Category Archives: Guest

Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Live Audience, Season 14

14.38: Volunteer Opportunities for Writers, with Jared Quan

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Jared Quan

Jared Quan serves as a volunteer on several non-profit boards, and joined us to talk about the opportunities that exist for writers. Administration, leadership, writing and editing, and teaching are just a few of the many kinds of roles available for volunteers.

Credits: This episode was recorded live at LTUE by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Research writing organizations, and their events. look for volunteer opportunities.

Changing Wax, by Jared Quan

Career and Lifestyle, Guest

14.34: Author Branding

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Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Dongwon

Authors have brands whether they want to have them or not. It’s a simple principle of marketing, and the better we understand that principle, the better able we are to control how it affects our careers.

In this episode we talk marketing, and freely use terms like “relationship marketing,” “authentic experience,” and “brand loyalty,” despite the fact that sometimes these words make our inner artists cringe.

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

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Identify your brand. Think about the core aspects of your personality which you’re comfortable sharing publicly. Pick at least three things, and document them.

Be aware that “Murder Hat” is taken.

Empress of Forever, by Max Gladstone

Guest, Season 14, Theory and Technique

14.26: Lessons from Aristotle, with Rob Kimbro

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with special guest Rob Kimbro

Rob Kimbro joins us this week to talk about Aristotle’s elements of tragedy, and how they might be applied to our writing. The six elements are (in Aristotle’s order of descending importance): plot, character, idea, dialog, music, and spectacle.  We discuss this tool in terms of critiquing existing work, and in finding direction in the things we create.

Credits: this episode was recorded by Howard Tayler, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Take something you’ve written, and then rank the elements based on how important they are in what you wrote. Now re-order the elements, and rewrite the piece to match the new ranking.

Aristotle’s Poetics, by Aristotle, narrated by Ray Childs

Guest, Season 14, Theory and Technique

14.12: Writing The Other — Latinx Representation

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Tempest Bradford, Dongwon Song, and Julia Rios

Julia Rios joins us to talk about writing characters who come from one of the many Latin-American cultures or subcultures. “Latinx” is a catch-all term for people with Latin-American heritage, including mixed-race people. In this episode we talk about mash-up cuisine, intersectionality, and how to navigate the subtleties to find the specific cultural elements which will help you create Latinx characters.

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

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Research and then write a meal scene in the POV of a person from a specific culture.

Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, by  Carlos Hernandez

Guest, Season 14, Theory and Technique

14.03: Writing the Other—Bisexual Characters

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Your Hosts: Dan, Tempest, Dongwon, and TJ

This is the first of our Writing The Other episodes, in which we set out to help writers portray people who are unlike them. In this episode we’re joined by T.J. Berry. She walks us through the language and terminology of bisexuality.

 

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Find and watch the 100th episode of Brooklyn 99, which portrays the coming-out of a bisexual character

Space Unicorn Blues, by T.J. Berry

Archive Seasons 11-13, Guest, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.52: Working Dad is a Spaceman

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Your Hosts: Howard, Mary, and Dan, with NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn.

Last week’s episode may have sounded like the last one for 2018, but that’s an artifact of December having five Sundays rather than four. Fifth Sundays are our “wildcards,” and something wild seems like a nice way to round out the year.

Tom Marshburn, who is both spaceman and parent, talks to us about what it’s like to be both.

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

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The 3D sense of space’s blackness meets Type I, Type II, and Type III fun

A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, by Andrew Chaikin

Archive Seasons 11-13, Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Live Audience, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.50: What Writers Get Wrong, with Zoraida Córdova

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Zoraida Córdova

Zoraida Córdova, an award-winning author of urban fantasy, was born in Ecuador and grew up in Queens. She joins us to talk about what writers get wrong (and what they can get right and do well) when portraying latinas in the United States.

Credits: This episode was recorded live at FanX Salt Lake (formerly “Salt Lake Comic-Con”) by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

Liner Notes: 

  • The comic book Howard referenced is Guardians of Infinity #3, (2016), which features a back-up story entitled “Yo Soy Groot.”
  • Peggy Whitson is the astronaut Mary referenced. As of this writing, she holds the record for longest single spaceflight by an American. 

 

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A challenge! Find (and read) books written by Ecuadoran authors. Then make one of your own secondary characters be from Ecuador.

Labyrinth Lost, by Zoraida Córdova

Archive Seasons 11-13, Guest, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.46: The Unsexy Side of Space, with Bart Smith and Ben Hewett

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Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with special guests Bart Smith and Ben Hewett

When we talk about space travel we’re usually talking about rocket scientists and astronauts. In this episode we spoke with our guests Bart Smith and Ben Hewett, about the “unsexy” (read: possibly boring but don’t be deceived) side of the space program—budgeting, logistics, and procurement. RFI and RFP, with toilets, hammers, and business cards; that’s this episode.

(For those unfamiliar with the above TLAs [three letter acronyms], RFI and RFP stand for Request for Information and Request for Proposal.)

 

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Write a story in which a budget analyst and a procurement intern save the day

The Martian, by Andy Weir, about which we have gushed repeatedly