A Home with Good Bones: An Interview with Jes Negrón, Retcon Games

Good Bones is the first title from RETCON Games, a one-person game studio founded by Jes Negrón in 2019. The point-and-click adventure game looks to be a cozy horror tale that delves into serious subjects, such as grief, abuse, and revenge. Negrón has been in the media development game for a long time, with almost two decades of experience as a writer, editor, producer, and designer of various media, including books and games. She has weathered the storms of these industries, particularly following her departure from Riot Games. Negrón and Melanie McCracken jointly filed a gender-based discrimination class-action lawsuit against Riot in November 2018. However, the resulting funds from that suit combined with Negrón’s passion for telling her own stories provided her with the foundation to start up RETCON Games and complete the development of her first solo title. I had the opportunity to speak with Negrón about her recently launched game, Good Bones, and how she approached the development process. Continue reading on SUPERJUMP…

Immortality, the 1960s, and the Power of Women’s Voices

Set in Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, Gwendolyn Kiste’s Reluctant Immortals, gives voice to two often forgotten women of literature — Lucy Westenra from Dracula and Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre. Having both been turned immortal against their will, the two women band together in the face of an eternity in which they must continually fight off the control of the men who changed them. When Dracula and Rochester make a sudden return, the two women draw on the strength of their sisterhood to make a stand and claim their own power and space in the world.

I recently spoke with Kist about her novel and the writing life in an interview published on Interstellar Flight Magazine. In the interview, she notes:

“Women’s voices have so often been silenced. That’s true of real-life women as well as female characters. We tend to be seen as being less important to the world and less important to storytelling. You can see this throughout literature, and while it’s been getting better over the last few years, we still have a long way to go.”

New Books in Poetry: The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee

The Sign of the Dragon-Mary Soon Lee

A new episode of the New Books in Poetry podcast is up. I had an amazing conversation with Mary Soon Lee about her fantasy epic, The Sign of the Dragon (Jaberwocky, 2020).

First place winner of the 2021 Elgin Award, The Sign of the Dragon is an epic fantasy about a young king who must defend his kingdom against a number of outside forces, both human and terrifyingly otherworldly. Lee draws from Chinese culture to create a legendary figure in King Xau, one of honor, nobility, and subtle magic. With light, clean, and lyrical language, these poems shape an epic story of heroism and humanity.

“Who saw them raft over the river,
three hours before daybreak?
Who saw their half-dark lanterns
glimmer on helmut and shield?

The heron in the reeds;
the crane startled to air.”

— from “Crossing”, The Sign of the Dragon

You can listen to the interview here or on the podcast app of your choice.

Amelia Gorman on ecology, invasive species, and weird poetry

amelia gorman

Amelia Gorman is a recent transplant to Eureka, California, where she enjoys exploring the tidepools and redwoods with her dogs and foster dogs. Read some of her recent poetry in Vastarien, Penumbric, and the Deadlands. Find her fiction in She Walks in Shadows from Innsmouth Free Press, Nox Pareidolia from Nightscape Press, and the Nightscript series. She’s online at www.ameliagorman.com.

Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota by Amelia GormanTell us about your new chapbook, Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota. How did the idea of using invasive species to explore the connection between ecology and human nature come to you?

When I started (and finished) writing this book I was living in a very small apartment in downtown Minneapolis with my husband and our two dogs. So it seemed really important to get out and to green spaces in my free time when I could. The Twin Cities area is really great for that, with a state park and a national wildlife refuge right on the train line, and of course all the lakes. And like a lot of writers I was of course writing about what I was seeing.

The first couple I wrote weren’t imagined as part of a bigger project, they were just some fun little story-poems. I liked writing about invasive species because they turned the purpose of a lot of standard field guides on its head — the ones that are about helping you spot desirable species. They don’t take into consideration many of the plants and animals you actually see, since typically the nature spaces we enjoy aren’t truly a wilderness, they’re all some degree of impacted. Choosing only invasives became a way to write about real climate change, real ecological concerns but also tell these very misfit, weird stories.

Continue reading “Amelia Gorman on ecology, invasive species, and weird poetry”

Five Things I’ve Learned About Podcasting (and what I still need to do to improve)

podcasting microphone
Photo by Daniel Rubio on Unsplash.

Podcasting was not a challenge I ever expected to take on. When I approached the New Books Network with a request to be interviewed on their New Books in Poetry podcast about my recently published collection of poetry, the founder and editor-in-chief, Marshall Poe, confessed that the company did not have a host for the poetry podcast at the time. He then asked if I would be interested in adopting the role.

After some further conversations with Marshall, a fellow poet and writer Athena Dixon and I decided to jump onboard and accept cohosting duties for the New Books in Poetry podcast. Although I can’t speak for Athena, I confess that I personally had zero podcasting experience prior to taking on this challenge. Since New Books in Poetry was an existing channel with a following, I was fortunate that my first foray into the process was not started from scratch (with all the steps that that requires), allowing me to ease my way into learning how to plan, record, and edit an episode at my own pace through trial and error.

Thus far, cohosting a podcast has been a fun and interesting journey. In the time since Athena and I started hosting, I’ve had the honor of speaking with a number of amazing poets about their books, their work, and their writing process. I’ve learned a lot, both from the poets I’ve spoken with and about the podcasting process.

I am by no means a podcasting expert. However, on the chance that it may help someone else starting out in their own podcasting journey, here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned about podcasting thus far—along with many more things that I still need to work on.

Continue reading on ILLUMINATION