PodCastle 804: ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: Fixer, Worker, Singer
Show Notes
Rated PG-13
Fixer, Worker, Singer
by Natalia Theodoridou
Fixer Turns on the Stars
The sky creaks as Fixer makes his way across the steel ramp that is suspended under the firmament. It’s time to turn on the stars. He pauses a few steps from where the switches and pulleys are located and looks down. He allows himself only one look down each day, just before sunset: at the rows of machines, untiring, ever-moving; at the Singer’s house with its loudspeakers, sitting in the middle of the world; at the steep, long ladder that connects the Fixer’s realm to everything below. He’s only gone down that ladder once, and it was enough. Fixer caresses the head of the hammer hanging from his belt. Then he walks to the mainboard and turns off the sun. The stars come on. He pulls on the ropes to wheel out the moon. There. Job well done.
Fixer senses the coil inside him uncoiling. He retrieves the key from the chest pocket of his coveralls and thumbs its engraving: Wind yourself in the Welder’s name. He inserts the key’s end in the hole at the side of his neck and winds himself up. In the Welder’s name.
The sky creaks.
Wound up and tense as a chord, Fixer sits on the ramp and rests his torso against the railing. He inspects the firmament under the light of the starbulbs. The paint is chipping—it will need redoing soon. He wonders whether it was the Welder himself who first painted the sky. It must have been him, no? Who else could have done it, before Fixer existed? Fixers, he corrects himself, and the coil tugs at him with what could be guilt, but is not. He imagines the Welder — just his hands; he can’t picture all of him, never has been able to — slathering on the blue paint, then carefully tracing the outlines of clouds.
Fixer pulls the wine flask out of the side pocket of his coveralls and takes a swig. It’s just stage booze, water colored red, can’t get drunk on it; he figured that out a long time ago, but he still likes to pretend, especially when the sky creaks the way it does tonight, when his coil is tense just so. What wouldn’t he give to feel things — what hasn’t he given — to be drunk, to be angry, to be excruciatingly joyful. But the world is so quiet now, quietly falling away, even emergencies are rare; and it’s lonely under the stars. He takes another swig from the flask. “Make-believe wine in honor of the Great Welder in the sky,” he says. Another swig. The coil eases some, his back slumps a little against the railing.
One of the stars didn’t come on, he notices; the bulb must have given out. Fixer gazes at the concrete shape of the moon haloed by the spotlight that’s reflected off its surface. There is rebar poking through at the sides, the back is crumbling. But that doesn’t matter. Only Fixer can see the back side. Things only have one good side, from which they are meant to be looked at.
Yes, the world is quiet now, but for the creaking of the sky. The hum of the machines below has stopped for the night. There used to be thunder beyond the firmament, but not anymore. There used to be singing from the Singer’s house and the Welder’s voice blasting through the pipes of the world. Now there’s only the Singer’s rusty voice spilling out of the loudspeakers in short, shallow bursts.
“Tap into this thing, this ugly feeling of despair,” the Singer’s voice croaks, as if she knows, actually knows what it’s like to stare at the back side of the moon.
Fixer glances at the blown starbulb again. The coil inside his chest wants to spring forth, find the spare lightbulbs in the dark, fix it. Fixer fixes the sky, and if he doesn’t, he’s no Fixer at all, is he?
But, instead, he takes another swig from the wine flask — watercolor communion with the Welder who fashioned the world. He closes his eyes.
“I’ll fix it tomorrow,” he says out loud.
Singer: His Voice in Fragments
Your metallic voice. The wind rushing through me.
I remember when we voiced this pipe organ together, every flue, every reed, so it could breathe with your truth. Now everything is rusty and old. Falling. And apart.
I haven’t seen you in so long.
Fragments of your voice run through me and into your organ, my organ, when I least expect it. When I manipulate the pipes, aching to make each one sound the way it used to, I cut my fingers on the rough edges and fake blood comes out, mixed with grease.
And I have all these foreign memories that you planted my body with, these fragments I cut myself on every day:
An old man tuning a pipe organ.
A .45 round nose bullet fired from a handgun, tunneling through a body — and did you know the machine gun was inspired by a seed-planting machine, way back? Of course you did.
And there’s also the voice of a very young poet made great only by his self-imposed death. Why did you deem this story important for me to know? Am I to sing about it? Every day, I think about the poet. Is it because the poet-boy worked at a factory? Was it much like this one? Is it true he fed himself to the machines?
You are not forthcoming with answers to my questions.
And I have enough self-awareness to know I am falling apart, but I do not know why or why not or why I should keep myself from doing so. Yours was always a practical project first and foremost, yet you never lacked in poetry. Why else would you have installed a Singer in the middle of it all?
And why did you leave me here, all alone? Fixer always had a partner, each the fail-safe of the other, keeping one another from thinking themselves more than they are, and Workers are many, because you needed many. But there has only ever been one Singer.
Was I your most successful feature? Or the least so?
I press the loudspeaker pipe open. “Tap into this thing,” I say, “this ugly feeling of despair,” and not even I am sure who I am talking to anymore.
Worker: Keep This Shop Like You Would Your Home
Pull, turn, press, says the coiled thing inside. So we pull, we turn, we press. The conveyor belt does not pause, and neither do we.
We work the line. We never blink. Our eyes close when the shift is over and only then. We never blink or we will miss the next beat. The next bullet. And the next.
Projectile, case, primer. The propellant container is empty, has been for some time, the great barrels that used to haul it in came empty for a while, then stopped coming in at all. Should we stop? Could we stop? We shouldn’t. We couldn’t. We didn’t. We don’t.
Pull, turn, press. Projectile, case, primer. No propellant. The bullets are lighter now. But the work doesn’t stop, the work doesn’t change. Handling the lighter bullets takes great care. Our hands are slowly accustoming to the new weight. Pull, turn, press. Don’t make a mess. We keep this shop like we would our home. Just as the sign on the wall says we should. We glance at it. Only glance. We never blink.
Our eyes are dry and our wrists hurt. They hurt so much we wish we could take them off, and the coil inside us slowly unwinds.
At night, when the moon comes out and our shift ends, we will close our eyes. We remind ourselves.
At night, when the moon comes out and the shift ends, we will wind ourselves up. One more time.
Then, a piece of the sky comes down with a thud.
We glance up.
Singer Sings of Holes in the Sky
There is a hole in the sky. Does this mean you’re coming back? Does this mean you’ve started dismantling the firmament on your way back to us?
I blow through a loose flue — disconnected from the organ like that, it reminds me of a long gun’s barrel, its speech as distinct as rifling, as fingerprints, as a person’s voice.
I hold my palms in front of my eyes.
Why did you make me without fingerprints?
I search my repertoire for answers, but I only come up with tidbits about wound ballistics instead:
Hollow-point bullets do not penetrate as deeply as round nose bullets, but they expand to almost twice their size within a person’s body, causing devastating damage to surrounding tissue.
Why did you want me to know all these things?
How can I still love you, knowing you made me so I would know all these things? Can I?
Are you coming back to me through the bullet wound in the sky?
Worker Prays to a Bullet
A piece of the sky came loose and fell to the ground and from inside us came the sound of a spring breaking.
Pull, turn, press. Projectile, case, primer. Something loose, above, inside. Pull, turn, press. We cannot look at the missing piece of the sky. We cannot look at the hole in the world. Instead we pull, we turn, we press. We don’t blink. Our wrists hurt. Tonight, when our shift ends we will close our eyes and we will step back from the conveyor belt and we will rub our wrists and we will hold our wrists close to the uncoiling thing inside. And we will feel it uncoil almost all the way and then we will wind ourselves up again. And we will look to the left, to the pile of all our other bodies rusting neatly one on top of the other. Did all our other wrists hurt like this before each of these other bodies of ours stopped working? Did we forget to wind all our other bodies up again before our coils unraveled all the way to their very end? This, we will wonder. One more time.
And we will sweep the floor around our other bodies, and we will polish every part of the machines, every piston, every cog. We will keep this shop like we would our home, and then we will look up and we will close our eyes and we will open our mouths and we will wait for the Singer’s voice to fill our insides, and it will be as if we have swallowed a piece of the sun with sharp, rusty edges that catch on our tongue, and even the rust will be good, and so we will praise the Great Welder in the sky who made the sun and the moon and the stars.
But thinking ahead to the end of the shift won’t do. Pull, turn, press. Our wrists hurt, something is loose, and we drop a bullet to the floor, scatter primers everywhere. We’ve made a mess. We should keep this shop like we would our home, even when there’s a hole in the sky. The coil inside strains as we pick the bullet up and hold it high above our head against the light of the sun and it is light and light and light. Its full metal jacket, its hollow point. We see it going into a person’s body. Inside the person’s body, the bullet blooms into a flower.
Who would think of such a thing, other than the Welder in the sky, who made the sun and the moon and the rust?
We look at the bullet and see it is a thing of beauty. The conveyor belt advances, the bullets unpulled, unpressed, unturned. Full metal flowers — do they dream of blooming?
Our wrists hurt. We think of praying. The words of the Singer’s song to the Great Welder in the sky flash in our head, as bright and comforting as the stars. The coil inside sings: O Welder, O Welder hallowed be thy name — but the words twist as the coil uncoils and the sky creaks and primers are at our feet and the conveyor belt conveys faster than our wrists can move and the bullet is beautiful today. O bullet, our coil sings, flying lead ricocheting off our tongue, O bullet, O bullet in the sky—
Fixer Looks for a Piece of the Sky
Fixer was changing the blown starbulb when the piece of the sky came loose, leaving a gaping hole in the firmament. The sound it made as it hit the ground sent a shiver down Fixer’s spine and caused his coil to tingle with tension.
But now he is calm, standing at the top of the ladder, looking down. The sky needs fixing and he is the only one to do it — and do it well. It might take a long time, looking for the piece, going all the way down and then back up again, it will throw the days and nights into chaos for sure, but what else can he do? There is no other Fixer to turn off the sun while he’s gone. Not any more. And so he sets out for the ground, to walk among the machines and the Workers and the noises of the world. It’s been a very long time since he’s last been to the ground. His hands feel like they might be trembling, but they are not. Is this excitement?
Off he goes. Down, down, down, for a long time.
His feet are steady on each step of the ladder, his arms are strong, but the coiled thing inside his chest is coming looser and looser as time passes, and he will soon need winding up again or he won’t make it. He’s almost to the last of his coil when he realizes he can see the sun from its good side. It is round and shiny and bright, despite the creeping rust at the edges of the metallic surface. It’s perfect.
The coil inside him creaks, and so does the sky. He takes out the key with unsteady hands — almost drops it, in fact, and then what would happen? What would happen to the world if he gave out and there was no one to move time along anymore? He inserts the key into his neckhole and twists and twists, his body tensing with every turn, and he knows deep in his core that now would be the time to switch off the sun and to wheel out the moon so the machines can stop and the Workers can wind themselves up again under the sound of the Singer’s song. But he’s not there to do that anymore, and it is still day even though it’s night. He wonders what an endless day might do to the world, what sights may be seen under this much unexpected light. He wonders if the other Fixer will be waiting for him on the ground, accusing, staring at his hammer, understanding nothing, stage blood coming out of his head.
Fixer chastises himself and speeds up his descent. It shouldn’t be long now.
And if the other Fixer is there, waiting, so what. Stage blood washes off easy.
When he finally gets to the ground, he lands amidst the loud, tireless machines producing garlands upon garlands of cartridges. It takes him a while to understand what the heap lying next to the ladder is. Then, he sees them, an arm here, a face there, the pile of Workers’ bodies stacked neatly one on top of the other. What has happened here? What has become of the world while he was up there taking care of the stars?
There is a single Worker tending to the conveyor belt. She moves slowly, unsteadily—she’s near the end of her coil, surely.
“Hey, you, Worker!” he shouts in order to be heard over the clamor of the machines.
She turns her head, only for an instant, but still her hands miss the next bullet, scattering primers all over the floor by her feet.
Fixer walks closer. “What happened to all the other Workers?” he asks.
“We’re all still here,” she says. “But not all of us talk and move any more.” She speaks slowly. She’s almost done, almost spent.
“You can stop working now,” Fixer says. “Your shift is over. Wind yourself, in the Welder’s name.”
“But it’s still day.”
“No, it’s not. It’s night.” He points at the hole in the firmament. “I just had to come down here, so there’s no one left to turn on the stars.”
Worker is still working, but she steals furtive glances at the sky. “But it’s not night,” she insists. Her voice quivers.
He approaches, his hammer swinging at his belt. He looks at this Worker, the tragedy of her existence, the completeness of her devotion. She will work herself to the end, and it’s all his fault. He gently takes her shoulders and pulls her away from the conveyor belt, letting the half-formed bullets fall off the end and clatter onto the ground. Her hands are still going through the motions, pulling, turning, pressing. He grabs them, steadies them. “It’s OK,” he says. “It’s night. You can stop now. It’s night.” He repeats this until she stops moving.
She holds her hands close to her chest and stares at the sky for a long time. Then she lets her body slump onto the floor.
Fixer sits on the ground next to her, his back against the unfaltering machinery of the world. He feels his coil uncoil slowly, looks over to the pile of Workers, and, for a moment, he wonders if this is it. If he should just sit here next to the last of the Workers, allow his coil to uncoil all the way to the end and stay there, let his body shut down, collecting dust under the relentless light of the sun.
But then his eye catches a glimpse of the hole in the sky and the coil inside strains because he needs to fix the flaw in the world. So he gets back up and goes look for the missing piece of the sky.
Before he starts climbing the ladder with the piece held tightly under his arm, he puts his key in the Worker’s neck and winds her up. For a moment, she looks confused. Then she’s on her feet again, pulling, turning, pressing, as if nothing has passed between them, or between her and the world. She doesn’t say a word.
Singer: His Voice Back Together Again
I thought the day’s length was a sign that you were coming back. I thought the hole in the sky was a sign that all of this was finally over — the constant fight against the rust with nothing but grease and a handful of facts that I no longer know how to assemble into songs.
But the hole is gone now and the sun no longer shines in the sky; the world is healed, restored, the creation you left behind intact, self-preserved.
The organ’s voicing is as complete and perfect as it is ever going to be without you. You made me well, but you did not make me to last forever, did you? Because, now, wouldn’t that be cruel?
Tonight, I will sing my best hymn to you. It has only one word, but it is the sweetest one I know, O Welder, O Welder in the sky, and the only one I know to be true.
Look, the moon is coming out.
Fixer Sleeps Under the Stars
Fixer’s limbs feel heavy and worn as he paints over the restored piece of the firmament under the faint shine of the moon. He could have looked through the hole in the sky, but he didn’t. The coil wouldn’t let him, he told himself; it jerked and strained at the mere thought. Besides, why would he? The world is fine as it is. Soon, everything will be as it was before, as if nothing ever happened.
As soon as he finishes the restoration, he turns on the stars, and each one comes alive, bright and familiar, their light soft and soothing.
The coil inside him is quiet now. The Singer’s voice spills out of the loudspeakers. Is it just him, Fixer wonders, or does it sound just as it used to when they first came into the world, before the rust, before the world started giving out, falling apart? She really does have the most beautiful voice, Singer.
“Welder, Welder, Welder,” she repeats, all night long, making everything okay.
Fixer decides to sleep in his ropes tonight, suspended under the stars, lulled by the Singer’s voice and the creaking of the sky.
In his dream, he’s carrying the piece of the sky under his arm. There is a great joy inside his chest. He takes a swig from his flask and it burns his throat as if it were no longer stage wine. It makes his coil vibrate with song.
“Could I sing?” he wonders. “Could a Fixer ever sing?”
Drunk on his joy and his wine, Fixer no longer thinks of the tired Worker below. He doesn’t think of the pile of bodies, or of the other Fixer’s head staring at what can no longer be fixed.
In his dream, Fixer runs his fingers over the surface of the sky. He traces its length, its chipping paint, the flat outlines of its clouds. Then he pulls his hammer from his tool belt and caresses its head while the coil inside loosens and loosens.
In Fixer’s dream, the flawed world creaks. Before nailing the fallen piece back in place, he peeks through the hole in the firmament, at the maddening beauty, at the stars beyond the stars.
Host Commentary
…aaaaand welcome back. That was FIXER, WORKER, SINGER by NATALIA THEODORIDOU, and if you enjoyed that, my goodness have I got some recommendations for you. Personally I adore RIBBONS which we ran last year as episode 743, but there’s also HIS GIANT HEARTBEAT, episode 591; MATEUS GOES HIGHER, episode 456; THE RAVEN’S SISTER, 508; and THE VANDALISTS, episode 381. There’s also episodes at Escape Pod, PseudoPod and Cast of Wonders, and just, so many stories at natalia-theodoridou.com–and if you’ll indulge me one final recommendation, though seriously listen to Ribbons first, you should also check out The Prince of Salt and the Ocean’s Bargain in Uncanny Magazine, which was a Nebula award finalist last year, and is simply gorgeous, and feels archetypal, like it’s a story that always should have existed.
Okay, you’ve heard enough of my gushing about Nassos and his stories–cos I could be here for hours–so for variety’s sake, let’s listen to Jen gush about them too.
Jen R Albert Interview
Matt Dovey
Jen R Albert. Welcome back to the Castle!
Jen R Albert
Thank you. It’s so nice to be here.
Matt Dovey
It is a delight to have you back. First off, do you want to introduce yourself for people who might not have been around for your original run, though it didn’t end that long ago.
Jen R Albert
No, not too long ago, a couple years now. So, Hi, I’m Jen Albert, Jen R Albert. I am an editor at ECW press right now, specialising in science fiction, fantasy, horror, all the fun weird stuff speculative fiction and I was co-editor of Podcastle for about five years between 2016 and 2021 I believe.
Matt Dovey
Yes, though it might have been 2022.
Jen R Albert
Yeah, 2022 yeah
Matt Dovey
No. Start of 2022 was when I took over as host. So that was when Summer had gone
Jen R Albert
Ok
Matt Dovey
and the editorial changeover happened
Jen R Albert
Somewhere in there
Matt Dovey
I think it was summer in 21 I think was the switch
Jen R Albert
Yeah,
Matt Dovey
But yeah it was a good sort of five years. Definitely. We will come to. Before we get into all that though, because everybody’s just heard Fixer Worker Singer by Natalia. So why this story?
Jen R Albert
There’s a bit of a joke a PC that you are in on I believe, that whenever Natalia’s stories would come into the slush pile. We knew they would be bought because I fell in love with his work all of the time.
Matt Dovey
Same
Jen R Albert
He’s amazing, and I love a full cast reading as well. So, I think it was really great to pick a full cast one, or at least it’s a three-part cast. And this is perfectly a three-part story kind of thing. But also, I feel like this story is very emblematic of my taste in fiction.
I love a story that doesn’t explain too much. I love a story that sort of lets you live in its halls as if you belong there, as if you kind of always had been there. And it doesn’t feel the need to explain overly, sort of what’s going on and that kind of thing. And this rusting abandoned mechanical world in this story is so fascinating it’s three inhabitants are so interesting and the subtle interactions between them. The three little solitary people here, just have a huge effect on me. They’re just they’re holding the world up. It’s sad and beautiful in a way that I love.
It’s all vibes and no plot, which is my thing as well and I feel like since, since we did this episode, it’s kind of become more prescient, it’s these sad, overworked things that are holding up a broken world. Not relatable at all. And they don’t even understand this world. You know, they’re dealing with it in very different ways. The three of them, things are, you know, in the way that a lot of us do. The singer sort of just spares waxes poetic looks to the past for answers and asked questions about it. The worker looks down, lives in the present lives for the next day and just kind of like tries to get through and the Fixer has is doing the job, but find sort of joy and inspiration and dreaming when he sort of can. I’m… the genders I’m sort of assuming with the narrator’s genders right now in the way that we did it in the show, but I think there’s so much, they’re doing all of this and even when they know it’s sort of like ultimately pointless in a way, there’s beauty in that and anything into the interactions here. So, I enjoy… bleakness and tragedy when it’s juxtaposed with beauty in that way, I think because I find it cathartic.
Matt Dovey
Hmm, yeah it’s
Jen R Albert
That’s why I love this story.
Matt Dovey
Yeah, I agree with you. Nasos always manages to write just… there’s one that always comes to mind. I don’t know if it ever got published. It was in a codex writing contest, the weekend warrior contest that’s on the forums, where it’s 750 words written over a weekend, and he just span off this story that just the world building felt like about 50,000 words worth, and just…
Jen R Albert
It’s remarkable.
Matt Dovey
It’s incredible the way he can just, and you’d, like in this one. Just hints of things you know, you really get a feeling of there’s a much bigger world outside the dome you know, at the end… when um
Jen R Albert
At the end.
Matt Dovey
When just sort of looks out and sees the stars and…
Jen R Albert
The stars beyond the stars. Yeah.
Matt Dovey
And you know, you get the feeling there was there was so much more going on that you just don’t know on a conscious level, but somewhere on a subconscious it is still speaking to you somehow. Like there is a part of you that recognises that greater construct and connects to it,
Jen R Albert
Yeah
Matt Dovey
Even as we can’t put it into words. And it’s I mean, no one ever makes me feel as stupid as Nasos when they’re writing a story like that.
Jen R Albert
Oh my god, yes. You have enough context to like feel the humanity of it.
Matt Dovey
Yeah.
Jen R Albert
And it doesn’t really matter from there. And it’s also super interesting. And I love it. I love so much of what he writes. So
Matt Dovey
Yeah, did you have you read Ribbons that we ran last year?
Jen R Albert
Not yet.
Matt Dovey
Oh you need to. It’s um, you know the, the husband stitch Carmen Maria Machado’s
Jen R Albert
Oh my god yes!
Matt Dovey
It’s a response to that from a trans masc perspective. And it is… but then like the world as well as so like this kind of ours but sideways, so like an 90 degree turn world orthogonal turns, just the depth and the richness to it is just I almost get like it’s kind of synesthesia with his stories because they’re just, there’s so much like spicy red wine kind of depth and complexity and layers to it.
Jen R Albert
Yeah
Matt Dovey
It’s you need to go listen to it
Jen R Albert
I know what I’m doing tonight.
Matt Dovey
And I absolutely adore it. I was shilling hard for that story for all the awards because it’s amazing. But yeah, I’m honestly quite glad that this is an interview episode and I don’t have to come up with something clever to say about this because I just feel insufficient to the task of pulling anything out of you know, a Natalia story because just, it’s beyond me. They jus..t you can’t dissect it because it is just this vibing hole and to try and pull any parts of, no, you can’t examine it in depth.
Jen R Albert
That’s definitely why I wanted to pick one of his stories. It’s just like, yeah,
Matt Dovey
Yeah, and I mean, yeah, so it was a running joke that you would always buy any story he sent in, but you know, for good reason. There’s a thing we do an outro go ‘hey, if you enjoyed this, here’s some of the stories from the author’. And I was looking down his website is bibliography in the amount of short stories and it’s just banger after banger after banger?
Jen R Albert
I know,
Matt Dovey
It’s Good. And I you know if I could be any writer, as a short fiction writer, I would want to be Natalia I just have so much deep envy. But then, I wouldn’t want to be, because if I was I wouldn’t have the pleasure of reading them. I prefer being the audience I think, just incredible.
Jen R Albert
Yeah.
Matt Dovey
And like you say it is, even as this is a very surreal, absurd story. It is all too relatable people grinding away to maintain a system they don’t understand. It doesn’t seem to benefit them, but we do it because I’ve been told to do it and it’s what’s handed down to us.
Jen R Albert
Yeah. And you have to catch those pieces of joy even in like, you know, The Fixer and a bit of a drinking problem. You know, like sometimes it’s not necessarily the best things, but it’s much easier to get by I guess much
Matt Dovey
Snatch the moments you can so you can exist in a broken world, which… Yeah. So! yeah, incredible story really is I could honestly just talk all day about Natalie’s stories, but we’re here to talk about you as well. So, how did you come to be involved with Podcastle in the way back when?
Jen R Albert
In the way back when in 2016. So at the time, I was kind of a hobbyist writer. I was slush reading for Uncanny already. And that’s when Rachel K Jones approached me because I knew Rachel from a writing workshop at the time as well with Cat Rambo, and I was a huge Podcastle fan girl. And Rachel knew this, and so asked me to join, and so I read slush for both Uncanny and Podcastle for a little while, I started picking up more tasks around the Castle, helping Rachel and Graeme who were co-editors at the time and Kaalidah, who’s assistant editor and when Rachel decided that she wanted to leave. Kaalidah was too busy at the time to take over co-editor so they asked me and so it was me and Graeme for a little bit and there was some shuffling after because Kaalidah became co-editor, but that’s pretty much how it sort of happened.
Matt Dovey
Just skip straight past the assistant editor and straight to the top. You were there as co-editor for I think longer than any other individual has been. How did you stick it out?
Jen R Albert
Yeah, apparently!
Matt Dovey
No, no one did it longer than you did. There were longer teams but you’re the longest individual.
Jen R Albert
I feel like it’s like an ADHD skewed relationship with time. In some ways. I was sure that Dave and Anna held that but I think I guess not?
Matt Dovey
They were slightly shorter than you indevi…they were together longer as editorial team than you were with Kaalida which was probably your longest co-editor wasn’t it
Jen R Albert
Yeah
Matt Dovey
Three years with Kaalidah? Three and a half?
Jen R Albert
At least two and a half. Three. Yeah.
Matt Dovey
Yeah, because it was about a year with Cherae and about six months with Graeme
Jen R Albert
Yeah.
Matt Dovey
So. So they were sort of the longest stable period, but you managed longer than either of them, I think.
Jen R Albert
I think I mean, it’s not just a time thing. It’s more it’s also like, Podcastle really changed my career trajectory. So most of the co-editors I’ve worked with, including Kaalidah, Rachel, I did work with Rachel for a couple of months kind of behind the scenes in a transition and Cherae – they’re all writers at heart. They’re wonderful editors. They enjoy the job, but they had other things going on. They have passion for their writing, they wanted to leave to pursue their writing. In the course of working at Podcastle, I actually became a career editor. I realised that editing was my true love, because when I started here at Podcastle while I was an entomologist, a disillusioned academic working in the sciences
Matt Dovey
Is there any other kind working in the sciences?
Jen R Albert
No, and now I’m a disillusioned editor working in publishing! But basically Podcastle was kind of what, what inspired me to go into publishing and to do this full time because I just loved it so much. I loved working with the writers I loved working with the stories, I completely switched careers. And now I’m working on Sci Fi and fantasy full time. And so, I kept it up I think because that it was my passion, you know.
Matt Dovey
So yeah, as we referenced there you kind of work with four I suppose including Rachel four as a co-editor. So, Rachel, Graheme Kaalidah and Cherae, did you find it different working alongside all of them? Did you sort of… the roles and responsibilities shift a bit and the way you approached it?
Jen R Albert
Sort of, roles and responsibilities shifted a little bit and some of the dynamics shifted, but there is there’s similar dynamics as well, because everybody was so, sort of wonderful and passionate and kind and generous with giving space to the co-editor, all the people I worked with.
I find like there was very little conflict, we’d kind of let each other pursue the things that we were each passionate about, and then take over those projects. So it was very different every week and this is why Podcastle is so great. It’s so it’s so broad and in spectrum it’s, it’s so the stuff that we publish is so broad in genre and so, that sort of stayed the same responsibilities, things like contracts and that kind of thing shifted around a little bit, but the tastes changed massively, I would say.
Because, yeah, I mean, like Graeme’s taste was very literary a lot of the time, often dark. It took some like really weird stuff in that in that time period. Cherae – C.L. Clark has a really big kind of Sword and Sorcery epic fantasy loves the building. You can see that in Cherae’s own fiction.
Matt Dovey
Exactly.
Jen R Albert
Yeah. And it was really fabulous to work with with C. L. Clark because that’s like the opposite of my tastes. You know what I mean? So, like it worked in a really interesting way and we published really different stuff. And that was so, so fun. And Kaalidah loves dark stuff as well and is a huge risk taker. She was so bold with her choices. I think Kaalidah shifted the trajectory of the Castle more than anybody. She’s a mother of teens. She’s a nurse. She is a black Muslim woman living in Texas. She is a strong variable person, has an extremely solid idea who she is and what she likes. And she does not care if people don’t like her picks. So she taught me so much about, about being confident in the things that you like and not caring about the bigots for example, who were going to yell at you and that kind of thing.
Matt Dovey
Yeah
Jen R Albert
We became more revolutionary, more hard hitting and I think that really got us noticed in the award circuits and things like that, as well. And so, we’re, yeah working with everybody was very, very different in terms of like the actual stuff that they liked to take, so I think it kind of had a different flavour all the time.
Matt Dovey
Yeah, it was Kaalidah it was Kaalidah who started the eid? episodes didn’t we? Clinch started really consciously trying to bring in that sort of, you know, broader perspectives and you know, I’m saying in
Jen R Albert
Yeah, Definitely more political a lot more diversity than there was before that. And, and really interesting work. By interesting authors.
Matt Dovey
Yeah. We were sayng in the Graeme Interview we love Lord of the Rings, but there’s a lot more to fantasy than just
Jen R Albert
exactly
Matt Dovey
Pretending it’s what mediaeval times were like
Jen R Albert
Graeme is, Graeme is so well read too and is such a fan of all of us. So it was amazing to work with him because he just knows the history and he knows so much she knew so many stories and so many authors and things that I had never heard of, and
Matt Dovey
He is very erudite. He was trying to downplay himself and say he’s been a pale shadow of Al without which I mean, everybody has pale shadow of Alasdair.
Jen R Albert
*laughs* No. I can, agree with that
Matt Dovey
But Graham is really sort of really well read really intelligent and insightful as well. And yeah, I think he doesn’t give himself the credit necessarily.
Jen R Albert
Oh, my gosh, no. Graham has really, really interesting insights into all the stuff that we worked on together. I didn’t work with him for like, yeah, about half a year, I think but
Matt Dovey
Six months. Yeah.
Jen R Albert
Yeah,
Matt Dovey
It’s interesting. The castle itself changed a lot during those years. To, like you said, I think when you took over we were still just about semi pro. And we switched over to pro when it was
Jen R Albert
Almost exactly when I took over
Matt Dovey
and it sort of, you know, the end of your reign kind of coincided with we’d had a World Fantasy nominaton. We’ve got the first Hugo nomination. We were slowly getting to those, like the really big awards nomination. So it’s it’s a big old trajectory that we were sort of on during that time, but what sort of changing decision do you think made that impact during your time?
Jen R Albert
I think I think it really coincided with Al and Marguerites takeover of Escape Artists and growing of Escape Artists as a whole. And they’re very clear leadership and, and the way that they sort of ran the company and expanded the company in that time, I think it was that, and I also think it was just starting to publish more stories that were different stories that were more political, definitely paying Pro. And that was something that was very important to Al and Marguerite, as well, and to me, and Rachel and Graham and Kaalidah when we started that. And so yeah, more political stories, diverse stories, things that were hard hitting, things that people hadn’t encountered before. Things that made people mad, but that were really empowering and empowering voices that weren’t heard in the industry, especially at the time when we didn’t have Fiyah. We didn’t have a lot of the feminist projects that have happened since. Since then. People were ready for it, you know? And yeah, just those different things. And Cherae and when Kaalidah was leaving, we wanted to be very, we wanted to find the right person, as my co editor and C. L. Clark was just amazing and so shockingly willing to step into the role even though like her career was taking off or about to take off and all this kind of stuff too. And then Cherae and I were put a lot of thought into who would be our successors as well, and they’ve carried forward beautifully. I love what Shingai and Eleanor are doing.
Matt Dovey
Yes! Honestly, it’s been such a relief these last few months sort of still get the awards nominations for like our first full year in charge as the grownups and realise we haven’t crashed the castle. Because it’s yeah, it’s been a bit nervy at times it, maybe tell you after this…
Jen R Albert
*Laughs*
Matt Dovey
I’ve completely I’ve ADHD and completely lost the line of thought I was going with there, as happens.
Jen R Albert
I hear ya
Matt Dovey
It’s exhausting sometimes. Yeah Cherae is a very sort of conscious and aware person I find, sort of they really think about the impact of history and their impact on the world and they’re place in it and I feel and they’re very, you know, they don’t just take the perceived story of history or whatever. They really examine it. They don’t take anything. For granted
Jen R Albert
Exactly yeah
Matt Dovey
They’re always looking at it.
Jen R Albert
Yeah.
Matt Dovey
And that really comes through in that
Jen R Albert
That sort of detail where, Yeah, it comes through in their picks and comes through in the writing and all of that.
Matt Dovey
Yeah, Yeah, definitely. And like you say Kaalidah as well as you know, some who through her real-life circumstances also has no tolerance for that bullshit either. And it’s very
Jen R Albert
Her children are adults, works in oncology like just, has seen has seen the breath of life and…and
Matt Dovey
Is angry at it a lot of the time.
Jen R Albert
And is angry at it.
Matt Dovey
And wants to make it better and you always got a sense a real drive from Kaalidah that this will, could and should be better.
Jen R Albert
She really sees the injustice, yeah.
Matt Dovey
What surprised you about editing a podcast that you didn’t expect going in. Except that you know, this was actually the career you wanted. I mean, that must have been a surprise.
Jen R Albert
It was a surprise like I was an entomologist at that time. And I love editing I went into like slush writing kind of because I was trying out writing I was doing some writing things and there that’s that’s the standard advice right? Slush read if you’re gonna write, so I was like, I went to Uncanny, I went to Podcastle but I found my kind of calling. I loved, I loved from the outset kind of working on other people’s stories, boosting their voices, bringing their dreams and visions to life. I’ve always been, we were talking about RPGs earlier like, I’ve always been the kind of the healer, the support character, the buffer, you know, and so that’s, that’s editing is the real-life version of that. And that’s kind of what I realised I could.
Matt Dovey
A Word Cleric
Jen R Albert
Yeah, I get paid to do this, not paid super well, because publishing is not lucrative, as we all know, but, but it’s I’m not also you know, gunning to make the most money in my life. I want to have a job that I love and that I do.
Matt Dovey
Good. That’s nice. Um, what lessons from editing at Podcastle have you sort of carried forward into that sort of role at ECW. Now then, I’m gonna guess all of it effectively then Jen
Jen R Albert
So much of it Yeah, budgeting, contracts like Marguerite is a current or contract… man… like knows everything because of her, you know, her actual job. So learning so much about that sort of thing. And but mostly just getting into stories and pulling them apart and, and working with the author to bring about their vision of the story in the way that works best. It’s, it’s like, and how to do it compassionately, and how to do it well and make the author feel like things are going well and improving and… editing I find is an exercise in empathy. You have to intimately understand what the author is trying to do, what they want to accomplish and help them do it without imposing your own vision or ego. And, and I developed all those skills for the first time at Podcastle.
Matt Dovey
In a sense, you, your job as an editor is to help the author get out of their own way not to put yourself further in the way
Jen R Albert
Pretty much Yeah, exactly, like it doesn’t it just shouldn’t be a combat I mean, sometimes it might be get a little heated or whatever but it doesn’t, it’s not a combative relationship like it is the authors vision and if you as the editor are taking on that story. You’re trying to realise that vision and you sort of need to be in line with it. You know what I mean? It’s, it’s not you’re not pushing it in the way that you see is best you’re trying to
Matt Dovey
You are not a co-author, you are an editor of things
Jen R Albert
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I’m sorry. Also community. I wanted to like, call out. That’s one thing I really got into podcasting because I go to conventions and I like sit in the corner. I don’t talk to people. I’m shy, but like, I met so many people at Escape Artists, and that just sort of opened a lot of doors for me that I that are still open and there’s a lot of people that I know like yourself included. And a lot of people were my friends who I still kind of work with in a different capacity.
Matt Dovey
It’s that instinct convention family, isn’t it when you just see someone else you just know, you just know their at Escape Artists as well. It’s just enough in common and generally speaking the people who are willing to give so much of their time to make these castles fly and spaceships soar or whatever. Because it’s yeah, it’s a lot of hours go into doing all this. How many hours a week do you reckon you were putting in sort of co-editing Podcastle?
Jen R Albert
Oh jeez, It definitely depended on a week
Matt Dovey
on top of?
Jen R Albert
Yeah, on top of job and life and all those things. Like at least 10 There’s a lot of reading there’s a lot of as a co-editor you know you are editing, you’re not editing every story because we do love reprints. Like Podcastle has always done reprints but yeah, you’re doing you’re doing narrator coordination, you’re listening to the episodes you’re, you’re trying to just sort of pull everything together and I did probably like 10 hours a week. If I if I wasn’t narrator or doing anything else, which I did a lot of that as well.
Matt Dovey
From the outside it’s easy to just look and go like, Well the editor just like picks the stories. And then like, maybe, oh, you’ve used this word twice in a paragraph here. We’ll switch it for that or whatever. But there’s so much more involved in just keeping the damn thing going
Jen R Albert
There’s so many steps after the picking of the story.
Matt Dovey
Oh god yeah, Finding the right narrator, getting the contract sorted, getting the bios in, working out the order on the schedule. Dealing with the award stuff, which I mean, it was always
Jen R Albert
Yeah,
Matt Dovey
A privilige to get the awards but then you’ve got to have a voter packet’ and
Jen R Albert
There’s a lot to do for the awards
Matt Dovey
And the story selection
Jen R Albert
Yeah. And you have to do social media work and you have to you know, all the announcements and that kind of thing we often would like co-editors host. I didn’t host so much because I was the person who did not want to. Sufficient that you and Summer and everyone else who were really fabulously during that. But sometimes I did and sometimes I narrated and that kind of subjects to this, you know, there are a lot of little things to the job.
Matt Dovey
But that’s why assistant editors exist. I feel like assistant editor really a thankless job because it’s it’s not got the glory of like co-editor but it keeps the whole thing running without. Without an assistant editor it crumbles.
Jen R Albert
Yeah, necessary assistant editors were extremely key.
Matt Dovey
Yeah, as well as herding all the slush readers, which is not necessarily easy. We are fundamentally lazy and disinterested creatures who need whipping into shape. “You know the piles open get in there! then dive in. ‘Oh yeah alright fine’…Yeah, are there any other sort of highlights of your sort of time anything that’s really…I’m gonna guess awards noms must be a real like high point before
Jen R Albert
Certainly Yeah. Me like meeting Summer and Kaalidah for the first time at the World Fantasy Awards, that was amazing. And so many other people – like meeting Al and Marguerite for the first time in Ireland a couple of years ago, when we had our first Hugo nomination. A lot of just so much of the community stuff stands out to me really well and I, a lot of the stories as well, just wonderful.
Matt Dovey
I mean, feel free to throw a few suggestions out
Jen R Albert
There’s so many!
Matt Dovey
If there are any off the top of your head!
Jen R Albert
I guess I should have, well, also like recommend all of the ones that I was in there for
Matt Dovey
Just go back and spend like …the next six moths listening to five years worth of the archive, go on! Do it!
Jen R Albert
You asked me to pick one? Like oh, what is the most like emblematic one I can’t, what represents the rest of it? And that was like a really hard choice.
Matt Dovey
Yeah, I’ll bet, I mean, some people only have like a year or eighteen months to pick from you have five whole years. What’s it going to be 250 Stories?
Jen R Albert
Every week for five years, Yeah. Oh, Jeez
Matt Dovey
This episode will be episode 803.
Jen R Albert
Oh my gosh. Wow.
Matt Dovey
I remember listening to Episode 200 Back in the day going what an achievement. 200 episodes blimey!
Jen R Albert
And your first episode of Podcastle what episode was that? Because I was about my very first behind the scenes editorial.
Matt Dovey
My first Story one?
Jen R Albert
Your first story Squalor and Sympathy
Matt Dovey
Yeah, it was Graeme’s pick, which was an awkward conversation. Let me tell you, I think it’s about 467 I think
Jen R Albert
Okay. That’s about when I came in. So yeah. Wow.
Matt Dovey
Well, that leads us nicely on to a question I’ve been burning to ask since we started these interviews because you were the person who invited me to join Podcastle. I don’t know what the bloody hell I’m doing why did you ask me?
Jen R Albert
So we had sort of worked together. I so I wasn’t really an assistant editor, but I was kind of helping with the assistant editing stuff at that time, because we already knew that I was going to be in several months co-editor and I was helping Grraeme and Kallidah and Rachel. And so that was also, what was one of the stories that me and Graham and Rachel sort of all picked together. It was in that pool, so I was aware of you and we were kind of working together on I think I was doing contracts at the time or something like that. So
Matt Dovey
Because we had a lot of fun with the ridiculously titled story didn’t we? I’m gonna have to look up I can never remember the title:
Jen R Albert
Oh my god what?!
Matt Dovey
The Coruscating Queen.
Jen R Albert
Oh yes. Oh my goodness.
Matt Dovey
Because that one, you’ll Just have to give me a moment to find as it’ll be on my website
Jen R Albert
That it’s very long.
Matt Dovey
Yeah.It is. I remember before Twitter raise the character limit you couldn’t actually fit this whole title in one tweet
Jen R Albert
Nope!
Matt Dovey
How I Became Coruscating Queen of All the Realms, Pierced the Obsidian Night, Destroyed a Legendary Sword, and Saved My Heart’s True Love
Jen R Albert
Absolutely.
Matt Dovey
Stuart and I had written that and we had sold it to you as a reprint before the anthology had come out, and then The anthology got delayed for about a year or two ago. You kept going Hey, can we print this yet? NO!
Jen R Albert
Yeah. So we had already talked about that story as well. So yeah, and Rachel and you had done a the writer of the future sort of workshop together? I think so Rachel was like Matt is the best solid, interested in community, really has a good eye for stories and all that kind of stuff. And we need great team members. So, so that’s how I ended up reaching out to you it was like a recommendation.
Matt Dovey
I’ve never had the courage to actually ask. I’ve never known. I kind of assumed because I think it was it was after I’d sold Squalor and Sympathy and Coruscating Queen and they had been sold in like a matter of weeks. I think it might even have been the same day.
Jen R Albert
I think they were in the same group that me and Rachel and Graham sort of were looking at all together as co-editors
Matt Dovey
The acceptances would go out in batches don’t they? So you’d sat down and come to the decision and I got both of them on the same day. Sold two stories to one market in one day
Jen R Albert
Yeah, I forgot they’re both in the same thing because the other one came much later. Oh, that’s so funny.
Matt Dovey
So Squalor and Sympathy was 427. Then Coruscating Queen ended up being 467 So about 9 or 10 months later because it just took so long to come out in the anthology first before we could actually then run it. I remember selling that one to you and that is going to be brilliant it’ll pretty, pretty good in audio. And then the questionnaire came through with ‘Please can you now give us pronunciations for all the words in this’ and it’s got the sword name that hasn’t got any vowels in it
Jen R Albert
*Laughs* The name of the Sword!
Matt Dovey
I don’t really know how you pronounce that. Your guess is as good as mine.
Jen R Albert
Oh, my God that was so funny.
Matt Dovey
I’ve completely ripped off Lissandra for one of my D&D characters now actually I’m playing her as a hex blade Warlock in a game as well now.
Jen R Albert
That’s Perfect
Matt Dovey
She’s just a very fun character. Excellent. Well, there we go. And it’s and then yeah, because you asked me to do the social media as well. And that was
Jen R Albert
Yeah,
Matt Dovey
I looked back on when I started doing that.
Jen R Albert
You were so good at it!
Matt Dovey
I’ve kind of hit my limit. These with Twitter being in the status and now I think I finally got to the end of my ability to do that. I think yeah, but it was about Yeah, so 469 was the first one I’ve got the graphic for. So it was about then when I started posting. That’s about sort of 2016-2017 then so that was six years of doing that as well. Oh God. I’m sorry I’m here going on “And you were here forever. How did you stick out?” and I’ve been here seven years
Jen R Albert
Yeah almost as long! Well pretty much yeah, yeah. I started almost, like I was a slush reader before that. I wasn’t associated for a while before that, but yeah.
Matt Dovey
And here I am the idiot talking in front of the story every week. Good grief!
Jen R Albert
I love it.
Matt Dovey
It’s weird, because Eleanor, obviously co-editor now. She and I were in Kritis together in life, you know, Crystal Wade sort of exchange feedback, I think both starry eyed little baby writers dreaming of publication one day and everything and then
Jen R Albert
I think you’re the one that recommended that we take on Eleanor
Matt Dovey
Yeah because I think I was ‘slush readings teaching me so much. It’s amazing you should get involved’ and I think she was gonna go for a Cast of Wonders one. First, but then it didn’t quite work out at the time and then we opened and I as like Yes! Get her in! She was copy editor for you for quite a while Wasn’t she? Before then you sort of asked her to be your, your drop in replacement which you know, I think is working out well. We’re still getting the awards nominations you know, getting the WFA nom for the original edited story as well clearly. going okay. Yeah, exciting.
Jen R Albert
So many nominations so exciting,
Matt Dovey
As well. I mean, you know, you’ve got us there first it was because when was the WFA was before the Hugo wasn’t it? Think because this is a third year? No, in fact, the Hugo close to three.
Jen R Albert
Yeah. So we have the WFA in 2018. I think we had a nomination then. Yeah. 18 or 19.
Matt Dovey
And then, was it I think Dublin was before our first year, wasn’t it?
Jen R Albert
No, I think that was our first. I think it was maybe No, no, no, no, it was the year after you’re right. You’re right.
Matt Dovey
I know Shimmer was on because I campaigned for Shimmer to finally get recognition on the ballot because it was just closing down in Dublin.
Jen R Albert
Right? Yes. So it was the year after
Matt Dovey
So it was the year after then. Because we’ve obviously both there as well. If Podcastle had been on the thing I think I think we’d have remembered if it probably was
Jen R Albert
We would have remembered
Matt Dovey
You’d hope! Mind you, there was a lot of Guiness at that afterparty, so maybe not.
Jen R Albert
Oh, my goodness.
Matt Dovey
Right, So, we’ve got five minutes left: Shill us on everything you’re working on at ECW press. Tell us all the amazing books you’ve got coming out on ECW press.
Jen R Albert
I do have a lot of amazing book
Matt Dovey
Sell us on ECW Press and you’re fantastic stories.
Jen R Albert
There will be a lot of familiar names. So the one I’m working on edits for Premee Muhammad second novella We Sleep Through the Mountain which is a follow up to The Annual Migration of Clouds. It has an incredible cover
Matt Dovey
Beautiful all vibes and everything.
Jen R Albert
Exactly right. So the second one is like that as well, and it follows the story of Red and I’ve also right now working on an edit. I’m just about to start an edit for Susan Colombo’s first novella, super honoured to be the editor of that it’s called Count Us it is a queer Caribbean Count of Monte Cristo set in space, which is the best pitch I’ve ever heard in my life.
Matt Dovey
Holy shit. And from Susan Palumbo, as well.
Jen R Albert
From Susan Palumbo, like it cannot get any better than that
Matt Dovey
I am genuinely into the immediate convert and you will be for sanitising this book on that basis alone. definitely
Jen R Albert
This is late next year. So be, and then I have heard about novels from Ben Rutnam who wrote helped me which is on the World Fantasy as well this year and into Wilmot shortly and I also have a literary speculative collection by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia who is a newcomer and an outrageous talent. The book that’s coming in a couple of months is called the girl who cried diamonds and other stories. It’s a it’s a short story collection and then she has a novel about a year after that. Which is literary and speculative. Yeah, these are this is my list. I’ve sort of like launched my list of ECW with all of those like still with a star-studded cast and Andrew F Sullivan’s The Miracle just came out to great acclaim it is kind of everywhere, as well.
Matt Dovey
I’ve got to say the covers you get at ECW are just stunning as well. I mean The One that Premee had for Annual Migration. I mean, that is a tattoo in the making if ever.
Jen R Albert
It is so beautiful. Veronica Park is our artist for that, and is just, just like check out her Instagram and everything. I cannot tell you what an incredible artist she is. Such attention to detail.
Matt Dovey
I think it is, oftentimes in sort of big publishers, if you’re lucky, and you’re the chosen one, You get that kind of care and attention, but oftentimes it can be a bit shush now, we’re busy, busy the [couldn’t make out] book or whatever. But somewhere like ECW, every book is really important that you really
Jen R Albert
Yes! and we really do have like we had meetings with the artists and with Premee and with me and the person who does all the covers in ECW. Like that sort of directs it. And to talk about the book and to talk about that vision and that kind of thing. It wasn’t just like, Oh, here’s your cover. There you go. It’s we’re very much involve the author in that kind of process. And we did that with all of the authors. A lot of these books don’t quite have covers yet. Like we don’t have a cover for Countess yet but it’s gonna be awesome hopefully
Matt Dovey
That level of care does sort of show through because it is so emblematic of the story as well. Just you can tell it’s not just been dashed off.
Jen R Albert
It’s beautiful!
Matt Dovey
A lot of thought has gone into it. Are you still involved in Ephemera as well. The reading series?
Jen R Albert
Yeah, so we do the third, third Wednesday of every month. There is an hour long reading series called Ephemera that me and Katie Swirsky? do and it’s just all your favourite people around the world. Reading speculative fiction that’s great.
Matt Dovey
Anything else or is that enough time in your day soaked up because that sounds pretty busy!
Jen R Albert
That’s enough time! I have an idea another? Yeah, I do. Another reading series as well to political to Toronto, and I’m trying to sort of sort of backup and take space for myself.
Matt Dovey
Yeah, Probably a good idea at some point. Burn out is no fun. I promise you. Don’t go there.
Jen R Albert
No, No, I really kind of get in there and meet you. Need to fix that a little bit. But I’m on you know,
Matt Dovey
You can’t get from an empty tank.
Jen R Albert
It’s a big it’s a big job. Yeah, like there’s a lot of reading there’s a lot of after-hours reading and that kind of stuff that I’m doing and, and so a lot of my, my time is taken up at work and a lot of my social life is work as well. I’m married to a writer. So my entire social life is writers and editors and publishing people and…*laughs*
Matt Dovey
I feel like publishing probably slightly takes advantage of people’s passion in this regard doesn’t it?
Jen R Albert
A little bit. Pretty much all the arts do. We have good funding for arts in Canada. I can’t complain too much because it definitely worse in other places, but, but any artistic endeavour video games, obviously, television with all the strikes and everything like, just seems to take complete advantage of creators and people who want to live and work in Creative Industries. And, and frankly we don’t charge enough for art, you know, apparently AI’s can just make it all now. So why would we charge anything? Yeah.
Matt Dovey
Yeah, I’m not convinced they can but unfortunately we are not in charge of the money. The people in charge are the capitalists who don’t actually seem to understand creativity.
Jen R Albert
Yeah,
Matt Dovey
I have a theory that the reason copyright law is so screwed down is because the people kind of with the drive to push it are the capital owners don’t actually have that creative urge and so don’t understand that it is an infinite resource. And you can just keep making more new things. No, it is this precious rare thing that must be guarded and protected. No just keep making more! Big melting pot! Big bowl of gumbo. Just checking it out, see what comes out. But yeah, anyway, we are very shortly about to run out of time. So I think I need to leave it there and where’s ECW press out so people can find you?
Jen R Albert
ECW press.com. And there’s a submissions page there. I am actually open to Canadian submissions of fiction at all times. So email me if you have and that’s for novellas and for novels.
Matt Dovey
Excellent Stuff! Well, thank you so much for coming back on.
Jen R Albert
I’ve missed you!
Matt Dovey
It’s been ages! I’ve not seen you probably since Dublin. Seeing you in person.
Jen R Albert
Yeah,
Yeah I haven’t spoken to you in a good year or 18 months. So it’s been really good. I’ve really enjoyed having you back on. Thank you very much.
Jen R Albert
Thank you! Bye!
About the Author
Natalia Theodoridou

Natalia Theodoridou is a queer immigrant writer and editor, the winner of the 2018 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction, and a Clarion West graduate (class of 2018). Natalia’s stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nightmare, Fireside, and elsewhere. Rent-a-Vice, Natalia’s first interactive novel for Choice of Games, was a finalist for the inaugural Nebula Award for Game Writing.
About the Narrators
Peter Adrian Behravesh

Tina Connolly

Tina Connolly’s books include the Ironskin and Seriously Wicked series, and the collection On the Eyeball Floor. She has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Norton, and World Fantasy awards. She co-hosts Escape Pod, runs Toasted Cake, and is at tinaconnolly.com.
Jen R. Albert

Jen Albert is an editor, writer, and former entomologist. She works full-time as an editor at ECW Press, an independent publishing house based in Toronto, where she enjoys working on books of all kinds, including speculative fiction, popular science, and LGBTQ fiction and non-fiction. She became co-editor of her favorite fantasy fiction podcast in 2016; she now wonders if she still allowed to call it her favorite. Along with her co-editors, Jen has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award for her work on PodCastle.
