SF Crossing the Gulf—In Conversation with Nathan Ballingrud

Episode 24a: In conversation with Nathan Ballingrud: “The Good Husband”

In a follow up to our previous podcast, we had the very great pleasure of chatting with the lovely Nathan Ballingrud, author of “The Good Husband”, about the themes and inspiration for his story about a marriage gone awry, and his new works (both film and text) in 2019. Best to read “The Good Husband” first or, if you must ...Read More

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SF Crossing the Gulf—Transformative Horror

Episode 24: Transformative Horror: “The Fruit of My Woman” by Han Kang (translated by Deborah Smith) and “The Good Husband” by Nathan Ballingrud

Ballingrud’s work is frightening, Kang’s is surreal, and both are disturbingly beautiful in their portrayal of how a person’s radical transformation can destabilize their marriage… or are they about how marriage can precipitate a radical transformation? Tune in to hear us tease out the nuances of these ...Read More

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SF Crossing the Gulf—in Conversation with Ted Chiang

Episode 23: In conversation with Ted Chiang: “The Great Silence”
Most people may know about Ted from “Story of Your Life” which was filmed as Arrival, but his reputation with readers and writers as a top tier craftsman of the short form was well established before then. We had the pleasure of asking Ted some questions about a short (very short!) piece of his from 2015, part of an
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SF Crossing the Gulf—in Conversation with Kij Johnson

Episode 22b: In conversation with Kij Johnson: “The Privilege of the Happy Ending” Rounding off our triad of podcasts about the end of the world as we know it, we are honoured to welcome Kij Johnson to discuss her apocalypse-themed fantasy story (with strong hints of science fiction!) “The Privilege of the Happy Ending”. The research, the worldbuilding, and the structural and narrative choices that went into this story make
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SF Crossing the Gulf—in Conversation with Daryl Gregory

Episode 22a: In conversation with Daryl Gregory: “Nine Last Days on Planet Earth” Even better than reading an excellent story is discussing with the author how and why they wrote it! We are so pleased to have Daryl Gregory with us to discuss the nuances, secrets and personal touches in his apocalypse-themed science fiction story “Nine Last Days on Planet Earth”. (But first listen to episode 22 of the podcast
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SF Crossing the Gulf—The Everyday Apocalypse

Episode 22: The Everyday Apocalypse: “Nine Last Days on Planet Earth” by Daryl Gregory and “The Privilege of the Happy Ending” by Kij Johnson
Apocalypse now, or some day soon when we least expect it? Karen and Karen compare and contrast two very different stories with a common theme – the end of the world as we know it. But apocalypse can mean many things when we consider the privileged
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SF Crossing the Gulf — Authentic Indian Experience™

Welcome to your authentic Crossing the Gulf experience! In one of our favourite discussions to date, Karen and Karen summarise, assess, dissect and digest the multiple-award-winning short story “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse. This richly layered and nuanced story rewards on so many levels. We provide perspectives from our own experiences, alternating roles as insider and outsider.

Reference is made to the film The Thirteenth Floor ...Read More

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SF Crossing the Gulf — A Wrinkle in Time: The book, the movie

When a dearly loved but challenging book becomes a movie, where do you set your expectations? Karen and Karen discuss the alchemy of transmuting text to screen and the choices that must be made if the story is to not merely translate, but flourish. We also talk about how much the book meant to us growing up, and our belief that Ava DuVernay has given us a film that will ...Read More

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SF Crossing the Gulf — Season 3 Debut!

A Marvel movie, an afrofuturistic dream, a box office phenomenon… and more? We take a side step from page to screen to comment on the many ways that Black Panther works, and works well. We also hint at future podcasts to compare text to film in other adaptations such as A Wrinkle in TimeAnnihilation, and Arrival (2016).

https://locusmag.com/sfcrossingthegulf/sfgulf19.mp3

Download mp3 file.

Note: This podcast and all previous ...Read More

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SF Crossing the Gulf – Season 2 Update!

Back in October of 2017 we announced that that SF Crossing the Gulf podcast, hosted by Karen Burnham and Karen Lord, had been made available via a dedicated archive page.

At that time, we shared that the archive page featured short descriptions of each episode (and links to the full details at SF Signal) for Season One, and that the rest of the episodes would be following soon. We’re pleased ...Read More

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SF Crossing the Gulf Is Back!

Announcing the new archive page for SF Crossing the Gulf podcast.

The podcast, hosted by Karen Burnham and Karen Lord, debuted in 2012 and ran for 18 episodes over the course of two seasons, originally hosted by SF Signal (the text descriptions are still available there, but no audio). Episodes include fascinating discussions of notable contemporary hard science fiction, classic writers such as Cordwainer Smith and Olaf Stapledon, weird stories, ...Read More

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Small Blue Planet — Ep. 06, Philippines

This month we talk to two notables from the Philippines. Charles A. Tan and Dean Francis Alfar give us a tour of the speculative fiction authors working in their country right now.

http://locusmag.com/Blog/SBP06_Philippines.mp3

Dean Francis Alfar is a Filipino playwright, novelist and writer of speculative fiction. His plays have been performed in venues across the country, while his articles and fiction have been published both in his native Philippines and ...Read More

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Small Blue Planet — Ep 05, Israel

In this episode of Small Blue Planet we visit Israel with translators Gili Bar Hillel and Didi Chanoch.

http://locusmag.com/Blog/SBP05_Israel.mp3

Among the interesting bits mentioned:

Conventions: Icon, Utopia, Olamot, Meorot, Bydion Magazines: Once Upon a Future Publishers: Graff Publishing Current writers: Lavie Tidhar, Yir Naniv, Guy Hasson, Vered Tochterman, Gail Hareven, Etgar Keret, Assaf Gavron, Asaf Ashery Abigail Nussbaum’s review of With Both Feet in the Clouds: Fantasy in Hebrew Literature ...Read More

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ICFA 34 – Adapting Shakespeare

This is one of the panels I recorded at the most recent ICFA conference. The participants (in order of appearance) were Jim Casey, Sharon Emmerichs, Kevin Crawford, Neil Gaiman, and Conor McCreery. How do you adapt Shakespeare? Is there any such thing as a single true, definitive “Shakespeare”? How do the plays adapt into different media, different costumes, different generations? A very thoughtful discussion on the malleable Bard.

http://locusmag.com/Blog/ICFA34_AdaptShakespeare.mp3 ...Read More

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Small Blue Planet – Ep 04, France

Our guests this month:

Mélanie Fazi is a long-time fan of fantasy, horror and SF as well as a writer and translator. Although her published books include two novels and two collections of stories, she’s mostly a writer of short fiction. Some of her stories were translated in English and appeared notably in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science-Fiction, Black Static and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She ...Read More

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Chris Barzak, Jedediah Berry, and Genevieve Valentine In Conversation: Crawford Award Winners

At ICFA this past March 2013 we were lucky enough to have three recent Crawford award winners attending the conference: Chris Barzak, Jed Berry, and Genevieve Valentine. (Acutally, there were five winners at the conference that weekend, one of whom was one of our guests of honor, Kij Johnson.) I was lucky enough to catch the three of them after their joint reading on Saturday morning. In a mostly coherent ...Read More

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Small Blue Planet – Ep 03, Brazil

In this episode from Brazil, our guests are:

Fábio Fernandes is an SFF writer and translator living in São Paulo, Brazil. He’s got several stories published in online venues in the US, the UK, New Zealand, Portugal, Romenia, and Brazil. He also contributed to Steampunk Reloaded, Southern Weirdo: Reconstruction, and The Apex Book of World SF Vol. 2. Co-edited (with Djibril al-Ayad) We See a Different Frontier ...Read More

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Small Blue Planet — Ep 02, China

In this episode, centered on China, our guests are:

Ken Liu, an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. His fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places. He has won a Nebula, a Hugo, a World Fantasy Award, and a Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award, and been nominated ...Read More

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Small Blue Planet — Ep 01, Finland

Welcome to a new podcast series here on the Locus Roundtable: Small Blue Planet! Hosted by the inimitable and organized Cheryl Morgan, this podcast focuses on international speculative fiction and translations. Cheryl has a good introduction that covers our hopes for the series on her blog. On to our first episode!

Our first guests are:

Jukka Halme: a middle-aged & mild-mannered civil servant by day, an international man of ...Read More

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Tony Keen and Graham Sleight in Conversation: Doctor Who

On the occasion of Graham Sleight’s latest book, The Doctor’s Monsters: The Meaning of the Monstrous in Doctor Who, we talk with Graham and scholar Tony Keen about Doctor Who. We discuss scholarship of the long-running TV show, why it has lasted so long, and who its audience is. I imagine you’ll find some interesting insights within.

http://locusmag.com/Blog/KeenSleight.mp3

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Michael Dirda and Gary Wolfe in Conversation: Audience, Style, Editors, etc.

As a cap to some of our recent discussions of reviewing, here is a conversation between two of the foremost reviewers covering science fiction today, Michael Dirda and Gary K. Wolfe. They discuss audience, writing style, editors, Gary’s two volume Library of America set, and much more. Enjoy!

http://locusmag.com/Blog/DirdaWolfe.mp3 ...Read More

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Anil Menon and Vandana Singh in Conversation: Indian SF, Domestication of Tech, Genre Boundaries

At ReaderCon 2012 I was able to sit down with Anil Menon and Vandana Singh, co-editors of the recent Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana. While I wish we’d had longer to talk, we covered topics such as early Indian science fiction, the domestication of technology, and disregard for genre boundaries.

http://locusmag.com/Blog/MenonSingh.mp3 ...Read More

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Karen Burnham and John Scalzi in Conversation: Redshirts, Touring, and More

I took advantage of John Scalzi’s swing through Houston on his book tour promoting the new novel Redshirts. We talk about touring, audiences, Ray Bradbury, the Golden Age, and how Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy killed sf humor for a generation. A short, fast conversation that I hope you’ll enjoy.

http://locusmag.com/Blog/BurnhamScalzi.mp3 ...Read More

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Emily Jiang and Rose Lemberg In Conversation: Speculative Poetry

As part of our series on poetry, I was happy to get Emily Jiang and Rose Lemberg to talk with me about their experiences with the speculative poetry community. You can tell that this was recorded before Wiscon 2012; I hope that everyone had a great time there! You can read more of Emily’s work at Strange Horizons, and see the product of Rose’s editing work at Stone Telling.

http://locusmag.com/Blog/JiangLemberg.mp3 ...Read More

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Mike Allen and F. J. Bergman in Conversation: SF Poetry

Today we’re kicking off a series of blog posts that will focus on sf poetry. What does the sf in sf poetry stand for? That’s a matter of some debate, and it’s just a small part of what Mike and F. J. talk about in this podcast. Also mentioned are what they look for in sf poetry, how they got started writing and publishing it, and the numerous venues where ...Read More

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ICFA 33, The (Monstrous) Editing Panel

… Or at least monstrously large! This panel consisted of (in speaking order): Moderator Gary K. Wolfe, Ann VanderMeer, Art Evans, Nalo Hopkinson, Ellen Datlow, Brian Attebery, David Hartwell, and Gavin Grant. The audience commenters are equally distinguished, including Nancy Kress, E. Lily Yu, Geoff Landis, Kevin Maroney, John Kessel, and Greg Bechtel (that I could easily identify). Topics include reaching for a balanced table of contents, editors being edited, ...Read More

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ICFA Podcast: The Monstrous

Today we’re bringing you one of the evening panels held at ICFA this past March. The panel, held late on Thursday evening, featured (in the order you will hear them): Moderator F. Brett Cox, China Mieville, James Morrow, Suzy McKee Charnas, Peter Straub, Theodora Goss, and Kelly Link. They particularly discuss the question of the appropriateness of applying the label ‘monster’ to a real person, from both a cultural and ...Read More

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ICFA 33 Opening Panel: Monstrous Significations

On March 21st, scholars, writers, and editors gathered together in Florida for the 33rd time, to hold the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts. This year’s guests of honor were China Miéville, Kelly Link, and Jeffrey J. Cohen. This podcast is a recording of the opening session of the conference. In order, you’ll hear the voices of Jim Casey, IAFA president; Kelly Link; China Miéville, Jeffrey J. Cohen, ...Read More

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Teresa Frohock and Stina Leicht in Conversation: First Time Authors, Amazon, and Inspiration

Today’s Locus podcast features Teresa Frohock, author of Miserere, and Stina Leicht, author of Of Blood and Honey. Both of them are part of Nightshade Books‘ fantastic 2011 line-up of debut authors.

This podcast was fraught with technical difficulties, and I want to extend my thanks to Teresa and Stina for putting up with them. Teresa is hearing impaired, so we combined Skype with her telephone captioning service ...Read More

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Siobhan Carroll and Austin Sirkin in Conversation: Academic Pursuits

Today we have author and scholar Siobhan Carroll (author of “In the Gardens of Night“) together with steampunk expert Austin Sirkin (Track Director at Anachrocon) via the magic of Skype. They talk about the academic pursuit of science fiction, fantasy, and related fields, as well as why you can’t Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call it Steampunk), (Justin Bieber notwithstanding). Alternate history, modernism, post-modernism, post-post-modernism, and dystopian YA ...Read More

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Marie Brennan and Kari Sperring in Conversation: History Is not a Theme Park

Today’s podcast is the last of those I recorded at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego 2011. Marie Brennan and Kari Sperring sit down to discuss the point that “History is not a theme park!” Both being trained in history, their discussion ranges across the practice of history, source texts both fictional and non-, inspiration, putting the fantasy bits in, and much else. In the end I’m afraid that ...Read More

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