The Worldshapers: interviewing science fiction & fantasy authors

November 25, 2023November 25, 2023

Episode 148: Christopher Rowe

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An hour-long chat with Christopher Rowe, Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy (and others) shortlisted author of the critically acclaimed novellas The Navigating Fox and These Prisoning Hills, as well as the story collection Telling the Map.

Website
christopherrowe.net

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Instagram
@cvrowe1234

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@ChristopherRowe

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@christopherrowe

Christopher Rowe’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Christopher Rowe is the author of the critically acclaimed novellas The Navigating Fox and These Prisoning Hills, as well as a story collection regarded as one of best of recent years, Telling the Map. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Neukom, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards, as well as others. He lives in Kentucky.

November 10, 2023November 10, 2023

Episode 147: Kerstin Stanford

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An hour-long chat with Kerstin Stanford, author of the middle-grade fantasy novel Escape from Portaliege: A Sam Harte Adventure.

Website
kerstinstanford.com

Facebook
@kerstin.stanforddorren

Twitter/X
@StanfordDorren

Instagram
@stanforddorren

TikTok
@kerstinstanford

Kerstin Stanford’s Amazon page

The Introduction

Kerstin Stanford is a California-based author, marketing professional, and event construction enthusiast. Her debut novel, Escape From Portaliege: A Sam Harte Adventure, follows 12-year-old Sam Harte as she navigates a summer camp filled with strange creatures and peculiar counsellors.

Before Kerstin became an author, she worked in promotions and marketing for twenty years, with experience in writing blogs, newsletters, brochures, website, social media content, and more.

Kerstin currently lives with her family in Huntington Beach, where she is working on the second book in the Sam Harte Adventure series.

October 23, 2023October 23, 2023

Episode 146: L. Jagi Lamplighter

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An hour-long chat with L. Jagi Lamplighter, author of the YA fantasy series The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment and the Prospero’s Children series.

Website
ljagilamplighter.com

SuperversiveSF Blog

Fantastic Schools and Where to Find Them

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@lampwright4

L. Jagi Lamplighter’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

L. Jagi Lamplighter is the author of the young-adult fantasy series The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment, the third book of which was nominated for the YA Dragon Award in 2017, the fourth book of which won the first YA Ribbit Award, and the fifth book of which also won two small literary awards. She is also the author of the Prospero’s Children series: Prospero Lost, Prospero In Hell, and Prospero Regained, and has published numerous articles and short stories as well as an anthology of her own works, In the Lamplight. She also edits for Superversive Press and teaches The Art and Craft of Writing.

When not writing, she switches to her secret identity as wife and stay-home mom in Centreville, VA, where she lives with her dashing husband, author John C. Wright, and their four children, Orville, Ping-Ping Eve, Roland Wilbur, and Justinian Oberon.

October 11, 2023October 11, 2023

Episode 145: Omari Richards

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An hour-long chat with Omari Richards, “lifetime blerd” and author of the new The Kimoni Legacy fantasy series, as well as the Tales of Nahawalla short stories.

Website
omari-richards.com

Facebook

Instagram
@omari_a_richards

Omari Richards’s Amazon Page

Omari Richards was born to Dominican immigrants in America and grew up in a household filled with laughter, music, fellowship, and tales of the homeland. From shape-shifting witches to monsters hatched from chicken eggs, these stories enriched and invigorated his imagination. This was strengthened once he found the written word in the adventures of Jim Hawkins, King Arthur, Ivanhoe, and Robin Hood, to name a few.

Omari hopes to capture and enrich the imagination of his readers in a similar way with his new series, The Kimoni Legacy and Tales of Nahwalla short stories.

You can find Omari, a lifetime “blerd” and West African history/ folklore buff, lost in a book, immersed in the nearest bookstore, or catching up on One Piece and My Hero Academia in his Northern Virginia home.

September 27, 2023September 27, 2023

Episode 144: Nick Stitle

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A 45-minute chat with Nick Stitle, the 17-year-old author of the epic fantasy Stormless.

Website
nickstitle.com

Facebook
@nickstitleauthor

Instagram
@nickstitle_author

Twitter/X
@nickstitle

Nick Stitle’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Injuries forced Nicklas Stitle to stop playing tennis after his freshman year of high school, and he realized that was an opportunity to begin working on the story he had been carefully putting together in his head. Stitle began writing Stormless at the age of fifteen and woke up early every day to work on the story before school, creating a new fantasy world and crafting characters he could relate to. Incorporating valuable advice from industry experts wanting to help a young author, Stitle completed Stormless at the age of seventeen.

Stitle has nearly finished The Fire King, book two in what he intends to be a four-book series, and is currently planning books three and four. He hopes to inspire other young writers to chase after their dreams.

Stitle lives in Indiana with his mom, dad, older brother, and two dogs.

September 10, 2023September 10, 2023

Episode 143: Genevieve Gornichec

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A long chat with Genevieve Gornichec, author of the historical fantasies The Witch’s Heart and The Weaver and the Witch Queen.

Website
genevievegornichec.com

Facebook
@gengornichec

Twitter/X
@gengornichec

Instagram
@gengornichec

Genevieve Gornichec’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Genevieve Gornichec earned her degree in history from Ohio State University, but she got as close to majoring in Vikings as she possibly could, and her study of the Norse myths and Icelandic sagas became her writing inspiration. Her debut novel, The Witch’s Heart, was released in 2021 and has been translated into a dozen languages. Her sophomore novel, The Weaver and the Witch Queen, came out this summer. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

August 28, 2023August 28, 2023

Episode 142: M.J. Kuhn

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An hour-long chat with fantasy writer M.J. Kuhn, author of the internationally bestselling Among Thieves and its new sequel, Thick as Thieves.

Website
mjkuhn.com

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@mjkuhnbooks

Instagram
@mjkuhnbooks

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@mjkuhnbooks

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@mjkuhnbooks

The Introduction

M.J. Kuhn, author of the internationally bestselling Among Thieves and its new sequel, Thick as Thieves, is a fantasy writer by night and a mild-mannered marketing employee by day. She lives in the metro Detroit area with her very spoiled cat, Thorin Oakenshield.

August 13, 2023August 13, 2023

Episode 141: Hayden Trenholm

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An hour-long conversation with Hayden Trenholm, award-winning playwright, novelist, and short-story writer and member of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association Hall of Fame.

Website
haydentrenholm.com

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@HaydenTrenholm

Hayden Trenholm’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Hayden Trenholm is an award-winning playwright, novelist, and short story writer. He has also been a public servant, an actor, a bartender, a freelance researcher and consultant, and a telemarketer for Alberta Ballet. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines, including Analog Science Fiction and Fact, anthologies such as The Sum of Us and Strangers Among Us, and on CBC radio.

His first novel, A Circle of Birds, won the 3-Day Novel Writing competition in 1993; it was later translated and published in French. Each book in his trilogy, The Steele Chronicles, was nominated for an Aurora Award. Stealing Home, the third book, was a finalist for the Sunburst Award.

Hayden has won five Aurora Awards – three times for short fiction and twice for editing anthologies. He purchased Bundoran Press in 2012 and was its managing editor until the press closed in 2020.

He lives with his wife and fellow writer, Liz Westbrook-Trenholm, in Ottawa, having retired in 2017 after fifteen years as a policy adviser to the Senator for the Northwest Territories. In 2022, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association Hall of Fame.

July 25, 2023July 25, 2023

Episode 140: Edo van Belkom

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An hour-long chat with award-winning Canadian horror writer Edo van Belkom, author of the Wolf Pack YA books, now a Paramount+ TV series.

Website
edovanbelkom.com

Twitter
@edovanbelkom

Instgram
@edovanbelkom

Facebook
@edo.vanbelkom

Edo van Belkom’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Edo van Belkom is an award-winning Canadian author who began his career as a reporter for newspapers in and around Toronto, mainly covering crime and sports. His first sale as an author of fiction was a short story called “Baseball Memories” in 1990, which earned him his first Aurora Award nomination and was published in both the Year’s Best Horror Stories edited by Karl Edward Wagner and The Grand Slam Book of Canadian Baseball Writing.

He went on to win the Aurora Award for his novel Wolf Pack in 2005. The novel was subsequently awarded the Silver Birch Award from the Ontario Library Association after participating students in Grades 4, 5, and 6 voted it their favourite novel in 2006. The novel and its sequels has now been turned into a TV series from Paramount+, the first season of which released in January of this year.

The author of numerous novels and some 200 short science fiction, horror, and mystery short stories (and, mostly under the pen name Evan Hollander, erotica), Edo has also won the Bram Stoker Short Fiction Award.

He lives in Brampton, Ontario.

July 9, 2023September 10, 2023

Episode 139: Natalie Wright

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An hour-long chat with Natalie Wright, author of the new fantasy novel Season of the Dragon, as well as the H.A.L.F. series and the Akasha Chronicles.

Website
nataliewrightauthor.com

Facebook
@nataliewright.author

Twitter
@nataliewright_

Instagram
@nataliewrightauthor

Natalie Wright’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Natalie Wright writes fantasy and science fiction novels and short stories. She’s the author of the award-winning H.A.L.F. series and Emily’s House, a young adult novel with more than two million reads worldwide, as well as the new Natalie also co-hosts the popular SFF podcast, Tipsy Nerds Book Club.

When she’s not writing, you might find Natalie with an Xbox controller in her hand, cooking French food for friends, or sipping a bourbon cocktail.

Natalie lives in Arizona with her husband and two ornery cats and visits her college-age son frequently in NYC.