Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!

In this episode - their first one recorded in 2025! - Steve and Tananarive talk about how Octavia E. Butler and Ray Bradbury confronted their times with art to help inspire themselves and others. (Includes a clip from a 2000 interview with Octavia Butler). 

They also talk about their upcoming hybrid class on Writing Science Fiction/Afrofuturism (1/25) and how artists can turn fear into power through storytelling! (Learn more about the class at www.writerwebinar.com) 

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Tananarive spent more than seven years working on her new novel, THE REFORMATORY, which was inspired by true-life family history about her great-uncle Robert Stephens and the Dozer School for Boys in Marianna, FL. In this podcast, she and Steve talk about why it took so long to write, the Lifewriting tools she used to complete it, and how she's fighting to stay centered in the whirlwind of her book's publication. 

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In this episode, Tananarive interviews horror author/screenwriter Clay McLeod Chapman about his upcoming novel, WAKE UP AND OPEN YOUR EYES -- which was blurbed by Jordan Peele and is about a deadly political spell cast over the nation. (Sounds familiar!) He and Tananarive also talk about his start as an author, how he first met Jordan Peele, and the search for hope in writing and reading horror. 

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Tananarive and Steve were devastated by the death of Candyman star Tony Todd in November of 2024. (He also co-starred in their "Fugue State" story in the Shudder/AMC+ anthology film Horror Noire.) His death inspired them to unearth an interview they did with Todd as a part of their online digital download course The Sunken Place, a history of Black Horror. In this rare interview, Todd talks about his tough childhood, the aunt who raised him, his theater roots...and becoming Candyman. Don't miss it! 

The full course (which also includes an interview with Jordan Peele) can be found at www.sunkenplaceclass.com. 

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In this episode, Tananarive and Steve talk to New York Times horror columnist and author Gabino Iglesias! In 2023, Iglesias, who is Puerto Rican, became the first Latino writer to win a Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel for THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME. (His more recent book, HOUSE OF BONE AND RAIN, is also great!) 

Steve and Tananarive talk to Gabino about how his struggles with unemployment and losing his health insurance during COVID inspired him to finish his award-winning novel, why he loves horror, and what he's doing next! 

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In this episode, Tananarive talks to author, poet and scholar Nadine Pinede about her difficult journey bringing her debut novel to life, WHEN THE MAPOU SINGS - a novel about a young girl's experiences in historical Haiti, including encounters with Zora Neale Hurston. And the novel is entirely in verse! 

National Book Award winner Edwidge Danticat calls the book "a stunning revelation." They talk about managing a writing practice through pain and how the novel transformed over the years. 

The author requests donations to the Claudette Pinede Memorial Scholarship Fund to support Haitian women in STEM: 

https://helpdonors.donorsupport.co/page/FUNNJGKWUCZ

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In this episode, Steve and Tananarive talk to Bram Stoker Award winner Stephen Graham Jones. He shares his writing process, his love for slashers, his exploration of father-son relationships in his stories, and how his own personal promise to an elk he hunted gave birth to his bestselling novel The Only Good Indians. (Latest novels: My Heart is a Chainsaw and I Was a Teenage Slasher.)

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In this episode, Steve and Tananarive talk to Wicked City television series creator Kristin Iris Johnson about her journey to Hollywood as a queer Black woman with disabilities -- and how she claimed her personal power to thrive as a writer and producer in such a competitive industry. 

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Wow - just WOW. Tananarive talks about mounting Scare Up the Vote, the horror community's campaign event to support Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. On this episode, excerpts from amazing talks about horror and why voting matters by your horror faves: Stephen Graham Jones, Gabino Iglesias, Stephen King in conversation with Joe Hill, Erin E. Adams, Mike Flanagan in conversation with Kate Siegel, Bryan Fuller, Akela Cooper and Rachel Harrison.

And that's just a tiny slice of the full broadcast with a slew of other great horror creators, which you can watch at scareupthevote.com

The event raised more than $21,000, but you can still show your horror head love for the Kamala Harris campaign by contributing at https://secure.kamalaharris.com/a/scare-up-the-vote?attr=116075965 - every contribution here will be credited to Scare Up the Vote! 

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That's right, royalty is in the house - Nuzo Onoh has been hailed as "The Queen of African Horror." This Nigerian-British writer is a pioneer of the African horror genre, and she talks about how tropes like vengeful ghosts have shaped her writing. Her books include Dance for the Dead and the upcoming Where the Dead Brides Gather. 

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