My guest this week is writer Mark Waddell. His novel, Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World, comes out next week on October 7 — a queer story about an office worker whose career advancement involves world-ending consequences. There’s an autobiographical edge to the story, since in his real life Mark had a dream job going back to childhood… and it was only after he achieved it that he realized just how harmful his dreams were, and decided to leave it all behind to become a writer.

We’ll have that conversation in just a minute. First, a few announcements: As I’m sure you know, I make YouTube videos about iconic movies and TV shows, and I have a brand new video out now about the movie Kiss of the Spider Woman — and how it was made in defiance of the film industry, in defiance of Ronald Reagan, and in defiance of multiple fascist dictators. That’s available now at youtube.com/mattbaume.

The topic of next month’s video is the iconic 1931 Frankenstein film and its maker, James Whale — and in his honor, for the entire month of October I’m hosting livestreams of films by and about James Whale. Join me every Saturday and Sunday on Twitch for movies like The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, Gods and Monsters starring Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser, and of course Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein. These films helped define a century of scary movies, and they are incredibly queer. It all starts this Saturday October 4 at noon pacific at Twitch.tv/mattbaume.