Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones

Emily Tesh and Rebecca Fraimow

The works of Diana Wynne Jones, in order, one decade at a time, with Emily Tesh and Rebecca Fraimow

  1. 7 MAR

    Deep Secret

    I thought of Uncle Ted's wobbly windows, and I began to think he must really, truly never look through them or anything else. Can't anyone look out there and see that you need not to think of everything in terms of what works or what they ought to do? Game dev and narrative expert Ariella Bouskila joins us for a discussion of bad colleagues, sick empires, beautiful boys, katabasis ducks, and the magic that can be found all around us if you have the eyes to see but can perhaps especially be found at a 1990s science fiction convention.  NB: As much as we would like not to, this one inevitably contains some conversation about Neil Gaiman.  Transcript available here, and we'll be wrapping up our season in two weeks with Dark Lord of Derkholm!

    2h 8m
  2. The Crown of Dalemark

    14 FEB

    The Crown of Dalemark

    Mitt at last came out with the real cause of his disappointment with the North. "They told me it was free here," he said. "They told me it was good." North and South, history-time and story-time, past kings and future kings, bicycle horses and evil-haunted trains and a really truly impressive array of bad dads all meet on Dalemark's green roads in the book it took Diana Wynne Jones fifteen years to write. Transcript available here, and we'll be back in two weeks with Deep Secret!

    2h 17m
  3. Hexwood

    31 JAN

    Hexwood

    This wood is like human memory. It does not need to take events in their correct order. Do you wish to go to an earlier time and start from there?  It's a portal fantasy! It's a space opera! It's an office comedy! It's an epic romance! It's an exploration of parenthood! It's a metaphor for authorship and creative control! It's King Arthur! It's Siegfried! It's ten books in a trenchcoat playing 4D chess with each other, and we could probably talk about it for another four hours and still have more to say. Transcript available here, and we'll be back in two weeks with Crown of Dalemark!

    3h 38m
  4. A Sudden Wild Magic

    17 JAN

    A Sudden Wild Magic

    The restraints of knowledge harmed this wild power. In order to use it, Zillah could not know what it was. It would only answer a being as untrammeled as itself. Time for elves, centaurs, demons, gods, witches, monks, princes, soulbonds, spaceships, sex, death, and an ever-present toddler, in undoubtedly the wildest book of Diana Wynne Jones' career to date. Transcript available here, and we'll be back in two weeks with Hexwood!

    1h 34m
  5. Black Maria

    20/12/2025

    Black Maria

    What's the good of being civilized? That's what I want to know. It just means other people can break the rules and you can't.   The gender dictatorship, the horror of conformity, the limits of word power, and how to stop your mother-in-law from living rent free in your brain. Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gnTKOU9XOofGvXZR4CdpBVJI-qYp5UqO/view?usp=sharing And we'll be back in two weeks with A Sudden Wild Magic!

    1h 38m
  6. Castle in the Air

    06/12/2025

    Castle in the Air

    ‘That djinn has taken liberties with a person's castle,’ Sophie said. 'Unless I'm entirely turned around, this used to be our bathroom.' Richard Burton's Arabian Nights and Edward Said's Orientalism, fairy tale and retail, big dreams, big crimes, and Diana Wynne Jones' empire of the imagination. Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s-yK-BV-i6hpFtn-kpxpMUCdZe3Gr3Nf/view?usp=sharing And we'll be back in two weeks with Black Maria! (or Aunt Maria, depending on your location)

    1h 29m
  7. The Lives of Christopher Chant

    22/11/2025

    The Lives of Christopher Chant

    Nobody should be losing lives at this rate. What is wrong, Christopher? In our first episode of Season Three, the brilliant Iona Datt Sharma joins us for a discussion of bureaucracy, cricket boys, Burton and Kipling, and the limitations of escape into fantasy,  Transcript available here, and we'll be back next time with Castle in the Air!

    1h 55m
  8. S2 Bonus Episode 3 - Q&A

    04/10/2025

    S2 Bonus Episode 3 - Q&A

    The first time round most of the catching-up you do is retrospective. The second time round you see it happening. In our final S2 bonus episode, we do a terrible job of not looking ahead to Hexwood as we work our way through a wonderful pile of letters to discuss class, adulthood, lying DWJ fathers, the many (more) layers of Fire and Hemlock, and the real meaning of "The Master."  Transcript available here. This episode wraps up our second season, but we plan to be back in November with Lives of Christopher Chant and a guest!

    1h 27m
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The works of Diana Wynne Jones, in order, one decade at a time, with Emily Tesh and Rebecca Fraimow

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