The Worldshapers: interviewing science fiction & fantasy authors

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

X (Twitter)
@mjkuhnbooks

Instagram
@mjkuhnbooks

TikTok
@mjkuhnbooks

Facebook
@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

X
@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.

June 25, 2023

Episode 138: Evan Graham

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An hour-long chat with Evan Graham, author of the Calling Void series of science fiction stories and the new novel Tantalus Depths.

Website
evangraham.org

Facebook
@AuthorEvanGraham

Twitter
@evanmgraham

Evan Graham’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Evan Graham consistently refuses to seek help for his lifelong sci-fi addiction. Since there are not enough stories currently in existence to satisfy him, he had no choice but to start writing his own. His Calling Void stories “celebrating the wonder and terror of the Unknown” have been featured in multiple anthologies. Tantalus Depths is his debut novel, set in the same world.

He has a bachelor’s in Education Studies from Kent State University and resides in rural northeast Ohio.

June 11, 2023June 11, 2023

Episode 137: M.C.A. Hogarth

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An hour-long interview with M.C.A. Hogarth, prolific and award-nominated science fiction/fantasy author and artist.

Website
mcahogarth.org

Twitter
@mcahogarth

M.C.A. Hogarth’s Amazon page

The Introduction

Daughter of two Cuban political exiles, M.C.A. Hogarth was born a foreigner in the American melting pot and has had a fascination for the gaps in cultures and the bridges that span them ever since. She has been many things—web database architect, product manager, technical writer, and massage therapist—but is currently a full-time parent, artist, writer, and anthropologist to aliens, both human and otherwise.

Her fiction has variously been recommended for a Nebula, a finalist for the Spectrum, placed on the Tiptree long list and chosen for two best-of anthologies; her art has appeared in RPGs, in magazines, and on book covers. M.C.A. Hogarth also served as Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for three years.

Her current focus is new business models for artists and independent marketing and distribution innovations. Her first crowdfunded fiction project kicked off in 2004 before the word was even coined. M.C.A. has experimented with everything from “choose-your-own-adventure” style serials online to kickstarting creative projects and is looking forward to future experiments in using technology to bring art directly to the audience.

You can find her bio pages on Wikipedia, TVTropes and WikiFur.

A Selection of Book Covers

May 28, 2023September 10, 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.