Podcasts about Readercon

Containing Matters of ManhoodTimestamps:introductions, non-podcast reads (0:00)Galaxy magazine background (16:46)Katherine MacLean biography, non-spoiler discussion (35:07)plot summary, spoiler discussion (56:36)Bibliography:Ashley, Mike - "Transformations; The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970" (2005)Delaney, Samuel - interview with Katherine Maclean at Readercon 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9swcMDVSYpYGold, Horace Leonard - "What Will They Think of Last - SF for Fun and Profit From the Inside" (1976)MacLean, Katherine - "The Expanding Mind" from "Fantastic Lives - Autobiographical Essays by Notable Science Fiction Writers" (1981)Pohl, Frederik - "The Way the Future Was" (1978)Rosheim, David - "Galaxy Magazine: The Dark and the Light Years" (1986)Schweitzer, Darrell - "An Interview with Katherine MacLean", The New York Review of Science Fiction, July 2013

Ahead of her new book What's So Great About the Great Books? coming out in April, Naomi Kanakia and I talked about literature from Herodotus to Tony Tulathimutte. We touched on Chaucer, Anglo-Saxon poetry, Scott Alexander, Shakespeare, William James, Helen deWitt, Marx and Engels, Walter Scott, Les Miserables, Jhootha Sach, the Mahabharata, and more. Naomi also talked about some of her working habits and the history and future of the Great Books movement. Naomi, of course, writes Woman of Letters here on Substack.TranscriptHenry Oliver: Today, I am talking with Naomi Kanakia. Naomi is a novelist, a literary critic, and most importantly she writes a Substack called Woman of Letters, and she has a new book coming out, What's So Great About the Great Books? Naomi, welcome.Naomi Kanakia: Thanks for having me on.Oliver: How is the internet changing the way that literature gets discussed and criticized, and what is that going to mean for the future of the Great Books?Kanakia: How is the internet changing it? I can really speak to only how it has changed it for me. I started off as a writer of young adult novels and science fiction, and there's these very active online fan cultures for those two things.I was reading the Great Books all through that time. I started in 2010 through today. In the 2010s, it really felt like there was not a lot of online discussion of classic literature. Maybe that was just me and I wasn't finding it, but it didn't necessarily feel like there was that community.I think because there are so many strong, public-facing institutions that discuss classic literature, like the NYRB, London Review of Books, a lot of journals, and universities, too. But now on Substack, there are a number of blogs—yours, mine, a number of other ones—that are devoted to classic literature. All of those have these commenters, a community of commenters. I also follow bloggers who have relatively small followings who are reading Tolstoy, reading Middlemarch, reading even much more esoteric things.I know that for me, becoming involved in this online culture has given me much more of an awareness that there are many people who are reading the classics on their own. I think that was always true, but now it does feel like it's more of a community.Oliver: We are recording this the day after the Washington Post book section has been removed. You don't see some sort of relationship between the way these literary institutions are changing online and the way the Great Books are going to be conceived of in the future? Because the Great Books came out of a an old-fashioned, saving-the-institutions kind of radical approach to university education. We're now moving into a world where all those old things seem to be going.Kanakia: Yes. I agree. The Great Books began in the University of Chicago and Columbia University. If you look into the history of the movement, it really was about university education and the idea that you would have a common core and all undergraduates would read these books. The idea that the Great Books were for the ordinary person was really an afterthought, at least for Mortimer Adler and those original Great Books guys. Now, the Great Books in the university have had a resurgence that we can discuss, but I do think there's a lot more life and vitality in the kind of public-facing humanities than there has been.I talked to Irina Dumitrescu, who writes for TLS (The Times Literary Supplement), LRB (The London Review of Books), a lot of these places, and she also said the same thing—that a lot of these journals are going into podcasts, and they're noticing a huge interest in the humanities and in the classics even at the same time as big institutions are really scaling back on those things. Humanities majors are dropping, classics majors are getting cut, book coverage at major periodicals is going down. It does seem like there are signals that are conflicting. I don't really know totally what to make of it. I do think there is some relation between those two things.Ted Gioia on Substack is always talking about how culture is stagnant, basically, and one of the symptoms of that is that “back list” really outsells “front list” for books. Even in 2010, 50 percent of the books that were sold were front-list titles, books that had been released in the last 18 months. Now it's something like only 35 percent of books or something like that are front-list titles. These could be completely wrong, but there's been a trend.I think the decrease in interest in front-list books is really what drives the loss of these book-review pages because they mostly review front-list books. So, I think that does imply that there's a lot of interest in old books. That's what our stagnant culture means.Oliver: Why do you think your own blog is popular with the rationalists?Kanakia: I don't know for certain. There was a story I wrote that was a joke. There are all these pop nonfiction books that aim to prove something that seems counterintuitive, so I wrote a parody of one of those where I aim to prove that reading is bad for you. This book has many scientific studies that show the more you read, the worse it is because it makes you very rigid.Scott Alexander, who is the archrationalist, really liked that, and he added me to his blog roll. Because of that, I got a thousand rationalist subscribers. I have found that rationalists at least somewhat interested in the classics. I think they are definitely interested in enduring sources of value. I've observed a fair amount of interest.Oliver: How much of a lay reader are you really? Because you read scholarship and critics and you can just quote John Gilroy in the middle of a piece or something.Kanakia: Yeah. That is a good question. I have definitely gotten more interested in secondary literature. In my book, I really talk about being a lay reader and personally having a nonacademic approach to literature. I do think that, over 15 years of being a lay reader, I have developed a lot of knowledge.I've also learned the kind of secondary literature that is really important. I think having historical context adds a lot and is invaluable. Right now I'm rereading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. When I first read it in 2010, I hardly knew anything about French history. I was even talking online with someone about how most people who read Les Miserables think it's set in the French Revolution. That's basically because Americans don't really know anything about French history.Everything makes just a lot more sense the more you know about the time because it was written for people in it. For people in 1860s France, who knew everything about their own recent history, that really adds a lot to it. I still don't tend to go that much into interpretive literature, literature that tries to do readings of the stories or tell me the meaning of the stories. I feel like I haven't really gotten that much out of that.Oliver: How long have you been learning Anglo-Saxon?Kanakia: I went through a big Anglo-Saxon phase. That was in 2010. It started because I started reading The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. There is a great app online called General Prologue created by one of your countrymen, Terry Richardson [NB it is Terry Jones], who loved Middle English. In this app, he recites the Middle English of the General Prologue. I started listening to this app, and I thought, I just really love the rhythms and the sounds of Middle English. And it's quite easy to learn. So then, I got really into that.And then I thought, but what about Anglo-Saxon? I'm very bad at languages. I studied Latin for seven years in middle school and high school. I never really got very far, but I thought, Anglo-Saxon has to be the easiest foreign language you can learn, right? So, I got into it.I cannot sight read Anglo-Saxon, but I really got into Anglo-Saxon poetry. I really liked the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Most people probably would not like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle because it's very repetitive, but that makes it great if you're a language learner because every entry is in this very repetitive structure. I just felt such a connection. I get in trouble when I say this kind of stuff, because I'm never quiet sure if it's 100 percent true. But it's certainly one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Europe. It's just so much older than most of the other medieval literature I've read. And it just was such a window into a different part of history I never knew about.Oliver: And you particularly like “The Dream of the Rood”?Kanakia: Yeah, “The Dream of the Rood” is my favorite Anglo-Saxon poem. “The Dream of the Rood” is a poem that is told from the point of view of Christ's cross. A man is having a dream. In this dream he encounters Christ's cross, and Christ's cross starts reciting to him basically the story of the crucifixion. At the end, the cross is buried. I don't know, it was just so haunting and powerful. Yeah, it was one of my favorites.Oliver: Why do you think Byron is a better poet than Alexander Pope?Kanakia: This is an argument I cannot get into. I think this is coming up because T. S. Eliot felt that Alexander Pope was a great poet because he really exemplified the spirit of the age. I don't know. I've tried to read Pope. It just doesn't do it for me. Whereas with Byron, I read Don Juan and found it entertaining. I enjoyed it. Then, his lyric poetry is just more entertaining to read. With Alexander Pope, I'm learning a lot about what kind of poetry people wrote in the 18th century, but the joy is not there.Oliver: Okay. Can we do a quick fire round where I say the name of a book and you just say what you think of it, whatever you think of it?Kanakia: Sure.Oliver: Okay. The Odyssey.Kanakia: The Odyssey. Oh, I love The Odyssey. It has a very strange structure, where it starts with Telemachus and then there's this flashback in the middle of it. It is much more readable than The Iliad; I'll say that.Oliver: Herodotus.Kanakia: Herodotus is wild. Going into Herodotus, I really thought it was about the Persian war, which it is, but it's mostly a general overview of everything that Herodotus knew, about anything. It's been a long time since I read it. I really appreciate the voice of Herodotus, how human it is, and the accumulation of facts. It was great.Oliver: I love the first half actually. The bit about the Persian war I'm less interested in, but the first half I think is fantastic. I particularly love the Egypt book.Kanakia: Oh yeah, the Egypt book is really good.Oliver: All those like giant beetles that are made of fire or whatever; I can't remember the details, but it's completely…Kanakia: The Greeks are also so fascinated by Egypt. They go down there like what is going on out there? Then, most of what we know about Egypt comes from this Hellenistic period, when the Greeks went to Egypt. Our Egyptian kings list comes from the Hellenistic period where some scholar decided to sort out what everybody was up to and put it all into order. That's why we have such an orderly story about Egypt. That's the story that the Greeks tried to tell themselves.Oliver: Marcus Aurelius.Kanakia: Marcus Aurelius. When I first read The Meditations, which I loved, obviously, I thought, “being the Roman emperor cannot be this hard.” It really was a black pill moment because I thought, “if the emperor of Rome is so unhappy, maybe human power really doesn't do it.”Knowing more about Marcus Aurelius, he did have quite a difficult life. He was at war for most of his—just stuck in the region in Germany for ages. He had various troubles, but yeah, it really was very stoic. It was, oh, I just have to do my duty. Very “heavy is the head that wears the crown” kind of stuff. I thought, “okay, I guess being Roman emperor is not so great.”Oliver: Omar Khayyam.Kanakia: Omar Khayyam. Okay, I've only read The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald, which I loved, but I cannot formulate a strong opinion right now.Oliver: As You Like It.Kanakia: No opinions.Oliver: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.Kanakia: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. I do have an opinion about this, which is that they should make a redacted version of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. I normally am not a big believer in abridgements because I feel like whatever is there is there. But, Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, first of all, has a long portion before Boswell even meets Johnson. That portion drags; it's not that great. Then it has all these like letters that Johnson wrote, which also are not that great. What's really good is when Boswell just reports everything Johnson ever said, which is about half the book. You get a sense of Johnson's conversation and his personality, and that is very gripping. I've definitely thought that with a different presentation, this could still be popular. People would still read this.Oliver: The Communist Manifesto.Kanakia: The Communist Manifesto. It's very stirring. I love The Communist Manifesto. It has very haunting, powerful lines. I won't try to quote from it because I'll misquote them.Oliver: But it is remarkably well written.Kanakia: Oh yeah, it is a great work of literature.Oliver: Yeah.Kanakia: I read Capital [Das Kapital], which is not a great work of literature, and I would venture to say that it is not necessarily worth reading. It really feels like Marx's reputation is built on other political writings like The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and works like that, which really seem to have a lot more meat on the bone than Capital.Oliver: Pragmatism by William James.Kanakia: Pragmatism. I mean, I've mentioned that in my book. I love William James in general. I think William James was writing in this 19th-century environment where it seemed like some form of skepticism was the only rational solution. You couldn't have any source of value, and he really tried to cut through that with Pragmatism and was like, let's just believe the things that are good to believe. It is definitely at least useful to think, although someone else can always argue with you about what is useful to believe. But, as a personal guide for belief, I think it is still useful.Oliver: Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw.Kanakia: No strong opinions. It was a long time ago that I read Major Barbara.Oliver: Tell me what you like about James Fenimore Cooper.Kanakia: James Fenimore Cooper. Oh, this is great. I have basically a list of Great Books that I want to read, but four or five years ago, I thought, “what's in all the other books that I know the names of but that are not reputed, are not the kind of books you still read?”That was when I read Walter Scott, who I really love. And I just started reading all kinds of books that were kind of well known but have kind of fallen into literary disfavor. In almost every case, I felt like I got a lot out of these books. So, nowadays when I approach any realm of literature, I always look for those books.In 19th-century American literature, the biggest no-longer-read book is The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, which was America's first bestseller. He was the first American novelist that had a high reputation in Europe. The Last of the Mohicans is kind of a historical romance, à la Walter Scott, but much more tightly written and much more tightly plotted.Cooper has written five novels, the Leatherstocking Tales, that are all centered around this very virtuous, rough-hewn frontiersman, Natty Bumppo. He has his best friend, Chingachgook, who is the last of the Mohicans. He's the last of his tribe. And the two of these guys are basically very sad and stoic. Chingachgook is distanced from his tribe. Chingachgook has a tribe of Native Americans that he hates—I want to say it's the Huron. He's always like, “they're the bad ones,” and he's always fighting them. Then, Natty Bumppo doesn't really love settled civilization. He's not precisely at war with it, but he does not like the settlers. They're kind of stuck in the middle. They have various adventures, and I just thought it was so haunting and powerful.I've been reading a lot of other 19th-century American literature, and virtually none of it treats Native Americans with this kind of respect. There's a lot of diversity in the Native American characters; there's really an attempt to show how their society works and the various ways that leadership and chiefship works among them. There's this very haunting moment in The Last of the Mohicans, where this aged chief, Tamenund, comes out and starts speaking. This is a chief who, in American mythology, was famous for being a friend to the white people. But, James Fenimore Cooper writing in the 1820s has Tamenund come out at 80 years old and say, “we have to fight; we have to fight the white people. That's our only option.” It was just such a powerful moment and such a powerful book.I was really, really enthused. I read all of these Leatherstocking Tales. It was also a very strange experience to read these books that are generally supposed to be very turgid and boring, and then I read them and was like, “I understand. I'm so transported.” I understand exactly why readers in the 1820s loved this.Oliver: Which Walter Scott books do you like?Kanakia: I love all the Walter Scott books I've read, but the one I liked best was Kenilworth. Have you ever read Kenilworth?Oliver: I don't know that one.Kanakia: Yeah, it's about Elizabeth I, who had a romantic relationship with one of her courtiers.Oliver: The Earl of Essex?Kanakia: Yeah. She really thought they were going to get married, but then it turned out he was secretly married. Basically, I guess the implication is that he killed his wife in order to marry Queen Elizabeth I. It's a novel all about him and that situation, and it just felt very tightly plotted. I really enjoyed it.Oliver: What did you think of Rejection?Kanakia: Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte? Initially when I read this book, I enjoyed it, but I was like, “life cannot possibly be this sad.” It's five or six stories about these people who just have nothing going on. Their lives are so miserable, they can't find anyone to sleep with, and they're just doomed to be alone forever. I was like, “life can't be this bad.” But now thinking back over it, it is one of the most memorable books I've read in the last year. It really sticks with you. I feel like my opinion of this book has gone up a lot in retrospect.Oliver: How antisemitic is the House of Mirth?Kanakia: That is a hotly debated question, which I mentioned in my book. I think there has been a good case made that Edith Wharton, the author of House of Mirth, who was from an old New York family, was herself fairly antisemitic and did not personally like Jewish people. What she portrays in this book is that this old New York society also was highly suspicious of Jewish people and was organized to keep Jewish people out.In this book there is a rich Jewish man, Simon Rosedale, and there's a poor woman, Lily Bart. Lily Bart's main thing is whether she's going to marry the poor guy, Lawrence Selden, or the rich guy, Percy Gryce. She can't choose. She doesn't want to be poor, but she also is always bored by the rich guys. Meanwhile, through the whole book, there's Simon Rosedale, who's always like, “you should marry me.” He's the rich Jewish guy. He's like, “you should marry me. I will give you lots of money. You can do whatever you want.”Everybody else kind of just sees her as a woman and as a wife; he really sees her as an ally in his social climbing. That's his main motivation. The book is relatively clear that he has a kind of respect for her that nobody else does. Then, over the course of the book, she also gains a lot more respect for him. Basically, late in the book, she decides to marry him, but she has fallen a lot in the world. He's like, “that particular deal is not available anymore,” but he does offer her another deal that—although she finds it not to her taste—is still pretty good.He basically is like, “I'll give you some money, you'll figure out how to rehabilitate your reputation, and later down the line, we can figure something out.” So, I think with a great author like Edith Wharton, there's power in these portrayals. I felt it hard to come away from it feeling like the book is like a really antisemitic book.Oliver: Now, you note that the Great Books movement started out as something quite socially aspirational. Do you think it's still like that?Kanakia: I do think so. Yeah. For me, that's 100 percent what it was because I majored in econ. I always felt kind of inadequate as a writer against people who had majored in English. Then I started off as a science fiction writer, young adult writer, and I was like, “I'm going to read all these Great Books and then I'll have read the books that everybody else has read.” In my mind, that's also what it was—that there was some upper crust or literary society that was reading all these Great Books.That's really what did it. I do think there's still an element of aspiration to it because it's a club that you can join, that anyone can join. It's very straightforward to be a Great Books reader, and so I think there's still something there. I think because the Great Books movement has such a democratic quality to it, it actually doesn't get you to the top socially, which has always been the true, always been the case. But, that's okay. As long as you end up higher than where you started, that's fine.Oliver: What makes a book great?Kanakia: I talk about it this in the book, and I go through many different authors' conceptions of what makes a book great or what constitutes a classic. I don't know that anyone has come up with a really satisfying answer. The Horatian formulation from Horace—that a book is great or an author is great if it has lasted for a hundred years—is the one that seems to be the most accurate. Like, any book that's still being read a hundred years after it was written has a greatness.I do think that T. S. Eliott's formulation—that a civilization at its height produces certain literature and that literature partakes of the greatness of the civilization and summarizes the greatness of the civilization—does seem to have some kind of truth to it.But it's hard, right? Because the greatest French novel is In Search of Lost Time, but I don't know that anyone would say that the France in the 1920s was at its height. It's not a prescriptive thing, but it does seem like the way we read many of these Great Books, like Moby Dick, it feels like you're like communing with the entire society that produced it. So, maybe there's something there.Oliver: Now, you've used a list from Clifton Fadiman.Kanakia: Yes.Oliver: Rather than from Mortimer Adler or Harold Bloom or several others. Why this list?Kanakia: Well, the best reason is that it's actually the list I've just been using for the last 15 years. I went to a science fiction convention in 2009, Readercon, and at this science fiction convention was Michael Dirda, who was a Washington Post book critic. He had recently come out with his book, Classics for Pleasure, which I also bought and liked. But he said that the list he had always used was this Clifton Fadiman book. And so when I decided to start reading the Great Books, I went and got that book. I have perused many other lists over time, but that was always the list that seemed best to me.It seemed to have like the best mix. There's considerable variation amongst these lists, but there's also a lot of overlap. So any of these lists is going to have Dickens on it, and Tolstoy, and stuff like that. So really, you're just thinking about, “aside from Dickens and Tolstoy and George Eliot and Walt Whitman and all these people, who are the other 50 authors that you're going be reading?”The Mortimer Adler list is very heavy on philosophy. It has Plotinus on it. It has all these scientific works. I don't know, it didn't speak to me as much. Whereas, this Clifton Fadiman and John Major list has all these Eastern works on it. It has The Tale of Genji, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Story of the Stone, and that just spoke to me a little bit more.Oliver: What modern books will be on a future Great Books list, whether it's from someone alive or someone since the war.Kanakia: Have you ever heard of Robert Caro?Oliver: Sure.Kanakia: Yeah. I think his Lyndon Johnson books are great books. They have changed the field of biography. They're so complete, they seem to summarize an entire era, epoch. They're highly rated, but I feel like they're underrated as literature.What else? I was actually a little bit surprised in this Clifton Fadiman-John Major book, which came out in 1999, that there are not more African Americans in their list. Like, Invisible Man definitely seemed like a huge missed work. You know, it's hard. You would definitely want a book that has undergone enough critical evaluation that people are pretty certain that it is great. A lot of things that are more recent have not undergone that evaluation yet, but Invisible Man has, as have some works by Martin Luther King.Oliver: What about The Autobiography of Malcolm X?Kanakia: I would have to reread. I feel like it hasn't been evaluated much as a literary document.Oliver: Helen DeWitt?Kanakia: It's hard to say. It's so idiosyncratic, The Last Samurai, but it is certainly one of the best novels of the last 25 years.Oliver: Yeah.Kanakia: It is hard to say, because there's nothing else quite like it. But I would love if The Last Samurai was on a list like this; that would be amazing.Oliver: If someone wants to try the Great Books, but they think that those sort of classic 19th-century novels are too difficult—because they're long and the sentences are weird or whatever—what else should they do? Where else should they start?Kanakia: Well, it depends on what they're into, or it depends on their personality type. I think like there are people who like very, very difficult literature. There are people who are very into James Joyce and Proust. I think for some people the cost-benefit is better. If they're going to be pouring over some book for a long time, they would prefer if it was overtly difficult.If they're not like that, then I would say, there are many Great Books that are more accessible. Hemingway is a good one and Grapes of Wrath is wonderful. The 19th-century American books tend to be written in a very different register than the English books. If you read Moby Dick, it feels like it's written in a completely different language than Charles Dickens, even though they're writing essentially at the same time.Oliver: Is there too much Freud on the list that you've used?Kanakia: Maybe. I know that Interpretation of Dreams is on that list, which I've tried to read and have decided life is too short. I didn't really buy it, but I have read a fair amount of Freud. My impression of Freud was always that I would read Freud and somehow it would just seem completely fanciful or far out, like wouldn't ring true. But then when I started reading Freud, it was more the opposite. I was like, oh yeah, this seems very, very true.Like this battle between like the id and the ego and the super ego, and this feeling that like the psyche is at war with itself. Human beings really desire to be singular and exceptional, but then you're constantly under assault by the reality principle, which is that you're insignificant. That all seemed completely true. But then he tries to cure this somehow, which does not seem a curable problem. And he also situates the problem in some early sexual development, which also did not necessarily ring true. But no, I wouldn't say there's too much. Freud is a lot of fun. People should read Freud.Oliver: Which of the Great Books have you really not liked?Kanakia: I do get asked this quite a bit. I would say the Great Book that I really felt like—at least in translation—was not that rewarding in an unabridged version was Don Quixote. Because at least half the length of Don Quixote is these like interpolated novellas that are really long and tedious. I felt Don Quixote was a big slog. But maybe someday I'll go back and reread it and love it. Who knows?Oliver: Now you wrote that the question of biography is totally divorced from the question of what art is and how it operates. What do you think of George Orwell's supposition that if Shakespeare came back tomorrow, and we found out he used to rape children that we should—we would not say, you know, it's fine to carry on to doing that because he might write another King Lear.Kanakia: Well, if we discovered that Shakespeare was raping children, he should go to prison for that. No. It's totally divorced in both senses. You don't get any credit in the court of law because you are the writer of King Lear. If I murdered someone and then I was hauled in front of a judge and they were like, oh, Naomi's a genius, I wouldn't get off for murder. Nor should I get off for murder.So in terms of like whether we would punish Shakespeare for his crime of raping children, I don't think King Lear should count at all, but it's never used that way. It's never should someone go to prison or not for their crimes, because they're a genius. It's always used the other way, which is should we read King Lear knowing that the author raped children, but I also feel like that is immaterial. If you read King Lear, you're not enabling someone to rape children.Oliver: There's an almost endless amount of discussion these days about the Great Books and education and the value of the humanities, and what's the future of it all. What is your short opinion on that?Kanakia: My short opinion is that the Great Books at least are going to be fine. The Great Books will continue to be read, and they would even survive the university. All these books predate the university and they will survive the university. I feel like the university has stewarded literature in its own way for a while now and has made certain choices in that stewardship. I think if that stewardship was given up to more voluntary associations that had less financial support, then I think the choices would probably be very different. But I still think the greatest works would survive.Oliver: Now this is a quote from the book: “I am glad that reactionaries love the Great Books. They've invited a Trojan horse into their own camp.” Tell us what you mean by that.Kanakia: Let's say you believed in Christian theocracy, that you thought America should be organized on explicitly Christian principles. And because you believe in Christian theocracy, you organize a school that teaches the Great Books. Many of these schools that are Christian schools that have Great Books programs will also teach Nietzsche. They definitely put some kind of spin on Nietzsche. But they will teach anti-Christ, and that is a counterpoint to Christian morality and Christian theology. There are many things that you'll read in the Great Books that are corrosive to various kinds of certainties.If someone who I think is bad starts educating themselves in the Great Books, I don't think that the Great Books are going to make them worse from my perspective. So it's good.Oliver: How did reading the Mahabharata change you?Kanakia: Oh yeah, so the Mahabharata is a Hindu epic from, let's say, the first century AD. I'm Indian and most Indians are familiar with the basic outline of the Mahabharata story because it's told in various retellings, and there's a TV serial that my parents would rent from the Indian store growing up and we would watch it tape by tape. So I'm very familiar with it. Like there's never been a time I have not known this story.But I was also familiar with the idea that there is a written version in Sanskrit that's extremely long. It is 10 times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. This Mahabharata story is not that long. I've read a version of it that's about 800 pages long. So how could something that's 10 times this long be the same? A new unabridged translation came out 10 years ago. So I started reading it, and it basically contains the entire Sanskrit Vedic worldview in it.I had never been exposed to this very coherently laid-out version of what I would call Hindu cosmology and ethics. Hindus don't really get taught those things in a very organized way. The book is basically about dharma, the principle of rightness and how this principle of rightness orders the universe and how it basically results in everybody getting their just deserts in various ways. As I was reading the book, I was like, this seems very true that there is some cosmic rebalancing here, and that everything does turn out more or less the way it should, which is not something that I can defend on a rational level.But just reading the book, it just made me feel like, yes, that is true. There is justice, the universe is organized by justice. It took me about a year to read the whole thing. I started waking up at 5:00 a.m. and reading for an hour each morning, and it just was a really magical, profound experience that brought me a lot closer to my grandmother's religious beliefs.Oliver: Is it ever possible to persuade someone with arguments that they should read literature, or is it just something that they have to have an inclination toward and then follow someone's example? Because I feel like we have so many columns and op-eds and “books are good because of X reason, and it's very important because of Y reason.” And like, who cares? No one cares. If you are persuaded, you take all that very seriously and you argue about what exactly are the precise reasons we should say. And if you're not persuaded, you don't even know this is happening.And what really persuades you is like, oh, Naomi sounds pretty compelling about the Mahabharata. That sounds cool. I'll try that. It's much more of a temperamental, feelingsy kind of thing. Is it possible to argue people into thinking about this differently? Or should we just be doing what we do and setting an example and hoping that people will follow.Kanakia: As to whether it's possible or not, I do not know. But I do think these columns are too ambitious. A thousand-word column and the imagined audience for this column is somebody who doesn't read books at all, who doesn't care about literature at all. And then in a thousand-word column, you're going to persuade them to care about literature. This is no good. It's so unnecessary.Whereas there's a much broader range of people who love to read books, but have never picked up Moby Dick or have never picked up Middlemarch, or who like maybe loved Middlemarch, but never thought maybe I should then go on and read Jane Austen and George Eliot.I think trying to shift people from “I don't read books at all; reading books is not something I do,” to being a Great Books card-carrying lover of literature is a lot. I really aim for a much lower result than that, which is to whatever extent people are interested in literature, they should pursue that interest. And as the rationalists would say, there's a lot of alpha in that; there's a lot to be gained from converting people who are somewhat interested into people who are very interested.Oliver: If there was a more widespread practice of humanism in education and the general culture, would that make America into a more liberal country in any way?Kanakia: What do you mean by humanism?Oliver: You know, the old-fashioned liberal arts approach, the revival of the literary journal culture, the sort of depolitical approach to literature, the way things used to be, as it were.Kanakia: It couldn't hurt. It couldn't hurt is my answer to that question.Oliver: Okay.Kanakia: What you're describing is basically the way I was educated. I went to Catholic school in DC at St. Anselm's Abbey School, in Northeast, DC, grade school. Highly recommend sending your little boys there. No complaints about the school. They talked about humanism all the time and all these civic virtues. I thought it was great. I don't know what people in other schools learn, but I really feel like it was a superior way of teaching.Now, you know, it was Catholic school, so a lot of people who graduated from my school are conservatives and don't really have the beliefs that I have, but that's okay.Oliver: Tell us about your reading habits.Kanakia: I read mostly ebooks. I really love ebooks because you can make the type bigger. I just read all the time. They vary. I don't wake up at 5:00 a.m. to read anymore. Sometimes if I feel like I'm not reading enough—because I write this blog, and the blog doesn't get written unless I'm reading. That's the engine, and so sometimes I set aside a day each week to read. But generally, the reading mostly takes care of itself.What I tend to get is very into a particular thing, and then I'll start reading more and more in that area. Recently, I was reading a lot of New Yorker stories. So I started reading more and more of these storywriters that have been published in the New Yorker and old anthologies of New Yorker stories. And then eventually I am done. I'm tired. It's time to move on.Oliver: But do you read several books at once? Do you make notes? Do you abandon books? How many hours a day do you read?Kanakia: Hours a day: Because my e-reader keeps these stats, I'd say 15 or 20 hours a week of reading. Nowadays because I write for the blog, I often think as I'm reading how I would frame a post about this. So I look for quotes, like what quote I would look at. I take different kinds of notes. I'll make more notes if I'm more confused by what is going on. Especially with nonfiction books, I'll try sometimes to make notes just to iron out what exactly I think is happening or what I think the argument is. But no, not much of a note taker.Oliver: What will you read next?Kanakia: What will I read next? Well, I've been thinking about getting back into Indian literature. Right now I'm reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. But there's an Indian novel called Jhootha Sach, which is a partition novel that is originally in Hindi. And it's also a thousand pages long, and is frequently compared to Les Miserables and War and Peace. So I'm thinking about tackling that finally.Oliver: Naomi Kanakia, thank you very much.Kanakia: Thanks for having me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk

This time we discussed The Bewitching, written by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and narrated by Gisela Chipe. Thank you to the Libro.fm ALC Program and Penguin Random House Audio for providing audio review copies of The Bewitching for today's episode. The Bewitching [Libro.fm] ReaderCon 34 (2025) [Episode 318] Dreadful [Libro.fm] The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association [Overdrive/Libby] The Murderbot Diaries (Series) - All Systems Red [Libro.fm] / All Systems Red - Full Cast [Libro.fm] The Dark Forest [Libro.fm] Silver Nitrate [Libro.fm] Starling House [Libro.fm] Mexican Gothic [Libro.fm] The Scholomance (Series): A Deadly Education [Libro.fm]  

Lisa shares her discussions with authors at Readercon 34. Readercon Fonda Lee: [Website] / [Newsletter] / [Instagram] The Green Bone Saga (Series): Jade City [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] Untethered Sky [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] Breathmarked (Series): Breath of the Dragon [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] The Last Contract of Isako - Summer 2026 Arula Ratnakar: [Website] / [Bluesky] ”Fractal Karma” written by Arula Ratnakar, narrated by Kate Baker [Clarkesworld] - Issue 217: October 2024 The Life Beyond Us [EAI] / [Overdrive/Libby] ”Coda” [Future Tense] - March 28, 2025 “The Sun from Both Sides” written by R.S.A. Garcia, narrated by Kate Baker [Clarkesworld] - Issue 152: May 2019 Caitlin Rozakis: [Website] / [Newsletter] / [Instagram] / [Bluesky] Dreadful [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association [Overdrive/Libby]

Casella heads to Readercon, a Boston-based science fiction convention that’s unusually good at keeping the focus literary. This episode includes an interview with one of the conrunners, a discussion of translated SFF and the Translated Hugo Initiative, and a visit with a new romance bookstore in Cambridge. Some quick coffee reporting, as well. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Featuring interviews with: Rae Borman @ Readercon Riley @ Lovestruck Books Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson   References: Rae Borman New England Finger Dancers Naomi Novik’s Scholomance Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures James Blish Joanna Russ’s The Female Man Benjamin Rosenbaum & our episode on Fire Logic Sunny Moraine & our episode on Pattern Recognition Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons Will McMahon NEA grant cuts and translated SF: 3% Podcast, Adam Morgan’s LARB article, and Strange Horizon’s reviews & podcast on the subject. Eden Kupermintz & our episode on The Silmarillion The Translated Hugo Initiative: translatedhugo.org Renay's "That's a Nice Review You've Got There" Michael Cisco Jon Stone’s The Monster At The End of This Book George Howell & Broadsheet coffee Chip Pons's Winging it With You Sarah McLean Omegaverse (do be careful where you look that up) The Ripped Bodice Grump & Sunshine Read My Lips Boston Harvard Coop Bookstore, Trident, Purple Couch Candlewick Press Ingram distributors Cat Sebastian's We Could Be So Good & Star Shipped Rachel Reid's The Shots You Take Adam Silvera  Sarah J. Maas Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing S.T. Gibson’s Evocation & Ascencion Rina Kent, Navessa Allen Heather Bartos’s Quickies Emily Henry, Tessa Bailey, Sarah McLean, Kim Swizz Everina Maxwell’s Winter Orbit

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB's Patreon!Credits:Featuring interviews with:Rae Borman @ ReaderconRiley @ Lovestruck BooksHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughTranscribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM ThompsonReferences:Rae BormanNew England Finger DancersNaomi Novik's ScholomanceBrandon Mull's FablehavenKatherine Rundell's Impossible CreaturesJames BlishJoanna Russ's The Female ManBenjamin Rosenbaum & our episode on Fire LogicSunny Moraine & our episode on Pattern RecognitionBeneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, Strange HorizonsWill McMahonNEA grant cuts and translated SF: 3% Podcast, Adam Morgan's LARB article, and Strange Horizon's reviews & podcast on the subject.Eden Kupermintz & our episode on The SilmarillionThe Translated Hugo Initiative: translatedhugo.orgRenay's "That's a Nice Review You've Got There"Michael CiscoJon Stone's The Monster At The End of This BookGeorge Howell & Broadsheet coffeeChip Pons's Winging it With YouSarah McLeanOmegaverse (do be careful where you look that up)The Ripped BodiceGrump & SunshineRead My Lips BostonHarvard Coop Bookstore, Trident, Purple CouchCandlewick PressIngram distributorsCat Sebastian's We Could Be So Good & Star ShippedRachel Reid's The Shots You TakeAdam Silvera Sarah J. MaasRebecca Yarros's Fourth WingS.T. Gibson's Evocation & AscencionRina Kent, Navessa AllenHeather Bartos's QuickiesEmily Henry, Tessa Bailey, Sarah McLean, Kim SwizzEverina Maxwell's Winter Orbit

This time we discussed Lady Eve's Last Con, written by Rebecca Fraimow and narrated by Tamika Katon-Donegal. Lady Eve's Last Con [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] The Iron Children [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] Discussions from Readercon 33 [Episode 266]  The Expanse (Series): Leviathan Wakes [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] The Vorkosigan Saga (Series) [Overdrive/Libby] / [Libro.fm] / [Audible]   The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti (Series): The Mimicking of Known Successes [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] The Universe of Xuya (Series): Seven of Infinities [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby]  / [Audible]  

With his phenomenal new book, A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys and Other Wild Places (Timber Press), Christopher Brown shifts from novels into nature-writing/memoir/nonfiction mode and I am HERE for it. We talk about the eco-cosmos of East Austin, TX, the years of observation that opened him to the hidden pockets of wildness in urban environments, why solitude in nature is a myth, what we have to gain from taking a long walk, Long Time vs. the short presence of Anglos in Texas, how 2020's lockdown turned off global capitalism and showed how society might truly change, and how this book mutated from when we talked about it at Readercon 2023. We get into Bruce Sterling's unforgettable critique of his writing, the process of turning a narrative of colonization into one of decolonization, (eco)psychogeography & the Situationists, why he (begrudgingly) brought the personal/memoiristic into the book and how it helped him come to terms with himself, and what a workshop with horror writers taught him about the truth-telling power of non-redemptive storytelling. We also discuss the design flaws of the agricultural revolution, how his readers in different regions respond to his FIELD NOTES newsletter, the nature of mysticism and writing a narrative about transcending the self, hiking a Massachusetts marsh in summer with Jeff VanderMeer, and plenty more. Follow Christopher on Bluesky, Instagram and Mastodon, and subscribe to his FIELD NOTES newsletter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter

Lisa shares her discussions with authors at Readercon 33. Readercon Carlos Hernández: [Website] / [Facebook] / [Instagram] Sal and Gabi Break the Universe [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] Lincoln in the Bardo (Written by: George Saunders / Narrated by: Full Cast) [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] C.S.E. Cooney: [Linktree] / [Blog] / [Instagram] / [Facebook] Saint Death's Daughter [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] Starlings (Written by: Jo Walton / Narrated by: C.S.E. Cooney & Rudy Sanda) [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] Combat-Ready Kitchen (Written by: Anastacia Marx de Salcedo / Narrated by: C.S.E. Cooney) [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] Desdemona and the Deep [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] Dawn (Written by: Octavia E. Butler / Narrated by: Julienne Irons) [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] Ambassador [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] Nomad [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible]

W.B.J. WILLIAMS, an author from Massachusetts, will join us for a lively discussion on all of his books; how he generates his ideas; and why he has been so successful! FROM HIS BIO: "An information security executive by day, W. B. J. Williams' secret identity is that he is an author. He also holds advanced degrees in anthropology and archeology, as well as is an avid historian, mystic, and poet. He is noted for his bad puns, and willingness to argue from any perspective. He is endured by his beloved wife and two daughters, and lives in Sharon Massachusetts. When he is not at home or at his computer, he can often be found haunting the various used bookstores of Boston. ​He is the published author of four books, The Garden at the Roof of the World, a novel with Dragonwell Publishingpublished in 2013,  Security for Service Oriented Architecture, non-fiction with Auerbach published in 2014, The Reality, Mythology, and Fantasies of Unicorns with Dragonwell Publishing out September 2021, and How to Create an Information Security Program from Scratch with Auerback out in September 2021. An excerpt from The Hacker of Guantanamo Bay under the title "The InfoCoup" has been published by Abyss and Apex in their October 2019 edition, which was included in their Anthology, The Best of Abyss and Apex volume 3 in 2019. He is a frequent author panelist at ReaderCon and Arisia, and was a panelist at Boskone in 2018. He has conducted readings from his novels and works in progress at ReaderCon, Arisia, Boskone, and other venues. Follow Walt as an author on: Linked-In, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram. He does maintain an InfoSec social network independent of the above." wbj-williams.net/index.html

W.B.J. WILLIAMS, an author from Massachusetts, will join us for a lively discussion on all of his books; how he generates his ideas; and why he has been so successful! FROM HIS BIO: "An information security executive by day, W. B. J. Williams' secret identity is that he is an author. He also holds advanced degrees in anthropology and archeology, as well as is an avid historian, mystic, and poet. He is noted for his bad puns, and willingness to argue from any perspective. He is endured by his beloved wife and two daughters, and lives in Sharon Massachusetts. When he is not at home or at his computer, he can often be found haunting the various used bookstores of Boston. ​He is the published author of four books, The Garden at the Roof of the World, a novel with Dragonwell Publishingpublished in 2013,  Security for Service Oriented Architecture, non-fiction with Auerbach published in 2014, The Reality, Mythology, and Fantasies of Unicorns with Dragonwell Publishing out September 2021, and How to Create an Information Security Program from Scratch with Auerback out in September 2021. An excerpt from The Hacker of Guantanamo Bay under the title "The InfoCoup" has been published by Abyss and Apex in their October 2019 edition, which was included in their Anthology, The Best of Abyss and Apex volume 3 in 2019. He is a frequent author panelist at ReaderCon and Arisia, and was a panelist at Boskone in 2018. He has conducted readings from his novels and works in progress at ReaderCon, Arisia, Boskone, and other venues. Follow Walt as an author on: Linked-In, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram. He does maintain an InfoSec social network independent of the above." wbj-williams.net/index.html

In which the Unreliable Narrator's discuss "The Monday Man" which appeared in Readercon in 1990 and also in 2004's Innocents Aboard.

Bestselling authors William Bernhardt, Lara Bernhardt, and Rene Gutteridge discuss the latest news from the book world, offer writing tips, and interview Sara DiVello, author of a new book based on an true historical incident—Broadway Butterfly.Chapter 1: IntroductionWriterCon is Sept 1-3 in OKC for writers and aspiring writers. Come join us.ReaderCon is Sept 4 in OKC, free and open to the public. Come celebrate your favorite books and authors!www.writercon.comChapter 2: News1) Prosecraft Shut Down After Author Backlash2) FTC Preparing Lawsuit against AmazonChapter 3: Interview with Sara DiVelloIn this interview, the author discusses:1) her Mystery & Thriller Mavens Facebook group;2) researching a 100-year-old unsolved mystery;3) using social media; 4) mining history for material; and5) finding a workable writing process.Chapter 4: Parting WordsJoin us at WriterCon! Then come to ReaderCon, completely free, Sept 4.www.writercon.com/readercon/Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.William Bernhardtwww.williambernhardt.comwww.writercon.com

Bestselling authors William Bernhardt, Lara Bernhardt, and Rene Gutteridge discuss the latest news from the book world, offer writing tips, and interviewsenior editor with Thomas Nelson Publishers, HarperCollins Christian Publishing. For fifteen years, before taking an in-house position, she did freelance management, editing and proofreading.Chatper 1: IntroductionReaderCon is fast approaching—and we are ready! It's completely free and open to the public on Sept 4 (Labor Day) in Oklahoma City. You'll have a chance to hear many authors talk about their work and autograph books, including Lisa Gardner and Tosca Lee. Plus so much fun stuff! Book-themed costume contest. A mystery to solve. Puzzles. Spelling Bee. Jeopardy! Did I mention food trucks? And best of all—rescue animals! And so many chances to buy books!www.writercon.comChapter 2: News1) KKR is Buying Simon & Schuster2) Authors Fued Over AI Book CoverChapter 3: InterviewLara and William interview Janene MacIvor, senior editor at Thomas Nelson/Harper. In the interview, Janene discusses:1) why writers must read;2) what editors are looking for; 3) how she handles an imperfect manuscript with potential;4) the key to professional editing, and5) why she's proud of her work.Chapter 4: Parting WordsDon't forget! WriterCon on Sept 1-3 and ReaderCon on Sept 4!Do Yourself a Big Favor. Be there!Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.William Bernhardtwww.williambernhardt.comwww.writercon.com

In this episode, we're talking with Lara Bernhardt, a novelist and publisher and co-host of WriterCon writers' conference in Oklahoma City. This year's WriterCon has a special event—ReaderCon on September 4. We learn what it is and why every reader and author in the Oklahoma City area should want to be there.LINKS:ReaderCon: https://www.writercon.comLara's book, Red Rain: https://amzn.to/3KhfzjXLiz Wilcox's Email Marketing Membership at https://writing.fyi/lizGet your FREE Move the Needle goal-setting for authors ebook at https://www.writingmomentum.comWrite with us! Join Chris, Gena, and Rene each Wednesday at noon Central and let's get our writing DONE! https://www.writingmoments.com

More discussions from Readercon 32. Readercon John Wiswell: [Newsletter] / [Patreon] / [Linktree] Someone You Can Build a Nest In (April 2, 2024) [Penguin Random House]  ”Bad Doors” [Uncanny]  ”The Coward Who Stole God's Name” [Uncanny] / [Psuedopod] ”Under the Rubble” [Psuedopod]  ”The Lie Misses You” [Cast of Wonders]  ”Open House on Haunted Hill” [LeVar Burton Reads]  All the Seas of the World (written by: Guy Gavriel Kay and narrated by: Simon Vance) [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] The Golem and the Jinni (written by: Helene Wecker and narrated by: George Guidall) [Libro.fm] / [Audible] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Episode 14]   The Echo Wife (written by: Sarah Gailey, narrated by: Xe Sands) [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] Moby Dick (written by: Herman Melville, narrated by: Frank Mullerv) [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] Noah Beit-Aharon (N.S. Dolkart): [Website] / [Angry Robot] Silent Hall [Audible] Wings of Fire (Series): The Dragonet Prophecy  (written by: Tui T. Sutherland, narrated by: Shannon McManus) [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] Locked Tomb (Series): Gideon the Ninth (written by: Tamsyn Muir and narrated by: Moira Quirk) [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] Sumana Harihareswara: [Blog] / [Mastadon] / [Dreamwidth] / [MetaFilter] Otherwise Award Wolf 359 ”An Annotated Bibliography of the Inside of My Head” [Blog Post]  China Mountain Zhang written by: Maureen McHugh Regeneration written by: Pat Barker Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard (written by: Chip Heath & Dan Heath, narrated by: Charles Kahlenberg) [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] Love in Penang written by: Zen Cho Spirits Abroad (written by: Zen Cho, narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller) [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] Black Water Sister (written by: Zen Cho, narrated by: Catherine Ho) [Libro.fm] / [OverDrive/Libby] / [Audible] Leonard Richardson

Grab your ants in mouth and join us in (redacted) for a not-LIVE new LIVE! Matt cannot record this episode and the Boiz are here to find out why. Is he lost in the wilderness? Is he in a galaxy far, far away? Is he at Readercon? Plus, are there hookers on cruise ships? How much cheese is too much cheese for Nate's kid? Could Pat survive if he was stranded in New York City with nothing but a canoe? All that and outdated Cecil the lion references and it all happens (not)LIVE!

Sharing our discussions with authors at Readercon 32. Readercon Vajra Chandrasekere: [Website] The Saint of Bright Doors [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible]   Short Stories: [Clarkesworld ] /[“Ulde” - Glittership] Strange Horizons Podcast Nightmare Magazine Glittership Cameron Roberson (Rob Cameron): [Website] / [Tor.com] / [The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction] / [Foreign Policy Magazine] Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers Daydreamer (Forthcoming in Summer 2024) The Silk Roads [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] Bloodmarked [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] The Monsters We Defy [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] Saint Death's Daughter [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] The Hidden Palace [Libro.fm] / [Audible] / [Overdrive/Libby]   A Master of Djinn [Libro.fm] / [Overdrive/Libby] / [Audible] LJ Cohen: [Website] / [IndieBound] / [Amazon] Derelict [Overdrive - eBook ] / [Audible] Ithaka Rising [Overdrive - eBook ] / [Audible] For Flux Sake Podcast Clarkesworld Podcast Scott Edelman: [Website] / [Twitter] / [Eating the Fantastic] ”A Man Walks Into a Bar: In Which More Than Four Decades After My Father's Reluctant Night of Darts on West 54th Street I Finally Understand What Needs to be Done” [Lightspeed Magazine ] Lightspeed [Podcast]

After Gary enjoyed a weekend at Readercon, we're back with another one-on-one ramble that covers topics from the proliferation of SF awards (and what they really might be for), to some recent and forthcoming books we're excited about (including Kemi Ashing-Giwa's The Splinter in the Sky, Vajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright Doors, Wole Talabi's Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, and Emily Tesh's Some Desperate Glory), the question of whether anthologies might rightly or wrongly be seen as definitive, and the importance of supporting short fiction publications given some major changes facing the field in 2023. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

During Readercon weekend, Christopher Brown rejoined the show for our first conversation since the 2020 release of his novel Failed State. We talk about the nonfiction project he's working on, tentatively titled THE SECRET HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS, the surprising reach of his FIELD NOTES weekly newsletter, tribes' creation myths and how they manage to justify dominion over the land, why the outdoors is one of America's most segregated spaces, and why he thinks calling Washington, DC "The Swamp" is an insult to swamps. We get into the differences and similarities between his fiction and nature writing, the impact of Tesla and the Gigafactory on life in/around Austin, TX (esp. for its neighbors in unincorporated land), the tensions of child-rearing at a time of ecological disaster, what it means to read science fiction through nature-lens (esp. Annihilation and Neuromancer), the natural world's response to COVID lockdowns and capital's post-COVID snapback, and what it was like to vacation in South Padre Island, TX during the hottest week in history. Plus, we discuss the fun of coming back to Readercon, the old semi-hip days of psychogeography, our backup plans to bug out of the failed state, and plenty more. (And go listen to our past talks: 2018, 2019, 2020 + COVID Check-In) Follow Chris on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our Substack

Author Scott Edelman checks in from West Virginia. We talk about how the pandemic has derailed his podcast, Eating the Fantastic, after 120 episodes, all the conventions that have been cancelled and how much he misses them (and why Readercon is his fave), the solace he takes from Middlemarch, the books he's hoping to get to now that he's not reading for pod-guests, whether his zombie fiction has prepared him for the current situation, the joys of light opera, and more. Follow Scott on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and listen to his podcast, Eating the Fantastic • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

This is the fourth and final installment of a series of interviews conducted at ReaderCon 2019. In this episode we discuss sexbots and a new collection of stories with James Patrick Kelly. Then we discuss touring, music, and writing with Sarah Pinsker. Finally, we debrief with  Chris about his first every SF Con.

This is the third of a series of interviews conducted at ReaderCon 2019. In this episode we discuss Tananarive's career, music, movies, and history with the author, academic, and journalist herself.

This is the second of a series of interviews conducted at ReaderCon 2019. In this episode we discuss ReaderCon memories and politics in Science Fiction & Fantasy with Scott H. Andrews, editor of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and author Matthew Kressel.

This is the first of a series of interviews conducted at ReaderCon 2019. In this episode we discuss podcasting and writing with RJ Theodore (aka Rekka Jay). We also talk to editor, writer, publisher Bill Campbell about this origin story as well as his new anthology Sunspot Jungle. Our friend and sound guy Christopher Snydroski also gets a little air time about what he expects from his first science fiction convention.

Boston Beans! - Your Intrepid Heroes, Paul Weimer and Fred Kiesche, discuss ReaderCon, Gene Wolfe, blogging and podcasts. With a hat tip to our mentor of erudite tomes, John Stevens and to Jeff Patterson (who, sadly, had to miss the conversation due to that silly “work” thing). Host Fred Kiesche with Paul Weimer.

A couple of the Word Count Irregulars read their stories to an audience at Readercon 30 based on this prompt: SHOW NOTES: www.rbwood.com Host: R. B. Wood GUESTS: W. B. J. Williams – “Untitled” R. B. Wood –“Dear Dad”

Writer, teacher, and activist Kate Maruyama joins the show from Readercon 2019! We talk about her first novel, Harrowgate (47North), which managed to make new motherhood and domesticity even creepier than the ghost story that overlays it. We get into how her husband and kids reacted to that book (it's about a woman who dies in childbirth), and when she got around to reading the work of her late mother, Kit Reed. We also talk about how she spent 20 years in Los Angeles before stumbling across its literary scene, and how she's making up for lost time by promoting that diverse writing community. Along the way, we discuss the differences between screenwriting vs prose writing, how she teaches students to avoid using archetypes that demean an entire population (and why Baby Driver turns out to be a woke crime movie), the authors her parents hosted at Wesleyan University during her childhood and the embarrassing question she asked Ralph Ellison, the social justice mission of Antioch College, how she taught creative writing in South Central LA and what her students taught her, and why the fast-fail model of screenplay sales has a lot to recommend it. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

This week’s best thing: Readercon! Mentions: Hamilton in Baltimore Fast Color movie Sycorax’s Daughters – Anthology of Black women horror writers “What Screenwriters Get Wrong About Outlines” – video with Alan Watt     Subscribe and view show notes at: https://lpenelope.com/podcast Website: https://www.lpenelope.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leslyepenelope Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leslyepenelope Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorlpenelope  Music credit: Say Good Night by Joakim Karud https://soundcloud.com/joakimkarudCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported— CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/SZkVShypKgM Affiliate Disclosure: I may receive compensation for links to products on this site either directly or indirectly via affiliate links. Heartspell Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Scheduling the time needed to chip away at my long to-do list.   This week’s best thing: The Jeffersons live on ABC   Mentions: The Career Author Podcast - https://thecareerauthor.com/ Readercon - http://www.readercon.org/ Tananarive Due - https://www.tananarivedue.com/ Music credit: Say Good Night by Joakim Karud https://soundcloud.com/joakimkarud Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported— CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/SZkVShypKgM   Affiliate Disclosure: I may receive compensation for links to products on this site either directly or indirectly via affiliate links. Heartspell Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Our first live show done as a panel at Readercon 29 in Boston, MA Host/Moderator: R. B. Wood  Show Notes: http://www.rbwood.com Prompt: Guests: W. B. J. Williams M. J. King Eden Baylee Bill Kirton Kathleen Kayembe R.B. Wood

It's another Readercon episode! First, Liz Hand rejoins the show for a little conversation about what she's been reading lately (it's some creepy stuff, of course), the regenerative aspects of Readercon, why the novella is ideal for dark/spooky fiction, and whether the attendee wearing an ASIA t-shirt is doing so ironically. Then John Clute talks about the ruins of futurity and the launch of the Clute Science Fiction Library at Telluride Institute. We get into the need for visual presentation and accessibility of original books in their context (including dust jackets), his transition from book accumulator to collector, the externalization of one's mind into one's library, why he doesn't write fiction, the Easter eggs he sneaks into the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, why Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie (except for Wrath of Khan), reaching a uniform degree of incompletion, generational shifts in SF/F, and the sneaky adoption of Fantastika. (Goofy photo by Scott Edelman.) • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

  It all started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ... Welcome to Episode 106 of Llght On Light Through, a special video podcast of a reading I did of a brand new novelette, "Marilyn and Monet," at Readercon 28 in Quincy, MA on July 15, 2017. I read about 3300 words or about a third of the 10,000 word story. (You can read the complete story here.) Thanks Phil Merkel for recording this reading. (The voices you occasionally hear in the background are from a panel next door - I think they add to the ambience.)  

This weeks guest can commonly be found giving wedgies to teachers on the playground and he is often time heard giving lectures to turtles about bullseyesing womprats in his T-49 back at home. In fact, he isn't known for any of that stuff. Instead this weeks guest on Bizzong! is Nathan Carson who is really known for writing the snot out of a book called Starr Creek and drumming the snot outta drums for a band known as Witch Mountain.  Hit play like its a snare Zongers because it's time for the Bizzong! interview of Nathan Carson! Yay! Nathan Carson is a musician, writer, and Moth StorySlam Champion from Portland, OR. He is widely known as co-founder and drummer of the internationally touring doom metal band Witch Mountain, host of the FM radio show The Heavy Metal Sewing Circle, and the owner of the boutique music booking agency, Nanotear. Carson's byline can be found on hundreds of music and film-related articles in outlets such as the Willamette Week, SF Weekly, Orbitz, Noisey, Rue Morgue, Terrorizer, Metal Edge, etc. In recent years, Carson has turned his sights toward weird fiction, earning immediate accolades and publication via Word Horde, Stone Skin Press, Strange Aeons Magazine, Fedogan & Bremer, and Lazy Fascist Press, working with luminary editors such as Ross Lockhart, Molly Tanzer, Cameron Pierce, and Joe Pulver. He is also regularly found as a panelist, reader, or attendee on the convention circuit at HP Lovecraft Film Festival/Cthulhucon, NecronomiCon, StokerCon, ReaderCon, Bizarro Con, etc. Starr Creek (Lazy Fascist) is Carson's first standalone novella.  

Hello Everyone, As promised, here is the finale episode of my interview with Theodora Goss, and it's probably my favorite part. As you'll hear, we talk about Hungary as a fairyland, the politics of walls, Jane Austin as post apocalyptic required reading, and bears. But most important, we really get at Theodora's writer's journey, which is always personal, nuanced, and challenging for anybody who picks up the pen (keyboard? tablet? Smartphone?). Thank you, Theodora for your honesty, time, and of course your stories. Everyone, go buy her book. Also, look for me and the rest of BSFW at Readercon as we launch the Kickstarter for Season 2 of the Kaleidocast! -Rob Cameron

Hello Writers, Here's part 2 of my interview with Theodora. This time, we'll be discussing... The enigmatic Sarah Bernhardt Writers craft and poetics in story telling And how to make room for the fantastic in the real world.

After our longest hiatus so far, Jonathan is back from Italy and Gary is back from Readercon, and we ramble on about such questions as whether modern SF can be characterized as optimistic or pessimistic, how some stories survive as influences despite their obvious flaws, whether modern SF holds on to some of its cherished myths even when they no longer seem feasible, what we're reading these days, and our own forthcoming public podcast at MidAmericon next month. As usual, any topic that you might find uninteresting will soon turn into another topic entirely.

Celebrate Readercon with 15 guests eating 12 donuts -- purchased at the world's first Dunkin' Donuts -- in a “lightning round” episode of Eating the Fantastic! Guests include Greer Gilman, Maria Dahvana Headley, Rajan Khanna, plus a dozen more surprise visitors.

John Clute, author, critic, and science fiction encyclopedist, joins the show at Readercon 2015 to talk about aftermath culture, SF's ghettoization, the triumph of Ishiguro's The Buried Giant, the failure of moats, and why late-period Bob Dylan is radically more interesting than the early model.

As the New Horizons probe hurtles past Pluto in the dark beyond, a con-crud-stricken John E. O. Stevens regales Fred Kiesche and Jeff Patterson with his adventures at Readercon. Then attentions turn to special guest Hoarsewoman Stina Leicht (on book release day, no less) to talk about her new novel Cold Iron. The discussion includes forty years of Dhalgren, writing protocols, book budgets, historical baggage, the bookstore landscape, eels, and our relationship with violence. As always, The Hoarsemen recount the books, comics, podcasts, and television that have occupied their free time. Host Fred Kiesche, John E.O. Stevens and Jeff Patterson with Stina Leicht.

Over the weekend of June 25-28 Gary travelled to distant and beautiful Mariehamn in the land of the midnight sun where he was to appear as a guest of honor at Archipelacon: The Nordic SF & Fantasy Convention. In amongst time spent appearing on panels, making speeches and marveling that the sun was still up as midnight approached, Gary took time to sit down with fellow Archipelacon guest Karin Tidbeck and long-time friend of the podcast Cheryl Morgan to discuss Karin's writing, Finnish and Swedish SF, some recommended new translations, and much more. As always, our sincere thanks to Karin and Cheryl for taking the time to be part of Coode Street. We hope you enjoy the episode. Next week: Readercon goodness!

It’s the Butt Panel from Readercon! Moderated by Amal El-Mohtar with Mikki Kendall, Julia Sparkymonster, Emily Wagner, and Vinnie Tesla. Here’s the official description:The Booty Don’t Lie: A Cheeky Discussion of Butts in Literature.This panel is about butts. Fundamentally divisive, throughout history the humble buttocks has often found itself at the intersection of concerns about gender, sexuality, race, and truly terrible puns. This gameshow-style discussion of butts in literature and popular culture promises to be deep, probing, and entertaining in equal measure; join us in reasoning a posteriori. Picture of the panelists twerkingThings mentioned in the panel:Saartjie Baartman,the “Hottentot Venus”“Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix A Lot (“She’s so … black.” and “LA face with Oakland Booty” and "An itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face.")  “Bootylicious” by Destiny’s Child  (“I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly. My body’s too bootylicious for ya babe.”)“Q.U.E.E.N.” by Janelle Monae, featuring Erykah Badu (“The booty don’t lie.”) “Poison” by Bell Biv Devoe (“Never trust a big butt and a smile.”) Insults of note:Bundle of ass twigs (Amal’s gift to the world)Ass bucketAss hat (as a gateway to ass haberdashery — “What is this ass haberdashery?”)Fashion:Alexander McQueen’s Bumster trousers Chaps (Should they be worn with or without trousers? The panelists say yes.)Prince’s buttless pants at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards Visual Art:Vegetable art by Guiseppe Arcimboldo Amal passed around a similar piece of art depicting a face made of butts. Possible it was by André Martins de Barros? Avengers Booty Ass-emble by Kevin Bolk The Hieronymus Bosch butt song Misc pop culture:Hellboy: The Soul of Venice (about Cloacina, the Etruscan sewer goddess) Le Pétomane Literature:“The Miller’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Finally a note that the Queers Destroy Science Fiction special issue of Lightspeed is now open to submissions!

Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Michael Dirda rejoins the Virtual Memories Show at Readercon 2014 to talk about the time Neil Gaiman tried to explain Twitter to him, his new project on the golden age of storytelling, what he dislikes about the tone of today's book reviewers, and more! [Also, we remastered our original Dirda podcast from 2012, over here!]

With our intrepid hosts preparing to head off to Europe for a sojourn in France before attending WorldCon in London (the biggest Worldcon ever!!), it seems like everything is happening in the gap between now and then. To fill the moments, a new episode(!) where Gary's time at Readercon, the Shirley Jackson Awards, the World Fantasy Awards and more (not much more) are discussed. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

Gillian Daniels, Emily Wagner, Adam Lipkin, Victor Raymond join Julia Rios talk about QUILTBAG YA in this panel from Arisia.Gillian blogs for New England Theatre Geek and the Analytical Couch Potato and eatyourbooks.blogspot.com.  Emily is a YA Librarian and the programming chair for Readercon.Adam reviews YA books for Publishers Weekly.Victor is a professor of sociology, activist, and founding member of the Carl Brandon Society. Victor Jason Raymond on Facebook. Material For Class Tumblr is coming soon.Julia is the host of this podcast, and is co-editing an anthology of diverse YA SF and fantasy called Kaleidoscope.Things mentioned in the panel:*Flying Higher: an anthology of superhero poetry--all the panelists have poems in this, and it is free.*Malnda Lo's books (Lesbian characters without being problem novels)*Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (good trans character, bi character who is also disabled, complex relationships, very good audiobook version)*If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan (two girls in love in Iran)*The Weetzie Bat series by Francesca Lia Block*Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (as an example of a classic YA book where diversity--in this case race--is played down, so the character reads as white to a lot of people)*The Shattering by Karen Healey (and a blanket recommendation for Karen Healey in general, and Guardian of the Dead has a good asexual character)*The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black (trans character)*AO3 (Archive Of Our Own--a fanfiction website where Emily sees teens going to write their own fix it fics. If they like a story and are disappointed about the representation, they will transform it themselves.)*Cassandra Clare, Sara Rees Brennan, Naomi Novik, Lois McMaster Bujold (authors who got their start in fanfic and/or still write fanfic after being professionally published)*Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (as an example of something where the issue of othernerss--in this case race--is so highlighted that the person portrayed as other must be presented as perfect)*The Nightrunner Series by Lynn Flewelling *The Hobbit by J. R. R.  Tolkien (Teen #1 in audience read and liked it for the adventure)*The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Teen #2 read and loved this because it didn't try to romanticize death, but was blunt and direct)*Fanfiction! (Teen #3 is following over 150 fanfics right now and loves Once Upon a Time fanfic because, "The show is so terrible, but the fanfic is so good!")*The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (SF in future Brazil with a polyamorous relationship with QUILTBAG characters and characters of color)*Marco Impossible by Hannah Moscowitz (mainstream gay book for middle school age readers)*My Most Excellent Year A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park by Steve Kluger (another mainstream book with 9th grade protagonists, one of whom is gay)*The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce (to start with one character has two moms, and later one of the main characters is bi. These are good because they start young and get older, so goo books to grow with)*Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson (Audience recommended, but then did not want to spoil it, so I'm unsure why exactly it was recommended)

In Part 2 of our Readercon 2013 special, we talk with authors Theodora Goss, Valya Lupescu and Nancy Hightower about their new books, their writing careers, their literary influences, what Readercon means to them, and more!

After all of the excitement of broadcasting from ReaderCon with Rob Shearman and Howard Waldrop, Gary and Jonathan turn back to more typical discussion of matters science fictional in an all new podcast that, as always, comes to you live from the Waldorf Room. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

It's time for a 2-part podcast! I went up to Readercon 24 in Burlington, MA in July and came back with a passel of conversations! First, John Crowley, author of Little, Big, Aegypt, Engine Summer and other great novels and short stories, joined us talk about his work, his influences, the shifting nature of the literary marketplace, the allure of imaginary books, and more! Then, fiction-writer, editor, wrestling biographer (?) and ukelele enthusiast Scott Edelman joins us to talk about zombies, literary genre ghettoes, his history at conventions, his time working at Marvel Comics in the '70s, and the virtues of workshopping fiction! Next episode: Readercon conversations with Theodora Goss, Valya Dudycz Lupescu and Nancy Hightower!

The Untragic Trans* Panel from WisCon 37! Moderated by Rhea Ewing, with Autumn Nicole Bradley, Rose Hayes, Brit Mandelo, and Elliott Mason. The panel runs an hour and fifteen minutes, and then I give a little Readercon report after it's over. Things the panelists recommended: *We Happy Trans* is a website specifically for sharing positive trans* experiences. *What Makes a Baby is a book that talks about how babies are made in very inclusive terms for all kinds of families. *Choir Boy by Charlie Anders is a novel about a trans* teen. *Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman is a book about exploring gender in multiple ways. *Being Emily by Rachel Gold is another trans* teen novel, and one which Autumn recommends as really speaking to her experience. *FINE is Rhea's comic about gender. Readercon was great! Big thanks to he concom for working hard to make the space as safe and inclusive as possible. I loved getting to catch up with so many OA members, though I utterly failed to get a lot pictures. I do have two, though! Both from the From Page to Stage workshop run by C.S.E. Cooney and Caitlyn Paxson. At the end, all the participants read from their work, and I caught Kyell Gold and Brad Parks in the act! Here's Kyell: And Brad: Thanks to everyone who made Readercon weekend great!

The great Lost Podcasts of 2012 are a part of Coode Street Podcast lore. A sad and painful memory of four wonderful conversations ever lost to perfidious technology. This week one of the participants in those conversations, brilliant short story writer Robert Shearman, and living legend Howard Waldrop, join Gary and Jonathan in a special podcast recorded in Boston at Readercon 24. Much is discussed about the art of the short story, changes in contemporary culture, and more. As always, we hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast!

In what is definitely the latest official instalment of the Coode Street Podcast, Gary and Jonathan sneak past the Jerome Kern Memorial Habachi Stand and settle down just near the Richard Rogers Habachi Grill to discuss many things. In an incredible development, this time the Production Gnomes of Coode Street have been able to produce a rough running schedule for the episode. Rejoice! 00:00   Introduction 05:00 Discussion of Kim Stanley Robinson's new novel Shaman, Werner Herzog's film Cave of Forgotten Dreams and prehistoric fiction. (This bit's shorter than you'd think it would be). 13:00:  Locus Awards winners, and Gary drops names. 30:00   Richard Matheson. 38:00   The Year in Fiction to Date (including our favorites and must reads of the year so far [though not really "must", just "we like it a lot and you might too"] 1:13:00 End Please let us know in comments about your favorite books of the year too! Next week we hope to be reporting in from Readercon. Until then, as always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

And this week the wonderful Genevieve Valentine joins us in the Waldorf Room to discuss Readercon and harrassment at conventions, steampunk, dystopias and After and the recently released World Fantasy Awards ballot.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

After a final July hiatus we're back! This weekend Gary and I headed to the Waldorf Room to discuss thoughts on Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 and SF set within our Solar System, World Fantasy Award Lifetime Achievement recipients Alan Garner and George R.R. Martin, and recent issues at Readercon. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

After a short break, we're back! Gary travelled to Massachusetts to attend Readercon 23 and managed to persuade convention guests of honor Caitlin R. Kiernan and Peter Straub to join us to discussCaitlin's most recent novel The Drowning Girl,  writing, Readercon and much, much more. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

With the sun slowly setting over the Coode Street Motel 6, Gary and I headed for the Waldorf Room to record episode 102 of the podcast. For the first time in two years we had show notes, we had plans, and we had news: surely nothing could go wrong!  Surely! We had much to discuss: the Nebula Awards winners, which had just been announced; feedback from Cheryl Morgan on Episode 101 and whether women write rigorous SF; gender and whether the gender of the author affects how we perceive the genre of their work; and more! Really. For those seeking show notes, we did discuss all of the above, along with mention of the Tiptree Centenary (time to start planning!), Gary's upcoming attendance at Wiscon and Readercon, and other stuff. However, this is the Coode St Podcast. It soon became clear Gary had not *read* the show notes, that we couldn't fit in everything we'd planned and...well, we did the best we could. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week, Wiscon!

Gary Wolfe checks in from Readercon in Burlingham MA and brings guests Elizabeth Hand and Peter Straub to the table. This time we discuss: the art of the novella why Readercon is worth attending outsider art, Henry Darger, crypto-aviation, and all sorts of other neat stuff. We hope you enjoy it as always and will see you next weekend!

Horror Addicts Episode# 023 Horror Hostess: Emerian Rich Intro Music by: SpekrFreks ---------------------------- Featured Author: Jack Mangan Featured Band: Skin Contact Featured Movie: Phantasm, 1979 ---------------------------- Skin Contact bumper | Phantasm, 1979 Review | Foreign Fang Quiz | Montreal Fetish Weekend | Sarah Peters | Vamp Writers Group | Vampire Class | Bride Of Water God | Dead High Yearbook | dashPunk | Speculative Fiction Today | Undead Betty’s Derby Bout | Off The Shelf Interview | Readercon | Anticipation | Hiener | Ruckus Interview | Ruckus Review | Skin Contact Antitrust | Grave Concerns | Artist Lino Azavedo | Let The Right One In | Haunted Vacations | Homecoming | Jack Mangan Interview | Wander Radio | 16 Pieces, Jack Mangan | (Ning is down right now... links will come soon.) Phantasm Knightmist: http://emzbox.ning.com/xn/detail/2168705:Topic:8915 Montreal Fetish Weekend: http://www.fetishweekend.com/ Sarah Peters: Vamp Writers Group: Vampire Class: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-talk_vampiremay27,0,7710631.story Bride Of The Water God SFT Episode #410: Dead High Yearbook   SFT Episode #409: Undead Betty’s Derby Team: http://www.undeadbettys.com/Off The Shelf Interview: http://thebookstacks.org/off-the-shelf/ Readercon: http://www.readercon.org/ Anticipation: http://www.anticipationsf.ca Events on forum: Hiener: Ruckus Productions: http://www.ruckusproductions.com/tob.htm Skin Contact: http://www.skincontact.com Grave Concerns: http://www.graveconcernsezine.com/ Lino Azavedo: http://www.azevedoart.com KnightmistLet The Right One In: Audrey Haunted Vacation: http://emzbox.ning.com/xn/detail/2168705:Topic:8895 Jack Mangan: http://www.jackmangan.com Wander Radio: http://wanderradio.com/ HA staff: Emerian Rich, Knightmist, Audrey, Ari with music by the SpekrFreks All articles and forum topics can be found at: http://www.emzbox.ning.com Season 3 Movies: Subspecies, 1991 Phantasm, 1979 Lost Souls,2000 Death Note (Live Action), 2006 Ghost Ship, 2002 Dog Soldiers, 2002 The Ghost amd Mrs. Muir, 1947 Pitch Black, Brides Of Dracula, 1960 The Others, 2001 Sleepy Hollow, 1999 /

Fair Warning: The self aggrandizement continues with Part Two of the Guest of Honor Interview between John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly from Readercon 19. This took place in July of 2008. Happily, this is the concluding segment. Time: 20:25 File Size: 20mb

Fair Warning: And now for something completely different for Free Reads. This is Part One of the Guest of Honor Interview between John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly from Readercon 19. It was recorded in July of 2008 and contains more information than anyone would ever want to know about the perpetrator of this podcast. Listen at your own peril! Time: 31:54 File Size: 15mb

Hosts Erin and DongWon are joined by Fonda Lee and Mahtab Narsimhan for a special episode about creating traditions in your fictional writing. In this episode, we'll explore some of the following: -How do you build traditions and rituals in your fictional world (choosing what becomes a tradition or ritual and what doesn't)? -How can you use rituals or traditions to advance a novel's plot, give characters more depth, and create conflict? -What are the pitfalls to avoid (depiction of closed practices, over-ritualizing common traditions)?Homework: Pick a ritual or tradition that you are very accustomed to and make it the center of a fictional scene. You can change its meaning or impact, but the content of the tradition should stay the same.Thing of the Week: Shanghai Immortal by AY Chao (especially the audiobook version)Liner Notes: This podcast episode idea was inspired by ReaderCon 2023, where Erin Roberts was a panelist. Sign up for our newsletter: https://writingexcuses.comCredits: Your hosts for this episode were DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Fonda Lee and Mahtab Narsimhan. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.Join Our Writing Community! PatreonInstagramYouTubeFacebookTwitterSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy