Ex Urbe Ad Astra

Historian and novelist Ada Palmer and author and vocateur reader Jo Walton interview other fiction authors, historians, scientists, editors, and friends, interspersed with bonus episodes where they discuss topics such as history, gelato, and the craft of writing.

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #13 - The Florentine Renaissance with Larry Rothfield 02/13/2024

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #13 - The Florentine Renaissance with Larry Rothfield In this episode, Ada and Jo speak with historian Larry Rothfield about the political nuances of 15th century Florence, and the shifting perspectives of the Renaissance to come since then. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/29926608

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #12 - Pacing with Ken Liu 01/09/2024

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #12 - Pacing with Ken Liu In this episode, Ada and Jo discuss the merits of good pacing across a range of story lengths with Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, Ken Liu. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/29398413

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #11 - The Problem of Evil in Narrative with Alexis Shotwell 12/05/2023

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #11 - The Problem of Evil in Narrative with Alexis Shotwell In this episode, Ada and Jo speak with Alexis Shotwell about the issues that arise from ill-intentioned characters, and the moral questions they present to readers. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/28949198

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #10 - Setups and Payoffs with Jon Evans 10/17/2023

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #10 - Setups and Payoffs with Jon Evans In this episode, Ada and Jo speak with Jon Evans about the remote research versus travel, short stories, beleivability, and setting up shocking twists for striking payoffs. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/28338071

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #9 - Stopping Reading 08/29/2023

Ex Urbe Ad Astra #9 - Stopping Reading In this episode, Jo and Ada discuss a number of reasons to put a book down without finishing. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/27883686

Politics in Disability and Fiction with William Alexander 07/31/2023

Politics in Disability and Fiction with William Alexander Award winning children's author William Alexander joins Jo and Ada to talk about using politics and disability in fiction for children and adults. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/27618837

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 7: Shakespeare And Language, With Writer Greer Gilman 11/09/2022

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 7: Shakespeare And Language, With Writer Greer Gilman Greer Gilman has been writing stories set in Cloud, her Northern mythscape, for a quarter of a century. Her books are written for the ear, as much as for the understanding. Like the earliest stories, they are meant to be sung. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/24885195

How Writing Is Like Fencing, With Writer Max Gladstone - Part 2 08/03/2022

How Writing Is Like Fencing, With Writer Max Gladstone - Part 2 Note to Patreon backers: You received this episode on January 12, 2022, but due to an oversight, it was never posted here. Normally you hear episodes a week in advance, but this one you received seven months in advance! Thank you to everyone for your patience. This is conclusion of the interview. Anything you can call "writing" (science fiction, fantasy, screenwriting, comics, games) Max Gladstone does. He's also a fencer and martial artist. This episode explores connections between these two types of things. This interview ran long, so this is part one of two. Numerous topics covered include: the similarities shared by the crafts of writing and fencing; struggles when writing descriptions of physical spaces; why we don’t see cluttered spaceships in science fiction movies; when to include potatoes in your medieval fantasy setting; designing the layout of museum exhibits, video game spaces, and Walt Disney World; and more! /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/23952639

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 5: Writing The Near Future, With SF Writer Naomi Kritzer 07/13/2022

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 5: Writing The Near Future, With SF Writer Naomi Kritzer Note to Patreon backers: You received this episode on November 10, 2021, but due to an oversight, it was never posted here. Normally you hear episodes a week in advance, but this one you received eight months in advance! Thank you to everyone for your patience. This episode is brought to you by Perhaps The Stars, the fourth and final novel in the Terra Ignota series, available now from (referrer links) , , , , and . Naomi Kritzer has been publishing her science fiction and fantasy for the last twenty years. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, US, and likes to think about ways to describe the future both near and far. Her new book is , the sequel to Catfishing on CatNet published by Tor Teen. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/23732624

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Ep. 4, Part 2: Chapters 06/01/2022

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Ep. 4, Part 2: Chapters This is the second half of a conversation between Ada Palmer and Jo Walton, about writing chapters. This was a two-hour conversation, so our previous episode had the first hour, and this episode has the second hour. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/23296460

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Ep. 4, Part 1: Chapters 05/21/2022

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Ep. 4, Part 1: Chapters This is the first half of a conversation between Ada Palmer and Jo Walton, about writing chapters. This was a two-hour conversation, so this episode has the first hour, and the next episode will have the second hour. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/23183726

Bonus Ep. 3, Part 2: The Author-Reader Contract 03/02/2022

Bonus Ep. 3, Part 2: The Author-Reader Contract This is the final half of a conversation between Ada Palmer and Jo Walton, about how an author can craft the early part of a novel to set up the reader's expectations about what kind of a book to expect. This was a two-hour conversation, so our previous episode had the first hour, and this episode has the second hour. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/22315508

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Ep. 3, Part 1: The Author-Reader Contract 02/09/2022

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Ep. 3, Part 1: The Author-Reader Contract This is part one of a conversation between Ada Palmer and Jo Walton, about how an author can craft the early part of a novel to set up the reader's expectations about what kind of a book to expect. This was a two-hour conversation, so this episode has the first hour, and the next episode will be part two. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/22079666

How Writing Is Like Fencing, With Writer Max Gladstone - Part 1 01/03/2022

How Writing Is Like Fencing, With Writer Max Gladstone - Part 1 Max Gladstone is a writer, fencer & martial artist. This episode explores connections between these two types of things. This interview ran long, so this is part 1 of 2. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/21661643

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 4: Bright and Dark Ages with historian and journalist David Perry 10/27/2021

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 4: Bright and Dark Ages with historian and journalist David Perry David Perry is a freelance journalist. He was a professor of Medieval History at Dominican University from 2006-2017, and now works as an academic advisor in the history department of the University of Minnesota. His scholarly work focuses on Venice, the Crusades, and the Mediterranean World. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/20957249

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 3: Hopepunk and positive futures with writer Ruthanna Emrys 10/13/2021

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 3: Hopepunk and positive futures with writer Ruthanna Emrys Ruthanna Emrys is an author of science fiction and fantasy such as The Innsmouth Legacy series and Deep Roots, which are hopeful Lovecraftian fantasy, and the forthcoming A Half-Built Garden, a hopeful science fiction novel of first contact. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/20806451

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Ep. 2: Manga for non-manga readers 09/15/2021

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Ep. 2: Manga for non-manga readers This will probably become a series of occasional bonus episodes in which Ada Palmer and Jo Walton discuss manga and anime with an eye to its innovations, cultural norms, and wider implications for the media landscape. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/20488199

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 2: Mars & How To Help Science Fiction Writers With Science, With Astrogeologist Jonathan Sneed 08/26/2021

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 2: Mars & How To Help Science Fiction Writers With Science, With Astrogeologist Jonathan Sneed Jonathan Sneed is an astrogeologist and expert in Mars wind and erosional science. He also consults with science fiction authors, and has the skill of giving the sort of answers to science questions that are useful when writing fiction. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/20265548

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Episode 1: Complicity 08/19/2021

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Bonus Episode 1: Complicity In this bonus episode, Ada Palmer and Jo Walton have a craft of writing discussion of complicity, i.e. when and how the author gets the reader or audience on the side of characters they would not expect to root for, and how that can be used in fiction. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/20190671

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 1: Speculative Resistance With Writer Malka Older 08/05/2021

Ex Urbe Ad Astra Ep. 1: Speculative Resistance With Writer Malka Older Novelist and political scientist Malka Older, author of Infomocracy, shares Ada's interest in the political systems. With Jo Walton providing examples from the history of F&SF, they discuss speculative politics, historical disaster response, and how populations can respond to their needs. /episode/index/show/exurbe/id/20040062

Ex Urbe Ad Astra

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