This episode I talk to Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Charlie Jane Anders! In this chat, we discuss her work, including how she gets inside her characters' heads, challenging the traditional ideas of protagonist and antagonist, and writing your way through personal challenges. We discuss examples from her work including All the Birds in the Sky, City in the Middle of the Night, as well as her latest book, Lessons in Magic and Disaster.

Chapters:

• 00:00 - Intro
• 04:30 - Leading the Reader into the Darkness
• 10:52 - Character Perspectives
• 14:40 - Protagonists and Antagonists and Neither
• 16:49 - Points of View and Structure
• 26:11 - Young Adult Perspectives
• 32:52 - Defamiliarization in Science Fiction
• 41:11 - Finding the Perspective
• 46:04 - Writing Through Personal Challenge
• 51:53 - Outro

Charlie Jane's Information:

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster, coming August 2025 from Tor Books. Her other novels include All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night and the young-adult Unstoppable trilogy. She's also the author of the short story collection Even Greater Mistakes, and Never Say You Can't Survive, a book about how to use creative writing to get through hard times.

She's won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus Awards. She co-created Escapade, a transgender superhero, for Marvel Comics and wrote her into the long-running New Mutants comic. And she's currently the science fiction and fantasy book reviewer for the Washington Post. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.

charliejaneanders.com

buttondown.email/charliejane

Charlie Jane's Books Mentioned:

• All the Birds in the Sky
• City in the Middle of the Night
• Victories Greater than Death (first in the Unstoppable Trilogy)
• Never Say You Can't Survive
• Even Greater Mistakes
• Lessons in Magic and Disaster

Charlie Jane Anders Photo credit: Sarah Deragon/Portraits to the People

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Elisabeth Sharp McKetta joins me today for an episode all about how the mythology we inherit from our cultures and families, can be combined with the personal, to enhance our stories. She discusses the similarities of crafting poetry and prose, and how she weaves the magic of myth into her works, making them resonate with readers while keeping things fresh and exciting.

Chapters:

• 00:15 - Embracing Mythology in Writing
• 08:25 - Exploring the Intersection of Fairy Tales and Memoir
• 21:52 - The Mythology of Water: Crafting a Narrative
• 31:59 - Archetype Phases
• 46:33 - Choosing the Child's Perspective

Elisabeth's Information:

Elisabeth Sharp McKetta is an award-winning writer and writing teacher and a mother of two. With a PhD on the intersections between fairy tales and autobiography, as well as a seven-year streak of writing weekly poems for strangers, she teaches writing for Oxford Department for Continuing Education and for Harvard Extension School, where she won their highest teaching award. She has authored thirteen books across genres, most recently the novels She Never Told Me about the Ocean and Ark, the essay collection Awake with Asashoryu, and the personal growth guide Edit Your Life, based on her experience living three years in a 275-square foot backyard guest house with her family of four (five, if you count the Labrador). She co-edited the anthology What Doesn’t Kill Her: Women’s Stories of Resilience, which Gloria Steinem described as stories that “will help each of us to trust and tell our own.” Elisabeth’s work with myth and memoir, which she began studying at Harvard College and now teaches, has been spotlighted in Harvard Magazine. (elisabethsharpmcketta.com)

Elisabeth's Books:

She Never Told Me about the Ocean

Ark

Edit Your Life

Elisabeth's Ted Talk: Edit Your Life Like a Poem: TedXBoise

Also Mentioned:

The Virgin's Promise by Kim Hudson

The Heroine with 1001 Faces by Maria Tatar

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upcoming member bonuses such as extended interviews and full video.

Write the story that only you can!

For our very first episode, I am joined by David Slayton, award-winning fantasy author, to explore the connection between his life experiences and his literary work. He reflects on the struggles of growing up in an environment that marked him as different, which informs the diverse characters he crafts in his novels, including his urban fantasy, starting with *White Trash Warlock*, and his subsequent high fantasy, *Dark Moon, Shallow Sea*. We also delve into the significance of representation and the necessity of authentic voices in literature.

Chapters:

• 00:15 - Exploring the Boundaries of Imagination in Writing
• 04:48 - The Heroine's Journey: A New Perspective on Storytelling
• 10:09 - Exploring Urban Fantasy Tropes
• 19:41 - Exploring Character Depth: Bobby's Journey
• 28:04 - Writing Diverse Characters: Understanding Identity and Empathy
• 30:55 - Exploring Rogue Community College: A New Fantasy Adventure
• 40:10 - The Ghost Mist and the Dying World
• 47:53 - Personal Traumas and Character Development
• 52:44 - The Journey of the Author

David's information:

David R. Slayton (He/Him) grew up in Guthrie, Oklahoma, where finding fantasy novels was pretty challenging and finding ones with diverse characters was downright impossible. Now he lives in Denver with his partner Brian and writes the books he always wanted to read. His debut, White Trash Warlock, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. In 2015, David founded Trick or Read, an initiative to give out books along with candy to children on Halloween as well as uplift lesser-known authors or those from marginalized backgrounds. His epic fantasy, Dark Moon, Shallow Sea, won the 2024 Colorado Book Award. Find him online at www.DavidRSlayton.com.

David's books:

White Trash Warlock (First in the Adam Binder Series)

Rogue Community CollegeDark Moon Shallow Sea

Also mentioned:

Check out Gail Carriger's The Heroine's Journey

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