Ledger: A Writing Podcast

Bella Poynton is a playwright, director, actor, and theatre scholar. She's the director of the Playwrights’ Wing at First Look Buffalo Theatre Company in Buffalo, NY; literary manager for Post-Industrial Productions and is also the director of Queen City Playwrights, Buffalo’s new play development workshop for career playwrights in Western New York. Her plays have been featured in The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2019, The Best American Short Plays 2018-2019, and The Weirdest Plays of 2020. 

We discuss conceptualizing speculative (but specifically sci-fi/fantasy) plays for the stage; impossible stage directions; Star Wars; and some straight up theatre theory. See more of her work at http://www.bellapoynton.com/.

Find my work at www.austinRwilson.com and also on Medium.com/shibboieth and https://austinrwilson.medium.com/. I have two stories in Love Me, Love Me Not a collection of dark love stories out from Black Hare Press, available here. You can also listen to this and recent Ledger episodes on YouTube here. Thank you for listening and thank you to Bella for coming on!

Please rate, review, and share the show!

Max Booth III is the publisher of Ghoulish Books and the author of novels such as Maggots Screaming and Touch the Night, along with his forthcoming collection Abnormal Statistics. We discuss the importance of the word "punk" in the sub-genre splatterpunk, the personal nature of his story "Indiana Death Song," and why exactly we feel the need to not only write, but to release the stories out into the world, plus a whole lot more. You can find Ghoulish Books and Max at https://linktr.ee/ghoulishbooks, including the Ghoulish Discord, as well as links to everything we discuss.

Visit my site at austinRwilson.com and watch out for my stories in the Valentine's Day anthology coming from Black Hare Press in 2023. I have free stories you can read at my website, both comics and prose! Follow me on Twitter (or basically every social media platform) over @austinRwilson or @Ledger_Podcast. Rate and review the show when you get a chance and share it with friends!

Stephanie M. Wytovich is the editor of Writing Poetry In the Dark, a collection of essays about poetry, creativity, and writing in general. She is the poetry editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, a college professor, and an author of poetry and prose fiction. You can find her work at StephanieMWytovich.com or stephaniewytovich.blogspot.com.

Is literally everything poetry? Why do we associate "bad poetry" with the entire artform of poetry? How does editing guide all she does and how did she arrive at editing a book of essays about one of her favorite art forms? All this and more on today's Ledger!

Visit austinRwilson.com where you can donate to the show and find links to all of my work. Follow me on Twitter @austinRwilson and @Ledger_Podcast, but look out for me on YouTube as well @austinRwilson. I'll be posting the episodes there as audio files but do have plans for video at some point.

Thank you for listening!

EV Knight is the author of The Fourth Whore, which won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel, and Three Days In the Pink Tower out now from Creature Publishing.

Why do writers bury themselves under guilt? Are writers in fact the weirdest people currently living? How many drafts of a story does she normally create? What was it like to go from writing The Fourth Whore to accepting a Bram Stoker Award for it?

Visit austinRwilson.com where you can donate to the show and find links to all of my work. I have a short story coming on October 1st in the NOM NOM anthology out from Black Hare Press. Pre-order it right here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2M1VF6N?tag=gingercatpubl-20

I also currently have a Shibboleth story available through Mini Komix, check it out right here: https://www.lulu.com/shop/mini-komix/a-late-night-encounter/paperback/product-gmk76j.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Bucket O' Blood is located in Chicago, IL at 3182 N Elston Ave and is filled with horror, sci-fi/fantasy, and welcoming vibes. They sell records, movies, and used/new books and are an essential destination for anyone wanting to buy a story or two that will take them on an adventure. You can find them online here: https://www.bucketoblood.com/

Please visit austinRwilson.com/Ledger to see photos of Bucket O' Blood as well as my recent bookhaul!

If you visit the shop let me know, and especially let me know what you buy! Reach out to me on Twitter through @austinRwilson or @Ledger_Podcast or send me an email at [email protected]. If you have a shop you'd like to tell me about please let me know! I can never visit too many bookstores and want to spread the word about as many as possible.

Bookstores are landmarks of hope and possibility!

This is NOT an ad or sponsored episode, the content is mine alone.

Blood Mountain, by this episode's guest Brenda Tolian is "A mosaic of mountain songs that penetrate all the way to the beating, blood heart." That's what Josh Malerman says.

Brenda Tolian talks about her relationship to Colorado, the importance of telling its stories from indigenous perspectives, why the Bible is actually like really scary, and so much more!

Also visit her website at https://brendatolian.com/.

You can find me at www.austinRwilson.com and on Twitter @austinRwilson and @Ledger_Podcast. Thank you for listening!

"A cosmic horror exploration of sisterhood and feminine rage." That's how Jessica McHugh describes her next book of blackout poetry based on the classic Little Women. It will be published from Apokrupha, which is also the publisher of her book A Complex Accident of Life.

We discuss two novels she has coming out in 2022 from Ghoulish Books. The first book, Rabbits In the Garden is a reprint coming out in August 2022. Its sequel, Hares In the Hedgerow is a "crazy, cult horror [and] a big love letter to Joni Mitchell." It will be out in November 2022.

She also talks about writing two novels that tie-in to the WNUF Halloween Special sequel! Please check out her website www.mchughniverse.com.

My Twitters: @austinRwilson and @Ledger_Podcast

My website: www.austinRwilson.com

Terror and delight circle one another in the darkness and Bram Stoker Award-winning author Tim Waggoner is there to guide them directly into your heart.

Over the course of more than 50 novels, seven collections, and 20 media tie-in novels Tim has scared, shocked, and entertained readers with his tales of horror. Another thing he's done is teach, both in a classroom and on the page. His non-fiction book Writing In the Dark won the 2020 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement In Non-Fiction and the forthcoming Writing In the Dark: The Workbook expands on the exercises and tools supplied in the first volume. Both are available from Raw Dog Screaming Press and both are magnificent resources for writers.

Thank you for listening! Keep writing and keep telling stories.

Writing In the Dark - https://rawdogscreaming.com/books/writing-in-the-dark/

Writing In the Dark: The Workbook - https://rawdogscreaming.com/books/writing-in-the-dark-workbook/

Tim Waggoner - https://timwaggoner.com/

My work - https://www.austinRwilson.com

What is the journey like from idea to a published book for a first-time author? Keely Shinners chatted with Ledger about their book How To Build a Home for the End of the World, out now from Perennial Press. Keely discusses the five-year process for writing their first novel, who did those eye-catching sketches in the inside covers of the book, and the "deferred gratification" of writing a novel.

Daniel Kraus, author of The Ghost That Ate Us (out in July 2022 from Raw Dog Screaming Press), The Living Dead, Bent Heavens, Trollhunters, and The Shape of Water stopped by Ledger!

His newest book is the tale of a poltergeist in a fast-food restaurant, written as a true-crime tale. We discussed how he had to reverse engineer characters/story for that novel, his general writing schedule, whether he's afraid of anything at all, and how George A. Romero is one of his favorite artists of all time.

Thank you to Daniel for stopping by! Check out his work at www.danielkraus.com. My work is available at www.austinRwilson.com with supplemental material for the show at austinRwilson.com/Ledger.