Tales From The Trunk

We're joined this time around by Fran Wilde (@fran_wilde), who reads her story, "How Sentient Kudzu Solved the KRYPTOS K4 Code and How the CIA Covered It Up A Revolution in Four Parts," which leads us into a discussion of invasive plants, poetry, and some unexpected connections from our shared alma mater.   Things we mentioned in this episode: Gritty  Kryptos  Kudzu  Philadelphia World's Fair  Elise Tobler  Shimmer  John Bartram  Warren Wilson College  Rita Dove  Debra Nystrom  Gregory Orr  Charles Wright  Heather McHugh  Eleanor Wilner  Brigit Pegeen Kelly  Larry Levis  Joan Aleshire  "One Art," by Elizabeth Bishop George Oppen  "Without," by Fran Wilde, in Nature: Futures "Everlasting," by Fran Wilde, in Daily Science Fiction Updraft, by Fran Wilde The Nebula Awards  Life on Mars, by Tracy K. Smith Julia Rios  Lanternfish Press  Klein bottles  European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, by Theodora Goss Fran's Patreon  Ideomancer  Sam J. Miller  Uncanny Magazine  Viable Paradise  "The Ghost Tide Chanty,"

Happy new year, everyone! It's been awards season for a hot minute already, but it takes a little while to do a roundup for all my guests who are interested in being a part of it, so here we are! Works mentioned in this episode: When We Were Magic, by Sarah Gailey Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey “We Don’t Talk About the Dragon,” in The Book of Dragons, by Sarah Gailey “Drones to Plowshares,” by Sarah Gailey “Tiger Lawyer Gets It Right,” by Sarah Gailey “Everything Is The Hunger Games Now,” by Sarah Gailey Here's the Thing  Sarah's awards post  “Raff and the Scissor-Finger,” by R. K. Duncan “Clever Jack, Heavy with Stories,” by R. K. Duncan “For Every Jack,” by R. K. Duncan "Witness," from Fireweed: Stories of the Revolution, by R. K. Duncan R. K. Duncan's awards post  Prime Deceptions, by Valerie Valdes Chilling Effect, by Valerie Valdes The Archive of the Forgotten, by A. J. Hackwith The Library of the Unwritten, by A. J. Hackwith Finding Faeries, by Alexandra Rowland Be The Serpent  Beneath the Rising

This time around, it's my pleasure to welcome Phoebe Barton (@aphoebebarton | phoebebartonsf.com) onto the show! Phoebe reads their story, "More Things Than Are Dreamt Of," which leads us into a great conversation about how the submissions game has changed since we got started and what Phoebe's just-released interactive fiction game, The Luminous Underground, taught her new things about writing linear fiction. You can find links to purchase The Luminous Underground on the Choice of Games website.    Things we mentioned this episode: SFWA  Cowboy Bebop  Bakka-Phoenix Books  Analog  Asimov's  “The Paragon of Animals,” by Phoebe Barton (Analog, March 2013) F&SF  Weird Tales  Chocobos  John W. Campbell  Choice of Games  Ghostbusters  Choice of Games: pitching  Twine  NaNoWriMo  Clarion West  Worldcon    Join us again on January 15th, when our guest will be Fran Wilde!

For this month's bonus episode, I'm talking a bit about NaNoWriMo! The transcript for this episode follows: -- Hello, and welcome to Tales from the Trunk: reading the stories that didn’t make it. I’m Hilary B. Bisenieks. Twenty twenty might have been simultaneously the best and worst year to try to do NaNoWriMo. Best because we didn’t have our usual distractions thanks to the pandemic, so we could spend more time at home working on our writing. Worst because, well, everything. And despite or because of all that, many of us tried to write a novel this November. As some of you may have seen on my main twitter account, I won NaNo this year. This was my first time winning—by which I mean writing over fifty thousand words during November—though it was my sixth November attempt. I wrote fifty thousand, four hundred and fifty one words of a brand new manuscript in November, which represents what I estimate to be about fifty five percent of the first draft of this book. So yes, I “won” NaNo in that I wrote all those

This month, we're honored to be joined by John Wiswell (@Wiswell), who reads an excerpt of his story, "Tonight at the Palindrome." After that, we talk about our experiences navigating non-genre bachelors programs as genre writers and why it's so important to be open about our rejections as well as our sales. Things that we mentioned this episode: "Tank!" by John Wiswell Ellen Datlow  Arkady Martine  A. T. Greenblatt  Uncanny Magazine  Shimmer  Julia Rios  Fireside Magazine  Worldcon 76  Bogi Takács  NaNoWriMo  Curtis C. Chen  Mary Robinette Kowal  Seanan McGuire  Warren Wilson College  Louis L'Amour  Stephen King  J. R. R. Tolkien  Ursula K. Le Guin  Richard Matheson  "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson Bennington College  The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold William Faulkner  Tor  Peter Jackson  Campbellian monomyth  Astounding  Amazing Stories  TSR (the publisher, as opposed to "TRS," as in the Tandy TRS-80, which was mistakenly name-dropped in the episode) Lois McMaster Bujold  Diana Wynne Jones  Cowboy Bebop 

It's been a week, y'all, so here's some comforting content. You can catch me on We Make Books on November 17th. Join us again on November 20th, when my guest will be John Wiswell.

Darling listeners, we're joined this month by Jennifer Mace (@englishmace), one of the hosts of Be the Serpent, a podcast of Extremely Deep Literary Merit. Macey reads us a chapter out of the trunked novel that was to be her YA debut, and we talk about murder-boards, Nanowrimo, and some previews of upcoming Serpentcast episodes! Silk & Steel, a queer adventure anthology that Macey co-edited, will be released in November of 2020. Also, if you can't get enough of me, I'm happy to announce that I will be on the next episode of Rank & Vile, talking about one of my favorite horror movies, 28 Days Later, which will be going up on their Patreon this Saturday, the 17th, and in the public feed the following week. Also, I will be appearing on Story Hour at 7PM Pacific on Wednesday, October 21st, along with Laura Pearlman. Things we mention in this episode: Hag of the Hills  #PitMad  Tithe, by Holly Black "A Cradle of Vines," by Jennifer Mace "saltwashed," by Jennifer Mace "A Step Out Into the Blue," by Hilary B

Hello, and welcome to Spooky Season! We've got a bit of a weird one for you this time around, but I think it came out well. I asked a number of friends of the show if they would contribute to a literary exquisite corpse and got some phenomenal submissions. Thank you so much to John Wiswell, Aimee Kuzenski, Premee Mohamed, Kate Lechler, Laura Blackwell, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, R. K. Duncan, Dave Ring, Hana Russell, Tyler Hayes, and Jordan Kurella, our literary doctors Frankenstein. A transcript of this episode is available here.

This month, we're joined by Locus and Bram Stoker Award nominated author, and winner of this year's Ladies in Horror Award, Caitlin Starling (@see_starling @authorcstarling)! Caitlin's new novella, Yellow Jessamine, came out on September 5th from Neon Hemlock Press. We're treated to an excerpt of Caitlin's trunked novel, Untitled Faerie Story, which can be affectionately described as "idiots to lovers," before having a wonderful conversation about the whys and hows of writing horror and how online text-based roleplaying helped to shape Caitlin's writing.   Things mentioned in this episode: The Luminous Dead, by Caitlin Starling Valerie Valdes  Guild Wars 2  Martha Wells  Max Gladstone  Clockwork Boys, by T. Kingfisher Raising Steam, by Terry Pratchett (GNU) The California State Railroad Museum  Zootopia  Megan E. O'Keefe  Animal Crossing  The Death of Jane Lawrence, by Caitlin Starling Rubber duck debugging  Harrow the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir Silk and Steel    Join us again on October 16th, when our guest will

We've got a Q&A for this month's bonus episode! Thank you to Miri, Jo, D. H. Dunn, R. K. Duncan, Nina, Diane, Valerie, Sarah, Dave, and Amanda for submitting questions on such short notice! I promise I'll give everyone more than a couple weeks advance warning before I do another of these! Join us again on September 18th, when Caitlin Starling will be on the show!

We're joined this month by Karen Osborne, who reads us her trunked space lighthouse story "Slingshot Protocol." Afterwards, we talk about the fine art of listening to and then not acting on what your beta readers say and keeping your eyes on your own paper. Karen's debut novel, Architects of Memory, comes out on September 8th from Tor books. Join us again on September 4th for another Shelter in Place special, where I'll be answering listener questions, and then on September 18th, when our guest will be author Caitlin Starling!

Here we are: another month of something like lockdown, another Shelter in Place special. This time around, I'm bringing you another story from my own trunk, all the way from January of 2010.   If you're a US citizen, please make sure that you're registered to vote in this year's general election, which will take place on Tuesday, November 3rd. You can find out how to register to vote in your state by visiting vote.gov.   Join us again in two weeks, on August 21st, when our guest will be Karen Osborne. You can preorder her debut, Architects of Memory, now (and you should)! A transcript of this episode is available here.  

We're joined on this episode by author and Nebula Award finalist, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (@Merc_Wolfmoor). Merc reads their short horror story, "When Dreams Like Fire Spread," and we talk about horror, portal fantasies, queer representation, and fanfiction. Merc's newest story, "Bring the Bones That Sing," is now up on Diabolical Plots!   A transcript of the episode, provided by D. H. Dunn, is available here.   Things we mention on this episode: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power  Robot Dinosaur Fiction  AJ Hackwith's appearance on Tales from the Trunk LORE  The Magnus Archives  Writing Excuses  Welcome to Night Vale  X Minus One  "This is Not a Wardrobe Door," by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan Fireside Quarterly  Pokémon Go  Dawn of the Dead  "Blink" The Ring  They Live (alluded to) Psycho  The Destroy anthology series Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction!  John Wiswell  Elsa Sjunneson  Nightmare Magazine being edited by Wendy Wagner beginning in 2021 Be the Serpent  Archive Of Our O

Friends, somehow it is July of twenty twenty. We’re still sheltering in place, here in Beautiful Oakland, California, and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon. I hope that wherever you are in the world, you and your friends and loved ones are safe and well. For this month’s Shelter in Place episode, we’re diving back into my trunk, all the way back to the spring of 2010, a whole entire decade ago, to brush some of the dust off of another story that I wrote for an assignment. I don’t recall what, if anything, I was given as a prompt, but I turned it into another vaguely horror-y tunnel story, which should surprise approximately nobody. Actually, this story predates “Green Line,” which I read on our April episode, by about a year.   Join us again on July 17th, when Merc Fenn Wolfmoor will be on the show!

On this episode, we're joined by Megan E. O'Keefe, author of Velocity Weapon and its forthcoming sequel, Chaos Vector. Megan reads the first chapter of her trunked novel, Conduit of Stone, which leads us into a lively conversation about our influences and Megan's thoughts on the parallels between writing and video game development. A transcript of the episode, provided by D. H. Dunn, is available here. Please join us again for our next Shelter in Place episode on July 3rd, and on July 17th, when our regular guest will be Merc Fenn Wolfmoor!

I thought for a long time about delaying this episode or simply not releasing it at all, but for all the darkness in the world, we still need art. We need voices of hope. It is Pride month, where we celebrate who we are and how far we’ve come, and where we honor and remember those who came before us. Stonewall was a riot against police brutality, started by Marsha P. Johnson, a Black, trans woman. We would not have Pride without queer, Black activists. This Pride in Place episode was inspired in part by the folx at Buddies in Bad Times Theater in Toronto, a space dedicated to the promotion of queer theatrical expression.   The contributors who wished to be named for this episode are: K. B. Wagers, Twitter @kbwagers, Insta @midwaybrawler  Jill Seidenstein, Slow Bloom    You can find your local community bail funds at bit.ly/localbailfund  Consider raising up Black spec-fic writers by subscribing to FIYAH Literary Magazine (@fiyahlitmag)   Join us again on June 19th, when our guest will be Megan E. O'Keefe

For this month's episode, we're joined by Annalee Flower Horne (@LeeFlower). They read the first chapter of their trunked novel, Diamonds in the Sky, and we talk about Esperanto-speaking space-Quakers, source control management, representation, appropriation, mental health, and test-driven development. A transcript of the episode, provided by D. H. Dunn, is available here. Things we mention this episode: Esperanto  "Seven Things Cadet Blanchard Learned from the Trade Summit Incident," by Annalee Flower Horne, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/Aug 2014 issue Mary Robinette Kowal  Star Trek  Git  thefuck The Dazzle of Day, by Molly Goss Quaker process  Occupy Wall Street  Mass Effect 2  Civil Air Patrol  Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria  “Carborundorum > /dev/null,” by Annalee Flower Horne, Fireside Quarterly, July 2018 Test-driven development  "The Great Divide," Avatar: the Last Airbender season 1, episode 11 Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell Mary Sue  Star Wars  LiveJournal  NaNoWriMo  Futu

Joining me live in studio for this month's Shelter in Place special is my spouse, Elizabeth! We revisit the original concept for this show with some excerpts from her story "Horse Story," and talk race-consciousness, pin-gays, and representation.   Join us again on Friday, May 15th, Annalee Flower Horne will be on the show!

For close to the start of our second season, I decided to turn the table on myself, and Sharon Hsu (@pensyf) was kind enough to agree to come back on the show to guest-host! I read my story, "Green Line," and we talk about Philadelphia, our evolution as writers, and why podcasting is great.   Things we mention in this episode: Uncanny Magazine Duotrope The Submission Grinder Fantasy & Science Fiction Shimmer "Badgers" Lois McMaster Bujold Wawa Rita's Italian Ice Flavor Brigade SEPTA 365 Tomorrows (and my story, "Monday") LiveJournal Lockie Hunter Pseudopod Codex writer's forum The Allusionist: "Podcast Podcast" Fran Wilde Warren Wilson College Annalee Flower Horne Be the Serpent Fred Yost Dorothy L. Sayers As My Wimsey Takes Me Archive of Our Own (AO3) Esperanto "And All the Trees of the Forest Shall Clap Their Hands," by Sharon Hsu   Join us on May 1st for our next Shelter in Place episode, featuring my spouse, and on May 15th, when our guest w

Welcome to our first shelter in place special episode. On this episode, I'll be reading my 2009 story, "Steel Yard." Please note that things get a little spoopy, so if you need something lighter at the moment, I won't fault you for skipping this one.   Join us again in two weeks, on Friday, April 17th, when I'll be back with a regular episode featuring me and special guest host Sharon Hsu!