For this episode I got to interview Kelly Sue DeConnick, writer of the Bitch Planet and Pretty Deadly comics, among many others. We talked a good deal about collaboration, especially in the world of comics, but my favorite bits are where she talks about the creative tools she learned while working in television and how she brought them over to her comics process. And, as the title indicates, we talked about how spite can be a good motivator for creating amazing art. Aleen and I had a great conversation around these and other aspects of the interview, and you should listen to the episode to hear it all :)

You can listen to the podcast below or on the episode page where you can see the show notes. Comments are always welcome!

We’re back! In this episode Aleen and I talk about my interview with artist Grace P Fong, an awesome person I met on last year’s Writing Excuses cruise. Grace’s art is so good, and I got a chance to watch her draw many times while we toured around the Baltic Sea. That trip was just a small part of a larger tour throughout the world Grace was on at the time. If you think all my moving around is impressive, you should have seen her itinerary. Months and months, multiple continents, visiting friends and having new experiences. In our interview she talked about how this travel makes for better art, about mind palaces, and about what it takes to create something that isn’t real from studying what is.

You can listen to the podcast below or on the episode page where you can see the show notes and also subscribe.

Aleen talks to Marisa McClellan about audience-building in this one and then she and I and ponder the balance between how much an artist really has to engage with their audience in order to keep them interested and keeping yourself safe and sane in the face of the dark side of engagement.

You can listen to the podcast below or on the episode page where you can see the show notes and also subscribe.

I interview Nilah Magruder, who is a visual artist and a writer. Her two most recent books, a children’s picture book and a graphic novel, were both written and illustrated by her, which I find super impressive. Also, Nilah is amazing and smart. In this episode we talk about how some writers can benefit from thinking like artists and the origin story of Nilah’s book How To Find A Fox.

I also talk passionately about how important it is for young artists to not be told No or You Can’t Do That and what happened to me when I heard that kind of thing.

You can listen to the podcast below or on the episode page where you can see the show notes and also subscribe.

(art by Nilah)

In this episode I interview writer and game designer Monica Valentinelli and Aleen and I talk about creativity and role-playing games. Monica gets into some cool stuff about ways game writers can be creative within an existing system and franchise, and also about how she got into writing for games. It’s a really great conversation.

You can listen to the podcast below or on the episode page where you can see the show notes and also subscribe.