Postcards from a Dying World

In this episode, we talk with Wendy Wagner about her gothic novella The  Secret Skin. We talk about Wendy’s path to horror, her writing process,  and developing this gothic novella. We spend the first half avoiding spoilers and in the second half we drill down on Wagner’s incredible skill for writing powerful sentences.   Wendy N. Wagner is a writer and Hugo award-winning editor. &n...

The theme of this episode is writing with Learning Disabilities. What most of you might not know is that I have dyslexia and a few other learning disabilities. I have a couple of books published and have been nominated for a few awards, but I struggled with my education and was bullied quite a bit as a young person. In my teenage years, I made a  friend in Duncan Barlow who grew up one state...

After every season of Star Trek, I gather a panel of nerds together and we talk about the highs and lows of the season that just ended. This time we are talking and the first half of Star Trek Prodigy. For this panel, I am joined by two active and vocal lifelong Star Trek fans returning from the Lower Decks panel are Vocal Star Trek fan Sara Lynn Michener, Musician and filmmaker Issa Diao, and Sci...

Christoph Paul is an overdue interview for me.  He is the managing editor of CLASH Books, of course, they are one of my publishers and  Christoph is an editor I have worked with.  He is an award-winning author who cut his teeth writing erotica satires under the name Mandy  DeSandra which he self-published and learned the publishing biz long before he and his wife author Leza Ca...

Rio Youers is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, and a writer I  love to chat with about craft. His newest novel is No Second Chances,  an action in a novel form much like his last novel Lola on Fire which we  talked about in episode of 40 of this podcast. If you want Rio’s origin  story that is in that episode. No Second Chances and the last one Lola  on Fire st...

Joining Postcards for the first time is Jayaprakash Satyamurthy. He is the author, poet, bass player, vegan, animal rescuing collection of awesomeness hailing from Bangalore India. I have podcasted with JP once before on Dickheads for the episode on Counter-Clock World, I recommend that episode where we went deep on Indian Science fiction and of course  Philip K Dick.  Since that episode...

After every season of Star Trek, I gather a panel of nerds together and we talk about the highs and lows of the season that just ended. This time we are talking and the first half of Star Trek Prodigy. For this  panel, I am joined by two active and vocal lifelong Star Trek fans returning from the Lower Decks panel are Vocal Star Trek fan Sara Lynn  Michener, and Musician and filmmaker Is...

For the episode numbered with Macgruger's passwords, we countdown our  2021 Favorite reads!  I asked my homey and longest horror book nerd friend Judge Marc Rothenberg to join me. You might remember him from the best horror short stories episode to return and count down our top  reads of the year.  Featuring my favorite Retro reads, non-fiction,  honorable mentions, and to...

Here are my ten Favorite movies of 2021! Joining me on the podcast Is Issa Diao, he is a filmmaker, having written and directed a film with the same name Good Clean Fun as his long-time band. As lead vocalist of  Good Clean Fun Issa traveled toured internationally and he is a total movie nerd.  In this episode, we talk about our favorite movies of 2021.     For the first t...

*Note The audio starts rough on my mic, but it gets better. Promise. My guest this week is writer, director, and film editor Tran Quoc Bao. His first directorial feature the Paper Tigers is one of my favorite movies I saw this year. It is a hilarious and super fun Kungfu comedy that is perfect for fans of Cobra Kai or No Retreat No Surrender. I loved the hell out of the movie. I reached out to Bao...

In this episode of Postcards, I welcome Cadwell Turnbull. author of the science fiction novel The Lesson. His short fiction has appeared in The Verge, Lightspeed, Nightmare, and Asimov’s Science Fiction. The short story “Loneliness is in Your Blood” was selected for The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018, and the story "Jump" was selected for the Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy...

This is a fun one.  In this episode of Postcards, I welcome two good friends of mine to talk about the third and final book in the Hissers trilogy. If you are not familiar with this series of monster mash/  zombie hybrid novels written by horror author Ryan C. Thomas.  The author of several horror novels Ryan’s most well-known novel The Summer I  Died is a cult classic a decade...

One of the best books I read this year is a new science fiction novel by debut novelist S.B. Diviya. This novel Machinehood is a smart and effective novel. The grandest of science fiction are the tales you can hold up like a mirror to the issues of today. Even more grand are novels that decades like still feel like they are that mirror. I suspect it will be in conversation during award season.&nbs...

Hello listeners this is a bonus episode that features a recording of myself reading my short story Mister Crow Reporting. This story was first published in San Diego Horror Professionals Volume One. There are three volumes of the series and I like all three and recommend them. They are all available from Grand Mal Press. The book is here: https://www.amazon.com/San-Diego-Horror-Professionals-1/dp/...

Paul Mahern was 16 years old when he played guitar and sang for the Zero Boys one of the pioneering punk bands of the early 80s punk scene in my home state of Indiana. He is also an adjunct lecturer in music in general studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His recording clients include John Mellencamp, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, and Iggy Pop. He has produced and/or engineered 1...

OK, a new regular thing we are going to do around here. After every season of Star Trek, I am going to gather a panel of nerds together and we will talk about the highs and lows of the season that just ended. First up is Lower Decks Season 2. For this panel, I am joined by Three active and vocal lifelong Star Trek fans - Sara Lynn Michener, Issa Diao, and Anna Rosalind Walsh. Listen up find out wh...

Returning to the podcast is one of my all-time favorite authors, F.Paul Wilson. He is the New York Times bestselling author of the Repairman Jack series. The majority of Paul’s work fits into a saga he and his fans called the Secret History of the World. It is an interconnected universe that puts the Dark Tower and the MCU to shame including two separate book series that ends with the same book. T...

It is time for the National Basketball Association to kick off its 75th season and sure there are lots of sports radio stations and TV pundits you can hear talk about basketball but where else are you going to find a panel of bestselling and award-winning authors talking about Basketball. All are return guests to postcards. You have the authors of Birdbox, A Headful of Ghosts, and The Only Good In...

Horror fiction has long been one of my greatest passions and perhaps the best expression of the form is the short story. For this episode, I gathered a panel to talk about our favorite short stories. So take notes because there are plenty of tales mentioned here you’ll want to read yourself. We talk in detail about 60 or 70 classic horror fiction shorts. Like last October when I gathered a panel f...

I am super excited to welcome back Josh Malerman for his second appearance on Postcards. Josh is the NY Times bestselling author of  Birdbox. In his last appearance, we talked about his origins, the cultural moment that was the Netflix adaptation of his novel, and a lot more. This time we catch up with Josh about the film "We Need to Do  Something." It is the first film production from S...

My guest in this episode is the one the only Konstantin Batygin. He is a musician and astronomer whose day job is as a professor of Planetary Sciences and Orbital Mechanics at Caltech. Yes, that means if the sitcom The Big Bang Theory were real, he would have an office in the same department as Sheldon. As an astronomer, his research mostly focuses on the formation and evolution of planetary syste...

Episode 55 is an interview with the host and creator of the popular podcast Flash Forward  - Rose Eveleth. A former producer of content at ESPN's 30 for 30 and NPR's Radiolab before going independent Rose created one of the most critically acclaimed science podcasts. Flash Forward was named one of the Best Podcasts by iTunes, Wired Magazine, New York Magazine, New Statesman, Business Insider,...

In this episode, I interview Joe Dunman. This is part of my series of just cool people I know interviews. I like talking to punk rock and hardcore kids that have avoided the adult crash by doing good stuff. In this case, Joe went from Louisville mosh pits to the Supreme Court to protect civil rights. Joe is now an assistant professor of legal studies at Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentu...

If reading takes too long to consume my book reviews every month I gather up my book reviews and do a digest based on what I read over the month. Books covered this month: The Best of Judith Merril by Judith Merril, Sleeping Beauties, Vol. 1 Based on the novel by Stephen King and Owen King Alison Sampson (Illustrations), Adapted by Rio Youers, A Master of Djinn by P.Djeli Clark, The Compleat Werew...

Episode 52 is a special one. My guest is Brian Evenson returning to Postcards to talk about his new short story collection with the subtle title The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell . Brian Evenson is a professor of creative writing at CalTech Arts and the author of several novels including Last Days, Immobility, Feral, and an Alien Tie-in novel called No Exit under the name B.K.Evenson. The dark sur...