Podcasts

August Fringe Podcasts

~ Cheryl

Thanks to some magnificent work by Tom Parker we are rapidly getting caught up on the BristolCon Fringe podcasts. Right now we are limited more by our bandwidth limits on the Podbean account than anything else. We should be fully up to date in early April, which is good because the March reading last night was very good.

Our first reader for August was Jo Lindsay Walton. He treated us to a tale of time travel and that great conundrum of choronauts, the killing of Baby Hitler. Our heroes are a bunch of characters from what sounds like a Silicon Valley start-up. Or perhaps Seattle, because there is Starbucks.

Our second reader for August was Scott Lewis. He treated us to two story fragments. The first involves a hangover, fried breakfast, and airship maintenance. In the second an Anglo-Saxon missionary visits a part of the West Country that man was never meant to know.

The August Q&A developed into an interesting discussion regarding the various merits of description-driven fiction versus dialogue-driven fiction. We learned what Scott’s superpower is.

July Fringe Podcasts

~ Cheryl

Oh dear, we are behind, aren’t we. Guess whose fault that is? Yep, that would be the person who has been rushing around like an idiot for months on end.

Thankfully the new arrangements for Fringe include the fabulous Tom Parker learning how to do audio editing and processing the old recordings for me. Consequently we are looking to catch up on the podcasts, and can now bring you some tales of horror from last summer. For reasons as yet unexplained, both involved swimming in some way.

Our first Reader for July was Thomas David Parker himself. He treated us to a sweet tale of two lovers off for a day by a lake. Well, sort of. You all know what lives in lakes, don’t you. Things.

Our second reader for July as Tim Lebbon. There were no lakes in the novel fragment he read. Just a mostly dried out swimming pool. And Things. Lots of Things.

In the Q&A for July Tom revealed that he enjoys drowning his friends whereas Tim prefers biting their faces off. Charming fellows, aren’t they.

This is also a good time to remind you that the next Fringe event will be on Monday (March 20th). It will feature Paul Cornell reading from his shortly to be released novel, Chalk. Paul will be supported by local writer, Steph Minns. I should also remind you that we will be at our new venue of the Famous Royal Navy Volunteer (the Volley, as it is known locally). There’s plenty of room, and the beer is excellent. (I tried the Café Racer last month and it was very good.)

Obligatory Eligibility Post

~ Cheryl

It is that time of year again, and to make my author friends less self-conscious about reminding you of their fine work over the past year I am going to remind you about what I have been up to.

Much to my astonishment, most of what I have eligible is fiction. I had three (yes, three!) short stories published last year. Two of them were in Holdfast Magazine and you can find them as follows:

There is also “Camelot Girls Gone Wild”, which is apparently now available in Fantastically Horny. Kevin tells me he got his copy from the crowdfunding campaign. I have yet to see any sign of it.

I got nine episodes of the Salon Futura podcast out last year, so I guess that is eligible as a Fancast. (That also reminds me that I have a couple in the pipeline that need editing.)

The BristolCon Fringe podcast is also eligible, though if you nominate it you should credit Joanne Hall as well as me because she did all of the work of finding guests and booking the venue. (There may be other people too. I don’t know, I just show up and talk.)

I think that covers it, unless you have a favorite review or something, or if you think it has been long enough since I won Fan Writer for me to have another go. Not a huge amount, but hey, better than the Puppies, right?

Introducing the Pop Queer-ies

~ Cheryl

A few weeks ago I did an email interview for a new podcast based in Toronto. Being a stupidly busy feline I then mostly forgot about it. I figured it would go online eventually. Then, a couple of days ago, I noticed that the podcast had a Twitter feed. Checking their website, I discovered that they had not only published my interview, but there had been four other episodes since. Whoa!

The hard-working young ladies responsible for all of this nerdly goodness are Justine and Gwen. They are very knowledgeable about a whole range of stuff I know little about (or, in the case of video games, nothing about). And their hearts are in the right places (metaphorically speaking, I have no idea whether they are Time Lords).

My interview was part of Episode 5, which was all about trans woman in comics. You can read it here, and listen to parts of it here. Much more interestingly, there is also an interview with Rachel Pollack, which you can listen to here.

There are lots more shows available here, including an episode devoted to the Suicide Squad movie that I ought to listen to before I see Rob Williams next. (I decided not to see it in the cinema because there were so many bad reviews of it.)

Ah, so many podcasts, so little time.

June Fringe – Stephanie Burgis & Justin Newland

~ Cheryl

The recordings from the June BristolCon Fringe event are now online. We did things slightly differently that month. Firstly thanks to a technical hitch we had no microphone on the AV system. That meant we had to record people direct rather than off the AV system, which caused a few problems with the sound. In addition Stephanie had to leave early to catch a train back to Abergaveny so we had her read first, then did her Q&A, all in one session.

Stephanie read from the opening chapter of her novel, Masks and Shadows, which I reviewed here. It being an historical fantasy featuring secret societies and a eunuch, I had a lot of questions to ask her. The opera connection is very important too.

Our other reader for June was Justin Newland, better known as “the man who asks questions” from our Q&A sessions. Justin read a short story set during the building of Hadrian’s Wall, and the opening chapter of his novel, The Genes of Isis.

Stephanie was able to stay for the reading but had to leave during Justin’s Q&A session. We had a short break while she left, but when we came back no one had any new questions so we just did announcements, which have been tacked on to this recording.

The September Fringe event takes place tomorrow night. The readers are Cassandra Khaw and Jonathan L Howard. I should be there, though I am supposed to be in Cardiff during the day for a Trans*Code event and the Severn Tunnel is closed so travel will be a bit unpredictable. Also I have to get my body functioning again after a couple of days of being dead of cold. I have no idea what will happen tomorrow.

Foz Meadows in The Salon

~ Cheryl

Last week I did an interview with Foz Meadows about her recently published novel, An Accident of Stars. As might be expected when you get two ranty feminists with a strong interest in gender together, we had a lot to talk about. In particular I wanted to talk about how Foz manages to do a whole bunch of things I would not normally recommend when writing a trans character and make them work. One of the reasons for this, of course, is that if you create a world in which transphobia doesn’t exist then most of the usual rules go out of the window.

Of course we managed to find lots more topics to discuss as well. In particular Foz sheds some light on her thinking when creating the matriarchal society in the world of her book. Foz also explains how the book is, in part, about the “Susan Problem”, something which all teenage girls who read Narnia will recognize.

Along the way there’s a brief shout out to the wonderful Trudi Canavan, and some words of praise for Seanan McGuire’s wonderful Every Heart a Doorway.

The interview took place over Skype with Foz in Queensland and me in England, so the sound quality isn’t up to studio standards. But hey, video phone call to Australia; we are living in the future.

Cat Valente at Finncon, Two Interviews

~ Cheryl

The latest podcast to go up on Salon Futura is the full version of my interview with Cat Valente from Finncon. As you may recall, I broadcast part of it on Women’s Outlook a while back, but the whole thing is about half an hour long and so I had to trim quite a bit. As is the way with mainstream media, I chose to trim all of the interesting writing and publishing business neepery, but you’ll get all that good stuff here.

The interview covers the whole of Cat’s career from her childhood obsession with fairy tales through her student days in Edinburgh, her early success with The Orphan’s Tales, the amazing phenomenon that is the Fairyland books and her later adult novels such as Deathless and Radiance. There is, inevitably, mention of David Bowie (Cat and I had just done the Bowie & Prince panel). There is also a fair amount of giggling by both parties. My excuse was that I was getting to interview a writer whose work I absolutely adore.

By the way, the nice Finncon people videoed a lot of the panels and have been beavering away editing the material. I have no idea whether the Trans panel or the Bowie & Prince panel will ever end up on the Internet, but I think you are safe from the Cat & Cheryl do karaoke “Starman” thing because that would be a copyright violation.

However, the GoH speeches are available, so if the above is not enough Cat for you here is Johan Anglemark interviewing Cat in the main auditorium. I’m sat down the front taking notes. I don’t think they ever pull the camera back far enough to see me, but they can’t avoid showing the anime dance practice taking place outside. Check it out, it is awesome.

Mike Carey at Waterstones

~ Cheryl

As promised, I have uploaded the other Mike Carey interview to Salon Futura. This is the one that we did at Waterstones in the evening. It is almost an hour long, so we have a lot more time to talk about Fellside. Mike and I go on a little rant about the economics of private prisons. The conversation also touches on films. The Girl with All the Gifts is due for release on September 23rd. Here’s the trailer.

One of the reasons I didn’t want to release this too soon is that Mike would have had to kill me, because during the interview he mentions the possibility of a prequel to The Girl with All the Gifts. That book is now official, so I no longer have to worry.

Inevitably Mike and I talk about the X-Men. Indeed, I suspect that we could have talked about superhero movies all evening had not one or two people been scowling at us from the audience. Obviously I mentioned the Felix Castor novels, which led us on to the idiocies of publisher branding policies. We even managed to mention the Steel Seraglio books, which Mike wrote with his wife, Linda, and daughter, Louise.

The sound quality is rather poor in places, for which my apologies. My little microphone doesn’t cope well with a cavernous shop, and there were all sorts of issues with capturing audience questions. Hopefully it is all listenable.

This event was arranged by the Bristol Festival of Literature. My thanks to Pete Sutton for doing a fine job.

Next week in the Salon I’ll have the full version of my Finncon interview with Cat Valente.

Parsec Award Announcement Coming Soon

~ Cheryl

The winners of this year’s Parsec Awards will be announced at Dragon*Con this weekend. I’ll be keeping a close eye on the announcement.

As you may know, the Parsecs are given for achievement in speculative fiction podcasting. Salon Futura isn’t up for anything, which doesn’t surprise me as uploads are anything but regular. Besides, you have to submit your podcast in order to be considered, so I’m clearly full of FAIL on that account. However, quite a few people I know are among the finalists.

There are no Clarkesworld stories up in the fiction categories, which may be because Neil didn’t submit any. However, Beneath Ceaseless Skies has a few contenders. Also both Uncanny and Strange Horizons are finalists in the Best Speculative Fiction Magazine or Anthology category. Verity, the all-woman Doctor Who podcast, is a finalist in the Best Speculative Fiction Fan or News Podcast (Specific), which will give Tansy something to crow about after the torrent of awards that have been heaped on Alisa and Alex for Letters to Tiptree.

However, the category that I am most interested in is Best Speculative Fiction Audio Drama (Short Form). That’s because one of the finalists is Ray Gunn and Starburst, written by my good friend ‘Olly Rose. There will be a great deal of celebrating done in Bath if the results go the right way.

Mike Carey in the Salon – Part I

~ Cheryl

Fellside
Today on Salon Futura I posted the audio from my interview with Mike Carey on Ujima Women’s Outlook back in May. We were mainly discussing his latest novel, Fellside, but conversation also strayed onto The Girl with All the Gifts and the X-Men.

Mike’s comments are particularly interesting in view of the US Department of Justice’s recent decision to stop using private prisons. Whether the UK will follow suit is very much open to debate.

As I note in the interview, I was also scheduled to interview Mike at Waterstones that evening. I have edited the audio from that and hope to have it online for you later this week. In the meantime, here is Part I.

Paul Cornell in The Salon

~ Cheryl

Here’s another Ujima interview that I am posting because the Listen Again link has expired. In keeping with our theme of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who, here is Paul Cornell.

Obviously the main topic of conversation was Paul’s Shadow Police novel, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes. We also discussed some of his other projects, including This Damned Band which is now available as a graphic novel. Along the way we discuss diversity in fiction, fandom, and why a vicar’s husband is so obsessed with devil worship. At one point I do actually say, “this interview has gone completely off the rails”, which I guess shows you how much fun Paul and I were having.

If you haven’t bought Who Killed Sherlock Holmes yet, you might like to listen to Paul read from it at his recent BristolCon Fringe appearance.

Next week, Mike Carey.

Cavan Scott in The Salon

~ Cheryl

I have been working on processing some of the interview material that I did for Ujima and has now vanished from the Listen Again service. This week will be mainly about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who, with a bit of Star Wars and The Beano thrown in. I’m starting up with Cavan Scott who does all of those things. Later in the week I’ll bring you Paul Cornell as well.

Here’s Cav. I had the poor man in the studio for a whole hour. With the music, news and ads removed it boils down to about half of that. Among other things we talk about how he came to have the #1 selling book in the whole of the UK.

April Fringe (contains me)

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

The April BristolCon Fringe night is, by tradition, an open mic where they let all sorts of people read, even me. Lots of better writers turned up as well, and we ended up with 12 readers divided into three sessions.

Session 1 features three novel excerpts. Justin Newland and Amanda Huskisson both have fantasy novels set in the ancient past. Jack Anderson’s novel is from Roman times, and is a straight historical tale. The session ended with Jackie Rogers who read two pieces of fantasy flash.

Session 2 got us going on the explicit tags. Kevlin Henney opened up by killing off almost everyone on the planet. Pete Sutton’s magpie story, “I Butler”, was somewhat more restrained but does feature a serial killer. Jo Hall read us a piece from a new novel that she has just started working on, Gods of the Grey City. People die horribly. And finally we have “Zombie Walk” by Myfanwy Rodman. Only three people die in that, but the zombies are already dead and there are lots of them. We very much needed a break after that one. You have been warned.

Session 3 began with Steve Tanner who read from the first book in a fantasy trilogy. Then it was my turn. I read the start of a short story called “Snow White’s Wedding”, which I’d originally written for the Upside Down anthology (it didn’t get in). Next up was Will Macmillan with “Hatchet”, a cautionary tale about the dangers of living with a writer, and indeed being one. Finally Jonathan L. Howard read from an unpublished novel called Heart of Empire. That’s something he calls “tea punk”, which appears to mean very polite British people having very dangerous adventures and remaining calm throughout.

During this session we were visited by the Fringe Ghost. A mysterious voice began emanating from the pub’s speaker system during Steve’s reading and continued off and on for the rest of the evening. The speaker system was turned off. Various theories were proposed, and the one that seems most likely is that the speakers are picking up the radio transmissions of ferry boats in the harbour. Thankfully the Ghost doesn’t seem to have spoiled the recordings.

In the Q&A I asked Jo a bit about her forthcoming books. The Summer Goddess is now scheduled for September and reviews are starting to appear online. Pete Sutton launched A Tiding of Magpies while I was in Finland so it is now available from good bookstores everywhere. Will talked about reading stories from memory. Naturally we all wanted to know where Myfanwy got her gruesome ideas from.

In case you are wondering, there is no audio from March. I was in Canada and the folks back in Bristol had tech fail.

The July Fringe event will be in a week’s time on July 18th. It is a horror special, and will feature Tom Parker and Tim Lebbon.

February Fringe (and June tomorrow)

~ Cheryl

Tomorrow sees the June meeting of BristolCon Fringe, so it is about time I got more audio online. Here, therefore, is February. Well, some of it.

As you may recall, in February I was absurdly busy with LGBT History Month. As a result of this I was very tired at the Fringe meeting. This led to my messing up the recording of the first session. Huge apologies to Will Macmillan Jones for this. He is in the Q&A, and I’ll have more from him available soon.

However, we do have a reading from the fabulous Gareth L. Powell. No monkeys this time, and consequently a considerable reduction in the swearing quotient. Instead Gareth treated us to the opening two chapters of a new space opera novel. There’s no firm information on when or where it will be published yet, but I think that after listening to it you will be keen to get hold of the whole book just like I am.

Because I knew that I had messed up recording Will I asked him for a bit of poetry at the beginning of the Q&A. I knew he’d deliver on that. I asked Gareth about poetry because he has a character in the story who is a not very good but very successful poet. I do not accept any responsibility for the results.

We didn’t get any recordings of the March event, mainly because I was in Canada, so the next batch of material I will have for you will be from the open mic event in April. March was Pete Sutton and Myfanwy Rodman, both of whom also read at the open mic (and Myfanwy’s story was brilliant). Will also read at the open mic, so you’ll get to hear all of the people who we missed. Of course the open mic also includes me.

As for June, that will feature Justin Newland and Stephanie Burgis. Justin will be familiar to you as one of our regular question askers. Stephanie is the author of the Kat Stephenson trilogy for younger readers, and more recently of Smoke and Mirrors. Given that the new book has a eunuch as a main character, you can be sure I will have a question or two to ask. If you can be in Bristol tomorrow night, the event will be at the Shakespeare Tavern on Prince Street and will start around 7:30pm. I hope to see some of you there.

Terri Windling Lecture Online

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Thanks to some really quick work by the folks at Pembroke, this year’s Tolkien Lecture, given by Terri Windling, is now available to enjoy online. They have a podcast version and a video version. You can find them both, along with some photos, here, and it would be nice to pop over there and say thank you. But I know people are put off by the need to click through to things so here, by the magic of embedding, is what you need.

The podcast

The video of the lecture

And the video of the Q&A

Guy Gavriel Kay in the Salon

~ Cheryl

Children of Earth and Sky - Guy Gavriel Kay
As promised last week, I have uploaded the full version of the Guy Gavriel Kay interview to the Salon Futura podcast. About half of the material got cut for the radio version, much of it stuff that would be of more interest to dedicated fantasy readers rather than a general audience. So even if you listened to the radio broadcast, this is well worth checking out. It is not all Guy and I talking about whisky, I promise.

In any case, Children of Earth and Sky is a fabulous book which I warmly recommend.

Pete Newman Interview

~ Cheryl

The Vagrant - Pete Newman

I am continuing to sort through my archives of author interviews and publish stuff that is still relevant. The following interview with Pete Newman took place on Ujima in May 2015. Pete and I talk mainly about The Vagrant, which has just been released in paperback. The sequel, The Malice, is also new out in hardcover. We spend a lot of time talking about demons, babies and goats.

As is fairly inevitable, there are a few things in the discussion that are dated — primarily where we talk about Tea and Jeopardy being a Hugo finalist. However, most of the discussion is still very relevant. Also Emma’s Planetfall is now out, and it is wonderful.

Next week the May 4th show will have fallen off the Listen Again system at Ujima so I will be able to bring you the full rambling glory of the Guy Gavriel Kay interview.

Ray Gunn & Starburst Crowdfunding

~ Cheryl

Ray Gunn & Starburst
Those of you who follow my radio show will remember that last week I was lucky enough to have Olly Rose in the studio. Olly is the scriptwriter for Ray Gunn and Starburst, a fabulous audio comedy series. However, not everyone wants to listen to me playing at being a DJ, so I thought I should remind you that Olly and the crew have a crowdfunding campaign going to help finance season two of the show.

Why should you give them money? Well for starters you could just listen to season one, and if you enjoy it as much as Kevin and I did I think my case is made. Otherwise, you’ll just have to trust me, OK?

I’m a cute feline, of course you can trust me.

Wait… what?