I look into outsider status in cult television and fiction in general, especially when it goes along with found family.

I discuss season one of the TV series Poker Face in terms of story engine, beautiful losers, and being on the road.

Other texts discussed include: The Dukes of Hazzard, Leverage (of course), Columbo (so much) and more. Rag tag fugitive fleet!

I look at the glorious TV show Wonderfalls with story engine in mind. I'm also thinking about story engine in novel series, in procedurals, and in this thing I want to write but have no idea how to approach. Might have figured it out here, though. Also trying to finish Summerlands but can't quit cutting down trees and damaging myself. Woe.

A student asked how to read the classics, so I wrote up a guide. I walk you through how to tackle any classic text that might seem daunting and then look at Book I of The Iliad briefly just to get a taste. Other texts discussed: Pride and Prejudice, Dracula, the Agamemnon, The Furies, Battlestar Galactica so what shut up, The Odyssey, Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," who knows what all else. I got excited about this!

In this episode I discuss the Firefly television show episode "Objects in Space."

This continues the previous episode's conversation about treating people as objects, but the resolution comes from an object basically being a person.

Other texts mentioned are the found family sci-fi show Farscape, Marge Piercy’s SFF novel He, She, and It, and Sister Helen Prejean’s amazing book Dead Man Walking as well as the film of the same name. Oh and Poker Face, which I have to start watching ASAP.

I dissect the cruelty behind Raymond Carver's story "So much water so close to home" and Agatha Christie's The Hollow. Both create profoundly unsympathetic characters who treat people like things. Stop it.

Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, by A.S. King. It's a book that changes lives. The main character is utterly stuck in a life where nobody will talk about the death of her mother or what's wrong with everyone around her. The novel does a speedrun escape from depression via the magic of talking about those things you're not allowed to talk about and going into that locked room.