Craftwork – Details, episodes & analysis

In this interview, we chat with Nour Abi-Nakhoul about copy editing, creative nonfiction, feverish creations, and so much more.

Nour Abi-Nakhoul is a writer and editor based in Montreal. She is the editor-in-chief of the award-winning quarterly Maisonneuve Magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in Hazlitt and The Walrus. Her debut novel, Supplication, was released by Penguin Random House in 2024.

Books mentioned in this episode: 

• Kilworthy Tanner – Jean Marc Ah-Sen
• We Are Here to Hurt Each Other – Paula D. Ashe
• Giovanni's Room – James Baldwin
• The Guest – Emma Cline
• The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Autobiography of X; Pew – Catherine Lacey
• The Apple in the Dark – Clarice Lispector
• Fever Dream – Samanta Schweblin
• The Adventures of Ratman – Ellen Weiss

In this interview, we chat with Kathe Koja about balancing simultaneous projects, resisting online distractions, raising the literary dead, and so much more.

Kathe Koja writes novels and short fiction, and creates and produces live and virtual events. Her award-winning books include The Cipher, Skin, Buddha Boy, Under The Poppy and Velocities, and she is currently at work on the Dark Factory immersive fiction project including Dark Factory, Dark Park and Dark Matter. Catherine the Ghost is her newest novel.

You can find her at kathekoja.com and on Instagram, Facebook and Threads.

Books and plays mentioned in this episode: 

• Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
• Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life – Ruth Franklin
• Faust – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• The Mouse and His Child; Riddley Walker – Russell Hoban
• The Default World – Naomi Kanakia
• A Place of Greater Safety; Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
• Doctor Faustus – Christopher Marlowe
• Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett – James Knowlson
• Rimbaud: A Biography – Graham Robb
• Frankenstein; The Last Man – Mary Shelley
• Lost Boy Lost Girl – Peter Straub
• The Secret Power of Music: The Transformation of Self and Society through Musical Energy – David Tame

In this interview, we chat with Lindsay Lerman about philosophy, procedural knowledge, writing dialogue, and so much more.

Lindsay Lerman is a writer and translator. Her first book, I'm From Nowhere, was published in 2019. Her second book, What Are You, was published in 2022. Her first translation was published in 2023. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. She is working on a novel, a philosophy manuscript, and here and there, some screenplays. She lives in Berlin. 

Books mentioned in this episode:

• Gothic Metaphysics: From Alchemy to the Anthropocene – Jodey Castricano
• James and the Giant Peach; The BFG; Matilda – Roald Dahl
• Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
• Memories, Dreams, Reflections – C. G. Jung
• The Cipher – Kathe Koja
• The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Seventh Mansion – Maryse Meijer

In this interview, we chat with William Ping about historical fiction, hauntology, Animal Crossing, and so much more.

William Ping is a novelist and journalist, born and raised in St. John’s. His debut novel Hollow Bamboo was published by HarperCollins in 2023 and was shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the BMO Winterset Award, and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award as well as being longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. He has previously been published in ‘Us, Now,’ Hard Ticket and Riddle Fence. William is also known for his contributions to CBC News, where he can most often be heard reading the news. 

Books mentioned in this episode:

• Waiting for Godot; Molloy; Malone Dies; The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
• Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
• Death on the Ice: The Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914 – Cassie Brown and Harold Horwood
• The King in Yellow – Robert W. Chambers
• The Wapshot Chronicle – John Cheever 
• Trust Exercise – Susan Choi
• A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
• Less Than Zero; American Psycho; Imperial Bedrooms – Bret Easton Ellis
• The Beautiful and Damned; The Great Gatsby; Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald 
• Open – Lisa Moore
• Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
• Animal Farm – George Orwell
• Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different – Chuck Palahniuk
• Son of a Trickster – Eden Robinson 
• The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
• Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio – Pu Songling

In this interview, we chat with Randy Nikkel Schroeder about noir, character possession, Biblical frisson, and so much more.

Randy Nikkel Schroeder is the author of Arctic Smoke (NeWest), Crooked Timber: Seven Suburban Faerie Tales (Green Magpie), and over fifty published short stories. In his spare time, he is professor of English, Languages, and Cultures at Mount Royal University.

Books mentioned in this episode:

• Queenpin; The Turnout; You Will Know Me – Megan Abbott
• Poetics – Aristotle
• Book of Greek Myths – Ingri d'Aulaire & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire
• Save the Cat! Writes a Novel – Jessica Brody
• Dave Robicheaux novels – James Lee Burke
• The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know – Shawn Coyne
• Neuromancer – William Gibson
• Attack of the Copula Spiders and Other Essays on Writing – Douglas Glover
• Red Dragon – Thomas Harris
• Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
• The Lottery and Other Stories – Shirley Jackson
• Rose Madder – Stephen King
• Mystic River – Dennis Lehane
• The Magician's Nephew – C. S. Lewis
• Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage, and Screen – Robert McKee
• Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different – Chuck Palahniuk
• Gravity's Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
• Old Testament – Various authors

In this interview, we chat with Meghan Kemp-Gee about poetry, screenwriting, comics, and so much more.

Meghan Kemp-Gee is the author of The Animal in the Room (Coach House Books, 2023), as well as three poetry chapbooks, What I Meant to Ask, Things to Buy in New Brunswick, and More. She also co-created the webcomic Contested Strip, recently adapted as a graphic novel, One More Year. She is a PhD candidate at UNB and currently lives in North Vancouver BC.

Books mentioned in this episode:

• The Artist's Way – Julia Cameron
• 20th Century Men – Deniz Camp, Stipan Morian, & Aditya Bidikar
• The Adversary – Michael Crummey
• Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
• Walden – Henry David Thoreau
• The Writing Moment: A Practical Guide to Creating Poems – Daniel Scott Tysdal

Welcome to Craftwork: a podcast by writers for writers co-hosted by Mike Thorn and Miriam Richer.

We created Craftwork to address questions that frequently come up in our own writing practices. Questions such as: What makes for a compelling read? Do you believe in writer’s block? What’s a piece of writing advice that really stuck with you? 

In the following weeks, we’ll bring on guests and delve into topics including creative influence, thematic fixations, and the mechanics of writing across all narrative genres. We hope these conversations will benefit writers and people interested in writing. 

We’ll be releasing a new episode every month or so. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter, and subscribe to us here on Spotify.

Thanks for listening! 

Music by Randy Nikkel Schroeder

In this interview, we chat with Paula D. Ashe about writer's block, narrative movement, urban legends, and so much more.

Paula D. Ashe (she/her) is an author of dark fiction. Her debut collection We Are Here to Hurt Each Other (Nictitating Books) was a Shirley Jackson Award winner for Single Author Collection and a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. Recently, she received the Joseph S. Pulver Sr. Weird Fiction Award at NecronomiCon Providence. Paula was also an associate editor for Vastarien: A Literary Journal. She lives in the Midwest with her family.

Books and stories mentioned in this episode: 

• Supplication – Nour Abi-Nakhoul
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• Books of Blood; The Damnation Game; The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker
• Midnight Rooms – Donyae Coles
• Blood from the Air – Gemma Files
• “each thing i show you is a piece of my death” – Gemma Files & Stephen J. Barringer
• Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke – Eric LaRocca
• “Abed” – Elizabeth Massie
• The Scar – China Miéville
• Beloved; The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
• Song of the Tyrant Worm – Hailey Piper
• Flowers for the Sea – Zin E. Rocklyn
• Cows – Matthew Stokoe
• The Secret History – Donna Tartt
• The Color Purple – Alice Walker
• Where I End – Sophie White

In this interview, we chat with McKenna James Boeckner and Carlee Calver about nature writing, epistolary possibilities, elusive chicken detectives, and so much more.

McKenna James Boeckner is a Ph.D. candidate and contract lecturer at the University of New Brunswick (territory of the Wolastoqiyik people), with a specialization in long eighteenth-century British literature. As a creative writer, they slay with playwriting and have a penchant for fractured states of reality. Their most recent project is an eco-horror audio drama co-created with Carlee Calver, titled Us Soliscent Seeds. Find more of their work at memoirsofasodomite.com

Carlee Calver is a writer, playwright, and filmmaker from Bathurst, New Brunswick. She currently lives and works in Fredericton NB, where she received her M.A. in creative writing (screenwriting) from the University of New Brunswick. Her plays have been produced by Notable Acts Theatre Festival (2019) and Herbert the Cow productions (2022). She directed a FibeTV1 series called Skin and Bone (2023) that is now available online. Recently, Carlee was co-creator and producer of Us Soliscent Seeds (2023), a 4-part eco-horror audio drama set in Northern New Brunswick. All episodes are now available for streaming online.

Books mentioned in this episode:

• We Are Here to Hurt Each Other – Paula D. Ashe
• Carrie – Stephen King
• Blue Ruin; Red Pill – Hari Kunzru
• Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Maturin
• The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• Divergent series – Veronica Roth
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona – William Shakespeare
• Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
• Dracula – Bram Stoker

In this interview, we chat with Lisa Tuttle about genre history, the ideal protagonist, Harlan Ellison's writing advice, and so much more.

Lisa Tuttle was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and moved to Britain in the 1980s. Her first novel, Windhaven, co-written with George R.R. Martin, was followed by over a dozen fantasy, science fiction, and horror novels, including three recent books set in the 1890s combining crime and supernatural fiction, featuring the detective duo Jasper Jesperson and Miss Lane; the third volume, The Curious Affair of the Missing Mummies, was published last year. She has also written hundreds of award-winning short stories collected in several volumes, including A Nest of Nightmares, The Dead Hours of the Night, and most recently, Riding the Nightmare. She is the author of The Encyclopedia of Feminism (1986) and currently writes a monthly science fiction review column for The Guardian. She lives with her husband and their daughter in Scotland.

Book and stories mentioned in this episode:

• The Saint of Bright Doors – Vajra Chandrasekera
• Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life – Ruth Franklin
• Hangsaman; The Haunting of Hill House; “The Lottery” – Shirley Jackson
• The MANIAC; When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamín Labatut
• Biography of X – Catherine Lacey
• The Seventh Mansion – Maryse Meijer
• Babysitter; By the North Gate; They; The Wheel of Love – Joyce Carol Oates
• The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• Lake of Darkness – Adam Roberts
• Cryptonomicon; Polostan – Neal Stephenson