that people are on their way, a lot of people. That's the good thing about having a swarm of rats at your command. “What kind of people?” Losa asks. “They don't know, they're fucking rats,” Sanny says, only Sanny probably didn't curse when they said it. “We should get the fuck out of here though.” Again, without the “fuck” probably. It's hard not to cuss when I'm in your shitty fucking carriage, do you people not know how to fix a roof? You keep it shitty just so that your “guests” have it worse? But you have it worse too, you asshole. You're just making the fucking world worse. God I can't wait to get out of here and kill you, my nose is fucking bleeding and I can't see shit and my hands are cramping. Anyway so we fuck off, right? Back out the window. The Doggirls who drove us there are gone. I guess they saw which way the wind was blowing and those bikers like some of us alright but not enough to fight off the cops and risk getting killed or sent to Hazard. That's how we figure, whoever's coming, it's probably you all. Malice wants to stay and shoot you all with her bolt thrower, which sounds like a reasonable plan to me, but Sanny and Losa don't like it, so we break into the empty house next door and lay low. Sure enough, it's you and your buds who show up. You probably remember this part. You go in, search the house, find the body. Me, what I do, is I make sure my friends are keeping watch, and I pull out the candles and the incense and the chalk and the charcoal and I get myself a circle drawn up on the wood floor in the empty house, and I tie a silk rope around my waist, and I project myself into the Ether. Or to be more accurate, some portion of my Agape crosses over while my body stays put, and I'm walking around like a ghost, through walls and shit, tethered to my body by that rope. I pop over next door and guess whose essence is still lingering, not dissolved yet into the Ether proper? The Reverend Lamin Hend the fucking Fourteenth, that's whose. It's funny, cause that's how I know you were one of the Kingsmen who showed up, because I was in the room with you while you were investigating. Good eye, finding that feather on the ground, by the way. We'd missed that. Lamin is standing there looking all angelic and blissed out like every other dead prick, and he seems surprised I can see him. Asks if I'm an angel, sent to help usher him into heaven for his lifetime of good deeds. So I look at him, and… I've never claimed to be an honest girl. Well, I mean, I've claimed it, but it's never been true. I look at him and I say “Yup. That's me. Seraphic as hell. Just need to tie up some loose ends, get everything sorted with your paperwork. Tell me, in your own words, how you died.” He tells me his story, which wasn't too long. He went to bed same as normal, then woke up feeling something weird, flicked his eyes open. Saw a man, gaunt and aged, leaning over him. Pale skin, like the Lampreymen. Then he caught just a moment's glance, saw some horror the likes of which he'd never dreamed. Some kind of taxidermy bird gone wrong, six feet tall, feathered, beaked, eyes everywhere across his body. “What was it?” he asked, like I had all the answers. I did, this time, though. And I wanted to be a dick to him and make something up but I thought, you know what, this guy's soul or whatever is about to disintegrate into the Ether and he's never going to experience anything, ever again. And it looks like I've got a soft spot for folks who are already dead, or like in your case, basically already dead. So I tell him. And this is what you want to know too. You and Lamin you've got a lot in common. I tell him that he's describing a demon. Sort of. I'm telling him, he saw a Goeticist above him. You think us Occultists are rare and scary, those of us who fuck with the Ether? Oh then you'll love the Goeticists. They fuck with the Rot. I tell Lamin Hend that this guy built a mannequin out of dead animals and ripped open a portal to the Rot and let a bit of that weird shit that lives there into the Material to animate his little death puppet. Which means he likely made some kind of deal. Like, you serve me for a week, then you're free to go do whatever you want in the Material. Which means the city is in for some bad luck soon cause that fucking thing is still out there. And that's your fault, you know that? People you claim to protect are gonna die. Anyway, he tells me about the Goeticist, and I tell him thanks buddy, and you'll be whisked off soon enough, don't worry about the slow disintegration of what's left of your mind, all part of the process. I don't tell him about the angels that are gonna be eating his soul same as maggots eat a corpse, I just pop back over to my body. Losa and Malice are playing dice, Sanny is talking to their rats… I guess you could say talking to themself? I tell them what's up, and Sanny says weird dead bird creature, rats can track that. Off we go. And you know where we went, because you tracked us. Athe only knows how. You bastards are good at tracking people, I'll give you that. All the way through Penumbra South, around Triumph Plaza, down to the South Docks. The rain picked up and didn't help our mood and it took us half the night to get where we were going. To a little rundown shack up against a pier, with some muttering inside. So we're all set to kick in the door, I've got a bomb out and everything, cigarette lit in the holder in my mouth, when Malice says “you guys, I don't think this is how we should approach the situation.” If Malice doesn't think direct physical confrontation is the best solution, that means it really isn't the right solution, because she solves almost everything with violence. So we scoot on over to the dark under the pier, and back out comes the candles and the chalk and the rope, and I'm off into the Ether for the second time that night. You know how tiring that is? Whatever. Hop on into the shack. There's the guy, there's the demon. They're talking. Demons talk weird. Imagine like eight people talking at once saying almost the same thing but not quite. But the core of it is pretty banal. The Goeticist is a spy for Hirn. Is gonna sell them the elbow guard. That's it. Then the demon says “there's someone outside” and the two rush out the door and I turn around to rush back into my body but I don't make it even through the wall before I black out, and guess where I wake up? Here. With you. Alecti was silent for a while after telling her story, waiting for the lawman to say something, or react in any way. He didn't. A fear came over her, for the first time. She was certain that, whatever else, her friends were out there in the city looking for her, tracking the carriage. They would call in some favors, and any minute now, a crew on Dogswheels were going to roll up, engines roaring, and Malice was going to use that big gun of hers to set her free. She just thought it would have happened by now. She hadn't figured she'd reach the end of the story. The cop must have been able to see her confidence drain away, because a smile slowly worked its way across his face. She couldn't give up. Not on her friends. Yeah, they'd let her get captured in the first place. But they must have been busy, dealing with the spy and his demon. Any minute now. She sighed, leaned her head against the window as rain dropped down on her cheek. Next time, she was going to the party alone and the only call to adventure she was going to answer was the adventure of getting laid. Or maybe, and she knew she was getting real desperate and sad when her mind went into this, the darkest of corners… maybe she should ask Losa back out. Yeah they hadn't been good for each other, but who ever was? “Given up, then?” the lawman finally asked. She sat upright and glared. The carriage slowed to a halt. “Looks like we're here,” he said. Then, blessedly, a foot-long steel bolt shot right through the sidewall of the carriage and impaled the man through the chest, pinning him to the far wall. Blood came to his mouth, dripping into his gray beard, and he looked down with surprise and horror. A scream broke through sudden and shocking silence. Alecti had heard that scream before. That was the scream of a man covered in rats. Then the scream stopped, replaced with a gurgling. That was the noise of a throat cut with a scalpel. The driver. “You do love me,” Alecti said, as the door to the carriage was wrenched off its hinges. “What?” Malice asked, tossing the steel door aside. Losa and Sanny peered in from behind her. “I said ‘what took you so long?'” Alecti lied. “Oh,” Malice said, looking genuinely contrite. “The demon and the spy slowed us down. They got away, too, with the elbow guard.” Losa stepped into the carriage, pulled out a scalpel, and picked the handcuffs open. “Thank you,” Alecti whispered into Losa's ear, where the other's couldn't hear it. “Fuck, I was so scared.” “Me too,” Losa whispered. “All I could think was what if I never saw you again. I'm so sorry we let them get you.” They met eyes for half a moment, then drifted away. “Alright you dumb bitches,” Alecti said, standing up, glancing over quickly at the still-dying cop on the bench across from her, “let's go steal back an artifact.” Inmn Neruin: That was “Confession to a Dead Man,” Written by Margaret Killjoy and narrated by Bea Flowers. If you would like to learn more about Penumbra City as a fictional setting or a table top role playing game, please check us out on twitter @WorldofHarrow (spelled H-A-R-R-O-W). You can also find us on Instagram @Penumbracity. And don't forget to check out our amazing game art created by Robin Savage on our website. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast please go tell someone about it. Whisper it in their ear, invite them over to listen together, sign its name in their hand, or a ask a rat to deliver them a letter about it. If you would like to support us as well as the authors, translators, editors and artists that we work with please consider subscribing to our Patreon. Subscribers receive at different levels: access to digital copies of our archived zines and features, digital copies of new work, Patreon-only content, discounts of printed work and monthly printed copies of our featured zine mailed to you along with whatever else we feel like that month. You can find us at Patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness or check out our website for more free content, including blogposts, zines, books, games, comics, how-to guides and other works we have to distribute. We can be found at TangledWilderness.org or check us out on twitter @Tangledwild. And as always, if you don't want to or can't contribute financially please rate and review us, and tell a friend. We like having friends. You do incredible things that we are endlessly marveled by. We would especially like to thank these friends Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Micaiah, Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Natalie, Kirk, Hugh, Nora, Sam, Chris, and Hoss the dog for making this podcast and so many other projects possible. If you feel like a stranger that would like to find their story a home in this tangled wilderness consider submitting it; the ink is hungry. Next month we are excited to bring to you a story by Nick Mamatas titled “The Great Armored Train.” Where Trotsky, State Communism, and Polish folk magic collide with blood on the iron rails. Stay well. We hope you come back. Find out more at https://strangers-in-a-tangled-wildern.pinecast.co

In dieser Episode ist die Autorin Petra Grell zu Gast. Wir unterhalten uns über drei Kurzgeschichten mit ähnlichem Thema und sogar ähnlichen Titeln. Es geht um fanatische Sammler, deren Sammelleidenschaft sie an den Rand des Wahnsinns treibt.

In this episode of the Dick Adjacent series David has invited four translators of Asian science fiction on the show to discuss how, when, and why we see more and more stories translated into english. Concentrating mostly on China and Japan, David, Nathaniel Isaacson, Nick Mamatas, Tyran Grillo, and Angus Stewart discuss their favorites, what they think you should read, and what is coming next in genre fiction from the far east. Our Patreon ►► http://www.patreon.com/LanghorneJTweed Electric Larryland Discord ►► discord.gg/RAyg2u TTCFP Episode 21 with Nathaniel Isaacson ►► https://trchfic.podbean.com/?s=isaacson Find Nick Mamatas ►► https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/193861.Nick_Mamatas Find Tyran Grillo ►► https://ecmreviews.com/ Find Angus Stewart ►► https://dustsymbols.tumblr.com/hello Find Nathaniel Isaacson ►► https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55133063-exploring-dark-short-fiction-5 ►► https://www.amazon.com/Celestial-Empire-Emergence-Chinese-Classics/dp/0819576689 Music on this episode is from - Valis: An Opera by Tod Machover Check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/Valis-ANNE-BOGDEN…EMA/dp/B000003GI2 FIND US: Twitter ►► https://twitter.com/Dickheadspod Facebook ►► https://www.facebook.com/Dickheadspodcast/ Soundcloud ►► https://soundcloud.com/dickheadspodcast Instagram ►► https://www.instagram.com/dickheadspodcast/ YouTube ►► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Gjzj26NsRyUlAAoWtLiCg --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pkdheadsbonus/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pkdheadsbonus/support

Nick Mamatas (author of The Second Shooter) joined me on the latest episode of GHOULISH to discuss conspiracy theories, Big Macs, how to greet people in New York and England, and paranoid fiction. ALSO: I'm launching the first GHOULISH BOOK FESTIVAL! Details in the episode. Pre-order The Second Shooter: https://www.booksinc.net/aff/nick.mamatas/book/9781781089262 Learn more about the Ghoulish Book Festival: https://ghoulishbookfest.com/  Join The Ghoulish Times: https://theghoulishtimes.substack.com/  Browse the books on our webstore: http://perpetualpublishing.com/shop/  Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pmmpublishing Theme song by Heathenish Kid

Check out Nick's website nick-mamatas.com Sponsored by: Biblio Used Books Used Books  California Tea House Premium Loose Leaf Tea Copper Cow Coffee Vietnamese Pour Over Coffee Curve Girl Plus Sized Women's Clothing  Donner Musical Instuments Student Instruments  Glarry Guitars Inexpensive Guitars  Golden Goat CBD CBD & Delta 8 Edibles Psychedelic Water A Legal Psychedelic Beverage        Share a Sale Get your podcast or website Sponsored Things from Another World Comics, Games, Toys Follow us: Podbean Amazon Apple Stitcher Facebook Our Patreon

Check out Nick's website nick-mamatas.com Sponsored by: Biblio Used Books Used Books  California Tea House Premium Loose Leaf Tea Copper Cow Coffee Vietnamese Pour Over Coffee Curve Girl Plus Sized Women's Clothing  Donner Musical Instuments Student Instruments  Glarry Guitars Inexpensive Guitars  Golden Goat CBD CBD & Delta 8 Edibles Psychedelic Water A Legal Psychedelic Beverage        Share a Sale Get your podcast or website Sponsored Things from Another World Comics, Games, Toys Follow us: Podbean Amazon Apple Stitcher Facebook Our Patreon

In this episode of the HP Lovecast, Michele Brittany and Nicholas Diak discuss the comic series Vinegar Teeth by Troy Nixey and Damon Gentry and published by Dark Horse. Episode edited by: Michele BrittanyIntro/Outro Music: "Azathoth" by Philippe Gerber / John 3:16 (Bandcamp page)Links to Purchase Vinegar TeethAmazonBarnes and Nobleor via your favorite Comic Book storeBumperThis episode's bumper is courtesy of  Nick Mamatas. He can be found on Twitter. While he has an Amazon author page, it is best to order his books via Books Inc. (because he can also autograph them). HP Lovecast interview with Nick MamatasHP Lovecast episode about Wonder and Glory ForeverSupport HP Lovecast PodcastIf you liked this episode and want to support HP Lovecast, consider purchasing one of our books:Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical EssaysHorror in Space : Critical Essays on a Film SubgenreJames Bond and Popular Culture: Essays on the Influence of the Fictional SuperspyThe New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990sOr consider donating to our Ko-Fi account. 

THAT OF WHICH WE SPEAK WHEN WE SPEAK OF THE UNSPEAKABLE In this episode, Mary looks at Nick Mamatas's story from the Lovecraft Unbound anthology, and how his sense of humor and nihilism make for a compelling and amusing horror read.  

He walks the stars embedded in the virtual dome of night and, when he tires of a world, throws a small black stone over his shoulder - and entire societies blink out of existence. The work is necessary, or so he insists. But the Planetbreaker's son has his own ideas. Meanwhile, in 'The Strange Case Of,' Mamatas gleefully blinks sentimental, shopworn ideas out of easy acceptance. 'The Twin Dragons of Sentimentality and Didacticism' explores the dangers and pleasures of Animal Rescue. But listen. That 'Ring, Ring, Ring' (and so forth) you hear is the dreaded ouija phone connecting the living with the dead. And it's for you. Of course we include our predictably unpredictable, outrageously rageous Outspoken Interview with Mamatas. Also for you.

He walks the stars embedded in the virtual dome of night and, when he tires of a world, throws a small black stone over his shoulder - and entire societies blink out of existence. The work is necessary, or so he insists. But the Planetbreaker's son has his own ideas. Meanwhile, in 'The Strange Case Of,' Mamatas gleefully blinks sentimental, shopworn ideas out of easy acceptance. 'The Twin Dragons of Sentimentality and Didacticism' explores the dangers and pleasures of Animal Rescue. But listen. That 'Ring, Ring, Ring' (and so forth) you hear is the dreaded ouija phone connecting the living with the dead. And it's for you. Of course we include our predictably unpredictable, outrageously rageous Outspoken Interview with Mamatas. Also for you.

Savor spanakopita with Nick Mamatas as we discuss why there's a generational divide when it comes to what potential readers might think his upcoming novel The Second Shooter is about, our joint Brooklyn heritage and history with professional wrestling, why he threw away the first dozen stories he wrote, the reason Marvel Comics was always better than DC, his encounters with the famed monologuist Brother Theodore, the first bad book he ever read, the way having been a journalist helps him collaborate without killing his co-writers, why work for hire assignments can be difficult, how we feel about our refusal to pick a genre lane, and much more.

In this episode of H.P. Lovecast Michele Brittany and Nicholas Diak discuss "You Will Never Be the Same" by Erica L. Satifka and "Weird Tales" by Fred Chappell from Wonder & Glory Forever, edited by Nick Mamatas.Written by: Michele Brittany and Nicholas DiakEpisode Edited by: Michele BrittanyIntro/Outro Music by: Marcel P. of Dungeon Studio, RhenaniaInterlude Music: "Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age" by Gustav HolstLink to Purchase Wonder & Glory Forever: https://www.booksinc.net/book/9780486845302Nick Mamatas' DetailsTwitter: https://twitter.com/NMamatasWebsite: http://www.nick-mamatas.com/Erica L. Satifka's DetailsTwitter: https://twitter.com/ericasatifkaWebsite: http://www.ericasatifka.com/Fred Chappell's Details:Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fred-Chappell/e/B000AP9ISA%3FMisc.Interview with Nick Mamatas: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1022692/6706045-hplcp-fragments-ep-05-interview-with-nick-mamatasIf you liked this episode and want to support HP Lovecast, consider purchasing one of our books:Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical EssaysHorror in Space : Critical Essays on a Film SubgenreJames Bond and Popular Culture: Essays on the Influence of the Fictional SuperspyThe New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990s

In this episode of HP Lovecast Presents: Fragments, Michele Brittany and Nicholas Diak interview Nick Mamatas about three of his recent publications: Wonder & Glory Forever, Sabbath, and The People's Republic of Everything. Episode Edited by: Michele BrittanyIntro and Outro music: "The Train" by Trevor Sewell from his album Independence. Used with permission. This album can be purchased at Sewell's website: https://www.trevorsewell.com/audio/1328-2Nick Mamatas' books can be ordered via Books Inc. and can be autographed by him if you use the comments functionality during check out. Wonder & Glory Forever: https://www.booksinc.net/book/9780486845302Sabbath: https://www.booksinc.net/book/9781250170125The People's Republic of Everything: https://www.booksinc.net/book/9781616963002Or purchase from your bookseller of preference. Nick Mamatas' Social MediaTwitter: https://twitter.com/NMamatasWebsite: http://www.nick-mamatas.com/If you liked this episode and want to support HP Lovecast, consider purchasing one of our books:Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical EssaysHorror in Space : Critical Essays on a Film SubgenreJames Bond and Popular Culture: Essays on the Influence of the Fictional SuperspyThe New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990s

In which your hosts wallow in the Deeps with Tentacles and Nick Mamatas, discussing everything from Sherlock Holmes to Kerouac and Lovecraft. Nick talks about writing, editing, teaching, and the latest stuff he’s working on. Write short fiction, Nick says! … Continue...Episode 62 – Tentacles with Nick Mamatas

Today Bee is joined by Nick Mamatas, Bram Stoker award-winning editor & author of the just-re-released novel Move Under Ground. (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9780486841861)Bee & Nick talk about writing modern Lovecraftian stories & his looming influence, the joy of reading referential stories, and typographic style as a carrier of meaning. The audio is a bit rough in this one, apologies! Nick was a pleasure to have on the pod though, and we're glad we were able to work through those audio issues. * Move Under Ground on Amazon* Move Under Ground on Bookshop --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

In which our heroes do some EXTREME field research. Twitter: WeirdTalesPod Email: TheWeirdTalesPodcast@gmail.com Thank you so much for listening!

A long time ago, a green meteor fell from the sky and landed on The Magnificent Mangum. Now he has supernatural psychic abilities. Today on the show, he was kind enough to perform tarot readings for the following people: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Stanley Kubrick, Nick Mamatas, and...you, the listener. He also, at one point during the recording, might have gotten possessed by a ghastly ghoul??? Whoops! Buy Saint Sadist. Support Lucas Mangum on Patreon. Pre-order Touch the Night. Browse our books. Support us on Patreon. Check out our merch.

Episode Notes This story appeared in Nick Mamatas's collection The People's Republic of Everything, published in 2018 by Tachyon Publications.About the author: Nick Mamatas is the author of seven novels, including Love is the Law, I Am Providence, and the forthcoming Hexen Sabbath. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, and many other venues. Nick is also an anthologist; his books include the Bram Stoker Award winner Haunted Legends (co-edited with Ellen Datlow), the Locus Award nominees The Future is Japanese and Hanzai Japan (both co-edited with Masumi Washington), and Mixed Up (co-edited with Molly Tanzer). His fiction and editorial work has been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and International Horror Guild Awards. Mamatas lives in Oakland, California.About the host: Margaret Killjoy is a transfeminine author and editor currently based in the Appalachian mountains. Her most recent book is an anarchist demon hunters novella called The Barrow Will Send What it May, published by Tor.com. She spends her time crafting and complaining about authoritarian power structures and she blogs at birdsbeforethestorm.net.

Recorded at Scares That Care 2019, DEEPER THAN R’LYEH: THE NEW COSMIC HORROR: Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s She Walks In Shadows. Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom. Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country. Nick Mamatas’s Move Under Ground. How would H.P. Lovecraft react to these (and other) permutations of his mythos, and how do they strengthen cosmic horror moving forward? With Norman Prentiss (moderator), Paul Tremblay, Damien Angelica Walters, Maurice Broaddus, Nick Mamatas, and Mary SanGiovanni.

Taken from a recent episode of THE HORROR SHOW WITH BRIAN KEENE, Mary, Brian, and Dave discuss the novel I AM PROVIDENCE by Nick Mamatas.

The Horror Show book club continues as Brian, Dave and Mary discuss in-depth the satirical, incendiary, heartfelt meta-fictional murder mystery I AM PROVIDENCE by Nick Mamatas. Plus, more allegations against Nocturnal Readers Box and Horror Bees, trouble at Telltale Games, and a discussion of labor unions.

This week on Dread Media, we get cult. First, two brothers return to the death cult they grew up in to seek answers in Darryll and Desmond's review of The Endless. Then, Desmond goes solo on reviews of the following books, tackling toxic fandom of cult heroes: I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas and Shatnerquake by Jeff Burk. Of course, we have one of the most eclectic line-ups of songs for this weird episode: "Cult" by Endless, "House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals, "Common People" by William Shatner, and "The Cult of 2112" by Perturbation. Send feedback to: dreadmediapodcast@gmail.com. Follow @DevilDinosaurJr and @dreadmedia on Twitter! Join the Facebook group! Support the show at www.patreon.com/dreadmedia. Visit www.desmondreddick.com, www.stayscary.wordpress.com, www.dreadmedia.bandcamp.com, and www.kccinephile.com.

This week on Dread Media, we get cult. First, two brothers return to the death cult they grew up in to seek answers in Darryll and Desmond's review of The Endless. Then, Desmond goes solo on reviews of the following books, tackling toxic fandom of cult heroes: I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas and Shatnerquake by Jeff Burk. Of course, we have one of the most eclectic line-ups of songs for this weird episode: "Cult" by Endless, "House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals, "Common People" by William Shatner, and "The Cult of 2112" by Perturbation. Send feedback to: dreadmediapodcast@gmail.com. Follow @DevilDinosaurJr and @dreadmedia on Twitter! Join the Facebook group! Support the show at www.patreon.com/dreadmedia. Visit www.desmondreddick.com, www.stayscary.wordpress.com, www.dreadmedia.bandcamp.com, and www.kccinephile.com.

This week on Dread Media, we get cult. First, two brothers return to the death cult they grew up in to seek answers in Darryll and Desmond's review of The Endless. Then, Desmond goes solo on reviews of the following books, tackling toxic fandom of cult heroes: I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas and Shatnerquake by Jeff Burk. Of course, we have one of the most eclectic line-ups of songs for this weird episode: "Cult" by Endless, "House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals, "Common People" by William Shatner, and "The Cult of 2112" by Perturbation. Send feedback to: dreadmediapodcast@gmail.com. Follow @DevilDinosaurJr and @dreadmedia on Twitter! Join the Facebook group! Support the show at www.patreon.com/dreadmedia. Visit www.desmondreddick.com, www.stayscary.wordpress.com, www.dreadmedia.bandcamp.com, and www.kccinephile.com.

This week on Dread Media, we get cult. First, two brothers return to the death cult they grew up in to seek answers in Darryll and Desmond's review of The Endless. Then, Desmond goes solo on reviews of the following books, tackling toxic fandom of cult heroes: I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas and Shatnerquake by Jeff Burk. Of course, we have one of the most eclectic line-ups of songs for this weird episode: "Cult" by Endless, "House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals, "Common People" by William Shatner, and "The Cult of 2112" by Perturbation. Send feedback to: dreadmediapodcast@gmail.com. Follow @DevilDinosaurJr and @dreadmedia on Twitter! Join the Facebook group! Support the show at www.patreon.com/dreadmedia. Visit www.desmondreddick.com, www.stayscary.wordpress.com, www.dreadmedia.bandcamp.com, and www.kccinephile.com.

Nick Mamatas and Jason Ridler present a thoughtful and honest remembrance of Harlan Ellison, and Brian, Dave, and Phoebe discuss the perils of becoming your public persona. Plus -- allegations regarding Voodoo Press, TNT's troubled SNOWPIERCER production, Daisy McCrakin's kidnappers indicted, Jack Haringa's GoFundMe, Christian Jensen's new phone, Dave's review of THE ENDLESS, and Brian challenges Chuck Wendig to a shed-off. 

Bienvenidos a un nuevo capítulo del podcast de los VerdHugos.En esa ocasión tenemos como invitada a Malka Older, autora de Infomocracy y Null States, con quien hablaremos de sus libros, su trabajo y el mundo editorial. En la segunda parte del programa, haremos un pequeño homenaje a la gran Ursula K. LeGuin.(0h : 00m) Entrevista a Malka Older(0h : 20m) Infomocracy no estaba previsto como una trilogía(0h : 33m) Sinergias entre la escritura de ficción y la escritura de no ficción(1h : 04m) Recomendaciones Malka Older(1h : 07m) Tributo a Ursula K. LeGuin.(1h : 45m) Recomendaciones VerdHugos(1h : 50m) Planeamos nuevos invitados para el programaRecomendacionesMalka OlderAn Unkindness of Ghosts de Rivers SolomonAn Excess Male de Maggie Shen KingAutonomous de Analee NewitzJosep María OriolI am Providence de Nick MamatasElías CombarroSemiosis de Sue BurkeArmando SaldañaThe Snagglepuss Chronicles de Mark Russell y Mike FeehanMiquel CodonyHistorias de Terramar de Úrsula K. LeGuinLeticia LaraThe Tea Master and the Detective de Aliette de BodardBSOEpic Mountain Goat Related Music by Son of Robot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Class is back in session and today Tyler and Mike are discussing a very interesting movie just released on Shudder that you may have missed called Honeymoon.  We are discussing in depth what the movie has to say about relationships in general and marriage specifically.  We will then look at the 7 principals of successful relationships and evaluate the relationship in Honeymoon using those standards.   1:35-Tyler discusses the newest beer by Boulevard Brewery.  Vamos is their new Mexican Style Beer. Also the boys discuss Jeepers Creepers 3.  Tyler did not write down the metacritic score for the movie.  It was 37... which is as he said not great.  Michael also discussed how the director Victor Salva was a convicted pedophile.  It was news to Tyler but you can check out and interesting article about the movie and the director here.  He is indeed a convicted pedophile.     2:05-Tyler discusses Paul Tremblay's newest novel The Cabin at the End of the World.  He is excited to read it.  You can pick it up for pre-order right here.   4:07-Mike discusses Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 3.  This book is edited by Neil Clark and is really enjoying it.  He really liked the short story Wind Will Rove by Sarah Pinsker.  You can check out the book here and more of Pinsker's stuff on her website.   He also discusses his review of Damien Angelica Walter's book Cry Your Way Home.  Check out his review.     6:56- Mike discusses the first episode of HPC extra credit with Ellen Datlow.  You can check out some of her anthologies on Amazon or on other episodes of The Horror Pod Class.     10:45- Mike invites us to listen to a podcast called This is Horror.  He particularly enjoyed an episode that includes an interview with Nick Mamatas.  Mamatas discusses how to write fiction and the class origins of genre fiction which both guys really like talking about. Check out the episode here.     12:34-  Tyler mistakenly said Honeymoon was released in 2016.  He was wrong as usual. It was released in 2014.     12:55- Tyler discusses how to sign up for Shudder.  Just click on this link and sign up for Shudder.     17:05- Mike mentions the discrepancy in critic and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.  The audience rates this film as 44% rotten.  While critics rate this movie as 73% fresh.  You can check out the actual page for the movie here.     23:03-Tyler discusses the concept of Checkov's Gun.  It is a literary device where we are introduced to a concept/object/idea at the beginning of the film because it will be important later on in the book or movie.  There is a great description of the device here.     25:02-Michael discusses a really interesting phenomena in ants where a fungus gets inside of their brain and causes them to commit suicide and spread the fungus to the rest of the ant colony.  You can read more about Zombie Ants here.    31:35.  Mike is quite fascinated with insects and nematodes this episode.  He points out how some grasshoppers can be infected by nematodes which causes them to drown themselves.  He is mostly right.  It is a nematomorph not a nematode.  It is still crazy interesting.  Check out what the New Scientist has to say about Grasshoppers and Drowning   33:08- Tyler says cootch.  Lets let it go.  It was not a great moment.  He feels bad enough about it already.   39:12-  Tyler and Mike start to evaluate Bea and Paul's relationship using Psychology Today's article 7 Secrets to a Successful Relationship.    42:37- Mike and Tyler both discuss boat anchors a lot.  Here is a great resource if you have a boat and need to buy a good boat anchor.    43:55-  Tyler is doing the show notes and wishes to make it clear his wife is not a handcuff also the trip to the lake this weekend has been cancelled.     53:55-  Tyler keeps calling it THE Honeymoon.  That is a different movie.  The name of the movie they are discussing is just Honeymoon.   54:35-  Mike discusses the Facebook group created for The Horror Pod Class.  Join the class discussion here.     54:52- Mike and Tyler give a big shout out to their first Patreon Subscriber.  A Special Thanks to Nick!  You rock!!  If you like what you hear help keep the lights on by giving what you can.     You can check out tons of great horror movies over at Shudder.com, You can also check out our review of the Shudder.com exclusive movie Dead Shack which is a great watch!   Not a Shudder member?  You can sign up for free and get a 30 day trial just for being a Horror Podclass student!    So before next week make sure you head on over to Netflix and check out The Ritual.  Also, you can do us a real solid favor by heading over to iTunes, rating us, and giving us a written review.          

In this podcast Nick Mamatas talks about Japanese Fiction, Self-Defining Politics, Creative Writing MFAs, and much more. About Nick Mamatas Nick Mamatas is the author of a number of novels: Move Under Ground, Under My Roof, Sensation, The Damned Highway (with Brian Keene), Bullettime, Love Is the Law, The Last Weekend, and I Am Providence, … Continue reading

In this podcast Nick Mamatas talks about Editing Clarkesworld, Common Story Mistakes, Writing a Novel in Eight Weeks, and much more. About Nick Mamatas Nick Mamatas is the author of a number of novels: Move Under Ground, Under My Roof, Sensation, The Damned Highway (with Brian Keene), Bullettime, Love Is the Law, The Last Weekend, … Continue reading

Wrath James White joins Brian and special guest co-host Maurice Broaddus for an intimate, in-depth, career-spanning interview on fighting, writing, and loving. Then, Stephen Kozeniewski has a surprise for Mary, Nick Mamatas has a new ending to UNDER MY ROOF, Christopher Golden and James A. Moore have a new anthology, and Brian has a new guitar (which Dave has no patience for).

This week, we chat about the short story "The Spook School" by Nick Mamatas, the kinda-crappy-but-in-a-good-way 1986 film "TerrorVision", and spend a surprising amount of time on how good The Pretender was, in that any amount of time spent discussing an NBC series from the '90s on a horror & weird fiction podcast should be considered surprising. Music: Eyes Gone Wrong Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Show Notes: Nick Mamatas - The Spook School (via Nightmare Magazine) Episode 88 – Dr. Madeline Albright (w/ Nick Mamatas)

It was the twenty-hour flight on which neither Gordon nor Melissa slept a wink, and the strong Greek coffee at the Athena Tavern they both chugged down at Melissa's request, and the long-seeming walk in the plish across Kelvingrove Park at Gordon's insistence that took them to the museum. A wayward cinder got into Melissa's contact lenses, and she was exhausted, and jittery from the caffeine, and excited to finally be meeting her lover's parents, and it was her first trip to Scotland. | Copyright 2017 by Nick Mamatas. Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.

Panel recorded live at BizarroCon 2016. BUILDING YOUR AUTHOR BRAND THROUGH PODCASTING, BLOGGING AND VIDEO (Mod­—Laura Lee Bahr, Brian Keene, Nick Mamatas, Jeff Burk, J. David Osborne, John Skipp) Learn how to create presence as an artist and build a strong identity that connects with an audience through podcasting, blogging, and video. This episode's music: "The Forbidden Song (Do Not Listen)" by BBMpire featuring the Business Fairy & Del Schott BBMpire on Bandcamp Jeff Attacks logo by Matthew Revert Jeff Attacks banner by Dyer Wilk Intro and outro music by Anti-Venom Transition music by the Stupid Stupid Henchmen  

Author and editor Nick Mamatas joins Brian to talk about his background, H.P. Lovecraft, politics, and his controversial new novel I AM PROVIDENCE. Plus, an update on the status of next year's World Horror Convention, ... The post appeared first on .

This week, we spill the McTapioca as we talk about The Geek Shock Book Club, Ghostbusters, Pokémon GO, 10 Cloverfield Lane, World's End, Twitter Bans, MUFON, Nick Mamatas, I Am Providence, San Diego Comic-Con, Friday the 13th video game, D&D stories, and the things we consumed in our lives. So test that tapioca, it's time for a Geek Shock! Special Thanks to G in Henderson for the Ecto-Cooler.

Brian discusses the origins and creative process behind The Exit short stories and THE DAMNED HIGHWAY (co-written with Nick Mamatas). Plus, legendary editor David Hartwell in remembrance, the Blizzard of 2016, and Project iRadio launches ... The post appeared first on .

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!

Eureka!By Nick MamatasAdam hadn't worn the crushed velvet blouse in his hands for a long time. It was from his goth phase, twenty pounds and twenty years prior. He shuddered at the thought of it distending around his spare tire these days, but he couldn't bring himself to put it in the box he'd set aside for Out of the Closet either. And not only because it would be embarrassing if anyone saw it.There were memories in the wrinkles of the velvet—well, not memories exactly. Half-memories, images and glimpses and smells. Two decades of gimlets and bad decisions and a few teeth and a trio of cross-country moves. What was the place? It was Huggy Bear's on Thursdays, when they played disco for a majority black clientele, but on most nights it was just The Bank. A real bank, in the sepia-toned days when great-grandma worked in an Orchard Street sweatshop, a goth/darkwave club now.Full transcript appears under the cut.----more----[Intro music plays.]Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 18 for October 13, 2015. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you.Our story today is Eureka! by Nick Mamatas.Nick Mamatas is the author of several novels, including Love is the Law, The Last Weekend, and the forthcoming Lovecraftian murder-mystery I Am Providence. His short fiction has appeared in the anthologies Best American Mystery Stories and Poe's Lighthouse, magazines including Tor.com and Asimov's Science Fiction, and in the recent collection The Nickronomicon. Nick has written about Edgar Allan Poe for Weird Tales, The Smart Set, and Wide Angle.Eureka!By Nick MamatasAdam hadn't worn the crushed velvet blouse in his hands for a long time. It was from his goth phase, twenty pounds and twenty years prior. He shuddered at the thought of it distending around his spare tire these days, but he couldn't bring himself to put it in the box he'd set aside for Out of the Closet either. And not only because it would be embarrassing if anyone saw it.There were memories in the wrinkles of the velvet—well, not memories exactly. Half-memories, images and glimpses and smells. Two decades of gimlets and bad decisions and a few teeth and a trio of cross-country moves. What was the place? It was Huggy Bear's on Thursdays, when they played disco for a majority black clientele, but on most nights it was just The Bank. A real bank, in the sepia-toned days when great-grandma worked in an Orchard Street sweatshop, a goth/darkwave club now.No, not now. Then. Then Adam was just another baby bat, because eyeliner and bad music is what nerds thought cool was. And everyone in New York's goth scene was at least bi, or at least self-identified as bi despite never sucking a cock or doing more than kissing another girl on the dancefloor. So it was something to do.Was it New Year's Eve? Couldn't have been…no, it must have been. What was his name? Adam remembered everything about the man from Poe's house, how he kissed with his eyes wide open and searching, his snickering during the long subway trip up to the Bronx, how his breath somehow didn't steam out of his mouth on the walk through the park, but what the hell was his name? Something old. Maybe, Josef with an f but it's not like Adam asked for an ID or saw a pile of junk mail for the park ranger on the old cottage's stoop."I need your assistance," Josef—that was good enough a guess for now—had said. He was tall and dark and thin and shined somehow under the lights of the nightclub, like a crane that had pulled itself out of an oil spill."Hmm," Adam said, his lip still on the rim of his glass.Josef leaned in and shouted into Adam's ear to be heard over the music. "I've seen you here before. I want you come home with me. I've met many people in my time in this city. To put it delicately, I've seen the inside of many tastefully decorated apartments." His breath smelled of cloves, which Adam liked then, and still liked now. Now, in the present, he brought the shirt to his face and hunted for a whiff. Nothing but dust and the scent of cardboard.That night, Adam felt sweaty, very suddenly, and itchy. But he stood on his toes and, for a moment concerned about his own breath, shouted back, "You sound like a serial killer. It's not as enticing as you think!"Josef laughed, and Adam was relieved that it was a human laugh, complete with a smile you might see on television. So many goths were so affected that you never got to meet the fleshy little man pulling the levers in the brain of the giant bombazine-enrobed homunculus.Josef shouted back, "It gets better. I'm a park ranger!" He held up a long finger and dug into his pocket for his wallet, then flashed his work ID. Adam snatched the whole wallet from Josef's hand and waited for one of the stage lights to spiral around to the edge of the bar where he and Josef stood. The light flashed and in those two seconds, the NYC identification card sure looked authentic.Of course, the ID! Adam thought as he struggled with a packing-tape gun. But he was only sure for a moment.  I didn't ask, he offered it! Was that the name on the ID, or did I put it on the ID now, myself, through the act of trying to remember…? He sealed the box of cast-off clothes shut.Adam handed the wallet back. "You don't look like a park ranger," he said."I wear black leather knee-shorts in the summer, and a velvet kerchief," Josef said. That jack-o-lantern smile again.In the now, Adam turned to his bureau and to the small hand mirror balanced between its top and the wall. He tried to mimic Josef's smile. Nope, still too fat. Christ, did he get old, just over the last few days it felt like.Josef was a very special park ranger. He said he was the sort of park ranger he knew Adam would like. Josef was in charge of the Poe house, in Poe Park."And with what do you need my assistance?" Adam asked. He pressed his arm against Josef's arm. This was all so easy. A Christmas miracle, a week after the fact?"Two things. The band that goes on at midnight—Creature Feature?" Josef began."Yes?""They're terrible!""I know," Adam said. "Everything is dark and terrible." He shifted away from Josef's gaze, took what he hoped was a sophisticated sip of his drink, and then added, "but those guys are truly awful. So what's the second thing?""I've been with many men," Josef said. "Many women. But never where I live. I've always been to their apartments, or just cruised around.""You're back in serial killer mode!"Josef pushed his lips against Adam's ear, so Adam could feel the words on his flesh. "I live in the Poe house."There was packing to do. So much packing. And unpacking. Adam snorted—a flashback within a flashback? Why not? Why was he folding clothes to give away? Adam was nervous, he needed to keep his hands busy. He couldn't smoke anymore; nobody smoked anymore. So, even further back, into the era from which he had kept no clothes. High school Adam was just another suburban brat in Dockers and polo shirts. He didn't read, he left MTV choose his music—and this was before Nirvana, when 120 Minutes was on too late to watch regularly. But Poe, in tenth grade, changed everything. Weird little stories that barely seemed to be in English, and in them anything could happen. A slow and careful murder with no hero to save the day. A detective that solves a crime, but with no sense of justice. "You can't send an ape to prison, and even if you could it wouldn't mean much more to the ape than a zoo"—Adam actually wrote that on the essay exam for "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and enjoyed a rare 99+ from Mr. Goldstein.And that was that. Adam would be a writer, though he knew better than to tell anyone, or to even engage in any writing. Even diaries could be discovered. Adam would keep it all in his head. He'd be an English teacher, and he'd study in the city, at Eugene Lang, to get away from his parents and experience a little bit of life during the week before taking the Metro North back up to Danbury with a load of laundry. Then he found the goth scene, and made a point of keeping his stranger garments back in the dorm, stuffed under the bunk.It would have been too perfect for the old Poe paperback to be at the bottom of Adam's closet now, as he packed his little room on a sunny North Beach day. The complete works, which he never made it through, were on his smartphone anyway. Came bundled with the e-reader. The towel Adam had been using as a curtain was already packed, and it was hard to read off the phone screen with the sun's rays coming through the window unimpeded. Only a few more boxes left.Adam was a naïf back then—he had heard of the Poe House that NYU owned, and figured that the subway ride from the Lower East Side to the border of the West Village would be short and convenient in the snowy night. Clearly, Josef was somehow responsible for Washington Square Park. Cleaning up the syringes, or polishing the cement chessboard tables or something. City work, union work. It's all supposed to be money for nothing. But at West 4th, Josef led him on to the D train."Now you'll discover my problem," Josef said, snickering. The train was packed with drunks. Mostly lots of Long Island girls with high hair and wobbly heels and their fat Italian boyfriends with rings the size of human eyes yelping and guffawing their way to Times Square, but there were a selection of quieter locals lolling about in the seats. Josef hugged one of the poles for straphangers and shouted in Adam's ear. "The Poe Cottage is in the Bronx." All the blood left Adam's face that moment and Josef smiled. "That's right," he said."I…don't mind," Adam shouted back. He tried to smile, but his lips felt blue and dead. He'd never been to the Bronx. Had never met anyone from the Bronx. It was a strange little island—no, it was the only part of New York City that wasn't an island, the Bronx really was part of mainland America—that so far as Adam knew was comprised of 100 percent raging crack addicts and black street gangs who breakdanced on flattened cardboard boxes all day and mugged old ladies at night.Adam sucked on his teeth now, thinking of his old idiocy. College and moving to the West Coast had beaten most of the casual racism out of him, and that was a good thing. "But all I got in exchange was guilt," he said, aloud, to himself. Then he huffed and returned to sorting the socks with holes in them from the socks without holes in them."What's your favorite Poe?" Adam had asked Josef that night. He almost said, Mine's "The Masque of the Red Death", but didn't want to sound stupid and obvious, so he said nothing more."Eureka!" Josef yelled, but nobody turned. "I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical," he said, each adjective louder than the last. "Of the Material and Spiritual Universe:— of its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition and its Destiny.""Oh," Adam said.Josef smiled and leaned down and brushed his lips against Adam's. Adam waited for someone to scream Fags! or just for a knife in the kidney, but neither was forthcoming."It's okay; it's not on the usual syllabi," Josef said, keeping his mouth close and voice down. The train had stopped at 42nd Street, and let out a bunch of confused bridge and tunnlers who didn’t know how far Times Square was from Bryant Park, so the car was a bit quieter now."Poe called it a prose poem, but it's not really poetic. It's essentially a lecture about the creation of the universe. He basically predicted the Big Bang theory.""Okay," Adam said. He wanted to get off the train and go home. And do what? This was his first time staying in the city instead of watching the ball drop on TV with his grandmother."Let us conceive the Particle, then, to be only not totally exhausted by diffusion into Space. From the one Particle, as a centre, let us suppose to be irradiated spherically—in all directions—to immeasurable but still to definite distances in the previously vacant space—a certain inexpressibly great yet limited number of unimaginably yet not infinitely minute atoms," Josef recited, smiling and pleased. He drew himself up to his full height, leaving Adam to contemplate the nipples visible through his black mesh. Those would need to be warmed up later, Adam decided, with his very own tongue."Previously vacant space," Adam repeated. "That doesn't really sound like the Big Bang theory to me." Josef frowned, so Adam quickly added, "but not bad for a poet from the 1840s. Sheer literary insight, and he almost got it right.""No," Josef said. "He got it all right. It's the modern world that's got it all wrong. You'll see."Adam wasn't quite sure at what stop it happened, but at some point he and Josef became the only two white people in the train car. They'd passed through some sort of racist mesh, a geographical sieve. He hoped he would see everything Josef had to offer. It had better be worth it.It was nearly 2 am when Josef led Adam up to Knightsbridge and the Grand Concourse. Adam heard the voice of his old grandmother saying how nice everything in the city used to be before those people started moving in. It was depressing now, but not dangerous. Just dead. Everyone had watched the ball drop on their shitty little televisions, then turned off the lights and went to bed. Josef walked quickly, with determination, a prize tropical bird again."Do you like Public Enemy?" Josef said, seemingly out of nowhere. Adam walked through a puff of his own steaming breath, to catch up."What?""You know. 'Fight the Power.' Chuck D and Flava Flav? I saw them a couple of years ago, with Sisters of Mercy.""Oh, no," Adam said. He'd been in high school a couple of years ago, and only knew what little Sisters of Mercy MTV played. "I missed that show.""It was great. Gang of Four opened—old school punk, that is. And nobody came; Radio City was practically empty, just like the streets up here are tonight. That's what reminded me," Josef said. He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered, finally playing human again for a moment. "I got a great t-shirt. It says, it's a black thing. you wouldn't understand. I should have worn it tonight. I'm freezing my tits off." Josef ran his palm over Adam's velvet top. "You're a smart lad," he said.Adam was smart enough not to ask how Josef actually lived in a tourist attraction. Did he stow everything in a closet, or have to take all his meals out?  Poe Park was small, but bright thanks to the blanket of diamond show on the ground. A stone tablet on the walkway read eureka! and went without snow. There was probably something with the relative temperature of the tablet versus the modern concrete Adam thought, then he realized that everything he'd been thinking—the fear, the trivia, had all been to put aside his wonder and craving for the taste of Josef's cock.The cottage itself was a small little two-story number with a porch. It wouldn't have been out of place in Danbury, with some old cat lady or poor family with seven kids stuffed into it. Josef trotted ahead again and waved Adam around the corner. "The digs are in the basement. You can see my problem, yes? I made a New Year's resolution to have sex in my own bed, in my own place, sometime this year.""Well, it's already next year," Adam said. He flashed a crooked smile and pointed to his watch. "See?""Oh, in that case you'd better just get back on the train and go home." Josef stood straight as a rod and waited. Adam puffed out a breath and smiled. Then Josef smiled back. They tumbled joyfully down the concrete steps and into the cramped studio.Josef's hair was long and chaotically spiked. One of the wayward points practically scraped against the low ceiling. There were milk crates stuffed with books and CDs along one wall, a futon on the other, and a laptop blinking away in the corner. No real kitchen, but there was a sink and a hot plate and a microwave and a coffee maker. Not much closet space either, if the puddles of black clothing on the floor were anything to go by. It smelled a little moldy, a little tangy, like old sex.Even now, Adam can taste the next morning's coffee on his tongue. Part of why he had moved to North Beach was that one of the little Italian dives served coffee that almost tasted like Josef's.Josef ran his hand along one of the walls. "The cottage was originally down the block," he explained, suddenly professional. "It was moved here when the subway came in. This basement is modern, and serves as the foundation for the cottage in its new location right over our heads. Had it been a nineteenth century basement, the walls likely would have been of hewn stone, plastered over…" He trailed off, seemingly unsure of what to do next.Adam walked right up to him. "You're a park ranger, not a serial killer. I believe you. Kiss me, stupid," he said, and Josef did indeed kiss him stupid, sucking on Adam's tongue softly, like it was a half-hard cock.The basement was cold, and the boys were cold too—their limbs were more like a quartet of icicles looking to melt than anything else. The winter had never left Adam's bones, not even after fifteen years in California. He shivered in the middle of his empty room, only now realizing how closely he had arranged its layout to match Josef's basement studio. Back in 1993, belts slid off, knees all pointy and white rose up, and Adam buried himself in Josef's lap, mouth open wide.Josef leaned back and muttered something. First it was the usual—good boy, my little facecunt, more more.Then, something odd. "Especially attractive Adam…"No. Especially attractive atom.Then some more muttering Adam didn't catch, as he was busy trying not to use his hands on Josef's cock, but just his mouth and lips and tongue and jaw.  "I propose," Josef said turned on to his side, his fingers seeking out the crack of Adam's ass as he said the words.Adam jerked upright. "Wait, what?" He smacked Josef's hand away. "What?"If I propose to ascertain the influence of one mote in a sunbeam upon its neighboring mote, I cannot accomplish my purpose without first counting and weighing all the atoms in the Universe and defining the precise positions of all at one particular moment. If I venture to displace, by even the billionth part of an inch, the microscopical speck of dust which lies now upon the point of my finger, what is the character of that act upon which I have adventured?Adam looked at the boxes on the floor of his bedsit. Seven to keep, three to donate, one just to fling out the window, but he didn't have the balls for that. San Francisco wasn't that kind of place anymore. The Imp of the Perverse had left the world, it seemed. It was a small life he had. That was the character of the act upon which he had adventured, Adam realized.Josef was stronger than he looked. He had a wiry strength to him, arms like rebar. But his face was suddenly soft, so soft, like a child. Like Poe's little virgin wife, Adam thought, dying of consumption. "Please don't tell me to stop," Josef said, practically whimpering. "Please don't." He kissed Adam's shoulder, took his cock in one hand and pumped a finger into Adam's ass with another. "Please don't tell me to stop."Adam didn't say anything. It was dark in the basement—everything was black on black, and when he turned his head he couldn't even see the little green light from Josef's computer. He couldn't see the white knuckles wrapped around his dick, or the edge of the wall, or anything. The world fell away from Adam, and the dark grew ever longer in every direction.The futon was gone.No. Adam's legs were gone, his thighs were. The world was gone. Adam was a point, floating in infinite black space.No. Not space either. The previous vacancy. Adam was terrified—the little ripple in the velvet of the night that he was quivered, and the universe shook with him. Then he sensed them. The other men. The men that Josef had brought down here. The man that had brought Josef down here for the first time to suck and fuck, years prior. Decades of men, with thick hands and huge round shoulders. Little men, willowy like girls, their fingers tracing at what were once the borders of his body. Toothless grins and soft soft gums around his cock. Terrible bloodshot eyes, the pressure of blood pushing through the capillaries. Then the man himself, with his head huge like a white pumpkin's, scrounging for winter roots in the field across from his home, and finding only the previous vacancy in the dirt between his desperate fingers. Adam could eat that agony, feed off it for years. And before Poe, men in wigs, then breeches. Brown men with smooth chests and nipples like chestnuts. And before them, men of vintages of yet unknown, or types that could never be forced to fit into the taxonomies of the species.  Adam didn't see them, he wore them like a snake slithering back into a strange discarded skin.Thus, according to the schools, I prove nothing.Adam gulped something older than air. But he could feel his tongue again, his teeth, and Josef's as well.There is no mathematical demonstration which Could bring the least additional True proof of the great Truth which I have advanced—the truth of Original Unity as the source—as the principle of the Universal Phaenomena.Somewhere, miles and eons south of his brain, Adam felt his body experiencing an orgasm. It was distant and remote, like listening to a tinny radio through a closed door.I am not so sure that my heart beats and that my soul lives:—of the rising of to-morrow's sunAnd he was cold again. Bare feet on concrete and scraps of cloth.I do not pretend to be one thousandth part as sure -- as I am of the irretrievably by-gone Fact that All Things and All Thoughts of Things, with all their ineffable Multiplicity of Relation, sprang at once into being from the primordial and irrelative One."Do you see?" Josef said. "Did you see it?" Only now was steam coming from his mouth as he spoke. He nestled closer to Adam and asked again, and again. "It's us. It's the whole world. Created from one, not two. Just one. We are all that we ever need, see? Did you see?"Adam said the worst kind of truth—the literal sort of truth that burns hotter than the worst of lies. "I didn't see anything."Josef pulled himself away, sticky crotch peeling from sticky crotch, and hugged himself on the far side of the futon. "I'm not sure I believe you, but I know what you mean," he said. "Well, think about it."Adam did, all night, not sleeping, trying to listen for Josef's breathing, trying to hear the sunrise and the morning frost melt in the grasses over his head. When Josef finally woke up, he was reasonably chatty in the way a goth boy would be. He asked after Adam's dreams and if they had been twisted and nightmarish. Adam had none he remembered. Josef then made coffee, followed by apologies for having no cream for it.He smoked a clove cigarette—the smell filled the little room instantly—and nudged at his clothing with a precise and subtle foot when trying to decide what to wear for the day. "New Year's Day. The cottage is closed, so I can wear black on the outside." Adam wanted those toes jammed down his mouth. "The way I feel on the inside!" Josef finished, then guffawed loudly at himself like a cartoon donkey. Adam drank his coffee and realized that he didn't have to make excuses for an early exit. The cup in his hands was a farewell.One of the local homeless guys hooted as Adam shouldered the last of his boxes into the hatch of his Zip Car."Yo, they rent out your room yet?" he asked."Of course they did!" Adam said, louder and angrier than he wanted, but he didn't turn around. "It's the Bay Area.""Where you going off too?""Storage warehouse in Oakland.""And after that?"Adam did turn around at that question. He didn't even recognize the guy, and he thought he knew all the homeless guys and all the SRO bottom-feeders on the block. North Beach was no Castro, not with the families grazing at the restaurants and the straight strip joints, but the neighborhood was still pretty cruisy. "The airport," he said. "One way trip, for the time being at least.""Going to New York or somethin'? You sound like a New Yorker?" the guy said. He scratched at his balls absently through his ruined jeans. "Stawrije wear-haus" he said. "That's Noo Yawk."No, that's not it. Never New York. Never ever. Adam walked around the car, got in, started the ignition, rolled down the window, pulled out of the parking lot, looked at the homeless guy—whose hand was still on his own crotch—and said, "Connecticut, sorry. My mother is getting old. I have to care for her.""You are sorry," the homeless guy said. He smiled, planted his free hand on the car door, and showed off three teeth."I am sorry," Adam said. He thought about swinging the door open hard and getting rid of the guy that way. But he didn't do anything."I know you is," the guy said. "Just remember…" he stopped to chew on his furry bottom lip. "Uh…that the sense of individual identity will be gradually merged in the general consciousness.""What!"The homeless guy opened his mouth again, his voice loud and strange. "That Man, for example, ceasing imperceptibly to feel himself Man, will at length attain that awfully triumphant epoch when he shall recognize his existence as that of Jehovah!"Adam stared at the homeless guy, his eyes wide. The homeless man was as surprised as anyone else. Behind them, someone impatiently honked their car horn, so Adam revved the engine and when the homeless guy lifted his hand Adam slid the car easily into traffic. It didn't even occur to him until an hour later, when he was standing in the security line at Oakland International, that he could have said something to that homeless guy. Something like, I bet you say that to all the boys.END"Eureka!" was originally published in "Where Thy Dark Eye Glances" edited by Steve Berman, and published by Lethe Press in 2013.This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.Thanks for listening, and I’ll have another story for you on October 13th.[Music plays out]

Discussion of three SFF Short Stories with Nick Mamatas

This episode, Charles is joined by special guest Nick Mamatas to talk about his new collection, The Nickronomicon! Music: Eyes Gone Wrong Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Show Notes: Check out Nick Mamatas on Twitter & his website. Buy The Nickronomicon at Innsmouth Free Press, Smashwords, or Barnes & Noble. The Big Click Magazine On an Odd Note by Gerald Kersh

This month on The Writer and the Critic, your hosts Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond fritter away a few precious minutes talking about carving out time for reading, vomiting on public transport, and anti-social lunchtime habits, before jumping straight into the books at hand. The books chosen for discussion this episode are Love is the Law by Nick Mamatas (beginning at 3:50) -- recommended by Ian -- and The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (42:30), which is Kirstyn's homework pick. Ian also manages to squeeze in a small spoiler-free review of The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker by way of comparison, and you can read his further thoughts on that book over on his blog. If you've skipped ahead to avoid spoilers, please come back at 1:10:25 for Ian's Fun in Fandom Rant as well as some final remarks. Instead of personal book recommendations, next month's episode will feature two novels which took home gongs at the recent Aurealis Awards which recognise excellence in Australian speculative fiction. Lexicon by Max Barry won Best Science Fiction Novel while Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near won Best Horror Novel and tied for Best Young Adult Novel. Read ahead and join in the spoilerific fun!

This month on The Writer and the Critic, your hosts Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond spend a little time up front talking about political correctness and why the very phrase makes Kirstyn's brain glaze over. The pair then move on to the books up for discussion this month. Kirstyn has chosen Bearded Women by Teresa Milbrodt. (beginning at 20:20) while Ian is recommending -- and is slightly angry about -- Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (51:30). This lengthy review of the latter by Liz Bourke is mentioned during the discussion. If you've skipped ahead to avoid spoilers, please come back at 1:24:20 for some feedback and final remarks. Next month, Ian has chosen Love is the Law by Nick Mamatas while Kirstyn is recommending The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Read ahead and join in the spoilerific fun!

Coming Up Short Story: Beer on Sunday by Nick Mamatas 02:30 Poetry: Primetime Apocalypse by Dennis M Lane 17:00 Fact: Zombies -nThe Spanish Digital Invasion Mark Deniz 20:20 Main Fiction: Innocent by Gene Wolfe 38:40 Narrators: Ray Sizemore, Scott Couchman Slices of Flesh See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"It's a first contact story where we don’t even realize that we're the ones being first contacted."

"People got tired of all that realism." - Lisa Goldstein

"I will try to read more slowly."

"...you are going to ruin zombies forever..."

This month's audio fiction is Walking with a Ghost by Nick Mamatas and read by Kate Baker.

Panel Discussion

David Levine Reads

Nick Mamatas Reads