Ex Urbe Ad Astra

Historian Larry Rothfield discusses the political nuances of 15th-century Florence, exploring the Medici family's power dynamics, strategic marriages, and the impact of historical context. The podcast also touches on interpretations of the Florentine Renaissance, symbolic representations, and mysteries surrounding a historical figure's death.

In this episode, Ada and Jo discuss the merits of good pacing across a range of story lengths with Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, Ken Liu.

In this episode, Ada and Jo speak with Alexis Shotwell about the issues that arise from ill-intentioned characters, and the moral questions they present to readers.

In this episode, Ada and Jo speak with Jon Evans about the remote research versus travel, short stories, beleivability, and setting up shocking twists for striking payoffs.

In this episode, Jo and Ada discuss a number of reasons to put a book down without finishing.

Award winning children's author William Alexander joins Jo and Ada to talk about using politics and disability in fiction for children and adults.

Greer Gilman has been writing stories set in Cloud, her Northern mythscape, for a quarter of a century. Her books are written for the ear, as much as for the understanding. Like the earliest stories, they are meant to be sung.   Greer Gilman website

Note to Patreon backers: You received this episode on January 12, 2022, but due to an oversight, it was never posted here. Normally you hear episodes a week in advance, but this one you received seven months in advance! Thank you to everyone for your patience. This is conclusion of the interview. Anything you can call "writing" (science fiction, fantasy, screenwriting, comics, games) Max Gladstone does. He's also a fencer and martial artist. This episode explores connections between these two types of things. This interview ran long, so this is part one of two. Numerous topics covered include: the similarities shared by the crafts of writing and fencing; struggles when writing descriptions of physical spaces; why we don’t see cluttered spaceships in science fiction movies; when to include potatoes in your medieval fantasy setting; designing the layout of museum exhibits, video game spaces, and Walt Disney World; and more! Max Gladstone website Substack newsletter Twitter

Note to Patreon backers: You received this episode on November 10, 2021, but due to an oversight, it was never posted here. Normally you hear episodes a week in advance, but this one you received eight months in advance! Thank you to everyone for your patience. This episode is brought to you by Perhaps The Stars, the fourth and final novel in the Terra Ignota series, available now from (referrer links) Amazon, Barnes And Noble,  Books-A-Million, Apple Books, and Indiebound. Naomi Kritzer has been publishing her science fiction and fantasy for the last twenty years. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, US, and likes to think about ways to describe the future both near and far. Her new book is Chaos on CatNet, the sequel to Catfishing on CatNet published by Tor Teen. Naomi Kritzer's homepage Naomi Kritzer's Twitter

This is the second half of a conversation between Ada Palmer and Jo Walton, about writing chapters. This was a two-hour conversation, so our previous episode had the first hour, and this episode has the second hour.