Sue Toth is a book editor and coach who specializes in romance, mystery, and thrillers. She keeps writers inspired, helps them work through writers' block, and helps their books be born into the world.

I asked Sue about the special challenges of writing climate fiction, and she offered to have a conversation on the show about how her developmental editing work with thrillers could apply to climate fiction.

Creators & Guests

• Lee Schneider - Host
• Sue Toth - Guest

Tory Stephens works at Grist Magazine as their climate fiction creative manager and uses storytelling to champion climate justice, and imagine green, clean, and just futures. He's going to tell us about a climate fiction contest, called Imagine 2200, that he says changed him and challenged him on a personal level.

It also inspired thousands of writers to explore what it would be like to write hopeful fiction about the future.

Find out more about Imagine 2200.

Creators & Guests

• Lee Schneider - Host
• Tory Stephens - Guest

The Future Lab tells the stories that shape the future. It’s where thriller, science fiction, climate fiction, and fantasy authors discuss how we shape the future with the stories we tell today.

If the interview coming up with Matt Gemmell has a theme, I’d say it is, when writing long-form fiction, don’t follow templates. Instead let intention guide you.

Matt is the author of four books of fiction, including the popular KESTREL techo-thriller trilogy. He has also published four nonfiction books, and six collections of short stories about the supernatural. He’ll send you a free short story by email if you sign up for his newsletter. All the links are in the show notes, and you’ll find Matt online at mattgemmell.scot.

Matt was once a software engineer doing design and user experience work for companies like Apple, and he approaches writing with an engineer’s mind combined with the improvisational approach of a session musician.

Here’s a quote from our conversation: Matt said: “There's this sense of being so engrossed and encompassed in the work of an actual book that I only learn the lessons of it and improve after a major piece of work."

I take that to mean that it’s by doing the writing that we improve, certainly, and we learn by a kind of spidey-sense to hone everthing down to what is absolutely needed. Writing along the path of your story becomes like muscle memory.

You get to know your characters so well that you could drop them into any scene, even an outlandish one, and you would know how they would react and what they would say. You cultivate a deep intentionality that shapes your creative spark.

As Matt says, “You will always, always, always get better results in anything by doing it deliberately and for a reason."

Toward the end of our conversation, we talk about Matt’s writing setup, why he likes mechanical keyboards, and the pleasure he derives from a good e-ink tablet.

Find Matt online:

Website: https://mattgemmell.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MattGemmellAuthor
Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@mattgemmell

Creators & Guests

• Lee Schneider - Host
• Matt Gemmell - Guest

Welcome to the Future Lab with me, Lee Schneider. This is the trailer before the trailer, the advance word, the beginning of the beginning, just tapping the mic to be sure everything works. I'm excited about what we're going to be doing in this space, and I just had to tell you about it.

Creators & Guests

• Lee Schneider - Host

Rachel Allen is the owner of Bolt from the Blue Copywriting. She describes her work as mixing the neuroscience of communication with the art of great writing to help businesses take the cap off their income, impact and influence. We’re going to talk about publishing your book and who you’ll need on your team to succeed at it.

Timestamps

[00:01:14] Skills in book editing.
[00:04:23] Consistency in longer form writing.
[00:07:09] Struggles of first-time authors.
[00:09:43] Importance of cover design.
[00:13:19] Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing.
[00:16:33] Enhancing chances of traditional publishing.
[00:20:03] Advising on genre choices.
[00:22:24] Ghostwriting and book intimacy.
[00:25:38] Writing with emotional depth.

Find out more about Rachel at her website.

Creators & Guests

• Lee Schneider - Host
• Rachel Allen - Guest

JV Hilliard is the author of the multi-book Warminster Saga. Here's how he often introduces himself.

“Born of steel, fire and black wind, J.V. Hilliard was raised as a highlander in the foothills of a once-great mountain chain on the confluence of the three mighty rivers that forged his realm’s wealth and power for generations. His father, a peasant twerg, toiled away in industries of honest labor and instilled in him a work ethic that would shape his destiny. His mother, a local healer, cared for his elders and his warrior uncle, who helped to raise him.”

We talk about how he builds the world of his saga, his point of view about promoting his work, and what it's been like to expand the his storytelling into a video game and a graphic novel. JV gets a lot from the contribution of beta readers and discusses how the process of editing works for him.

Creators & Guests

• Lee Schneider - Host

In today’s episode, you’ll meet Karen Gershowitz, author ofTravel Mania: Stories of Wanderlust.

In pursuit of a passion for travel, Karen has lost and gained friends and made a radical career change. She has visited remote areas of Indonesia on her own, and became a translator, though only fluent in English. We’ll hear about some of her memories with people she met around the world.

When Karen started promoting her book, she had a few hundred Facebook friends and about 500 LinkedIn connections. Now, those numbers are in the thousands. She’ll tell us how she developed her online audience and sustains it. And we’ll also learn about her next book and how she plans to promote it online. Find Karen on Facebook and the links below.

Creators & Guests

• Lee Schneider - Host
• Karen Gershowitz - Guest

In today’s episode, you’ll meet Rod Faulkner, self-professed Blerd, (Black nerd) founder of The7thMatrix and host of EYE ON SCI-Fi Podcast. He’s a lifelong lover of science fiction and fantasy.

Rod shares his enthusiasm for short-form science-fiction films. We discussed how a short-form film, with its time limitations, can be an exercise in creative constraints.

The most unique and original science fiction and fantasy narratives, in my opinion, are being told by independent film makers in the short film space. I'm attracted to that medium is because they only have a few minutes to tell their story. It forces them to be succinct. It forces them to make bold choices about how they convey the narrative that they're trying to tell audiences.

He points out that one of the great things about short films is that by pretty much the first minute, you’ll know whether it’s for you or not.

A filmmaker he recommends is Anthony Ferraro. Anthony specializes in making instructional videos for DIY-ing genre shorts. Here’s [Anthony’s YouTube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/@createscifi).

Creators & Guests

• Lee Schneider - Host
• Rod T. Faulkner - Guest