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Broadly Speaking Interviews C.S.E. Cooney

Broadly Speaking Interviews C.S.E. Cooney

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cseBroadly Speaking, the podcast about the adventures of women writing science fiction, fantasy, horror, has interviewed Black Gate website editor C.S.E. Cooney.

For their July episode Broadly Speaking host Julia Rios interviewed C.S.E. Cooney, Gwynne Garfinkle, and Mary Robinette Kowal (sort of) on the ins and outs of writing humor.

Here’s C.S.E. on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:

The thing is, I love Jane Austen… I found it delightful to have Elizabeth Bennet wanting to cut off people’s heads when they threatened her honor. I liked the whole thing between samurais and ninjas. I liked that the Bennet sisters fought back-to-back at the Netherfield ball… I do think that there is something exquisitely funny in having girls in dresses with swords. It speaks to my inner She-ra, Princess of Power.

C.S.E. Cooney is the author of Jack o’ the Hills and The Big Bah-Ha. Her poem “The Sea King’s Second Bride” won the Rhysling award for long form poetry. Gwynne Garfinkle’s short stories and poems have appeared in The Wiscon Chronicles, Volume 4, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk Growing Up, and No Body’s Perfect. Mary Robinette Kowal won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2008, her latest fantasy novel is Shades of Milk and Honey.

The complete podcast is roughly 39 minutes; you can find it here. And you can find C.S.E. Cooney’s behind-the-scenes article on the interview (including how she managed to channel Mary Robinette Kowal) right here at Black Gate.

Black Gate Interviews Dave Gross, Part Two

Black Gate Interviews Dave Gross, Part Two

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the-hobbit-tolkien-ballantineLast week in part one of our interview Black Gate sat down with Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder author Dave Gross to talk about writing, gaming, and his latest Pathfinder novel, Master of Devils. This week Dave tells us more about his early influences and his transition from gamer to game fiction writer.

Chicken or egg time: what came first for you — gaming or storytelling?

Definitely storytelling. I was learning to read around the time I was learning to walk.

My first geekdom was ghost and horror stories, collections of which I’d order every time the Scholastic Books flyer came around our grade school. I can’t remember when I was first writing stories, but I’m sure it was in homeroom with a half pint of milk nearby. Later I burned through all the SF at our city library, and one day my cousin Francis handed me a copy of The Hobbit, and fantasy became my favorite. After burning through the Tolkien trilogy I devoured everything I could find by R.E. Howard and his clan. It was around that time that a classmate and his elder brother introduced me to D&D. They taught me the game from the original saddle-stitched books. Once the boxed game came out, I began DMing. Which, of course, is its own sort of storytelling.

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Black Gate Interviews Dave Gross, Part One

Black Gate Interviews Dave Gross, Part One

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dg-photoAuthor Dave Gross is perhaps best known for his Forgotten Realms novels such as Black Wolf and Lord of Stormweather. He has also worked as an editor of several gaming publications, including the one-and-only Dragon Magazine, and has most recently become one of the core authors for Paizo’s new Pathfinder Tales line of fiction. I recently had a chance to talk to Dave about his writing, and about his newest Pathfinder novel, Master of Devils.

A Conversation with Dave Gross

Before things get too tangential, Dave, I’d like to ask you about your latest Radovan and Jeggare novel for Pathfinder, Master of Devils. For readers perhaps unfamiliar with Pathfinder, how would you describe the world of Golarion, and the story of Master of Devils in particular?

Golarion is a big, varied world. While many of its countries are intentional reflections of real-world places (Ustalav draws on Eastern Europe, while Osirion is a fantasy version of Egypt), others are complete fantasy inventions with little or no connection to historical sources (The Worldwound, Numeria, or Nex). That combination of the familiar and strange is one of the things that draws me to the setting. It lets you pull details out of real-world cultures and history while allowing plenty of freedom for invention and extrapolation from other fantasy tropes.

The protagonists I introduced in Prince of Wolves come from an area of Golarion’s Inner Sea region that is roughly analogous to Earth’s Southern Europe. Master of Devils takes place in Tian Xia, Golarion’s equivalent of East Asia. Since the journey takes Radovan and the Count completely out of their element, they must learn how to survive in this unfamiliar land at the same time as the readers discover it. Count Jeggare is a scholarly sort who’s read and heard much about the place, but he’s never actually experienced it. Radovan is a complete fish out of water, having left the country of his birth for the first time only a few months earlier. The third progatonist … well, let’s just say the third POV character has a completely different perspective than the others. My hope is that readers who might not otherwise snap up an Asian-based sword & sorcery novel will find Master of Devils an easy and fun journey into the distant lands of Tian Xia.

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Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Robert Browne, Author of The Paradise Prophecy

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Robert Browne, Author of The Paradise Prophecy

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image0022In spite of it being a gorgeous, sunny couple of weeks in Chicago, I remain unnaturally pasty.

No, that’s not normal for me, but thanks for asking.

Even I occasionally venture out of the subterranean offices of the Black Gate headquarters for a little fresh air, some more salt for the margaritas, or to affix sticky notes with snarky comments on the paint-ball equipment posters of the boys in the upstairs staff room.

But for the last few days I have remained glued to my comfy chair and Robert Browne is to blame.

One of the joys of this job is the occasional pre-publication copy of a soon-to-be-released book. Even more joyful are those that turn out to be a decent read. But the pinnacle and rarest of joys is the book that is one-of-a-kind special.

The Paradise Prophecy is one of those.

Not that I wasn’t prepared to be skeptical (because frankly when am I not?). But almost literally from the first page I was hooked. And so there I sat in my comfy chair; bereft of vitamin D and not even bothering to reach over to press “crush” on the blender controls, totally enslaved by one of the most uniquely told tales I’ve come across in a very long time.

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Art of the Genre: An Interview with Matthew D. Wilson

Art of the Genre: An Interview with Matthew D. Wilson

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iron-kingdoms-254Once again I get a chance show you all the inner workings of the Black Gate LA offices. Yep, it’s always about living the dream, so I hope you enjoy the view.

After having finally convinced my secretary, Kandline, that cosplaying an elf wasn’t required when she challenged me to afternoon games of Conquest of Nerath, I sat back in my chair and watched a trio of surfers try to catch some rather pathetic waves rolling in along our bit of the Redondo beachfront. From across the hall I could hear Ryan Harvey spouting copious amounts of venom toward Peter Jackson and his newest release of dwarf images for the upcoming Hobbit adaptation, something along the lines of ‘Rankin and Bass will be rolling over in their graves about now!’ a consistent theme.

Enter the dreaded buzz from the front desk. Yep, John O’Neill was at it again, this time his rather brief list of demands of the west coast offices ending in my traveling up the 405 to Santa Monica for an interview with Privateer Press Creative Director Matt Wilson.

Now if you know one certain fact about Matt, it’s that he’s a kind of workaholic. I dig that about him, and while he’s no longer in the Pacific Northwest exclusively doing Privateer work, his mind is ever pushing for bigger and better things at that gaming company.

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Goth Chick (International) News: Iranian Ghost Stories For Real

Goth Chick (International) News: Iranian Ghost Stories For Real

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image003As I mention whenever given the opportunity, I have some exceedingly cool friends. I don’t tell you this to brag, but rather to ensure I am able to soak up some of their residual coolness in the telling.

As you are well aware, I am a total movie-quoting, comic-reading, gamer geek who was often taken in by hoopy froods** (<– Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference. See? Can’t help myself) for their entertainment and social balancing. Still, the result has been pretty consistent. I get to hang out with people who really know where their towels are.

That being said, let me tell you about my friend “M.”

“M” is Iranian and I met him at my small, mid-Western alma mater where his very affluent, liberal but politically active family had tucked him away due to credible kidnapping threats. And yes, if you’re doing the math, I was an undergrad in a school that was the last ever place for the son of an affluent, liberal, politically active Iranian family to ever be located. In fact, it was so off the map that only those of us who went there could consistently point it out on one.

Following the standard number of years of undergraduate shenanigans, “M” went into public service in Canada of all places, eventually landing a highly visible gig in a Canadian embassy in a country I have sworn not to name. As you can see, I’ve sworn not to say a lot about “M,” for reasons that would make very interesting posts some time in the future when “M” is no longer in public life.

But that time is not now.

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Art of the Genre: An Interview with Michael Whelan

Art of the Genre: An Interview with Michael Whelan

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whelan-white-254
As L.A. does its best to cope with the overcast and chilly mornings of what we call ‘June Gloom’, I find myself drifting in and out of an office catnap, Ryan Harvey’s Writer’s of the Future acceptance speech echoing through the office for the hundredth time. Kandline, one of our aspiring actresses turned receptionists, pokes her head into the office and announces that another package has arrived for me from Chicago.

Now of course this means John O’Neill is again up to no good, our intrepid leader having found yet another way to get me Zeppelin riding for some reason. His note, attached to a rather daunting itinerary, indicates that I’m to head to the Connecticut via the Empire State for an interview with none other than artist Michael Whelan.

Well, if there is one thing that can get me moving out of L.A. in a hurry [other than Ryan’s WotF speech] it’s a chance to swap stories with a Hugo award winning artist. To that end, I packed my things and made the trip to the east coast.

Whelan lives in the pleasant little college town of Danbury Connecticut, but having had some experience in the area, I chose to meet him at Lucia Ristorante in New Milford for a nice lunch, no other place outside NYC having the kind of brilliant lunch fare found there.

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Goth Chick News: Traveling the YellowBrickRoad With Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland

Goth Chick News: Traveling the YellowBrickRoad With Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland

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image002Last week I had the pleasure of bringing you an early look at the new indy horror film YellowBrickRoad. But much like the elusive Great and Powerful Oz himself, YBR writers and directors Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland wished to remain firmly behind the curtain until the movie was released. YBR hit select AMC theaters nationwide on June 1st and true to their word, the magicians responsible for this amazing story have come over for a chat.

And a good thing to, because it wasn’t like the curiosity hadn’t already gotten to me when I picked up last weekend’s Chicago Tribune to find a sizable write up about YBR. After spending the first moment gloating over how I’d gotten there first, I spent the second moment amazed at how the local movie critic, who generally hates everything but foreign films with subtitles, seemed to have fallen breathlessly in love the YBR.

In the third moment I was manic with questions (how the heck does an indy film get a distribution deal with AMC and a Chicago Tribune accolade anyway?) and sprinting for the computer.

Thankfully, Jesse and Andy were ready to dish the deets on what is so far my favorite horror flick of 2011, indy and mass market included.

So grab a munchkin and a lollipop and come in a little closer; the men on the YellowBrickRoad have an interesting tale to tell.

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Tales of the Magatama

Tales of the Magatama

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mirror-sword1I bumped into the talented Nick Mamatas at the 2010 World Fantasy Convention and discovered that he was editor for the Haikasoru line of translated Japanese fantasy novels for Viz Media. I might be well-read in foundational sword-and-sorcery texts, but I was pretty uninformed about the fantasy of Japan, and what Nick had to say was quite interesting. I was especially curious about a series of books by Noriko Ogiwara, The Tales of the Magatama, which are hugely popular in Japan, and have won numerous awards.

The second novel in the series, Mirror Sword and Shadow Prince, has just been released by Viz, so I thought it high time to talk with Nick to find out more about the series. He was kind enough to answer a number of questions, which I’ve included below.

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Goth Chick News: Outpost 13 – A Very Early Peek at a New Film from Pirate Pictures

Goth Chick News: Outpost 13 – A Very Early Peek at a New Film from Pirate Pictures

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image010Welcome to the Cool Kids Club; you’ve officially arrived.

How do I know?

Because uber-edgy indy film maker Wyatt Weed (Pirate Pictures) has decided that Black Gate is where he wants to leak a little insider information about his upcoming sci-fi release, Outpost 13.

I’ve seen an amazing secret clip which I can’t share just yet, but allow me to assure you that snotty posers would never be allowed this kind of access.

I begged, pleaded and finally promised Wyatt that I’d send him my personal copy of Black Gate 15 (hey John, you’re not going to charge me for a replacement copy are you?) and he agreed to sneak us a little information about the project, along with some production stills.

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