Matthew Wayne Selznick Creates

The 98th episode of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process, features a conversation with post-cyberpunk science fiction thriller author Bryan Chaffin.

Bryan Chaffin is the author of science fiction thriller Accidental Intelligence. As of April 2024, he’s working on the follow up novel, Inside the Mirror, as well as multiple short stories set in this universe.

In a past life, Bryan wrote about Apple and technology for 23 years as the cofounder and editor-in-chief of The Mac Observer. He and his business partner sold TMO in 2022, and Bryan has been busy living out his fantasy of writing fiction since.

Today, Bryan lives with his dog Commander Ichabod Ezekiel Cromwell in Silicon Valley, where they both enjoy the fantabulous pastime of THROW THE DAMNED BALL!

Find Bryan Chaffin — and sign up for his newsletter — at geektells.com.

The interview portion of this episode was recorded on January 15, 2024. The other bits were recorded on April 01, 2024.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

It’s here! The premiere episode of the 2024 season of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, a podcast about making stuff (mostly writing!), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process!

Listen to learn about the fifteen guests I’ve recorded for the season, what to expect across the planned twenty episodes to come, the Very Special Year in which this season takes place, how to support the show, and more!

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, March 19, 2024.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

Episode 096 of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick comes to you a couple months before the “official” beginning of the 2024 season of the show, which debuts on March 20, 2024. This interim episode presents a take on my new website design, and the renewed and expanded artistic commitment to my community, that’s more vulnerable, transparent, and, sure, emotional than the “nuts and bolts” overview presented in this Scribtotum article.

Read that article and listen to this episode for the whole story… and if you’re inspired, become a Multiversalist!

This episode was recorded on Saturday, January 13, 2024.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

Hey! It’s time for another episode of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick! This time, I sit down and talk about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it, and staying healthy and sane in the process with horror and “weird” fiction author Anna Ziegelhof!

In our wide-ranging and free-wheeling discussion, we touch on the shift from writing as an escape to writing as a vocation, crafting fiction from a thematic germ, employing dream logic in magic realism and weird fiction, asking questions of characters, method writing, “plantsing,” storyworlds and story wikis, anxiety vs. productive creativity… and much, much more.

The conversation with Anna Ziegelhof was recorded on June 5th, 2023. The rest of this episode was recorded on October 11, 2023.

Anna Ziegelhof writes horror and science fiction short stories. In either genre, she likes philosophical stories with themes like identity, memory, and belonging. There’s usually a spark of hope and whimsy, even in her darker stories. She also writes long-form fiction and has some science fiction novels and novellas in the works.

Her short stories can be found in many different online and print publications, like The Horror Library volume 8, Luna Station, Solarpunk Magazine, The Future Fire, Daily Science Fiction, the Flametree Press anthology Footsteps in the Dark, in several horror anthologies, and on the Tales to Terrify and Flash Fiction podcasts.

Anna is also an academic with a subject background in Sociology and Jewish Studies. She is a self-declared language-nerd and has been a language instructor, editor, translator, and, most recently, a linguist in the tech industry, working on Voice AI. She is currently on the editorial board of a magazine for academics who write fiction – AcademFic.

She is a member of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association) and HWA (Horror Writers Association).

Originally from Germany, she has lived abroad since 2008, first in England and then since 2015 in the San Francisco Bay Area. When she isn’t writing she enjoys reading, traveling, encountering strange places, being in nature, looking at art, as well as singing in a chamber choir. You can find her on Instagram as @anna with a z (all one word) and at www.annaziegelhof.com.

Stick around after the conversation with Anna Ziegelhof for big news about what’s coming next for Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, and my creative endeavors in general!

Love Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick and have the desire and means to make a one-time donation in support of the show? Donate via PayPal or leave a tip via Ko-Fi, with my grateful thanks.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick is back with another in-depth, evergreen podcast episode conversation on making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it, and staying healthy and sane in the process.

This time around, I speak with multi-genre pulp author R. Jean Mathieu.

He provides a fascinating perspective on the creative writing life, owing to his intersecting influences of Taoist philosophy, karate, and his Quaker beliefs. We talk about the difference between writing and publishing, especially as they pertain to difficult topics and “trigger” issues, the hidden rituals in our creative process, the importance of balance in all aspects of our lives, personal, professional, and creative (even as we strive to grow and challenge ourselves) and the “hat trick” that keeps it all moving forward…

The conversation with R. Jean Mathieu was recorded on May 29th, 2023. The rest of this episode was recorded on September 26, 2023.

R. Jean Mathieu is the fiction writer of all trades. From award-winning stories of the Peace Corps and meditators on Mars to time-traveling mysteries of a Mexican detective solving his own murder, Mathieu revels in different genres, different voices, and cultural chop suey. Under other noms de plume, he writes romances, thrillers, pulp adventures, Westerns, and mysteries.

Mathieu grew up in Morro Bay, California. He enrolled in college at fifteen, where he would spend the next ten years. With an Associate’s degree in International Studies and $100 in his pocket, Mathieu traveled to China, alternately working as a teahouse server, organic farmhand, Hong Kong movie extra, and English teacher. Despite being deported thrice, he won his degree in Sociology (minoring in Business) over his five years in China, refining his craft along the way.

He lives in San Luis Obispo with his wife Melissa and daughter Lyra, where they keep a good table when not writing side-by-side or chasing trains to the next adventure. A convinced Quaker, he attends Central Coast Friends Meeting in between writing and publishing his fiction, learning new languages, and practicing Uechi-ryu karate. You can find all his stories at Amazon.com and his commentary at RJeanMathieu.com.

Love Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick and have the desire and means to make a one-time donation in support of the show? Donate via PayPal or leave a tip via Ko-Fi, with my grateful thanks.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

How about another in-depth, deep-diving, evergreen conversation about creative writing, finding success as we each define it, and staying healthy and sane in the process? In Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick 093, I speak with transcendental horror author and speculative poet Darius Jones.

Our conversation covers the deeper, emotionally resonant value of horror and “weird” fiction, how Darius fills the “fiction-shaped void” in his soul, why the pandemic and a pair of astronomy binoculars led to publishing fantastical epic poetry, the value of rejection, the importance of meditation and stoicism, and…yep, a whole heck of a lot more.

The conversation with Darius Jones was recorded on May 24th, 2023. The rest of this episode was recorded on August 23, 2023.

Darius Jones writes cosmic horror, weird fiction, dark fantasy — or, taken together and as he likes to call it, transcendental horror, as well as speculative poetry and sometimes historical fiction.

His stories and poems have appeared in Strange Horizons, The No Sleep Podcast, Starline Magazine, and elsewhere. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association.

Learn more about Darius Jones by visiting dariusjoneswriter.com. You can also find Darius on Twitter and Instagram. Make sure you check out Darius Jones on Amazon, too.

Love Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick and have the desire and means to make a one-time donation in support of the show? Donate via PayPal or leave a tip via Ko-Fi, with my grateful thanks.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick 092 presents advice for introvert writers and authors, drawn from my own experience as an introvert usually without very much solitude or free time… presented at a time when… for the moment… I have both.

This is a solo episode full of personal observations, reflections, admissions, and memories… all of which, I think you’ll find, serve as stand-ins for issues faced by many authors, writers, and other creators.

Also: a little bit about the show itself, how it’s been going, and why I really need your help to make sure more people experience Sonitotum.

This episode was recorded on Sunday, August 6th, 2023.

Love Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick and have the desire and means to make a one-time donation in support of the show? Donate via PayPal or leave a tip via Ko-Fi, with my grateful thanks.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

In the latest in-depth and evergreen author interview on Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, I speak with historical non-fiction biographer Teresa Wilhelm Waldof, author of Wilhelm’s Way: The Inspiring Story of the Iowa Chemist Who Saved the Manhattan Project.

If you’re interested in the new Oppenheimer movie and another side of the true story of the Manhattan Project, you’ll want to hear this conversation!

Together Teresa and I discuss dogged commitment, the importance of a steadfast support network, external validation, and the responsibility to sustain a legacy for the sake of family and for the benefit of history.

This episode was recorded on July 26th, 2023, the same day the world discovered Sinéad O’Connor had died. I talk a little bit about that before the interview.

The conversation with Teresa Wilhelm Waldof was recorded on May 28th, 2023.

Teresa Wilhelm Waldof is the world’s leading expert on the Ames Project section of the Manhattan Project. An independent scholar, her in-depth research provides for trade publication the first-ever account of the life of chemist Harley Wilhelm and the critical Manhattan Project work he led on the Iowa State campus. That book is Wilhelm’s Way.

Winner of the Iowa Historical Society Iowa History Awards Certificate of Merit and the Minnesota Book Award, Teresa holds a BA in speech communications and an MBA from the University of Minnesota. She lives in Rochester, Minnesota, with her family. You can find more about Teresa Wilhelm Waldof on her website.

Love Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick and have the desire and means to make a one-time donation in support of the show? Donate via PayPal or leave a tip via Ko-Fi, with my grateful thanks.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

It’s time for another in-depth author interview on Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick!  This time around, I speak with romance author Debra Parmley (also find her on Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter)!

And by the way, just in case you’re thinking, “nah, I’m not a Romance fan; this isn’t for me,” I urge you to press “play.”  This is a conversation about writing fiction, reading fiction, being part of the creative community, and perhaps more than anything, we talk about how to effectively balance a prolific creative writing life with a healthy, productive, full “real” life.

There’s something here for you, dear listener. Dig in!

This episode was recorded on June 15th, 2023. The conversation with Debra Parmley was recorded on January 28th, 2023.

Author Debra Parmley believes “Every day we are alive is a beautiful day,” and she likes to give her readers and her story people a story that ends happily.

An Air Force veteran’s wife, Debra is most known for writing military romantic suspense. She writes gritty western historical romance, 1920’s romance, contemporary romance, holiday romance, fairytale romance, time travel romance, and poetry. In her freelance work she has done interviews and written travel pieces. As Debra Bishop, she writes fantasy, fairy tales for all ages and children’s books.

Debra is married to her high sweetheart, whom she asked out after a five-dollar bet. After living in five states with her husband and two sons, and living for 23 years just outside Memphis, TN, she, and her husband sold everything and moved into a 43-foot motorhome, a 2010 Tiffin Allegro diesel bus. Debra now lives in their motorhome full-time with her husband as they travel the U.S.

You can see her travels on her Beautiful Day Traveler blog and her Beautiful Day YouTube channel.

The conversation with Debra Parmley was recorded on January 29th, 2023. The episode was recorded on July 12, 2023.

Love Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick and have the desire and means to make a one-time donation in support of the show? Donate via PayPal or leave a tip via Ko-Fi, with my grateful thanks.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.

Exhaustion calls for a brief (single episode) intermission of sorts in episode 089 of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick.

Listen to find out the what and the why!

This episode was recorded on June 28th, 2023.

Love Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick and have the desire and means to make a one-time donation in support of the show? Donate via PayPal or leave a tip via Ko-Fi, with my grateful thanks.

This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership.