Podcasts about unnamed midwife

Precogs can predict crime, but did they anticipate the seminal science fiction novella would become a Steven Spielberg blockbuster? You'd need a specialist to pick apart the causality, and thankfully Meg Elison, a Philip K. Dick Award winning novelist, joins Red Scott and Maggie Tokuda-Hall to discuss The Minority Report, a 1956 novella, and Minority Report, the 2002 film. You can find the full issue of Fantastic Universe, where The Minority Report first appeared, here. Meg Elison is a Brooklyn author and essayist. Her debut novel, "The Book of the Unnamed Midwife" won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. Her novelette, "The Pill" won the 2021 Locus Award. She is a Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon Awards finalist. She has been an Otherwise Award honoree twice. Her YA debut, “Find Layla” was published in fall 2020 by Skyscape. It was named one of Vanity Fair's Best 15 Books of 2020. Her parasocial thriller, "Number One Fan" was published in August 2022 by Mira Books.  Order Maggie's newest book, The Siren, the Song, and the Spy If you like us, you'll also enjoy: Following the pod on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/failuretoadaptpodcast/ Following the pod on X: https://x.com/FailureAdapt Supporting Failure to Adapt on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FailureToAdaptPodcast

Smack and Gabi compete to find out who read the best combination of books for the Mysterious Galaxy Summer Bingo by having random PvP fights between their books. Books pitted against each other in this episode (part one of two) include: The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett v. Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara v. Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison v. Legendary Cracow by Ewa Basiura Stealing Thunder by Alina Boyden v. Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women's Speculative Fiction by Sami Schalk The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen v. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin v. The Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor v. The Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo Shuri: The Search for Black Panther by Nnedi Okorafor v. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo Gods and Monsters by Shelby Mahurin v. Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi The Resurrectionist of Caligo by Alicia Zaloga and Wendy Trimboli v. The Heist by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison v. Shuri: The Search for Black Panther by Nnedi Okorafor The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi translated by Cathy Hirano v. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Continuation of a fascinating conversation with writer Meg Elison, author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife and many more. Music at the end from Sunflower Bean with Baby Don't Cry.

Psychological thriller author Sara Foster's new book The Hush is a near-future thriller which has been described as 'smart and considered, the book I wish I had written' by best selling crime author Dervla McTiernan. It's an unflinching look at a society close to tipping point. A story for our times and one that is very reminiscent of what we're actually living throughout at the moment in this pandemic. The Hush highlights the power of female friendships - something Sara is passionate about - through a dynamic group of women, determined to triumph against the odds. And it's the result of five years of research into dystopian fiction which will soon earn Sara her PhD. Grab a cuppa and join Sara and Pam on The Convo Couch as they chat about The Hush and what's at the heart of Sara's writing.   SHOW NOTES: Writes4Women www.writes4women.com Facebook @writes4women Twitter / Instagram @w4wpodcast   W4W Patreon https://www.writes4women.com/support-us-on-patreon   Sara Foster Website: click here Instagram: click here Twitter: click here Buy The Hush here The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison buy here     Pamela Cook www.pamelacook.com.au Facebook: click here Twitter: click here  Instagram: click here   This episode produced by  Pamela Cook for Writes4Women.           Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/writes4women?fan_landing=true See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sara Foster was born and raised in England but now lives in Perth with her husband and young daughters. She has previously worked as an editor in-house at HarperCollins UK and then freelance and has worked on many popular titles. She loves dystopian fiction so much that she's studying the genre for a PhD at Curtin University. So it will come as no surprise that today we are discussing her somewhat dystopian book, and her latest novel, The Hush. Our interview begins at 21 minutes.  Mini book club: Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney A smart and addictive romantic YA novel that explores race, relationships and what it means to own your truth.  In this interview, we chat about: How Sara developed the idea for The Hush and why the mother-daughter relationship was central to the narrative Why Sara chose to write something so close to our current reality, with a story set less than 10 years in the future, and why she set it in England The freaky ways the books has mirrored real events Exploring the nuances of the mother-daughter relationship within The Hush Sara's writing career and working on other books alongside The Hush Blending genres and why Sara is so fascinated with dystopia - how does the genre evolve from here? Why Sara wanted to pursue a PhD and how the novel developed out of that Books and other things mentioned: 100 Remarkable Feats of Xander Maze by Clayton Zane Comber The Hate U Give (film) The Hunger Games Divergent Only Ever Yours Help (film) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison Follow Sara https://www.instagram.com/sarafosterauthor/ (@sarafosterauthor). The Hush is available now. Follow us on Instagram https://ww.instagram.com/betterwordspod (@betterwordspod) Please note that Caitlin's job at HarperCollins Publishers did not affect our decision to invite Sara to be a guest, we're delighted to have her and hope you enjoy this episode. Michelle also read a PR copy. 

Smack and Gabi do a few deep dives into some recent reads and learn to trust our DNF instincts. Main books discussed include: Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows duology) by Leigh Bardugo A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison Burning Roses by S.L. Huang Show notes are available HERE.

The Locus Award Winning, Perfect and Prolific Author & Essayist Meg Elison (Find Layla, Big Girl, The Book of The Unnamed Midwife, etc…) agreed to join Maggie Tokuda-Hall & Red Scott to discuss absolutely any adaptation, as long as it was the Thomas Harris novel The Silence of the Lambs (1988) and the Jonathan Demme film, The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Keep up with Meg on twitter at @megelison and her website megelison.com Some resources related to the transphobia in film and in The Silence of The Lambs in particular: The Jo Moses's essay Should we still be protesting “The Silence of the Lambs?” Jos Truitt's essay My Auntie Buffalo Bill: The Unavoidable Transmisogyny of Silence of the Lambs ContraPoints's video J.K. Rowling Laverne Cox's documentary Disclosure At one point, Meg & Maggie spontaneously burst into Marcia Belsky's 100 Tampons If you like us, you'll also enjoy: Following the pod on twitter: https://twitter.com/FailureAdapt Supporting Failure to Adapt on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FailureToAdaptPodcast

This week, Liberty and Patricia discuss My Heart is a Chainsaw, Fast Pitch, Revelator, and more great books. Pick up an All the Books! shirt, sticker, and more right here. Follow All the Books! using RSS, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify and never miss a beat book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. BOOKS DISCUSSED ON THE SHOW: Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be by Nichole Perkins My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones Fast Pitch by Nic Stone Revelator by Daryl Gregory Punderworld: Vol 1 by Linda Sejic Battle Royal by Lucy Parker For the Love of April French by Penny Aimes WHAT WE'RE READING: The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart MORE BOOKS OUT THIS WEEK: Forestborn by Elayne Audrey Becker Negative Cat by Sophie Blackall Father / Genocide by Margo Tamez The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women by Nancy Marie Brown Song by Michelle Jana Chan On Home by Becca Spence Dobias   Moon and the Mars by Kia Corthron Exodus, Revisited: My Unorthodox Journey to Berlin by Deborah Feldman  The Women Who Changed Art Forever: Feminist Art by Valentina Grande The Royals Next Door by Karina Halle Three Rooms by Jo Hamya A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang  The House of Music: Raising the Kanneh-Masons by Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky by Andrew D. Kaufman  The Riviera House by Natasha Lester  Take Me With You When You Go by David Levithan and Jennifer Nivenan In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu Night Frights: The Haunted Mustache by Joe McGee, Teo Skaffa Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children's Novels to Refresh Our Tired Souls by Mitali Perkins  The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins  Be My Ghost by Carol J. Perry N-4 Down: The Hunt for the Arctic Airship Italia by Mark Piesing The Last Guests by JP Pomare The Devil You Know (Mercenary Librarians Book 2) by Kit Rocha  The Last Chance Library by Freya Sampson The Last Words We Said by Leah Scheier The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat by Matt Siegel The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith Jane of Battery Park by Jaye Viner  In Kiltumper: A Year in an Irish Garden by Niall Williams and Christine Breen Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories by Hilma Wolitzer The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and Merve Emre This Is Happiness by Niall Williams  My Book of the Dead: New Poems by Ana Castillo Constance by Matthew FitzSimmons  These Toxic Things: A Thriller by Rachel Howzell Hall See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Smack and Gabi talk their current, recent, and upcoming reads. Highlights include trying to convince Smack to DNF the Book of the Unnamed Midwife and trying to convince Gabi to not bring a hardcover trilogy on vacation to Hawaii. Main books discussed include: The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson Burning Roses by S.L. Huang The Simon Snow trilogy by Rainbow Rowell The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes (Pandava Quintet #3) by Roshani Chokshi Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard Show notes are available HERE.

On this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate senior writer and Outward podcast co-host Christina Cauterucci talks to Robin Marty about the Supreme Court’s plans with Roe v. Wade, and what women can do to prepare for the worst.  Robin Marty is the author of The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America. She’s also the communications director of the West Alabama Women’s Center and the Yellowhammer Fund, which provides funding and logistical support to women in need of abortions. They discuss what abortion access might look like if the justices further erode Roe. They also talk about why Robin once said she was ready for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, and why national exhaustion has caused her to change her mind. In the second half of the show, it’s all about survival. Christina and Robin focus on the ways women will (hopefully) still be able to get access to reproductive health care, why self-managed abortions could become crucial, how privacy will take on increasing importance, and how people can help. Plus, they’ll tell you how you should decide when it’s time to “break some laws and do some bad stuff.” Recommendations: Christina recommends Tevas, specifically the Hurricane Drift sandals. “It literally feels like you’re wearing clouds on your feet.” Robin recommends Meg Elison’s “The Road to Nowhere” series, which starts with The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, then The Book of Etta, and finally the The Book of Flora. The books focus on a post-apocalyptic landscape after a fever has swept the earth, killing women and children and making childbirth very dangerous. In the series, women try to survive while helping others prevent pregnancies and births. Robin calls it a “breathtaking series that I absolutely love.” Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Susan Matthews and June Thomas. Additional production help by Rosemary Belson.  Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate senior writer and Outward podcast co-host Christina Cauterucci talks to Robin Marty about the Supreme Court’s plans with Roe v. Wade, and what women can do to prepare for the worst.  Robin Marty is the author of The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America. She’s also the communications director of the West Alabama Women’s Center and the Yellowhammer Fund, which provides funding and logistical support to women in need of abortions. They discuss what abortion access might look like if the justices further erode Roe. They also talk about why Robin once said she was ready for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, and why national exhaustion has caused her to change her mind. In the second half of the show, it’s all about survival. Christina and Robin focus on the ways women will (hopefully) still be able to get access to reproductive health care, why self-managed abortions could become crucial, how privacy will take on increasing importance, and how people can help. Plus, they’ll tell you how you should decide when it’s time to “break some laws and do some bad stuff.” Recommendations: Christina recommends Tevas, specifically the Hurricane Drift sandals. “It literally feels like you’re wearing clouds on your feet.” Robin recommends Meg Elison’s “The Road to Nowhere” series, which starts with The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, then The Book of Etta, and finally the The Book of Flora. The books focus on a post-apocalyptic landscape after a fever has swept the earth, killing women and children and making childbirth very dangerous. In the series, women try to survive while helping others prevent pregnancies and births. Robin calls it a “breathtaking series that I absolutely love.” Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Susan Matthews and June Thomas. Additional production help by Rosemary Belson.  Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's episode, we're talking about postapocalyptic fiction, specifically stories set in the wake of a climate apocalypse. The tentpoles are Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse, the fanfic "Moebius" by AuroraNova and Mad Max: Fury Road.   What We’re Into Lately The House of Niccolò series by Dorothy Dunnett Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert Parks and Recreation The World Figure Skating Championship A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge love, in fire and blood by cicer Practical Creativity by Raph Koster    Other Stuff We Mentioned Be the Serpent, Episode 3: Apocalypse Sometime, Maybe Next Tuesday Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge  The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge  Be the Serpent, Episode 38: A Hugo Award Special — The Novels of 2018 “Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time” by K.M. Szpara The Old Guard Atomic Blonde Studio Ghibli movies James Bond movies “Peer Gynt” by Grieg The first Mad Max movie Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman  Mass Effect games The ending of Mass Effect 3 Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison The Day After Tomorrow Who Should Live In Flooded Old New York? by Brooke Bolander Embers by Vathara The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin Lotus Blue by Cat Sparks Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve The Sea and Summer (aka Drowning Towers) by George Turner  ‘The Fall of Civilizations’ podcast How We Get to Carbon Zero by Bianca Nogrady The Expanse  Space Sweepers Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson Macey’s Fun Facts Bronze Age Mediterranean Corner 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline The most famous and meme-able trader to ever live, Ea-nasir   For Next Time Crimson Peak film   Content Warnings Gore and implied sexual assault in Mad Max: Fury Road Gore and (urban fantasy standard) violence in Trail of Lightning Transcription The transcript for this episode is available here. Thank you as always to our brilliant team of scribes!!

Amanda and Jenn discuss books about trees, great middle-grade audiobooks, dystopias, and more in this week’s episode of Get Booked. This episode is sponsored by Book Riot Insiders, the digital hangout spot for the Book Riot community, Literati, and Flatiron Books, publisher of The Paris Hours by Alex George. Subscribe to the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. Feedback The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden (rec’d by Summer) Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (rec’d by Summer) Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin (rec’d by Eric) Goodbye Vitamin by Rachel Khong and In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (rec’d by Elizabeth) In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (rec’d by Michelle) Questions 1. Hi Amanda and Jenn! Absolutely love the show. It’s almost stressful how many amazing books there are to read! I’m a straight single woman in my 30s who just recently left a good relationship headed towards marriage just because it didn’t feel right. I’d love to read fiction or non-fiction about women who did such a thing – left a good, decent man or relationship and still created happy lives, or women who found love a little later but were still able to have kids/a partner like they wanted. In this vein I’ve loved Spinster by Kate Bolick, The Rules Do Not Apply, and am about to read No One Tells You This by Glynnis McNichol. Thanks! -Polly 2. This summer, we are moving from California to Virginia and I’m looking for audiobook selections for the drive.  In the fall, I begin my MLIS specializing in Children and Youth Service/Public Librarianship.  I also have two daughters who may or may not listen in — a 9 year old and a 12 year old.    What are some more current middle-grade or YA audiobooks that would keep us all entertained, and will help prep me for my future in the library?     I’ve already listened to Harry Potter, the Lunar Chronicles, and some Rick Riordan.  We’ve also got a pretty solid book collection of popular titles including things like The Mysterious Benedict Society, Book Scavenger, Mr. Limoncello’s Library and Al Capone Does My Shirts.  Last thing — please no narrator with a British accent.  I know it’s weird, but it puts me to sleep so not good for driving!  I love listening to you — and because of that my TBR is out of control!   -Lisa 3. Hi! I was so glad to hear you were reading the Outrun by Amy Liptrot, I live on the island of Westray which is 15minutes by boat from Papa Westray (our little sister island) which as you know is the location for a lot of the Outrun. I hoped you enjoyed reading about our islands and way of life as a part of the book. If you enjoyed the Outrun and reading about ‘living on the edge’ and nature, I think you will enjoy ‘Heida: A shepherd at the edge of the world’ by Steinunn Sigurdardottir & Heida Asgeirsdottir which is a diary of the year former icelandic model turned sheep-farmer Heida fought to save her land from becoming a development site for a power plant, all while managing her flock of 500 sheep at the base of Katla, one of Iceland’s most notorious volcanoes.  So for me! I’m looking for some fiction where the forest (in a non-creepy way) is key to the book. While being in lockdown on a small idyllic scottish island is certainly nothing to complain about, I miss trees, we have had no trees here since the Vikings chopped them all down way back when! And now it’s too windy so any miracle trees we can get to grow just grow stunted, spindly and sideways. So I’m looking to get my beautiful forest fix through my books until I can travel to the mainland again and hug some trees. Thanks!  -Isobel 4. Hi ladies! I’m in need of escapist reading – and that means Queer Fantasy Romance. We’re talking magick and mages, sexy humans falling for even sexier elves, turmoil + angst, and through it all – a happy ending. Books in a similar vein that I’ve loved are the Charm of Magpies Series by K.J. Charles, Salt Magic, Skin Magic by Lee Welch, and The Kingston Cycle Series by C.L. Polk. These are all Victorian-era ish historicals (my fave) but I would love to find something more high fantasy, to ramp up that escapist itch. Bonus for an audiobook – that’s my favorite way of getting sucked into a novel! -Michelle 5. I’m looking for a dystopian/sci fi book.  This isn’t something I read often, but I like to kind of pepper my usual historical fiction/graphic memoir/ YA reading with it every once in a while when I need to shake things up a bit. Station Eleven, Age of Miracles, and Severance have done this for me recently.  I love how everything in my daily life starts to seem weird when I’m reading a book that makes me think about how everything could be changed.  Can you help me find something,  please?  I love the show! -Brooke 6. I need a good realistic fiction book to get me hooked back on reading.  -Christian 7. Two of my favorite books, Saga (Vaughan/Staples) and The Blind Assassin (Atwood), have pulp-y books as a main component of the story yet I have some how never read any myself.  I would love a few suggestions for books or authors to check out.  Almost anything goes, except I cannot stand when ancient or immortal beings start romantic relationships with teenagers/early 20-year-olds.  Eww, just eww. Thanks!!! -Kristin Books Discussed Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert  Untamed by Glennon Doyle (tw: alcoholism, bulimia), Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel Jose Older Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver (tw: loss of a spouse, bigotry) The Overstory by Richard Powers (tw suicide, self-harm) Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst The Tensorate series (The Black Tides of Heaven #1) by JY Yang  The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn Braised Pork by An Yu Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Everisto (tw: domestic violence, rape, racism, homophobia, self-harm, depression, child abuse) I Am Justice by Diana Munoz Stewart (tw sexual abuse of children) Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

The Ravens wish to express our gratitude for our patrons this month:Korin – from California Henry – from CanadaJohn – from TexasThank you for your support! Meg Elison is an American science fiction author and feminist essayist whose writings often incorporate the themes of female empowerment, body positivity, and gender flexibility.  Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award; her second novel, The Book of Etta, was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. Meg is a James A. Tiptree Award honoree (now known as the Otherwise Award, an award encouraging the exploration & expansion of gender) and also a producer of the Cliterary Salon, a monthly Bay Area performance celebrating inclusive female sexuality in all its forms. Meg shared her very honest opinion about both PantheaCon and its final event.Our dear friend Red Dragon also joined us during this interview. We will hear more from Red Dragon in a later episode.

Gender wars, pandemics, and, of course, workaday clones: is it the daily news, or our shared future? In the latest GrottoPod Gabfest, co-producers Susan Gerhard, Daniel Pearce and Beth Winegarner plus special guest Andrew Braithwaite take on dark visions, with four of our favorite dystopian novels under discussion: Meg Elison's The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Naomi Alderman's The Power, and Ling Ma's Severance.

The Testaments is probably the most highly anticipated book of the year and Jayne and Paula are keen to discuss the next stage for Gilead. What are your thoughts? Join the Facebook group to get into the discussion! And don't forget to subscribe and rate us on iTunes! Books they mention: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood The Model Wife by Tricia Stringer Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay The Year of Less by Cait Flanders The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu*k by Mark Manson Maybe the Horse Will Talk by Elliot Perlman The Best Kind of Beautiful by Frances Whiting Bone China by Laura Purcell Grand Union by Zadie Smith The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes Postscript by Cecelia Ahern Our book for next month is the much sought after debut novel, After the Flood, by Cassandra Montag. So come on, read along! Catch you next month!

Summary:   "Death by complicity." Writer, editor, fashion stylist and lover of period movies Steven Schelling joins us this week to talk about the huge impact Dangerous Liaisons has had on his life. Also discussed: dying of sadness, bra shopping and the summer of Keanu.   Show notes:   Steven Schelling on Instagram Dangerous Liaisons trailer   What is a dangerous liaison? (The Science of Psychotherapy)       Recommendations:   Lisa:  A Gentleman in Moscow (Netflix)   Andrea: The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (book) Steven: Derry Girls (Netflix)   Music credits:   "Deviate" by Podington Bear Sound of Picture     "Good Times" by Podington Bear From Free Music Archive CC BY 3.0   Theme song "Pyro Flow" by Kevin Macleod From Incompetch CC BY 3.0 Intro bed:"OLPC" by Marco Raaphorst Courtesy of Free Music Archive CC BY-SA 3.0 NL Pop This! Links: Pop This! on TumblrPop This! on iTunes (please consider reviewing and rating us!) Pop This! on Stitcher (please consider reviewing and rating us!) Pop This! on Google PlayPop This! on TuneIn radioPop This! on TwitterPop This! on Instagram Logo design by Samantha Smith Pop This! is two women talking about pop culture. Lisa Christiansen is a broadcaster, journalist and longtime metal head. Andrea Warner is a music critic, author and former horoscopes columnist. Press play and come hang out with your two new best friends. Pop This! podcast is produced by Andrea Gin and recorded at the Vancouver Public Library's wonderful Inspiration Lab. This episode was sponsored by TELUS STORYHIVE! STORYHIVE’s Web Series edition is back and better than ever! They’re looking for Web Series pitches from folks based in BC and Alberta, with stories that centre connectivity, health, the environment, and the digital economy. The 40 successful pitches will receive $20K and customized mentorship to produce a pilot. Applications are open until September 19, 2019 at 12 PM PST. Check the eligibility requirements and apply now on STORYHIVE.com.  

It's our first ever live show! We had the best time ever at the Betabrand store with real humans! In an actual space! Thank you to all who came out, but especially to guests RED SCOTT-- who was a Mouse Deer Scientist-- and MEG ELISON-- who was a Moa Scientist. We project images and play game and talk about animals that would look great on instagram.  Show Notes Red Scott on Twitter Red's personal website The Boars, Gore, and Swords podcast on iTunes Meg Elison on Twitter megelison.com The Book of the Unnamed Midwife on Amazon The Book of Etta on Amazon The Book of Flora! If Women Wrote Men the Way Men Write Women on McSweeney's Support Drunk Safari on Patreon Maggie on Twitter Drunk Safari on Twitter

Reproductive Slavery and the Apocalypse: Meg Elison Click above to download or find us on Apple Podcasts. This episode features author of the Philip K. Dick Award-winning The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Meg Elison. We talk about menstruating during the apocalypse, the “importance” of furthering the species, and I ramble at Meg about my... Continue Reading →

Katherine Paterson's beloved Bridge to Terabithia is the perfect subject for SSR's milestone FIFTIETH episode! The winner of the 1978 Newbery Medal, this novel is perhaps best known for its truly heartbreaking ending and the way it introduces young readers to grief. Drawing on her own experience watching her young son lose a best friend to a tragic accident, Paterson touches on themes of imagination, friendship, poverty, conservatism, religion, and more in Terabithia. We take a deep dive into all of these subjects in Episode 50!This week's guest is Meg Elison, who identifies as an LGBTQ writer and essayist. She also writes satire and stage comedy for her sketch group, The Mess. Meg is well-known for a viral McSweeney's essay entitled “If Women Wrote Men The Way Men Wrote Women,” and her novel The Book of the Unnamed Midwife was named a “Best Book of the Year” by Publisher's Weekly. Her latest novel is called The Book of Flora. Follow Meg on Twitter (@megelison).

Meg Elison’s The Book of Flora (47North, 2019) trilogy is as much about gender as it is about surviving the apocalypse. The first installment, the Philip K. Dick Award-winning The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, set the tone with a pandemic that destroyed civilization, leaving behind 10 men for every woman. To avoid rape and enslavement in this male-dominated landscape, the eponymous midwife must present herself as a man to survive. In the next volume, The Books of Etta, set a century later, gender remains fraught but the rules have changed. The midwife’s legacy lives on in the town of Nowhere, where women are decision-makers and leaders. In this evolved world, Etta is allowed to choose the traditionally male job of raider, although she must still pretend to be a man to travel across a sparsely populated Midwest. Fortunately, this isn’t as heavy a lift for Etta as it had been for the midwife since Etta prefers to be called Eddie and identifies as male. The notion of choice is one that Elison takes a step further in the trilogy’s latest and final installment, The Book of Flora. Born male, Flora was neutered as a young boy by a slaver, and, as an adult, identifies as female. Although she doesn’t always find acceptance among the communities she encounters, she refuses to hide her gender identity even when traveling alone, preferring the risk of being female to hiding who she is. “As the world goes from absolute chaos to small pockets of … a more peaceful existence for women, I thought the most gendered person in the series, Flora, was the right person to come to something like peace,” Elison says. Set in a still dangerous world, The Book of Flora is nonetheless a riot of humanity, full of characters representing marginalized voices and communities incubating new cultures and norms. There’s even a hint of an evolutionary leap that may one day make gender obsolete. “I was really interested in books like Gulliver's Travels, but also in the idea of, after the loss of national media and immediate communications, how different our societies would immediately become: we'd have these little pockets of culture where every town would have its own urban legends and every town might have its own religion and every town might have its own courtship rituals. So that that gave me a real opportunity to get weird and I got really weird with it, and it was extremely fun.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for a decade as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from medicine to justice reform. He now serves as director of communications at a non-profit dedicated to justice reform. You can follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meg Elison’s The Book of Flora (47North, 2019) trilogy is as much about gender as it is about surviving the apocalypse. The first installment, the Philip K. Dick Award-winning The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, set the tone with a pandemic that destroyed civilization, leaving behind 10 men for every woman. To avoid rape and enslavement in this male-dominated landscape, the eponymous midwife must present herself as a man to survive. In the next volume, The Books of Etta, set a century later, gender remains fraught but the rules have changed. The midwife’s legacy lives on in the town of Nowhere, where women are decision-makers and leaders. In this evolved world, Etta is allowed to choose the traditionally male job of raider, although she must still pretend to be a man to travel across a sparsely populated Midwest. Fortunately, this isn’t as heavy a lift for Etta as it had been for the midwife since Etta prefers to be called Eddie and identifies as male. The notion of choice is one that Elison takes a step further in the trilogy’s latest and final installment, The Book of Flora. Born male, Flora was neutered as a young boy by a slaver, and, as an adult, identifies as female. Although she doesn’t always find acceptance among the communities she encounters, she refuses to hide her gender identity even when traveling alone, preferring the risk of being female to hiding who she is. “As the world goes from absolute chaos to small pockets of … a more peaceful existence for women, I thought the most gendered person in the series, Flora, was the right person to come to something like peace,” Elison says. Set in a still dangerous world, The Book of Flora is nonetheless a riot of humanity, full of characters representing marginalized voices and communities incubating new cultures and norms. There’s even a hint of an evolutionary leap that may one day make gender obsolete. “I was really interested in books like Gulliver's Travels, but also in the idea of, after the loss of national media and immediate communications, how different our societies would immediately become: we'd have these little pockets of culture where every town would have its own urban legends and every town might have its own religion and every town might have its own courtship rituals. So that that gave me a real opportunity to get weird and I got really weird with it, and it was extremely fun.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for a decade as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from medicine to justice reform. He now serves as director of communications at a non-profit dedicated to justice reform. You can follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meg Elison’s The Book of Flora (47North, 2019) trilogy is as much about gender as it is about surviving the apocalypse. The first installment, the Philip K. Dick Award-winning The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, set the tone with a pandemic that destroyed civilization, leaving behind 10 men for every woman. To avoid rape and enslavement in this male-dominated landscape, the eponymous midwife must present herself as a man to survive. In the next volume, The Books of Etta, set a century later, gender remains fraught but the rules have changed. The midwife’s legacy lives on in the town of Nowhere, where women are decision-makers and leaders. In this evolved world, Etta is allowed to choose the traditionally male job of raider, although she must still pretend to be a man to travel across a sparsely populated Midwest. Fortunately, this isn’t as heavy a lift for Etta as it had been for the midwife since Etta prefers to be called Eddie and identifies as male. The notion of choice is one that Elison takes a step further in the trilogy’s latest and final installment, The Book of Flora. Born male, Flora was neutered as a young boy by a slaver, and, as an adult, identifies as female. Although she doesn’t always find acceptance among the communities she encounters, she refuses to hide her gender identity even when traveling alone, preferring the risk of being female to hiding who she is. “As the world goes from absolute chaos to small pockets of … a more peaceful existence for women, I thought the most gendered person in the series, Flora, was the right person to come to something like peace,” Elison says. Set in a still dangerous world, The Book of Flora is nonetheless a riot of humanity, full of characters representing marginalized voices and communities incubating new cultures and norms. There’s even a hint of an evolutionary leap that may one day make gender obsolete. “I was really interested in books like Gulliver's Travels, but also in the idea of, after the loss of national media and immediate communications, how different our societies would immediately become: we'd have these little pockets of culture where every town would have its own urban legends and every town might have its own religion and every town might have its own courtship rituals. So that that gave me a real opportunity to get weird and I got really weird with it, and it was extremely fun.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for a decade as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from medicine to justice reform. He now serves as director of communications at a non-profit dedicated to justice reform. You can follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God by Rose Lemberg   Father is trying to help me get into NASH. He thinks that seeing a real architect at work will help me with entrance exams. So father paid money, to design a house he does not want, just to get me close to Zepechiar. He is a professor at NASH and a human-Ruvan contact. Reason and matter­—these are the cornerstones of Spinoza’s philosophy that the Ruvans admire so much. Reason and matter: an architect’s mind and building materials. These are the attributes through which we can know God. And then, of course, there’s particle technology.   Full story after the cut: Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 68 for March 18, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to share this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, "These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God" by Rose Lemberg, and "Female Figure of the Early Spedos Type, 1884-" by Sonya Taaffe. This episode is part of the newest GlitterShip issue, which was just released and is available for purchase at glittership.com/buy and on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and now Gumroad! If you’re one of our Patreon supporters, you should have access to the new issue waiting for you when you log in. For everyone else, it’s $2.99. GlitterShip is also a part of the Audible Trial Program. This means that just by listening to GlitterShip, you are eligible for a free 30 day membership on Audible and a free audiobook to keep. Today's book recommendation is The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison. In a world ripped apart by a plague that prevents babies from being carried to term and kills the mothers, an unnamed woman keeps a record of her survival. To download The Book of the Unnamed Midwife for free today, go to www.audibletrial.com/glittership — or choose another book if you’re in the mood for something else.     Sonya Taaffe reads dead languages and tells living stories. Her short fiction and poetry have been collected most recently in Forget the Sleepless Shores (Lethe Press) and previously in Singing Innocence and Experience, Postcards from the Province of Hyphens, A Mayse-Bikhl, and Ghost Signs. She lives with her husband and two cats in Somerville, Massachusetts, where she writes about film for Patreon and remains proud of naming a Kuiper belt object.       Female Figure of the Early Spedos Type, 1884- by Sonya Taaffe   When I said she had a Modigliani face, I meantshe was white as a cracked cliffand bare as the brush of a thumbthe day we met on the thyme-hot hills above Naxosand by the time we parted in Paris, she was drawinghalf-divorced Russian poets from memory,drinking absinthe like black coffeewith the ghosts of the painted Aegean still ringing her eyes.Sometimes she posts self-portraitsscratched red as ritual,a badge of black crayon in the plane of her groin.In another five thousand years,she may tell someone—not me—another one of her names.   Our story today is "These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God" by Rose Lemberg, read by Bogi Takács.   Bogi Takács (prezzey.net) is a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person currently living in the US as a resident alien. Eir speculative fiction, poetry and nonfiction have been published in a variety of venues like Clarkesworld, Apex, Strange Horizons and podcast on Glittership, among others. You can follow Bogi on Twitter, Instagram and Patreon, or visit eir website at www.prezzey.net. Bogi also recently edited the Lambda Award-winning Transcendent 2: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction 2016, for Lethe Press. Rose Lemberg is a queer, bigender immigrant from Eastern Europe and Israel. Their fiction and poetry have appeared in Strange Horizons, Lightspeed‘s Queer Destroy Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny Magazine, and many other venues. Rose’s work has been a finalist for the Nebula, Crawford, and other awards. Their Birdverse novella The Four Profound Weaves is forthcoming from Tachyon Press. You can find more of their work on their Patreon: patreon.com/roselemberg       These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God by Rose Lemberg   Father is trying to help me get into NASH. He thinks that seeing a real architect at work will help me with entrance exams. So father paid money, to design a house he does not want, just to get me close to Zepechiar. He is a professor at NASH and a human-Ruvan contact. Reason and matter­—these are the cornerstones of Spinoza’s philosophy that the Ruvans admire so much. Reason and matter: an architect’s mind and building materials. These are the attributes through which we can know God. And then, of course, there’s particle technology. The house-model Zepechiar has made for my family is all sleek glass. It is a space house with transparent outer walls; the endlessness of stars will be just an invisible layer away. “I do not want to live in space,” dad hisses. Father hushes them. Zepechiar’s model for our new house is cubical, angular, with a retro-modern flair. The kitchen is the only part of it that does not rotate, a small nod to dad’s desire for domesticity. Outside of the kitchen capsule, the living spaces are all zero-g with floating furniture that assembles itself out of thin air and adapts to the body’s curves. There is no privacy in the house, but nobody will be looking—out there, in space, between the expanses of the void. “Bringing the vacuum in is all the rage these days,” the architect says. I pretend indifference. Doodling in my notebook. It looks like nothing much. Swirls, like the swirls our ancients made to mark the landing sites for Ruva vessels. For thousands of years nobody had remembered the Ruva, and when they returned, they did not want to land anymore on the curls and swirls of patterns made in the fields. They had evolved. Using reason. They razed our cities to pour perfectly level landing sites. They sucked excess water out of the atmosphere and emptied the oceans, then refilled them again. But then they read Spinoza and decided to spare and/or save us. Because we, too, can know God. If we continued studying Spinoza, Ruvans said, we’d be enlightened and would not need sparing or saving. I want to build something that curls and twists between hills, but hills have been razed after the Ruva arrived. Hills are frivolous, an affront of imagination against reason, and it is reason that brought us terraforming particle technology that allowed us to suck all usable minerals from the imperfections of the earth: the hills, the mountains, the ravines, the trees, leaving only a flatness of the landing sites between the flatness covered by angular geodomes. I learned about hills from the rebel file. Every kid at school downloads the rebel file. All around the world too, I guess. I don’t know anybody else who actually read it. I do not notice anything until my father and dad wave a cheerful goodbye and leave me, alone with Zepechiar. He’ll help me with entrance exams. Or something. He pulls up a chair from the air, shapes it into a Ruvan geometry that is perhaps just a shade more frivolous than reason dictates. He says, “Your father lied about the purpose of your visit. What is the reason behind it?” I mumble, “I want to get into NASH.” “Show me your architectural drawings,” Zepechiar orders. His voice is level. Reason is the architect’s best tool. I hesitate. Can I show him— No. I need something safer, so I swipe the notebook, show him a thing I made while he was fussing over dad’s kitchen: a cubical model of black metal and spaceglass, not unlike Zepechiar’s house model for my family. The distinction is in the color contrast, a white stripe of a pipe running like a festive tie over the steel bundle. Zepechiar nods. “Show me what you do not want to show me.” There is something in his voice. I raise my hand to make the swiping motion, then stop mid-gesture. “You could have convinced dad to say yes to that kitchen,” I say. “They would have cooked breakfasts for eternity, looking out into an infinite space until their heart gave out.” “I’m selling my architecture, not my voice,” he says, but something in his voice is bitter. Bitterness. Emotion, not reason. He is being unprofessional on purpose, perhaps to lull me into trusting him. “Why did you decide to become an architect?” I ask, to distract. A tame enough question. My father’s money bought me an informational interview. “Architecture is an ultimate act of reason,” Zepechiar says. It’s such a Ruvan thing to say. I must have read it a hundred times, in hundreds of preparatory articles. “I teach this in the intro course. Architecture is key to that which contains us: houses. Ships. The universe. The universe is the ultimate container. The universe is God. God is a container of all things. We learn from Spinoza that we can only know God through reason; and that is why we approach God through architecture.” “If God contains all things, would God contain—” swirls? Hills? Leviathans? “The thing you do not want to show me?” says Zepechiar. His voice lilts just a bit, and I am taken in. I swipe my hand over the notebook, to show Zepechiar what will certainly disqualify me from NASH. It is a boat that curves and undulates. Its sides are decorated in pinwheel and spiral designs. There is not a straight angle anywhere, not a flat surface. I have populated my Ark with old-style numbers—the ones with curves. There are two fives, two sixes, a pair of 23s. Zepechiar rubs his forehead. “What are the numbers meant to indicate?” “Um… pairs of animals.” I read that in the rebel file, but I do not know what they are supposed to look like. “This… is hardly reasonable,” says Zepechiar. “You know what Spinoza said. The Bible is nothing but fantasy, and imagination is anathema to reason.” I am stubborn, and yes, I’ve read my Spinoza. Scripture is no better than anything else. But God’s existence is not denied. I say, “You could use reason to replicate the Ark in matter.” “Yes,” Zepechiar says. Yes. We can use particle technology to manipulate almost any matter. Even sentient matter. His voice hides a threat. “I want to know where you learned this. And why did you draw this.” God told Noah to build the Ark and save the animals. Ruvans just sucked all the water out of the seas, froze some, boiled the rest, and put it back empty of life. The rebel file does not always make sense, but this is clear. “I wanted to recreate the miracle of the Ark, to imagine the glory of God.” Zepechiar says, “No. It is only through reason that you can reach God. God is infinite, but reason and the material world are the only attributes of God that we can reach. I want to know where you learned this.” His voice. His voice bends me. The rebel file. Everybody knows about the rebel file. Nobody cares about the rebel file. I can speak of it. Nothing to it. Just say it. Do what he says. Use reason. Straighten every curve. I mumble, “Ugh… here and there, kids at school, you know.” “I don’t.” He squints at me, halfway between respect and scorn. “Erase the Ark.” I breathe in. I have always been stubborn. “I do not want to erase the Ark. It is a miracle.” He breathes in. His hand is on my arm. “Miracles are simply things you cannot yet understand. Like particle tech and sentient matter.” He folds me. I’ve heard of the advanced geometry one can only learn at NASH, but this is more than that, this is something more. It is nauseating, like I am being doubled and twisted and extended. Dimensionally, stretched along multiple axes until my human hills—my curves, my limbs—are flattened into a singular geometric shape, a white pipe that runs around along the lines of the design studio, wrapping around the cubic shape of it like a festive ribbon. I am… not human anymore. I am sentient matter altered, like the rest of Earth, by Ruvan/human particle technology. I see Zepechiar from above, from below, in multiple angles. I have no eyes, but some abstract form of seeing, a sentience, remains to me. “I want to know,” Zepechiar says, “who altered you.” He falls apart into a thousand shiny cubes, then reassembles himself again, a towering creature of glimmering metal, a Ruvan of flesh behind the capsule of dark steel. I, too, am altered by him now, a thousand smaller cubes scattered by his voice, reassembled into the dimensional model of the house in the void. I see dad and father standing above my form. Perhaps they never left. They do not seem to care if Zepechiar is human or Ruvan. Zepechiar speaks to dad. “The perfect kitchen just for you—look at these retro-granite countertops, self-cleaning—” He pokes me. “Where did you learn this?” I think back at him, quoting the Scripture the best I can. “Two by two, they ascended the Ark: Male and female in their pairs, and some female in their pairs and some male in their pairs, and some had no gender and some did not care. Some came in triangles and some came in squares. And some of them came alone.” Like the Leviathan. The Leviathan holds all the knowledge the Ruvans discarded for reason’s sake, all the swirly landing sites, their own hills, their poetry. The Leviathan is the Ruvans’ rebel file. I no longer know my initial shape. I am made of hundreds of shining squares. My parents are here, in the room, but they do not know me. They are human—all curves and lilts of flesh. Forever suspect. I am Ruvan/human now. I am an architectural model, sentient matter transformed by an architect’s reason—and architects are the closest thing to God. “Think about all the damage scripture did,” says Zepechiar. “Holy wars, destruction, revision, rewritten over and over by those who came after but made no more sense. Think about what imagination did to this planet and to ours. It is dangerous. It makes you dangerous. But I will make matter out of you.” I am a house. Floating in space, rotating along all my axes. Inside me, the kitchen is the only thing that is still. I have been human or Ruvan, I do not remember, but I carry two humans inside me. They no longer remember me, but they came in a pair. I am their Ark. Zepechiar made me. A Ruvan/human architect. An architect is the closest thing to God. But so are the buildings architects create. So am I. Slowly, I begin to shift my consciousness along the cubic geometry of my new shape. Slowly, I move the space house, away. Where, in the darkest of space, there swims a Leviathan.   END   “Female Figure of the Early Spedos Type, 1884-" is copyright Sonya Taaffe 2019. “These Are the Attributes By Which You Shall Know God” is copyright Rose Lemberg 2019. This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library. You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, leaving reviews on iTunes, or buying your own copy of the Summer 2018 issue at www.glittership.com/buy. You can also support us by picking up a free audiobook at  www.audibletrial.com/glittership. Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a reprint of “Ratcatcher” by Amy Griswold.

Fantasy and science fiction stories have long embraced the darker themes of a dystopian future. Do these narratives speak to our fears of what the future will bring, or do they reflect the current reality in which the authors live and write? Is futuristic fiction pure escapism, or can it alter our destiny? In this episode of Lit Cast Live, Bay Area authors Charlie Jane Anders (All the Birds in the Sky; The City in the Middle of the Night), and Meg Elison (The Book of the Unnamed Midwife) explore these questions and more in a discussion moderated by Nilgun Bayraktar, a writer and professor at California College of the Arts. This Litquake event was recorded live at the San Francisco Public Library during their Night of Ideas on February 2, 2019. Note - due to technical issues at the time of recording, the audio for some parts of this this episode may appear slightly distorted. Lit Cast greatly appreciates our listeners understanding. 

‘the earth’s public lice’ and ‘the great allegory bird’ The Milky Way Galaxy's greatest person MEG ELISON is back, and she's here to hate on a crab, whose migratory habits are nightmarish at best. We get into extinction with Dodo Birds and unsettling scuttling with the Christmas Island Red Crab on our newest! Show Notes Meg Elison on Twitter megelison.com The Book of the Unnamed Midwife on Amazon The Book of Etta on Amazon PREORDER The Book of Flora! If Women Wrote Men the Way Men Write Women on McSweeney's Support Drunk Safari on Patreon Maggie on Twitter Drunk Safari on Twitter

Amanda and Jenn answer holiday gift requests in this week's episode of Get Booked! This episode is sponsored by Penguin Random House Audio and Book Riot Insiders.   Questions   1. Hello, I’m looking for a book recommendation for my friend. She has been going through complicated, heartbreaking separation and has had a tough few years. She’s always been an avid reader and recently mentioned to me that she thinks she’d like to read a sweet, hopeful love story. I really want to find her something like this for Christmas. Originally I suggested When Dimple Met Rishi and the Kiss Quotient to her, but she’s older than I am and I don’t know how much she would enjoy YA, and I don’t think she’d go for a true romance novel. One of her favourite books is Practical Magic, she also loves Kate Morton books, historical fiction and classics. Please could you suggest a heartwarming love story for my friend, bonus points for historical fiction or witches. Thanks --Emily   2. Hi! I absolutely love your podcast, as well as all the other Bookriot podcasts! For holiday presents this year I am gifting basically everyone in my family with books, as we are a family of avid readers. I'm pretty good with picking out books for everyone, except my brother. Lately we have also gotten in some heated debates regarding feminism. I was hoping you could give some suggestions for a non fiction book that addresses feminism and is backed by lots of cold hard facts, in a not too aggressive way if possible. I am hoping a book will get him to open his mind more to the struggles still facing women. Any feedback is appreciated, thanks again! --Liza   3. I'm planning a trip to Egypt this Christmas (2018) to get my fill of the sites there. Can you recommend some books, both fiction and non, that will help whet my appetite for my trips? I'm open to all stages of Egyptian history. I have already read the whole Elizabeth Peters 'Amelia Peabody' mysteries a couple of times and loved them. I would prefer to avoid dry boring histories and accounts for something a bit engaging especially as I tend to read to relax and don't want to have to think too much. Bonus points for anything easily available by ebook or audiobook as I live in a country where libraries and bookstores with English books are limited in selection. --Beth   4. Dear Amanda and Jenn I heard your nudge on your last episode to get Christmas recommendations in ASAP and I was spurred into action, especially as I have a two-fer if possible. The first is for a friend of mine. He asked me to find some book ideas to give to his sister for Christmas. She likes ‘books where women move to Cornwall or wherever and open a bakery or something and maybe fall in love’. She has read everything by: Lucy diamond, Jenny Colgan and Cathy Bramley He wants to find her something new, possibly someone with a big catalogue of books for her to keep reading if she likes it. The second is for me. Last year you recommended ‘Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe’, I think in your Jane Austen episode, and it was the last book I read in 2017. I LOVED it and it was the perfect light end-of-Christmas read. It was my first Christmas contemporary romance and I’m hoping you can find me another. Jane Austen connection welcome but not necessary. I normally read regency romances so that’s fine too, just something light and Christmassy to close off my year. Just FYI I hated Austenland. I’m in England so UK availability is a must for both. Thanks so much! --Kim   5. Hi! in Ep. 147 you recommended "River of Teeth" by Sarah Gailey which I bought for my boyfriend-- immediately-- like as I was listening to the show because he loves Hippos. Idk, it's a childhood thing that has morphed into an adult thing. Anyhow, he's obsessed with the book, he's almost finished. I actually bought "American Hippo", so he could read the whole series & stories. He can't stop talking about it! This makes me so happy! For Christmas, we are getting each other a book and chocolate instead of traditional gifts. I'm nervous because I hit it so out of the park on this book that any other book may be a let down. Can you help recommend another fun, romp of a book? It doesn't have to have hippos, lol. He's into Thrillers, Adventures, Fantasy (but while he watches High Fantasy, I've never seen him read it), Sci-fi. He loves Neil Gaiman and Murakami. He mainly gravitates towards shorter books & graphic novels. If you could recommend by early December that would be great! I really appreciate it. PS. Also, I LOVE your show because I always find the best recs for me/friends/family. In a sidebar, I sent my bff "The Book of the Unnamed Midwife" because she's a Doula and she is obsessed. --Kate   6. Hey there! I love your show and look forward to it every week! Ever since I started listening I can hardly keep up with my TBR list, my library holds list has gotten bonkers and I couldn't be happier! So thank you :) I am writing because I need some help getting a book for my husband for Christmas. We are both avid readers and started a new tradition last year that on Christmas Eve we give each other a book and spend the night reading and eating chocolate. He loves high fantasy and grim dark stories which are a bit out of my wheelhouse (I don't tend to like to go as dark as he does). He loves Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive and has read absolutely everything by Brian McClellan and Mark Lawrence. He also recently read Patrick Rothfuss (Kingkiller Chronicles) and loved it too. He also has really enjoyed The Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman and loved Ready Player One (neither of which are grim dark obviously). I'd like to get him something that he maybe hasn't heard of that will really knock his socks off! Looking forward to your suggestions! --MJ   7. My husband told me that for Christmas this year, he wants books (yay!). He specifically asked for a series that has at least 3 books already published, the longer the better. He doesn't read as often as I do, but when he does, he can tear through books/series very quickly, so when I say long, I mean loooooong. He's really into "high fantasy," especially Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, and Terry Goodkind. He also likes sci-fi and other types of fantasy, and sometimes reads big-name thriller writers like Stephen King and James Patterson. A while ago, I bought him the A Darker Shade of Magic series, which he devoured, and for Christmas this year I would like to introduce him to a new (to him) author/series that is somewhat in his wheelhouse, but maybe expand his horizons a little bit (ideally something not written by a white man and with main characters who are not white men). Thanks for your help, --Rebekah   Books Discussed How Long 'til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows The Witches of New York by Ami McKay (tw: violence against women) Life’s Work by Dr. Willie Parker A Brief History of Misogyny by Jack Holland The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif If the Fates Allow, edited by Annie Harper Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins Boneshaker by Cherie Priest All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (tw: institutionalized homophobia, torture, assault, etc) The Poppy War by RF Kuang (tw: assault, rape, genocide) Grace of Kings by Ken Liu The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin The Acacia series by David Anthony Durham

Amanda and Jenn discuss vacation reads for dads, toxic friendships, disabled characters, and more in this week's episode of Get Booked. This episode is sponsored by TBR, A Nice Day for a Cowboy Wedding by Nicole Helm, and Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep. Subscribe to the podcast via RSS here, or via Apple Podcasts here. The show can also be found on Stitcher here.   Feedback Attack of the Giant Baby and Other Stories by Kit Reed The Best of Robert Bloch Richard Matheson   Questions   1. I've been trying of late to read more feminist literature and novels from female perspectives. It's been pretty easy to find literary fiction to read, but I'm interested in reading some science fiction and fantasy novels with a feminist slant. I haven't had much luck finding them unless they are YA novels (I've read a few but to be completely honest YA just doesn't do it for me). Any recommendations? Thanks! --Genevive   2. Hello Ladies! I am hoping you can help me find a good book for my father to read on his well-deserved vacation at the beginning of December. He said he really wants to relax and so wants something light-hearted. I’ve realized that when I want a nice light-hearted read I normally reach for YA, which I have a hard time picturing him reading. I was already thinking of suggesting Becky Chambers and Lincoln in the Bardo (I realize the latter isn’t necessarily light-hearted but it just seems so up his alley I couldn’t resist). Some books I know he’s enjoyed in the past include Cutting for Stone, various books by Ken Follet, and A Walk In the Woods. Something humorous would probably be good. Thank you for your help and your wonderful show! I look forward to it every week! --April   3. Jenn and Amanda - I've been realizing over the past year that my closest friendship is with a toxic person and I need to cut ties. We've been friends since college, were in each other's weddings, and have become moms together so it's hard for me to walk away, even though I know it's what's best for my own growth and health. It's left me feeling very lonely so I'm looking for books to fill the lonely void and help me heal (as only books can do). I enjoy most character-driven fiction, as long as there is one likable character to root for, and memoirs that read like fiction (i.e. The Glass Castle). Thanks so much! --Kate   4. Hi! I love your podcast, you guys are great! Like with many people, my family can be hard to shop for. Think you can help with my brother? Some of his favorite authors are Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Matthew Woodring Stover, and Caitlín R. Kiernan. He is also a stickler for facts--he likes fantasy/horror elements, but if there are incorrect facts about real things (especially about history and politics) he'll decide a book is rubbish even if it's otherwise a good book. This means shopping for him can be anxiety producing. Help! --Anxious Sister   5. Hey Jenn, Please help--the love of my literary life is Sarah Addison Allen and I've read everything she's written (including the free shorts on Amazon) multiple times and I find myself needing more books that feel like getting a warm hug. There is something about the pacing and the combination of unique characters and circumstances (a grumpy apple tree? Awesome! Giants? Great! Wallpaper with moodswings? Love it!). I also love that while there are some problems and conflicts, they are not so dark as to overshadow the entire novel and while urgent in the moment, don't detract from that warm-hug feeling. The light touches of magic in otherwise realistic fiction are the thing that keeps me wanting more. Note: please not Beatriz Williams or Alice Hoffman. They keep getting recommended via goodreads, amazon and NoveList and for the life of me, I just can't seem to connect to their characters. Also, I know that you're backlogged, so if you'd rather answer in an email than on the show, that is absolutely fine--I will be grateful for your recommendations whenever and wherever you can provide them. Thanks!! --Abbey   6. Hi! I've been dealing with an undiagnosed chronic illness that has left me housebound for some time now. Reading about other disabled people's experiences has been eye-opening and comforting in that I'm not alone, but many of the books I've read (So Lucky, Invisible, Sick) have been difficult to read because they've touched on a lot of raw wounds. I'd really like to read something more lighthearted, but still featuring disability/chronic illness as a major plot point. I'm open to any genre, but own voices only please! Thank you! --Rachel   7. Just an FYI my name is pronounced Crystal. I am an avid reader of many genres. I find it hard to find mystery novels that I enjoy. I have read all of the Maisie Dobbs series and am a true lover of Sherlock Holmes. I would like recommendations of mysteries with interesting characters that don't seem pulpish. I hope that makes sense. Time, place, location are not a consideration.   Books Discussed The Tangled Tree by David Quammen The Ravenmaster by Christopher Skaife The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison Daughters of the Storm (Blood & Gold #1) by Kim Wilkins Swords & Spaceships newsletter and Goodreads shelf Shark Drunk by Morten A Stroksnes So Anyway by John Cleese The Fever by Megan Abbott Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins (TW: extreme violence of basically every imaginable kind) Rosewater by Tade Thompson The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby (rec'd by Susie D) Friend With Benefits Zone by Laura Brown Romances with disabled heroines: https://frolic.media/heroines-with-disabilities-six-romance-recs/ Death Below Stairs by Jennifer AshleyJenn Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye (TW: graphic harm to children)

Greetings Programs! We're back and get right to the geek fun. First, Kaebel tells tales of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios while Aaron & Bean get jealous. Then, a double comic review as we chat Umbrella Academy and Man-Eaters, both very different and very wonderful. Finally, Bean takes us into sci-fi novels with a discussion about The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. Plus, we have Erma the Nugget in studio!

a.k.a. 'sparkle spits' and 'ocean hankies' Special guest MEG ELISON is back and she's here talk the many and terrible caves of the world, but especially those that glow! We talk vomit nets, sparkle times, and ALSO Giant Oceanic Manta Rays! It's a lot. And you don't know Elsa, maybe she DID make her ice palace with vomit.  Show Notes Meg Elison on Twitter megelison.com The Book of the Unnamed Midwife on Amazon The Book of Etta on Amazon  If Women Wrote Men the Way Men Write Women on McSweeney's Support Drunk Safari on Patreon Maggie on Twitter Drunk Safari on Twitter

Born into a world where men vastly outnumber women, Etta is expected to choose between two roles: mother or midwife. And yet the protagonist of Meg Elison‘s eponymous second novel chooses a third: raider, a job that allows her to roam a sparsely populated Midwest, witnessing the myriad ways people have figured out how to survive. The Book of Etta is among this year’s nominees for the Philip K. Dick Award, following in the footsteps of its predecessor, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, which earned Elison the Philip K. Dick Award in 2015. In Midwife, Elison explored the dangers of being female in the aftermath of an apocalyptic illness that killed more women than men and rendered childbirth nearly always fatal. Etta is set a century later. The midwife is now revered as the founder of Etta’s hometown, Nowhere, and the midwife’s diary is a bible of sorts, the subject of study and interpretation. Thanks to the midwife’s influence, women wield power in Nowhere. They are the leaders and decision-makers, and family life is organized into Hives, with one woman free to choose multiple partners. And yet even in a town where women are safe and respected, Etta feels out of place. She is most at ease on the road, where she assumes a male guise, calling herself Eddy. In her lone travels, of course, it is safer to pretend to be a man. But Eddy is more than mere disguise. Over time, Etta realizes that Eddy is a true expression of her identity. “People like Etta often grow up feeling that the strictures imposed on them because of their assumed gender don’t suit them at all,” Elison explains in her New Books interview. “In Etta, I get to react to a lot of the gender roles that are imposed on women. … and explore what it looks like to pursue your own individual destiny.” The Book of Etta has many layers. It is an adventure story, as its hero looks for useful relics among the ruins. It is a rescue story, as Etta/Eddy seeks to free women trapped in bondage. And it’s a story about memory and the power of writing, as reflected in the biblical resonance of Elison’s titles. “I was really drawn to the idea of people without books, people without the ability to print books… People who don’t have books will come to rely on diaries,” Elison says. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe. He worked for a decade as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform. He now serves as director of communications at a think tank in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born into a world where men vastly outnumber women, Etta is expected to choose between two roles: mother or midwife. And yet the protagonist of Meg Elison‘s eponymous second novel chooses a third: raider, a job that allows her to roam a sparsely populated Midwest, witnessing the myriad ways people have figured out how to survive. The Book of Etta is among this year’s nominees for the Philip K. Dick Award, following in the footsteps of its predecessor, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, which earned Elison the Philip K. Dick Award in 2015. In Midwife, Elison explored the dangers of being female in the aftermath of an apocalyptic illness that killed more women than men and rendered childbirth nearly always fatal. Etta is set a century later. The midwife is now revered as the founder of Etta’s hometown, Nowhere, and the midwife’s diary is a bible of sorts, the subject of study and interpretation. Thanks to the midwife’s influence, women wield power in Nowhere. They are the leaders and decision-makers, and family life is organized into Hives, with one woman free to choose multiple partners. And yet even in a town where women are safe and respected, Etta feels out of place. She is most at ease on the road, where she assumes a male guise, calling herself Eddy. In her lone travels, of course, it is safer to pretend to be a man. But Eddy is more than mere disguise. Over time, Etta realizes that Eddy is a true expression of her identity. “People like Etta often grow up feeling that the strictures imposed on them because of their assumed gender don’t suit them at all,” Elison explains in her New Books interview. “In Etta, I get to react to a lot of the gender roles that are imposed on women. … and explore what it looks like to pursue your own individual destiny.” The Book of Etta has many layers. It is an adventure story, as its hero looks for useful relics among the ruins. It is a rescue story, as Etta/Eddy seeks to free women trapped in bondage. And it’s a story about memory and the power of writing, as reflected in the biblical resonance of Elison’s titles. “I was really drawn to the idea of people without books, people without the ability to print books… People who don’t have books will come to rely on diaries,” Elison says. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe. He worked for a decade as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform. He now serves as director of communications at a think tank in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born into a world where men vastly outnumber women, Etta is expected to choose between two roles: mother or midwife. And yet the protagonist of Meg Elison‘s eponymous second novel chooses a third: raider, a job that allows her to roam a sparsely populated Midwest, witnessing the myriad ways people have figured out how to survive. The Book of Etta is among this year’s nominees for the Philip K. Dick Award, following in the footsteps of its predecessor, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, which earned Elison the Philip K. Dick Award in 2015. In Midwife, Elison explored the dangers of being female in the aftermath of an apocalyptic illness that killed more women than men and rendered childbirth nearly always fatal. Etta is set a century later. The midwife is now revered as the founder of Etta’s hometown, Nowhere, and the midwife’s diary is a bible of sorts, the subject of study and interpretation. Thanks to the midwife’s influence, women wield power in Nowhere. They are the leaders and decision-makers, and family life is organized into Hives, with one woman free to choose multiple partners. And yet even in a town where women are safe and respected, Etta feels out of place. She is most at ease on the road, where she assumes a male guise, calling herself Eddy. In her lone travels, of course, it is safer to pretend to be a man. But Eddy is more than mere disguise. Over time, Etta realizes that Eddy is a true expression of her identity. “People like Etta often grow up feeling that the strictures imposed on them because of their assumed gender don’t suit them at all,” Elison explains in her New Books interview. “In Etta, I get to react to a lot of the gender roles that are imposed on women. … and explore what it looks like to pursue your own individual destiny.” The Book of Etta has many layers. It is an adventure story, as its hero looks for useful relics among the ruins. It is a rescue story, as Etta/Eddy seeks to free women trapped in bondage. And it’s a story about memory and the power of writing, as reflected in the biblical resonance of Elison’s titles. “I was really drawn to the idea of people without books, people without the ability to print books… People who don’t have books will come to rely on diaries,” Elison says. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe. He worked for a decade as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform. He now serves as director of communications at a think tank in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of Be the Serpent, we're talking about The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison, the Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, "Sailor's Delight" by jinjurly, and what we'd do in the event of an apocalypse. Things we mentioned: The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (Meg Ellison)Star WarsMad Max: Fury Road"Sailor's Delight" Broken Earth trilogy (N. K. Jemisin)School’s Out ForeverLord of the FliesIn the End (Alexandra Rowland)"Solfege" (Freya Marske)“The Day it Fell Apart” (Leslie Fish)Natural Disasters What we’re reading lately: Frederica (Georgette Heyer)Lotus Blue (Cat Sparks)The Belles (Dhonielle Clayton)A lot of Person of Interest fanfiction. Transcription The transcription of this episode is available here! Thanks to Magali, Neharika, and Sara for their amazing work this week!

TWICE a month, the librarians are in, with their favorite recommendations in Two Book Minimum, a toe-to-toe discussion on a book or topic, as well as news from the book world, updates from Lawrence Public Library, and beyond. TWO BOOK MINIMUM: Unwind by Neal Shusterman When She Woke by Hillary Jordan (and Mudbound by the same) One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made A Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life by Ayelet Waldman SHE SAID/SHE SAID: THE DILEMMA. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison Show notes: https://lplks.org/blogs/post/014-better-living-though-dystopia/ This episode was produced by Jim Barnes in the Sound & Vision studio. Our theme song is by Heidi Lynne Gluck. You can find the Book Squad Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or SoundCloud. Please subscribe and leave us comments – we’d love to know what you think, and your comments make it easier for other people to find our podcast. Happy reading and listening! xo, Polli & Kate

a.k.a. 'venomous vixens' and 'delicious snot bugs' Special guest MEG ELISON is here to make you unafraid of some spiders who could probably kill you? Anyway, her voice is like honey and she's probably got bigger balls than you. We also talk about Maggie's favorite food, I mean animal, I mean bug. Basically it's a bug. Related pro tip: If you have a vagina, never date a person who won't eat oysters.  Show Notes Meg Elison on Twitter megelison.com The Book of the Unnamed Midwife on Amazon If Women Wrote Men the Way Men Write Women on McSweeney's Support Drunk Safari on Patreon Maggie on Twitter Drunk Safari on Twitter

The subject of our first live episode is the new version of Stephen King’s IT (2017). We are joined by Philip K. Dick Award-winning horror writer Meg Elison (The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, The Book of Etta) and editor and publisher Jeremey Lassen (Borderlands Books, Nightshade Books). Just like the film, this episode is fun and loud. In fact, if this is your first listen, don’t despair at the noisy café sounds, our audio quality is usually top-notch thanks to Marc’s chronic audiophilia.

Hive! We review and discuss "The Book of the Unnamed Midwife" by Meg Elison.

An interview with Meg Elison, author of "The Book of the Unnamed Midwife" and "The Book of Etta".

Once a month, the librarians are in, with their favorite recommendations in Two Book Minimum, a toe-to-toe discussion on a book or topic in She Said/She Said, as well as news from the book world, updates from Lawrence Public Library, Audio Reader programs and beyond. This month's episode features... Two Book Minimum: - The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison - The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter by Kia Corthron - News of the World by Paulette Jiles - Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders - Exit West by Mohsin Hamid She Said / She Said: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by the late Amy Krouse Rothenthal (author of the viral essay, "You May Want to Marry My Husband") A production of Audio-Reader Network and Lawrence Public Library. reader.ku.edu/booksquadpodcast/ Theme Music by Heidi Lynn Gluck www.heidilynnegluck.com

Episode 107 features interviews with two bad ass feminist voices: Dr. Leah Torres and author Meg Elison.  Dr. Torres will be discussing the recent election and what women should be doing to prepare for a Trump administration in regards to access to healthcare, birth control, and abortion.  Meg Elison discusses her novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, and its upcoming sequel regarding a dystopian future in which women are endangered and access to proper healthcare is a thing of the past. (I promise this was written to be fiction.) News: Michigan HB 4643, update on the DAPL Standing Rock "victory", and a restauranteur that's ensuring transgender people have a safe place to work. Word of the Day: Salient Inciting A Riot is now a Patreon supported podcast. If you'd like to support this show, as well as my joint show Inciting A Brewhaha, please consider giving a small, monthly donation at Patreon.com/IncitingARiot.    Love and Lyte, Fire Lyte Blog: IncitingARiot.com FireLyte@IncitingARiot.com @IncitingARiot on Twitter Facebook.com/IncitingARiotPodcast Subscribe/Rate/Comment on iTunes: http://bit.ly/iTunesRiot

On this episode of The Writer and the Critic your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, open with a discussion about gender, publishing and awards, focused around the following articles: "Books About Women Don't Win Big Awards" by Nicola Griffith (see also the follow-up post on this project) "Homme de Plume: What I Learned Sending My Novel Out Under a Male Name" by Catherine Nichols They then move on to the two chosen books, The Godless by Ben Peek (31:55) and The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison (1:12:45). The reviews, blogs and podcasts mentioned during the discussion can be found via the following links: Pembroke Lecture on Fantasy Literature by Kij Johnson (podcast) "The Godless by Ben Peek" reviewed on Pornkitsch "Book Review: The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison" by Ian Mond "Ending the World with Hope and Comfort" by Matthew Cheney If you've skipped ahead to avoid spoilers, please come back at 1:54:00 for final remarks. For the next episode, Kirstyn has chosen Day Boy by Trent Jamieson while Ian is recommending Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre. Read ahead and join in the spoilerific fun!

[We regret to advise that there is some questionable audio for the first five minutes or so of this episode due to an unnoticed fault somewhere in the recording equipment. We sincerely apologise and ask that our lovely listeners persevere regardless. Thankfully, it doesn't last for long.] This episode of The Writer and the Critic was recorded live at Continuum 11: Southern Skies -- the Melbourne speculative fiction and pop culture convention. In keeping with tradition, the special guests on the podcast were the convention's Guests of Honour, Tansy Rayner Roberts and R.J. (Rebecca) Anderson, who each recommended a favourite novel to talk about. After introductions and some entertaining banter concerning Doctor Who fan fic, chocolate-mousse-filled cronuts and secret author identity crises, the discussion moves on to the books. Rebecca's pick was The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (15:40) while Tansy chose Growing Rich by Fay Weldon (59:20). Fans of Fay Weldon might also be interested to know that the 1992 mini-series of Growing Rich is available to view in full on YouTube. You're welcome. If you'd skipped ahead to avoid spoilers, it's safe to come back at 1:31:30 for final remarks. For the next episode, Kirstyn has chosen The Godless by Ben Peek while Ian is recommending The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison. Read ahead and join in the spoilerific fun!

Despite the odds, Meg Elison did it. First, she finished the book she wanted to write. Second, she found a publisher–without an agent. Third, she won the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction, a stunning achievement for a first-time author with a small, independent press. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (Sybaritic Press, 2014) is set in the American West after an epidemic has killed all but a fraction of humanity. Among the survivors, men vastly outnumber women, setting in motion a desperate journey of survival for the eponymous midwife. To avoid the serial rape and enslavement that threatens all females in this male-dominated landscape, the midwife sheds her name and even her sexuality, presenting herself as a man and continuously changing her moniker to suit the circumstance. Communication falls apart too quickly for anyone to even know the name or nature of the illness that’s destroyed civilization and made childbirth a fatal event for female survivors. The midwife’s focus is on giving the few women she meets the hard-won power to prevent pregnancy. “I think the thing I wanted to come across most strongly was to explode notions of gender… And to really think about what your options would be like if you, like your grandmother, had no control over when you had children or how or by whom,” Elison says in her New Books interview. Elison was raised on stories about the apocalypse–the fire and brimstone kind. “I grew up in some pretty crazy evangelical churches, and they hammered on us about the end of days and the Book of Revelation, and it gave me nightmares, and it made always think about the fact that the end was nigh and that it was going to be bad, and I think that stuck with me my whole life even though I shed the ideological parts of it.” For the midwife, the apocalypse poses threats both dramatic and mundane. When not searching for food and a safe place to spend the night, she must negotiate the frustrating reality of spending time with people she doesn’t like. “I started thinking about what it would be like if the only people you could find were people you couldn’t stand, if they just irritated in you every way,” Elison says. “There’s nothing wrong with them and they’re not unsafe, you just don’t like being there. So I wanted to make a character who had to make choices between feeling safe in a group of people and feeling pissed off all the time.” Elison is grateful for the editors at Sybaritic Press, who published her unagented manuscript. “They’re very good editors and publishers,” she says. But inevitably, she’s had to do a lot of marketing herself. “It’s good because I’ve learned a lot about the business doing that and it’s not good because no one listens to a writer on her own.” Fortunately, the Philip K. Dick Award has made finding readers a whole lot easier. The award “has opened a lot of doors,” she says. Related links: * An article in the Los Angeles Review of Books explores the book’s treatment of “Gender and the Apocalypse.” [Note: the article has spoilers]. * Meg Elison shares her thoughts on her blog. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite the odds, Meg Elison did it. First, she finished the book she wanted to write. Second, she found a publisher–without an agent. Third, she won the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction, a stunning achievement for a first-time author with a small, independent press. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (Sybaritic Press, 2014) is set in the American West after an epidemic has killed all but a fraction of humanity. Among the survivors, men vastly outnumber women, setting in motion a desperate journey of survival for the eponymous midwife. To avoid the serial rape and enslavement that threatens all females in this male-dominated landscape, the midwife sheds her name and even her sexuality, presenting herself as a man and continuously changing her moniker to suit the circumstance. Communication falls apart too quickly for anyone to even know the name or nature of the illness that’s destroyed civilization and made childbirth a fatal event for female survivors. The midwife’s focus is on giving the few women she meets the hard-won power to prevent pregnancy. “I think the thing I wanted to come across most strongly was to explode notions of gender… And to really think about what your options would be like if you, like your grandmother, had no control over when you had children or how or by whom,” Elison says in her New Books interview. Elison was raised on stories about the apocalypse–the fire and brimstone kind. “I grew up in some pretty crazy evangelical churches, and they hammered on us about the end of days and the Book of Revelation, and it gave me nightmares, and it made always think about the fact that the end was nigh and that it was going to be bad, and I think that stuck with me my whole life even though I shed the ideological parts of it.” For the midwife, the apocalypse poses threats both dramatic and mundane. When not searching for food and a safe place to spend the night, she must negotiate the frustrating reality of spending time with people she doesn’t like. “I started thinking about what it would be like if the only people you could find were people you couldn’t stand, if they just irritated in you every way,” Elison says. “There’s nothing wrong with them and they’re not unsafe, you just don’t like being there. So I wanted to make a character who had to make choices between feeling safe in a group of people and feeling pissed off all the time.” Elison is grateful for the editors at Sybaritic Press, who published her unagented manuscript. “They’re very good editors and publishers,” she says. But inevitably, she’s had to do a lot of marketing herself. “It’s good because I’ve learned a lot about the business doing that and it’s not good because no one listens to a writer on her own.” Fortunately, the Philip K. Dick Award has made finding readers a whole lot easier. The award “has opened a lot of doors,” she says. Related links: * An article in the Los Angeles Review of Books explores the book’s treatment of “Gender and the Apocalypse.” [Note: the article has spoilers]. * Meg Elison shares her thoughts on her blog. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite the odds, Meg Elison did it. First, she finished the book she wanted to write. Second, she found a publisher–without an agent. Third, she won the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction, a stunning achievement for a first-time author with a small, independent press. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (Sybaritic Press, 2014) is set in the American West after an epidemic has killed all but a fraction of humanity. Among the survivors, men vastly outnumber women, setting in motion a desperate journey of survival for the eponymous midwife. To avoid the serial rape and enslavement that threatens all females in this male-dominated landscape, the midwife sheds her name and even her sexuality, presenting herself as a man and continuously changing her moniker to suit the circumstance. Communication falls apart too quickly for anyone to even know the name or nature of the illness that’s destroyed civilization and made childbirth a fatal event for female survivors. The midwife’s focus is on giving the few women she meets the hard-won power to prevent pregnancy. “I think the thing I wanted to come across most strongly was to explode notions of gender… And to really think about what your options would be like if you, like your grandmother, had no control over when you had children or how or by whom,” Elison says in her New Books interview. Elison was raised on stories about the apocalypse–the fire and brimstone kind. “I grew up in some pretty crazy evangelical churches, and they hammered on us about the end of days and the Book of Revelation, and it gave me nightmares, and it made always think about the fact that the end was nigh and that it was going to be bad, and I think that stuck with me my whole life even though I shed the ideological parts of it.” For the midwife, the apocalypse poses threats both dramatic and mundane. When not searching for food and a safe place to spend the night, she must negotiate the frustrating reality of spending time with people she doesn’t like. “I started thinking about what it would be like if the only people you could find were people you couldn’t stand, if they just irritated in you every way,” Elison says. “There’s nothing wrong with them and they’re not unsafe, you just don’t like being there. So I wanted to make a character who had to make choices between feeling safe in a group of people and feeling pissed off all the time.” Elison is grateful for the editors at Sybaritic Press, who published her unagented manuscript. “They’re very good editors and publishers,” she says. But inevitably, she’s had to do a lot of marketing herself. “It’s good because I’ve learned a lot about the business doing that and it’s not good because no one listens to a writer on her own.” Fortunately, the Philip K. Dick Award has made finding readers a whole lot easier. The award “has opened a lot of doors,” she says. Related links: * An article in the Los Angeles Review of Books explores the book’s treatment of “Gender and the Apocalypse.” [Note: the article has spoilers]. * Meg Elison shares her thoughts on her blog. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices