Episode 136: J. G. Gardner

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.

Episode 134: Brent Weeks

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

(c) Nuro Photography

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.)

Episode 131: Alex Shvartsman

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.

Episode 128: Eli K.P. William

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 JubileeThe 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 SubaruThe 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 GrantaMonkeyKyoto JournalThe Southern Review, and more.

Episode 123: Alan Smale

An hour-long chat with Alan Smale, NASA astrophysicist and Sidewise Award-winning author of alternate and twisted history and hard SF, including Hot Moon and Clash of Eagles.

Website
alansmale.com

Facebook
@alansmale

Twitter
@alansmale

Alan Smale’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Alan Smale writes alternate and twisted history and hard science fiction. His novella of a Roman invasion of ancient America, “A Clash of Eagles,” won the 2010 Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and his series of novels set in the same universe, Clash of Eagles (2015), Eagle in Exile (2016), and Eagle and Empire (2017), are available from Del Rey (US) and Titan Books (UK and Europe). His Roman baseball collaboration with Rick Wilber, The Wandering Warriors, came out from WordFire Press (2020), and Hot Moon, his alternate-Apollo “technothriller with heart,” set entirely on and around the Moon, was launched by CAEZIK in July 2022.

Alan has also sold more than forty pieces of shorter fiction to Asimov’s and other magazines and original anthologies. His short story “Gunpowder Treason,” set in London in 1605, the lead story in Tales from Alternate Earths Vol. III from Inklings Press, won the 2021 Sidewise Award. His non-fiction essays have appeared in Lightspeed and Journey Planet, and he writes a regular column about scientific and historical turning points for Galaxy’s Edge.

Born and raised in England, Alan lives in Maryland and works as an astrophysicist and data archive manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. In what is humorously referred to as his “spare time,” Alan also sings bass and serves as Business Manager for high-energy vocal band The Chromatics, who have performed at various science fiction conventions (Balticon, Shore Leave, Farpoint) and were Music Guests of Honor at Philcon.

Episode 120: Kevin Moore

An hour-long chat with Kevin Moore, author of The Book of Souls, a mystical ghost story, the first book in a series featuring Jack Kelly and his paranormal abilities. The Book of Demons (think Harry Potter meets The Exorcist) is the sequel.

Website
www.kevinmoorepublishing.com

Facebook
@kevinmoorepublishing

Instagram
@kevinmoorepublishing

Kevin Moore’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Kevin Moore is the author of  The Book of Souls, a mystical ghost story. His first novel, it is also the first book in a series featuring Jack Kelly and his paranormal abilities. The Book of Demons (think Harry Potter meets The Exorcist) is the sequel.

Moore also wrote Christmas Stories: 7 Original Short Stories, which is available everywhere. His play Conversations From The Sports Arena was performed at the HBO Theater in Hollywood. 

Moore practices lucid dreaming, which helps him with his writing.  He is a certified yoga teacher and an advanced reiki practitioner. Most importantly he is Matthew and Madison’s father.

Episode 117: Brad C. Anderson

An hour-long chat with Brad C. Anderson, author of Duatero, a searing far-future science fiction novel recently republished by Shadowpaw Press.

Website
www.bradanderson2000.com

Facebook
@bradanderson2000

Twitter
@BradAnderson5

Brad C. Anderson’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Brad C. Anderson lives with his wife and puppy in Vancouver, Canada. He teaches undergraduate business courses at a local university and researches organizational wisdom in blithe defiance of the fact most people do not think you can put those two words in the same sentence without irony. Previously, he worked in the biotech sector, where he made drugs for a living (legally!).

His stories have appeared in a variety of publications. His short story “Naïve Gods” was longlisted for a 2017 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. It was published in the anthology Lazarus Risen, which was itself nominated for an Aurora Award.

Episode 113: Holly Black

An hour-long conversation with New York Times bestselling fantasy author Holly Black about her creative process, with a focus on her first adult novel, BOOK OF NIGHT (Tor Books).

Website
www.blackholly.com

Facebook
@HollyBlackFan

Instagram
@Blackholly

Twitter
@hollyblack

Holly Black’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of fantasy novels, including the Novels of Elfhame, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and her adult debut, Book of Night.

She has been a finalist for an Eisner Award and the Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula, and a Newbery Honor. Her books have been translated into 32 languages worldwide and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library.

Episode 112: R. S. Mellette

An hour-long chat with R.S. Mellette, author of the Billy Bobble middle-grade science fiction novels and the new YA science fiction novel Kiya and the Morian Treasure, and writer of the first web-to-television intellectual property, “The Xena Scrolls,” for Universal Studio’s Xena: Warrior Princess.

Website
rsmellette.com

Facebook
@MelletteRS

Twitter
@RSMellette

R.S. Mellette’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

R.S. Mellette, originally from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, now lives in San Clemente, California, where he toils away at turning his imaginary friends into real ones. While working on Xena: Warrior Princess, he created and wrote “The Xena Scrolls” for Universal’s New Media department and was part of the team that won a Golden Reel Award for ADR editing. When an episode aired based on his “Xena Scrolls’” characters, it became the first intellectual property to move from the internet to television.

Mellette has worked and blogged for the film festival Dances With Films as well as the novelist collective, From The Write Angle, and he is on the board of the L.A. region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators.

Episode 109: James Van Pelt

An hour-long chat with award-winning science fiction and fantasy short-story writer and novelist James Van Pelt.

Website
www.jamesvanpelt.com

Facebook
@james.vanpelt.14

James Van Pelt’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

James Van Pelt is a former high school English teacher who is now a full-time science fiction, fantasy and horror writer (among other things). His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Asimov’s, Analog, Talebones, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, and others. He has eight books out, including six short story collections, Strangers and Beggars, The Last of the O-Forms and Other Stories, The Radio Magician and Other Stories, Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille, The Experience Arcade, and The Best of James Van Pelt. His two novels are Summer of the Apocalypse and Pandora’s Gun.

He has been a Nebula finalist and a John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer finalist and has been nominated for Pushcart prizes. His first collection was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and his last collection won the Colorado Book Award. Many of his short stories have appeared in various Year’s Best collections.