My dear old friend, Ian Mond, has been twisting my arm for the best part of this year in an effort to enlist me in the podcast revolution. I finally succumbed and this week we recorded the first episode of The Writer and the Critic. It will be a monthly podcast wherein Ian and myself discuss (mostly) speculative fiction books, reviews and the odd bit of idle gossip. The basic premise behind the show is that each of us will recommend a book for the other to read, which we will then review (and possibly, given our mutual reading history, argue about). There will also be much silliness.
Despite my initial trepidations, it was actually a lot of fun to record and not an entirely painful listening experience either — although if I did pick up on a few verbal tics I will need to stop myself saying. It’s a little raggedy, and we probably spent far too much time at the start justifying talking about why we are sending yet another podcast into the world, but I think we’ll only get better from here on in.
In the first episode we discuss Deathless by Catherynne M Valente (which Ian recommended to me) and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (my recommendation for Ian). Two excellent books, now beloved by us both, as it turns out.
We’re still in the process of making the podcast available on iTunes, but you can stream or download the MP3 right now from The Writer and the Critic website. If you enjoy it, please spread the word. Oh, and feel more than free to leave feedback in the comments section of each episode or to send us an email. We’d love to hear what you think!
Kirstyn McDermott 
I’m so excited about this! Congratulations, it’s a podcast.
Alisa, Alex and yourself have had no small part in its conception. If I didn’t love Galactic Suburbia so much, and love what you three are doing with your podcast, then no amount of arm-twisting from Ian would have gotten me to agree to it. 🙂