All posts by Vance

14Aug/26

Abigail de Niverville

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August 14, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 29: Abigail de Niverville!

Abigail de Niverville returns with the rerelease of I Knew Him and the companion novel Be True. We discuss bi-erasure, prejudice, friendship, and character growth through discomfort. We then delve into talking about crafting contemporary romances and overcoming a writing slump

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Abigail de Niverville is a Moncton-born author living in Toronto, Ontario. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 2017 with a Master’s of Composition. While studying music, Abigail would escape the daily stresses of university life by writing stories and novels. Her experiences in theatre performance and production often influence her creative works. She continues to dedicate her free time to writing novels, poetry, and songs.

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October 9, 2020

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Abigail de Niverville back as the guest on Episode 289 – They Went There!

Abigail de Niverville returns to share her latest novel, We Go Together, and we discuss healing from abuse, bi-representation, a trans love interest, and music’s role in a story. A great discussion all the way around.

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Bio:

Abigail de Niverville is a Moncton-born composer and author living in Toronto, Ontario. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 2017 with a Master’s of Composition, having studied with Alexander Rapoport. She has previously studied with Kevin Morse at Mount Allison University. While studying music, Abigail would often escape the daily stresses of university life by writing stories and novels. Her experiences in theatre performance and production often influence her creative works in all mediums. In 2019, her debut novel I Knew Him was released by NineStar Press. She continues to dedicate her time writing novels, poetry, and songs.

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April 26, 2019


It gives us great pleasure to welcome Abigail de Niverville as the guest on Episode 213 – Unnecessarily Mysterious!

Abigail de Niverville joins us to discuss her new novel, I Knew Him, as well as how her musical composition informed her work and her take on YA literature.

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Bio:

Abigail de Niverville is a Moncton-born composer and author living in Toronto, Ontario. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 2017 with a Master’s of Composition, having studied with Alexander Rapoport. She has previously studied with Kevin Morse at Mount Allison University. Her experiences in theatre performance and production often influence her creative works.

Recent musical works include: Letters (for tenor and piano), Let Me In (for Ensemble Atlantica), and October 4th, 1967 (a mini opera).

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07Aug/26

Dean Klinkenberg

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August 7, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 28: Dean Klinkenberg!

Dean Klinkenberg shares The Frank Dodge Mystery 4: Murder On The Mississippi. We discuss writing noir in a contemporary setting, bringing an amateur sleuth life, and looking at a 40 year race murder. Then we look at the radical choice to trust the world with his upcoming travel memoir Better Safe Than Sorry?

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Dean Klinkenberg writes crime fiction carved from the currents of the Mississippi River. He’s the author of the Frank Dodge mysteries, where a restless writer keeps stumbling into trouble in river towns from Minnesota to New Orleans—cold secrets, crooked deals, and the kind of neighbors who smile while they lie.

The river isn’t just a backdrop for Dean; it’s the engine of the stories. He chases its history and characters, then turns what he finds into twists, suspects, and places you can smell and feel. Along the way, Frank Dodge wrestles with the same things the rest of us do—who we are, what we owe, and how to hold on to the people we love when the current gets rough.

Dean grew up in the Midwest, first fell for the Mississippi in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and now lives in St. Louis, a short drive from Old Man River. When he’s not sending Dodge into danger, he’s roaming river towns, filling notebooks, and taking photos for the next mystery. If you like noir with a strong sense of place, start the Frank Dodge series and come see what the river is hiding.

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31Jul/26

Charles Close

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July 31, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 27: Charles Close!

Charles Close shares The Blood Thief 1: The Short Happy Life of Alex Rose. We discuss serendipity, gratitude, taking action in life, world-building, vampires, and human-level stories told as big supernatural adventures.

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Charles Lawrence Close III got his first published novel rolling during the pandemic when he should have been working on his capstone project for his master’s degree at Johns Hopkins in NGO management. He wrote enough to fill two books and still managed to pull straight A’s and graduate with high honors. The Blood Thief, Vol. 1: The Short Happy Life of Alex Rose is sort of his first book. He also wrote a Jack Kerouac style novel about his crazy times living in Mexico and Russia, but he felt it was a little self-indulgent and will probably revise it at some point when he gets all the fictional characters that are spinning around in his brain a home on paper. The next edition of Alex Rose’s adventures is well on the way with The Blood Thief, Vol. 2: My Own Personal Bethlehem coming out soon!

He cares deeply about giving back to the community and believes that doing unto others as you would have them do to you is the best way to live. When he isn’t volunteering for a nonprofit, you can find him skating Pride parades with a synchronized dance crew, practicing jian-fa, learning the piano or turntables, and climbing cliffs and gym walls like a savagely dazzling, inappropriately velvet-wearing creature of the night.

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24Jul/26

Skylar Lyralen Kaye

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July 24, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 26: Skylar Lyralen Kaye!

Skylar Lyralen Kaye shares faer memoir: Bachelorx! We dive into the power and importance of storytelling, the hope in queer identities, dating on the apps mid-life, coming out as nonbinary and having a plural identity, and heading out onto the water seeking balance in life.

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Skylar Lyralen Kaye has been starting fires with words for over three decades — on stages, on screens, on the page, and in the streets. Fae writes the stories other people are afraid to tell. The ones that keep you up at night, laughing and crying.

Kaye’s work has been produced on stages across the country, published in literary journals including Calyx, Phoebe, and Girlfriends, Diva, Out, Attitude and Happy Magazine. They exploded onto film with the web series Assigned Female at Birth, winner of 13 film festival awards and the 2021 NE Film Star Award. Fae’s one-person show My Preferred Pronoun Is We (AKA Many Trump Refugees in One Body) won Best in Fringe at the San Francisco Fringe Festival. Add to that the Moth Story Slam, the Boston Story Slam, the 2015 Meryl Streep Writers Lab, and the 2002 Lipkin Prize in Playwriting — and you start to get the picture. Almost an unfair number of awards.
Kaye holds a BA in English from the University of Arizona and an MFA in Theater from Sarah Lawrence College. Fae is also a Pushcart Prize-nominated fiction writer, a winning slam poet and lifelong queer social justice activist.

Fae writes because silence is not an option — though fae has been known to laugh ‘til they cry while burning it all down.

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17Jul/26

Natalie Simone

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July 17, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 25: Natalie Simone!

Natalie Simone joins us to discuss queer art! We dive into topics like queer history and the overlap with art, the importance of art accessibility like street art, why art should challenge the artist AND the viewer, and the importance of visual storytelling.

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Natalie Simone (nicknamed “noot”) is a nonbinary, queer, and disabled mixed media artist. Their art explores feminism, gender, sexuality, sense of self, relationships, mental health, and other various avenues of self-expression drawn from the human experience. Natalie is also often inspired by music, movies, and other forms of media so they create a lot of fan art as well. They have an online store under the shop name Nootcreations and do local art markets when they are physically able to. They grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Syracuse University with a BFA degree in Studio Arts as well as a minor in LGBT+ Studies.

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03Jul/26

Garrett Hutson

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July 3, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 24: Garrett Hutson!

Garrett Hutson returns to announce the kickstarter for his M/M/M adventure-romance, Into the Wild, and drop the news of Book 5 in the Death in Shanghai series: Murder Among Friends. We discuss moving between death and mayhem and adventure and happy romance, how love is not constrained, and why history is a great backdrop for novels… And we manage it all without spoiling the endings!.

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Garrett Hutson writes upmarket historical fiction driven by flawed characters who are moving and unforgettable. Whether it’s a murder mystery, a thrilling spy novel, or an adventurous and swoon-worthy gay romance, his books will make you feel something. Garrett writes about ordinary people in different times and places who struggle with faith, family dysfunction, and all of the moral gray areas of life. He writes realistic fiction, so his work is always diverse and LGBT-inclusive.

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November 8, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 9, Episode 43: Garrett Hutson!

Garrett Hutson returns to share his upcoming LGBTQ Buccaneer Adventure kickstarter: Friends, Mates, and Scoundrels. We discuss facing writers block, imposter syndrome, finding inspiration, and the adventure of writing!

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Bio:
Garrett Hutson writes upmarket historical mysteries and spy fiction, driven by flawed characters who are moving and unforgettable. His books are about ordinary people in different times and places who struggle with faith, family dysfunction, and all of the moral gray areas of life. He writes realistic fiction, so his work is always diverse and LGBT-inclusive. He lives in Indianapolis with his husband, three adorable dogs, an odd-ball cat, and too many fish to count.

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January 5, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 9, Episode 01: Garrett Hutson!

Garrett Hutson returns to share his most recent two books – The Pink Lotus and Of Wild and Merry Men. We discuss the Shanghai nightlife of the 20s, 30s, and early 40s AND the Merrymount Colony experiment in colonial America.

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Bio:
Garrett Hutson writes upmarket mysteries and historical spy fiction, driven by flawed characters who are moving and unforgettable. He writes about ordinary people in different times and places who struggle with faith, family dysfunction, and all of the moral gray areas of life. It’s realistic fiction, so Garrett’s work is always diverse and LGBT-inclusive.

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October 28, 2022

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 7, Episode 43: Garrett Hutson + Our Review of Hocus Pocus 2!

Garrett Hutson unveils his latest historic novels, filled with espionage, intrigue, and a bit of cabaret. Then horror author Michael G. Williams joins our review of Hocus Pocus 2. Followed by Baz and Vance sharing who won their weeks.

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Bio:
Garrett Hutson writes upmarket mysteries and historical spy fiction, driven by flawed characters who are moving and unforgettable. He writes about ordinary people in different times and places who struggle with faith, family dysfunction, and all of the moral gray areas of life. It’s realistic fiction, so Garrett’s work is always diverse and LGBT-inclusive.

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September 17, 2021

It gives us great pleasure to welcome Garrett Hutson as the guest on Season 6, Episode 37 – Two Paragraphs Before the Detective!

Garrett Hutson shares his latest release, No Accidental Death. We then discuss queer characters in historical fiction.

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Bio:

Garrett Hutson writes upmarket mysteries and historical spy fiction, driven by characters who are moving and unforgettable. He lives in Indianapolis with his husband, four adorable dogs, two odd-ball cats, and more fish than you can count. You can usually find him reading about history, and day-dreaming about being there. This is where his stories are born, and he hopes they transport you the way his imagination transports him.

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26Jun/26

Chris Holcombe

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June 26, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 23: Chris Holcombe!

Chris Holcombe shares his latest Hidden Gothem novels: The Naughty List (standalone short) and The Big Timer (book 4). We discuss the evolution of his novels, more queer Harlem history, the Rainbow Readers Cruise, and Chris’s park walks.

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Chris Holcombe is the author of the Hidden Gotham series, LGBTQ+ noir that readers call “Honest-to-goodness pulp fiction at its gayest and most glamorous!”

Set in the Queer clubs of 1920s NYC, Hidden Gotham exposes and explores that fabulous yet gritty life during The Decade That Roared.

Chris’s work features engaging characters, whip-smart dialogue, and page-turning plots. He also infuses real Queer history and at least one “seriously, WTF?!” Prohibition factoid into every book. All written in an immersive, atmospheric writing style.

He is currently hard at work on his next book, and he asks that you send gin and chocolate for encouragement.

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June 14, 2024

It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 23 Interview – Chris Holcombe

Chris Holcombe returns to share his Hidden Gotham series. He then teases the upcoming book 4, and shares his Pride Month Short Story!

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Chris Holcombe is the author of LGBTQ+ historical crime fiction called The Hidden Gotham Series, which showcases New York’s lively but criminally under-represented queer world of the 1920s. His first novel The Double Vice was released in 2021 to great acclaim, with Queer Writers of Crime calling it “one of the best I’ve read all year! I can’t recommend it highly enough!” His second novel The Blind Tiger was released in 2022, and it continues the story of gay speakeasy owner Dash Parker and his Queer friends in Greenwich Village and in Harlem. Readers heralded it as “honest-to-goodness pulp fiction at its gayest and most glamorous!” The third novel in the series The Devil Card was released in 2023, with readers saying it was Holcombe’s best one yet. He is currently hard at work plotting and planning the next Hidden Gotham novel. He asks that you send gin and chocolate for encouragement.

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June 16, 2023

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 8, Episode 25: Chris Holcombe + Our Review of ABC’s “Soul of a Nation: The Freedom to Exist!”

Chris Holcombe brings his fun energy as we talk about The Devil Card, the third in his Hidden Gotham series. We discuss his diverse cast and the real-world WTF facts from queer and prohibition history that shaped his setting. Then Baz and Vance rate and review ABC’s important “Soul of a Nation: The Freedom to Exist” and close by sharing who won their weeks!

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Bio:
Chris Holcombe is the author of LGBTQ+ historical crime fiction called The Hidden Gotham Series, which showcases New York’s lively but criminally under-represented queer world of the 1920s.

He asks that you send gin and chocolate for encouragement.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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19Jun/26

Douglas Bell

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June 19, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 22: Douglas Bell!

Douglas Bell joins us to share his novels: Cake Walk, Love Cake, and Threads of Purpose. We discuss identity crisis, black identity vs expectations, community, loving a trans woman openly, giving trans women the spotlight, spirituality & meditation, and the journey to discovering one’s true self.

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Douglas Bell, a dynamic fiction author based in Houston, Texas, inspires readers to embrace authenticity and transformation. Writing under the pen name Douglas Bell, Troy Porter found the freedom to tell bold, groundbreaking stories that elevate overlooked perspectives, particularly the pain and passion of Black male voices. Grounded in the culture, food, architecture, and sports of Houston, Bell’s stories offer a rich, immersive backdrop that reflects the heart of the city. With a background in Architectural Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Texas A&M’s Mays School of Business, Bell blends analytical precision with creative vision in his storytelling.

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12Jun/26

Donna Minkowitz

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June 12, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 21: Donna Minkowitz!

Donna Minkowitz returns with the new edition of her memoir, Growing Up Golem. We discuss her journey from feeling “constructed” toward feeling like a person. Donna’s style introduces dark topics and growing pains with intellect and fierce fantasy.

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Donna Minkowitz is a writer of fantasy, memoir, and journalism lauded by Lilith Magazine for her “fierce imagination and compelling prose.” Science fiction great Terry Bisson called her writing “rich and wild, dark and funny, as fearless as her legendary journalism and as scary as a fairy tale.” And she’s proud that Kirkus has praised the “defiant and playful energy” of her work.

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March 14, 2025

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 9: Donna Minkowitz!

Donna Minkowitz joins us to share her first fiction novel: Donnaville. We discuss backdrops of the mind, growth of the self through the parts of self, character struggles, and yes… there are authoritarians who are trying to bring about a stricter society.

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Donna Minkowitz is a writer of fantasy, memoir, and journalism lauded by Lilith Magazine for her “fierce imagination and compelling prose.” Science fiction great Terry Bisson called her writing “rich and wild, dark and funny, as fearless as her legendary journalism and as scary as a fairy tale.” And she’s proud that Kirkus has praised the “defiant and playful energy” of her work.

This Podcast episode is available on these channels (in order alphabetical):
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05Jun/26

Russ López

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June 5, 2026

It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 20: Russ López!

Russ López shares his novel, Provincetown Stories. We discuss him finding a home in Boston/Provincetown, the inspiration for the amazing characters that inspire his work, and then writing a fun collection of short fiction stories as a love-letter to this amazing area.

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Russ López is the author of Provincetown Stories, a collection set in the Portuguese fishing village/gay tourist mecca on the tip of Cape Cod. He’s written six nonfiction books including The Hub of the Gay Universe: An LGBTQ History of Boston, Provincetown, and Beyond. He is the editor of Latin eLit, an online magazine that publishes fiction by and about Latinx people, and his work has appeared in The Fictional Café, Somos en escrito, Northeast Atlantic, Discretionary Love, Night Picnic, The Gay and Lesbian Review, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and many other places. López has also written numerous academic articles, book reviews, and works in many formats, and has presented at numerous book festivals, podcasts, and special programming on books and literature. Originally from California, Russ has degrees from Stanford, Harvard, and Boston University. He splits his time between Boston and Ptown year-round.

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