The Back Half Podcast

Landyn Pan (they/them) is a transmasculine, non-binary fitness and nutrition coach whose mission is to help queer and trans people build strength, confidence, and long-term, positive relationships with their bodies through strength training. After transitioning, Landyn discovered that lifting gave them not only physical transformation, but also gender alignment, routine, and a sense of autonomy. A...

Born in the South just after the end of Jim Crow, the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and the legalization of interracial marriage, Sean Bugg and Trey Graham discuss growing up as gay white Southern boys, encountering issues of racism, class, and religion. Sean and Trey both came to Washington, D.C. — a.k.a. Chocolate City — as young journalists, where they gained a clearer (if imperfect) underst...

Welcome to Flashback, where we revisit the age of New Wave science fiction and fantasy — the stories that came after the Golden Age of Science Fiction and before cyberpunk conquered the world. This episode we’re diving into one of the magazines that shaped me as a reader and writer, the famed Amazing Science Fiction Stories. By 1982, Amazing had been on an extended rough patch, losing readers in a...

Some of us caught the bug early, others later in life, but once you fall in love with reading books there’s no going back from a lifetime of stories. But habits do change over time. Perhaps our tastes move from genre page turners to the classics shelf. Maybe the pressures of career and adulthood chip away at our free time to dive into new narratives. But books are always calling. If you’re like me...

Don’t have the time to read the newsletter? Here’s the podcast version you can listen to anywhere! And, if you’re more visually inclined, I’m also on YouTube: As they say, like and subscribe! The Back Half is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Back Half at www.backhalfbugg.com/subscribe

In this episode, Marshall Boswell (author of Understanding David Foster Wallace ) joins Sean Bugg to talk about Infinite Jest , its enduring place in American literature, Wallace’s position as an avatar of Gen X, and how students today respond to Wallace’s weirdly prophetic novel about American addictions, entertainments, loneliness, and tennis. Marshall is a professor of American Literature and F...

This episode we Flashback to 1981, when the Space Shuttle first took flight and Analog magazine took a victory lap for science fiction and science fact. Too bad that victory lap included fantasies of a militarized space and winnable nuclear wars. Following that, I outline my personal taxonomy of science fiction: escapist, optimistic, pessimistic, nihilistic. It sounds academic but it’s more fun th...

In this episode, we’re on another Flashback, this time to September 1981 and Amazing Science Fiction Stories. By the late 1970s, the famed first science fiction magazine had hit new lows, cutting costs and corners until it became primarily a magazine of reprints. In 1981, a new editor was at work attempting to regain the glory years. But money was still tight, circulation was down, and advertising...

And here we are with the third episode of The Back Half podcast and other episode of “Flashback,” examining the science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing that shaped me as a kid. This time I’m looking at the August 1981 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine . I also dig a little deeper in the “why” behind this project. There are some serious topics in here but I promise we’re all going to...

I’m back with the second episode of The Back Half podcast, this time a "Flashback" to the November 1982 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. Content warning: Disturbing mental imagery of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. In other, less fraught topics, I cover the kindly science fiction editors of my youth; George R.R. Martin being playful; and why you should read “The Postman” even though...

Welcome to the first episode of The Back Half podcast, kicking off with an audio version of my piece on The Word for World Is Forest for those of you who prefer getting your words aurally. There’s more to come and in the near future I plan to bring in some guests to help expand and explore on these topics even more. The Back Half is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a free or paid...