Day 3 of our podcast Kickstarter, and I’m delighted to note that we’ve also started scheduling guests. Cadwell Turnbull has just confirmed (a brilliant young Black writer working in the postcolonial alien space), and Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner (we’ll be talking about queerness and Jewishness and writing in shared worlds and interstitial literary existence).
We’ve also scheduled three of my Wild Cards compatriots — David Levine and Kevin Andrew Murphy and Paul Cornell (who you may know from his fabulous TV work as well — he wrote the wonderful Dr. Who “The Family of Blood” episode, for example). I’m hoping we can have David and Kevin on together, and the three of us can get into the nitty-gritty of shared world writing.
I can already see that there are going to be more people we want to talk to than there will be time to talk to them — unless we made this a daily podcast, which is not going to happen unless some major organization throws a LOT of money at us, which seems pretty unlikely, and then I’d still have to talk my co-host Benjamin Rosenbaum into quitting his day job…
But weekly, I think we can manage; we’re going to introduce you to some incredible writers and fabulous people (many of whom are very funny — you have to listen to the Ellen and Delia Show, even if you’re not a fantasy reader, as they are just too, too cute together).
And hey, while I have you, I’d love to take requests — who would you love to have us bring on the show? Spec fiction writers, editors, agents are our core demographic, but y’know, if Samin Nosrat WANTS to be on our show, I’m not going to say no — maybe she’ll talk to us about the future of food? — so give me your wish list! Just post a few names in the comments, and our hardy audio & video editor, Darius Vinesar, will start compiling a list.
We’re also going to interpolate some of the interviews I did for the SLF over the last year into the podcast, so if you’re watching the video versions on YouTube, you’ll see me in conference hotel rooms talking to actual people IN PERSON — that’s a rare treat in this current age of pandemic Zoom.
In this little 3 minute clip, for example, I’m talking to Paolo Bacigalupi about how he wants to talk about global warming and resource depletion, and how he wants to talk to kids about these things — but also, he wants to earn a living, so how does he get his money and values? (He does it very well, as seen in his wonderful YA novel, _Shipbreaker_, recommended!) It’s a great conversation about how you can aim towards commercial success while also writing something you’re passionate about, a topic I struggle with close to daily.
For this one, you can actually view the full 30-minutes conversation on the SLF site too: http://speculativeliterature.org/portolan…/interviews/
We’re now at $294 of our $1500 goal, with 13 backers — thanks so much for your early support!!!
Join us here, where _Mohanraj and Rosenbaum Are Humans_ — or so we claim: https://www.kickstarter.com/…/slf-podcast-mohanraj-and…
(And as always likes, comments, and shares are very appreciated for visibility. Facebook algorithms, bah.)