What’s in your notebook? The WDC crew all keep a little notebook of some fashion – although there’s discussion over moleskine, spiral notebooks, electronic Notes. Having a notebook in hand or in easy reach can help keep those nifty ideas from f

Episode 98 – Interview with David Drake

Apr 27th, 2021 28m 8s

David Drake picked up writing, so he says, as a therapy for his time spent riding tanks around Vietnam and Cambodia. But what started as short stories ended up as a brilliant and far-reaching career that explored historic fantasy, horror, sci f

Episode 97 – Chaz Brenchley’s Crater School Girls on Mars

Apr 20th, 2021 28m 13s

In which we celebrate our own Chaz’ new book coming out in May 2021. Formerly only found if you were a Patreon member, now you can buy Three Twins at the Crater School in book format. Based on the concept of boarding school storylines from Engl

Episode 96 – Video Biographies with Carol Wolf

Apr 13th, 2021 35m 22s

Carol Wolf says “If you point a camera at someone and ask them what they know about how to live your life, they tell you amazing, inspiring, and moving stories.” What is the lived experience? We continue our discussion from last week talking ab

Episode 95 – Memoir Writing with Jill Phillips

Apr 6th, 2021 28m 5s

There are so many people who talk about writing down family memoirs. We interviewed Jill Phillips, who has completed her first novel of non-fiction memoirs to talk about her process, her journey, and her recommendations for anyone thinking it’s

Episode 94 – Interview with Aleksandr Voinov

Mar 30th, 2021 32m 48s

Exploring topics in gay romance, and emotive expression open for men – and how reading novels outside your own experience act like empathy boxes of learning and understanding. Aleksandr’s character-driven approach to storytelling combines with

Episode 93 – Interview with Nancy Jane Moore

Mar 23rd, 2021 29m 46s

Nancy has found a unique way of conquering the general zeitgeist of creativity challenge with meditation and poetry to unlock new creativity. We discuss colonialism, and the challenge of looking at discovered civilizations (on earth, in space,

Episode 92 – Interview with Bruce Holland Rogers

Mar 16th, 2021 43m 57s

Bruce helps advance the question what the term “literary” means. Is it a commercial label? Is it a publishing market category for how to put similar books together in a bookstore? Class distinction or participation is one way to look, but so is

Episode 91 – A Psychological Model for Character Building

Mar 9th, 2021 35m 42s

In this episode, Dave, Chaz, and John briefly discuss character development using the "Big Five" model of personality before haring off on a number of predictable tangents. Also in this episode: everything Dave knows about factor analysis and p

Episode 90 – Race, Romance, and Regency

Mar 2nd, 2021 31m 6s

It’s Black History month, and we all watched Bridgerton (and a certain Duke) over Christmas, right? We invite Madeleine Robins back and start pondering how to make our writing accurately reflect the cultural mélange that existed in London and b

Episode 89 – Interview with Jennifer Brozek

Feb 23rd, 2021 31m 40s

Jennifer has been nominated twice for the Bram Stoker award for horror, and won both the Bram Stoker and the Hugo Award for editing work. She’s written stories and novels for Battletech, Shadowrun, Valdemar, as well as many original stories and

Episode 88 – Interview with Megan Lloyd: Storyboarding

Feb 16th, 2021 38m 13s

Who is the first wizard on call when you need to make movie magic? Meg is a that wizard! A storyboard artist introduces us all to the world where the print meets the screen. Come learn about this exciting position working in TV and Movies, wher

Episode 87 – Carol Wolf, Shotgun Artist

Feb 9th, 2021 35m 29s

WDC once again talks with master of many forms Carol Wolf, who discusses plays, movies, screenplays, horror, and some of her recent work, and inspires WDC to write more! … Continue...Episode 87 – Carol Wolf, Shotgun Artist

Episode 86 – Charlie Stross, Harbinger of Our Times

Feb 2nd, 2021 25m 45s

There are writers who can take one genre and then turn it into multiple genres before they're done - and you can't put the books down. We sat down one of our favorites who gets away with it all the time. Charles Stross, unrepentant Pantser, as

Episode 85 – Juliette Wade Returns!

Jan 26th, 2021 30m 37s

Juliette’s second book, Transgressions of Power (sequel to Mazes of Power), is coming out in February! Get your tiara and boa together and think about what you’re going to wear to her book release party! Juliette talks about dialect work, plott

Episode 84 – Interview with Richard Kadrey

Jan 19th, 2021 43m 30s

Richard Kadrey has been a successful novelist, written for comic books, scripts, and journalistic articles about art, culture, and technology. He creates music under the name Seven Blood-Stained Orchids. We caught up with him to find out the la

Episode 83 – From a Certain Point of View

Jan 12th, 2021 30m 17s

In which our merry hosts contemplate finding the right point of view from which to tell a story. The perspective of looking at a story is fungible, but each point of view will have a different voice. The coffee committee ponders the right point

Episode 82 – Writing Political Satire

Jan 5th, 2021 27m 31s

This is our first foray into discussing satire, and how to make fun of politics. Whether cartooning, focusing a microscope on an individual trait or issue, or simply drawing attention to an injustice, satire has a place in writing and the arts.

Episode 81 – Podcasting from Cobbler’s Gulch

Dec 29th, 2020 30m 33s

We welcome another podcaster - Norman Leonard, the creative mind behind the kids’ podcast, Cobbler’s Gulch. Is it for kids? Or is it a podcast narrative for adults? Who loves goblins and gooslers and trolls and two-headed soil serpents? We do,

Episode 80 – Midwinter Ghosts and Scary Stories

Dec 22nd, 2020 18m 51s

The midwinter holidays have an old tradition of ghost stories and scary tales to whisper around the fire as people huddle close and wait for the light to return. We've recreated this for you with new spooky stories written by Chaz and Jeannie,

Episode 79 – A Sit Down with Sage & Savant

Dec 15th, 2020 44m 41s

Today we sat down with the wife and husband team of Eddie Louise and Chip Clark from Sage & Savant, a serial podcast of steampunk adventures in Mad Science! Eddie wrote the serial adventure story and keep it going for years, while Chip composed

Episode 78 – What’s in a Quirk?

Dec 8th, 2020 38m 56s

People with quirks are called eccentric, unusual, strange, or even bizarre, but the truth is bigger. Quirky people play weird games, wear different clothes, have unusual hobbies, or say what they mean in company. Quirky people have less fear. J

Episode 77 – Alternative History with Harry Turtledove

Dec 1st, 2020 31m 51s

It’s not every day we get to talk to someone who single-handedly launched a genre. Harry Turtledove is the father of alternative history fiction, alongside his many fantasy and science fiction novels and stories. We caught up with him to talk a

Episode 76 – Community Theatre with Damian Trasler

Nov 24th, 2020 35m 9s

There's the novel, and then there is short fiction. There's multi-act plays, and then there's one-act plays and community theatre. We sat down with stunningly successful community theatre playwright and author Damian Trasler to talk about how t

Episode 75 – Interview with Jacey Bedford

Nov 17th, 2020 41m 17s

In which Karen and Chaz enjoy an old home week of sorts with the incomparable Jacey Bedford from Milford. Jacey chats with us about the MIlford process, her favorite tools for writing, and describes her process for both historic fantasy and sci