10-12-12 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 69: Bishop Gene Robinson, 'God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the sixty-ninth episode of my new series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the one-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to get ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning. And yes, I know this means I have one more to go this week — and here it is!
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
10-11-12:SF in SF Panel Discussion, September 15 2012: Roz Kaveney, Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, Moderated by Rick Kleffel
Click image for audio link.
"I'm a little bit of a namedropper."
—Roz Kaveney
The closest analogy for hosting a panel discussion is logrolling — the so-called sport of running across a patch of large logs swirling down a river. Of course, the challenge of such a sport depends on the river, and the challenge of moderating a panel depends on the participants. On the September slate for SF in SF, we were lucky enough to have Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, and direct from the UK, Roz Kaveney.
Kaveney read from the beginning of her novel, a meeting between Mara the Huntress and Aleister Crowley, a well-written encounter between a man who aspired to be a devil, and an eternal being who is reluctant to be called a goddess. Malinda Lo read the beginning of her novel as well, a tense and disturbing scene at an airport, followed up by an even more unsettling encounter on a clogged highway. Cindy Pon took us directly into the action with a supernatural battle on the high seas.
As we sat down to talk, I asked each writer discussed the importance of creating a grounded, realistic backdrop into which the weird and fantastic elements intrude. Though they are setting their work in very different historical periods and places, each writer talked about the combination of research and imagination. There's no formula, but it is fascinating to hear them discuss how their work unfolds in their minds after hearing them read it aloud.
All of this involves writing prose, and each writer has a very different job by virtue of where their work is set. But again, the common elements of how they do their work were revealed; each emphasized that research is important and often too alluring. What they make up is just as convincing as what they look up. None of this happens easily, and all of them emphasized how much they had to revise their work. But there are no revisions in the live audio I recorded. You can hear the whole panel discussion — which includes language that I cannot broadcast on the radio — by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
10-10-12:A 2002 Interview with Ramsey Campbell
What happens when J. K. Potter does your photo. (Click image for audio link.)
"....to show the thing from the viewpoint of the monster...."
—Ramsey Campbell
It's been ten years since I spoke with Ramsey Campbell, and so much has changed on the site and in my life, but one thing remains constant; Ramsey Campbell's writing is always engaging, chilling, and intensely visionary. He reliably weird, wonderfully smart and always able to offer readers something very unexpected.
I spoke with Ramsey at the World Horror Convention, and recorded the interview on a DAT recorder. In those days, I had no idea that I would be still doing this ten years down the line. Tapes were recorded over and there was no dragging and dropping audio onto computer hard drives. It was a strange time of analog and digital technology. I still regarded my youngest son's iPod as a toy, not an audio revolution in the making.
Now, of course, I find myself trying to recover some of those old files, and alas, it requires software that at best seems fairly kludgy. And my interviewing style has changed greatly. But the end product is Ramsey Campbell talking about his writing, and ultimately, it is the guest that matters. Ramsey Campbell knows this, having written so well about so many unwanted guests. You can hear him talk about his craft back in 2002 by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
10-08-12:A 2012 Interview with Robert D. Kaplan
Click image for audio link.
"Europe's southern border is the Sahara Desert."
— Robert D. Kaplan
In the lobby at KQED, Robert D. Kaplan told me that some arm of our government had just tweeted about 'The Revenge of Geography'; suggesting, not-so-gently, that it should be required reading. And to my mind, not just for those who are trying to ru(i)n the world.
To my mind, this is the sort of book for which it is very difficult to do an effective interview. There are lots of details in here, and one can easily run through more than a few stacks of stickies noting them down. And if you get mired in the details, you'll never escape.
For me, this is a book that readers should read. Letting those words run into your brain in the order that Kaplan has created, is a one-of-a-kind experience, and it will change both you and the way you see the world. It's akin to one of those optical illusions where what once looked flat unfolds into a three-dimensional landscape, a word not chosen by accident.
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
