All Kittysneezes Podcasts

In this episode, we’re talking about artificial intelligence. Not the sympathetic kind played by Haley Joel Osment, not the mean but hot kind like SHODAN, but the kind that generates content. There’s been a lot of hype lately about the power of AI to create writing, visual art, and music. In this episode, Wendy Xu joins us once again to talk about the rise of the machines. [ Transcript here ] Link...

Coziness. Comfort. Hygge. We all enjoy it. Maybe we have a favorite comfort food, or a favorite piece of comfort media, or a favorite comfort character. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you need it. But when the pursuit of comfort takes over your entire life, and your entire worldview, your art suffers, and maybe society does too. In this episode, we’re talking about why speculative...

We’re all online–excessively online–far too much of the time. For writers, social media can be a valuable tool for networking and self-promotion. But is it necessary? And can the drawbacks outweigh the positives? In this episode, Matt Keeley and Magen Cubed join us to talk about the difference between writing and posting. Transcript available here. Links: Magen’s website A very deep dive into the...

A few months ago, we read Marge Piercy’s 1976 novel Woman on the Edge of Time for our book club. The main character of the novel is Mexican-American, and the author is a non-Latinx white woman, and unfortunately sometimes that shows. It’s a little clunky in parts. It’s a really good book, highly recommended, no disrespect to Marge Piercy, but there are a few moments where it’s really glaringly obv...

[ Transcript here ] Many things in the world have not been named, and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility, unmistakably modern—a variant of sophistication, but hardly identical with—it that goes by the cult name of Sleepaway Camp . In today’s very special episode of Rite Gud, Magencubed joins us to examine that seminal queer t...

[ Transcript ] In our culture, it’s taboo to talk about money. You don’t ask another person how much they make, or how much their possessions cost, or how much they have in the bank. That’s especially true in publishing. Writers don’t usually talk openly about money. But they should. People should know the kind of money writers actually make. Readers should know whether or not they’re supporting a...

Transcript here. A lot of horror stories start like this: a family moves into a suspiciously cheap dreamhouse. Over the course of the story, the house reveals its sinister nature–voices whisper unsettling things, mirrors reflect people who aren’t supposed to be there, the walls bleed–and at last the occupants discover its terrible secret. You can’t gentrify a haunted house–you either have to accep...

In this episode, we’re taking a look at a rather different kind of writing: writing for games. Our guest, Caitlin Fortier, makes TTRPGs–that’s tabletop role playing games–and she’s going to tell us how it works from inception to publication. Full transcript available. Links: Burgerpunk Kickstarter RentAThug store Guinea Pig Press on Twitter Jeff’s Twitter Luckasz on Twitter Cola Wars About Rite Gu...

In this episode, we’re going a little outside of our comfort zone to talk about visual media: in this case, sequential art, or graphic novels, or comics. Joining us for this episode is comics artist and illustrator Wendy Xu, who made Tidesong , Mooncakes , and the upcoming The Infinity Particle . Wendy was kind enough to join us and answer some questions about comics from our Discord members. Full...

As part of this podcast’s dedication to sparking controversial, attention-getting discourse, we have a new piping hot take for you here today: libraries are good. But in this country, libraries are under attack by a small but zealous movement among the far-right. [ Full Transcript Here ] Links: America’s Culture Warriors Are Going After Librarians USA Freedom Act: Before Snowden, Librarians Were A...

[ Full Transcript Here ] This is a writing podcast, so we talk a lot about reading. Most of the time, we’ve been discussing what we read, but today we’re going to discuss how we read and why we read. What’s the point of reading when there are other ways of getting information? Does reading make you a better person? And why are so many Americans so bad at it? Joining us today is Chrisbookishcauldro...

[Full transcript available here.] Science fiction and fantasy can imagine many things–impossible worlds, unthinkable technology, fantastic creatures, magic, gods and monsters–but for some reason, a lot of SFF authors have a hard time imagining stories about poor people. Fantasy stories often focus on royalty. Sci-fi protagonists tend to be middle or upper class: tenured professors, scientists, whi...

In part two of our discussion on diverse sci-fi and fantasy , we turn our attention to the later half of the 20th century, when the field opened up a little more to BIPOC and queer authors. This is a huge topic and we couldn’t possibly cover everyone, so here’s a list of recommended authors who we didn’t get a chance to discuss in depth in this episode: Josephine Saxton Virginia...

Women have always been in science fiction, ever since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein , but far too many of them have been forgotten or at least underappreciated. In this episode of Rite Gud, we are joined by Stephen Mazur, former Assistant Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , to talk about the women of sci-fi’s pulp era. Books and Magazines Read or Consulted Partners in...

In fiction, a plot is the sequence of connected events that make up a narrative. These events aren’t random things that happen–there’s a relationship between them, usually a causative one. Generally, a plot in fiction leads up to a climax that answers a central question or resolves a central conflict. Unless you’re writing really experimental fiction, your story has a plot in it. Narrative works h...

Sci-fi and fantasy are imaginative genres that can show us new, impossible worlds. Sometimes, they offer us escape from our dreary lives. But there’s one thing contemporary SFF can’t seem to escape. As Mark Fisher once said, “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. ” In this episode of Rite Gud , Simon McNeil joins us to talk about writing beyond the end of history....

Writer, podcaster, editor, and mall explorer Kurt Schiller joins us to discuss how he started his magazine, Blood Knife . Since its inception a few short years ago, Blood Knife has become a notable voice in cultural criticism, and has been cited by NPR, the BBC, and the New York Times . In this episode, Kurt shares what it takes to launch a magazine, attract subscribers, and give writers a space t...

Sci-fi, fantasy, and horror have always used speculative elements to express political ideas. HG Wells wrote War of the Worlds as a reaction to British colonialism, Tolkien explored his feelings about World War I and industrialization in The Lord of the Rings , and Mary Shelley had a lot to say about gender and modernity in Frankenstein . Many speculative authors use fantastic creatures–mutants, f...

Writers are often under pressure to follow rules, to write to the market, to carefully fit themselves into a safe cultural and commercial niche. You have to stick to one genre, and follow the standard recipe for that genre, or else audiences will get mad and your book won’t sell. At least, that’s what publishers say. But some writers know better. In this episode, Naben Ruthnum joins us to talk abo...

The internet is a huge part of our lives, but putting it into our fiction can be difficult. Many writers leave it out of their stories entirely. Others try to incorporate it into their work with awkward results. How should our fiction handle the internet? Should our fiction try to handle the internet at all? Cartoonist RE Parrish joins us to talk about the uneasy marriage of writing and the intern...

When you send a short story to a magazine, it probably doesn’t go directly to the editor. Instead, it ends up in what’s called the slush pile–the pool of unsolicited work waiting for review. Who reviews it? Weirdos like us. In this episode of Rite Gud , we’re joined by slush readers NM Whitley and Karl P to talk about why stories get rejected, retro ’70s gender war fiction, and the art of re...

They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but it is way easier to kill a guy with a sword than with a pen. We love art–it’s important to us and it’s meaningful and a worthwhile pursuit–but art alone does not change the material world. What, then, is the purpose of writing? Why do we do this if we’re not saving the world? Here to talk about this is poet Danielle Rose. Header image via Petri Dams...

The changing of the guard in the early 2000s and the euthanization of the reactionary Sad Puppy movement in the early 2010s should have ushered in a new era of speculative fiction, an era of creative freedom and experimentation. It did not. Instead of welcoming and mentoring a new generation of authors from all walks of life, the current publishing establishment primarily supports friends who can...

In this very serious episode, we honor the most important writer of the 20th century, a man forty years ahead of his time: author, visionary, dreamweaver plus actor, Garth Marenghi. Literary connoisseur and Kittysneezes proprietor Matt Keeley joins us to discuss Marenghi’s body of work, which includes such towering achievements as Juggers , Slicers I-IV, Afterbirth , and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace...

When a book comes out, the publisher or the author will often promote it by describing it as a list of tropes, identities, and references. “Here’s my new novel, A Groan of Stone and Bone . It has enemies to lovers, a chaotic bisexual, BIPOC representation, elemental magic, and tons of Buffy references!” It’s akin to any product listing: here are the specifications, the dimensions, and the features...