Interview episodes
Women write Science Fiction – with Lisa Yaszek
I don't want the future to be female. I want it to be for everyone.Lisa Yaszek In a fascinating episode that covers everything from telepathic matriarchies to lesbian vampire fiction, academic Lisa Yaszek chats to us about the history of women writers in science...
Writing as a career with Sarah Pinborough
There is more to mastering writing than sentences, plots, and character. Writers must also think about the genre they are writing in, the audience they are writing for, and what medium their final piece will be in. It's no wonder...
Time travel with Kameron Hurley
Sometimes it is fun to call the shots on this show – and this week (while Lucy was away on holiday!), I decided to indulge a personal favourite subject of mine: time travel. My love of time travelling tales has been life-long, from Back to the Future (obvs) to...
Cultural Traditions of Magic – with Zen Cho
We like to think that fantasy is a limitless exploration of our imaginations, but in reality, fantasy fiction is limited by the cultural experiences of the author. As a result, what most of us are exposed to are a very narrow set of ideas about fantasy and magic –...
Transgender representation in SFF with Cheryl Morgan
The representation of transgender people within genre is a subject we've wanted to explore for a while now on this podcast. All too often, trans and non binary people are absent from speculative fiction, or if not absent then poorly represented. Why is this and what...
Writing comics with Leah Moore
I had the undeniable pleasure of chatting to UK comics writer Leah Moore. From growing up with comics royalty to a career spanning two decades, Leah has written for existing franchises, adapted novels to comics, and created original new properties. And perhaps most...
Layers and landscapes with Aliya Whiteley
What is speculative fiction and what can it offer the world? Aliya Whiteley's work has been described as "stark, poetic and forthright", and certainly not easily classified. We talk to her about how established ideas of gender can be challenged, the questions she...
John Gwynne on traditional fantasy tropes
We spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about how authors are subverting or downright overturning classic SFF tropes. But there are still merits of entrenched tropes, after all, tropes became such because they were enjoyable and worked, so people reused them....
Catriona Ward & ‘the liminal space between certainties’
Award-winning horror writer Catriona Ward joins us to discuss this most exciting and compelling of genres. Why are we so moved by horror? Why do we willingly throw ourselves into the twisted worlds it conjures? We don't have to look far to find it: horror surrounds us...