Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Courtney Shack have the pleasure of interviewing legendary Ruth McKell.

Ruth McKell writes haunting and hopeful tales she hopes will make your heart ache, just a little bit. Her debut, HONEY IN HER VEINS, has been described as "cottagecore with teeth." Steeped in Celtic folklore and set in the hills of Appalachia, this second-chance romance (releasing April 2026) stars a magical beekeeper with volatile magic and the death-touched man who broke her heart.

When she's not channeling her passion for mental health awareness into magic-touched worlds on the page, you can find McKell in the mountains, thrifting second-hand treasures, or sipping on tea from her novice apothecary.

*HONEY IN HER VEINS is out this April 7th*

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• Celtic folk lore inspiration
• McKell's debut, HONEY IN HER VEINS
• McKell's research process
• writing mental health
• second chances
• love in all its forms
• garden story analogies

For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!

Welcome to another episode of Storybeast where Courtney Shack and Ghabiba Weston discuss the transformative power of story.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• coming back to your story truth
• sitting with your imposter syndrome
• when critical feedback has its value (and when it doesn't)
• the devil you know
• setting up your emotional environment
• unlocking your process by shifting mediums, and how this can relieve the weight of expectation
• Courtney's writer uniform
• writer math
• Gabi making a commitment she immediately regrets (but she's gonna lock in okay)

For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!

Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Courtney Shack have the pleasure of interviewing legendary Premee Mohamed.

Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, Ignyte, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Ursula K. Le Guin, British Fantasy, British Science Fiction, and Crawford awards. In 2024, she was the Edmonton Public Library writer-in-residence. 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.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• about the unity of impression
• how Premee determines if a story idea has legs
• Premee's way of setting up emotional arcs using an "end-feeling" with short form fiction and how this differs from her approach to novel length stories
• about inspiration and the trick to avoid falling down the rabbit hole
• Premee's approach to writing interiority
• Premee's advice on how to hone your writing craft
• about Premee's latest book, THE FIRST THOUSAND TREES
• about the cool winning of a rock
• the easy yet addictive recipe for secret popcorn sauce

For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!

Welcome to another episode of Storybeast where Courtney Shack and Ghabiba Weston discuss the transformative power of story.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Courtney's process of following Chelsea Abdullah's reverse outline
• considerations on how to frame a revision approach to suit your needs
• building your path to guide your next steps (esp. when life challenges your usual writing routine)
• the shiny outline
• how renaming can help with reframing

For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!

Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Courtney Shack have the pleasure of interviewing legendary Vajra Chandrasekera.

Vajra Chandrasekera is from Colombo, Sri Lanka. His novels THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS and RAKESFALL have between them won the Le Guin, Nebula, Ignyte, Locus, Crawford, and Otherwise awards, been selected as New York Times Notable Books of 2023 and 2024, and been nominated for many others, including the Hugo. He is one of the 2025-2026 Fellows of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.In this episode, you'll hear about:

• how Vajra conceptualizes story
• listening to your instincts and not killing your darlings
• leaning into your strengths
• the inspiration behind THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS
• using the full fantasy toolkit

For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!

Welcome to another episode of Storybeast where Courtney Shack and Ghabiba Weston discuss the transformative power of story.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• making sparkly lists
• query word economy
• mirroring truths from query to novel and back
• tension, stakes, and enticing character traits
• tapping into and reflecting your own joy

For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!

Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Courtney Shack have the pleasure of interviewing legendary A.D. Sui.

A.D. Sui is a Ukrainian-born, internationally raised speculative writer. They are a Nebula winner, and an Aurora, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist.

They are the author of The Dragonfly Gambit (2024), The Iron Garden Sutra (2026), and more than two dozen short stories. A failed academic and retired fencer, they spend most days wrangling their two dogs and tending to their myriads of tropical plants.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• the inspiration behind THE DRAGONFLY GAMBIT
• A.D.'s writing journey
• THE IRON GARDEN SUTRA
• navigating the author branding space
• Drive to Survive
• where to find inspiration
• how A.D. studies story
• 100 dollar grapes

For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!

Welcome to another episode of Storybeast where Courtney Shack and Ghabiba Weston discuss the transformative power of story.

In this episode:

• Courtney shares her cool new name.
• the beasts discuss adapting writing realities to life changes.
• you'll hear about the values, lessons and real talk behind not writing the story of your heart.
• Courtney shares her tip for revisions progress (be ready for girl math).
• Courtney and Ghabiba share their top most recent book recs.
• you'll get some light teasers for 2026 epic Storybeast workshops.
• Ghabiba requests your help in breaking her curse.
• the beasts give a special welcome to its new Storybeast team member.

For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!

Welcome to the final installment of our spoiler filled breakdown of Arcane Season 2! In this episode, Ghabiba and McKell discuss that "WHAT JUST HAPPENED??" ending.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• McKell's aquamarine tea
• the conflict of happy endings for conflicting characters
• the two elements Ghabiba thinks make for a satisfying ending
• the role of fairness and the shaping of villains in allowing viewers to extend grace to other characters
• how specific character endings allow us to categorize the show's antagonists
• creating towards a feeling

For more storytelling content to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter.

Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!

Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Courtney Shack have the pleasure of interviewing legendary Carla Hoch.

CARLA HOCH is the author of the Writer’s Digest book Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes as well as Fight Write, Round Two: Crafting Chaos, Combat and Crime. Carla has been teaching the craft of writing fight scenes, action and violence since 2017 and is an instructor for both Writer’s Digest University and Writing Mastery Academy. Her award-winning blog, FightWrite.net, has been named in Writer’s Digest 100 Best Sites for Writers five years in a row.

Carla is a world champion jiujitsu player and has experience in almost a dozen fighting styles. She lives outside Houston, Texas with her family and judgmental cats.

In this episode, you'll:

• hear about Carla's research process
• find your new weapon motto
• discover whether your character should store their second weapon in their boot
• learn what your two most important considerations in a fight scene should be
• hear how to teach yourself to write a fight scene
• hear how to pace a fight scene
• face the question of what's more useful in storytelling: being realistic versus authentic
• hear about Carlas's top pet fight scene peeves
• hear about Carla's consultation sessions on fight scenes
• uncover "dating" advice from Carla
• hear therapist Courtney talk about the power of enclothed cognition

For more storytelling content to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter.

Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!