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Admired and best-selling authors offer advice and discuss their latest books.
Sci-Fi, Magic, Fantasy
Sebastien de Castell, The Malevolent Seven
Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
Victor Manibo, The Sleepless
John Wiswell, D.I.Y.
Hosted by Lisa Burdige, Writer, Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writer’s Organizer and Co-creator of Background Noise Comic
Produced in partnership with Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers
Sebastien de Castell had just finished a degree in Archaeology when he started work on his first dig. Four hours later he realised how much he actually hated archaeology and left to pursue a very focused career as a musician, ombudsman, interaction designer, fight choreographer, teacher, project manager, actor and product strategist. His only defence against the charge of unbridled dilettantism is that he genuinely likes doing these things and that, in one way or another, each of these fields plays a role in his writing. He sternly resists the accusation of being a Renaissance Man in the hopes that more people will label him that way. Sebastien's acclaimed swashbuckling fantasy series The Greatcoats was shortlisted for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fantasy. the Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut, the Prix Imaginales for Best Foreign Work and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His YA fantasy series Spellslinger was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and is published in more than a dozen languages. Sebastien lives in Vancouver, Canada with his lovely wife and two belligerent cats.
Shannon Chakraborty is the author of the critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling The Daevabad Trilogy. Her work has been translated into over a dozen language and nominated for the Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, Crawford, and Astounding awards. When not buried in books about medieval seafarers and con artists, she enjoys hiking, knitting, and re-creating unnecessarily complicated historical dishes. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband, daughter, and an ever-increasing number of cats.
Victor Manibo is a Filipino speculative fiction writer living in New York. A 2022 Lambda Literary Emerging Voices Fellow, he is the author of the science fiction noir novel The Sleepless. His next novel, Escape Velocity, is forthcoming from Erewhon Books in Spring 2024
John Wiswell is a disabled writer who lives where New York keeps all its trees. He won the 2021 Nebula Award for Short Fiction for his story, "Open House on Haunted Hill." He has also been a finalist for the Hugo Award, British Fantasy Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award. His stories have appeared in Uncanny Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Diabolical Plots, Nature Futures, and other fine venues. He can be found making too many puns and discussing craft on Twitter.
Lisa Burdige is a speculative fiction writer, comic creator, creative director, and arts educator. Lisa is one of the organizers of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers (BSFW). With nearly two hundred members and growing, BSFW has been the largest, most active, and diverse speculative fiction writing group in New York City since 2010 .BSFW enables ongoing short story, novel and graphic novel, and craft workshops for serious writers who are looking for community and support reaching their writing goals. BSFW's members include , Phenderson Djeli Clark (Dead Djinn Universe, Ring Shout, The Dead Cattail Assassins), Rob Cameron (Daydreamer) and many others including Shannon Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi) BSF also produce the popular podcast, the Kaleidocast, now working on its fourth season. You can find it on iTunes, SoundCloud, and wherever podcasts can be found. In addition to writing weird fiction and co-hosting a novel writing workshop for BSFW, Lisa co-created Background Noise Comic with her partner in love and art, John Hazard. Background Noise Comic has almost 26K followers on Instagram and a strong presence on Medium and Webtoon. Lisa is also an arts educator and has taught at NYU, FIT the Highlights Foundation and many other theater arts programs around the city.