Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!

In this episode, Steve and Tananarive talk to Bram Stoker Award winner Stephen Graham Jones about his new book, DON'T FEAR THE REAPER, with the first Indigenous Final Girl, Jade Daniels. He shares his writing process, his love for slashers, his exploration of father-son relationships in his stories, and how his own personal promise to an elk he hunted gave birth to his bestselling novel The Only Good Indians.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hilliard Guess, host of the hit podcast "Screenwriters' Rant Room," joins Steve and Tananarive to talk about where things stand with the WGA strike after more than 100 days, power dynamics in Hollywood, and his stress-coping tools to overcome his insecurities to become a screenwriter, producer and director.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, pioneering science fiction author Steven Barnes and American Book Award winner Tananarive Due (your hosts!) break down the secrets to writing great horror: how to bring the scares and why strong characters matter so much in horror. Leave us a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/LifewritingPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2023, horror writer Gabino Iglesias, who is Puerto Rican, became the first Latino writer to win a Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel for THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME. Steve and Tananarive talk to Gabino about how his struggles with unemployment and losing his health insurance during COVID inspired him to finish his award-winning, why he loves horror, and what he's doing next! You can leave us a voicemail too! https://www.speakpipe.com/LifewritingPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve and Tananarive talk to New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo (Ninth House, Hell Bent, Shadow and Bone) on her incredible career: from jobs she didn't like to publishing her first book at 37 to getting her work adapted for Netflix...and beyond! Also tips for writers and how she keeps herself balanced.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Steve and Tananarive talk to their friend Nalo Hopkinson, the award-winning Afrofuturist author of novels like SKIN FOLK, MIDNIGHT ROBBER and BROWN GIRL IN THE RING, named a Damon Knight Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2020. She talks about overcoming homelessness, her journey in the arts, and transitioning to comics with Neil Gaiman. Also, how she copes with stress and uncertainty.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Steve and Tananarive celebrate their 25th anniversary! They also break down how to make characters "pop" and how writers can use character-building tools to make themselves the heroes and heroines of their own stories to create better lives. (Also: a human wrote this, not Artificial Intelligence. So you know it's mostly accurate. Mostly.)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode from March 27, 2022, Steve and Tananarive talk to writer Rodney Barnes (Executive Producer of "Winning Time: Rise of the Lakers Dynasty") about how Hollywood almost killed him and the steps he took to reclaim his joy and find his greatest voice as a writer. He also discusses his colorful history in Hollywood -- from being the stand-in for John Coffey in The Green Mile (when Stephen King recommended Tananarive's novel My Soul to Keep to him!) to writing and executive producing shows like "The Boondocks," "Everybody Hates Chris," "American Gods" and now "Winning Time"!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Steve and Tananarive expand their conversation about A.I. and writing to films and the future in general. Guest Robert Vamosi, a podcast host (The Hacker Mind), security analyst and science fiction writer, recalls his 1994 short story, "With or Without You," where he predicted a future of replacing actors digitally in filmmaking. A longtime friend of Tananarive's from college, Rob also talks about transitioning from technical writing back to fiction.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Steve and Tananarive talk to actor, writer and producer Kevin Grevioux about his career: how Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing showed him he wanted to be a screenwriter, how he broke into the industry as an extra, and then ended up writing (and co-starring in) the vampire cult classic Underworld. From comics to screenplays, he shares his survival story.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices