Episodes
Sunday Jul 23, 2023
Episode 631: Awards, debut novels, and science fiction at the moment
Sunday Jul 23, 2023
Sunday Jul 23, 2023
After Gary enjoyed a weekend at Readercon, we’re back with another one-on-one ramble that covers topics from the proliferation of SF awards (and what they really might be for), to some recent and forthcoming books we’re excited about (including Kemi Ashing-Giwa's The Splinter in the Sky, Vajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright Doors, Wole Talabi’s Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, and Emily Tesh's Some Desperate Glory), the question of whether anthologies might rightly or wrongly be seen as definitive, and the importance of supporting short fiction publications given some major changes facing the field in 2023.
As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.
Sunday Jul 09, 2023
Episode 630: Kij Johnson and the Nature of Story
Sunday Jul 09, 2023
Sunday Jul 09, 2023
After an unplanned hiatus, we’re back with the wonderful Kij Johnson, who will be a guest of honour at this year’s World Fantasy Convention in Kansas City this coming October. Small Beer will publish a new collection of Kij's work, The Privilege of the Happy Ending, to coincide with the convention.
We discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching fiction writing in workshops versus university creative writing programs, how the workshop and the reading group have become so important to new writers since the early days of Kate Wilhelm and Damon Knight’s Milford, the different problems of writing short stories, novellas, or novels, the balance between estrangement and immersion in stories, and Kij’s own current and recent work, which ranges from experimental fiction to stories that revisit older writers like Lovecraft and Kenneth Grahame.
As always, Kij is bristling with good ideas, and we could easily have gone on for another hour.
Saturday Jun 03, 2023
Episode 629: Ursula Vernon and A Story with Good Bones
Saturday Jun 03, 2023
Saturday Jun 03, 2023
In this episode, Jonathan and Gary have a long overdue extended discussion with the wonderful Ursula Vernon (aka T. Kingfisher), whose excellent horror novel A House With Good Bones appeared in late March, and whose thoroughly original imagining of the Sleeping Beauty story Thornhedge, is forthcoming in August.
We also touch upon some of her best-known works like Nettle and Bone and A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, what she read while growing up, her career from webcomic artist to children’s author to fantasy and horror novelist, the role of humour in horror, and why even stories involving murder priests, child abductions, and gruesomely reanimated corpses are actually sweet romances.
As always, we would like to thank Ursula for making the time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.
Saturday May 20, 2023
Episode 628: Sarah Pinsker and Lost Places
Saturday May 20, 2023
Saturday May 20, 2023
Returning after a brief hiatus, Coode Street welcomes the wonderful multiple award-winning Sarah Pinsker, whose new collection Lost Places has just been published by Small Beer Press, and includes the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning “Where Oaken Hearts do Gather.”
We touch upon her career as both story writer and novelist, the relationship of her music performances to her fiction, the balance between teaching and writing, the challenges for new authors entering the field, and of course the stories in her new book.
Sunday Apr 23, 2023
Episode 627:Kelly Link for the love of a good book
Sunday Apr 23, 2023
Sunday Apr 23, 2023
This week, Jonathan and Gary talk with Kelly Link, whose new collection White Cat, Black Dog is already showing up on bestseller lists. It's her first themed collection, with each of the seven stories linked to a particular fairy tale.
We also touch upon several writers whose work has been important to Kelly, including Joanna Russ, Peter Straub, M.R, James, Fritz Leiber, Nicola Griffith, and Shirley Jackson, and even chat a bit about being an author who’s also a publisher (with Small Beer Press) and bookseller (with Book Moon), both co-owned and managed with Gavin J. Grant.
We also discuss a few other things, including her highly anticipated forthcoming novel, The Book of Love.
Monday Apr 10, 2023
Episode 626: Awards season, British criticism and more
Monday Apr 10, 2023
Monday Apr 10, 2023
It’s awards season again (or maybe still), so Jonathan and Gary take a moment to remind everyone of the deadlines for nominating candidates for Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, and Nebula Awards, and to discuss briefly a proposal to add a one-time category of “Best Fantasy Novel” to the Hugos at the 2024 Glasgow Worldcon.
They also chat a bit about the Best Related Work Hugo, and whether or not certain categories might be eliminated. First, however, they touch upon whether the central concerns of mainstream SF were laid down in the interwar era, as Paul Kincaid argues in a new essay. And then Niall Harrison's new collection, All These Worlds: Reviews and Essays. Finally, we touch upon the question of how important opening paragraphs and titles are when it comes to drawing a reader into a work of fiction.
Monday Mar 06, 2023
Episode 625: Kelly Barnhill and the Mind of a Writer
Monday Mar 06, 2023
Monday Mar 06, 2023
This week Jonathan and Gary are joined by World Fantasy and Newbery Award winner Kelly Barnhill, whose When Women Were Dragons was one of last year’s outstanding fantasy novels. We talk about her just-published The Crane Husband, which powerfully combines aspects of the classic fairy tale, science fiction, horror, and coming-of-age tale. We touch upon mixing genres, writing while raising a family, making up disposable fairytales, how stories involve both the forebrain and the hindbrain, and reading Terry Pratchett.
Sunday Feb 19, 2023
Coode Street 624: On short fiction
Sunday Feb 19, 2023
Sunday Feb 19, 2023
We are always casting around for inspiration. After getting ChatGPT to provide a new introduction for the podcast, Gary and Jonathan kick off a discussion about the health of the short fiction field, the scope and variety of short story collections due to be published in 2023, and share some (okay, many) thoughts on the history of short fiction collections in the science fiction field.
As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We'll see you again in two weeks.