Fictitious

We're joined by Robin Furth, author of Stephen King's The Dark Tower: A Complete Concordance and co-writer of the Marvel Comics Dark Tower series. Robin was also a consultant on the recent Dark Tower film, has produced another concordance for a different Stephen King book series, and is consulting for other media properties. And she is now writing and releasing her own short stories and novels, as well as other comic projects.

This episode features author Vivian Shaw, whose debut novel — Strange Practice — was just released from Orbit Books. Strange Practice introduces Dr. Greta Helsing, a normal human physician working to keep the supernatural community not-alive and well in modern-day London. Having inherited her family's specialized medical practice, Greta can barely make ends meet with her treatments for local mummies. But when a sect of murderous monks begins to scour the city's underbelly, intent on killing her unusual friends, she must team up with her undead clients to keep them — and the rest of London — safe. Filled with fresh twists on classic monsters and imaginative mash-ups, this new series is a perfect fit for fans of contemporary fantasy.

Our guest is Rebecca Zanetti, a prolific author of dark paranormals, romantic suspense, and contemporary romances. She's published more than 25 novels, many of which have appeared on bestseller lists from the New York Times, USA Today, iBooks, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. Her books include the Scorpius Syndrome series and Realm Enforcer series from Kensington Publishing, and the Sin Brothers series and Lost Bastard series from Grand Central Publishing. Her latest novel, Lethal Lies, was released in May. It's the 2nd in her new Blood Brothers series, with the 3rd volume coming in November.

We talk with Lauren Shippen, the writer and creator of The Bright Sessions, a science fiction audio drama about people with supernatural abilities - in therapy. It's a serialized podcast where each episode is a therapy session between a patient and the enigmatic Dr. Joan Bright. The Bright Sessions premiered in 2015, and has been featured by iTunes, Vox, Wired, The Observer, and Popular Science. In 2016 it was the recipient of 7 Audio Verse Awards. As an actor in Los Angeles, Lauren Shippen created the series as a writing experiment and creative outlet for her and her friends. Its success has made writing a dominant part of her career now.

In this conversation, we explore the genesis of the show, developing from a single character idea to an elaborate audio drama. We discuss the benefits of writing episodically and the freedom of her story format, and how characters evolve off the page when they are embodied by passionate actors. And we talk about how her story became an outlet for her dealings with anxiety and mental health issues, and how that opened a dialogue with her fans.

This rebroadcast episode was recorded at San Diego Comic-Con 2015 with Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse and its sequel Robogenesis. His books also include How to Survive a Robot Uprising, A Boy and His Bot, and Amped. Daniel's career spans books, television, and comics. He has a PhD in Robotics and a Masters in Artificial Intelligence. His book Robopocalypse was optioned by DreamWorks and was in development by Steven Spielberg, though the film has been in production limbo for several years now. We talk about Press Start to Play, an anthology of video game inspired short stories that he co-edited. And we chatted about all the other crazy places his writing career has taken him.

This episode originally appeared our flagship podcast, Nerd For A Living.

Hugo-award winning author Mary Robinette-Kowal spoke with us during the release of her novel "Ghost Talkers", a historical fantasy set in Europe during World War I. We talk about how that novel came together, and we also explore the other facets of her career, including her award-winning work as a puppeteer, and her side gig as a voice over artist, reading audio books and short stories for other writers.

This episode originally appeared on our flagship podcast, Nerd For A Living.

Fictitious is a new podcast about writing and genre storytelling, presented by Nerd For A Living and hosted by Adron Buske.

We will delve into the storytelling process and business of writing for genre entertainment. And by genre, we mean all kinds of speculative fiction - science fiction, fantasy, horror and supernatural, and all the category-bending and -blending stories in between.

Fictitious will focus on prose fiction, like novels and short stories, but we'll also explore screenwriting for film and television, and scripting for other multimedia outlets, like audio dramas, graphic novels, games, and more. We'll be talking to working and published authors, screenwriters, editors, and publishers to learn about writing for multiple platforms, and how to develop and sustain a career as a writer. These conversations will examine the craft, techniques, and work habits of passionate storytellers.