Category Archives: Guest

Guest, Project in Depth, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.30: Project in Depth, THE CALCULATING STARS, with Kjell Lindgren

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, and Dan, with Kjell Lindgren

Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t yet read The Calculating Stars: A Lady Astronaut Novel, by Mary Robinette Kowal, you may wish to rectify that prior to listening.

In this episode we go into great depth on Mary’s novel with the expert technical help of NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, who was one of Mary’s consulting readers. Like most of our project-in-depth episodes this one runs long. Longer still because we were at JSC in Houston, which was incredibly cool for all of us, so nobody was watching the clock.

Liner Notes: The reference to “Type 2” fun comes from an as-yet-unpublished episode. Type 1 fun is fun in the moment. Type 2 fun is fun to talk about later. Maybe much, much later.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Benjamin Hewett, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Take something you’ve already written, and write a prequel set forty years or so earlier.

Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut, by Mike Mullane

Guest, Live Audience, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.28: What Writers Get Wrong, with Wildstyle

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At GenCon Indy 2017 we were joined by Wildstyle (@MrWildstyle on Twitter), who wears many hats, and many of the hats he wears are donned in service of producing hip-hop.

One of the most interesting revelations (especially for Howard, whose background in audio engineering predates MP3 technology by half a decade) was just how many hats there are. The role of producer in the hip-hop scene may include the roles of audio engineer, composer, and and even musician.

Liner Notes: For a deeper look at Wildstyle’s work, search Soundcloud for “Wildstyle DaProducer.” He’s been producing for a year since this episode was recorded.

 

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:06 — 11.8MB)

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Watch the James Brown bio-pic, Get On Up, starring Chadwick Boseman. Listen to some hip-hop music.

“Eastern Conference,” by Pope Adrian Blessed, Ares, and Wildstyle (link will autoplay at Soundcloud. Lyrics are flagged as [explicit])

Guest, Live Audience, Season 13

13.24: What Writers Get Wrong, with Piper, Aliette, and Wesley, with special guest Ken Liu

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Your Hosts: Piper Drake, Aliette de Bodard, and Wesley Chu, with special guest Ken Liu

Our hosts for this episode are experts in a great many different things. One thing that they have in common is that they’re all members of the Asian Disapora, and in this episode we’ll learn what kinds of things writers get wrong when writing Asian Diaspora elements, and how we as writers can learn to get those things right.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson

 

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Read China Men, by Maxine Hong Kingston

The Paper Menagerie, and Other Stories, by Ken Liu

Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Season 13

13.20: Fear and Writing, with Emma Newman

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Your Hosts: Dan, Mary, Aliette, and Howard, with special guest Emma Newman

Emma Newman, author, audio book narrator, and podcaster, joined us on the Baltic sea for WXR 2017, where, six days after a brilliant presentation on overcoming fear, she recorded a session with us on the same topic. The class was just that good.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and was mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:41 — 13.6MB)

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Read “The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare (it’s just 250 words). Now write the backstory.

After Atlas, by Emma Newman

Guest, Live Audience, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.17: What Writers Get Wrong, with Jamahl Crouch

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard, with Jamahl Crouch

Jamahl Crouch (Illusmm1 on Instagram) joined us at the GenCon Indy Writers Symposium to talk about what writers get wrong about street art. Jamahl is many things, and one of those is “street artist.”

Jamahl Crouch, pen on sketchbook, GenCon Indy 2017

We discuss the differences between graffiti and street art, where things like commissioned murals fit into the scene, and how the societal pressures (read: “it’s not legal to paint on this wall”) affect the form.

 

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Go watch The Get Down (available on Netflix)

Have a look at Jamal’s art on Instagram! Illusmm1

Guest, Live Audience, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.15: What Writers Get Wrong, with Mike Stop Continues

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Recorded live at WXR 2017.

Your Hosts: Dan, Mary, Aliette, and Howard, with special guest Mike Stop Continues

Mike has multiple areas of expertise, but for this episode he’s talking to us specifically about the things that writers get wrong about being a gay man.

Credits: This episode was recorded live by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Andrew Jackson.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:04 — 13.1MB)

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Change the sexual identity of a character in a scene of yours.

Underworld, by Mike Stop Continues