Shining Moon: A Speculative Fiction Podcast

With me today to read the novelette category for the Nebulas are Allen Dyen-Shapiro, Leigh Harlen, and Brent Lambert. 

Allan Dyen-Shapiro is a Ph.D. biochemist who enjoyed a 19-year research career. He now teaches in high-poverty schools in Southwest Florida and recently ramped up his union activism. He's sold short fiction to venues including Dark Matter Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, and numerous anthologies and co-edited an anthology of speculative fiction set in the Middle East. He's a member of SFWA and Codex and blogs at allandyenshapiro.com, where you'll also find links to his stories. 

Leigh Harlen is a queer, non-binary writer of dark leaning speculative fiction who lives and works in Seattle alongside their partner and dog. They are the author of Queens of Noise, Blood Like Garnets, A Feast For Flies, and several short stories. Their non-writing hobbies include petting strangers’ dogs, crocheting, and enthusing about how awesome bats are. Follow them on Twitter @LeighHarlen or better yet, Bluesky @leighharlen.bsky.social for updates on future publications.

Brent Lambert is a Black, queer man who heavily believes in the transformative power of speculative fiction across media formats. As a founding member of FIYAH Literary Magazine, he turned that belief into action and became part of a Hugo Award winning team. He resides in San Diego but spent a lot of time moving around as a military brat. His family roots are in the Cajun country of Louisiana.

Stories in this episode:


"A Short Biography of a Conscious Chair", Renan Bernardo (Samovar 2/23)
I Am AI, Ai Jiang (Shortwave) 
"The Year Without Sunshine", Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny 11-12/23) 
"Imagine: Purple-Haired Girl Shooting Down The Moon", Angela Liu (Clarkesworld 6/23) 
"Saturday’s Song", Wole Talabi (Lightspeed 5/23) 
"Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge", Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 9-10/23)

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

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Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Hello and welcome to Shining Moon, Episode 40. With me today are A.P. Howell, Sam W. Pisciotta, A.T. Sayre, and Risa Wolf. The voting for the Nebulas has just concluded, and we’re here to talk about the contenders on the ballot before the winners are revealed. Let’s get started with some introductions!

A. P. Howell  For information on published works, links to social media accounts, and similar things, visit her website aphowell.com

 Sam W. Pisciotta  Connect with him at www.silo34.com and @silo34 on X and Instagram.

 A.T. Sayre His first short story collection, Signals in The Static, comes out May 20th from Lethe Press.  Pre-order link: https://www.lethepressbooks.com/store/p713/static.html

Risa Wolf  Visit them at killerpuppytails.com.

Stories discussed:


"Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont", P.A. Cornell (Fantasy 10/23)  
"Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200", R.S.A Garcia (Uncanny 7-8/23) 
"Window Boy", Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld 8/23) 
"The Sound of Children Screaming", Rachael K. Jones (Nightmare 10/23) 
"Better Living Through Algorithms", Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld 5/23) 
"Bad Doors", John Wiswell (Uncanny 1-2/23) 

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Zach Welhouse is a librarian and game designer who lives in the Pacific Northwest. He enjoys hot drinks and meeting dogs who look like goblins. His work has appeared in the Costume Fairy Adventures and Deadlands RPGs, and Strange Beast: A Tarot Zine. Cerebos: The Crystal City, a game about crossing a surreal desert by train, is available through Penguin King Games on itch.io and Drivethru RPG

 Amelia Gorman lives in Eureka where she spends her free time exploring tidepools and redwoods with her dogs and foster dogs. Her fiction has appeared in Nightscript 6 and Cellar Door from Dark Peninsula Press. You can read some of her poetry in Vastarien, Utopia Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons. Her first chapbook, the Elgin-winning Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota, is available from Interstellar Flight Press. Her microchapbook, The Worm Sonnets, is available from The Quarter Press.

Cerberos is a fascinating game. The premise is simple; the execution is complex. The premise? That you’ve boarded a train for the Crystal City of Cerebos. But you can choose your journey’s tone right from the start—it might be a folk horror setting, it might be fairy tale, it might be science fiction. . . and then you’re rolling on tables for cards that detail the complications that ensue on the train, the strangeness of the stops along the route, and so on. Halfway through your journey, the game changes; one of the characters becomes the Protagonist, and the other characters become advisors who encourage them to either put aside the past and embrace the future, or embrace the past more fully. There’s a huge psychological element to play—if you want there to be, anyway. Some people might play it solely as an adventure, and that’s another entirely correct way to play.

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Hello, and welcome to Shining Moon: A Speculative Fiction Podcast, Episode 38.  Today we’ll continue our series by asking questions about writing games, particularly roleplaying games. This is a subject dear to my heart, because I’ve spent twenty years of my life playing RPGs, mostly in written form, in play-by-post games. I am a big proponent of how they help to develop writers’ skills at worldbuilding, characterization, and plot.

My guests today are Marsh Davies and Jim Rossignol of the game Teeth!

Marsh Davies is a writer and illustrator who has worked in games for the better part of twenty years, first as a journalist, then as an artist and indie developer. He joined Mojang, the creators of Minecraft, as the head of creative writing, before returning to the indie scene as a narrative designer and co-authoring a collection of grotesque tabletop roleplaying games with Jim.

Jim Rossignol is a writer and game designer. In the first part of his career he was best known for games-related journalism, in which he founded the PC gaming site Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Later he moved into game development, producing digital games such as Sir, You Are Being Hunted and more recently moving into tabletop games with the RPG TEETH. 

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Daniel Ausema is an educator and stay-at-home dad. His poems have appeared in Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Dreams & Nightmares, and many other places and have been nominated for the Rhysling Award. He is also the author of the Arcist Chronicles and the creator of the Spire City series, as well as the writer of many short stories, roughly a hundred of which have been published in places like Diabolical Plots and Strange Horizons. He lives in Colorado at the foot of the Rockies and can be found online at danielausema.com.

Brian U. Garrison (he/him) catches new, old, and otherworldly jazz from the radio station KMHD in Portland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's, Dreams & Nightmares, and elsewhere. His chapbook Micropoetry for Microplanets (Space Cowboy Books) celebrates the smallish to medium rocks that circle our sun. He serves as Managing Editor for Eye to the Telescope. Find him online at www.bugthewriter.com

D.A. Xiaolin Spires steps into portals, reappearing in Hawai’i, NY, various parts of Asia and elsewhere. Her work appears in Clarkesworld, Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons and Uncanny. She’s conducted NSF-funded research in anthropology, specializing in food, environmental issues, agriculture and technology. Each of her ten fingers is equipped with a monkey and a typewriter. Through the clamoring of these near-dozen simians and some strange wondrous convergence in the universe, poetic things arise. 

Bogi Takács (e/em/eir/emself or they pronouns) is a Hungarian Jewish  author, editor, critic and scholar who's an immigrant to the US. Bogi  has won the Lambda and Hugo awards, and has been a finalist for other  awards. Eir debut poetry collection Algorithmic Shapeshifting and eir  debut short story collection The Trans Space Octopus Congregation were  both released in 2019, and eir second short story collection Power to  Yield and Other Stories came out just now. You can find Bogi on various  social media as bogiperson.

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Welcome to Shining Moon Episode 36, Writing Real World Religions. 

Priya Chand is a California transplant living in the Midwest, where she regularly cuts down trees and sets them on fire (as a certified volunteer forest steward). When she's not reading, writing, or eating, she enjoys swimming, martial arts, and naps. Her current big project is co-editing Reckoning 9. Find her at priyachandwrites.wordpress.com

R. K. Duncan is a fat queer polyamorous wizard and author of fantasy, horror, and occasional sci-fi. He writes from a few rooms of a venerable West Philadelphia row home, where he dreams of travel and the demise of capitalism. His other full-time job is keeping house for himself and his live-in partner. Before settling on writing, he studied linguistics and philosophy at Haverford college. He attended Viable Paradise 23 in 2019. His occasional musings and links to other work can be found at rkduncan-author.com

 Zohar Jacobs is a Jewish writer who grew up in New Hampshire and now lives in Oxford. She has a PhD in Modern History from the University of Oxford and works in cultural policy. A graduate of Viable Paradise, she has work published or forthcoming in the Sunday Morning Transport, Asimov's, Analog and Clarkesworld. You can find her on Twitter @zoharjacobs

Stories in this episode:


Priya Chand

“Optimizing the Path to Enlightenment,” June 2020, Clarkesworld. http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/chand_06_20/

“Demeter Seeks Persephone in the year 2210.” Little Blue Marble, 2022. https://littlebluemarble.ca/2022/07/29/demeter-seeks-persephone-in-the-year-2210/


Robin Duncan

“A Circle of Steel and Bone,” Beneath Ceaseless Skies, December 2018  https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/a-circle-of-steel-and-bone/

“Nemesis and the Sorcerer,” Beneath Ceaseless Skies, October 2021. https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/nemesis-and-the-sorcerer/


Zohar Jacobs

“The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V.I. Lenin,” Clarkesworld, February 2024

: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/jacobs_02_24/

“For Out of Tai Shan the Torah Shall Go Forth,” Sunday Morning Transport, March 2024.   https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/for-out-of-tai-shan-the-torah-shall

David Ebenbach
“The Moon Rabbi,” Clarkesworld June 2023. https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ebenbach_06_23/

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Samantha Mills is a Nebula, Locus, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winning author from Southern California. You can find her short fiction in Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and others, as well as the best-of anthologies The New Voices of Science Fiction and The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2023. Her debut novel, The Wings Upon Her Back is coming out in April 2024 through Tachyon Publications. You can find more at www.samtasticbooks.com.

Risa Wolf is a multi-gendered water elemental disguised as an ink-stained lycanthrope. They come from the Burned-Over District in upstate New York and they imagine houses for book-ghosts for a living. Their writing can be found in Apex, Clarkesworld, and Diabolical Plots, among others. Visit them at killerpuppytails.com.

Stories and Novels in this Episode:


Samantha Mills

The Wings Upon Her Back, Tachyon Press, April 2024


Risa Wolf

"The First Promise We Break" (https://apex-magazine.com/short-fiction/the-first-promise-we-break/

"Delicate Situations" in the anthology 99 Fleeting Fantasies. https://www.amazon.com/99-Fleeting-Fantasies-Fantasy-Anthology/dp/1950701077

"The View," https://sarah-i-jackson.ghost.io/inner-worlds-1-the-view-risa-wolf/

Sarah Jackson
Great Mother Broth https://translunartravelerslounge.com/2023/02/15/great-mother-broth-by-sarah-jackson/

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Hello, and welcome to Shining Moon Episode 34, Writing Media Tie-Ins.  With me today are Marie Brennan, Kate Heartfield, and Caitlin J. Starling. Let’s get started with some introductions!

Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly leans on her academic fields for inspiration. In addition to her tie-in work for Legend of the Five Rings, she is the author of more than twenty novels, more than eighty short stories, and a grand total of three poems. As half of M.A. Carrick, she is also the author of the Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy.

Kate Heartfield’s latest novel, The Valkyrie, is a retelling of old legends. Her novel The Embroidered Book was a Sunday Times bestseller. Kate has written two Assassin’s Creed novels: The Magus Conspiracy and The Resurrection Plot. Her novels, novellas, short stories and games have won or been shortlisted for several major awards, including the Nebula, Aurora and World Fantasy awards. She is a former journalist who lives near Ottawa, Canada.

Caitlin Starling is the bestselling author of The Death of Jane Lawrence, Last to Leave the Room, and the Bram Stoker-nominated The Luminous Dead. Her other works include Yellow Jessamine and a Vampire: The Masquerade novella, The Land of Milk and Honey (published in the collection Walk Among Us). Her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare, Uncanny, and Tor Nightfire. Caitlin also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts.

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Hello, and welcome to Shining Moon Epsidoe 33: Food and Foodways in Fiction. With me today are Beth Cato, P.A. Cornell, Amelia Gorman, Nibedita Sen, and D.A. Xiaolin Spires. Let’s get started with some introductions!

Nebula Award-nominated Beth Cato is the author of A THOUSAND RECIPES FOR REVENGE and A FEAST FOR STARVING STONE from 47North. Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato.

P.A. Cornell is an award-winning Chilean-Canadian author who has published over thirty original pieces of short fiction in magazines like, Lightspeed, Apex, and Fantasy. For more on the author and her work, visit pacornell.com.

Amelia Gorman lives in Eureka where she spends her free time exploring tidepools and redwoods with her dogs and foster dogs. Her first chapbook, the Elgin-winning Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota, is available from Interstellar Flight Press. Her microchapbook, The Worm Sonnets, is available from The Quarter Press.

Nibedita Sen is a Hugo, Nebula, and Ignyte Award-nominated queer Bengali writer from Calcutta, and a graduate of Clarion West 2015 whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Uncanny, Podcastle, Nightmare and Fireside. She accumulated a number of English degrees in India before deciding she wanted another in creative writing, and that she was going to move halfway across the world for it.

D.A. Xiaolin Spires steps into portals, reappearing in Hawai’i, NY, various parts of Asia and elsewhere, with her keyboard appendage attached. Her work appears in Clarkesworld, Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, Uncanny and elsewhere.

Stories in this episode:

Beth Cato

"The Recipe Keeper" https://www.flashfictiononline.com/article/the-recipe-keeper/
“How to Creatively Host Cheese Parties During and After the Apocalypse" https://hexagonmagazine.ca/issue-10-fall-2022/ Issue 10, Fall 2022

PA Cornell

“How to Impress a Top Food Critic and Put your Restaurant on the Galactic Map,” Drabblecast, September 2022. https://www.drabblecast.org/2022/09/29/drabblecast-461-how-to-impress-a-top-food-critic-and-put-your-restaurant-on-the-galactic-map/

Amelia Gorman

"She Makes the Deep Boil" appeared in the Sharp & Sugar Tooth anthology  from Upper Rubber Boot Books.

"The Lure Courses" from Zoetic Press's Heathentide Orphans collection.


Nibedita Sen

“Advice for Your First Time at the Faerie Market,” Fireside 2019. https://firesidefiction.com/advice-for-your-first-time-at-the-faerie-market

“Never Yawn Under a Banyan Tree,” Anathema Magazine, 2017. http://www.anathemamag.com/never-yawn-under-a-banyan-tree


D.A. Xiaolin Spires

"Last Wishes" in Clarkesworld, October 2020.

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

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Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

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 Bendi Barrett is a queer Black creator of speculative work in both fiction and interactive game narratives. His debut novella, Empire of the Feast, was a 2023 Ignyte award finalist for Best Novella. His work has appeared in Baffling Mag, PANK magazine, and several anthologies including the BSFA awards long-listed Luminescent Machinations. He also writes erotic fiction and games under the pen name Benji Bright. Nonetheless, his mother has implied she is very proud of him. | 

 Laurence Raphael Brothers is a writer and a technologist with five patents and a background in AI and Internet R&D. He has published over 50 short stories in such magazines as Nature, PodCastle, and Galaxy's Edge. His noir urban fantasy novella series consisting of The Demons of Wall Street, The Demons of the Square Mile, and The Demons of Chiyoda has just added a new volume, The Demons of Montmartre, while his standalone novel The World's Shattered Shell has also recently been published.  

P.A. Cornell is a Chilean-Canadian graduate of the Odyssey workshop who has published over thirty original pieces of short fiction in respected genre magazines including, Lightspeed, Apex, and Fantasy. Her work has also appeared in over twenty anthologies, including Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 1, which also listed her debut science fiction novella, Lost Cargo, as one of the best of 2022. Her story, “Splits,” went on to win Canada’s 2022 Short Works Prize and most recently she was long-listed for the BSFA Awards for her story, “Things Most Meaningful.” When not writing, Cornell can be found assembling intricate Lego builds or drinking ridiculous quantities of tea. Sometimes both. For more on the author and her work, visit her website pacornell.com.

 Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Ignyte, Locus, British Fantasy, and Crawford awards. She is the author of the 'Beneath the Rising' series of novels as well as several novellas. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.

Stories in this episode:


Bendi Barrett, Empire of the Feast, Neon Hemlock Press, 2023. https://www.neonhemlock.com/books/empire-of-the-feast 

 Laurence Raphael Brothers, Pâtissier et Étranger, Brigid’s Gate Press, pending publication.

P.A. Cornell, Lost Cargo Mocha Memoirs Press 2022.  https://mochamemoirspress.com/product/lost-cargo/


Premee Mohamed THE BUTCHER OF THE FOREST, Tordotcom Feb 27, 2024. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250881786/thebutcheroftheforest 

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com