Tales from the Trunk
Reading the stories that didn't make it
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Episodes
Friday Jul 01, 2022
Friday Jul 01, 2022
This time around, it’s my pleasure to welcome Ruthanna Emrys (@R_Emrys), who joins us to talk about her new novel, A Half-Built Garden, which comes out on July 26th from Tor Dot Com publishing. We talk about ecological sci-fi, the things that got left on the cutting-room floor, and Ruthanna’s current reads.
Things we mention in this episode:
Winter Tide, by Ruthanna Emrys
David Bowie
The Innsmouth Legacy series, by Ruthanna Emrys
Seanan McGuire
Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota, by Amelia Gorman
Light From Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki
Ruthana’s Patreon
Reading the Weird on Tor.com
Anne M. Pillsworth
The City We Became, by N.K. Jemisin
Tune in next time, when my guest will be Miri Baker!
Friday Jun 17, 2022
Friday Jun 17, 2022
This time around, it’s my delight to be the first podcast out there to host up-and-coming author Amanda Cook (@AmandaCook627)! Amanda reads her trunked story, “Snow Day,” which leads us into a delightful conversation about cozy fiction, early-career writing, cosplay, and patience!
This episode’s reading carries content notices for some brief mentions of guns and other weapons, along with a mention of nuclear war.
Things we mention in this episode:
Book Tour 17: Sarah Gailey - Just Like Home
Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede
“Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse,” by Rae Carson
John Wiswell
Wyngraf
Tales & Feathers Magazine
Augur
4th Street Fantasy
“Ruby’s Delivery,” by Amanda Cook
The Submission Grinder
Etherea Magazine
NaNoWriMo
The Golden Orb, by Amanda Cook
Tor
When We Were Forgotten, by Amanda Cook
Moiraine Damodred (from The Wheel of Time, not GoT)
Frozen
Once Upon a Time
Gen Con
Crowley
David Tennant
“Weaving Serenity,” by Amanda Cook
“Lily and Ink,” by Amanda Cook
Apparition Lit
Our Flag Means Death
The Kids in the Hall
Hell’s Library series, by A.J. Hackwith
Sweep of Stars, by Maurice Broaddus
Black Panther
The Expanse
Amanda’s insta, Facebook, and blog
Tune in next month, when my guests will be Ruthana Emrys and Miri Baker!
Friday Jun 03, 2022
Friday Jun 03, 2022
This episode carries content warnings for mentions of parental death, terminal illness, serial killers, and feelings of powerlessness. Additionally, the reading from this episode contains an overall sense of tension and dread. If you would like to skip the reading, you can skip forward 18 minutes from the beginning of the reading to bypass it.
This time around, we’re joined once again by the incomparable Sarah Gailey (@gaileyfrey) to talk about their incredible (and incredibly terrifying) new book, Just Like Home, available July 19th wherever fine books are sold! Sarah tells us about the staggering number of rewrites that this book went through and what was learned along the way.
Things we mention this episode:
The Luminous Dead, by Caitlin Starling
The Southern Reach Trilogy, by Jeff VanderMeer
Flowers for the Sea, by Zin E. Rocklyn
Queen Amidala
Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey
And then a skeleton popped out
The Death of Jane Lawrence, by Caitlin Starling
NetGalley
Eat the Rich, by Sarah Gailey and Pius Bak
The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey
“The Foundations of Decay,” by My Chemical Romance
The Great (TV)
Veep (TV)
Number One Fan, by Meg Elison
Misery
Empire of the Wild, by Cherie Dimaline
Sarah’s website and Insta
Stone Soup newsletter
Kompromat
Join us in two weeks, when my guest will be Amanda Cook!
Friday May 20, 2022
Friday May 20, 2022
Update: I've fixed some issues with the audio mixing for this episode that should make it easier to listen to now.
This time around, it’s my absolute joy to welcome Michael R. Underwood (@MikeRUnderwood) to the show! Mike reads from his trunked novel, The Broken Summit before (and after) we have a conversation about the intersection of writing and tabletop roleplaying, the life of a content creator, and some excellent advice about shaping your career goals.
This episode’s reading is 17 minutes long and carries content warnings for themes of war and imperialism.
Things we mention on this episode:
Friends at the Table
The Adventure Zone
The Quiet Year
The McElroys
Thirsty Sword Lesbians
Tom Clancy
Angry Robot Books
Penguin Random House
Hot Wheels boosters
Chilling Effect, bu Valeria Vlades
Yoon Ha Lee
River of Teeth, Taste of Marrow, and Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey
Sarah’s Star Wars tweets
Genrenauts series, by Michael R. Underwood
Monster of the Week
Tortall setting (Tamora Pierce)
Blue Rose (RPG)
3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons
Shadowrun 3rd Edition
Sorcerer
Dogs in the Vineyard
Apocalypse World
Blades in the Dark
GenCon
Indie Press Revolution
DriveThruRPG
Creative Commons
Game Jam
Open Game License
Powered by the Apocalypse
Speculate!
Fagin
NaNoWriMo
Anamnesis
Mage: The Ascension
White Wolf Publishing
The Game Master’s Apprentice
ConFusion
Friends Journal Quaker Spec-Fic issue
Clapcast
Clarion West
Cassie Alexander
Better-Faster Academy
Dear Writer, You Need to Quit, by Becca Syme
The Nebula Awards
George R. R. Martin
Twitch
Elden Ring
TikTok
Maya MacGregor’s TikTok
The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester, by Maya MacGregor
Hank Green
Celebromancy series, by Michael R. Underwood
Citizen Sleeper
Dungeons and Dating series, by Katherine McIntyre
Mike’s Twitch
Val’s Twitch
Hades
Karen Osborne’s Twitch
Join us again next month, when my guests will be Sarah Gailey and Amanda Cook!
Friday May 06, 2022
Friday May 06, 2022
This time around, we're joined by author Marion Deeds (@mariond_d) to talk about her new novella, Comeuppance Served Cold, a wonderful alternate-history fantasy-noir out now from Tor.com publishing. Marion talks about baking versus cooking when working on books, and we muse on the current golden age of SFFH novellas.
Things we mention this episode:
Story Hour
Laura Blackwell
Helen Crawford-White
Tor Dot Com
Queen of Swords Press
Neon Hemlock
Hugo ballot
Premee Mohamed
The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang
Victories Greater Than Death and Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, by Charlie Jane Anders
Our Opinions Are Correct
Be The Serpent
Marion’s Facebook and Blog
Fantasy Literature dot com
Falstaff Press
Aluminum Leaves, Copper Road, and Golden Rifts, by Marion Deeds
Kat Hooper
Kate Lechler
Alix E. Harrow
Friday Apr 15, 2022
Friday Apr 15, 2022
This time around, we're joined by Andi C. Buchanan! Andi reads from their trunked YA steampunk novel, which leads us into a great discussion about steampunk, accessibility, well-intentioned white people (like us), and their brand new book, Sanctuary, which came out earlier this week from Robot Dinosaur Press!
Show notes coming soon!
Friday Apr 01, 2022
Friday Apr 01, 2022
This time around, it's my absolute delight to welcome Maya MacGregor (@Maigheach) to the show to talk about their brand new book, The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester, which releases this May!
Things we mention in this episode:
Jennifer (Macey) Mace's appearance on this very show
Look to the Sun, by Emmie Mears
The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Dune, by Frank Herbert
Dune (2021 film)
The Death of Jane Lawrence, by Caitlin Starling
Pine, by Francine Toon
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben
Pretty Little Liars
The Books of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Charles Vess
Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy, by Gabriella Coleman
Anonymous
This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends, by Nicole Perlroth
Nina Niskanen
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
The Forgetting River, by Doreen Carvajal
Conversos
Maya's Insta and TikTok
And of course, Maya's cats, Tara:
And Willow:
Stick around next time, when I'll be joined by Andi C. Buchanan!
Friday Mar 18, 2022
Friday Mar 18, 2022
It's my absolute delight, this time around, to welcome our very own composer, Lillian Boyd (@herelieslill), onto the show. Lillian reads her short-story-that-should-be-a-novella, "Inside Job" (cw: gore, skip forward 10:15 to avoid) before we just go off on an extended tangent about horror movies, noir, pulp, and being as thoroughly on our bullshit as is possible.
Things we mention in this episode:
Rank and Vile
Tetsuo the Iron Man
28 Days Later
My appearance on Rank and Vile
The Reinvented Detective, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Cat Rambo (2023)
Raymond Chandler
Guy Noir: Private Eye
A Prairie Home Companion
Nick Danger
The Firesign Theater
Clive Barker
Nightmare Alley
Guillermo del Toro
Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey
Nick and Nora
Humphrey Bogart
Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler
H. P. Lovecraft (notable racist)
Scrip
Neuromancer, by William Gibson
Blade Runner
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
"Panama," by Van Halen
Terry Pratchett
Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
The Discworld
The Bromeliad
Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett
The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler
Chandler's cat letters
Guards, Guards! by Terry Pratchett
Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett
Neil Gaiman
Ichabod Crane
Michael Kane
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Sandman, by Neil Gaiman
"The Book Job," The Simpsons season 23, episode 6
"Falafelosophy," Arthur season 14, episode 4a
"Neil Gaiman! What are you doing in my falafel?"
Alanis Morisette
Amanda Palmer
Tori Amos
Fiona Apple
"Silent All These Years," by Tori Amos
Where's Neil When You Need Him?
The Crüxshadows
Mirrormask
"Mr. Sandman," by The Chordettes
"Enter Sandman," by Metallica
Hot Topic
"Cry Little Sister," by Gerard McMann
The Lost Boys
Voltaire
Ego Likeness
The Velocipastor
"Toasty"
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Daybreakers
Placebo
"Running Up That Hill," by Placebo
"Running Up That Hill," by Kate Bush
Velvet Goldmine
"20th Century Boy," by Placebo
"20th Century Boy," by T. Rex
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Queen of the Damned
Twilight
Failure to Adapt
The baseball scene from Twilight
Underworld
Blade 3: Trinity
Triple-H
House of Wax
Friends at the Table: Sangfielle
The VVitch
Sarah Gailey's appearance on Episode 1 of this very show
Hailey Piper
Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, by Hailey Piper
Trouble and Her Friends, by Melissa Scott
The Mountain Goats
Alien Vs. Predator
Fireside Quarterly, June-July 2021
The Rank and Vile list
Bride of Frankenstein
And Now the Screaming Starts!
Candyman II: Farewell to the Flesh
The Crow: Wicked Prayer
Brainscan
Videodrome
Audition
Lillian's Twitch
Hair Metal
"Dream Warriors," by Dokken
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
The Books of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Charles Vess
The Farthest Shore, A Wizard of Earthsea, and The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Keebio's Iris keyboard
Pictured above: my personal Iris keyboard (rev 2b, Kailh speed copper switches, Matt3o DSA Nerd keycaps)
Bán Dénes, mrzealot
Ergogen
Ghost in the Shell
Data
Hako Royal True switches
Hellraiser
Lillian's website, soundcloud, and reedsy
Join us next month, when my guests will be Maya MacGregor and Andi C. Buchanan!
Friday Mar 04, 2022
Friday Mar 04, 2022
Welcome to season 4! This time around, Hailey Piper (@HaileyPiperSays) is leading the way with an appearance in support of her forthcoming novella, Your Mind is a Terrible Thing, which comes out May 7th, 2022! Hailey brings us some fantastic words to live by as an artist, and I hope we can all hold on to this throughout the coming year and beyond: "be brave: let it be weird."
Things we mention in this episode:
The 2021 Bram Stoker Award ballot
Star Wars
NaNoWriMo
Off Limits Press
Queen of Teeth, by Hailey Piper
"Recitation of the First Feeding," by Hailey Piper in Unfortunate Elements of my Anatomy
The Shape of Water
Tales from the Hood
This Appearing House, by Ally Malinenko
The Fervor, The Hunger, and The Deep, by Alma Katsu
HMHS Britannic, sister ship to the Titanic
RMS Lusitania, not the sister ship to the Titanic
Wrath Goddess Sing, by Maya Deane
Stokercon
No Gods for Drowning, by Hailey Piper
Other Terrors, edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Rena Mason
Stephen Graham Jones
S. A. Cosby
The Book of Queer Saints, edited by Mae Murray
Eric LaRocca
Joe Koch
Hailey's website and insta
Laura Lockwood
Stick around next time, when my guest will be none other than our own composer, Lillian Boyd!
Friday Feb 18, 2022
Friday Feb 18, 2022
For the final episode of our third season (wild, right?), I had the absolute delight of having Ivy Noelle Weir (@ivynoelle) on to record one of the most chaotic episodes, energy-wise, possibly ever in the history of this show! Ivy reads from The Archivist, the original title of the novel that became her and Steenz's graphic novel, Archival Quality, which leads us into a great conversation about how the transition from prose to comics came about, as well as Ivy's recently-released and forthcoming graphic adaptations of several works of classic children's literature.
Things we mention in this episode:
R. K. Duncan
Magic: the Gathering
The Mütter Museum
The Clarion Workshop
The Death of Jane Lawrence, by Caitlin Starling
"The Raven," by Edgar Allen Poe
The First Unit
Eastern State Penitentiary
Gritty
The Phillie Phanatic
Pennsylvania politicians convicted of crimes
Steenz
Neil Gaiman
The Valkyries
Tini Howard
Vita Ayala
The Eisner Awards
Oni Press
Eat the Rich, by Sarah Gailey and Pius Bak
Bountiful Garden, by Ivy Noelle Weir, Steenz, and Kelly Williams
Rumiko Takahashi
Junji Ito
Hellboy, by Mike Mignola
Molly Knox Ostertag
The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang
The Magic Fish, by Trung Le Ngyuen
Tidesong, by Wendy Xu
Gotham Academy, by Becky Cloonan and Brenden Fletcher
Batman: The Animated Series
Nintendo Switch
Death Cab for Cutie
Looks at the camera like I'm on The Office
Broadchurch
The Fall
Maus, by Art Spiegelman
Barefoot Gen, by Kaiji Nakazawa
Anne of West Philly, by Ivy Noelle Weir and Myisha Haynes
Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery
The Secret Garden On 81st Street, by Ivy Noelle Weir and Amber Padilla
The Secret Garden, by Francis Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Garden (1993)
Anne with an E
The Library of the Dead, by T. L. Huchu
TikTok
My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh
Eileen, by Ottessa Moshfegh
Shirley Jackson
Witch Hat Atelier, by Kamome Shirahama
Bravo
The Bachelor
Yellowjackets
John Waters
Ivy's TikTok and website