It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 32: Jessamyn St. Claire!
Jessamyn St. Claire shares her novel Hunted. We discuss bisexual inclusion, building passion through danger, and writing modern mafia noir thrillers.
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Jessamyn St. Claire is an up-and-coming author of dark and thrilling gay fiction with plenty of action and steam in her stories.
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 24: Michael G. Williams!
Michael G. Williams returns to share his collected novellas: Servant Sovereign AND his latest novel, Children of Solitude. We talk about real estate demons being thwarted by witches dipping through time, and then about supernatural horror as a genre that truly peels back the human experience and forces characters (and us) to find joy and love through the dark times!
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MICHAEL G WILLIAMS writes queer-themed speculative fiction celebrating the unexpected ways we outsiders find ourselves and our people at the heart of the mysterious and the macabre. He’s a member of HWA and SFWA and is on the NC Writers Network Board of Trustees.
He also co-hosts Arcane Carolinas, an award-winning podcast about the myths and legends of his native region. Michael studied Performance Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State, and is a brother in both Mu Beta Psi and St. Anthony Hall.
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 7, Episode 38: Michael G. Williams + Our Review of Wildhood!
Michael G. Williams returns to discuss queer futures and queer joy as seen in his SERVANT/SOVEREIGN and Autumn noir detective novels. We then review Wildhood and share who won our week.
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Michael G. Williams writes queer-themed science fiction, urban fantasy, and horror celebrating monsters, macabre humor, and subverted expectations. He’s the author of three series for Falstaff Books: the award-winning vampire/urban fantasy series The Withrow Chronicles; a new urban fantasy series featuring real estate, time travel, and San Francisco’s most beloved historical figures, SERVANT/SOVEREIGN; and the science fiction noir Autumn detective novels. Michael also co-hosts Arcane Carolinas, hosts and produces Social Distancing Radio, and contributes to tabletop RPG development. He strives to present the humor and humanity at the heart of horror and mystery with stories of outcasts and loners finding their people. He lives in Durham, NC, with his husband, a variety of animals, and more and better friends than he will admit to deserving.
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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m_liW3jU3Y[/embedyt]
It gives us great pleasure to welcome Michael G. Williams as the guest on Season 6, Episode 26 – Probably Selectively True!
Michael G. Williams joins us to discuss relating the queer experience through horror, science fiction, and urban fantasy. We dive into empowering queer voices rather than exploiting queer identities, and laugh about some of the joys of writing queer stories.
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Michael G. Williams writes queer-themed science fiction, urban fantasy, and horror celebrating monsters, macabre humor, and subverted expectations.
Michael is an avid podcaster, activist, and gaymer, and is a brother in St. Anthony Hall and Mu Beta Psi. He cohosts Arcane Carolinas, a podcast about the strange and unexplained found on the backroads of North & South Carolina, and Data at Rest, an information security podcast. He also hosts Social Distancing Radio, a podcast intended to recreate the experience of author readings at science fiction and fantasy conventions. Michael lives in Durham, NC, with his husband, a variety of animals, and more and better friends than he will admit he deserves.
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It gives us great pleasure to present Season 10, Episode 12: Elizabeth Costello!
Elizabeth Costello joins shares her debut novel: The Good War. We discuss writing feminist, noir, coming-of-age fiction, and then introduce Portland’s Ekphraestival, bringing writers and visual artists together.
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Elizabeth Costello is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. Her publications include the poetry chapbook RELIC and arts and culture writing for SF Weekly and 7×7. She works (remotely) as an editor for UC Berkeley and co-founded the ekphraestival, a generative exchange among visual artists and poets that culminates in readings and exhibitions in April, national poetry month. Her debut novel, The Good War, is out now from Regal House and was described by Publishers Weekly as “dark and intense…lyrical…Moody and atmospheric, this gritty tale is worth a look.”
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.
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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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.
Or Listen Right Here:
OR Watch on YouTube:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi2viVRKYVE[/embedyt]
It gives us great pleasure to present a Season 9, Episode 7 Interview – J.M. Redmann
J.M. Redmann joins us to share her latest Micky Knight Mystery, Transitory. We discuss why it was important to have a gritty, noir, lesbian detective in the world, as well as the growth of the series.
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J.M. Redmann is the author of a mystery series featuring New Orleans private detective Michele ‘Micky’ Knight. Her books have made the American Library Association GLBT Roundtable’s 2013 Over the Rainbow list, and have won a Fore Word Gold First Place mystery award, and her book LAW & DESIRE was an Editor’s Choice of the San Francisco Chronicle and a recommended book on NPR’s Fresh Air.
Her books have been translated into Spanish, German, Dutch, Norwegian and Hebrew. Redmann lives in an historic neighborhood in New Orleans, at the edge of the area that flooded.
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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx8guPfdUGU[/embedyt]
To find out more about Eliot Parker’s latest work, check out Episode 219: Don’t Be Afraid; Be Proud!
This is Eliot Parker’s new novel featuring police sergeant Ronan Mccullough, who previously appeared in Fragile Brilliance. This story can be read as a standalone, although it follows on neatly from the previous book.
Bloody and gruesome in places, but not gratuitously so, this is a clever crime novel with definite noir undertones and lashings of corporate intrigue. Ronan is very believable as the cop trying to make sense of the murder of a mutual friend, but before that even happens, there is a spectacular crash which sets up the tone of the book, and introduces tension between Ronan and his nearest and dearest.
I struggled in places with the plotting, and felt the editing could have been tightened up a bit. At times my attention began to wander, which didn’t make it a book I felt the need to devour in one go. As plots and characters go, there was nothing really new here but it was a solid crime novel with some genuinely shocking moments, although I had clocked who was the real crime kingpin by the middle of the book. The writing was good and it felt as if the author knew what they were doing, even if the reader didn’t, which ultimately kept me reading until the end.
BLURB
Six months after a drug cartel infiltrated Charleston, Ronan McCullough continues to fight the drug war that plagues the city. His investigations are halted when the body of a mutual acquaintance, Sarah Gilmore, is found in the trunk of a burning car. In an investigation that takes him deep into the professional and personal life of the victim, McCullough discovers secrets lurking in her past, and a tangled web of personal and professional conflicts, suspicion, and betrayal. Was Sarah killed for those reasons or something larger? As Ronan seeks answers, his life and the lives of those closest to him are used as pawns in a deadly game that has no ending.
