Rite Gud

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Rite Gud episodes

June 09, 2022Internet Fiction
The internet is a huge part of our lives, but putting it into our fiction can be difficult. Many writers leave it out of their stories entirely. Others try to incorporate it into their work with awkward results. How should our fiction handle the internet? Should our fiction try to handle the internet at all? Cartoonist RE Parrish joins us to talk about the uneasy marriage of writing and the internet—incorporating the internet into fiction, using the internet as a medium for fiction, and why it’s so hard to write a good social media epistolary novel.
Links:
RE Parrish
I Sexually Identify as the ‘I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter’ Controversy
VERY ONLINE
17776
Reconsidering the Conventions of the So-Called Internet Novel
E Unibus Pluram (TV fiction essay)
The Empath
OC Protective Services
9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9
Header image by Tony Webster
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve heard here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post Internet Fiction by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
1 hr 13 min
May 19, 2022Tales From the Slush Pile
When you send a short story to a magazine, it probably doesn’t go directly to the editor. Instead, it ends up in what’s called the slush pile–the pool of unsolicited work waiting for review. Who reviews it? Weirdos like us. In this episode of Rite Gud, we’re joined by slush readers NM Whitley and Karl P to talk about why stories get rejected, retro ’70s gender war fiction, and the art of rejectomancy.
Links:
How to Escape the Slush Pile
The Shocking Truth about the Slush Pile
Very Recent History: The “Slush Pile”
Against Quirky Writing
Psychotic Operas 2: Green Box Edition
NM Whitley, “Fest”
Improvise: Scene from the Inside Out
Nectar for Rejectomancers
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve heard here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post Tales From the Slush Pile by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
1 hr 18 min
April 28, 2022Never Bring a Pen to a Sword Fight
They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but it is way easier to kill a guy with a sword than with a pen. We love art–it’s important to us and it’s meaningful and a worthwhile pursuit–but art alone does not change the material world. What, then, is the purpose of writing? Why do we do this if we’re not saving the world? Here to talk about this is poet Danielle Rose.
Header image via Petri Damstén.
Links:
Barren Magazine Fires Editor over Cynical Tweet About Poetry
Orwell’s List
at first & then
The History of Mountains
How ‘The Birth of a Nation’ revived the KKK
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve heard here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post Never Bring a Pen to a Sword Fight by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
56 min
April 07, 2022 A Rite Gud Minifesto
The changing of the guard in the early 2000s and the euthanization of the reactionary Sad Puppy movement in the early 2010s should have ushered in a new era of speculative fiction, an era of creative freedom and experimentation.
It did not.
Instead of welcoming and mentoring a new generation of authors from all walks of life, the current publishing establishment primarily supports friends who can afford to attend the same costly private workshops, MFA programs, and industry galas. This pay-to-play model hurts any writer without economic privilege, but it hits oppressed people particularly hard, since people of marginalized backgrounds are statistically less likely to be affluent than their white, cisgender, heterosexual counterparts.
Like any gated community, speculative fiction ruthlessly polices its entrances. Any new writer who breaks into the scene without paying the gatekeeper, either in cash or in flattery, is treated with suspicion and marked “unsafe.” Any new writer who dares to challenge readers sees their work denounced as “harmful”—a 21st century euphemism for degenerate art–and is chased out of the community with harassment and abuse. Ironically, this cruelty is often inflicted by the very same people who were similarly attacked by the Rabid Puppies just a few years ago.
Given this authoritarian restriction of expression, is it any wonder that the genre has narrowed and stagnated? Why innovate, when innovation carries so much risk and so little reward?
Speculative fiction has stopped experimenting with style; instead, the short stories that attract buzz and acclaim are astonishingly similar to each other in tone, structure, and theme.
Speculative fiction has stopped looking to the future or showing us new worlds; instead it rehashes old stories and reiterates dusty debates about red shirts and final girls and Omelas, like Miss Havisham in a moth-eaten Starfleet uniform.
Speculative fiction is not living up to its potential. Speculative fiction could be so much more than it is, if the community’s leaders would only give it room to breathe.
To challenge the suffocating, stultifying order of contemporary speculative fiction, we present an indisputable list of demands we are calling the Rite Gud Manifesto:
Speculative fiction must be free to explore difficult subjects.
Speculative fiction must be free to shock, disturb, sadden, and disgust readers.
Speculative fiction must be free to experiment with form and style.
Speculative fiction must be free to hold negative space.
Speculative fiction must be free to ask questions without answers.
Speculative fiction must be free to speak for itself rather than serving as an accessory to the author’s personal brand identity.
Speculative fiction must be free to exist for its own sake.
Speculative fiction must be free to face stylistic critique rather than serving purely as a litmus test for the artist’s perceived moral purity.
Speculative fiction must be free to explore sexuality.
Speculative fiction must be free to succeed even if the author hasn’t had the privilege to attend costly networking events like Clarion, Odyssey, Viable Paradise, MFA programs, or cons.
Speculative fiction must be free to shun didacticism.
Speculative fiction must be free to treat readers like adults.
Speculative fiction must be free of corporate control.
Speculative fiction must be free to thrive outside of fandom.
Speculative fiction must be free to reflect the full range of marginalized people’s lives without sanitizing their experiences to protect the delicate sensibilities of privileged readers.
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve heard here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post A Rite Gud Minifesto by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
7 min
April 01, 2022A Tribute to Garth Marenghi, World’s Greatest Author/Visionary/Dreamweaver
In this very serious episode, we honor the most important writer of the 20th century, a man forty years ahead of his time: author, visionary, dreamweaver plus actor, Garth Marenghi. Literary connoisseur and Kittysneezes proprietor Matt Keeley joins us to discuss Marenghi’s body of work, which includes such towering achievements as Juggers, Slicers I-IV, Afterbirth, and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, the most significant televisual event since Quantum Leap (and we do not say that lightly). We examine how Marenghi laid the groundwork for our present era, and why he’s ready for a comeback.
Links:
Novelization Style
Crabitalism
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, Episode 1
“its fucked up how there are like 1000 christmas songs but only 1 song aboutr the boys being back in town”
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve heard here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post A Tribute to Garth Marenghi, World’s Greatest Author/Visionary/Dreamweaver by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
26 min
March 17, 2022More than the Sum of its Parts: Writing Beyond Tropes and Easter Eggs
When a book comes out, the publisher or the author will often promote it by describing it as a list of tropes, identities, and references. “Here’s my new novel, A Groan of Stone and Bone. It has enemies to lovers, a chaotic bisexual, BIPOC representation, elemental magic, and tons of Buffy references!”
It’s akin to any product listing: here are the specifications, the dimensions, and the features. We understand why books are marketed like this. It’s an effective way to sell products, and under capitalism a book is a commercial product. But when you start to think of the writing process that way–as a cobbling together of pre-existing parts–you usually end up with unsatisfying literature. That’s because art is not merely a product. Art is more than the sum of its parts.
In this episode of Rite Gud, we discuss why you need to take a holistic approach to writing. We are joined by Youtuber Lola Sebastian.
Links:
Lola Sebastian’s YouTube channel
Alexander Pope, “A Little Learning”
TV Tropes Made a Show and It Sucks
Silvia Moreno-Garcia on how books are marketed
Everything Wrong with CinemaSins, Generally
Bury Your Gays
Fandom’s Biggest Controversy: The Story of Proshippers vs Antis
The Junk Lady in Labyrinth
Danah Boyd
Space Jam 2’s Hands Down Most Messed Up Cameo
The Alt-Right Playbook: Introduction
FD Signifier’s Youtube Channel
Dan Olson’s Youtube Channel
Maggie Mae Fish
Melina Pendulum
Yhara Zaid
Foreign Man in a Foreign Land
Cheyenne Lin
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve read here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post More than the Sum of its Parts: Writing Beyond Tropes and Easter Eggs by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
1 hr 17 min
February 24, 2022Rite Gud: The Squeequel
Recently, JR of the Podhand joined us to discuss a phenomenon we’re calling squeecore—a style of quippy, fluffy, moralistic, fannish, centrist, Joss Whedon-esque speculative writing that touts itself as Important Activism but is mainly middle-of-the-road escapism. This episode unexpectedly sparked an explosion of controversy. Some people loved it, other people (most of whom did not listen to the episode or read the transcript) got furiously angry and launched a weird misogynistic smear campaign against the host, and many others are looking from the sidelines asking, “What on earth is going on? What are you weird nerds talking about?”
Because this thing got so big, we decided to revisit it to address some of the discourse it generated—the good, the bad, and the ugly. We also talk about precursors to squeecore, like fantatwee, Torwave, and the Triumph of Competence.
Links:
Nick Mamatas on “Fantatwee” in 2008
Jeff Vandermeer on The Triumph of Competence
White People Love Calling Other White People White People
Paul Kincaid’s brutal 2012 review of various SFF best of the year anthologies
Simon McNeil, The Problem with the Middle
A Quick Thought on Squeecore
Notes on Squeecore
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s thread
Grey
Four Tiny Essays on SFF
A Decade of Sore Winners
Novelization Style
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve read here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post Rite Gud: The Squeequel by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
1 hr 26 min
February 03, 2022Rite Gud: A Bear-y Special Episode
We finally reached our Patreon subscriber goal, so you know what that means! It is time to talk about Bear, Marian Engel’s 1976 Canadian novel about a mousy librarian who falls in love with a bear. The novel sparked tremendous controversy when it came out, but that didn’t stop it from winning the prestigious Governor General’s Literary Award the year of its release.
Is this a book about a woman finding self-actualization by communing with nature, or is it a sharp satire of a settler’s bizarre attempts at cultural appropriation? Podside Pete joins us for some bear consent discourse.
Links:
Why the Classic Canadian Novel ‘Bear’ Remands Controversial and Relevant
The viral post that led to this episode
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve read here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post Rite Gud: A Bear-y Special Episode by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
1 hr
January 13, 2022A Guide to Squeecore
In 1936, anthropologist Ralph Linton said, “The last thing a fish would ever notice would be water.” It’s difficult to see the medium that encompasses everything around you, especially when you’ve never known anything else. Well, if fish were contemporary sci-fi/fantasy readers, the last thing they would notice is squeecore. What is squeecore? You’re soaking in it! Squeecore is the dominant literary movement in contemporary SFF, a movement so ubiquitous it’s nearly invisible. But in this episode, we are taking notice of how speculative fiction got watered down.
(Note: there was a slight audio delay during recording so we interrupt each other constantly.) Joining us is J.R. from The Podhand.
Also, thanks to the amazing @GynoidGearhead, we now have a transcript for this episode available.
Links:
The Podhand
A brief history of Squee
A Tor article that definitely isn’t an unattributed rehash of another article
Hugo Awards Host DisCon III Apologizes for Taking Money from Defense Company
A Hugo-nominated blogpost about George RR Martin by a writer whose partner works for Raytheon
The Smol Bean Emperor
Porpentine
Clarion West Selected as Amazon Literary Partnership 2021 Grant Recipient
What is the Model Minority Myth?
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve read here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post A Guide to Squeecore by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
1 hr 14 min
December 23, 2021 John Langan on Cosmic Horror
Bram Stoker Award-winning author John Langan joins us to talk about cosmic horror, his novel The Fisherman, upstate New York, how much money writers make (none), and how hard it is to get published when you’re a little too literary for the genre crowd but a little too genre for the literary crowd. Special appearance by Langan’s wiener dog/beagle.
About Rite Gud: Raquel S. Benedict is an author, appearing in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gardner Dozois’ The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Matt Keeley, founder of Kittysneezes, is producing Rite Gud for KS Media, LLC. Rite Gud is a Kittysneezes production. If you have questions, comments and concerns, email ritegud – at – kittysneezes – dot – com. Rite Gud is also on Patreon, at patreon.com/ritegud. Patrons receive access to the official Kittysneezes Discord, exclusive episodes, critiques and more.
The Rite Gud theme is by Surgeryhead. Follow them on Twitter, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Rite Gud is supported by readers like you. If you enjoy what you’ve read here, please consider supporting Rite Gud on Patreon, or via the Kittysneezes Boutique.
The post John Langan on Cosmic Horror by Matt Keeley appeared first on Kittysneezes.
57 min

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This isn’t a podcast for total beginners. We’re going to assume that you know what plot structure is, what a protagonist is, where ideas come from, and how to use a semicolon. This is a podcast for…

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