Bite into a burrito with writer Elwin Cotman as we discuss why forcing science fictional elements into non-science fictional stories can weaken them, the interdimensional cross-genre story cycle he hopes to write someday about a wrestling family, the way the novella is his natural length, why he loves Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age stories, how to create compelling metaphors and similes, the way rereading Tama Janowitz's <em>Slaves of New York</em> helped him with the connective tissue of his own sentences, the reason Mary Gaitskill is the world's greatest living writer, and much more.
Dig into duck with Alex Jennings as we discuss his dream which commanded him to move to New Orleans (plus his brother's dream which supported that decision), how writing his debut novel transformed him into the kind of person he needed to be in order to write his debut novel, how Octavia Butler invited him into the field, which artist he wishes would draw the comic book adaptation of his novel <em>The Ballad of Perilous Graves</em>, what China Miéville taught him at Clarion about the deadly nature of "second order cliches," how joy is revolutionary in and of itself, the way his experience as a standup comedian helps him help you care about the multiple POVs of his novel, which issue of <em>Uncanny X-Men</em> was the first comic book he ever read, the nature of his quasi-mystical approach to writing, and much more.