WROTE Podcast — The Queerlings

Hello, happy Friday, and oh my God it’s almost December.

That last part is the total shakedown of nerves over the launch, tomorrow, of Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks. I’m fine. It’s fine. (I’m not fine. I’m a mess.)

But! I got to go spend time with the brilliant Vance Bastian over at Writers on the Edge (WROTE) and our podcast discussion is up and live. You can check that out here. We chat about how I got started in this whole writing thing, and then about the queerlings (my said-with-love term to the queer GSA/SAGA/Rainbow Club kids I back-and-forthed with while writing Exit Plans) and a wee bit about Of Echoes Born, too, my first ever short story collection that released just this summer and I know, I know, short stories? Well, I talk about how I tried to keep people who don’t love short stories in mind, too.

These are the books that get mentioned the most.

So, head on over to WROTE, and give it a listen. Oh! At the end of the podcast, there’s a rapid-fire bunch of recommendations. I get that listening to a podcast often means not having a moment to write things down, so…

Here are the things I recommended, just in case you want to check them out:

• Food? Poutine.
• Book series or author? I cheated and dropped two: The Unwanted, by Jeffrey Ricker, and Secret City, by Julia Watts.
• Song, band, or music genre? DeVotchKa, and specifically the song “How it Ends” which inspired my short story, “Elsewhen,” in Riding the Rails and Of Echoes Born.
• A Film? Breakfast with Scot. (Based on the book, by Michael Downing).
• A Show? Hilda! So, so good. Binged on NetFlix. Also based on a graphic novel series, by Luke Pearson.
• A Person or Group to Follow on Social Media? The Kraken Collective! That link is their website. You can find them on Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter.
• An App that has improved my life or Entertained me? *sigh* Pokemon Go. (Don’t judge me. I walk the dog a lot.)
• Thing to Add to the Bucket List? Make an appointment with a local government person (in my case a School Board Trustee) to chat about something that matters to you (queer youth in schools, in my case).
• Any Miscellaneous Thing? The three sentence review! Here it is, one more time: