On this 25th episode of The Science Fiction & Fantasy podcast, host Mookie Spitz sits down with C.S.E. Cooney for a lively conversation about her Saint Death series—and the living, breathing speculative-fiction community that shaped it.
Cooney is a 20+-year veteran of the genre: poetry, short fiction, audio narration, conventions, small presses, writing groups, and editorial volleys. Her career was forged inside the ecosystem that still defines serious science fiction and fantasy, and is part of the human storytelling carried by magazines, anthologies, awards, and communities rather than algorithms.
Claire maps that ecosystem from the inside:
• the enduring influence of publications like Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld Magazine, Apex Magazine, and Locus Magazine
• how short fiction, audio venues, and anthologies still function as talent engines
• why conventions and writing groups matter more than “networking”
• how awards like the World Fantasy Awards actually work from the judging side
Against that backdrop, Cooney breaks down her own work, especially Saint Death’s Daughter and Saint Death’s Herald—as an argument against fantasy’s tropes and baseline assumptions. Her protagonist, Lanie Stones, can't solve problems through violence. Instead, the books explore death as labor, power as responsibility, disability as a permanent condition, and morality under pressure.
Claire also lays out her approach to writing, bluntly and without sentimentality:
• voice and character come before plot
• revision is where the real writing happens
• joy is central optional, and a survival strategy
• community sustains careers, not lone genius myths
• lowering expectations (not raising them) can unlock productivity
• the sentence has to sound right—mouthfeel matters
The conversation expands further into publishing realities, burnout, editorial battles worth fighting, and Cooney’s unfiltered critique of generative AI as a threat to already-fragile magazines, and as a cultural shortcut that undermines the struggle at the heart of art.
Mookie and Claire's chat is less about selling a book and more about how science fiction and fantasy actually function as a culture—who carries it forward, how writers grow inside it, and why the field still matters.
The Guest
C. S. E. Cooney (she/her) is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: for novel Saint Death’s Daughter, and collection Bone Swans, Stories. Other work includes Saint Death’s Herald (second in the Saint Death Series), The Twice-Drowned Saint, Dark Breakers, and Desdemona and the Deep. As a voice actor and proud member of SAG-AFTRA, Cooney has narrated over 130 audiobooks, as well as short fiction for podcasts like Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Tales to Terrify, and Podcastle. In March 2023, she produced her collaborative sci-fi musical, Ballads from a Distant Star, at New York City’s Arts on Site. With her husband, writer and game-designer Carlos Hernandez, she co-designed a GM-less TTRPG called, Negocios Infernales, Find her website and Substack newlsetter via her Linktree or try “csecooney” on various social media platforms.
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