Craftwork

Miriam Richer, Mike Thorn

Co-hosted by Mike Thorn and Miriam Richer. Discussions between writers about all things related to craft, process, and technique.

  1. Braided Essays, Collective Solitude, & the Objective Correlative w/ Kasia Van Schaik

    2025-11-24

    Braided Essays, Collective Solitude, & the Objective Correlative w/ Kasia Van Schaik

    In this interview, we chat with Kasia Van Schaik about reverse outlining, asking "what if", sublimating emotion through landscape, and so much more.   Kasia Van Schaik is the author of the Giller Prize-nominated story collection We Have Never Lived on Earth and the forthcoming book of memoir and cultural criticism, Women Among Monuments. With Myra Bloom, she is the co-editor of the essay collection, Shelter in Text: Essays on Dwelling and Refuge. Kasia’s writing has appeared in Electric Literature, the LA Review of Books, Room, The Rumpus, the Best Canadian Poetry, and the CBC. Kasia holds a PhD in literature from McGill University and is assistant professor of English and co-director of Creative Writing at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, Wolastoqiyik territory.  Books mentioned in this episode:   Wuthering Heights — Emily Brontë  The Secret Garden — Frances Hodgson Burnett   Autobiography of Red — Anne Carson  Boyhood; Youth; Summertime — J. M. Coetzee  Outline; Transit; Kudos — Rachel Cusk  The Days of Abandonment; the Neapolitan Quartet — Elena Ferrante  "The Robber Bridegroom" — Brothers Grimm  Sweet Days of Discipline — Fleur Jaeggy  Lucy — Jamaica Kincaid  Her Body and Other Parties — Carmen Maria Machado  Housekeeping — Marilynne Robinson  Rings of Saturn — W. G. Sebald  Flights — Olga Tokarczuk

    1h 7m
  2. Dreaming in Fire, Working in Clay, & Reaching for Awe w/ Ramsey Campbell

    2025-10-19

    Dreaming in Fire, Working in Clay, & Reaching for Awe w/ Ramsey Campbell

    In this interview, we chat with Ramsey Campbell about the importance of tapping into creative instincts, the pleasure of happy accidents, the lingering impact of eerie children's tales, and so much more. The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Ramsey Campbell as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”, and the Washington Post sums up his work as “one of the monumental accomplishments of modern popular fiction”. His awards include the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2015 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University for outstanding services to literature. His latest novels are Fellstones, The Lonely Lands, The Incubations and An Echo of Children. His Brichester Mythos trilogy consists of The Searching Dead, Born to the Dark and The Way of the Worm. His collections include Waking Nightmares, Ghosts and Grisly Things, Told by the Dead, Just Behind You, Holes for Faces, By the Light of My Skull, Fearful Implications, and a two-volume retrospective roundup (Phantasmagorical Stories) as well as The Village Killings and Other Novellas. His non-fiction is collected as Ramsey Campbell, Probably and Ramsey Campbell, Certainly, while Ramsey’s Rambles collects his video reviews, and Six Stooges and Counting is a book-length study of the Three Stooges. Limericks of the Alarming and Phantasmal is a history of horror fiction in the form of fifty limericks. Books and stories mentioned in this episode: The Atrocity Exhibition – J. G. Ballard Great Short Stories of the World – Barrett H. Clark & Maxim Lieber, eds. "A Dark-Brown Dog"; The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane The Man Within – Graham Greene "The Residence at Whitminster" – M. R. James Rosemary's Baby; The Stepford Wives – Ira Levin Tales of Mean Streets – Arthur Morrison Lolita; Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov "The Telltale Heart" – Edgar Allan Poe At the Foot of the Story Tree: An Inquiry into the Fiction of Peter Straub – Bill SheehanGhost Story – Peter StraubThe Rupert Bear series – Herbert Tourtel & Mary Tourtel"Afterward" – Edith Wharton At Night, White Bracken; To Those from Below – Gareth Wood

    1h 12m
  3. Tonal Registers, Byzantine Journeys, & Repurposing Research w/ Michael LaPointe

    2025-09-22

    Tonal Registers, Byzantine Journeys, & Repurposing Research w/ Michael LaPointe

    In this interview, we chat with Michael LaPointe about navigating the pipeline between impulse and expression, breaking the genteel picture of literature, finding liberation in failure, and so much more. Michael LaPointe is the author of The Creep, a novel published by Random House Canada. He has written for The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and he was a columnist with The Paris Review. His work has been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories and Best Canadian Essays, and he lives in Toronto. Books mentioned in this episode: Affliction; Continental Drift; Rule of the Bone; The Sweet Hereafter – Russell Banks Naked Lunch – William S. Burroughs The Adventures of Pinocchio – Carlo Collodi Bleak House – Charles Dickens Play it as it Lays – Joan Didion The Lover – Marguerite Duras Middlemarch – George Eliot American Psycho; Less Than Zero; The Shards – Bret Easton Ellis Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert Bad Behavior; Two Girls, Fat and Thin – Mary Gaitskill In a Lonely Place – Dorothy B. Hughes Snow Country – Yasunari Kawabata Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination; Sula – Toni Morrison The Sorrow of War – Bảo Ninh Inherent Vice – Thomas Pynchon All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque Voyage in the Dark – Jean Rhys Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger Last Exit to Brooklyn – Hubert Selby Jr.  Alice James: A Biography – Jean Strouse The Invisible Woman: The Story Of Nelly Ternan And Charles Dickens – Claire Tomalin Rejection – Tony Tulathimutte Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton

    1h 8m
  4. Ghost Stories, Market Pressures, & Tapping into the Subconscious w/ Naben Ruthnum

    2025-07-11

    Ghost Stories, Market Pressures, & Tapping into the Subconscious w/ Naben Ruthnum

    In this interview, we chat with Naben Ruthnum about character development, avoiding TV-brained writing, making sense of first-reader notes, and so much more.  Naben Ruthnum is a Toronto-based writer of fiction, cultural criticism, film and TV. His novel A Hero of Our Time was released by Penguin Random House and was optioned for development by The Littlefield Company. His books include the YA novel The Grimmer, the World Fantasy Award-nominated horror novella Helpmeet and two thrillers penned as Nathan Ripley, both of which have been optioned for development and were published internationally. He has written for Canadian television series including Murdoch Mysteries and Cardinal. As a feature screenwriter, he’s collaborated with Kris Bertin for feature and TV projects in development at Oddfellows, BoulderLight Pictures, Automatik, Skybound, and Blink49. Kris and Naben's script Road Test made the 2024 Black List. Books mentioned in this episode: A Clockwork Orange – Anthony BurgessThe Sorceress in Stained Glass & Other Ghost Stories – Richard Dalby, ed.The Name of the Rose – Umberto EcoThe Black Dahlia; Killer on the Road; L.A. Confidential; My Dark Places – James Ellroy Black Flame – Gretchen Felker-MartinThe James Bond series – Ian FlemingThe Collector; The Magus – John FowlesThe Green Carnation – Robert HichensThe Americans; The Tragic Muse; The Turn of the Screw – Henry JamesThe Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre; Supernatural Horror in Literature – H. P. LovecraftThe Beckoning Fair One – Oliver OnionsA Fatal Inversion; Master of the Moor – Ruth RendellFlicker – Theodore RoszakThe Tempest – William ShakespeareGhost Story; If You Could See Me Now; In the Night Room; Koko; The Throat – Peter StraubThe Secret History – Donna TarttA Dark-Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs – Barbara VineThe October Film Haunt – Michael Wehunt

    1h 3m

Ratings & Reviews

5
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5 Ratings

About

Co-hosted by Mike Thorn and Miriam Richer. Discussions between writers about all things related to craft, process, and technique.