Breaking the Glass Slipper: Women in science fiction, fantasy, and horror

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 can be done to improve the situation? Cheryl Morgan […]

In this episode, we discuss all things reproduction. That’s right: sex, pregnancy, birth – the whole shebang around creating new life and what it means to a woman’s position, as represented in genre fiction. We (supposedly) have a biological drive to propagate our species… as a result, it’s natural that a certain preoccupation with procreation […]

Women aren’t the only minority to suffer from poor as well as a lack of representation in genre fiction. Among other minorities struggling to have their voices heard are people of colour, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQI community.  In this episode, we spoke to prolific science fiction and fantasy author Marissa Lingen, whose credits […]

While we were all winding down from Christmas, Charlie Brooker and the Black Mirror gang were getting ready to mess with our minds yet again. December 28th saw the release of the one-off interactive Netflix special ‘Bandersnatch’ to mixed reviews. But no one can deny it was an interesting experiment, combining elements of video games, […]

The holiday season comes with all kinds of traditions. From special desserts to the annual family bust-up. Whether you like a feel-good story at this time of year or something a little more spine-tingling, there’s magic enough for everyone. In this episode, Charlotte and Megan explore their Christmas fears, the sexiest muppets, and the depths […]

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 importantly, Leah has written many well-rounded, interesting female characters, something we need […]

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 explores in her fiction, the relationship her books have to the natural […]

Alternate episode title: Magic goat sword (it will make sense if you listen!) If you’re planning a murder, always have a koala with you! Works of fiction are rarely confined to a single genre, especially when it comes to speculative fiction. There are sci-fi westerns, historical fantasies, and comedy horrors. Many science fiction, fantasy, and […]

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. It’s often said that grimdark is popular because it rejects good […]

Writing better female characters is covered in a lot of writing advice. Many of these pieces will preface their comments with sarcastic comments like ‘Women are people too, duh’. This sort of statement, I think, should make the topic a moot point – not how to write better female characters but how to write better […]