The Writer and the Critic: Episode 15

The latest episode of our podcast is now available for direct download and streaming from the website or via subscription from iTunes. Feedback is most welcome!

Here are the show notes:

On this episode of The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond announce a New Idea for a future episode of the podcast. They would like to spend an episode reviewing a handful originally self-published eBooks as recommended by their listeners. Whether this ends up being a Good Idea or a Bad Idea will largely depend on listener participation, so get listening and get participating. There may even be prizes involved … more info on this next month once they work out what potential prizes they actually have to offer! After a discussion about their current (e)reading habits and changes in book buying practices, the duo then move onto talk about the two books chosen for the podcast this month.

A lengthy discussion of and around — and around and around — Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord begins at 18:30 with the conversation about  Zoo City by Lauren Beukes starting at 01:07:30. Yes, it’s a long podcast this time. That’s what happens with books that are interesting, intelligent and inspiring.

Redemption in Indigo and Zoo City

Tune back in around the 01:57:20 point for final remarks.

Next month, Ian has recommended The Silver Wind by Nina Allan while Kirstyn has picked The Courier’s New Bicycle by Kim Westwood. Read ahead and join in the fun!

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27 January 2012
Categories: Books & Reading . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Kirstyn McDermott . Comments: Leave a Comment

The Writer and the Critic: Episode 14

The latest episode of our podcast is now available for direct download and streaming from the website or via subscription from iTunes. Feedback is most welcome!

Here are the show notes:

In their very last Writer and the Critic podcast for 2011, your hosts Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond ramble only briefly before leaping boldly forth into their discussion of the selected novels, both winners of the Orange Prize for Fiction in their respective years. As usual, there are significant plot spoilers for both books, so take heed of the timestamps if you wish to avoid them.

Discussion of The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht begins at 05:15 and includes references to a review by Philip Hensher at The Telegraph as well as this one by Ruth Fowler at the Huffington Post. At the 35:15 mark, the two then move on to We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Kirstyn quotes from this Guardian article by Lionel Shriver and recommends the newly released film starring Tilda Swinton — but only if you read the book first!

The Tiger's Wife and We Need to Talk About Kevin

If you’ve skipped ahead, please come back at for final remarks at 01:21:40.

Next month — next year! — Ian has picked Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord while Kirstyn has chosen Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. Due to their hectic end of year schedules, neither of them have actually had a chance to read their own recommendations yet so they’re each looking forward to finding out what they themselves think . . .

Happy New Year!

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29 December 2011
Categories: Books & Reading . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Kirstyn McDermott . Comments: Leave a Comment

The Writer and the Critic: Episode 13

The latest episode of our podcast is now (finally) available for direct download and streaming from the website or via subscription from iTunes. Feedback is most welcome!

Here are the show notes:

This month on The Writer and the Critic, your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, find themselves in the native habitat of fellow podcaster John Richards — one of the mighty Boxcutters team and co-writer of the soon to be screened ABC comedy series Outland.  The three chat about why television kills your dreams and whether Ian is a better co-podcaster than Josh Kinal.

Ian and Kirstyn would also like to congratulate all the recent World Fantasy Award winners announced in San Diego last month. In particular, their warmest wishes go to Nnedi Okorafor, who won Best Novel for Who Fears Death (featured on The Writer and Critic in Episode 11), and friend of the podcast and Galactic Suburbian, Alisa Krasnostein, who received the Special Award Non-Professional in recognition for her fabulous work with Twelve Planet Press. Yay Alisa and Nnedi!

The two official books for this month are Room by Emma Donoghue — Ian’s pick — and The Secret History by Donna Tartt — chosen by Kirstyn. As usual, there are plenty of spoilers — including revealed endings! — so for those of you who wish to skip over a particular book, discussion of Room begins at 22:15 while The Secret History starts at 41:10.

Room by Emma Donohgue and The Secret History by Donna Tartt

John Richards has chosen Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland for this episode and discussion of the book commences at the 1:09:40 mark. The three self-confessed GenXers also talk generally about the 1990′s, generation x and the alleged end of history. Appropriately, they seem a little jaded. And old.

Generation X by Douglas Coupland, and John Richards

Wander back at 1:28:35 for some brief but witty final remarks.

The books for next month will be We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (chosen by Kirstyn) and The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht (Ian’s pick), both recipients of The Orange Prize.  Don’t worry, there will be a return to a greater speculative fiction emphasis in 2012 — that’s a promise!

P.S. Kirstyn apologises for the sketchy sound quality on Ian’s mic this episode. Even if he does deserve it.

P.P.S. Kirstyn also apologies for the tardiness of this podcast. She was away for more days than she was home in the past couple of months. She definitely deserved that!

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2 December 2011
Categories: Books & Reading . Tags: , , , , , , , , . Author: Kirstyn McDermott . Comments: Leave a Comment

The Writer and the Critic: Episode 12

The latest episode of our podcast is now available for direct download and streaming from the website or via subscription from iTunes. Feedback is most welcome!

Here are the show notes:

On this episode of The Writer and the Critic, your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, decide to eschew their normal thirty-odd minutes of waffle and plunge straight into a discussion of the two titles at hand, Bluegrass Symphony by Lisa L. Hannett and Everyone’s Just So So Special by Robert Shearman. As both books are short story collections and also very new releases, there are no spoilers as such. But here are the time stamps anyway: 03:00 for Bluegrass Symphony (yes, that’s three minutes — they really meant it with the eschewing) and 33:00 for Everyone’s Just So So Special. Final remarks kick in around 01:21:00.

Kirstyn would like to disclaim that she is a judge for both the Australian Shadows and the Aurealis Awards this year, for which Lisa Hannett’s stories are eligible, and therefore needs to stress that her opinions of the collection as expressed on this podcast are solely her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the judging panels for either award. Ian would like to disclaim that he loves Rob Shearman just so so much, and is therefore incapable of holding any objective opinion of his work. So there’s that.

Bluegrass Symphony / Everyone's Just So So Special

The Karen Joy Fowler story that is tangentially mentioned can be read online over at Subterranean Press, while Rob Shearman’s insane One Hundred Stories project lives here.

Next month, Ian and Kirstyn invite John Richards from Boxcutters to be their special podcast guest. John has chosen Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland as for everyone to read, while Ian has selected Room by Emma Donoghue and Kirstyn has recommended The Secret History by Donna Tartt. They will most likely be back to their usual spoilerific form, so read ahead and join in the fun!

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7 October 2011
Categories: Books & Reading . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Kirstyn McDermott . Comments: Leave a Comment

The Writer and the Critic: Episode 11

The latest episode of our podcast is now available for direct download and streaming from the website or via subscription from iTunes. Feedback is most welcome!

Here are the show notes:

This month on The Writer and the Critic your hosts, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond, briefly discuss the results of the 2011 Hugo Awards — Ian was right! — as well as the heartening increase in diversity of the nominated works in response to some listener feedback. Buoyed by his success in predicting that Connie Willis would take home the Hugo for best novel, Ian makes another silly startling prediction about the future of books and awards. Mention is also made of Jo Walton’s excellent retrospective series in which she revisits the results of past Hugo Awards over at Tor.com.

They then turn their attention to this episode’s featured books, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor. Kirstyn mentions this thoughtful essay about Jackson and her work by Joyce Carol Oates. This lengthy review of the Okorafor novel by Paul Di Filippo is taken to task for being just a little bit patronising and somewhat missing of the point. The rather harrowing Washington Post article that inspired Okorafor can be found here. For those wishing to avoid spoilers and skip ahead, discussion of We Have Always Lived in the Castle begins at 14:30, while Who Fears Death starts around 52:50.

Ian and Kirstyn would like to warn listeners that Who Fears Death deals explicitly with rape, female genital mutilation and sexual violence. Their review of the novel in this episode naturally involves frank discussion of those same subjects.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Who Fears Death

Some very brief final remarks can be found at 01:29:30.

Oh, and look, the episode of the Outer Alliance podcast is now live! OA host Julia Rios invited Ian and Kirstyn along to have a Writer and the Critic style discussion, with the recommended texts being Horn and Bleed by Peter M. Ball (chosen by Ian), “Nightship” by Kim Westwood (chosen by Kirstyn) and “The Behold of the Eye” by Hal Duncan (chosen by Julia). They talked for over three billion hours. Thankfully, Julia managed to edit the conversation down into a very succinct podcast of around two hours. She is a genius!

Next episode will focus on two short story collections: Bluegrass Symphony by Lisa L. Hannett (chosen by Kirstyn) and Everyone’s Just So So Special by Robert Shearman (Ian’s recommendation). As both of these collections are fairly new releases, Ian and Kirstyn intend to go light on the spoilerage, but still encourage you to grab yourself copies of these fine volumes and read ahead.

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15 September 2011
Categories: Books & Reading . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Kirstyn McDermott . Comments: Leave a Comment

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