Richard Kadrey is a novelist, freelance writer, and photographer based in San Francisco. Starting over 20 years ago as one of the first major writers of cyberpunk, with the classic Metrophage, his other novels include Kamikaze L’Amour, Butcher Bird and his latest, Sandman Slim.

Richard and I talk about his transition from cyberpunk to fantasy, George Bush, heavy drinking, and writing.

Sandman Slim: A Novel (Amazon)

The Youtube video that is quoted in the piece.

Download Richard’s Butcher Bird for free (scroll down just above the download for my novel!) at Nigh Shade Books.

Download Metrophage, Richard’s first novel.

 

 Author Richard Kadrey Talks about Fantasy, George Bush, and Heavy Drinking [21:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My guest this show is Jacob Fenston. He’s a freelance journalist in Oakland, California, whose work has appeared on NPR, KQED, and Public Radio Stations across America.

I heard Jacob’s excellent (and often hilarious) piece “My T-Shirt Says It All” and wanted to talk to him about it. This show features many cuts from that work, but if you’d like to hear the whole piece, please do so at Jacob Fenston’s website. This links to Jacob’s homepage.

 

 "My T-Shirt Says It All" An Interview with Producter Jacob Fenston [20:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Paul Witcover is the author of three novels, several non-fiction books, many short stories and is the co-creator, with Elizabeth Hand, of the cult comic book series Anima. He has served as the curator of the New York Review of Science Fiction reading series. His new collection is titled Everland and Other Stories.

We talk about his writing, his writing career, publishing, an odd job writing about golf, and more.

 

 Author Paul Witcover talks writing, publishing, golf, and more. [24:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Jhane Barnes designs men’s sportswear, casual, and tailored clothes. Besides menswear, she also designs eyewear, textiles, furniture, carpets, and more. She was recently on NOVA to talk about how she uses fractals in her designs.

I recently visited Jhane’s design offices in New York, and we talked about being a fashionable nerd, fractals, secret Japanese factories, and Star Trek.

Show notes:
In the second half of the podcast, she shows me her top-of-the-line shirt, titled Dentrite. See it here.

Jhane’s website is JhaneBarnes.com. I also mentioned her slightly hidden outlet store, which is called JBXtras.com, where you can pick up extras and last-season’s items at a discount.

 

 Menswear designer Jhane Barnes talks Star Trek, Secret Japanese Technology, and Fashion [28:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

James Enge’s fiction has appeared in Black Gate, Flashing Swords, and everydayfiction.com. He is an instructor of classical languages at a Midwestern university. His first novel, Blood of Ambrose, was just released by Pyr Books.

James and I talked about his pseudonym, sci-fi and fantasy, writing, unicorns, and talking squids.

His website is www.jamesenge.com. Pyr Book’s page for James Enge’s book has free sample chapters. Blood of Ambrose at Amazon.
(Author photo: ©J. M. Pfundstein)

 

 Author James Enge talks about writing, unicorns, and talking squids! [21:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Rowenna Davis is freelance journalist from north London. As a features writer, she specializes in social and political affairs, and has written opinion pieces for the  The Independent, The Guardian, the New Internationalist, and many other publications.

She and I discuss several recent articles were she explored the murky world of “Gold Farming,” which is the illegal world of video game cheating - often for the very popular World of Warcraft.

Link to her article: Welcome to the new gold mines: Being paid to play games all day long sounds like a dream job – but for thousands of Chinese ‘gold farmers’, the virtual reality is sheer hard graft.

More Guardian.co.uk articles by Rowenna Davis.

 

 Journalist Rowenna Davis Discusses China's Illegal "Gold Farms" [17:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lou Anders is the editorial director of Prometheus Books’ science fiction and fantasy imprint Pyr, as well as several anthologies. In 2000, he served as the Executive Editor of Bookface.com, and before that he worked as the Los Angeles Liaison for Titan Publishing Group. He is the author of The Making of Star Trek: First Contact (Titan Books, 1996), and has published over 500 articles in such magazines as The Believer, Publishers Weekly, Dreamwatch, DeathRay, free inquiry, Star Trek Monthly, Star Wars Monthly, Babylon 5 Magazine, Sci Fi Universe, Doctor Who Magazine, and Manga Max.

Lou and I talked about the iPhone, tricorders, the batmobile, writing, errings, and his wife’s cooking among other things.

 

 Interview with Editor, Lou Anders [21:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Professor Robert Beaulieu teaches textile science and development at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. This is the second part of our talk.

This time he discusses wool, those labels in all our shirts and clothes, distressing leather jackets, and case of about a mouton collar.

 

 Interview with Textile Scientist, Robert Beaulieu Part Two [25:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Professor Robert Beaulieu teaches textile science and development at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. I took an introduction to textile science class more than ten years ago, but I think about the class often and have told stories borrowed from Robert’s lectures at cocktail parties.

We talk about Levis Strauss, jeans, denim, polyester leisure suits, pills, and more. And this is part one of the interview, which will continue soon.

FIT’s Textile Development and Marketing home page.

A link to the YouTube movie of the guitar prodigy who plays Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.

 

 Interview with Textile Scientist, Robert Beaulieu [19:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Alexander Grecian left a successful advertising career, representing clients as diverse as Sprint and Harley-Davidson, to become a freelance writer. He’s been published in several indy comics anthologies, including Negative Burn (Image) and one of the 24-Hour Comics books (the one that also included stories by Neil Gaiman and Steve Bissette). He wrote the critically acclaimed original graphic novel, Seven Sons (AiT/Planet Lar) and he currently writes and letters the comic book series Proof (Image Comics).

He’s also created numerous typefaces for his own foundry, Elemeno, storyboarded and directed television commercials and designed logos for many companies and publications. Alex’s site is http://alexandergrecian.com/

 

 Interview with Alex Grecian author of the comic Proof [18:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download