Sinister Soup

Welcome to another featured author of the month episode Sinister Sitizens! Thank you for joining us.

Today we welcome on Jenelle Schmidt, YA fantasy author of many novels, including the Minstrel Song series, which will be our focus of conversation today. That you so much for coming on Jenelle!

I’d also like to give a big thank you and shoutout to Benjamin Fife, who lended his voice to our podcast today by providing his professionally curated excerpt of Jenelle’s novel The King’s Warrior (first of the Minstrel’s Song series).

If you’d like to check out more from Jenelle, or from Benjamin, follow the links below. We highly recommend Jenelle’s Minstrel’s Song series and encourage you to get out there and buy it! It’s a fantastic book to read with your families or to your children, as it was literally written for that purpose.

Follow Jenelle:

Twitter

Instagram

Website

Facebook

Follow Benjamin 

Follow Us: 

We're worth a follow, wouldn't you agree?

You can find Clay at:

Twitter

Goodreads 

Simily 

Wattpad

His Website

You can find Travis at:

Tiktok

Instagram

Or simply follow the show on Instagram: @sinistersouppodcast

Thanks for listening in! As always, feel free to chime off in the comments with any books, movies, shows in the genre fiction categories that you'd like us to feature on the show :).

Hey there Sinister Sitizens,

Thanks for joining us once again! Tonight we have a stirring debate in which we ramble on about Alien, the differences between old and new cinema, and whether we like our board game of the month, Stone Age. If you like the show, don’t forget to let us know! Shoot us an email, comment, like, review, and as always, join my newsletter at clayvermulmfiction.com for all the juicy updates and news.

Boardgame of the Week: Stoneage

Watch a full, instructional play through here, and show Toucan some love for his awesome description and walkthrough of playing this game :)

Our Bring Some Culture Features for the week:

Sterling and Stone: Independent publishing house founded by the indie author super friends Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant, and David Wright. Creators of podcasts of writers of over 2 million fictional words, these guys should definitely be a part of your TBR, if they aren’t already. 

Pawns or Kings: New age country band firmly in the ‘Whiskey Country’ demographic of the genre, known for deep lyrics, intricate melodies, and haunting lyrical performance around the darker subject matter. These guys are doing the new genre, the good ol’ way. Go check em out.

Follow us:

We're worth a follow, wouldn't you agree?

You can find Clay at:

Twitter

Goodreads 

Simily 

Wattpad

His Website

You can find Travis at:

Tiktok

Instagram

Or simply follow the show on Instagram: @sinistersouppodcast

Thanks for listening in! As always, feel free to chime off in the comments with any books, movies, shows in the genre fiction categories that you'd like us to feature on the show :).

Hey Sinister Sitizens! 

Thanks for tuning in this week, as promised, we have links for you to follow :).

Bring some Culture Features:

City Stone Publishing: Newly founded hybrid publishing house focused on author-first publishing methods. 

@jdisjustin: Woodworker who carves each of the fifty states from the wood of their state tree while teaching the history of those trees.

Go check em' out ya'll!!!

Follow us:

We're worth a follow, wouldn't you agree?

You can find Clay at:

Twitter

Goodreads 

Simily 

Wattpad

His Website

You can find Travis at:

Tiktok

Instagram

Or simply follow the show on Instagram: @sinistersouppodcast

Thanks for listening in! As always, feel free to chime off in the comments with any books, movies, shows in the genre fiction categories that you'd like us to feature on the show :).

What up Sinister Sitizens?! 

Welcome back to the show and thanks for joining us for season 2 of Sinister Soup! 

We're excited to have you along for the ride. This week we will be debating the newly released Wheel of Time television series from Prime Video. Do we like it? Do we hate it? There's only one way to find out...

Our Bring Some Culture Features of the Week:

Please go check out and follow these wonderful pages and people! 

Dana Schwartz: History and literature centric comedic content from a quirky creator of YA fantasy fiction. FOLLOW HER! 

Simily: Newly founded social media site focused around publishing fiction, writer collaboration/community, and the positive growth of the indie author community. 

Follow us: 

We're worth a follow, wouldn't you agree? 

You can find Clay at: 

Twitter  

Goodreads 

Simily 

Wattpad

His Website 

You can find Travis at: 

Tiktok

Instagram

Or simply follow the show on Instagram: @sinistersouppodcast

Thanks for listening in! As always, feel free to chime off in the comments with any books, movies, shows in the genre fiction categories that you'd like us to feature on the show :).

Clay and Travis 

Hello Sinister Sitizens, 

Welcome to our special season finale! For this episode, we are debating two films, both of which were newly released and highly anticipated. 

Today we debate Dune and Antlers. Spoiler alerts to those who haven't seen the films, we will be giving away major plot points, character development, etc. So if you want to see these films first, go do that! The episode will be here when you get back :).

For our final shoutouts of the season we have: 

First, we have @bhvide on Tiktok. She is a Hugo nominated editor in Science Fiction and her TikTok account is dedicated to information about the publishing industry, how to publish and create successful sci-fi content, and many other tips and tricks around writing and publishing process. 

Second, we have Ashley Baez, a fellow author who I recently met on Twitter. Specifically, we are promoting her self-published fantasy story Matilda and the Ice Dragon. You can read it at her Inkit account here:https://www.inkitt.com/ashleybaez1

We will be returning with Season 2 the first week of February in 2022. Thank you very much for supporting us and listening to us throughout the year. Your patronage means the world to us and we hope you'll join us for Season 2, in which we will have even more content for all of you loyal listeners! 

If you'd like to reach to us before then, we are open to comments and feedback. We're also actively seeking suggestions for our reading and watching list for the next season. So if you'd like to hear us debate your favorite movie or book, drop it to us at our social media DMs or hit me up at my website. 

Where to find us: 

Clay: 

Twitter-@claytonvermulm  

LinkedIn- Clay Vermulm

Website- clayvermulmfiction.com 

Instagram- @sinistersouppodcast

Travis:

TikTok- @tvermulm

Instagram- @tvermulmog

Email- [email protected] 

Thanks again for the year of support! We look forward to seeing you again next year. Happy holidays to all and to all a good night :). 

Clay and Travis Vermulm 

Hey Sinister Sitizens!

Welcome to another Featured Author of the Month!

This week we have the great pleasure of interviewing the extremely talented, warm, and friendly MJ Kuhn. Don’t let her kind personality fool you, however, as the characters in her book tend to be of a much darker cast.

MJ is the author of the fast-paced, fantasy/heist novel Among Thieves, and if you haven’t picked it up yet, you should do so immediately. This book is an extremely fun read with a unique world and magic system, witty sharp-tongued characters, and a plot with a breakneck pace. Fans of fantasy will eat this book up!

If you’d like to read Among Thieves,  or connect with MJ on her social media platforms, you can find her basically everywhere! Link to her website is below: www.mjkuhn.com 

Social Media Handle: @mjkuhnbooks (Find her at Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook).

Listeners, thank you so much for joining us today in our mission to support indie and newly published authors. Go check out MJ, she has a highly engaging social media presence and her novel is not one to miss!

We hope you enjoyed the interview, and if you did, please feel free to let us know at clayvermulmfiction.com or in the comment sections!

Until next month everyone,

Clay and Travis Vermulm

Sinister Soup Podcast

What up Sitizens! 

This week we carry on with our Vampire theme of October (Travis and I are both gigantic Vampire geeks) by reviewing the acclaimed Netflix series Castlevania. Come join us for that debate, our beer of the week recommendations, and our weekly Bring Some Culture Segment, in which we shout out the two amazing applications/organizations below: 

1st: Campfire Technologies- Campfire is an online platform for writers and creatives which allows you to centralize all your writing, pictures, outlines, maps, and anything other files you might have created in the name of fictional world creation. This app can be purchased for a 1-time fee (super rare these days, and very nice in my opinion) and it is excellent at allowing you to put this vast collection of different information into one easy location. The platform is intuitive, helpful, and run by a very responsive staff, so if you do end up having questions, it's never too tough to track down answers. Check it out here.  

2nd:NaNoWriMo- NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writers Month and it is an entire non-profit platform based around a challenge in November. That challenge is to write an entire 50,000 word novel over the course of a single month. Writers from all over the world across all demographics are encouraged to attend and it can really pay off for those who do. Aside from offering constant support around the challenge in November, this platform offers access to forums, conventions, meetups, and regionalized writing groups across the world to help you be more productive in the writing craft, throughout the entire year. Check it out here.  

Thanks for tuning in listeners! We hope you have enjoyed the show. If you'd like to see more content from us (Travis and Clay Vermulm), you can do so at the links below. See you next week :) 

Travis' stuff: 

Instagram: @sinistersouppodcast

                 @tvermulmog

TikTok: @tvermulm 

Clay's stuff: 

Website: clayermulmfiction.com 

Twitter: @claytonvermulm

Good Reads: Clay Vermulm Fiction 

What up Sinister Sitizens?

This week we review the chilling vampire/historical southern novel Fever Dream by my favorite author George R. R. Martin. If you thought all the legendary author had in his proverbial quiver was fantasy novels, prepare to learn of his seminal horror novels.

Our shout outs this week are:

The Creative Penn Podcast: Hosted by Joanna Penn, acclaimed Thriller author and knower of all things Indie publishing, this podcast is a must-have resource for anyone seeking to learn about the indie publishing landscape and the writing life. Find it here: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/podcasts/

Daily Dose of Greek: This website is run by linguistic professors for linguistic students. It contains free lessons and resources to help you learn the Greek language, including readings and side-by-side English translations to help students learn ancient Greek. This is truly an invaluable resource for learning a language that is generally very difficult to learn outside of a specific major in college. Find it here: dailydoseofgreek.com

If you love the show, please let us know by following us and commenting on our stuff! Our DMs are always open to fans and readers.

You can find Clay at clayvermulmfiction.com. He’d love it if you joined his newsletter and emailed him directly, but you could also find the links to his Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn there!

Travis can be found at Instagram under @tvermulmog and @sinistersouppodcast. He is also active on TikTok under @tvermulm.

Thanks again for listening and we will see you next week!

Hey there Sinister Sitizens,

Thanks for tuning in! This week we review the book that even Stephen King himself thought was too disturbing to publish, “Pet Semetary.”

We will also be shouting out some cool cultural stuff that we have found in our random rovings of the internet realm, so listen up for those and follow the links below to check them out for yourselves :)

Bring some Culture Shout Outs for the Week:

1.) #Pitmad- a Twitter event where agents and publishing houses tune in to see thousands of pitches from authors all over the platform. It’s a great place to connect with fellow authors and possibly have your wok seen by an interested publisher, so give it a try! Link here.

2.) Yale Lectures- Yale is among the most prestigious American universities and they actually allow people to virtually see many of their recorded lectures, across multiple curriculums, for FREE! This is unheard of from the exclusive Ivy League schools, who tend to covet their upper tier educators and knowledge like dragons over hoard, so if you’re up for learning new things, this is a resource to be treasured.

As always, thank you so much for listening. If you’d like to know more about us or our work, check out the links below:

Clay- clayvermulmfiction.com

Travis- @tvermulmog on Instagram.

See you, next week folks!

Clay and Travis Vermulm

Hey Sinister Sitizens,

Today we have a very special treat for you. In this featured author of the month interview, we have the pleasure of welcoming H.M. Long, author of the acclaimed fantasy debut Hall of Smoke, to the show.

We will be discussing all things fantasy world-building, Norse gods, historical Germanic influence, and the possibility of Loki having a TikTok page. We will also be sharing a six-minute excerpt of Hannah’s thrilling novel, so be sure to tune in and let us know what you think!

You can find Hannah (H.M. Long) at all the below social media platforms:

Twitter

TikTok

Website

Thanks for tuning in to another featured author interview on Sinister Soup. Go check out Hannah’s work, buy her books, follow her on social media, and leave her some reviews! That really helps authors out :).

See you next week everyone.

Clay and Travis Vermulm