Viewing: podcasts
Hey, folks. I’ve had a new essay published by Vex Mosaic, the magazine of speculative thought. Vex was founded by Dave Robison of The Roundtable Podcast, who also narrated by short story “Sundae” for Podcastle. It remains one of the finest, most moving readings of one of my stories to-date, so when Dave hit me up about contributing to “The Vex” I was all about it.
My essay, “Fuck Flying Cars: On Futurism in Fiction” is exactly what it sounds like. I’m looking at futurism for fiction writers, the difference between futurism and futuristic fantasy, why that’s an important distinction, and what makes good futurism in fiction (beyond the ability to see into the future, obviously).
I think it’s a worthy piece, and I hope you take something from it.
I’m very much into what Dave and his staff are doing with this, and I hope you’ll support it. As much as he wanted to create a market to explore SFF beyond the page, he wanted to give writers another paying market to go to. That’s always a goal I’m behind. You should be, too.
And I’m sure you’ll be reading me in Vex again.
So, yeah. Read, enjoy, and please share on your social medias-type things.
A terrible-quality picture of Mur, Gail, and I all recording a podcast together live at Balticon in 2010. Because symmetry and the cyclical nature of things. Or something.
Some good things do last, folks.
At the end of 2014 Campbell Award-winning author Mur Lafferty and I recorded a podcast with no name. We had a frank and honest discussion, not about writing, but about our careers as writers. That conversation spawned something we still didn’t fully understand called Ditch Diggers, and over the past several months we’ve slowly figured out what this show is and not only has it gotten pretty popular, it’s gotten, in my humble opinion, pretty good.
And now we’ve hit episode 10.
We are in DOUBLE DIGITS, my friends.
Mur and I wanted our tenth episode to be special, so we went out and got none other than the New York Times best-selling author of The Parasol Protectorate and the Finishing School series, Gail Carriger, to co-host!
Mur and Gail in all their splendor.
Gail takes us inside of being a true best-selling author (none of that Amazon subcategory “best-seller” on the cyborg dog/YA dystopian/werewolf erotica/whatever-the-fuck list bullshit). She talks about what happens when you write a book that blows up and where you go from there. She discusses the process, the numbers, the pitfalls, the publishers, the promotion, the fans, the triumphs, the defeats, all of it. It’s a truly illuminating look at life on the best-seller list from every angle, and I’m fucking thrilled to have her and all of that for Mur’s and my tenth episode of the show, and for all of you.
Gail is also an actual fan of the podcast and has listened to every episode, which means she was able to call me on all of my bullshit. All of it. Constantly. And make hilarious callbacks for our diehard fans.
It’s a great episode of a show I’ve become very proud of, and I hope you all enjoy it and take a lot from it.
Be sure to share this episode and subscribe to the podcast!
Here’s to ten times ten episodes more.
And now some random quotes from our landmark tenth outing of the show co-hosted by Gail Carriger!
“I was just thinking you couldn’t sound less excited.”
“Even if you become Gail Carriger-level, shit still happens.”
“You’re getting all [Kameron] Hurley on my ass.”
“Mur’s seeing the bottom of her own glass right now, she doesn’t give a fuck.”