The Writer and the Critic

On this episode of The Writer and the Critic your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond have decided to dispense with the idle gossip and instead launch straight into their dissection of the books at hand. First up there is Every Day by David Levithan , which Kirstyn has chosen, followed by Ian's recommendation, The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud (beginning around 45:30). Here are the links for r...

This month on The Writer and the Critic your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, discuss two mainstream novels with a speculative fiction flavour. Ian has chosen Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (beginning at 6:05) and while Kirstyn's recommendation is The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers (46:15). During the discussion, Ian references this review of the Atkinson by Maureen Kincaid Spelle...

Scraping across the line on the last day of the month, this episode of The Writer and the Critic sees your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, waste no time on preamble and instead jump straight into their discussion of the books at hand. Kirstyn has recommended Hair Side, Flesh Side , the debut short story collection by Helen Marshall (beginning at 02:45) while Ian has chosen the science ficti...

Recorded in front of a live audience at Continuum 9 in Melbourne, this episode of The Writer and the Critic features special guest N.K. Jemisin alongside your usual hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond. The first part of the podcast is spent chatting -- spoiler-free! -- about the first book in Nora's latest duology, The Killing Moon (Book One of the Dreamblood) , which Ian has read and heartily r...

What a difference a month makes! Since the last episode, your host Ian Mond and his lovely wife, Jules, have brought a little baby girl into the world. Welcome, Sophie Zara! As revealed at the beginning of this episode, Ian seems in be in two minds as to whether or not that news is in fact overshadowed by The Writer and the Critic winning their second Ditmar Award at Conflux in April! Ian sang a m...

Bouncing back refreshed and rejuvenated from their Moving House hiatus, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond launch into an almost inevitable post-move discussion about books, hoarding books, culling books, having enough books to fill a garage and too many to ever read in one lifetime, whether any of this should possibly be seen as A Problem Which Must Be Remedied, and how digital books might save the w...

This last episode of The Writer and the Critic for 2012 sees your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, sink their teeth into non-fiction. But first they give a friendly shout-out to the brand spanking new podcast from Sean Wright, Adventures of a Bookonaut -- to which you should all go and listen right now -- as well as the entertainingly erudite Ambling Along the Acqueduct blog. (Kirstyn's bran...

This month on The Writer and Critic your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, are delighted to bring you Part the Second of their special eBook Extravaganza. Wasting absolutely no time on formalities, the duo roll up their sleeves and get straight into the discussion of their listener-chosen titles. The books on the table for this episode are: The Black God's War by Moses Siregar III (at 2:15) t...

This month on The Writer and the Critic your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, present Part the First of their special eBook Extravaganza! Yes, that's right ... unable to condense the discussion of six books into less than three hours, they have wisely decided to split the podcast into two episodes. You're welcome, listeners. After some brief introductory remarks, Kirstyn and Ian jump straigh...

This month brings the first fresh recording of The Writer and the Critic since the massive  pre-record-a-thon back in June. Yours hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, welcome themselves back into the slightly rusty saddle with a brief catch-up on what they did during their break ... which seems to have been a whole bunch of extracurricular reading and podcasting! Kirstyn confesses to the reading...

This month's episode of The Writer and the Critic is the last of those recorded around Continuum 8 back in June, wherein your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, invite themselves back to the hotel room of the highly esteemed Drs Brain, Angela Slatter and Lisa L. Hannett , for literary fun and merriment. The finer points of name pronunciation and resultant avoidance of the wrath of angry granni...

Recorded back before Continuum 8 in June but still fresh as the proverbial daisy, this episode of The Writer and the Critic sees your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, joined by editor and fellow podcaster Jonathan Strahan . The trio try not to ramble too much about a variety of topics, from off-the-cuff commentary and its resultant fallout, to gender and science fiction, to the role of gatek...

This episode of The Writer and the Critic is recorded LIVE in front of an actual audience at Continuum 8 , the National SF Convention, with two very, very special guests: authors extraordinaire Alison Goodman and Kelly Link . Your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, talk with Alison about her new project, a dark supernatural Regency trilogy which may or may not involve gowns, bonnets and a larg...

In collaboration with Twelfth Planet Press and recorded live at the beautiful Embiggen Books in Melbourne, The Writer and the Critic is delighted to present a special podcast dedicated to the critically acclaimed Twelve Planets series of short story collections. Join host Ian Mond as he interviews Twelve Planet authors Deborah Biancotti , Narrelle M. Harris , Deborah Kalin , Margo Lanagan , Rosale...

This month on The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond spend some time discussing the results of the recently announced Aurealis Awards. Ian valiantly attempts to pry a little out-of-school talk from Kirstyn, who convened the Horror judging panel, but Kirstyn just as valiantly resists the spilling of any beans. Well, mostly. You know how persistent Mondy can be. And from the Depar...

On this episode of The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond spend a little time talking about gender and reading in response to feedback received from one of their lovely listeners. Be warned, there may be some unqualified generalisations scattered about and there is definitely some drawing of disturbing stick figures. Kirstyn apologies for her barely suppressed laughter and also...

This month on The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond invite award-winning UK author Robert Shearman to chat about his recent adventures at the Adelaide Writers' Week and the New Zealand International Arts Festival , as well as his ongoing and insanely impressive -- or impressively insane? -- One Hundred Stories project. Hilarity ensues. Highly personal details about Ian's sleepi...

On this episode of The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond proffer a correction from Cheryl Morgan in regards to Hugo Awards eligibility before entangling themselves in more culturally appropriative knots sparked off by some very interesting feedback from Karen Lord . They also announce a list of giveaway novels in order to bribe listeners into recommending original, self-publish...

On this episode of The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond announce a New Idea for a future episode of the podcast. They would like to spend an episode reviewing a handful originally self-published eBooks as recommended by their listeners. Whether this ends up being a Good Idea or a Bad Idea will largely depend on listener participation, so get listening and get participating. Th...

In their very last Writer and the Critic podcast for 2011, your hosts Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond ramble only briefly before leaping boldly forth into their discussion of the selected novels, both winners of the Orange Prize for Fiction in their respective years. As usual, there are significant plot spoilers for both books, so take heed of the timestamps if you wish to avoid them. Discussion of...

This month on The Writer and the Critic, your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, find themselves in the native habitat of fellow podcaster John Richards -- one of the mighty Boxcutters team and co-writer of the soon to be screened ABC comedy series Outland .  The three chat about why television kills your dreams and whether Ian is a better co-podcaster than Josh Kinal. Ian and Kirstyn would al...

On this episode of The Writer and the Critic, your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, decide to eschew their normal thirty-odd minutes of waffle and plunge straight into a discussion of the two titles at hand, Bluegrass Symphony by Lisa L. Hannett and Everyone's Just So So Special by Robert Shearman . As both books are short story collections and also very new releases, there are no spoilers a...

This month on The Writer and the Critic your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, briefly discuss the results of the 2011 Hugo Awards -- Ian was right! -- as well as the heartening increase in diversity of the nominated works in response to some listener feedback. Buoyed by his success in predicting that Connie Willis would take home the Hugo for best novel, Ian makes another silly startling pre...

The winners of the 2011 Hugo Awards will be announced on 20 August, so this month on The Writer and the Critic your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, are looking at the books which have been nominated for Best Novel. Two of the nominees have already been featured books on this podcast: Feed by Mira Grant was discussed in Episode 2 and Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis in Episode 7 . While y...

This month on The Writer and the Critic, your hosts Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond navigate their way to the cosy, cat-populated abode of their special guest, Melbourne author Cameron Rogers . They talk about the troublesome life of Cam's (second) debut novel, The Music of Razors, and what he's been doing with himself since its publication, and move on to discuss a variety of topics ranging from f...