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Matt Forbeck is all that and so much more. He grew up in Wisconsin as what he describes as a wimpy kid, too short and not overly healthy. He took to gaming at a pretty early age and has grown to be a game creator, author and award-winning storyteller.   Matt has been designing games now for over 35 years. He tells us how he believes that many of the most successful games today have stories to tell, and he loves to create some of the most successful ones. What I find most intriguing about Matt is that he clearly is absolutely totally happy in his work. For most of Matt's career he has worked for himself and continues today to be an independent freelancer.   Matt and his wife have five children, including a set of quadruplets. The quadruplets are 23 and Matt's oldest son is 28 and is following in his father's footsteps.   During our conversation we touch on interesting topics such as trust and work ethics. I know you will find this episode stimulating and worth listening to more than once.     About the Guest:   Matt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and game designer of over thirty-five novels and countless other books and games. His projects have won a Peabody Award, a Scribe Award, and numerous ENnies and Origins Awards. He is also the president of the Diana Jones Award Foundation, which celebrates excellence in gaming.    Matt has made a living full-time on games and fiction since 1989, when he graduated from the Residential College at the University of Michigan with a degree in Creative Writing. With the exception of a four-year stint as the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and a year and a half as the director of the adventure games division of Human Head Studios, he has spent his career as an independent freelancer.   Matt has designed collectible card games, roleplaying games, miniatures games, board games, interactive fiction, interactive audiobooks, games for museum installations, and logic systems for toys. He has directed voiceover work and written short fiction, comic books, novels, screenplays, and video game scripts and stories. His work has been translated into at least 15 languages.   His latest work includes the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Core Rulebook, the Spider-Verse Expansion, Monster Academy (novels and board game), the Shotguns & Sorcery 5E Sourcebook based on his novels, and the Minecraft: Roll for Adventure game books. He is the father of five, including a set of quadruplets. He lives in Beloit, Wisconsin, with his wife and a rotating cast of college-age children. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.   Ways to connect with Matt:   Twitter: https://twitter.com/mforbeck Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forbeck Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/forbeck.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@mforbeck Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mforbeck/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forbeck/ Website: https://www.forbeck.com/     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset today. We get to play games. Well, not really, but we'll try. Our guest is Matt Forbeck, who is an award winning author. He is a game designer and all sorts of other kinds of things that I'm sure he's going to tell us about, and we actually just before we started the the episode, we were talking about how one might explore making more games accessible for blind and persons with other disabilities. It's, it's a challenge, and there, there are a lot of tricks. But anyway, Matt, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Matt Forbeck ** 02:02 Well, thank you, Michael for inviting me and having me on. I appreciate it.   Speaker 1 ** 02:06 I think we're going to have a lot of fun, and I think it'll work out really well. I'm I am sure of that. So why don't we start just out of curiosity, why don't you tell us kind of about the early Matt, growing up?   Matt Forbeck ** 02:18 Uh, well, I grew up. I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I grew up in a little town called Beloit, Wisconsin, which actually live in now, despite having moved away for 13 years at one point, and I had terrible asthma, I was a sick and short kid, and with the advent of medication, I finally started to be healthy when I was around nine, and Part of that, I started getting into playing games, right? Because when you're sick, you do a lot of sitting around rather than running around. So I did a lot of reading and playing games and things like that. I happen to grow up in the part of the world where Dungeons and Dragons was invented, which is in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 30 miles from where I live. And because of that I was I started going to conventions and playing games and such, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I started doing it when I was a little bit older. I started doing it professionally, and started doing it when I was in college. And amazingly enough, even to my own astonishment, I've made a career out of it.   Speaker 1 ** 03:17 Where did you go to college? I went to the University   Matt Forbeck ** 03:21 of Michigan over in Ann Arbor. I had a great time there. There's a wonderful little college, Beloit College, in my hometown here, and most of my family has gone to UW Milwaukee over the years. My parents met at Marquette in Milwaukee, but I wanted to get the heck out of the area, so I went to Michigan, and then found myself coming back as soon as we started having   Speaker 1 ** 03:42 kids well, and of course, I would presume that when you were at the University of Michigan, you rooted for them and against Ohio State. That was   Matt Forbeck ** 03:50 kind of, you know, if you did it the other way around, they back out of town. So, yeah, I was always kind of astonished, though, because having grown up in Wisconsin, where every sports team was a losing team when I was growing up, including the Packers, for decades. You know, we were just happy to be playing. They were more excuse to have beers than they were to cheer on teams. And I went to Michigan where they were, they were angry if the team wasn't up by two touchdowns. You know, at any point, I'm like, You guys are silly. This is we're here for fun.   Speaker 1 ** 04:17 But it is amazing how seriously some people take sports. I remember being in New Zealand helping the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind. Well now 22 years ago, it's 2003 and the America's Cup had just finished before we got there, and in America beat New Zealand, and the people in New Zealand were just irate. They were complaining that the government didn't put enough money into the design of the boat and helping with the with the yacht and all that. It was just amazing how seriously people take it, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 04:58 once, I mean, it becomes a part of your. Identity in a lot of ways, right for many people, and I've never had to worry about that too much. I've got other things on my mind, but there you go.   Speaker 1 ** 05:08 Well, I do like it when the Dodgers win, and my wife did her graduate work at USC, and so I like it when the Trojans win, but it's not the end of the world, and you do need to keep it in perspective. I I do wish more people would I know once I delivered a speech in brether County, Kentucky, and I was told that when I started the speech had to end no later than preferably exactly at 6:30pm not a minute later, because it was the night of the NCAA Basketball Championship, and the Kentucky Wildcats were in the championship, and at 630 everyone was going to get up and leave and go home to watch the game. So I ended at 630 and literally, by 631 I timed it. The gym was empty and it was full to start with.   Matt Forbeck ** 06:02 People were probably, you know, counting down on their watches, just to make sure, right?   Speaker 1 ** 06:06 Oh, I'm sure they were. What do you do? It's, it is kind of fun. Well, so why did you decide to get started in games? What? What? What attracted to you, to it as a young person, much less later on?   Matt Forbeck ** 06:21 Well, I was, yeah, I was an awkward kid, kind of nerdy and, you know, glasses and asthma and all that kind of stuff. And games were the kind of thing where, if you didn't know how to interact with people, you could sit down at a table across them and you could practice. You can say, okay, we're all here. We've got this kind of a magic circle around us where we've agreed to take this one silly activity seriously for a short period of time, right? And it may be that you're having fun during that activity, but you know, there's, there's no reason that rolling dice or moving things around on a table should be taken seriously. It's all just for fun, right? But for that moment, you actually just like Las Vegas Exactly, right? When there's money on the line, it's different, but if you're just doing it for grins. You know, it was a good way for me to learn how to interact with people of all sorts and of different ages. And I really enjoyed playing the games, and I really wanted to be a writer, too. And a lot of these things interacted with story at a very basic level. So breaking in as a writer is tough, but it turned out breaking as a game designer, wasn't nearly his stuff, so I started out over there instead, because it was a very young field at the time, right? D and D is now 50 years old, so I've been doing this 35 years, which means I started around professionally and even doing it before that, I started in the period when the game and that industry were only like 10 or 15 years old, so yeah, weren't quite as much competition in those   Speaker 1 ** 07:43 days. I remember some of the early games that I did play, that I could play, were DOS based games, adventure. You're familiar with adventure? Yeah, oh, yeah. Then later, Zork and all that. And I still think those are fun games. And I the reason I like a lot of those kinds of games is they really make you think, which I think most games do, even though the video even the video games and so on, they they help your or can help your reactions, but they're designed by people who do try to make you think,   Matt Forbeck ** 08:15 yeah. I mean, we basically are designing puzzles for people to solve, even if they're story puzzles or graphic puzzles or sound puzzles or whatever, you know, even spatial puzzles. There the idea is to give somebody something fun that is intriguing to play with, then you end up coming with story and after that, because after a while, even the most most exciting mechanics get dull, right? I mean, you start out shooting spaceships, but you can only shoot spaceships for so long, or you start out playing Tetris, and you only put shapes together for so long before it doesn't mean anything that then you start adding in story to give people a reason to keep playing right and a reason to keep going through these things. And I've written a lot of video games over the years, basically with that kind of a philosophy, is give people nuggets of story, give them a plot to work their way through, and reward them for getting through different stages, and they will pretty much follow you through anything. It's amazing.   Michael Hingson ** 09:09 Is that true Dungeons and Dragons too?   Matt Forbeck ** 09:13 It is. All of the stories are less structured there. If you're doing a video game, you know you the team has a lot of control over you. Give the player a limited amount of control to do things, but if you're playing around a table with people, it's more of a cooperative kind of experience, where we're all kind of coming up with a story, the narrator or the Game Master, the Dungeon Master, sets the stage for everything, but then the players have a lot of leeway doing that, and they will always screw things up for you, too. No matter what you think is going to happen, the players will do something different, because they're individuals, and they're all amazing people. That's actually to me, one of the fun things about doing tabletop games is that, you know, the computer can only react in a limited number of ways, whereas a human narrator and actually change things quite drastically and roll. With whatever people come up with, and that makes it tremendous fun.   Speaker 1 ** 10:04 Do you think AI is going to enter into all that and maybe improve some of the   Matt Forbeck ** 10:09 old stuff? It's going to add your end to it, whether it's an ad, it's going to approve it as a large question. Yeah. So I've been ranting about AI quite a bit lately with my friends and family. But, you know, I think the problem with AI, it can be very helpful a lot of ways, but I think it's being oversold. And I think it's especially when it's being oversold for thing, for ways for people to replace writers and creative thinking, Yeah, you know, you're taking the fun out of everything. I mean, the one thing I like to say is if, if you can't be bothered to write this thing that you want to communicate to me, I'm not sure why I should be bothered to read this thing well.   Speaker 1 ** 10:48 And I think that AI will will evolve in whatever way it does. But the fact of the matter is, So do people. And I think that, in fact, people are always going to be necessary to make the process really work? AI can only do and computers can only do so much. I mean, even Ray Kurzweil talks about the singularity when people and computer brains are married, but that still means that you're going to have the human element. So it's not all going to be the computer. And I'm not ready to totally buy into to what Ray says. And I used to work for Ray, so I mean, I know Ray Well, but, but the but the bottom line is, I think that, in fact, people are always going to be able to be kind of the, the mainstay of it, as long as we allow that, if we, if we give AI too much power, then over time, it'll take more power, and that's a problem, but that's up to us to deal with?   Matt Forbeck ** 11:41 No, I totally agree with that. I just think right now, there's a very large faction of people who it's in their economic interest to oversell these things. You know, people are making chips. They're building server farms. A lot of them are being transferred from people are doing blockchain just a few years ago, and they see it as the hot new thing. The difference is that AI actually has a lot of good uses. There's some amazing things will come out of llms and such. But I again, people are over the people are selling this to us. Are often over promising things, right?   Speaker 1 ** 12:11 Yeah, well, they're not only over promising but they're they're really misdirecting people. But the other side of it is that, that, in fact, AI as a concept and as a technology is here, and we have control over how we use it. I've said a couple times on this this podcast, and I've said to others, I remember when I first started hearing about AI, I heard about the the fact that teachers were bemoaning the pack, that kids were writing their papers just using AI and turning them in, and it wasn't always easy to tell whether it was something that was written by AI or was written by the student. And I come from a little bit different view than I think a lot of people do. And my view basically is, let the kids write it if with AI, if that's what they're going to do, but then what the teacher needs to do is to take one period, for example, and give every student in that class the opportunity to come up and defend whatever paper they have. And the real question is, can they defend the paper? Which means, have they really learned the subject, or are they just relying on AI,   Matt Forbeck ** 13:18 yeah, I agree with that. I think the trouble is, a lot of people, children, you know, who are developing their abilities and their morals about this stuff, they use it as just a way to complete the assignment, right? And many of them don't even read what they turn in, right, right? Just know that they've got something here that will so again, if you can't be bothered to read the thing that you manufactured, you're not learning anything about it,   Speaker 1 ** 13:39 which is why, if you are forced to defend it, it's going to become pretty obvious pretty fast, whether you really know it or not. Now, I've used AI on a number of occasions in various ways, but I use it to maybe give me ideas or prepare something that I then modify and shape. And I may even interact with AI a couple of times, but I'm definitely involved with the process all the way down the line, because it still has to be something that I'm responsible for.   Matt Forbeck ** 14:09 I agree. I mean, the whole point of doing these things is for people to connect with each other, right? I want to learn about the ideas you have in your head. I want to see how they jive with ones in my head. But if I'm just getting something that's being spit out by a machine and not you, and not being curated by you at any point, that doesn't seem very useful, right? So if you're the more involved people are in it, the more useful it is.   Speaker 1 ** 14:31 Well, I agree, and you know, I think again, it's a tool, and we have to decide how the tool is going to be used, which is always the way it ought to be. Right?   Matt Forbeck ** 14:42 Exactly, although sometimes it's large corporations deciding,   Speaker 1 ** 14:45 yeah, well, there's that too. Well, individuals,   Matt Forbeck ** 14:49 we get to make our own choices. Though you're right,   Speaker 1 ** 14:51 yes, and should Well, so, so when did you start bringing writing into what you. Did, and make that a really significant part of what you did?   Matt Forbeck ** 15:03 Well, pretty early on, I mean, I started doing one of the first things I did was a gaming zine, which was basically just a print magazine that was like, you know, 32 pages, black and white, about the different tabletop games. So we were writing those in the days, design and writing are very closely linked when it comes to tabletop games and even in video games. The trick of course is that designing a game and writing the rules are actually two separate sets of skills. So one of the first professional gig I ever had during writing was in games was some friends of mine had designed a game for a company called Mayfair games, which went on to do sellers of contain, which is a big, uh, entry level game, and but they needed somebody to write the rules, so they called me over, showed me how to play the game. I took notes and I I wrote it down in an easy to understand, clear way that people had just picked up the box. Could then pick it up and teach themselves how to play, right? So that was early on how I did it. But the neat thing about that is it also taught me to think about game design. I'm like, when I work on games, I think about, who is this game going to be for, and how are we going to teach it to them? Because if they can't learn the game, there's no point of the game at all, right?   Speaker 1 ** 16:18 And and so I'm right? I'm a firm believer that a lot of technical writers don't do a very good job of technical writing, and they write way over people's heads. I remember the first time I had to write, well, actually, I mentioned I worked for Kurzweil. I was involved with a project where Ray Kurzweil had developed his original omniprent optical character recognition system. And I and the National Federation of the Blind created with him a project to put machines around the country so that blind people could use them and give back to Ray by the time we were all done, recommendations as to what needed to go in the final first production model of the machine. So I had to write a training manual to teach people how to use it. And I wrote this manual, and I was always of the opinion that it had to be pretty readable and usable by people who didn't have a lot of technical knowledge. So I wrote the manual, gave it to somebody to read, and said, Follow the directions and and work with the machine and all that. And they did, and I was in another room, and they were playing with it for a couple of hours, and they came in and they said, I'm having a problem. I can't figure out how to turn off the machine. And it turns out that I had forgotten to put in the instruction to turn off the machine. And it wasn't totally trivial. There were steps you had to go through. It was a Data General Nova two computer, and you had to turn it off the right way and the whole system off the appropriate way, or you could, could mess everything up. So there was a process to doing it. So I wrote it in, and it was fine. But, you know, I've always been a believer that the textbooks are way too boring. Having a master's degree in physics, I am of the opinion that physics textbook writers, who are usually pretty famous and knowledgeable scientists, ought to include with all the text and the technical stuff they want to put in, they should put in stories about what they did in you bring people in, draw them into the whole thing, rather than just spewing out a bunch of technical facts.   Matt Forbeck ** 18:23 No, I agree. My my first calculus professor was a guy who actually explained how Newton and Leipzig actually came up with calculus, and then he would, you know, draw everything on the board and turn around say, and isn't that amazing? And you were, like, just absolutely enamored with the idea of how they had done these things, right? Yeah. And what you're doing there, when you, when you, when you give the instructions to somebody and say, try this out. That's a very big part of gaming, actually, because what we do this thing called play testing, where we take something before it's ready to be shown to the public, and we give it to other people and say, try this out. See how it works. Let me know when you're starting out of your first playing you play with like your family and friends and people will be brutal with you and give you hints about how you can improve things. But then, even when you get to the rules you're you send those out cold to people, or, you know, if you're a big company, you watch them through a two way mirror or one way mirror, and say, Hey, let's see how they react to everything. And then you take notes, and you try to make it better every time you go through. And when I'm teaching people to play games at conventions, for instance, I will often say to them, please ask questions if you don't understand anything, that doesn't mean you're dumb. Means I didn't explain it well enough, right? And my job as a person writing these rules is to explain it as well as I humanly can so it can't be misconstrued or misinterpreted. Now that doesn't mean you can correct everything. Somebody's always got like, Oh, I missed that sentence, you know, whatever. But you do that over and over so you can try to make it as clear and concise as possible, yeah.   Speaker 1 ** 19:52 Well, you have somewhat of a built in group of people to help if you let your kids get involved. Involved. So how old are your kids?   Matt Forbeck ** 20:03 My eldest is 26 he'll be 27 in January. Marty is a game designer, actually works with me on the marble tabletop role playing game, and we have a new book coming out, game book for Minecraft, called Minecraft role for adventure, that's coming out on July 7, I think, and the rest of the kids are 23 we have 423 year olds instead of quadruplets, one of whom is actually going into game design as well, and the other says two are still in college, and one has moved off to the work in the woods. He's a very woodsy boy. Likes to do environmental education with people.   Speaker 1 ** 20:39 Wow. Well, see, but you, but you still have a good group of potential game designers or game critics anyway.   Matt Forbeck ** 20:47 Oh, we all play games together. We have a great time. We do weekly game nights here. Sometimes they're movie nights, sometimes they're just pizza nights, but we shoot for game and pizza   Speaker 1 ** 20:56 if we get lucky and your wife goes along with all this too.   Matt Forbeck ** 21:00 She does. She doesn't go to the game conventions and stuff as much, and she's not as hardcore of a gamer, but she likes hanging out with the kids and doing everything with us. We have a great time.   Speaker 1 ** 21:10 That's that's pretty cool. Well, you, you've got, you've got to build an audience of some sorts, and that's neat that a couple of them are involved in it as well. So they really like what dad does, yeah,   Matt Forbeck ** 21:23 yeah. We, I started taking them each to conventions, which are, you know, large gatherings gamers in real life. The biggest one is Gen Con, which happens in Indianapolis in August. And last year, I think, we had 72,000 people show up. And I started taking the kids when they were 10 years old, and my wife would come up with them then. And, you know, 10 years old is a lot. 72,000 people is a lot for a 10 year old. So she can mention one day and then to a park the next day, you know, decompress a lot, and then come back on Saturday and then leave on Sunday or whatever, so that we didn't have them too over stimulated. But they really grown to love it. I mean, it's part of our annual family traditions in the summer, is to go do these conventions and play lots of games with each other and meet new people too well.   Speaker 1 ** 22:08 And I like the way you put it. The games are really puzzles, which they are, and it's and it's fun. If people would approach it that way, no matter what the game is, they're, they're aspects of puzzles involved in most everything that has to do with the game, and that's what makes it so fun.   Matt Forbeck ** 22:25 Exactly, no. The interesting thing is, when you're playing with other people, the other people are changing the puzzles from their end that you have to solve on your end. And sometimes the puzzle is, how do I beat this person, or how do I defeat their strategy, or how do I make an alliance with somebody else so we can win? And it's really always very intriguing. There's so many different types of games. There's nowadays, there's like something like 50 to 100 new board games that come out and tabletop games every month, right? It's just like a fire hose. It's almost like, when I was starting out as a novelist, I would go into Barnes and Noble or borders and go, Oh my gosh, look at all these books. And now I do the same thing about games. It's just, it's incredible. Nobody, no one person, could keep up with all of them.   Speaker 1 ** 23:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, way too much. I would love to explore playing more video games, but I don't. I don't own a lot of the technology, although I'm sure that there are any number of them that can be played on a computer, but we'll have to really explore and see if we can find some. I know there are some that are accessible for like blind people with screen readers. I know that some people have written a few, which is kind of cool. Yeah.   Matt Forbeck ** 23:36 And Xbox has got a new controller out that's meant to be accessible to large amount of people. I'm not sure, all the different aspects of it, but that's done pretty well, too   Speaker 1 ** 23:44 well. And again, it comes down to making it a priority to put all of that stuff in. It's not like it's magic to do. It's just that people don't know how to do it. But I also think something else, which is, if you really make the products more usable, let's say by blind people with screen readers. You may be especially if it's well promoted, surprised. I'm not you necessarily, but people might well be surprised as to how many others might take advantage of it so that they don't necessarily have to look at the screen, or that you're forced to listen as well as look in order to figure out what's going on or take actions.   Matt Forbeck ** 24:29 No, definitely true. It's, you know, people audio books are a massive thing nowadays. Games tend to fall further behind that way, but it's become this incredible thing that obviously, blind people get a great use out of but my wife is addicted to audio books now. She actually does more of those than she does reading. I mean, I technically think they're both reading. It's just one's done with yours and one's done with your eyes.   Speaker 1 ** 24:51 Yeah, there's but there's some stuff, whether you're using your eyes or your fingers and reading braille, there's something about reading a book that way that's. Even so a little bit different than listening to it. Yeah, and there's you're drawn in in some ways, in terms of actually reading that you're not necessarily as drawn into when you're when you're listening to it, but still, really good audio book readers can help draw you in, which is important, too,   Matt Forbeck ** 25:19 very much. So yeah, I think the main difference for reading, whether it's, you know, again, through Braille or through traditional print, is that you can stop. You can do it at your own pace. You can go back and look at things very easily, or read or check things, read things very easily. That you know, if you're reading, if you're doing an audio book, it just goes on and it's straight on, boom, boom, boom, pace. You can say, Wait, I'm going to put this down here. What was that thing? I remember back there? It was like three pages back, but it's really important, let me go check that right.   Speaker 1 ** 25:50 There are some technologies that allow blind people and low vision people and others, like people with dyslexia to use an audio book and actually be able to navigate two different sections of it. But it's not something that is generally available to the whole world, at least to the level that it is for blind people. But I can, I can use readers that are made to be able to accept the different formats and go back and look at pages, go back and look at headings, and even create bookmarks to bookmark things like you would normally by using a pen or a pencil or something like that. So there are ways to do some of that. So again, the technology is making strides.   Matt Forbeck ** 26:37 That's fantastic. Actually, it's wonderful. Just, yeah, it's great. I actually, you know, I lost half the vision of my right eye during back through an autoimmune disease about 13 years ago, and I've always had poor vision. So I'm a big fan of any kind of way to make things easier,   Speaker 1 ** 26:54 like that. Well, there, there are things that that are available. It's pretty amazing. A guy named George curser. Curser created a lot of it years ago, and it's called the DAISY format. And the whole idea behind it is that you can actually create a book. In addition to the audio tracks, there are XML files that literally give you the ability to move and navigate around the book, depending on how it's created, as final level as you choose.   Matt Forbeck ** 27:25 Oh, that's That's amazing. That's fantastic. I'm actually really glad to hear that.   Speaker 1 ** 27:28 So, yeah, it is kind of fun. So there's a lot of technology that's that's doing a lot of different sorts of things and and it helps. But um, so for you, in terms of dealing with, with the games, you've, you've written games, but you've, you've actually written some novels as well, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 27:50 Yeah, I've got like 30, it depends on how you count a novel, right? Okay, like some of my books are to pick a path books, right? Choose Your Own Adventure type stuff. So, but I've got 35 traditional novels written or more, I guess, now, I lost track a while ago, and probably another dozen of these interactive fiction books as well. So, and I like doing those. I've also written things like Marvel encyclopedias and Avengers encyclopedias and all sorts of different pop culture books. And, you know, I like playing in different worlds. I like writing science fiction, fantasy, even modern stuff. And most of it, for me comes down to telling stories, right? If you like to tell stories, you can tell stories through a game or book or audio play or a TV show or a comic, or I've done, you know, interactive museum, games and displays, things like that. The main thing is really a story. I mean, if you're comfortable sitting down at a bar and having a drink with somebody, doesn't have to be alcohol, just sitting down and telling stories with each other for fun. That's where the core of it all is really   Speaker 1 ** 28:58 right. Tell me about interactive fiction book.   Matt Forbeck ** 29:01 Sure, a lot of these are basically just done, like flow charts, kind of like the original Zork and adventure that you were talking about where you I actually, I was just last year, I brought rose Estes, who's the inventor of the endless quest books, which were a cross between Dungeons and Dragons, and choose your own adventure books. She would write the whole thing out page by page on a typewriter, and then, in order to shuffle the pages around so that people wouldn't just read straight through them, she'd throw them all up in the air and then just put them back in whatever order they happen to be. But essentially, you read a section of a book, you get to the end, and it gives you a choice. Would you like to go this way or that way? Would you like to go beat up this goblin? Or would you like to make friends with this warrior over here? If you want to do one of these things, go do page xx, right? Got it. So then you turn to that page and you go, boom, some, actually, some of the endless quest books I know were turned into audio books, right? And I actually, I. Um, oddly, have written a couple Dungeons and Dragons, interactive books, audio books that have only been released in French, right? Because there's a company called Looney l, u n, i, i that has this little handheld device that's for children, that has an A and a B button and a volume button. And you, you know, you get to the point that says, if you want to do this, push a, if you want to do that, push B, and the kids can go through these interactive stories and and, you know, there's ones for clue and Dungeons and Dragons and all sorts of other licenses, and some original stories too. But that way there's usually, like, you know, it depends on the story, but sometimes there's, like, 10 to 20 different endings. A lot of them are like, Oh no, you've been killed. Go back to where you started, right? And if you're lucky, the longer ones are, the more fun ones. And you get to, you know, save the kingdom and rescue the people and make good friends and all that good stuff,   Michael Hingson ** 30:59 yeah, and maybe fall in love with the princess or Prince.   Matt Forbeck ** 31:02 Yeah, exactly right. It all depends on the genre and what you're working in. But the idea is to give people some some choices over how they want the story to go. You're like, Well, do you want to investigate this dark, cold closet over here, or would you rather go running outside and playing around? And some of them can seem like very innocent choices, and other ones are like, well, uh, 10 ton weight just fell on. You go back to the last thing.   Speaker 1 ** 31:23 So that dark hole closet can be a good thing or a bad thing,   Matt Forbeck ** 31:28 exactly. And the trick is to make the deaths the bad endings, actually just as entertaining as anything else, right? And then people go, Well, I got beat, and I gotta go back and try that again. So yeah, if they just get the good ending all the way through, they often won't go back and look at all the terrible ones. So it's fun to trick them sometimes and have them go into terrible spots. And I like to put this one page in books too that sometimes says, How did you get here? You've been cheating there. This book, this page, is actually not led to from any other part of the book. You're just flipping   Speaker 1 ** 31:59 through. Cheater, cheater book, do what you   Matt Forbeck ** 32:04 want, but if you want to play it the right way, go back.   Speaker 1 ** 32:07 Kid, if you want to play the game. Yeah, exactly. On the other hand, some people are nosy.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:15 You know, I was always a kid who would poke around and wanted to see how things were, so I'm sure I would have found that myself but absolutely related, you know,   Speaker 1 ** 32:23 yeah, I had a general science teacher who brought in a test one day, and he gave it to everyone. And so he came over to me because it was, it was a printed test. He said, Well, I'm not going to give you the test, because the first thing it says is, read all the instructions, read, read the test through before you pass it, before you take it. And he said, most people won't do that. And he said, I know you would. And the last question on the test is answer, only question one.   Matt Forbeck ** 32:55 That's great. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 32:57 that was cute. And he said, I know that. I that there's no way you would, would would fall for that, because you would say, Okay, let's read the instructions and then read the whole test. That's what it said. And the instruction were, just read the whole test before you start. And people won't do that.   Matt Forbeck ** 33:13 No, they'll go through, take the whole thing. They get there and go, oh, did I get there? Was a, there's a game publisher. I think it was Steve Jackson Games, when they were looking for people, write for them, or design stuff for them, or submit stuff to them, would have something toward the end of the instructions that would say, put like a the letter seven, or put seven a on page one right, and that way they would know if you had read the instructions, if you hadn't bothered to Read the instructions, they wouldn't bother reading anything else.   Speaker 1 ** 33:42 Yeah, which is fair, because the a little harsh, well, but, but, you know, we often don't learn enough to pay attention to details. I know that when I was taking physics in college, that was stressed so often it isn't enough to get the numbers right. If you don't get the units right as well. Then you're, you're not really paying attention to the details. And paying attention to the details is so important.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:07 That's how they crash from those Mars rovers, wasn't it? They somebody messed up the units, but going back and forth between metric and, yeah, and Imperial and, well, you know, it cost somebody a lot of money at one point. Yeah. Yeah. What do you   Speaker 1 ** 34:21 this is kind of the way it goes. Well, tell me, yeah. Well, they do matter, no matter what people think, sometimes they do matter. Well, tell me about the Diana Jones award. First of all, of course, the logical question for many people is, who is Diana Jones? Yeah, Diana Jones doesn't exist, right? That's There you go. She's part game somewhere? No, no, it doesn't be in a game somewhere.   Matt Forbeck ** 34:43 Then now there's actually an author named Diana Wynne Jones, who's written some amazing fantasy stories, including Howell's Moving Castle, which has turned into a wonderful anime movie, but it has nothing to do with her or any other person. Because originally, the Diana Jones award came about. Because a friend of mine, James Wallace, had somehow stumbled across a trophy that fell into his hands, and it was a pub trivia trophy that used to be used between two different gaming companies in the UK, and one of those was TSR, UK, the United Kingdom department. And at one point, the company had laid off everybody in that division just say, Okay, we're closing it all down. So the guys went and burned a lot of the stuff that they had, including a copy of the Indiana Jones role playing game, and the only part of the logo that was left said Diana Jones. And for some reason, they put this in a in a fiberglass or Plexiglas pyramid, put it on a base, a wooden base, and it said the Diana Jones award trophy, right? And this was the trophy that they used they passed back and forth as a joke for their pub trivia contest. Fell into James's hands, and he decided, You know what, we're going to give this out for the most excellent thing in gaming every year. And we've now done this. This will be 25 years this summer. We do it at the Wednesday night before Gen Con, which starts on Thursday, usually at the end of July or early August. And as part of that, actually, about five years ago, we started, one of the guys suggested we should do something called the emerging designers program. So we actually became a 501, c3, so we could take donations. And now we take four designers every year, fly them in from wherever they happen to be in the world, and put them up in a hotel, give them a badge the show, introduce them to everybody, give them an honorarium so they can afford to skip work for a week and try to help launch their careers. I mean, these are people that are in the first three years of their design careers, and we try to work mostly with marginalized or et cetera, people who need a little bit more representation in the industry too. Although we can select anybody, and it's been really well received, it's been amazing. And there's a group called the bundle of holding which sells tabletop role playing game PDFs, and they've donated 10s of 1000s of dollars every year for us to be able to do this. And it's kind of funny, because I never thought I'd be end up running a nonprofit, but here I'm just the guy who writes checks to the different to the emerging designer program. Folks are much more tied into that community that I am. But one of the real reasons I wanted to do something like that or be involved with it, because if you wander around with these conventions and you notice that it starts getting very gray after a while, right? It's you're like, oh, there's no new people coming in. It's all older people. I we didn't I didn't want us to all end up as like the Grandpa, grandpa doing the HO model railroad stuff in the basement, right? This dying hobby that only people in their 60s and 70s care about. So bringing in fresh people, fresh voices, I think, is very important, and hopefully we're doing some good with that. It's been a lot of fun either way.   Speaker 1 ** 37:59 Well, I have you had some success with it? Yeah, we've   Matt Forbeck ** 38:02 had, well, let's see. I think we've got like 14 people. We've brought in some have already gone on to do some amazing things. I mean, it's only been a few years, so it's hard to tell if they're gonna be legends in their time, but again, having them as models for other people to look at and say, Oh, maybe I could do that. That's been a great thing. The other well, coincidentally, Dungeons and Dragons is having its best 10 year streak in its history right now, and probably is the best selling it's ever been. So coinciding with that, we've seen a lot more diversity and a lot more people showing up to these wonderful conventions and playing these kinds of games. There's also been an advent of this thing called actual play, which is the biggest one, is a group called Critical Role, which is a whole bunch of voice actors who do different cartoons and video games and such, and they play D and D with each other, and then they record the games, and they produce them on YouTube and for podcasts. And these guys are amazing. There's a couple of other ones too, like dimension 20 and glass cannon, the critical role guys actually sold out a live performance at Wembley Arena last summer. Wow. And dimension. Dimension 20 sold out Madison Square Garden. I'm like, if you'd have told me 20 years ago that you know you could sell out an entire rock stadium to have people watch you play Dungeons and Dragons, I would have laughed. I mean, there's no way it would have been possible. But now, you know, people are very much interested in this. It's kind of wild, and it's, it's fun to be a part of that. At some level,   Speaker 1 ** 39:31 how does the audience get drawn in to something like that? Because they are watching it, but there must be something that draws them in.   Matt Forbeck ** 39:39 Yeah, part of it is that you have some really skilled some actors are very funny, very traumatic and very skilled at improvisation, right? So the the dungeon master or Game Master will sit there and present them with an idea or whatever. They come up each with their own characters. They put them in wonderful, strong voices. They kind of inhabit the roles in a way that an actor. A really top level actor would, as opposed to just, you know, me sitting around a table with my friends. And because of that, they become compelling, right? My Marty and my his wife and I were actually at a convention in Columbus, Ohio last weekend, and this group called the McElroy family, actually, they do my brother, my brother and me, which is a hit podcast, but they also do an actual play podcast called The Adventure zone, where they just play different games. And they are so funny. These guys are just some of the best comedians you'll ever hear. And so them playing, they actually played our Marvel game for a five game session, or a five podcast session, or whatever, and it was just stunningly fun to listen to. People are really talented mess around with something that we built right it's very edifying to see people enjoying something that you worked on.   Speaker 1 ** 40:51 Do you find that the audiences get drawn in and they're actually sort of playing the game along, or as well? And may disagree with what some of the choices are that people make?   Matt Forbeck ** 41:02 Oh, sure. But I mean, if the choices are made from a point of the character that's been expressed, that people are following along and they they already like the character, they might go, Oh, those mean, you know that guy, there are some characters they love to hate. There are some people they're they're angry at whatever, but they always really appreciate the actors. I mean, the actors have become celebrities in their own right. They've they sell millions of dollars for the comic books and animated TV shows and all these amazing things affiliated with their actual play stuff. And it's, I think it, part of it is because, it's because it makes the games more accessible. Some people are intimidated by these games. So it's not really, you know, from a from a physical disability kind of point. It's more of a it makes it more accessible for people to be nervous, to try these things on their own, or don't really quite get how they work. They can just sit down and pop up YouTube or their podcast program and listen into people doing a really good job at it. The unfortunate problem is that the converse of that is, when you're watching somebody do that good of a job at it, it's actually hard to live up to that right. Most people who play these games are just having fun with their friends around a table. They're not performing for, you know, 10s of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people. So there's a different level of investments, really, at that point, and some people have been known to be cowed by that, by that, or daunted by that.   Speaker 1 ** 42:28 You work on a lot of different things. I gather at the same time. What do you what do you think about that? How do you like working on a lot of different projects? Or do you, do you more focus on one thing, but you've got several things going on, so you'll work on something for one day, then you'll work on something else. Or how do you how do you do it all?   Matt Forbeck ** 42:47 That's a good question. I would love to just focus on one thing at a time. Now, you know the trouble is, I'm a freelancer, right? I don't set my I don't always get to say what I want to work on. I haven't had to look for work for over a decade, though, which has been great. People just come to me with interesting things. The trouble is that when you're a freelancer, people come in and say, Hey, let's work on this. I'm like, Yeah, tell me when you're ready to start. And you do that with like, 10 different people, and they don't always line up in sequence properly, right? Yeah? Sometimes somebody comes up and says, I need this now. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm in the middle of this other thing right now, so I need to not sleep for another week, and I need to try to figure out how I'm going to put this in between other things I'm working on. And I have noticed that after I finish a project, it takes me about a day or three to just jump track. So if I really need to, I can do little bits here and there, but to just fully get my brain wrapped around everything I'm doing for a very complex project, takes me a day or three to say, Okay, now I'm ready to start this next thing and really devote myself to it. Otherwise, it's more juggling right now, having had all those kids, probably has prepared me to juggle. So I'm used to having short attention span theater going on in my head at all times, because I have to jump back and forth between things. But it is. It's a challenge, and it's a skill that you develop over time where you're like, Okay, I can put this one away here and work on this one here for a little while. Like today, yeah, I knew I was going to talk to you, Michael. So I actually had lined up another podcast that a friend of mine wanted to do with me. I said, Let's do them on the same day. This way I'm not interrupting my workflow so much, right? Makes sense? You know, try to gang those all together and the other little fiddly bits I need to do for administration on a day. Then I'm like, Okay, this is not a day off. It's just a day off from that kind of work. It's a day I'm focusing on this aspect of what I do.   Speaker 1 ** 44:39 But that's a actually brings up an interesting point. Do you ever take a day off or do what do you do when you're when you deciding that you don't want to do gaming for a while?   Matt Forbeck ** 44:49 Yeah, I actually kind of terrible. But you know, you know, my wife will often drag me off to places and say we're going to go do this when. Yes, we have a family cabin up north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that we go to. Although, you know, my habit there is, I'll work. I'll start work in the morning on a laptop or iPad until my battery runs out, and then I shut it down, put on a charger, and then I go out and swim with everybody for the rest of the day. So it depends if I'm on a deadline or not, and I'm almost always on a deadline, but there are times I could take weekends off there. One of the great things of being a freelancer, though, and especially being a stay at home father, which is part of what I was doing, is that when things come up during the middle of the week, I could say, oh, sure, I can be flexible, right? The trouble is that I have to pay for that time on my weekends, a lot of the time, so I don't really get a lot of weekends off. On the other hand, I'm not I'm not committed to having to work every day of the week either, right? I need to go do doctor appointments, or we want to run off to Great America and do a theme park or whatever. I can do that anytime I want to. It's just I have to make up the time at other points during the week. Does your wife work? She does. She was a school social worker for many years, and now as a recruiter at a local technical college here called Black Hawk tech. And she's amazing, right? She's fantastic. She has always liked working. The only time she stopped working was for about a year and a half after the quads were born, I guess, two years. And that was the only time I ever took a job working with anybody else, because we needed the health insurance, so I we always got it through her. And then when she said, Well, I'm gonna stay home with the kids, which made tons of sense, I went and took a job with a video game company up in Madison, Wisconsin called Human Head Studios for about 18 months, 20 months. And then the moment she told me she was thinking about going back to work, I'm like, Oh, good, I can we can Cobra for 18 months and pay for our own health insurance, and I'm giving notice this week, and, you know, we'll work. I left on good terms that everybody. I still talk to them and whatever, but I very much like being my own boss and not worrying about what other people are going to tell me to do. I work with a lot of clients, which means I have a lot of people telling me what to do. But you know, if it turns out bad, I can walk I can walk away. If it turns out good, hopefully we get to do things together, like the the gig I've been working out with Marvel, I guess, has been going on for like, four years now, with pretty continuous work with them, and I'm enjoying every bit of it. They're great people to work with.   Speaker 1 ** 47:19 Now, you were the president of Pinnacle entertainment for a little while. Tell me about that.   Matt Forbeck ** 47:24 I was, that was a small gaming company I started up with a guy named Shane Hensley, who was another tabletop game designer. Our big game was something called Dead Lands, which was a Western zombie cowboy kind of thing. Oh gosh, Western horror. So. And it was pretty much a, you know, nobody was doing Western horror back in those days. So we thought, Oh, this is safe. And to give you an example of parallel development, we were six months into development, and another company, White Wolf, which had done a game called Vampire the Masquerade, announced that they were doing Werewolf the Wild West. And we're like, you gotta be kidding me, right? Fortunately, we still released our game three months before there, so everybody thought we were copying them, rather than the other way around. But the fact is, we were. We both just came up with the idea independently. Right? When you work in creative fields, often, if somebody wants to show you something, you say, I'd like to look at you have to sign a waiver first that says, If I do something like this, you can't sue me. And it's not because people are trying to rip you off. It's because they may actually be working on something similar, right already. Because we're all, you know, swimming in the same cultural pool. We're all, you know, eating the same cultural soup. We're watching or watching movies, playing games, doing whatever, reading books. And so it's not unusual that some of us will come up with similar ideas   Speaker 1 ** 48:45 well, and it's not surprising that from time to time, two different people are going to come up with somewhat similar concepts. So that's not a big surprise, exactly, but   Matt Forbeck ** 48:56 you don't want people getting litigious over it, like no, you don't be accused of ripping anybody off, right? You just want to be as upfront with people. With people. And I don't think I've ever actually seen somebody, at least in gaming, in tabletop games, rip somebody off like that. Just say, Oh, that's a great idea. We're stealing that it's easier to pay somebody to just say, Yes, that's a great idea. We'll buy that from you, right? As opposed to trying to do something unseemly and criminal?   Speaker 1 ** 49:24 Yeah, there's, there's something to be said for having real honor in the whole process.   Matt Forbeck ** 49:30 Yeah, I agree, and I think that especially if you're trying to have a long term career in any field that follows you, if you get a reputation for being somebody who plays dirty, nobody wants to play with you in the future, and I've always found it to be best to be as straightforward with people and honest, especially professionally, just to make sure that they trust you. Before my quadruplets were born, you could have set your clock by me as a freelancer, I never missed a deadline ever, and since then, I've probably it's a. Rare earth thing to make a deadline, because, you know, family stuff happens, and you know, there's just no controlling it. But whenever something does happen, I just call people up and say, hey, look, it's going to be another week or two. This is what's going on. And because I have a good reputation for completing the job and finishing quality work, they don't mind. They're like, Oh, okay, I know you're going to get this to me. You're not just trying to dodge me. So they're willing to wait a couple weeks if they need to, to get to get what they need. And I'm very grateful to them for that. And I'm the worst thing somebody can do is what do, what I call turtling down, which is when it's like, Oh no, I'm late. And then, you know, they cut off all communication. They don't talk to anybody. They just kind of try to disappear as much as they can. And we all, all adults, understand that things happen in your life. It's okay. We can cut you some slack every now and then, but if you just try to vanish, that's not even possible.   Speaker 1 ** 50:54 No, there's a lot to be there's a lot to be said for trust and and it's so important, I think in most anything that we do, and I have found in so many ways, that there's nothing better than really earning someone's trust, and they earning your trust. And it's something I talk about in my books, like when live with a guide dog, live like a guide dog, which is my newest book, it talks a lot about trust, because when you're working with a guide dog, you're really building a team, and each member of the team has a specific job to do, and as the leader of the team, it's my job to also learn how to communicate with the other member of the team. But the reality is, it still comes down to ultimately, trust, because I and I do believe that dogs do love unconditionally, but they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between dogs and people is that people that dogs are much more open to trust, for the most part, unless they've just been totally traumatized by something, but they're more open to trust. And there's a lesson to be learned there. No, I   Matt Forbeck ** 52:03 absolutely agree with that. I think, I think most people in general are trustworthy, but as you say, a lot of them have trauma in their past that makes it difficult for them to open themselves up to that. So that's actually a pretty wonderful way to think about things. I like that,   Speaker 1 ** 52:17 yeah, well, I think that trust is is so important. And I know when I worked in professional sales, it was all about trust. In fact, whenever I interviewed people for jobs, I always asked them what they were going to sell, and only one person ever answered me the way. I really hoped that everybody would answer when I said, So, tell me what you're going to be selling. He said, The only thing I have to really sell is myself and my word, and nothing else. It really matters. Everything else is stuff. What you have is stuff. It's me selling myself and my word, and you have to, and I would expect you to back me up. And my response was, as long as you're being trustworthy, then you're going to get my backing all the way. And he was my most successful salesperson for a lot of reasons, because he got it.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:08 Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, I mean, I've worked with people sourcing different things too, for sales, and if you can rely on somebody to, especially when things go wrong, to come through for you. And to be honest with you about, you know, there's really that's a hard thing to find. If you can't depend on your sources for what you're building, then you can't depend on anything. Everything else falls apart.   Speaker 1 ** 53:29 It does. You've got to start at the beginning. And if people can't earn your trust, and you earn theirs, there's a problem somewhere, and it's just not going to work.   Matt Forbeck ** 53:39 Yeah, I just generally think people are decent and want to help. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had issues. Car breaks down the road in Wisconsin. Here, if somebody's car goes in the ditch, everybody stops and just hauls them out. It's what you do when the quads were born, my stepmother came up with a sign up sheet, a booklet that she actually had spiral bound, that people could sign up every three three hours to help come over and feed and bathe, diaper, whatever the kids and we had 30 to 35 volunteers coming in every week. Wow, to help us out with that was amazing, right? They just each pick slots, feeding slots, and come in and help us out. I had to take the 2am feeding, and my wife had to take the 5am feeding by ourselves. But the rest of the week we had lots and lots of help, and we were those kids became the surrogate grandchildren for, you know, 30 to 35 women and couples really, around the entire area, and it was fantastic. Probably couldn't have survived   Speaker 1 ** 54:38 without it. And the other part about it is that all those volunteers loved it, because you all appreciated each other, and it was always all about helping and assisting.   Matt Forbeck ** 54:48 No, we appreciate them greatly. But you know every most of them, like 99% of them, whatever were women, 95 women who are ready for grandchildren and didn't have them. Had grandchildren, and they weren't in the area, right? And they had that, that love they wanted to share, and they just loved the opportunity to do it. It was, I'm choking up here talking about such a great time for us in   Speaker 1 ** 55:11 that way. Now I'm assuming today, nobody has to do diaper duty with the quads, right?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:16 Not until they have their own kids. Just checking, just checking, thankfully, think we're that is long in our past,   Speaker 1 ** 55:23 is it? Is it coming fairly soon for anybody in the future?   Matt Forbeck ** 55:27 Oh, I don't know. That's really entirely up to them. We would love to have grandchildren, but you know, it all comes in its own time. They're not doing no well. I, one of my sons is married, so it's possible, right? And one of my other sons has a long term girlfriend, so that's possible, but, you know, who knows? Hopefully they're they have them when they're ready. I always say, if you have kids and you want them, that's great. If you have, if you don't have kids and you don't want them, that's great. It's when you cross the two things that,   Speaker 1 ** 55:57 yeah, trouble, yeah, that's that is, that is a problem. But you really like working with yourself. You love the entre

Send us a textThis Week on the show author David Boop stops by the show to discuss, writing, editing, Star Wars & Star Trek and much more. *******David Boop is a Denver-based speculative fiction author & editor. He's also an award-winning essayist, and screenwriter. Before turning to fiction, David worked as a DJ, film critic, journalist, and actor. David's novels run the gamut, such as the sci-fi/noir She Murdered Me with Science and the Weird Western, The Drowned Horse Chronicle. David edited the bestselling and award-nominated Weird Western anthology series beginning with Straight Outta Tombstone, followed by a trio of Space Western anthologies starting with Gunfight on Europa Station. He's edited several pulp anthologies, including Gentlemen Prefer Domino Lady, Domino Patrick: Daughter of the Domino Lady, and Green Hornet & Kato: Detroit Noir. Most recently, he edited the Jack L. Chalker's Well World tribute mosaic novel, Permutations. David is prolific in short fiction, writing across many genres including sci-fi, fantasy, horror, weird western, and superhero. Some of his shorts include media tie-ins for Predator (nominated for the 2018 Scribe Award), Kolchak the Night Stalker, The Green Hornet, and Veronica Mars. He's a Summa Cum Laude Graduate from UC-Denver in the Creative Writing program. He tutors and teaches Creative Writing, collects Funko Pops, and is a believer. You can find out more at Longshot-Productions.net.********If you would like to contact the show about being a guest, please email us at Dauna@bettertopodcast.comUpcoming guests can be found: https://dmneedom.com/upcoming-guest Follow us on Social MediaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_d.m.needom/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bettertopodcastwithdmneedomIntro and Outro music compliments of Fast Suzi©2025 Better To...Podcast with D. M. NeedomSupport the show

Gustavo Bondoni is a novelist and short story writer with over five hundred stories published in fifteen countries, in seven languages. He has published several science fiction novels including two trilogies, six monster books, a dark military fantasy and a thriller. His short fiction is collected in Thin Air (2023), Pale Reflection (2020), Off the Beaten Path (2019), Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011).In 2019, Gustavo was awarded second place in the Jim Baen Memorial Contest and in 2018 he received a Judges Commendation (and second place) in The James White Award. He was also a 2019 finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest.His website is at www.gustavobondoni.comThis story is original to StarShipSofa.Narrated by: Alethea KontisAlethea Kontis is an actress, storm chaser, and New York Times bestselling author. She has received the Scribe Award, the Garden State Teen Book Award, and is a two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award. She was twice nominated for both the Andre Norton Nebula and Dragon Award. Alethea narrates stories for multiple award-winning online magazines and does freelance work for Writing the Other. Born in Vermont, Alethea currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida where she watches K-dramas with her teddy bear, Charlie. Together they are ARMY, VVS, and Black Roses. Fact: Looking Back At Genre History by Amy H SturgisSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/starshipsofa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Actress and writer Lizzie Hopley was born in Liverpool and trained at RADA. As an actress, she has worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe Theatre and recent screen work includes Black Doves and upcoming feature film Fackham Hall. As a writer, her radio sitcom Green won Pozzitive TV's Funny Dot Comp 2021 and TV series Bloody Betty is currently in development. She has written and appeared in over 90 Big Finish audio adventures including Dark Shadows and Doctor Who, and her Doctor Who audio play The Curse of Lady Macbeth won the 2022 Scribe Award. Lizzie joins me to talk about how her childhood love of writing and acting became a vocation, auditioning for RADA—twice—and how she ended up continuing to write even as a drama student, how learning to think of acting and writing as having a target changed her work, and a whole lot more. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Lizzie Hopley shares her creative childhood and love for books. 04:56 Acting out movie scenes alone sparked early passion for performance. 08:45 Family encouraged storytelling, costumes, and imagination at home. 13:11 Difficulties pursuing creative careers; importance of following passion. 17:33 University and RADA experiences shaped her acting and writing path. 22:24 Writing plays began due to lack of desired acting roles. 27:29 Rewriting and feedback are crucial for improving both crafts. 32:54 Learning to target audience while writing; acting versus writing focus. 37:22 Acting training emphasizes focusing on scene partner, not yourself. 43:48 Importance of editors and learning to kill your darlings. 48:21 Confidence and caring less about others' opinions increases with age. 53:07 Acting and writing overlap at Big Finish; playing her own roles. 57:16 Big Finish's community impact, creative freedom, and professional development. 01:02:18 Target books and early Doctor Who fandom as creative inspiration. 01:07:04 Embrace varied interests; open doors for yourself in creativity. Want more? Here are handy playlists with all my previous interviews with guests in writing, theatre, and Doctor Who.   If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you'll share it with a friend. Check out the full show notes (now including transcripts!) at fycuriosity.com, and connect with me and fellow creatives on Substack. Please leave a review for this episode—it's really easy and will only take a minute, and it really helps me reach new listeners. Thanks! If you've been tearing up when you encounter other people's art because you've lost touch with your own, we should talk.  

Watcher Dev chats with New York Times Best-selling author, Nancy Holder, who has written and co-written the most Buffy and Angel books of any writer! A seven-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, she received a Scribe Award from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers for Best Novel, and was subsequently named a Grand Master by that organization in 2019. She also received a Young Adult Literature Pioneer Award from RT Booksellers.Nancy has also scribed fiction related to Smallville, Hellboy, the Green Hornet, Zorro, Sherlock Holmes and much more. Send us a textYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@revampedpod Twitter/X - @julietlandauInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/juliet_landau Facebook - Juliet Landau Official (Page) https://www.facebook.com/julietlandauofficialFacebook - Fans of Juliet Landau (Group) https://www.facebook.com/groups/julietlandau/Email: revampedpod@gmail.com Juliet Landau's directorial feature debut, A Place Among The Dead Trailer: https://vimeo.com/791299045/5b5d98726a A Place Among The Dead Blu-Ray with nearly 5 hours of bonus extras: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CJJY4MB9/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_4?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Today we talk about writing and publishing short stories. Have you thought about how writing short fiction might help your creative process? Tune in today to hear these four masters talk craft with Hank. Henry Herz has authored fourteen picture books and edited eight anthologies for Albert Whitman & Co., Blackstone Publishing, and others. His short stories have been published by Weird Tales, Baen Books, Pseudopod, Metastellar, Titan Books, Highlights for Children, and Ladybug magazine. He holds a BS in engineering from Cornell University, an MS in engineering from George Washington University, and an MA in political science from Georgetown University.  Number one New York Times bestselling author Scott Sigler is the creator of eighteen novels, six novellas, dozens of short stories, and thousands of podcast episodes. He is an inaugural inductee into the Podcasting Hall of Fame. His podcast fans fervently anticipate their weekly story fix, so much so that they've dubbed themselves “Sigler Junkies” and have downloaded over fifty million episodes. Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling author, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, four-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-Wars, became a Netflix original series. He writes horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, thriller, and more. He is the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers and the editor of Weird Tales magazine. David Mack is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty-six novels and numerous short works of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure, including the Star Trek Destiny and Cold Equations trilogies. Mack's writing credits span television (for episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), film, and comic books. He also has worked as a consultant on the animated television series Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy. The International Association of Media Tie-in Writers honored him as a Grandmaster with its Faust Award.

About Matt ForbeckMatt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and game designer with a career spanning over three decades. With more than 35 novels and countless games to his name, Matt's projects have garnered critical acclaim, winning a Peabody Award, a Scribe Award, and numerous ENNIE and Origins Awards. He is also the president of the Diana Jones Award Foundation, which celebrates excellence in gaming. His work spans iconic brands like Marvel, Warhammer 40,000, Dungeons & Dragons, Minecraft, and Halo, as well as original creations such as Shotguns & Sorcery.In this episode, Matt dives into his extraordinary journey, from freelancing fresh out of college to creating acclaimed projects like the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game and Hard West 2. He shares lessons learned as a game designer, writer, and mentor, offering invaluable advice on building a sustainable creative career. Whether you're an aspiring creator or an industry veteran, Matt's inspiring blend of passion, humility, and expertise is sure to resonate. Fun fact: he's also the proud father of five, including a set of quadruplets—a feat that may rival even his most ambitious creative endeavors! Get full access to Think Like A Game Designer at justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. He shares his process, the research required for Whalefall, and a preview of his latest novel, Pay the Piper.  Whalefall received a front-cover review in the New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, was an L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist, and was a Best Book of 2023 from NPR, the New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and more.With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. His also cowrote The Living Dead and Pay the Piper with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. Kraus's The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler), and has appeared multiple times as Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, and more. Kraus's work has been translated into over 20 languages. He lives with his wife in Chicago. Learn more at: danielkraus.com.Intro reel, Writing Table Podcast 2024 Outro RecordingFollow the Writing Table:On Twitter/X: @writingtablepcEverywhere else: @writingtablepodcastEmail questions or tell us who you'd like us to invite to the Writing Table: writingtablepodcast@gmail.com.

Send us a textCat, Jennifer, and I discuss writing, dating, our biggest moments as a writer, and more.***Cat Rambo has published over 250 fiction pieces, including the Nebula Award-winning novelette, Carpe Glitter, as well as nonfiction works.Since first appearing on the SF scene in 2005, Cat Rambo has published over 250 fiction pieces, including Nebula Award-winning novelette, Carpe Glitter, and nonfiction works that include Ad Astra: The SFWA 50th Anniversary Cookbook (co-edited with Fran Wilde) and writing book, Moving From Idea to Finished Draft. Their 2021 works include the fantasy novel Exiles of Tabat (Wordfire Press) and the space opera You Sexy Thing (Tor Macmillan).Rambo has been short-listed for the World Fantasy Award, the Compton Crook Award, and the Nebula Short Story Award. A former Vice President and two-term President of the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), Cat continues to volunteer with the organization as part of its mentorship program and Grievance Committee. They founded the online school The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers in 2010, specializing in classes aimed at genre writers, which now offers dozens of classes from some of the best writers currently working in speculative fiction. Cat lives in Indianapolis.Blog: https://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/Classes: https://catrambo.teachable.com/----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Jennifer Brozek is a multi-talented, award-winning author, editor, and media tie-in writer. She is the author of the Never Let Me Sleep, and The Last Days of Salton Academy, both of which were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Her BattleTech tie-in novel, The Nellus Academy Incident, won a Scribe Award. Her editing work has earned her nominations for the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Hugo Award. She won the Australian Shadows Award for the Grants Pass anthology, co-edited with Amanda Pillar. Jennifer's short-form work has appeared in Apex Publications, Uncanny Magazine, and in anthologies set in the worlds of Valdemar, Shadowrun, V-Wars, Masters of Orion, and Predator. Jennifer has been a freelance author and editor for over fifteen years after leaving a high-paying tech job, and she has never been happier. She shares her husband, Jeff, with several cats and often uses him as a sounding board for her story ideas.  She lives in Seattle.Website: http://www.jenniferbrozek.com/***If you would like to contact the show about being a guest please email us at Dauna@bettertopodcast.comThis episode is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2jwGgrJpDasFollow us on Social MediaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_d.m.needom/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bettertopodcastwithdmneedomHave a question or want to be a guest on the podcast email: dauna@bettertopodcast.comHave a question for our producer Rich Zei contact him at rich.zei@thirdearaudio.comIntro and Outro music compliments of Fast SuziTo see upcoming guests click here: https://www.dmneedom.com/better-topodcast©2024 Better To...Podcast with D. M.NeedomSupport the show

Welcome to The Doctor Who: Alhambra Podcast, our Doctor Who centric podcast that discusses the recent DW and Big Finish news, reviewing Doctor Who audios from Big Finish, both classic and new series Doctor Who episodes, and much more! In this gripping episode, Brett dives into the Big Finish news from July 2024, looking at the Scribe Award nominations for 2024, The Second Doctor being used to sell audios, and thoughts on Jodie Whittaker's return to Doctor Who through Big Finish audios. Thanks for tunning in for wibbly-wobbly insights! Welcome and Synopsis to EP 336 - 00:00:00 The 2024 Scribe Award Nominations for Tie-In Audio Dramas - 00:01:42 Paternoster Gang Using Classics Doctors for Improved Sales?  - 00:19:33 Big Finish 13th Doctor Audio Range Announced  - 00:28:12 Contact Info & Copyright - 00:46:19  Stay tuned for more Doctor Who goodness, including monthly Big Finish reviews, audio commentary, retro-reviews, the DWAP "Rassilon Seal of Approval" and beyond! 

We're joined by HWA NY chapter coordinator James Chambers and discuss his body of work, using horror as a way to process the world, and Lovecraftian writing in contemporary settings. We also get a sneak preview of his collection A Bright and Beautiful Eternal World and collectively wonder at how certain stories find their place in the children's section. James Chambers is a Bram Stoker Award® and Scribe Award-winning author and a four-time Bram Stoker Award nominee. He is the author of the short story collections A Bright and Beautiful Eternal World, described as “stellar” by Publisher's Weekly, On the Night Border and On the Hierophant Road, which received a starred review from Booklist, which called it “…satisfyingly unsettling”; the novella collection, The Engines of Sacrifice, and the novellas, The Devil in the Green, Kolchak and the Night Stalkers: The Faceless God, Three Chords of Chaos, and many others, as well as the original graphic novel, Kolchak the Night Stalker: The Forgotten Lore of Edgar Allan Poe. His short stories have appeared in anthologies and publications in multiple genres, including crime, fantasy, horror, pulp, science fiction, steampunk, and more. He edited the Bram Stoker Award-nominated anthologies, Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign and A New York State of Fright as well as Even in the Grave, an anthology of ghost stories. He has also written the comic books Leonard Nimoy's Primortals, "The Revenant" in Shadow House, and The Midnight Hour.  Dark Waters is OPEN for submissions for our second anthology. Check out our website www.darkwaterspodcast.com, our Twitter, or our Instagram for more info. Want to submit your writing? Email darkwaterspodcast@gmail.com Intro/Outro music: www.bensound.com Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed are the opinions of the participants and not of the organizations or institutions with which they are affiliated. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darkwaters/support

James L. Sutter is a co-creator of the Pathfinder and Starfinder Roleplaying Games. From 2004 to 2017, he worked for Paizo Publishing, starting out as an editor on Dungeon Magazine, going on to do foundational work for Pathfinder, and eventually becoming the Creative Director in charge of launching Starfinder, as well as the Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novel line for Paizo and Tor, before leaving to write full-time. James is also the author of the young adult romance novels Darkhearts and The Ghost of Us, as well as the fantasy novels Death's Heretic—a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel—and The Redemption Engine, which won the 2015 Scribe Award for Best Original Speculative Novel. His short stories have appeared in such venues as Nightmare, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Escape Pod, and the #1 Amazon best-seller Machine of Death. In addition, he's written comic books, essays in venues like Clarkesworld and Lightspeed: Queers Destroy Science Fiction, a wealth of tabletop gaming material, and video games. When not writing, James has performed with musical acts ranging from metalcore to musical theater. He lives in Seattle. Please check out these links from the episode: The Ghost of Us James L. Sutter (website) Twitter/X Tabletop Gaming Credits Welcome to Dice in Mind, a podcast hosted by Bradley Browne and Jason Kaufman to explore the intersection of life, games, science, music, philosophy, and creativity through interviews with leading creatives. All are welcome in this space. Royalty-free music "Night Jazz Beats" courtesy of flybirdaudio.

Main fiction: "Sassi's Last Ride" by Alethea KontisAlethea Kontis is a storm chaser, adventurer, and New York Times bestselling author of over 20 books and 50 short stories. She has received the Scribe Award, the Garden State Teen Book Award, and is a two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award. She was twice nominated for both the Andre Norton Nebula and Dragon Award. She narrates stories for online magazines and reviews books for NPR. Born in Vermont, Alethea currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida where she watches K-dramas with her teddy bear, Charlie. Together they are ARMY, VVS, and Black Roses.This story originally appeared in My Battery is Low and it is Getting Dark, 2020.Narrated by: Deborah Hallett, Rikki and Isis LaCosteDeborah Hallett is NOT an Artificial Intelligence. Believe it or not, she is a flesh-and-blood newcomer to the art of narration and voice acting ... (under her shiny metallic carapace). Deborah is a close colleague of narration-veteran Rikki LaCoste, who also appears in this story, alongside his daughter Isis - a duo that have read stories for us in the past, and for other short fiction audio magazines, like Pseudopod, Cast of Wonders, and a few other podcasts. The trio all reside, and work together, on various artistic projects in Toronto Canada. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/starshipsofa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This one's for the folks who don't want to spend a few eons building their world before they can start their story. Author and game designer James L. Sutter joins us to share some quick-and-dirty methods for getting the worldbuilding going! In this episode, we explore the question of how much worldbuilding is necessary -- and when it's necessary. If you already have your plot and want to charge right in, that can be a different beast than if you're still feeling your way around what the story's about but know that there must be one in there somewhere. [Transcript TK] Our Guest:  James L. Sutter is a co-creator of the Pathfinder and Starfinder Roleplaying Games. From 2004 to 2017, he worked for Paizo Publishing, starting out as an editor on Dungeon Magazine, moving on to do foundational work for Pathfinder, and eventually becoming the Creative Director in charge of launching Starfinder, as well as the Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novel line for Paizo and Tor. James is also the author of the young adult romance novels Darkhearts and The Ghost of Us (coming June 2024), as well as the fantasy novels Death's Heretic—a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel—and The Redemption Engine, which won the 2015 Scribe Award for Best Original Speculative Novel. His short stories have appeared in such venues as Nightmare, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Escape Pod, and the #1 Amazon best-seller Machine of Death. In addition, he's written comic books, essays in venues like Clarkesworld and Lightspeed: Queers Destroy Science Fiction, a wealth of tabletop gaming material, and video games. When not writing, James has performed with musical acts ranging from metalcore to musical theater. He lives in Seattle.

In this episode we're going to deviate a bit from the usual focus on fiction to talk about writing for tabletop roleplaying games and related media. RPGs have always been deeply interconnected with fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, and right now they are more popular and prevalent than ever before. James L. Sutter co-created the lore and story-rich fantasy RPG PATHFINDER for Paizo Publishing, which has become one of the most popular roleplaying games in the world. He then took the role of Creative Director on STARFINDER, a science-fantasy RPG that reimagined the world of Pathfinder in a space-faring future. Along the way, he's written Pathfinder tie-in novels DEATH'S HERETIC and THE REDEMPTION ENGINE, RPG adventures and source books for Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Dungeons & Dragons, and a large body of short fiction, comics, and video games. His latest book, DARKHEARTS, is a departure from genre fiction—a young adult romance about estranged bandmates that must reconcile the loss of their best friend, and their unexpected attraction to each other. DARKHEARTS is available now from Wednesday Books: Amazon »  Bookshop »  » Some of the links above are affiliate links. Using them helps support this site and creator. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. All of the RPG work previously mentioned is available at your local game store, or wherever books are sold: Pathfinder (1st Edition) Core Rulebook »  Starfinder Core Rulebook »  Pathfinder Tales: Death's Heretic »  Pathfinder Tales: The Redemption Engine »  About James L. Sutter James L. Sutter is a co-creator of the Pathfinder and Starfinder Roleplaying Games. From 2004 to 2017, he worked for Paizo Publishing, starting out as an editor on Dungeon Magazine, moving on to do foundational work for Pathfinder, and eventually becoming the Creative Director in charge of launching Starfinder, as well as the Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novel line for Paizo and Tor. James is also the author of the young adult romance novel Darkhearts, as well as the fantasy novels Death's Heretic—a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel—and The Redemption Engine, which won the 2015 Scribe Award for Best Original Speculative Novel. His short stories have appeared in such venues as Nightmare, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Escape Pod, and the #1 Amazon best-seller Machine of Death. In addition, he's written comic books, essays in venues like Clarkesworld and Lightspeed: Queers Destroy Science Fiction, a wealth of tabletop gaming material, and video games. When not writing, James has performed with musical acts ranging from metalcore to musical theater. He lives in Seattle. Website  Instagram  Twitter  Amazon Profile »  Goodreads Profile 

HMSG Interview Daniel KrausWe are so excited to have the amazing author DANIEL KRAUS back on the podcast to chat about his new book WHALEFALL (2023) And of course we also discuss the perfect film to pair it with - ORCA (1977). Can't wait for the WHALEFALL/ORCA Double feature in the future as WHALEFALL will be adapted into a film soon!DANIEL KRAUS is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His collaboration with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero, The Living Dead, was acclaimed by The New York Times and The Washington Post.With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. Kraus's The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler), and has appeared multiple times as Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, and more.Kraus's work has been translated into over 20 languages. He lives with his wife in Chicago. Visit him at danielkraus.comWe hope you enjoy diving into this fresh episode!Support the show

Scribe Award winner Dayton Ward joined the Sistas for a live recording at Shore Leave 43 on July 8, 2023. Dayton talked about his love of writing, his mom, current Trek and his newest tie-in novel:"Star Trek Discovery: Somewhere To Belong." Check out Dayton Ward:  http://www.daytonward.com Twitter: @daytonward IG: https:@daytonward_kc Check out Dayton's newest novel "Star Trek Discovery: Somewhere To Belong" https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1668002299?tag=simonsayscom Donate to send young women ages 14-18 to the Nichelle Nichols cadet space camp June 26-29, 2024 in Huntsville, Alabama.  https://nichellenichols.foundation/donate Please support the SyFy Sistas podcast on Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/syfysistas Thank you Dena Massenburg for our dope logo: @blackbeanz70 Thank you to our sound engineer DoS, the Anonymous: @dos_theanonymous_1 You can find the SyFy Sistas and our family of podcasts on The Trek Geeks Podcast Network https://trekgeeks.com FANSETS - our pins...have character. We want to thank our friends at FanSets for being the presenting sponsor of the Trek Geeks Podcast Network. https://fansets.com ALL SYFY SISTAS INFO AT YOUR FINGER TIPS https://linktr.ee/syfysistas

Scribe Award winner Dayton Ward joined the Sistas for a live recording at Shore Leave 43 on July 8, 2023. Dayton talked about his love of writing, his mom, current Trek and his newest tie-in novel:"Star Trek Discovery: Somewhere To Belong." Check out Dayton Ward:  http://www.daytonward.com Twitter: @daytonward IG: https:@daytonward_kc Check out Dayton's newest novel "Star Trek Discovery: Somewhere To Belong" https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1668002299?tag=simonsayscom Donate to send young women ages 14-18 to the Nichelle Nichols cadet space camp June 26-29, 2024 in Huntsville, Alabama.  https://nichellenichols.foundation/donate Please support the SyFy Sistas podcast on Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/syfysistas Thank you Dena Massenburg for our dope logo: @blackbeanz70 Thank you to our sound engineer DoS, the Anonymous: @dos_theanonymous_1 You can find the SyFy Sistas and our family of podcasts on The Trek Geeks Podcast Network https://trekgeeks.com FANSETS - our pins...have character. We want to thank our friends at FanSets for being the presenting sponsor of the Trek Geeks Podcast Network. https://fansets.com ALL SYFY SISTAS INFO AT YOUR FINGER TIPS https://linktr.ee/syfysistas

Fast-food clown generators, selective cruelty, and the most elemental Elemental. Featuring an interview with Jeff LaSala, writer of The Ecology of the Gargoyle for Dragon magazine #423. Jeff LaSala lived in Germany for only one year, long ago, and really needs to go back if only to see some more castles and pick up an untranslated copy of Die unendliche Geschichte. He is responsible for The Silmarillion Primer, the more recent and much shorter Second Age Primer, the Deep Delvings series, and a few other assorted articles on this site. Tolkien nerdom aside, Jeff wrote a Scribe Award–nominated D&D novel, produced some cyberpunk stories, and works in production for Macmillan and the Tor Publishing Group. He is sometimes on Twitter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dead Airwaves E29 Read by Wesley Critchfield This episode features a story from one of our favorite writers, Elizabeth Massie. "Whittler" was first published in the influential Horror Show Magazine Winter 1984. Elizabeth Massie, is a two-time Bram Stoker Award-winning and Scribe Award-winning author of novels, short fiction, media-tie ins, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels and collections include Sineater, Hell Gate, Desper Hollow, Wire Mesh Mothers, Homeplace, Naked on the Edge, Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark (co-authored with Mark Rainey), Versailles, The Tudors: King Takes Queen, The Tudors: Thy Will Be Done, Homegrown, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Power of Persuasion, It Watching, Afraid, Madame Cruller's Couch and Other Dark and Bizarre Tales, The Great Chicago Fire, and more. She is also the creator of the Ameri-Scares series of spooky, middle-grade novels. Beth lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with her husband, artist/illustrator and Theremin-player Cortney Skinner. When not writing, she knits a shit-load of scarves and hats, goes geocaching, and seeks out locations she's never visited before. If she can find the remains of a crumbling, abandoned amusement park, all the better. Be sure to checkout Twisted pulp magazine, published monthly, at https://www.screamingeyepress.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mslade/message

Today's guests are Marie Whittaker, Mark Stallings, Todd Fahnestock, and Quincy J. Allen, who co-create the Eldros Legacy fantasy series. Marie Whittaker enjoys teaching about publishing and project management for writers. She is Associate Publisher at WordFire Press and Director at Superstars Writing Seminars. She is the creator of The Adventures of Lola Hopscotch. In 2021, she co-founded the epic fantasy world of Eldrose Legacy – the subject of this podcast. Mark Stallings is an Amazon Best Selling author living in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is a writer of Chinese martial arts fiction called Woo-Sha (Wuxia), Fantasy, Thrillers, and Military Sci-Fi. Mark released the first book in the Silver Coin Saga, The Elements, Eldrose Legacy, and the 4Horsemen Universes. Todd Fahnestock is a fantasy writer for all ages and winner of the New York Public Library's Books for the Teen Age Award. His bestselling The Wishing World series began as bedtime stories for his children, and his other epic fantasy series include: Threadweavers, The Heartstone Trilogy, and The Whisper Prince Trilogy. Quincy J. Allen is a National Bestselling cross-genre author with a wide assortment of publications under his belt. His media tie-in novel Colt the Outlander: Shadow of Ruin was a Scribe Award finalist in 2019, and his noir sci-fi novel Chemical Burn was a Colorado Gold Award finalist in 2010.

Today's guests are Marie Whittaker, Mark Stallings, Todd Fahnestock, and Quincy J. Allen, who co-create the Eldros Legacy fantasy series. Marie Whittaker enjoys teaching about publishing and project management for writers. She is Associate Publisher at WordFire Press and Director at Superstars Writing Seminars. She is the creator of The Adventures of Lola Hopscotch. In 2021, she co-founded the epic fantasy world of Eldrose Legacy – the subject of this podcast. Mark Stallings is an Amazon Best Selling author living in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is a writer of Chinese martial arts fiction called Woo-Sha (Wuxia), Fantasy, Thrillers, and Military Sci-Fi. Mark released the first book in the Silver Coin Saga, The Elements, Eldrose Legacy, and the 4Horsemen Universes. Todd Fahnestock is a fantasy writer for all ages and winner of the New York Public Library's Books for the Teen Age Award. His bestselling The Wishing World series began as bedtime stories for his children, and his other epic fantasy series include: Threadweavers, The Heartstone Trilogy, and The Whisper Prince Trilogy. Quincy J. Allen is a National Bestselling cross-genre author with a wide assortment of publications under his belt. His media tie-in novel Colt the Outlander: Shadow of Ruin was a Scribe Award finalist in 2019, and his noir sci-fi novel Chemical Burn was a Colorado Gold Award finalist in 2010.

Today's guests are Marie Whittaker, Mark Stallings, Todd Fahnestock, and Quincy J. Allen, who co-create the Eldros Legacy fantasy series. Marie Whittaker enjoys teaching about publishing and project management for writers. She is Associate Publisher at WordFire Press and Director at Superstars Writing Seminars. She is the creator of The Adventures of Lola Hopscotch. In 2021, she co-founded the epic fantasy world of Eldrose Legacy – the subject of this podcast. Mark Stallings is an Amazon Best Selling author living in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is a writer of Chinese martial arts fiction called Woo-Sha (Wuxia), Fantasy, Thrillers, and Military Sci-Fi. Mark released the first book in the Silver Coin Saga, The Elements, Eldrose Legacy, and the 4Horsemen Universes. Todd Fahnestock is a fantasy writer for all ages and winner of the New York Public Library's Books for the Teen Age Award. His bestselling The Wishing World series began as bedtime stories for his children, and his other epic fantasy series include: Threadweavers, The Heartstone Trilogy, and The Whisper Prince Trilogy. Quincy J. Allen is a National Bestselling cross-genre author with a wide assortment of publications under his belt. His media tie-in novel Colt the Outlander: Shadow of Ruin was a Scribe Award finalist in 2019, and his noir sci-fi novel Chemical Burn was a Colorado Gold Award finalist in 2010.

Main Fiction: "An Elegy for the Bucephalus" by Rhiannon RasmussenThis story originally appeared in Unlikely Wonders (Robot Dinosaur Press, 2022).Illustrator and writer Rhiannon Rasmussen creates dark fantasy, horror, and science-fiction that juxtaposes humanity and queerness with elements of monstrosity, phantasm, and the weird. Rhiannon's work has appeared in galleries & magazines including Lightspeed Magazine, HEARTWOOD, and Magic: the Gathering. Find more work on http://www.rhiannonrs.com/ and @charibdys on Twitter.Narrated by: Alethea KontisAlethea Kontis is a princess, storm chaser, and bestselling author of over twenty books and fifty short stories. Alethea has received the Jane Yolen Mid-List Author Grant, the Scribe Award, and is a two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award. She was nominated twice for both the Dragon Award and the Andre Norton Nebula. In her spare time, Alethea narrates stories for a myriad of award-winning online magazines. Born in Vermont, currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/starshipsofa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Author and teacher Tim Waggoner knows the secrets to refining your writing skill through educating others. During his time as a creative writing professor at Sinclair College, he's gained a fuller understanding of writing techniques, character-writing psychology, and the editing process. Tim has published more than 50 novels over two decades and is a winner of the Bram Stoker Award and finalist for many others. His latest novel, A Hunter Called Night, is available for preorder on May 9. From Amazon.com: Tim Waggoner's first novel came out in 2001, and he's published close to fifty novels and seven collections of short stories since. He writes original fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins. His novels include Like Death, considered a modern classic in the genre, and the popular Nekropolis series of urban fantasy novels. He's written tie-in fiction for Supernatural, Alien, Grimm, the X-Files, Doctor Who, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Transformers, among others. His articles on writing have appeared in Writer's Digest, Writer's Journal, and Writer's Workshop of Horror. He's won the Bram Stoker Award and been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, the Scribe Award, and the Splatterpunk Award. In addition to writing, Tim is also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College. In this episode, you'll discover: How Tim picked up teaching How to communicate to writing students How to take advantage of luck Links: J. D. Barker - http://jdbarker.com/ J. Thorn - https://theauthorlife.com/ Zach Bohannon - https://zachbohannon.com/ Christine Daigle - https://www.christinedaiglebooks.com/ Tim Waggoner - https://www.timwaggoner.com/index.htm A Hunter Called Night - https://books2read.com/HunterNight Best of BookTook - https://bestofbooktok.com/ The Author Life: A Limited Edition Podcast Series Featuring Jeff Elkins - https://theauthorlife.transistor.fm/ J. Thorn's Rubrics for Writers - https://theauthorlife.com/free-tools/ Proudly sponsored by Kobo Writing Life - https://kobowritinglife.com/ and Atticus - https://www.atticus.io/ and Ghostwriting University - https://www.ghostwritinguniversity.com/ Music by Nicorus - https://cctrax.com/nicorus/dust-to-dust-ep Voice Over by Rick Ganley - http://www.nhpr.com and recorded at Mill Pond Studio - http://www.millpondstudio.com Audio production by Geoff Emberlyn - http://www.emberletter.com/ Website Design by Word & Pixel - http://wordandpixel.com/ Contact - https://writersinkpodcast.com/contact/ *Full disclosure: Some of the links are affiliate links. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/writersink/support

DANIEL KRAUS is a New York Times bestselling author. His collaboration with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero, The Living Dead, was acclaimed by The New York Times and The Washington Post.With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. Kraus's The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won a Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler) and has been a Library Guild selection, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, Bram Stoker finalist, and more.In this episode, Ryan and Daniel discuss the power of fiction to explore difficult issues, how Daniel researched his latest book Wrath, collaborative writing, and much more.Kraus's work has been translated into over 20 languages. He lives with his wife in Chicago. Visit him at danielkraus.com. His latest book Wrath is available wherever you buy books.  Sign up for The Prolific Creator+ and get full access to the archives and weekly bonus content! https://plus.acast.com/s/the-prolific-creator. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ABOUT THE EPISODEAre comic book sales doing better than ever? Or are they plummeting? Sean explores this question with guest John Jackson Miller, creator of the comics sales history website “Comichron”. John provides some insight on what we can and cannot know about sales, how sales have been doing in the last 20 years, and how new ventures like WhatNot and NFTs are impacting the sales of comics. RESOURCES & LINKSEpisode Page - “#69 Comic Sales History With Comichron's John Jackson Miller”Comichron's websiteComichron's FacebookComichron's TwitterComichron's PatreonJohn Jackson Miller's websiteJohn Jackson Miller's FacebookJohn Jackson Miller's InstagramJohn Jackson Miller's TwitterOur Review Blog Of Films, TV shows, and ComicsComic WatchThe Captioned Life Show websiteABOUT THE GUESTNew York Times bestselling author John Jackson Miller has spent a lifetime immersed in science fiction and comics, both as a fan and as a creator. After working in fanzines, he joined Don and Maggie Thompson at Comics Buyer's Guide where he also edited Comics & Games Retailer magazine, Scrye magazine, and the Standard Catalog of Comic Books series. Miller moved into professional comics writing in 2003 with Crimson Dynamo for Marvel, which led to a year of writing Iron Man. That led to a long association with Lucasfilm including novels, comics, and games. His Star Wars novels include the Scribe Award-winning Kenobi as well as A New Dawn, Knight Errant, and Lost Tribe of the Sith. He wrote comics for the latter two — and he wrote the entire Knights of the Old Republic comics series (available from Marvel as Legends: The Old Republic). He also wrote the comics adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Star Trek novels followed, including Picard: Rogue Elements and Discovery – Die Standing (both Scribe Award winners), Discovery – The Enterprise War, the Prey trilogy, and Takedown. For 2023, Miller has written the first novel for the Strange New Worlds series: The High Country releases on Feb. 21 in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming back from a mission, Lt. Reed realizes he left his communicator on a pre-warp planet. Going back to retrieve it, Archer and Reed get arrested, first suspected of being enemy super soldier spies, then being suspected of being aliens. Which is worse, because cause that's when the anal probing starts. -Brought to you by Section 31- 00:00 Nichelle Nichols, RIP! 13:34 Episode 134 14:10 Missing something? 14:30 Ding Dongs 15:00 Badges 15:30 What are socks for? 16:25 Welcome Aboard! 16:45 I Can't Understand 17:10 Multiple Arms 17:20 Huge Problem 17:40 Hello! 18:19 WINNER! But not the lotto 18:40 Section 31 said no. 19:30 He's a 10, but... 20:10 Not funny 20:30 Star Trek: Voyager S2E15 - "Threshold" 20:50 NO KIDS 21:20 Bynars old enough? Star Trek: TNG S1E15 -"11001001" 22:10 Thank You Patreons! Patreon: https://patreon.com/starfleetunderground 22:40 Sock 23:20 Corrections, Not News yet... 23:45 That wasn't a random Ensign Roe? 25:15 Badass! 26:10 Science Advisor Behind the Star Trek Scenes https://nerdist.com/article/star-treks-science-advisor-interview-erin-macdonald/ 28:35 Alex Kurtzman mentions DS9 Discussions https://trekmovie.com/2022/07/29/alex-kurtzman-discussions-have-been-had-about-bringing-back-star-trek-deep-space-nine-characters/ 30:44 The NerdTrek Fan Podcast Panel Sunday at STLV aka the 56-Year Mission, August 25-28, 2022 31:30 Heather was a guest recently on The Nerd Trek Podcast, debuting soon https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-nerd-trek-podcast 32:13 Shatner's Wallet Escapes! At a fruit stand. https://abc7.com/william-shatner-wallet-gilroy-b-t-farms-returned-california/12077579/ 34:05 Shatner's Panel from Comicon https://youtu.be/CB1WGl021Eg 34:40 Melissa Navia locks it down on Twitter again! 35:30 Penis Rocket! 36:40 LOWER DECKS!!!! August 25th!!! 37:15 Star Trek Picard Rouge Elements wins Scribe Award https://www.dailystartreknews.com/read/star-trek-picard-rogue-elements-won-a-scribe-award-at-sdcc 38:20 Star Trek: Enterprise S2E8 - "The Communicator" 38:36 Teaser 38:55 Find My Friend 39:38 Act I - "This is why we can't have nice things, you always lose them!" 40:40 Just ask for Lost and Found 42:10 Just beam it back! 42:41 It's the Find and Beam! 43:00 Beads in the Doorway 43:30 Ass-Crack Aliens 43:45 Just Stun Everybody 44:40 Act II - "Butt Dialed, No Answer" 45:30 The Stranger 46:43 Starships > Penis Rockets 47:45 Their Blood is RED! 47:50 The "Full" Exam - Anal Probe 50:11 Flawless Translation Plot Hole? 50:28 Act III 51:29 Funny Intro - Once Explained. 52:10 Glove - Hello? 53:00 We're Aliens 54:39 Act IV - "What that a UFO?" 55:50 You can always say UFO! 59:05 Torture him before killing 59:40 Hiding Behind See-Through Stairs 01:04:32 Next Week Enterprise S2E9 - "The Singularity" 1:06:00 WE GOT MERCH! Thanks for listening! Get some SWAG - https://starfleet-underground.creator-spring.com Patreon: https://patreon.com/starfleetunderground Email: thecollective@starfleetunderground.com Website: https://starfleetunderground.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/StarfleetUnderG Instagram: https://instagram.com/starfleetunderground Facebook: https://facebook.com/starfleetunderground YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/Qtsy16 #StarTrek #Enterprise #NicheleNichols #Uhura Explicit

Tim Lebbon is a British horror, science fiction and dark fantasy writer. The author of close to 50 novels ranging from The Silence to several media tie-ins franchises. Lebbon's short story ″Reconstructing Amy″ won the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction in 2001, his novel Dusk won the 2007 August Derleth Award from the British Fantasy Society for best novel of the year. His novelization of the film 30 Days of Night became a New York Times bestseller and won a Scribe Award in 2008. The film Pay the Ghost starring Nicholas Cage is based on his short story of the same name. The Silence was made into a movie 2019 on Netflix. You can see Tim as a corpse in the film. His Firefly novel Generations (fourth in series) won the 2021 Dragon Award for Best Media Tie-In Novel. Tim is joining us to talk about his brand new SF horror Cli-fi novel The Last Storm. We start by reviewing how Tim got into genre and writing, one of my all time favorite novels The Silence. Then we get into Tim's fantastic new novel. There is a spoiler warning at some point but there is lots of interview before that. •You can find my books here: Amazon-https://www.amazon.com/David-Agranoff/e/B004FGT4ZW •And me here: Goodreads-http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2988332.David_Agranoff T witter-https://twitter.com/DAgranoffAuthor Blog-http://davidagranoff.blogspot.com/

Main fiction: "Just Another Date Night on the Highway Out of Town" by Zandra RenwickThis story originally appeared in PULP Literature #32, 2021.Zandra Renwick's award-nominated fiction has been translated, performed on stage, and optioned for TV. Stories under iterations of her full name have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Asimov's, Ellery Queen's & Alfred Hitchcock's, New Canadian Noir, and assorted Year's Best volumes. Find out more at zandrarenwick.com or in the ether @zandrarenwick.Narrated by: Alethea KontisAlethea Kontis is a princess, storm chaser, and bestselling author of over twenty books and fifty short stories. Alethea has received the Jane Yolen Mid-List Author Grant, the Scribe Award, and is a two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award. She was nominated twice for both the Dragon Award and the Andre Norton Nebula. In her spare time, Alethea narrates stories for a myriad of award-winning online magazines. Born in Vermont, Alethea currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/starshipsofa. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 3-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, and action; for adults, teens and middle grade. He is also the editor of Weird Tales Magazine and many anthologies. Website & Blog: www.jonathanmaberry.com www.facebook.com/jonathanmaberry www.twitter.com/jonathanmaberry IMDB http://www.imdb.me/jonathanmaberry PO Box 894, Del Mar, CA 92014 Sign up for Jonathan's free NEWSLETTER: http://www.jonathanmaberry.com/contact.cfm #suspense #thriller #writer #podcasts #mustreadbooks #Tension #bestseller #fiction #horror #sci-fi #action #awardwinning

JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 3-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, and action; for adults, teens and middle grade. He is also the editor of Weird Tales Magazine and many anthologies. Website & Blog: www.jonathanmaberry.com www.facebook.com/jonathanmaberry www.twitter.com/jonathanmaberry IMDB http://www.imdb.me/jonathanmaberry PO Box 894, Del Mar, CA 92014 Sign up for Jonathan's free NEWSLETTER: http://www.jonathanmaberry.com/contact.cfm #suspense #thriller #writer #podcasts #mustreadbooks #Tension #bestseller #fiction #horror #sci-fi #action #awardwinning

On this episode of And I "Quote": Ryan talk with writer, editor and co-founder of Crazy 8 Press , Robert Greenberger. We will also be taking your questions. Don't miss it! Robert Greenberger is a writer and editor. A lifelong fan of comic books, comic strips, science fiction, and Star Trek, he drifted towards writing and editing, encouraged by his father and inspired by Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent.While at SUNY-Binghamton, Greenberger wrote and edited for the college newspaper, Pipe Dream. Upon graduation, he worked for Starlog Press and while there, created Comics Scene, the first nationally distributed magazine to focus on comic books, comic strips, and animation.In 1984, he joined DC Comics as an Assistant Editor and went on to be an Editor before moving to Administration as Manager-Editorial Operations. He joined Gist Communications as a Producer before moving to Marvel Comics as its Director-Publishing Operations.Greenberger rejoined DC in May 2002 as a Senior Editor-Collected Editions. He helped grow that department, introducing new formats and improving the editions' editorial content. In 2006, he joined Weekly World News as its Managing Editor until the paper's untimely demise. He then freelanced for an extensive client base including Platinum Studios, scifi.com, DC and Marvel. He helped revitalize Famous Monsters of Filmland and served as News Editor at ComicMix.com.He is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. His novelization of Hellboy II: The Golden Army won the IAMTW's Scribe Award in 2009.In 2012, he received his Master of Science in Education from the University of Bridgeport and relocated to Maryland where he has taught High School English in Baltimore County. He completed his Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing & Literature for Educators at Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2016.With others, he cofounded Crazy 8 Press, a digital press hub where he continues to write. His dozens of books, short stories, and essays cover the gamut from young adult nonfiction to original fiction. His most recent works include numerous short stories plus the concluding chapter of This Alien Earth for the late Paul Antony Jones and the first chapter of Above the Ground, in collaboration with Matt Medney.Bob teaches High School English at St. Vincent Pallotti High School in Laurel, MD. He and his wife Deborah reside in Howard County, Maryland.Follow Robert Greenberger on Social Media: Website: www.bobgreenberger.comWebsite: www.Crazy8Press.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/bobgreenbergerFollow Ryan on Social Media: https://linktr.ee/ryanandiquoteMake Sure to LIKE, COMMENT, & SUBSCRIBE!Nerd Culture MERCH!!! www.nerdculture.threadless.comHWWS NC Merch - https://hwwswebtv.threadless.com/designDONATE to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnerdcultureFollow:Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/itsnerdculture/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsnerdcultureTwitter :https://twitter.com/itsNerdCultureFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsnerdculture

"In The Monster's Mouth" by Tim Waggoner — published in Apex Magazine, issue 131, May 2022. Read it here: https://www.apex-magazine.com/ Tim Waggoner has published over forty novels and five collections of short stories. He writes original dark fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins, and his articles on writing have appeared in numerous publications. He's won the Bram Stoker Award, the HWA's Mentor of the Year Award, been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award. His fiction has received numerous Honorable Mentions in volumes of Best Horror of the Year, and he's twice had stories selected for inclusion in volumes of Year's Best Hardcore Horror. He's also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio. Emmie Christie is a fiction writer and narrator. She has narrated the science fiction novel “The Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising”, written by Alexander Barnes and Christopher Preiman. She has written stories for Flash Fiction Online, Infinite Worlds Magazine, and Three-Lobed Burning Eye. You can find more of her work at www.emmiechristie.com or follow her on Twitter @EmmieChristie33. This Apex Magazine podcast was produced by Alyson Grauer. Theme music by Alex White. Sounds used in this episode are licensed from Soundstripe.com. Music in this episode includes “What You Do Not Know” by Joshua Spacht and “Shadow Passage” by Cody Martin, licensed from Soundstripe.com. Apex Magazine podcast, copyright Apex Publications. Apex Magazine is a bimonthly short fiction zine focused on dark science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Find us at http://www.apex-magazine.com.

This Episode is sponsored by Skunk Brothers SpiritsWebsite: https://skunkbrothersspirits.com/Discount Code: DWA10About the Author:JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 3-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, and action; for adults, teens and middle grade. He is also the editor of Weird Tales Magazine and many anthologies.Website: http://www.jonathanmaberry.comLocal Book Store: https://www.mystgalaxy.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathanmaberry/?hl=enMusic by Jam HansleyFollow Us and Buy Our Books!Website: https://4horsemenpublications.com/All Social Media: @DrinkingWithAuthorsThis Episode is sponsored by Skunk Brothers SpiritsWebsite: https://skunkbrothersspirits.com/Discount Code: DWA10Skunk Brothers Spirits was started by a family of disabled veterans focused on locally-sourced, quality distilled spirits. The Washington-based team is building on their grandfather's prohibition-era moonshine recipe to bring small batch spirits to the Gorge and beyond!

This Episode is sponsored by Skunk Brothers SpiritsWebsite: https://skunkbrothersspirits.com/Discount Code: DWA10About the Author:JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 3-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, and action; for adults, teens and middle grade. He is also the editor of Weird Tales Magazine and many anthologies.Website: http://www.jonathanmaberry.comLocal Book Store: https://www.mystgalaxy.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathanmaberry/?hl=enMusic by Jam HansleyFollow Us and Buy Our Books!Website: https://4horsemenpublications.com/All Social Media: @DrinkingWithAuthorsThis Episode is sponsored by Skunk Brothers SpiritsWebsite: https://skunkbrothersspirits.com/Discount Code: DWA10Skunk Brothers Spirits was started by a family of disabled veterans focused on locally-sourced, quality distilled spirits. The Washington-based team is building on their grandfather's prohibition-era moonshine recipe to bring small batch spirits to the Gorge and beyond!

Host Philip Fracassi gets prolix with prolific author of Bram Stoker-award winning Writing in the DarkTim Waggoner has published over fifty novels and seven collections of short stories. He's written tie-in fiction based on titles such as Supernatural, Grimm, The X-Files, Alien, Doctor Who, and others. He's also written novelizations for films such as Halloween Kills, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle.His articles on writing have appeared in Writer's Digest, The Writer, and The Writer's Chronicle. He's the author of the acclaimed horror-writing guide Writing in the Dark, which won the Bram Stoker Award in 2021. The winner of multiple Stoker awards, Tim has been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, the Scribe Award, and the Splatterpunk Award. In addition to writing, Tim is a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition professor at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio.

In the spotlight is Mur Lafferty. We discuss:>> Her three podcasts>> Her sci-fi novels>> Challenges she faced in becoming a novelist>> The Ophelia Network (her upcoming novella)>> Her writing regimen>> National Novel Writing Month>> Etc. Mur Lafferty is a podcaster, author and editor. She's been recording and producing podcasts since 2004, and has won a Podcast Peer Award, a Hugo Award, and was inducted into the Podcast Academy Hall of Fame in 2015. Her book Six Wakes was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards, and the novelization of Solo, A Star Wars Story, was nominated for the Scribe Award. On the editing side, she was a founding co-editor of Pseudopod, a horror podcast, and currently is co-editor of Escape Pod, nominated this year for two Hugo Awards: best semiprozine and best short-form editor (with co-editor SB Divya.) She lives in Durham, N.C. Learn more about Mur Lafferty at her website: https://murverse.com/Novelist Spotlight is produced and hosted by Mike Consol, author of “Hardwood: A Novel About College Basketball and Other Games Young Men Play” and three yet-to-be-published manuscripts, including “Family Recipes: A Novel about Italian Culture, Catholic Guilt and the Culinary Crime of the Century,” “Lolita Firestone: A Supernatural Novel,” and the short story collection “Love American Style.” Write to him at novelistspotlight@gmail.com. We hope you will subscribe and share the link with any family, friends or colleagues who might benefit from this program.

Writing icon Kevin J Anderson creates his stories through a unique medium: dictation. By drafting through dictation instead of typing, he both produces ideas naturally without the stress of grammatically picking apart each sentence and easily comes up with casual, believable dialogue. Anderson has been in the writing industry for over thirty years and has written with all kinds of artistic legends, from Brian Herbert to Rush's Neil Peart. To order Dune: The Lady of Caladan, his latest release, follow the link below. From Amazon.com: I have written more than 165 books, including 56 national or international bestsellers. I have over 23 million books in print worldwide in thirty languages. I've been nominated for the Nebula Award, Hugo Award, Bram Stoker Award, Shamus Award, and Silver Falchion Award, and I've won the SFX Readers' Choice Award, Golden Duck Award, Scribe Award, and New York Times Notable Book; in 2012 at San Diego Comic Con I received the Faust Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement. Whether you're traditionally published or indie, writing a good book is only the first step in becoming a successful author. The days of just turning a manuscript into your editor and walking away are gone. If you want to succeed in today's publishing world, you need to understand every aspect of the business - editing, formatting, marketing, contracts. It all starts with a good book, then the real work begins. Join international bestselling author J.D. Barker and indie powerhouses, J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon, as they gain unique insight and valuable advice from the most prolific and accomplished authors in the business. In this episode, you'll discover: How Kevin befriended Neil Peart Why to dictate your dialogue How to outline your dictation Why “stealing” ideas can be helpful The importance of a writing community Links: J. D. Barker - http://jdbarker.com/ J. Thorn - https://theauthorlife.com/ Zach Bohannon - https://zachbohannon.com/ Kevin J Anderson - https://www.wordfire.com/ Dune: The Lady of Caladan - https://mybook.to/Caladan The Relaxed Author (Books For Writers Book 13) Kindle Edition by Joanna Penn (Author), Mark Leslie Lefebvre - https://books2read.com/u/4jo7Xv J.'s NFT Experiment - https://theauthorlife.com/sharing-royalties-with-readers-everyone-wins/ Story Rubric - http://storyrubric.com Nonfic Rubric - http://nonficrubric.com Proudly sponsored by Kobo Writing Life - https://kobowritinglife.com/ Music by Nicorus - https://cctrax.com/nicorus/dust-to-dust-ep Voice Over by Rick Ganley - http://www.nhpr.com and recorded at Mill Pond Studio - http://www.millpondstudio.com Contact - https://writersinkpodcast.com/contact/ *Full disclosure: Some of the links are affiliate links. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/writersink/support

Tim Lebbon is a British horror and dark fantasy writer and New York Times bestselling author. Tim's short story ″Reconstructing Amy″ won the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction, and his novel "Dusk" won the 2007 August Derleth Award from the British Fantasy Society for best novel of the year. Tim's novelization of the film "30 Days of Night" became a New York Times bestseller and won a Scribe Award in 2008. Tim's more recent works include Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi - Into the Void, The Rage War Trilogy, Hellboy, Kong: Skull Island and Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods. Tim's novel 'Firefly: Generations' is the latest in a series of original novel tie-ins of the much-missed Firefly series. Visit timlebbon.net to stay up to date on Tim's projects. If you enjoy our content, please consider leaving us a rating & review and subscribing to The Nevers Podcast on Apple Podcasts. Your support goes a long way in helping us to grow our community and reach more listeners. For even more content on The Nevers, visit our website at hbothenevers.com and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube @hbothenevers and @theneverspodcast Your feedback is always appreciated. Send comments, questions and topic suggestions to: theneverspodcast@gmail.com Music by: Guilherme Moraes Produced & edited by Matthew at Culture Inject Studios.

Positively Trek 119: Captain on the BridgeOur Favorite Starship Bridges with Special Guest Katie Nickolaou! In every Star Trek series set aboard a starship, much of each episode takes place on the main bridge. A place for action, character development, plot advancement, exposition, and more; the bridge is where our heroes spend a huge amount of time. With all that in mind, a great deal of thought and care must go into designing the centerpiece of a new Star Trek show or film. So, what are our opinions of how well the various bridges succeed? In this episode of Positively Trek, hosts Bruce and Dan are joined once again by Katie Nickolaou to judge the various bridges in Star Trek! We each have our favorites, but we also all have strong opinions on what makes a good bridge and which ones succeeded (and failed)!In the news, we talk about the announcement of a new Star Trek: Picard novel by Una McCormack, the 2021 Scribe Award-winning novel by John Jackson Miller, a possible hint about when we might see Star Trek: Discovery's fourth season, and a very odd new gig for William Shatner on Russian state-run television?!? Show page: http://positivelytrek.libsyn.com/ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/positively-trek/id1501468628 Twitter: http://twitter.com/positivelytrek Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PositivelyTrek Help support the podcast! Go to https://www.patreon.com/positivelytrek to help out!Katie Nickolaou on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weather_katie So Many Random Fandoms on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe6VSi0jOHIdOez6MfX3BTQ Star Trek novels: New Picard post-season one novel announced, plus Coda and Living Memory previews - https://www.thetrekcollective.com/2021/06/star-trek-novels-new-picard-post-season.html Die Standing receives 2021 Scribe Award for Best Original Novel - Speculative from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers - https://www.facebook.com/100000103171014/posts/4792005957479463/?d=n Delay of next Star Trek trading card set may reveal tentative air-dates for season 4 of Discovery? - https://www.scifihobby.com/bboard/displaythread.cfm?threadid=2231&messages=1449 William Shatner hosts new show on Russian state-run TV, lashes out at critics - https://nypost.com/2021/07/01/william-shatner-to-host-new-show-on-russian-state-run-tv/ Sunshine (version 2) by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4438-sunshine-version-2- License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Take a Chance by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4457-take-a-chance License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. STAR TREK and all related marks, logos and characters are owned by CBS Studios Inc. Positively Trek is not endorsed or sponsored by or affiliated with CBS/Paramount Pictures or the STAR TREK franchise. Hosts Bruce GibsonDan Gunther GuestKatie Nickolaou  ProductionBruce Gibson (Editor and Producer)Dan Gunther (Producer)

JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 3-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, and action; for adults, teens and middle grade. His novels include the Joe Ledger thriller series, Bewilderness, Ink, Glimpse, the Pine Deep Trilogy, the Rot & Ruin series, the Dead of Night series, Mars One, Ghostwalkers: A Deadlands novel, and many others. He is the editor many anthologies including The X-Files, Aliens: Bug Hunt, Don't Turn Out the Lights, Nights of the Living Dead, and others. His comics include Black Panther: DoomWar, Captain America, Pandemica, Highway to Hell, The Punisher and Bad Blood. He is a board member of the Horror Writers Association and the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. Visit him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com

#116 - Jonathan Maberry bonus JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 3-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, and action; for adults, teens and middle grade. His novels include the Joe Ledger thriller series, Bewilderness, Ink, Glimpse, the Pine Deep Trilogy, the Rot & Ruin series, the Dead of Night series, Mars One, Ghostwalkers: A Deadlands novel, and many others. He is the editor many anthologies including The X-Files, Aliens: Bug Hunt, Don't Turn Out the Lights, Nights of the Living Dead, and others. His comics include Black Panther: DoomWar, Captain America, Pandemica, Highway to Hell, The Punisher and Bad Blood. He is a board member of the Horror Writers Association and the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. Visit him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com

DANIEL KRAUS is a New York Times bestselling author. His posthumous collaboration with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero, The Living Dead, was acclaimed by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Kraus's The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year. With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. Kraus has won a Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler) and has been a Library Guild selection, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, Bram Stoker finalist, and more. Kraus's work has been translated into over 25 languages. He lives with his wife in Chicago. Visit him at danielkraus.com. I had Daniel on the show to discuss THE LIVING DEAD and George Romeros's lost film THE AMUSEMENT PARK that will debut on Shudder in early June. This episode is sponsored by Bookmans. Become a subscriber!!! https://anchor.fm/followingfilms/subscribe --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Tim Waggoner. Tim is a critically-acclaimed author of over fifty novels and seven short story collections. He writes original dark fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins. He’s also the author of a comprehensive book on writing horror called Writing in the Dark. His novels include Like Death, which is considered a modern classic in the horror genre, and the popular Nekropolis series of urban fantasy novels. He’s written tie-in fiction for Supernatural, Grimm, the X-Files, Doctor Who, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, and Transformers, among other properties, and he’s written novelizations for films such as Kingsman: the Golden Circle and Resident Evil: the Final Chapter. His articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest, The Writer, Writer’s Journal, Writer’s Workshop of Horror, and Where Nightmares Come From. In 2017 he received the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction, and he’s been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, the Scribe Award, and the Splatterpunk Award. His fiction has appeared several times in the Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, and he’s received numerous Honorable Mentions in volumes of Best Horror of the Year. In 2016, the Horror Writers Association honored him with the Mentor of the Year Award. In addition to writing, he’s also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio.   In this episode Tim and I discuss: Where different kinds of horror writing fit in relation to other speculative genres. How psychology plays into the crafting of a horror story. Why horror is not just plot and what it’s really about instead. Plus, his #1 tip for writers. For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/343

If you've ever encountered an unstable Gorn at a local comic con you'll wish you'd read one of our guest's latest books. The Star Trek: Kirk Fu Manual. But our guest isn't a self defense expert, however. Our guest this week is the New York Times bestselling author of nearly forty novels and novellas, Dayton Ward. Mr. Ward has been nominated six times for, and has won twice, the Scribe Award from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. Mr. Ward gave a fantastic interview and we even let him and Tim talk some football!     http://www.daytonward.com/ Support The FSF PopCast by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/funny-science-fiction

If you've ever encountered an unstable Gorn at a local comic con you'll wish you'd read one of our guest's latest books. The Star Trek: Kirk Fu Manual. But our guest isn't a self defense expert, however. Our guest this week is the New York Times bestselling author of nearly forty novels and novellas, Dayton Ward. Mr. Ward has been nominated six times for, and has won twice, the Scribe Award from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. Mr. Ward gave a fantastic interview and we even let him and Tim talk some football!     http://www.daytonward.com/ Support Funny Science Fiction by contributing to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/funny-science-fiction Find out more at https://funny-science-fiction.pinecast.co

Had the pleasure of interviewing my friend Jonathan Maberry. Follow him: jonathanmaberry.comOn Twitter https://www.twitter.com/jonathamaberryOn Facebook https://facebook.com/jonathanmaberryNew York Times best-selling and five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, anthology editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator, and writing teacher/lecturer. He was named one of the Today’s Top Ten Horror Writers. Jonathan writes in several genres. His young adult fiction includes ROT & RUIN(2011; was named in Booklist’s Ten Best Horror Novels for Young Adults, an American Library Association Top Pick, a Bram Stoker and Pennsylvania Keystone to Reading winner; winner of several state Teen Book Awards including the Cricket, Nutmeg and MASL; winner of the Cybils Award, the Eva Perry Mock Printz medal, Dead Letter Best Novel Award, and four Melinda Awards); DUST & DECAY (winner of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award; FLESH & BONE (winner of the Bram Stoker Award; 2012; and FIRE & ASH (August 2013). BROKEN LANDS, the first of a new spin-off series, debuted in 2018. The last in the series comes out August 2020.Jonathan is the creator, editor, and co-author of V-WARS, a shared-world vampire anthology from IDW, and its sequels, V-WARS: BLOOD AND FIRE, V-WARS: NIGHT TERRORS, and V-WARS: SHOCKWAVES. And he writes a best-selling monthly V-WARS comic. A board game version of V-Wars was released in 2017. A Netflix original series, starring Ian Somerhalder (LOST, VAMPIRE DIARIES) debuted in early 2019.His novels include the Joe Ledger series from St. Martin’s Griffin (PATIENT ZERO, 2009, winner of the Black Quill and a Bram Stoker Award finalist for Best Novel; EXTINCTION MACHINE, (2013; now in development for TV by SONY); PREDATOR ONE, and others. His first middle-grade novel, THE NIGHTSIDERS BOOK 1: THE ORPHAN ARMY (Simon & Schuster) was named one the 100 Best Books for Children 2015. His standalone teen science fiction novel, MARS ONE, is in development for film by Zucker Productions and Lone Tree Entertainment. His upcoming standalone suspense novel, GLIMPSE, is in development for TV with BLACK SWAN screenwriter John McLaughlin as head writer.His horror novels include The Pine Deep Trilogy from Pinnacle Books (GHOST ROAD BLUES, 2006, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium; DEAD MAN’S SONG, 2007; and BAD MOON RISING, 2008), as well as DEAD OF NIGHT, 2011 (named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium) and its sequel, FALL OF NIGHT, 2014. He also wrote the movie novelization, THE WOLFMAN, 2010, winner of the Scribe Award for Best Adaptation; and DEADLANDS: GHOSTWALKERS, an original novel inspired by the million-copy-selling role-playing game. He also wrote the official story of teenage Dana Scully in X-FILES ORIGINS: DEVIL’S ADVOCATE.He is also the editor of the dark fantasy anthology series, OUT OF TUNE(JournalStone); a series of THE X-FILES anthologies which launched in 2015; SCARY OUT THERE, an anthology of horror for teens; and the anthologies ALIENS: BUG HUNT, NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD (with George Romero), JOE LEDGER: UNSTOPPABLE (with Bryan Thomas Schmidt) and two volumes of mysteries: ALTERNATE SHERLOCKS and THE GAME’S AFOOT (with Michael Ventrella). He is also the editor of the highly anticipated middle-grade anthology, NEW SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK, a tribute to the beloved series by Alvin Schwartz

Main Fiction: "An Infinite Number of Idiots" by Robert JeschonekThis story first appeared in Galaxy's Edge #39 (July 2019).Robert Jeschonek is a USA Today bestselling, envelope-pushing author whose fiction and comics have been published around the world. His stories have appeared in past episodes of StarShipSofa, as well as Galaxy's Edge, Fiction River, Pulphouse, Escape Pod, and many other publications. He has written Doctor Who and Star Trek fiction and comics for DC, AHOY, and others. His young adult slipstream novel, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, won the Forward National Literature Award and was named one of Booklist's Top Ten First Novels for Youth. He also won an International Book Award, a Scribe Award for Best Original Novel, and the grand prize in Pocket Books' Strange New Worlds contest. Visit him online at www.robertjeschonek.com.Narrated by Rish Outfield.Rish Outfield is a writer, voice actor, and audiobook narrator. He can be heard co-hosting the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine and That Gets My Goat podcasts, where he and Bigg Anklevich entertainingly waste much of their time. He also features his own stories on the Rish Outcast podcast. He once got a job because of his Sean Connery impersonation… but has lost two due to his Samuel L. Jackson impression.Fact: Science News by J J Campanella See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Elizabeth Massie, a ninth generation Virginian, is the author of many horror novels and collections, and more than 100 short stories. She has won the Bram Stoker Award twice and the Scribe Award for her novelization of the third season of Showtime’s original television show, The Tudors. She also writes historical fiction, mainstream fiction, poetry, educational materials, and just about anything else that pays. In her spare time she draws zombies and hippies (and sometimes hippie zombies), knits very long scarves, geocaches, and reads books in all genres. Stephen Mark Rainey is author of the novels Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark (with Elizabeth Massie), Balak, The Lebo Coven, The Nightmare Frontier, Blue Devil Island, The Monarchs, Young Blood (with Mat & Myron Smith), West Virginia: Lair of the Mothman and Michigan: The Dragon of Lake Superior; five short story collections; and over 100 published works of short fiction. Join the Thorne & Cross newsletter for updates, book deals, specials, exclusives, and upcoming guests on Thorne & Cross: Haunted Nights LIVE! by visiting Tamara and Alistair at their websites: alistaircross.com and tamarathorne.com This is a copyrighted, trademarked podcast owned solely by the Authors on the Air Global Radio, LLC.

Elizabeth Massie, a ninth generation Virginian, is the author of many horror novels and collections, and more than 100 short stories. She has won the Bram Stoker Award twice and the Scribe Award for her novelization of the third season of Showtime’s original television show, The Tudors. She also writes historical fiction, mainstream fiction, poetry, educational materials, and just about anything else that pays. In her spare time she draws zombies and hippies (and sometimes hippie zombies), knits very long scarves, geocaches, and reads books in all genres. Stephen Mark Rainey is author of the novels Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark (with Elizabeth Massie), Balak, The Lebo Coven, The Nightmare Frontier, Blue Devil Island, The Monarchs, Young Blood (with Mat & Myron Smith), West Virginia: Lair of the Mothman and Michigan: The Dragon of Lake Superior; five short story collections; and over 100 published works of short fiction. Join the Thorne & Cross newsletter for updates, book deals, specials, exclusives, and upcoming guests on Thorne & Cross: Haunted Nights LIVE! by visiting Tamara and Alistair at their websites: alistaircross.com and tamarathorne.com This is a copyrighted, trademarked podcast owned solely by the Authors on the Air Global Radio, LLC.

Tonight we have the pleasure of talking with a favorite special returning guest, R.L. King, author of the Alastair Stone Chronicles and contributing creator of the RPG 'Shadowrun'."I write books about snarky British mages. I love cats, Doctor Who, and Shadowrun. Oh, and pizza."Links for listening and chatting:https://www.mysticmooncafe.com/2019/11/18/r-l-king-on-the-alastair-stone-chronicles-dec-4-2019/ https://www.mysticmooncafe.com/ ORhttps://www.spreaker.com/show/mystic-moon-cafes-show7:00 pm Pacific, 9:00 pm Central, 10:00 pm Eastern!About R. L. KingR. L. King is the Amazon-bestselling author of the Alastair Stone Chronicles urban fantasy series, as well as an author and game freelancer for Catalyst Game Labs, publisher of the popular fantasy-cyberpunk roleplaying game Shadowrun.Her first novel in the Shadowrun universe, "Borrowed Time," was published in Spring 2015 and was nominated for a Scribe Award by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. For updates, join her mailing list at www.rlkingwriting.com.She is an Active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Horror Writers' Association, and the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.Links:Shadowrun books: https://www.drivethrufiction.com/browse.php?author=R.L.%20King Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B0084QBKYCFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/robyn.king.7798Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/AlastairStoneChronicles/Stone Merchandise: https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/899800-occult-studies-students-do-it-on-the-other-side-wh?store_id=93720 THE ALASTAIR STONE CHRONICLES SERIESStone and a Hard PlaceShadows and Stone (novella)Turn to Stone (novella)The Forgotten (Forgotten Trilogy #1)The Threshold (Forgotten Trilogy #2)The Source (Forgotten Trilogy #3)Core of StoneBlood and StoneHeart of StoneFlesh and StoneThe Infernal HeartThe Other SidePath of StoneNecessary SacrificesGame of StoneSteel and StoneStone and ClawThe Seventh StoneGathering StormHouse of StoneCircle of StoneSHADOWRUNBorrowed TimeWolf and BuffaloBig DreamsVeiled Extraction (2019)

Kathryn Leigh Scott and David Selby recently reunited to play Maggie Evans and Quentin Collins once more for Big Finish Productions in a four-story boxset "Maggie and Quentin: The Lovers' Refrain." Set after "Return to Collinwood","The Lovers' Refrain" catches up with a very-much-in-love 21st Century Maggie and Quentin who find that as they get older - or at least as one of them does - life doesn't get any easier. Kathryn's recording sessions for this boxset took her to Los Angeles, New York and London. I snuck into the studio after she wrapped on her final day to grab a few words.   Kathryn tells me about recording with (and without) David Selby and what she thinks of the new adventures their characters are now having.  We also look back at the DARK SHADOWS 50th Anniversary celebrations - getting together with all the cast at both the fan event in Tarrytown and the group recording of the celebratory special "Blood & Fire." And looking further back Kathryn recalls working with Mitchell Ryan as Burke Devlin returned from the dead in "And Red All Over" and she remembers those Dark Shadows cast members no longer with us and how she wishes Big Finish had had the chance to work with them. Way back in 2014, Kathryn suggested her actress friend Daisy Tormé would be ideal to join the DARK SHADOWS audio adventures. After playing the well-meaning but ill-fated Melody Devereux in the highly acclaimed thirteen-part serial "Bloodlust," Daisy returned as a young Abigail Collins when we dropped in on 1767 Collinsport in the Scribe Award-winning "Blood & Fire". And now she's back once more in "The Lovers' Refrain". On a visit to the UK, Daisy fills me in on who she's playing this time, how she finds the voices for her characters, and her gratitude to Kathryn for bringing her into the Dark Shadows family.

In a constantly changing publishing world, two writers and authors have managed to sustain thriving careers. Today, we'll find out how they stay ahead of the game. First, Joseph Olshan returns to discuss how he drove the publishing path for his tenth book, Black Diamond Fall, without an agent, and whether or not it is a direction he would continue to go in. Joseph is an award-winning author of 10 novels and is the editorial director of Delphinium Books. He will be appearing at University Bookstore in Seattle on October 18 at 6pm. Later, from videogames, to audio dramas, to science fiction, to the first in a new thriller series with his new book Nomad, there is virtually no writing genre too big for James Swallow. Today he'll share how he approaches writing a game differently than, say, a novel. James is a British author and scriptwriter. A BAFTA nominee, Scribe Award winner, New York Times, Sunday Times and Amazon bestseller, he is the author of over 45 original books and tie-in novels, along with numerous short stories, audio dramas and videogames.

Elizabeth Massie, a ninth generation Virginian, is the author of 11 horror novels, 5 collections, and more than 100 short stories. She has won the Bram Stoker Award twice and the Scribe Award for her novelization of the third season of Showtime’s original television show, The Tudors. She also writes historical fiction, mainstream fiction, poetry, educational materials, and just about anything else that pays. In her spare time she draws zombies and hippies (and sometimes hippie zombies), knits very long scarves, geocaches, and reads books in all genres. Join the Thorne & Cross newsletter for updates, book deals, specials, exclusives, and upcoming guests on Thorne & Cross: Haunted Nights LIVE! by visiting Tamara and Alistair at their websites: alistaircross.com and tamarathorne.com This is a copyrighted, trademarked podcast owned solely by the Authors on the Air Global Radio, LLC.

Patreon support now standing at 405 – last week 403. Help us get to 500 Patreon Supporters. Bitcoin address: 1FcqW3GEWFX9tuoyFrn1ySKoeybyc3J4W9Ethereum address: 0xacC43A99b1eDe0e4a04B43A7A7fa3aA476B87EAAMain Fiction: "A Little Song, A Little Dance, a Little Apocalypse Down Your Pants" by Robert JeschonekOriginally published in Galaxy's EdgeRobert Jeschonek is an award-winning author whose fiction, comics, essays, and non-fiction have been published around the world. His stories have appeared in Galaxy’s Edge, Escape Pod, Fiction River. He has written Doctor Who and Star Trek fiction and Batman and Justice Society comics for DC Comics. His young adult slipstream novel, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, won the Forward National Literature Award and was named one of Booklist’s Top Ten First Novels for Youth. He also won an International Book Award, a Scribe Award for Best Original Novel, and the grand prize in Pocket Books’ Strange New Worlds contest. Hugo and Nebula Award winner Mike Resnick has called him “a towering talent.”Narrated by: Karen BovenmyerKaren Bovenmyer earned an MFA in Creative Writing: Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine in 2011. She has published approximately 25 poems, short stories, and novellas and has a novel coming out next year. She teaches and mentors students at Iowa State University and serves as the Nonfiction Assistant Editor of Escape Artists’ Mothership Zeta Magazine. Karen’s narrations can be heard on the Strange Horizons, StarShip Sofa, Gallery of Curiosities, and Pseudopod podcasts. You can find her online at karenbovenmyer.com.Fact: Looking Back at Genre History by Amy H Sturgis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

https://bryanaiello.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/jb-57-mp3.mp3 Subscribe to my YouTube Channel for updates on Mirage: Speculating on Speculative Fiction. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbSnMk6QPiULXmKDYmwCmIg *** Jennifer Brozek is a multi-talented author, editor, and tie-in writer whose nominations and awards include: two Bram Stoker nominations, a Hugo nomination, a Scribe Award and an Australian Shadows Award. Link to the Five minute story podcast: http://www.apocalypse-ink.com/page/Five-Minute-Stories.aspx Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.brozek http://www.jenniferbrozek.com/ Twitter: @JenniferBrozek. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifer_brozek/ HWA.org SFWA.org *** Music: Kevin MacLeod ~ Mountain Emperor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkxQFdMlZcw *** Subscribe to my YouTube Channel for updates on my other show Mirage: Speculating on Speculative Fiction. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbSnMk6QPiULXmKDYmwCmIg Subscribe on itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/origin-stories-on-creativity/id1247194933?mt=2 Subscribe on stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/bryan-aiello/origins-stories-on-creativity?refid=stpr Follow me on twitter @bryaiello for updates on this channel and my podcast and my writing projects. My website is: http://www.bryanaiello.com Email me with question and comments at: me@byranaiello.com Support the show on my poorly managed patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/BryanAiello  

Main Fiction: "In a Green Dress, Surrounded by Exploding Clowns" by Robert Jeschonek Originally published at Galaxy's Edge Robert Jeschonek is an award-winning author whose fiction, comics, essays, and non-fiction have been published around the world. His stories have appeared in Galaxy's Edge, Escape Pod, Fiction River. He has written Doctor Who and Star Trek fiction and Batman and Justice Society comics for DC Comics. His young adult slipstream novel, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, won the Forward National Literature Award and was named one of Booklist's Top Ten First Novels for Youth. He also won an International Book Award, a Scribe Award for Best Original Novel, and the grand prize in Pocket Books' Strange New Worlds contest. Hugo and Nebula Award winner Mike Resnick has called him "a towering talent." Fact: Amy H. Sturgis Looking Back At Genre History Narrated by: Kyle Maddock  Kyle Maddock is a host of A Podcast of Ice and Fire, the Geekie Award winning and longest running podcast dedicated to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. He also hosts the Game of Thrones after show at AfterBuzzTV and is a frequent guest on other YouTube shows, podcasts, and panels. Kyle is an unabashed geek with a love for board games, comic books (especially X-Men) and Star Trek among other things. Outside of his passionate geek life, Kyle is an actor who can be seen in shows such as How I Met Your Mother and Happy Endings. You can follow him on twitter @kylemaddock. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tonight we have a special Friday show with returning special guest R.L.King, author of the Alastair Stone Chronicles has penned a couple of the books in the Shadowrun series. The next book in the Stone series, The Infernal Heart, is set to release March 15, 2017. R. L. King is the award-winning author of the Alastair Stone Chronicles urban fantasy series, as well as an author and game freelancer for Catalyst Game Labs, publisher of the popular fantasy-cyberpunk roleplaying game Shadowrun.Her first novel in the Shadowrun universe, "Borrowed Time," was published in Spring 2015 and was nominated for a Scribe Award by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. Her second, "Veiled Extraction," will be published in 2017.For updates, join her mailing list at rlkingwriting.com.Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/R.-L.-King/e/B0084QBKYC/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1 She is an Active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Horror Writers' Association, and the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.Alastair Stone ChroniclesPage-turning urban fantasy thrillers featuring mage and occult professor Dr. Alastair Stone. Stone and a Hard Place Shadows and Stone (novella, exclusive to mailing list subscribers at rlkingwriting.com)The Forgotten (Forgotten Trilogy #1)The Threshold (Forgotten Trilogy #2)The Source (Forgotten Trilogy #3)Core of StoneBlood and StoneHeart of StoneFlesh and Stone The Infernal Heart (March 15th, 2017)ShadowrunIn the shadows of the Sixth World where man meets magic and machine, everything has a price.Borrowed TimeWolf and BuffaloBig DreamsVeiled Extraction (2017)Alastair Stone ChroniclesPage-turning urban fantasy thrillers featuring mage and occult professor Dr. Alastair Stone.

Full Circle. The Voyager series of books had relaunched with the Homecoming and Spirit Walk duologies but then found it’s story continuing in major ways beyond the Voyager books and a few years ahead of where the relaunch had left off - Enter Kirsten Beyer to save the day and fill in the missing pieces of the story as well as reinvigorate the Voyager series by bringing it “full circle”. In this episode of Literary Treks hosts Matthew Rushing and Bruce Gibson talk about the Star Trek Voyager book Full Circle. We discuss connecting the dots, character growth, dealing with the major plot points, new characters, lingering storylines and our ratings. In the news we congratulate Dayton Ward for his Scribe Award and talk about he and Kevin Dillmore’s upcoming Waypoint comic. News Scribe Awards Winner (0:02:25) New Gold Key Comic (00:04:05) Feature: Full Circle Official Janeway Mug (00:07:34) Connecting the Dots (00:09:48) Character Growth (00:13:41) Klingon Story (00:19:34) Dealing With Janeway’s Death (00:23:54) Judging Voyager (00:28:57) New Characters (00:33:18) Plot Threads (00:37:55) Back in the Delta Quadrant (00:40:50) Other Plots (00:45:45) Ratings (00:47:31) Final Thoughts (00:49:31) Hosts Matthew Rushing and Bruce Gibson Production Matthew Rushing (Editor and Producer) Norman C. Lao (Executive Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Charlynn Schmiedt (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Ken Tripp (Associate Producer) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Associate Producer) Bruce Gibson (Associate Producer)

This week on Chatting With Sherri will chat with author and editor Josh Vogt his work covers fantasy, science fiction, horror, humor, pulps! His debut fantasy novel is Pathfinder Tales: Forge of Ashes, published alongside his urban fantasy series, The Cleaners, with Enter the Janitor and The Maids of Wrath. He's an editor at Paizo, a Scribe Award finalist. "When a maid goes berserk during a training session and tries to slaughter everyone with a feather duster, something is clearly afoul within the ranks of the Cleaners themselves. They must track down the source of the bloodthirsty madness before it consumes everyone--otherwise their whole operation will get flushed down the drain."  

He writes in several genres. His young adult fiction includes ROT & RUIN (2011; now in development for film; named in Booklist’s Ten Best Horror Novels for Young Adults, a Bram Stoker and Pennsylvania Keystone to Reading winner; nominee for several state Teen Book Awards; winner of the Cybils Award, the Eva Perry Mock Printz medal, Dead Letter Best Novel Award, and four Melinda Awards); DUST & DECAY (winner of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award; FLESH & BONE (winner of the Bram Stoker Award; 2012; and FIRE & ASH (August 2013). His thrillers include The Joe Ledger Thrillers from St. Martin’s Griffin (PATIENT ZERO, 2009, winner of the Black Quill and a Bram Stoker Award finalist for Best Novel; THE DRAGON FACTORY, 2010; THE KING OF PLAGUES, 2011; ASSASSIN’S CODE, 2011; EXTINCTION MACHINE, 2013; CODE ZER0, 2014, and PREDATOR ONE, 2015.  His mystery novels include the upcoming Dylan Quinn mystery-thriller series for teens: WATCH OVER ME (Simon & Schuster, 2014) and COLD, COLD HEART (2015); and the NIGHTSIDERS series of middle-grade horror/sci-fi adventures, which debut in 2015. His horror novels include The Pine Deep Trilogy from Pinnacle Books (GHOST ROAD BLUES, 2006, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium; DEAD MAN’S SONG, 2007; and BAD MOON RISING, 2008), as well as DEAD OF NIGHT, 2011 (named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium) and its forthcoming sequel, FALL OF NIGHT, 2014. He also wrote the movie novelization, THE WOLFMAN, 2010, winner of the Scribe Award for Best Adaptation; and is scheduled to write DEADLANDS: GHOSTWALKERS, an original novel inspired by the million-copy-selling role-playing game.

He writes in several genres. His young adult fiction includes ROT & RUIN (2011; now in development for film; named in Booklist’s Ten Best Horror Novels for Young Adults, a Bram Stoker and Pennsylvania Keystone to Reading winner; nominee for several state Teen Book Awards; winner of the Cybils Award, the Eva Perry Mock Printz medal, Dead Letter Best Novel Award, and four Melinda Awards); DUST & DECAY (winner of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award; FLESH & BONE (winner of the Bram Stoker Award; 2012; and FIRE & ASH (August 2013). His thrillers include The Joe Ledger Thrillers from St. Martin’s Griffin (PATIENT ZERO, 2009, winner of the Black Quill and a Bram Stoker Award finalist for Best Novel; THE DRAGON FACTORY, 2010; THE KING OF PLAGUES, 2011; ASSASSIN’S CODE, 2011; EXTINCTION MACHINE, 2013; CODE ZER0, 2014, and PREDATOR ONE, 2015.  His mystery novels include the upcoming Dylan Quinn mystery-thriller series for teens: WATCH OVER ME (Simon & Schuster, 2014) and COLD, COLD HEART (2015); and the NIGHTSIDERS series of middle-grade horror/sci-fi adventures, which debut in 2015. His horror novels include The Pine Deep Trilogy from Pinnacle Books (GHOST ROAD BLUES, 2006, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium; DEAD MAN’S SONG, 2007; and BAD MOON RISING, 2008), as well as DEAD OF NIGHT, 2011 (named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium) and its forthcoming sequel, FALL OF NIGHT, 2014. He also wrote the movie novelization, THE WOLFMAN, 2010, winner of the Scribe Award for Best Adaptation; and is scheduled to write DEADLANDS: GHOSTWALKERS, an original novel inspired by the million-copy-selling role-playing game.

He writes in several genres. His young adult fiction includes ROT & RUIN (2011; now in development for film; named in Booklist’s Ten Best Horror Novels for Young Adults, a Bram Stoker and Pennsylvania Keystone to Reading winner; nominee for several state Teen Book Awards; winner of the Cybils Award, the Eva Perry Mock Printz medal, Dead Letter Best Novel Award, and four Melinda Awards); DUST & DECAY (winner of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award; FLESH & BONE (winner of the Bram Stoker Award; 2012; and FIRE & ASH (August 2013). His thrillers include The Joe Ledger Thrillers from St. Martin’s Griffin (PATIENT ZERO, 2009, winner of the Black Quill and a Bram Stoker Award finalist for Best Novel; THE DRAGON FACTORY, 2010; THE KING OF PLAGUES, 2011; ASSASSIN’S CODE, 2011; EXTINCTION MACHINE, 2013; CODE ZER0, 2014, and PREDATOR ONE, 2015.  His mystery novels include the upcoming Dylan Quinn mystery-thriller series for teens: WATCH OVER ME (Simon & Schuster, 2014) and COLD, COLD HEART (2015); and the NIGHTSIDERS series of middle-grade horror/sci-fi adventures, which debut in 2015. His horror novels include The Pine Deep Trilogy from Pinnacle Books (GHOST ROAD BLUES, 2006, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium; DEAD MAN’S SONG, 2007; and BAD MOON RISING, 2008), as well as DEAD OF NIGHT, 2011 (named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium) and its forthcoming sequel, FALL OF NIGHT, 2014. He also wrote the movie novelization, THE WOLFMAN, 2010, winner of the Scribe Award for Best Adaptation; and is scheduled to write DEADLANDS: GHOSTWALKERS, an original novel inspired by the million-copy-selling role-playing game. .  

He writes in several genres. His young adult fiction includes ROT & RUIN (2011; now in development for film; named in Booklist’s Ten Best Horror Novels for Young Adults, a Bram Stoker and Pennsylvania Keystone to Reading winner; nominee for several state Teen Book Awards; winner of the Cybils Award, the Eva Perry Mock Printz medal, Dead Letter Best Novel Award, and four Melinda Awards); DUST & DECAY (winner of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award; FLESH & BONE (winner of the Bram Stoker Award; 2012; and FIRE & ASH (August 2013). His thrillers include The Joe Ledger Thrillers from St. Martin’s Griffin (PATIENT ZERO, 2009, winner of the Black Quill and a Bram Stoker Award finalist for Best Novel; THE DRAGON FACTORY, 2010; THE KING OF PLAGUES, 2011; ASSASSIN’S CODE, 2011; EXTINCTION MACHINE, 2013; CODE ZER0, 2014, and PREDATOR ONE, 2015.  His mystery novels include the upcoming Dylan Quinn mystery-thriller series for teens: WATCH OVER ME (Simon & Schuster, 2014) and COLD, COLD HEART (2015); and the NIGHTSIDERS series of middle-grade horror/sci-fi adventures, which debut in 2015. His horror novels include The Pine Deep Trilogy from Pinnacle Books (GHOST ROAD BLUES, 2006, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium; DEAD MAN’S SONG, 2007; and BAD MOON RISING, 2008), as well as DEAD OF NIGHT, 2011 (named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium) and its forthcoming sequel, FALL OF NIGHT, 2014. He also wrote the movie novelization, THE WOLFMAN, 2010, winner of the Scribe Award for Best Adaptation; and is scheduled to write DEADLANDS: GHOSTWALKERS, an original novel inspired by the million-copy-selling role-playing game. .  

JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times best-selling and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. His books have been sold to more than twenty countries. His novels include the Pine Deep Trilogy: GHOST ROAD BLUES, DEAD MAN'S SONG  and BAD MOON RISING; the Joe Ledger series of action thrillers from St. Martins Griffin: PATIENT ZERO, THE DRAGON FACTORY, THE KING OF PLAGUES, ASSASSIN'S CODE, EXTINCTION MACHINE; THE WOLFMAN (NY Times bestseller from Tor and winner of the Scribe Award for Best AdaptatiON; the Benny Imura series of Young Adult dystopian zombie thrillers from Simon & Schuster: ROT & RUIN and DUST & DECAY , FLESH & BONE and FIRE & ASH; and the forthcoming zombie thriller DEAD OF NIGHT   

JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times best-selling and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. His books have been sold to more than twenty countries. His novels include the Pine Deep Trilogy: GHOST ROAD BLUES, DEAD MAN'S SONG  and BAD MOON RISING; the Joe Ledger series of action thrillers from St. Martins Griffin: PATIENT ZERO, THE DRAGON FACTORY, THE KING OF PLAGUES, ASSASSIN'S CODE, EXTINCTION MACHINE; THE WOLFMAN (NY Times bestseller from Tor and winner of the Scribe Award for Best AdaptatiON; the Benny Imura series of Young Adult dystopian zombie thrillers from Simon & Schuster: ROT & RUIN and DUST & DECAY , FLESH & BONE and FIRE & ASH; and the forthcoming zombie thriller DEAD OF NIGHT   

In this science fiction podcast, we interview author Aaron Rosenberg. Originally from New Jersey and New York, Aaron Rosenberg returned to New York City in 1996 after stints in New Orleans and Kansas. He has taught college-level English and worked in corporate graphics and book publishing. Rosenberg has written novels for Star Trek, StarCraft, Warcraft, Exalted, Stargate Atlantis, and Warhammer. He also writes educational books, young adult novels, children's books, and roleplaying games. He won an Origins Award in 2003, for Gamemastering Secrets, a Gold ENnie in 2007, for Lure of the Lich Lord, and a 2003 PsiPhi Award for Collective Hindsight, Book One. His second Warcraft novel, Beyond the Dark Portal, was nominated for a Scribe Award in 2009 and his young adult novelization Bandslam: The Novel won the award for best Young Adult novel in 2010. Rosenberg wrote the first-ever tie-in novel for the television series Eureka, entitled Substitution Method, under the house name Cris Ramsay. His second Eureka novel, Roads Less Traveled, was released in early 2011. His first original novel, the space-opera Birth of the Dread Remora, was published by Crossroad Press in early 2011. Rosenberg is also part of Crazy 8 Press, a cooperative publishing venture he started in 2011 with fellow authors Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, Glenn Hauman, and Howard Weinstein. His humorous science fiction novel No Small Bills was released as an e-book from Crazy 8 in September 2011 and immediately hit the NOOK Bestseller list--it rose as high as No. 33.It is slated for a trade paperback release in November 2011. Rosenberg lives in New York City with his family.

In this science fiction podcast, we interview author Aaron Rosenberg. Originally from New Jersey and New York, Aaron Rosenberg returned to New York City in 1996 after stints in New Orleans and Kansas. He has taught college-level English and worked in corporate graphics and book publishing. Rosenberg has written novels for Star Trek, StarCraft, Warcraft, Exalted, Stargate Atlantis, and Warhammer. He also writes educational books, young adult novels, children's books, and roleplaying games. He won an Origins Award in 2003, for Gamemastering Secrets, a Gold ENnie in 2007, for Lure of the Lich Lord, and a 2003 PsiPhi Award for Collective Hindsight, Book One. His second Warcraft novel, Beyond the Dark Portal, was nominated for a Scribe Award in 2009 and his young adult novelization Bandslam: The Novel won the award for best Young Adult novel in 2010. Rosenberg wrote the first-ever tie-in novel for the television series Eureka, entitled Substitution Method, under the house name Cris Ramsay. His second Eureka novel, Roads Less Traveled, was released in early 2011. His first original novel, the space-opera Birth of the Dread Remora, was published by Crossroad Press in early 2011. Rosenberg is also part of Crazy 8 Press, a cooperative publishing venture he started in 2011 with fellow authors Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, Glenn Hauman, and Howard Weinstein. His humorous science fiction novel No Small Bills was released as an e-book from Crazy 8 in September 2011 and immediately hit the NOOK Bestseller list--it rose as high as No. 33.It is slated for a trade paperback release in November 2011. Rosenberg lives in New York City with his family.