This week in the Cold, we're stripping off our clothes and laying in the heat. We're scratching our mosquito bites with complete abandon, bathing in any body of water that is not a bathtub, singing out loud and chewing on onion grass. Join us and leave your favorite summer stories and activities in the comments!

Victoria's website:

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/august-in-the-cold/

This week in the Cold, we're celebrating summer with my own updated story of the country mouse and city mouse. This one is complete with teenage girls, bugs and snakes, visits to The Met, ghosts, Civil War battlefields, and even the cast of "Hamilton." You won't want to miss it!

Victoria on Amazon:

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2018/08/10/the-tale-of-a-country-mouse-and-city-mouse-updated-a-bit/

This week in the Cold, we talk about the artist Mirna Pavlovic's obsession with grand, abandoned places and how her vision corresponds with a writer's (at least this writer's) exploration of damaged characters plagued by broken dreams, violence, and lost love. We also talk about abandoned stories and why it's important to revisit them. Please have a listen.

Check out Mirna Pavlovic's amazing photography in this article:

And my stories here:

And here:

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2016/09/14/decaying-worlds-inhabiting-the-ruins-of-a-structure-and-a-soul/

This week in the Cold, we're celebrating American Independence Day by talking about family lore and the impact it has on our lives as citizens and creators. My own family's harrowing American story has informed my outlook on love, parenting, speech, and civic responsibility. The incredible tales I grew up hearing around our family dinner table - including our "coming to America" accounts - made my becoming a writer inevitable, even when other careers might have been less competitive and more lucrative. So, light a sparkler and join us!

Victoria's books:

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/please-stay-for-the-fireworks-some-thoughts-on-being-an-american/

This week in the Cold, we're celebrating Father's Day by talking about what it takes to make a man - both in fiction and in the Homeric journey of parenting. And yes, they overlap big time - at least for this parent and fiction writer.

If you're enjoying Cold, please remember to give us a follow and leave a starred review. It means a lot.

Oh, and here's the Radio Prague interview referenced in the podcast:

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/on-making-a-man/

This week in the Cold, we're pouring ourselves a whiskey, lighting up a smoke, and slipping into the wonderful, seedy, stylish, dark, and darkly funny world of Noir!

Victoria's Amazon Page (including some of my own noir thrillers):

And please, if you're enjoying the Cold, give us a follow, tell your friends, and leave us a starred review! It means a lot to us and to people looking for their next great listening experience.

This week in the Cold we're talking about really makes up the creative life, picking apart the actual bones of creativity, and the foundation upon which wild notions and beautiful things are built.

BREATH (Book 1 of the BREATH series) is available free for download this week only!

Get it while it's Cold!

This week in the Cold, we're talking about the difficulties inherent in taking a fresh, cold eye to your own work. In making your metaphors original, lyrical, and true, and turning the everyday into the fascinating, even magical. In essence, this involves approaching our work like a scientist and asking the very questions of ourselves that would produce counterintuitive answers full of wonder and awe. I'm also soliciting your opinions, my fellow scientists and creators, so allow me to take of your minds, if you will.

Join Victoria's newsletter here:

On Amazon:

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2023/05/05/approaching-fiction-like-a-scientist/

This week in the Cold, we're going all in on the Cold War! I've been immersing myself in Cold War art, photography and aesthetics as I've been writing a new, episodic Cold War noir thriller set in Moscow, Berlin, and Bombay in the late 1950s and it's been a blast! And I'm so happy to take you through some of my favorite Cold War memories and experiences!

Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi’s art on Radio Free Europe:

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://victoriadougherty.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/a-slavic-eye-for-cold-war-nostalgia/

This week in the Cold, we talk about how the stories we create and consume allow us to explore our deepest darkest fears. Listen...IF YOU DARE!

Victoria's Amazon Page: