Salon Futura

This is the full version of the interview that Cheryl did with Catherynne M. Valente at Finncon 2016. Parts of the interview were previously broadcast on Women's Outlook on Ujima Radio. The interview covers the whole of Cat's career from her childhood obsession with fairy tales through her student days in Edinburgh, her early success with The Orphan's Tales, the amazing phenomenon that is the Fairyland books and her later adult novels such as Deathless and Radiance.

This is a recording of the interview that Cheryl did with Mike Carey at Bristol Waterstones in May. The bulk of the discussion is about Mike's latest novel, Fellside. However, the conversation also strays onto The Girl with All the Gifts, the Felix Castor novels, the X-Men, the Lucifer TV series, and the Steel Seraglio books that Mike wrote with his wife and daughter. Our apologies for the poor sound quality, particularly when picking up audience questions. The event was organized by the Bristol Festival of Literature.

Cheryl interviewed Mike Carey on her Ujima show on the very day that X-Men: Age of Apocalypse premiered in the UK. They do chat a bit about Mike's time writing the mutants later on, but the main thrust of the interview is about Mike latest book. Fellside is set in a women's prison, and deals with issues of prison privatisation and drug addiction as well as being a great ghost story. During the interview Cheryl mentions that she will be interviewing Mike again that evening. A recording of that interview will be online here in a few days.  

This interview with Paul Cornell too place on Cheryl's Ujima Radio show on May 6th. Paul and Cheryl talked about a variety of subjects including Paul's latest Shadow Police novel, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes, and his comic series, This Damned Band.

This interview with Cavan Scott took place on Cheryl's show on Ujima Radio on April 8th. Cheryl and Cav talked about various of Cav's writing projects including his Star Wars novels, his Sherlock Holmes novel, his Doctor Who comics and, of course, his work on The Beano. The illustration for this episode is of the Star Wars book that Cav wrote for World Book Day 2016. It became the #1 selling book in the UK.  

The is the full version of the interview that Guy and Cheryl did for Ujima Radio. The broadcast version was cut down by about 50%. The discussion is primarily about Guy's latest novel, Children of Earth and Sky, but touches on aspects of his other work as well.

This interview was first recorded in May 2015 as part of the Women's Outlook show on Ujima Radio. With The Vagrant being published in paperback this month, and the sequel, The Malice, out in hardcover, it seemed like a good time to run with the full version. A few bits of the discussion are slightly dated -- in particular Pete & Emma did not win a Hugo for Tea and Jeopardy -- but the discussion of the book is still very relevant.

This interview was first recorded in September 2015. A cut-down version was broadcast on the Women's Outlook show on Ujima Radio. With Regeneration being published in the USA this month it seemed like a good time to run with the full version. The only place where the interview has dated is where Cheryl and Stephanie discuss Marlon James' chances in the Booker Prize.

This is the extended cut of an interview that originally ran on the Women's Outlook show on Ujima radio. Tobias is originally from Grenada but now lives in the USA. The interview explains how he came tomake that move, and how it ties in to one of the themes of his latest novel, Hurricane Fever. Tobias also talks about the inspiration behind his secret agent hero, Prudence Jones, and about how he managed to become a successful author despite a life-long struggle with dyslexia. As usual the interviewer is Cheryl Morgan.

This is the extended cut of an interview that originally ran on the Women's Outlook show on Ujima radio. Rhonda is a writer from Trinidad, and her debut novel, Lex Talionis, is available from Dragonwell Publishing and the usual retail outlets. The interview covers the book, Rhonda's journey to becoming published, and a little bit about life in Trinidad. As usual the interviewer is Cheryl Morgan.

This is an interview with Kathryn Allan, the current recipient of the Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellowship. Cheryl talks to her mainly about the crowdfunded anthology project, Accessing the Future, which she is co-editing with Djibril al-Ayad of The Future Fire. The anthology will focus on themes of disability in science fiction.

This is an interview with Nick Harkaway that original ran on the Ujima Radio Women's Outlook show. It was recorded prior to an event at Mr. B's Emporium of Reading Delights. Cheryl talks to Nick about his latest novel, Tigerman; about fatherhood, his love for comics, and why writers never grow up.

This is the extended edition of Cheryl's interview with Leah Moore, exceprts of which were first broadcast on Ujima Radio. In the interview Leah talks about following in the footsteps of a famous father, about motherhood, and about the Electricomics venture that she has started with (amongst others) her father and her husband, John Reppion, with the support of the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. For more information about Electricomics see their website, or follow them on Twitter and Facebook. The Digital R&D Fund for the Arts is a £7 million fund from Arts Council England, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Nesta to support collaboration between arts projects, technology providers and researchers to explore the potential of increasing audience engagement or find new business models. Separate Digital R&D Fund for the Arts are being run in Wales and in Scotland.  

This is the second part of the readings from the June 2014 Word of Mouth event. Joanne Hall reads from a currently unsold novel, The Summer Goddess. Pete Sutton reads a story from a collection he is writing in which each story is inspired by the counting magpies folk song. Scott Lewis reads the rest of the story that he started in Part 1.

Once a year the BristolCon crowd takes over Word of Mouth, a monthly reading series run by Tangent Books and hosted by the Thunderbolt pub. Normally we'd put these readings on the BristolCon Fringe podcast stream, but that has limited capacity and these readings turned out to be quite long, so they are being hosted by Salon Futura instead. The three readers are Pete Sutton, Joanne Hall and Scott Lewis. Pete's story in this section is a rare (for him) science fiction piece. Jo reads from her latest novel, The Art of Forgetting: Nomad. And Scott reads the first part of a steampunk horror story that will conclude in Part 2.

This is the Guest of Honor Interview with Karen Lord that took place at Åcon in Mariehamn, Finland in May 2014. The interviewer is Cheryl Morgan. Karen is the author of the award-winning novels, Redemption in Indigo and The Best of All Possible Worlds. Tech services at Åcon are provided by Jonas Wissting to whom we are indebted for this recording.

This is a podcast of the panel on post-colonial science fiction that took place at Åcon in Mariehamn, Finland in May 2014. The panelists are: Karen Lord Sari Polvinen Juha Tupasela Cheryl Morgan Karen is an author from Barbados. Sari & Juha both have an academic interest in post-colonial SF. Cheryl is a critic. Tech services at Åcon are provided by Jonas Wissting to whom we are indebted for this recording.

This is an interview with Gareth L. Powell that I did on Ujima Radio on December 18th, 2013, shortly after the launch of Gareth's novel, Hive Monkey. The first book in that series, Ack-Ack Macaque, has just become joint-winner of the 2014 British Science Fiction Association Award. The podcast of material from Hive Monkey is available here.

This is a podcast of the interview with Nalo Hopkinson broadcast on Ujima Radio's Women's Outlook Show on February 5th. It covers most of Nalo's novels, especially the latest, Sister Mine. We also discuss the state of LGBT rights in the Caribbean. My apologies for the poor sound quality on my voice during the interview.

This interview was originally recorded for a Ujima Radio show to be broadcast on March 19th. However, as Ujima is off air at the moment, I am podcasting it here instead. The interview is mainly about Karen's latest book, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which has just launched in the UK. Karen will be at Foyles in Bristol on the evening of the 19th.