Worldbuilding, Aha Moments, & Writing for the Stage w/ S. P. Miskowski

In this interview, we chat with Sarah Bernstein about contemplation, finding time for writing, capturing the rush of language, and so much more. Sarah Bernstein is the author of two novels, The Coming Bad Days and Study for Obedience, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She is from Montreal and lives in the Scottish Highlands. Books and stories mentioned in this episode:Hysteric; Whore – Nelly ArcanGiovanni’s Room – James BaldwinThe Moonstone; The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins“A Mown Lawn” – Lydia DavisShirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life – Ruth FranklinThe Book of Questions – Edmond JabèsThe Haunting of Hill House; “The Lottery”; The Sundial; We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley JacksonThe Melancholy of Resistance – László KrasznahorkaiThe Place of Shells - Mai IshizawaIn the Wake: On Blackness and Being – Christina SharpeThe House Next Door – Anne Rivers SiddonsThe Door – Magda SzabóClean – Alia Trabucco Zerán

In this interview, we chat with S. P. Miskowski about Asian horror cinema, the power of grief, the relentless desire to shape the self, and so much more. S. P. Miskowski is a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, for literature and for drama. Her books have been recognized with four Shirley Jackson Award nominations and two Bram Stoker Award nominations. Her stories have appeared in many anthologies including Haunted Nights, Human Monsters, Looming Low I and II, The Madness of Dr. Caligari, Uncertainties III, October Dreams 2, The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 10, and Darker Companions: 50 Years of Ramsey Campbell, and in magazines including Identity Theory, Black Static, Vastarien, Supernatural Tales, and Cosmic Horror Monthly. Her grunge noir novel I Wish I Was Like You was named This Is Horror Novel of the Year 2017 and is available via Audible. An omnibus of her books set in the weird fictional town of Skillute, WA is forthcoming from Broken Eye Books in 2025.Books and stories mentioned in this episode:The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales – Alfred A. Knopf, pub.The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024 – S. A. Cosby, ed.D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths – Ingrid & Edgar Parin d’AulaireGo, Dog. Go! – P. D. EastmanRock Paper Scissors – Alice FeeneyThe Haunting of Hill House; "Maybe it Was the Car"; “The Summer People”; We Have Always Lived in the Castle; “The Witch” – Shirley JacksonNone of This is True – Lisa JewellAudition – Ryū Murakami“Bluebeard”; “Cinderella” – Charles Perrault“The Black Cat”; “The Cask of Amontillado” – Edgar Allan PoeThe Last Party – A. R. TorreThe Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023 – Lisa Unger, ed.

In this interview, we chat with Fawn Parker about showing the reader around the room, finding the right tense, protecting your writing time, and so much more.Fawn Parker is the author of five books including novels What We Both Know (M&S), nominated for the Giller Prize and Hi, It's Me (M&S), nominated for the Writer's Trust Atwood Gibson Prize, and the poetry collection Soft Inheritance, which was awarded the JM Abraham Atlantic Book Award and the Fiddlehead Poetry Book Prize. Her work has been published in The Walrus, Hazlitt, Literary Review of Canada, and elsewhere. Fawn is a PhD candidate at the University of New Brunswick and the Poet Laureate of Fredericton.Books and stories mentioned in this episode:The Edible Woman – Margaret AtwoodThe Mountain and the Valley – Ernest BucklerLibra – Don DeLilloThe Guest – Emma ClineAttack of the Copula Spiders and Other Essays on Writing – Douglas Glover"Experience" – Tessa HadleyUlysses – James JoyceRejection – Tony TulathimutteThis All Happened – Michael WinterHow Fiction Works – James WoodMrs. Dalloway – Virginia WoolfFawn's featured author photo is by Steph Martyniuk.

In this interview, we chat with Rod Moody-Corbett about tonal dissonance, sponging up influences, writing from memory, and so much more. Rod Moody-Corbett is an award-winning writer from Newfoundland. His writing has appeared in Socrates on the Beach, The Drift, The Paris Review Daily, and Fiddlehead, among other publications. He is the recipient of the 2022 Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Story, a Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Award for Short Fiction, the University of Calgary’s Kaleidoscope Prize, and the CBC Canada Writes Short Story Prize (People’s Choice Award). He serves as a contributing editor for Canadian Notes and Queries. Books mentioned in this episode: Experience – Martin Amis Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World; The Hundred Brothers; The Verificationist – Donald Antrim Last Evenings on Earth – Roberto Bolaño Save the Cat! Writes a Novel – Jessica Brody My Education – Susan Choi Underworld – Don DeLillo Notes from Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky The Last Samurai – Helen DeWitt Erasure – Percival Everett Bad Behavior; Because They Wanted To; Don’t Cry – Mary Gaitskill A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me; Jernigan – David Gates Airships – Barry Hannah The Road Through the Wall – Shirley Jackson Get Shorty; Rum Punch – Elmore Leonard Last Resort – Andrew Lipstein The Sentence is a Lonely Place – Garielle Lutz Moby Dick – Herman Melville The Ice Storm – Rick Moody Lectures on Literature – Vladimir Nabokov A House for Mr. Biswas – V. S. Naipaul Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas; Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family – Nicholas Pileggi Monkey Beach – Eden Robinson The Life of the Mind – Christine Smallwood The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman – Laurence Sterne The Visiting Privilege – Joy Williams To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf Sour Heart – Jenny Zhang

In this interview, we chat with Nour Abi-Nakhoul about copy editing, creative nonfiction, feverish creations, and so much more. Nour Abi-Nakhoul is a writer and editor based in Montreal. She is the editor-in-chief of the award-winning quarterly Maisonneuve Magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in Hazlitt and The Walrus. Her debut novel, Supplication, was released by Penguin Random House in 2024. Books mentioned in this episode:  Kilworthy Tanner – Jean Marc Ah-Sen We Are Here to Hurt Each Other – Paula D. Ashe Giovanni's Room – James Baldwin The Guest – Emma Cline The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky Autobiography of X; Pew – Catherine Lacey The Apple in the Dark – Clarice Lispector Fever Dream – Samanta Schweblin The Adventures of Ratman – Ellen Weiss

In this interview, we chat with Kathe Koja about balancing simultaneous projects, resisting online distractions, raising the literary dead, and so much more. Kathe Koja writes novels and short fiction, and creates and produces live and virtual events. Her award-winning books include The Cipher, Skin, Buddha Boy, Under The Poppy and Velocities, and she is currently at work on the Dark Factory immersive fiction project including Dark Factory, Dark Park and Dark Matter. Catherine the Ghost is her newest novel. You can find her at kathekoja.com and on Instagram, Facebook and Threads. Books and plays mentioned in this episode:  Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life – Ruth Franklin Faust – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Mouse and His Child; Riddley Walker – Russell Hoban The Default World – Naomi Kanakia A Place of Greater Safety; Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel Doctor Faustus – Christopher Marlowe Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett – James Knowlson Rimbaud: A Biography – Graham Robb Frankenstein; The Last Man – Mary Shelley Lost Boy Lost Girl – Peter Straub The Secret Power of Music: The Transformation of Self and Society through Musical Energy – David Tame

In this interview, we chat with Paula D. Ashe about writer's block, narrative movement, urban legends, and so much more. Paula D. Ashe (she/her) is an author of dark fiction. Her debut collection We Are Here to Hurt Each Other (Nictitating Books) was a Shirley Jackson Award winner for Single Author Collection and a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. Recently, she received the Joseph S. Pulver Sr. Weird Fiction Award at NecronomiCon Providence. Paula was also an associate editor for Vastarien: A Literary Journal. She lives in the Midwest with her family. Books and stories mentioned in this episode:  Supplication – Nour Abi-Nakhoul The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood Books of Blood; The Damnation Game; The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker Midnight Rooms – Donyae Coles Blood from the Air – Gemma Files “each thing i show you is a piece of my death” – Gemma Files & Stephen J. Barringer Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke – Eric LaRocca “Abed” – Elizabeth Massie The Scar – China Miéville Beloved; The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison Song of the Tyrant Worm – Hailey Piper Flowers for the Sea – Zin E. Rocklyn Cows – Matthew Stokoe The Secret History – Donna Tartt The Color Purple – Alice Walker Where I End – Sophie White

In this interview, we chat with McKenna James Boeckner and Carlee Calver about nature writing, epistolary possibilities, elusive chicken detectives, and so much more. McKenna James Boeckner is a Ph.D. candidate and contract lecturer at the University of New Brunswick (territory of the Wolastoqiyik people), with a specialization in long eighteenth-century British literature. As a creative writer, they slay with playwriting and have a penchant for fractured states of reality. Their most recent project is an eco-horror audio drama co-created with Carlee Calver, titled Us Soliscent Seeds. Find more of their work at memoirsofasodomite.com Carlee Calver is a writer, playwright, and filmmaker from Bathurst, New Brunswick. She currently lives and works in Fredericton NB, where she received her M.A. in creative writing (screenwriting) from the University of New Brunswick. Her plays have been produced by Notable Acts Theatre Festival (2019) and Herbert the Cow productions (2022). She directed a FibeTV1 series called Skin and Bone (2023) that is now available online. Recently, Carlee was co-creator and producer of Us Soliscent Seeds (2023), a 4-part eco-horror audio drama set in Northern New Brunswick. All episodes are now available for streaming online. Books mentioned in this episode: We Are Here to Hurt Each Other – Paula D. Ashe Carrie – Stephen King Blue Ruin; Red Pill – Hari Kunzru Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Maturin The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath Divergent series – Veronica Roth The Two Gentlemen of Verona – William Shakespeare Frankenstein – Mary Shelley Dracula – Bram Stoker

In this interview, we chat with Lisa Tuttle about genre history, the ideal protagonist, Harlan Ellison's writing advice, and so much more. Lisa Tuttle was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and moved to Britain in the 1980s. Her first novel, Windhaven, co-written with George R.R. Martin, was followed by over a dozen fantasy, science fiction, and horror novels, including three recent books set in the 1890s combining crime and supernatural fiction, featuring the detective duo Jasper Jesperson and Miss Lane; the third volume, The Curious Affair of the Missing Mummies, was published last year. She has also written hundreds of award-winning short stories collected in several volumes, including A Nest of Nightmares, The Dead Hours of the Night, and most recently, Riding the Nightmare. She is the author of The Encyclopedia of Feminism (1986) and currently writes a monthly science fiction review column for The Guardian. She lives with her husband and their daughter in Scotland. Book and stories mentioned in this episode: The Saint of Bright Doors – Vajra Chandrasekera Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life – Ruth Franklin Hangsaman; The Haunting of Hill House; “The Lottery” – Shirley Jackson The MANIAC; When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamín Labatut Biography of X – Catherine Lacey The Seventh Mansion – Maryse Meijer Babysitter; By the North Gate; They; The Wheel of Love – Joyce Carol Oates The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath Lake of Darkness – Adam Roberts Cryptonomicon; Polostan – Neal Stephenson

In this interview, we chat with Mark Anthony Jarman about hockey fiction, deadwood words, finding inspiration in newspaper clippings, and so much more. Mark Anthony Jarman is the author of Touch Anywhere to Begin, Czech Techno, Knife Party at the Hotel Europa, My White Planet, 19 Knives, New Orleans Is Sinking, Dancing Nightly in the Tavern, and the travel book Ireland’s Eye. Burn Man, published in 2023 by Biblioasis, was an Editors Choice with the New York Times. He was an acquisitions editor for Oberon Press, and introduced many new writers through the Coming Attractions series. He is also the editor of Best Canadian Stories 2023. His novel Salvage King Ya! is on Amazon.ca’s list of 50 Essential Canadian Books and is the number one book on Amazon’s list of best hockey fiction. Widely published in Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia, Jarman is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a Yaddo fellow, has taught at the University of Victoria, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the University of New Brunswick. He is also co-editor of the literary journal CAMEL. Books and poems mentioned in this episode:  Flowers of Evil – Charles Baudelaire Study for Obedience – Sarah Bernstein Cathedral – Raymond Carver The Stories of John Cheever – John Cheever Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad The U.S.A. Trilogy – Jon Dos Passos Literary Theory: An Introduction – Terry Eagleton “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” – T. S. Eliot The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald Attack of the Copula Spiders: Essays on Writing – Douglas Glover The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway Dubliners; Ulysses – James Joyce The Incognito Lounge and Other Poems; Jesus’ Son; Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond – Denis Johnson On the Road – Jack Kerouac Panama – Thomas McGuane Dance of the Happy Shades – Alice Munro Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle; Lolita; Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov The Cariboo Horses – Al Purdy