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

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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 second installment of our SPOILER FILLED breakdown of Arcane Season 2! In this episode, Ghabiba and McKell discuss what makes us who we are through the lens of analyzing Arcane's characters.

You'll hear about:

• the alternate reality what-if episode that made our hearts ache
• the tool of using a character who reflects our feelings
• the types of grief that shape us
• where we situate the self
• how the shape of your world shapes you
• the influence of time on character
• the constant state of becoming

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 Kalla Harris.

A full-time daydreamer, KALLA HARRIS has wanted to be an author since she was eight years old--although she's now traded her composition notebooks for a computer. When she's not writing high-stakes young adult books with lots of kissing, you can find her curled up with a good story, perfecting her mac and cheese recipe, or rewatching The Vampire Diaries (Hi, Damon!). Kalla resides in the Upstate of South Carolina with her husband.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• the inspiration behind the vampires in THE GROUND THAT DEVOURS US
• the Vampire Diaries as core lore
• what makes a monster, what makes us human
• advocacy in publishing spaces as a chronically ill writer
• Aaron Warner Anderson
• How to change your life without (literally) losing your head
• The importance of frozen 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 the first in a three-part series where Ghabiba Weston and Ruth McKell take a deep dive into the fantastic storytelling of ARCANE, Season 2.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• home made "something" berry jam
• emotional salience when consuming story
• redemption arc essential ingredients
• intention vs. consequence
• the gift of empathy: redemption through perspective

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.

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 Dr. Grace Nosek.

Dr. Grace Nosek is a long-time community organizer, storyteller, and sociolegal scholar focusing on environmental justice and democracy. She centers justice, joyful community, storytelling, civic engagement, and systems change in her work and scholarship. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto, Grace researched novel strategies to inoculate youth against climate despair, and co-authored the City of Toronto’s Youth Climate Engagement Strategy. Grace’s research has been supported by Fulbright, Killam, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation scholarships, and she holds a BA from Rice University, a law degree from Harvard Law School, and a Master of Laws and PhD in law from the University of British Columbia. Her research, fiction, and non-fiction writing have been published and shared widely and she has been a frequent public speaker and media contributor.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Grace bringing her iconic sleepover energy to the pod
• about the power of taking your time and the space to dream
• about ROOTBOUND
• the unbelievable power of storytelling
• Grace on humans as meaning making machines
• insight into external and internal stories
• more about re-releasing and the inspiration behind the revisions in ROOTBOUND
• about stan culture and meme culture
• about "magicifying" metaphorical real world systems
• a real life map of climate action we can take
• more on narrative seeding and real world dark magic
• about the housewives of climate
• how to approach networking through meaningful connection and authenticity

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:

• the highlights for Crafting Horror
• some spooky book recommendations
• a translation tangent
• a long chat about tea and coffee

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 Sheila Masterson.

Sheila Masterson is the author of six books, including the gothic fairytale romance SONG OF THE DARK WOOD, the emotional epic romantasy, THE LOST GOD Series, as well as its standalone spinoff, A LEGACY OF STARS. Her forthcoming dark fantasy romance, THE POISON DAUGHTER, publishes October 3, 2025, and features a vigilante who uses her poison kiss to murder abusive men in her community until she's unwittingly thrust into an arranged marriage with the only man immune to her magic. When Sheila's not busy stabbing beloved side characters and dreaming up new ways to make her readers cry, you can find her practicing yoga, drinking fancy cocktails with friends, or curled up reading books or tarot. She lives outside Philadelphia with a small army of underwatered houseplants that survive out of spite.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• Sheila's library
• juggling all the writer hats
• THE LOST GOD series
• intuitive writing and trusting your instincts
• Sheila's advice on timing and marathon writing and editing
• the power of being a fan of your own work
• tips on contract reviewing
• the audiobook process
• THE POISON DAUGHTER
• the exploration of feminine rage

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 Heather Herrman.

Heather Herrman is the author of the adult horror novel, Consumption, and the Junior Library Guild selected Young Adult Novel, The Corpse Queen. The Lady or the Tiger, a new YA novel by Heather about a female serial killer in the Wild West will be available from Nancy Paulsen Books June 10, 2025.

In this episode you'll hear:

• All about the Lady or the Tiger
• The importance of Horror (and an academia perspective)
• An important digression into fairies, magic, and keeping hope in difficult times
• Advice on how to keep your pacing engaging and "earn" slower moments
• NSFW jerky
• Must-get snacks at Trader Joe's

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:

• updates on writing, Storybeast, and what's to come
• a nod to Leigh Bardugo's TedTalk
• Courtney sharing about the muck and sparkle of revision life
• about the introspective writing journey no one wants to talk about
• about communes, capitalism, cows (and potatoes)
• Storybeast's summer book stack aka your new fall TBR
• all about our upcoming horror workshop, CRAFTING HORROR

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

In this episode of Season 4 Part 2:

• Courtney and Ghabiba reflect on the past season
• The duo discusses the concept of "dreaming big" and how to do it when you feel like you can't
• The banter is as high as the heat as Ghabiba explains the concept of the snackdown
• The beasts battle it out in an epic snack battle with the menu you voted for!
• Ghabiba and Courtney wish you a fantastic summer!

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!