The Worldshapers: interviewing science fiction & fantasy authors

May 28, 2023May 28, 2023

Episode 136: J. G. Gardner

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An hour-long interview with J.G. Gardner, scientist and author of the new high-fantasy novel The Path from Regret.

Website
jgardnerauthor.com

J. G. Gardner’s Amazon page

The Introduction

J.G. Gardner has a Ph.D. in Microbiology and is currently a researcher working on new ways to generate renewable energy using bacteria. While having published many technical papers on genetics and biochemistry, he has always wanted to write a novel about magic, wizards, and dragons.

After the birth of his children, he was inspired to fulfill that dream and used spare moments on nights and weekends to write his debut high fantasy novel, The Path From Regret, published by Loyola University of Maryland’s Apprentice House Press.

May 14, 2023May 14, 2023

Episode 135: Rebecca Yarros

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An hour-long chat with Rebecca Yarros, the USA Today– and New York Times-bestselling author of more than fifteen novels, including the just-released Fourth Wing, book one of the new fantasy series The Empyrean.

Website
rebeccayarros.com

Facebook
@RebeccaElizabethYarros

rTwitter
@RebeccaYarros

Instagram
@RebeccaYarros

Rebecca Yarros’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Rebecca Yaros is the USA Today– and New York Times-bestselling author of more than fifteen novels, with multiple starred Publishers Weekly reviews and a Kirkus Best Book of the Year. A second-generation army brat, Rebecca loves military heroes and has been blissfully married to hers for more than twenty years. She’s the mother of six children, and she and her family live in Colorado with their stubborn English bulldogs, two feisty chinchillas, and a cat named Artemis, who rules them all.

Having fostered, then adopted, their youngest daughter, Rebecca is passionate about helping children in the foster system through her nonprofit, One October, which she co-founded with her husband in 2019.

May 2, 2023May 2, 2023

Episode 134: Brent Weeks

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An hour-plus chat with Brent Weeks, bestselling and award-winning author of the Night Angel Trilogy and the Lightbringer Series and the just-released Night Angel Nemesis, first book in a new series, The Kylar Chronicles.

Website
brentweeks.com

Facebook
@BrentWeeksAuthor

Twitter
@brentweeks

YouTube

Brent Weeks’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

In a small-town Montana school at age twelve, Brent Weeks met the two great loves of his life. Edgar Allan Poe introduced him to the power of literature to transcend time and death and loneliness. Fate introduced him to The Girl, Kristi Barnes. He began his pursuit of each immediately.

The novel was a failure. The Girl shot him down.

Since then–skipping the boring parts–Brent has written eight best-selling novels with the Night Angel Trilogy and the Lightbringer Series, won several industry awards, and sold a few million books.

Brent and his wife, Kristi, live in Oregon with their two daughters. (Yeah, he married The Girl.)

April 16, 2023April 16, 2023

Episode 133: P. L. Stuart

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An hour-long chat with P.L. Stuart, bestselling Canadian fantasy author of The Drowned Kingdom Saga, inspired by Plato’s tale of the lost realm of Atlantis.

Website
plstuart.com

Facebook
@plstuartwrites

Twitter
@plstuartwrites

Instagram
@p.l.stuart

YouTube
@thedrownedkingdomsaga7847

P.L. Stuart’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

P.L. Stuart was born in Toronto and holds a university degree in English, specializing in Medieval Literature. He is an assistant editor with Before We Go Blog.

P.L.’s seven-bookThe Drowned Kingdom Saga chronicles flawed and bigoted Prince Othrun’s journey toward change and his rise to power in a new world after the downfall of his homeland, which is based on Plato’s lost realm of Atlantis. The bestselling first book, A Drowned Kingdom was mentioned in Kirkus Magazine’s 2021 Indie Issue among “Four Great Examples of the Genre” of fantasy and won the 2022 Picky Bookworm Award for Best Indie Book Based on Mythology. Book Two, The Last of the Atalanteans, was released in Spring 2022, and book three, Lord and King, is due out this spring.

April 2, 2023April 2, 2023

Episode 132: D.J. Williams

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An hour-long chat with D.J. Williams, author of Hunt for Eden’s Star, Book 1 of the new Beacon Hill series: “Harry Potter meets Young Indiana Jones.”

Websites
djwilliamsbooks.com
thebeaconhillseries.com

Twitter
@djwilliamsbooks

Instagram
@djwilliamsbooks

Facebook
@djwilliams316

D.J. Williams’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

With the DNA of a world traveller, D.J. Williams was born and raised in Hong Kong, igniting an adventurous spirit as he ventured into the jungles of the Amazon, the bush of Africa, and the slums of the Far East. His global travels submerged him in a myriad of cultures, providing a unique perspective that fuels his creativity.

As a fresh voice in mystery, suspense, and YA fantasy, his novels have garnered stellar reviews from Kirkus Reviews and climbed the charts on Amazon Hot New Releases, ranking as high as #1. Leading up to the launch of his latest YA series, Beacon Hill, and an eighteen-city book tour, the trailers and web series teasing the first book, Hunt For Eden’s Star, have reached more than one million views. Hunt For Eden’s Star is also currently under consideration for film & television optioning by the producers, production companies, and studios who created the most successful YA franchises of all time.

Residing in Los Angeles, Williams continues to develop new projects for television, film, and print.

March 19, 2023March 19, 2023

Episode 131: Alex Shvartsman

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An hour-long chat with writer, translator, game designer, and anthologist Alex Shvartsman, author of three fantasy novels and more than 120 short stories.

Website
www.alexshvartsman.com

Facebook
@shvartsman.alex

Twitter
@AShvartsman

Alex Shvartsman’s Website

Alex Shvartsman is a writer, translator, game designer, and anthologist from Brooklyn, NY. His adventures so far have included traveling to over thirty countries, playing a card game for a living, and building a successful business.

Alex is the author of Kakistocracy (2023), The Middling Affliction (2022), and Eridani’s Crown (2019) fantasy novels. . Over 120 of his short stories have appeared in Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, Fireside, Weird Tales, Galaxy’s Edge, and many other venues. He won the WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction in 2014 and was a three-time finalist for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction.

Alex’s translations from Russian have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Asimov’s, Apex, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere.

He’s the editor of the Unidentified Funny Objects series of humorous SF/F, as well as a variety of other anthologies, including The Cackle of Cthulhu (Baen), Humanity 2.0 (Arc Manor), and Funny Science Fiction (UFO). For five years he edited Future Science Fiction Digest, a magazine that focused on international fiction.

March 5, 2023March 5, 2023

Episode 130: James S. Peet

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An hour-long chat with James S. Peet, author of the Corps of Discovery science fiction series, set in the multiverse.

Website
jamespeet.com

Facebook

James S. Peet’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

James S. Peet is a modern-day Renaissance Man. He’s lived on four continents in six countries and visited countless more. He’s been a National Park Service Ranger, a police officer, a tow-truck driver, a college instructor, a private investigator, a fraud examiner/forensic accountant, an inventor (the Simple Shower–sold on Amazon!), and an entrepreneur. He’s walked the Camino de Santiago (two short ones and the long one from St. Jean Pied de Port to Muxia), a walkabout he highly recommends (and wrote a cookbook for his second Camino walk–it’s also on Amazon).

He lives on the top of a small mountain in the foothills of Washington’s Cascade Mountains with his wife, dogs, barn cats, and whatever adult daughter returns to the nest. He’s attended ten colleges and universities, two law enforcement academies, and has three degrees (all in geography) and multiple certificates (he really likes learning).

His Corps of Discovery series is set in the multiverse. His other writing endeavors include several articles on modern sea piracy, economics, and the private investigation of fraud.

February 26, 2023February 26, 2023

Episode 129: Julie Czerneda and Edward Willett

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Listen in as DAW Books authors Julie Czerneda and Edward Willett talk to each other about their latest books, To Each This World (Julie) and The Tangled Stars (Ed).

Websites
czerneda.com
edwardwillett.com
DAW Books

Facebook
@JulieCzernedaOfficialFanPage
@edward.willett
@DAWBooks

Twitter
@julieczerneda
@ewillett
@DAWBooks

Instagram
@julieczerneda
@edwardwillettauthor
@DAWBooks

Amazon Author Pages
Julie Czerneda
Edward Willett

February 19, 2023February 26, 2023

Episode 128: Eli K.P. William

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An hour-long chat with Eli K.P. William, Japanese literary translator and author of the Jubilee Cycle science fiction trilogy, set in a near-future Tokyo.

Website
elikpwilliam.com

Facebook
@elikp.william

Twitter
@Dice_Carver

Eli K.P. William’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Eli K.P. William is a novelist and Japanese literary translator. He is the author of the Jubilee Cycle trilogy, set in a near future Tokyo, where every action—from blinking to sexual intercourse—is intellectual property owned by corporations that charge licensing fees. The series includes Cash Crash Jubilee, The Naked World, and A Diamond Dream. It has been compared to works of classic cyberpunk by William Gibson and Neal Stephenson and to traditional dystopian literature by Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Phillip K. Dick.

Born in Toronto, Canada, he has spent most of his adult life in Japan, and is the only member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan (SFWJ) who writes fiction in English. He also contributes book reviews and essays in both English and Japanese to such publications as Subaru, The Japan Times, and The Pacific Rim Review of Books, and has translated literature by some of Japan’s most renowned authors. His translations include Keiichiro Hirano’s bestselling novel A Man and various essays and short stories for Granta, Monkey, Kyoto Journal, The Southern Review, and more.

February 5, 2023February 5, 2023

Episode 127: Monte Schulz

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An hour-long chat with Monte Schulz, novelist, composer, owner of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and eldest son of the late Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz.

Websites
www.monteschulz.com
www.metropolisthebook.com

Facebook
@monte.schulz.7

Twitter
@monteschulz

Monte Schulz, author of the dystopian coming-of-age novel Metropolis (Fantagraphics), received his M.A. in American Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He published his first novel, Down by the River, in 1990, and spent the next twelve years writing a novel about the Jazz Age, available as a whole in Crossing Eden, or in three parts: This Side of Jordan, The Last Rose of Summer, and The Big Town. He wrote it for his father, the late cartoonist, Charles M. Schulz.

Monte is also a composer, songwriter, and producer whose most recent album is titled Seraphonium. In 2010, he became the owner of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. He lives in Santa Barbara, CA.