Last week I spent an enjoyable hour being interviewedby Susan Marie Groppi for Strange Horizons‘ podcast. Susan was my editor for “Bound Man,” in Twenty Epics and also “Portrait of Ari” for Strange Horizons.
In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Susan Marie Groppi spoke with Mary Robinette Kowal. Mary is a puppeteer and writer, and she is also the art director of Shimmer magazine.
Edited to add: I was just listening to this to make sure I didn’t sound like an idiot. Which I mostly don’t, until I try to speak a little Icelandic. In fact, I talk about Iceland a bit and figured I would throw some visual aids up here. If you’ve listened to the podcast and want to know what the Land of a Thousand Throw Pillows looks like, it looks like this.
See! I wasn’t exaggerating my description, was I.
Susan was a really gracious host to the podcast. The only thing she seems to have cut was my closing remark, which was something along the lines of “Strange Horizons is one of the best things going for short fiction.”
Are those peat haggs? I.e., mounds of living moss on top of compressed dead moss? Because it very much remoinds me of the landscape on a efw parts of the Peak District in the UK (Kinder Scout and Bleaklow) and I’d be interested to know if it’s the same mechanism of formation or just an intriguing coincidence.
You didn’t sound silly at all! And the only reason I cut that closing remark was that something had happened to the sound quality on the recording–the last few minutes of the interview started to sound like we were underwater or something. I had to use kind of a heavy hand with the editing, so I not only had to lose that lovely last comment of yours, but I also ended up making the whole end of the podcast very abrupt.
Thank you again, though, for doing the interview–I had a great time talking with you.
Brian, I have no idea. The living moss seems to be a good five inches deep and there’s lava under it, but I’m not sure if there’s dead moss in betwee.
Susan: I’m looking forward to meeting you in person now more than ever.
oh, very cool, will go give it a listen now. When did SH start adding podcasts?
The podcasts are relatively new–this was only our second interview. They don’t come out on any kind of a regular schedule, but I do have a great set of people who’ve agreed to be interviewed in the nearish future.
I’m supposed to be computer literate, but I can’t make the podcast play. Any hints?
Thanks -d- I AM computer illiterate and assumed it was just my limitation.
I’ve updated the page to include direct links to the MP3 files. Maybe that will help?
Whew. Thanks, Susan. I was trying to figure out how to explain XML feeds.
Thanks Susan, for the MP3 links.
Does anyone else who has listened to this podcast have trouble telling which one is Susan and which one is Mary? Mary’s laugh is unique, but their rhythm and voice and accent are incredibly similar.
I was stuck by that, and it’s my voice!