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Interview: This week, Mike and Mike chat with Charlaine Harris about Dead in the Family, the tenth novel in her Sookie Stackhouse series.
Charlaine talks about the challenges of maintaining continuity and even fixing previous errors, the impact of HBO series True Blood and how the fans are reacting to the deviation of the TV series from the written series, and more.
She also talks about how she writes for a long-running series, and her preference for not planning and plotting too much as she's creating the stories because she enjoys discovering the "a-ha!" moments as much as she hopes the readers do.
And though Charlaine has completed the Harper Connelly mystery series, she's mulling over starting work on a new series later this year.
And Mike and Mike ponder the implications that their predictions of urban fantasy's demise may have been greatly exaggerated, and Charlaine believes that paranormal romance isn't going anywhere anytime soon!
Submitting Listener comments: If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know!
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Link: HP Podcraft: HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast
Link: Dragon's Fire, Wizard's Flame by Michael R. Mennenga
What a fantastic episode. Thanks for Tim's suggestion about the Lovecraft podcast, and it was synchronistically satisfying to hear Stackpole talking about one of my favourite BBC podcasts, In Our Time. I've been listening to that ever since I got my first iPod and it has remained interesting and good grist for the writing mill. Charlaine is a laugh riot, and her outlook on the biz is positive as well as entertaining.
Great episode, though it left me wondering if Mike Stackpole was having a bad day because he used a lot more curses than I'd usually expect. It's not that it offended me (It didn't), but it did make me wonder.
Love the show! Just paused 8 mins into podcast. Mike I'm a big fan of In Our Time too. Have you had a chance to go through their archive at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/in-our-time/archive/ ? Only bad thing about the BBC is they only leave their podcasts up for the week they publish it. I've been listening to dragon page for about a year or so now. I made a new years resolution to leave more feedback so that's going well. I would definitely be interested in listening to you answer writing related questions and having authors read chapters of theri work. I find all the stuff you say about the way new media is changing traditional publishing very informative but my favourite part of the show is the library segment. Personally I'd like any segment that focuses on the content of novels. Thanks guys
Just wondering if anyone else is having trouble with the "In Our Time" podcast mentioned in this episode. I wanted to try it out, but all iTunes will show me is one episode that has nothing to do with the Zulu nation... Is it just because I'm stuck using the Canadian iTunes?
Uh... for the record, ChrisB's post wasn't there when I wrote mine... Thanks Chris!
No worries... Chris' post had links in it, which get it held up in the moderation queue. 🙂
Thanks for playing the voicemail guys. I have always been a fan of Lovecraft's and just stumbled on this podcast. It is a one of the best out there.
Great interview as well. I am not into the whole "Vamp lit" thing, but she sounded great and the whole interview was a lot of fun. Who knows, I might have to pull one down off the shelf and give it a try.
Tim
And yes, I plan on calling in more Mike. I have not had time to sit down to read in months, but have started reading George Man's Ghosts of Manhatten, so I will call in that review soon. I am very glad to hear about the short stories coming out in e book forms. I am still looking for and hoping a reassurance of magazines like Amazing Stories, ect. Maybe even the one I cut my teeth on as a kid, Weird Tales. I see E books as a perfect format for those.
Tim