Tales from the Trunk

This time around, it’s my pleasure to welcome longtime friend of the show Laura Blackwell! Laura reads to us from her very very trunked story, “Poor Prisoners,” which leads us into a wide-ranging discussion of things we wish we’d learned sooner, writers whose work we admire, and kindness to our past selves.

Things we mention in this episode:

Story Hour

LiveJournal

Dreamwidth

Macey’s Murderboard episode

All Our Yesterdays, by Hilary B. Bisenieks

Quaker Spec Fic issue

AO3

Omegaverse

The Iliad and Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney and Maria Dahvana Headley

Grimms’ Fairy Tales

Lattimore, Fitzgerald, Fagles Homers

The Aeneid, by Virgil, translated by Robert Fagles

Paradise Lost, by John Milton

Translation State and the Imperial Radch trilogy, by Ann Leckie

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, by Shubnum Khan

Archival Quality, by Ivy Noelle Weir and Steenz

The Mütter Museum

Ivy’s episode

Just Like Home, by Sarah Gailey

The Death of Jane Lawrence, Last to Leave the Room, Yellow Jessamine, and The Luminous Dead, by Caitlin Starling

Megan E. O’Keefe

Megan’s first episode

Steve Toase

Amanda Cook

Jo Miles

SFWA

HWA

Premee Mohamed

She Walks in Shadows, edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles

Beneath the Rising, And What Can We Offer You Tonight, The Annual Migration of Clouds, and The Butcher of the Forest, by Premee Mohamed

System Collapse, by Martha Wells

Yuletide (fic exchange)

The Red River of the north

Lake Agassiz

Marie Brennan

Martha Wells

Ursula Vernon

Chuck Tingle

Sarah Gailey

Hugo Awards thing

Stoker Awards

Edenville, by Sam Rebelein

Camp Damascus, by Chuck Tingle

Hellraiser

Death Note manga, netflix, and anime

Potato chip eating scene

Death Note: The Musical

Laura’s website, bluesky, twitter, insta, mastodon

Join me next month when I’ll be talking to John Wiswell and Ivy Fox

To open this show’s sixth season, it is my total delight to welcome A.D. Sui to talk about her forthcoming novella, The Dragonfly Gambit, available later this year!

Things we mention in this episode:

Neon Hemlock Press

dave ring

:unhinged_vibrating:

:shaking_eyes:

Fix-it fic

Fanfiction dot net

Even Though I Knew the End book tour episode

Supernatural

Carl Engle-Laird

100th episode

Jared can’t read vine

Blue Eye Samurai

Family Guy

Rick and Morty

Anna’s twitter, insta, bluesky, and website

John Wiswell

Ursula T. Kingfisher Vernon

This time around, to close out season 5 of Tales from the Trunk, I’m thrilled to welcome Jo Miles to talk about the excellent conclusion to their Gifted of Brennex trilogy, Ravenous State! 

Things we mention this episode:

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie

Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee

Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin

Brandon Sanderson

A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

ART and Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells

Starling House, by Alix E. Harrow

System Collapse, by Martha Wells

Warped State and Dissonant State, by Jo Miles

Jo’s mailing list, bluesky, insta, and mastodon

Today, it’s my pleasure to welcome back to the show Premee Mohamed! We talk about her new novella, The Butcher of the Forest, out February 27th from Tor.com books, and then feed something new to the trunk.

Things we mention this episode:

The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin

Hansel & Gretel

Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer

Escape from LA

The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser

Snake Plissken

LSBM

Van Helsing post

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

Red Deer Polytechnic

Thursday Next books, by Jasper Fforde

The Siege of Burning Grass, The Annual Migration of Clouds, and We Speak Through the Mountain, by Premee Mohamed

The Rider, The Ride, The Rich Man’s Wife, by Premee Mohamed

One Message Remains

“The General’s Turn,” by Premee Mohamed in The Deadlands

Sean Markey’s episode

Mysterious Galaxy event with John Wiswell, on February 28th 2024

Someone you Can Build a Nest In, by John Wiswell

The Two Doctors Górski, by Isaac Fellman

The Vanished Birds and The Spear Cuts Through Water, by Simon Jimenez

Premee’s bluesky, insta, patreon, and website

Stick around next week, when I’ll be talking to Jo Miles!

Once again, it’s time for an awards eligibility roundup! This episode’s transcript appears in full below:

Hello, and welcome to Tales from the Trunk: Nominating the works that did make it. I’m Hilary B. Bisenieks.

Listeners, it’s somehow that time of the year again, where awards nominations are upon us, and so I have once again reached out to all the wonderful guests who make this show what it is to round up works they’d like to receive your attention for nominations.

To begin, Tales from the Trunk is eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Fancast.

Sarah Gailey, who most recently joined me for our 100th episode retrospective, is eligible for Best Graphic Story for Know Your Station, and for Best Fanzine for their excellent Stone Soup.

Leigh Harlen, who joined us in August of 2021, is eligible for Best Novella with A Feast for Flies.

Dee Holloway, who joined us last May, is eligible in various categories. Her eligibility post is linked in the show notes.

Juliet Kemp, who just joined us most recently a few weeks ago, is eligible for Best Novel with The City Revealed; Best Novella with Song, Stone, Scale, Bone; Best Short Story with “Just As You Are;” and Best Series for The Marek Series. Their eligibility post is linked in the show notes.

Maya MacGregor, who appeared on the show in April of 2022, is eligible in Best Novel and Best Young Adult Novel categories for The Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will.

Freya Marske, who appeared here in October of 2021, is eligible for Best Short Story with a version of the very story that she brought to this fine podcast, “One Version of Yourself, At the Speed of Light.” She is also eligible for Best Novel with A Power Unbound and Best Series for The Last Binding.

Sam J. Miller, who joined us in January of 2022, is eligible for Best Short Story with "If Someone You Love Has Become a Vurdalak."

Premee Mohamed, who last joined us in the summer of 2021, is eligible for No One Will Come Back For Us in various short story collection categories and for “Imagine Yourself Happy” for Best Short Story. Her eligibility post is linked in the show notes.

Annalee Newitz, who joined us for a book tour last January is eligible for Best Novel for The Terraformers.

Aimee Ogden, who joined us twice last year, most recently in August, is eligible for Best Novella for Emergent Properties. Her eligibility post is linked in the show notes.

Malka Older, who joined us at the start of this season in March of last year, is eligible for Best Novella with The Mimicking of Known Successes and for Best Short Story with both “The Plant and the Purist” and “The Dangers We Choose.”

C.L. Polk, who last joined us in February of last year, is eligible for Best Novelette with Ivy, Angelica, Bay, which you can read right now on Tor.com.

Caitlin Starling, who last joined us in October of last year, is eligible for Best Novel with Last to Leave the Room and Best Short Story for “Caver, Continue.” Her eligibility post is linked in the show notes: Twitter | Bluesky

Steve Toase, who joined us back in April of 2021, is eligible for Best Short Story with “Crumpled.” His eligibility post is linked in the show notes.

Rem Wigmore, who last joined us in August of 2022, has an eligible novelette, Lightrunner’s Gambit, and a novel, Wolfpack.

Fran Wilde, who joined us in January of 2021, is eligible for Best Novella for The Book of Gems, Best Short Story for “The Rain Remembers What The Sky Forgets,” and Best Short Story for “No Contingency.” In addition, she would like to recommend From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi, in which “No Contingency” appears, to be considered for anthology and related media categories. Fran, along with Julian Yap, are eligible for Best Editor, Short, for their work at Sunday Morning Transport, which is itself eligible for Best Semiprozine.

If you’ve made it this far, I’d like to sincerely thank you for listening and nominating over the years. Your support means so much to me and all of my guests.

Next month, we’re closing season five of this show out with a book tour appearance by Canadian author and definitely not a lorge beetle Premee Mohamed and a trunk reading from Jo Miles. Please note that due to some scheduling conflicts, Premee’s episode will be releasing on February 8th rather than the 1st.

Also, season 6 is almost upon us! I’m still hammering out guests, so stay tuned to see what amazing authors join me!

Tales from the Trunk is mixed and produced in beautiful Oakland, California.

Our theme music is “Paper Wings,” by Lillian Boyd.

You can support the show on patreon at patreon dot com slash trunkcast. All patrons of the show now get a sticker and logo button, along with show outtakes and other content that can't be found anywhere else.

You can find the show on Bluesky at trunkcast dot bsky dot social, and I post at hbbisenieks dot bsky dot social.

If you like the show, consider taking a moment to rate and review us on your preferred podcast platform.

And remember: don't self-reject.

This time around, I’m joined again by the delightful Juliet Kemp, who joins us to talk about their new novella, Song, Stone, Scale, Bone! After a great little reading, we talk about some of the things that are hard to get on page.

Things mentioned in this episode:

Josh’s episode

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, by Patricia C. Wrede

A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Marek series, concluding with The City Revealed, by Juliet Kemp

Deadlock

Madeleine Sami

Our Flag Means Death

The Last Binding trilogy, by Freya Marske

Freya’s episode

Juliet’s website, twitter, bluesky, and mastodon

Today it is my sincere pleasure to welcome to the show weird little guy and all around splendid human being Josh Storey! Josh reads to us from his trunked novel, The Wolf That Waits at the End of All Things, which leads us into a lively discussion of the novels we wrote a few pages of when we were young, the ways we reuse ideas until they find the right home, and semiotic bullshit.

Things we mention in this episode:

Trunkcast’s 100th episode

Terry Pratchett’s troll counting

Macey’s murderboard episode on We Make Books

River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey

Sarah Hollowell

World’s largest frying pan in Iowa

Jessica Mary Best’s episode

Machineries of Empire series, by Yoon Ha Lee

Jasper Fforde

Zip disk

Final Fantasy

Homestuck

The Locked Tomb series, by Tamsyn Muir

Miri’s episode

Mary Robinette Kowal

Rock Lee

System Collapse book tour

A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Baffling Magazine

AO3

All Our Yesterdays, by Hilary B. Bisenieks

Death (Neil Gaiman)

Friends at the Table

Anamnesis

Brandon Sanderson

Writing Excuses

Mary Robinette Kowal’s patreon

“The Air Gap,” by Hilary B. Bisenieks in Lamplight

C.C. Finlay

F&SF

Mary Robinette Kowal’s MICE

HTML

Be The Serpent

R.J. Theodore

Peridot Shift series, by R.J. Theodore

NaNoWriMo

Gnome Stew

Misdirected Mark network

Personal Canons Cookbook

My macaroni and cheese recipe (and essay)

Héctor González

Amal El Mohtar

Bigolas Dickolas

This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Trigun Stampede

Trigun (98)

SunCoast Video

L-space

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi)

Apocalypse Keys

Hellboy

Pathfinder 2.5

WotC

Josh’s insta, bluesky, and website

Urban Phantasy blog

Premee Mohamed

Jo Miles

Today it’s my great pleasure to welcome publisher of The Deadlands, Sean Markey, to the show! Sean talks us through the inception of the magazine, what it’s like being a publisher, and where both the magazine and his press, Psychopomp, is going next!

Things we mention in this episode:

Elise Catherine Tobler

Laura Blackwell

Story Hour

Psychopomp

Shimmer

Beth Wodzinski

Quaker Spec Fic issue

“Refuse All Their Colors,” by Annalee Flower Horne

A Voice Calling, by Christopher Barzak

Martha Wells episode

Meg Elison

Maria Haskins

Vanessa Maki

Avra Margariti

A.R. Arthur

Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie

“The Dead Boy Inside Me,” by Angel Leal

Clarkesworld

C.C. Finlay

F&SF

Strange Horizons

Chuck Tingle

Sarah Gailey

Fireside

The Deadlands Patreon

Psychopomp store

Diablo 4

“Ultraviolet,” by Spiritbox (and on Bandcamp)

“Peristalsis,” by Vajra Chandrasekera

Rakesfall, by Vajra Chandrasekera 

“The Long Way Up,” by Alix E. Harrow

“Death is a Diner at 3:00 a.m.” by A.C. Wise

Psychopomp twitter and bluesky

The Deadlands twitter and bluesky

Shimmer’s twitter

Today it is my absolute pleasure to welcome to the show none other than Martha Wells! Martha joins us to read from and talk about the newest entry in her Murderbot Diaries series, System Collapse, out November 14th from TorDotCom publishing!

A transcription of this episode by Kiri from the Murderbot discord is available here

Things we mention on this episode:

Hugo Awards

Nebula Awards

Locus Awards

Dragon Awards

Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, and Exit Strategy, by Martha Wells

Witch King, by Martha Wells

City of Bones, by Martha Wells

Jamie Jones

The Book of Ile-Rien: The Element of Fire & The Death of the Necromancer, by Martha Wells

Mammoths at the Gates, by Nghi Vo

Furious Heaven, by Kate Elliott

Andrea Hairston

The Water Outlaws, by S.L. Huang

Aliette de Bodard

Martha’s website, bluesky, mastodon, and insta

The Deadlands

Join us on November 17th, when my guest will be Sean Markey!

Hey everyone, Hilary here. Due to a combination of life things and poor planning on my part, there’s no new interview this time around, but I’d like to take this spooky month to highlight a great episode from the backlog with our composer and true horror ghoul, Lillian Boyd.

A few other things before we get to the episode:

This show is now on Bluesky at trunkcast.bsky.social, and I’m on there at hbbisenieks.bsky.social. Of the twitter-replacements, Bluesky seems to be the one where most of my writing friends have ended up, so it made sense that the show should find a home there, too.

Also, a heads up that due to scheduling needs, next month’s book tour with Murderbot author Martha Wells will be coming out on Monday, November 6th, rather than Friday the 3rd.

Finally, thank you all so much for listening. I always appreciate hearing from fans of the show. Your support and enthusiasm helps continue making this show what it is!

And now, on with the show!

It's my absolute delight, this time around, to welcome our very own composer, Lillian Boyd (@herelieslill), onto the show. Lillian reads her short-story-that-should-be-a-novella, "Inside Job" (cw: gore, skip forward 10:15 to avoid) before we just go off on an extended tangent about horror movies, noir, pulp, and being as thoroughly on our bullshit as is possible.

Things we mention in this episode:

Rank and Vile

Tetsuo the Iron Man

28 Days Later

My appearance on Rank and Vile

The Reinvented Detective, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Cat Rambo (2023)

Raymond Chandler

Guy Noir: Private Eye

A Prairie Home Companion

Nick Danger

The Firesign Theater

Clive Barker

Nightmare Alley

Guillermo del Toro

Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey

Nick and Nora

Humphrey Bogart

Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler

1. P. Lovecraft (notable racist)

Scrip

Neuromancer, by William Gibson

Blade Runner

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

"Panama," by Van Halen

Terry Pratchett

Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

The Discworld

The Bromeliad

Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett

The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler

Chandler's cat letters

Guards, Guards! by Terry Pratchett

Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett

Neil Gaiman

Ichabod Crane

Michael Kane

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

Sandman, by Neil Gaiman

"The Book Job," The Simpsons season 23, episode 6

"Falafelosophy," Arthur season 14, episode 4a

"Neil Gaiman! What are you doing in my falafel?"

Alanis Morisette

Amanda Palmer

Tori Amos

Fiona Apple

"Silent All These Years," by Tori Amos

Where's Neil When You Need Him?

The Crüxshadows

Mirrormask

"Mr. Sandman," by The Chordettes

"Enter Sandman," by Metallica

Hot Topic

"Cry Little Sister," by Gerard McMann

The Lost Boys

Voltaire

Ego Likeness

The Velocipastor

"Toasty"

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Daybreakers

Placebo

"Running Up That Hill," by Placebo

"Running Up That Hill," by Kate Bush

Velvet Goldmine

"20th Century Boy," by Placebo

"20th Century Boy," by T. Rex

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Queen of the Damned

Twilight

Failure to Adapt

The baseball scene from Twilight

Underworld

Blade 3: Trinity

Triple-H

House of Wax

Friends at the Table: Sangfielle

The VVitch

Sarah Gailey's appearance on Episode 1 of this very show

Hailey Piper

Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, by Hailey Piper

Trouble and Her Friends, by Melissa Scott

The Mountain Goats

Alien Vs. Predator

Fireside Quarterly, June-July 2021

The Rank and Vile list

Bride of Frankenstein

And Now the Screaming Starts!

Candyman II: Farewell to the Flesh

The Crow: Wicked Prayer

Brainscan

Videodrome

Audition

Lillian's Twitch

Hair Metal

"Dream Warriors," by Dokken

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

The Books of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Charles Vess

The Farthest Shore, A Wizard of Earthsea, and The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Keebio's Iris keyboard

Bán Dénes, mrzealot

Ergogen

Ghost in the Shell

Data

Hako Royal True switches

Hellraiser

Lillian's website, soundcloud, and reedsy