The Worm Hole Podcast Charlie Place

Charlie and Roselle Lim (Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune; Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop) discuss weaving culture, mental illness, and magic into your fiction, an aid for your eyes when chopping onions, and children you excitedly take to tourist attractions who wonder what you see in them.
Some podcast apps do not show description links properly unless the listener subscribes to the podcast. If you can't click the links below and don't wish to subscribe, copy and paste the following address into your browser to access the episode's page on my blog: http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/the-worm-hole-podcast/podcast-episode-17-roselle-lim
Fresh Fiction's review of Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune, as quoted
Question Index
02:03 Tell us about your writing background
03:45 Is Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune one big metaphor?
05:27 You have a particular love of words?...
06:09 Was Natalie always planned to be unsure of herself?
06:53 How did your relationship with your own mother influence the novel?
07:51 What's your favourite meal to make?
08:55 Have you had experience yourself of food solving, or helping to solve, a problem?
11:16 What was behind the decision to incorporate recipes into the narrative?
12:37 Does chewing mint gum help when chopping onions?
13:14 Was the thread about outsiders, trying to disrupt for their own gain, based on a particular event?
14:09 Introduce us to San Francisco's Chinatown
15:24 Do you love classical music?
16:12 Was the romance between Natalie and Daniel always in the book?
17:26 How much was filial piety in your mind when writing?
18:53 Is Vanessa Yu Miss Yu from Natalie Tan?
19:20 (We discuss Paris and London - Roselle went there to research Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop)
25:28 Did you ever wonder about using a different name to Natalie, given that that is your daughter's name?
32:25 Vanessa Yu - is it fair to say this is a very different book to Natalie Tan?
33:09 Are you writing your next book?
33:35 Natalie Tan has been optioned for a TV show...
Purchase Links
Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
Indigo Chapters
Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
Indigo Chapters
I am an Amazon Associate and earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.
Photograph used with permission from the author. Credit: Shelley Smith.

Charlie and Isla Morley (Come Sunday; Above; The Last Blue) discuss growing up and travelling back to South Africa, creating a negative heroine, the 1800s medical phenomenon wherein people were literally blue, and what it's like owning five tortoises.
Some podcast apps do not show description links properly unless the listener subscribes to the podcast. If you can't click the links below and don't wish to subscribe, copy and paste the following address into your browser to access the episode's page on my blog: http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/the-worm-hole-podcast/podcast-episode-16-isla-morley
Image of the Fugate family, as mentioned
Cathy Trost's article 'The Blue People of Troublesome Creek'
Question Index
01:03 Can you tell us more about your background in South Africa?
03:04 How did novel writing come about?
08:05 You've lived in several places - can you tell us about your journey?
11:12 Have you been back to South Africa?
13:48 Have you ever considered writing a memoir?
15:34 Come Sunday's Abbe isn't a nice person; why did you want to create her?
17:41 Why was grief important to explore?
18:19 When did you decide to incorporate Christianity?
20:19 Was narrative style always in your mind?
22:08 Why poetry?
23:38 Was African mythology, used in the book, something you experienced in childhood?
29:01 Was it daunting to have so much of Above set underground?
31:31 Would it be fair to assume that the book will continue to be an outlier as you move forward?
33:48 When did the idea of going along with Dobb's idea of what's going on come into your process of writing?
42:02 Tell us about the medical background to The Last Blue
46:48 Am I barking up the wrong tree thinking the concept of blue people as per your book has to do with commentary on racial discrimination in history?
51:31 How important is the narrative of women to you?
52:34 Is there any interesting fact you can share with us about photography in the 1930s?
55:15 What's next?
55:54 What's it like having five tortoises?
Purchase Links
Come Sunday:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
Above:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
The Last Blue:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
I am an Amazon Associate and earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.
Photograph used with permission from the author.

Charlie and Terri Fleming (Perception) discuss looking at the further lives of Mary and Kitty Bennet, working with Austen's original stories and prose, Mr and Mrs Bennet's relationship, and organising bookshelves.
Some podcast apps do not show description links properly unless the listener subscribes to the podcast. If you can't click the links below and don't wish to subscribe, copy and paste the following address into your browser to access the episode's page on my blog: http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/the-worm-hole-podcast/podcast-episode-15-terri-fleming
The Romantic Novelists' Association website
Question Index
00:37 Tell us about your background - writing and Australia
00:59 Have you been able to write articles regardless of the career switch?
03:12 Why Pride and Prejudice?
04:06 Who are you other favourite writers?
04:49 How long have you been a member of the RNA?
05:50 Were your initial thoughts for your book different to how it played out?
08:41 Did it take time to get the balance between your own Mary and Austen's just right, and were you worried about the reception?
15:09 How did you go about creating the gentlemen?
17:11 Was there anything difficult about using Pride and Prejudice as a base?
24:43 What was the best part of writing Kitty's story?
27:08 Did you find anything out about Pride and Prejudice that readers may not know?
29:10 What's your opinion on the dynamic between Mr and Mrs Bennet?
32:36 How do you organise your bookshelves?
34:15 What's next?
Purchase Links
Perception:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
Barnes & Noble
I am an Amazon Associate and earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.
Photograph used with the permission of the author.

Charlie and Zoe Duncan (The Shifting Pools) discuss coping with and healing from war trauma in reality and fiction, the use and power of dreams, employing various styles and formats, and how fascinating reader interpretations can be.
Some podcast apps do not show description links properly unless the listener subscribes to the podcast. If you can't click the links below and don't wish to subscribe, copy and paste the following address into your browser to access the episode's page on my blog: http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/the-worm-hole-podcast/podcast-episode-14-zoe-duncan
Interview with Danuta Kean for Mslexia magazine
On Cornwall and Enanti
Article in The Times about Zoe's life and work
Question Index
00:46 How long have you been writing?
01:55 Favourite poet?
02:40 Tell us about your childhood (that relates to the book)
03:53 What was it like being in England?
08:32 Is there a reason for the lack of a name for the place Eve lives in?
09:41 How did you come to use Enanti as Eve's coping method?
11:08 How do you see the ending, do you have an answer for it for yourself?
12:53 Was water always to be the healing element?
14:32 The style and structure - what was the purpose of it?
19:23 Was Time something you were thinking about when writing?
21:04 What did you learn about dreams in the context of the subconscious?
24:00 Was the idea of womanhood, sisters, siblings, a theme?
31:04 There is so much hope in the book...
31:48 What did you want readers to take away?
33:47 What is the impact of long-term trauma and grief if not dealt with?
36:07 Was the book cathartic for you?
37:40 What's next?
39:56 (Given everything we've discussed) it must have been busy in your head whilst you were writing?
Purchase Links
The Shifting Pools:
Publisher's website
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
Barnes & Noble
I am an Amazon Associate and earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.
Photograph used with the permission of the author. Credit: Ashvin Mistry.

Charlie and Dan Richards (Holloway, The Beechwood Airship Interviews, Climbing Days, Outpost) discuss asking to join well-known people for lunch and producing fascinating interviews for your book, travelling the less beaten paths of your mountaineering great-great aunt, finding society in isolated places, and looking ahead to how we might continue to approach humanity's harming of nature after the benefits to scaling back have been shown by this current crisis.
Some podcast apps do not show description links properly unless the listener subscribes to the podcast. If you can't click the links below and don't wish to subscribe, copy and paste the following address into your browser to access the episode's page on my blog: http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/the-worm-hole-podcast/podcast-episode-13-dan-richards
Dan’s articles at Caught by the River
'Dream ticket – the night train from Cologne to Vienna’
‘My search for the real Moominland’
BBC Radio 4: Start the Week – Life in the Wilderness
Wikipedia’s entry for Dorothy Pilley (includes photographs)
Second-hand copies of Dorothy’s memoir on AbeBooks (there are a couple of 1935 and 1965 editions on there)
Question Index
00:46 How did you get into writing, specifically the type you do?
02:39 The first book to be written was the second published…
03:37 Tell us about the interviewing process for The Beechwood Airship Interviews
07:43 Has this book had a knock-on affect on your further work in ways we may not pick up on?
08:56 These books are a mixture of travel/adventure (and so on) and there’s a lot of your personality there…
10:11 Tell us about mountaineer Dorothy Pilley and how she inspired you
15:00 How did the women mountaineers of the time help future generations?
18:58 Is Dorothy’s 1935 memoir available to purchase?
19:51 What was the easiest part of your Climbing Days adventure?
22:26 What did you learn about yourself?
27:27 What draws you to the wilderness?
27:57 You talk about our human destruction of nature – what do you hope will happen following this time that we’re living in right now?
31:01 Tell us about the supernatural aspect of the first outpost; did you experience anything yourself?
34:27 In all the outposts you went to, what surprised you the most?
35:11 How did the social aspect of these otherwise isolated places impact your experience of it?
38:52 What’s next?
Purchase Links
Holloway:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
The Beechwood Airship Interviews:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Barnes & Noble
Climbing Days:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
Outpost:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
Barnes & Noble
I am an Amazon Associate and earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.
Photograph used with the permission of the author.

Charlie and Weike Wang (Chemistry) discuss having both a scientific – in epidemiology no less! – and a writer background, making use of extracts and white space and preferring them beyond more long-form prose, the difficulties of studies and incorporating friends’ experiences in your stories, and fictional dogs who are inherently important to the text.
Some podcast apps do not show description links properly unless the listener subscribes to the podcast. If you can't click the links below and don't wish to subscribe, copy and paste the following address into your browser to access the episode's page on my blog: http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/the-worm-hole-podcast/podcast-episode-12-weike-wang
Short story ‘Omakase’ in The New Yorker
Short story ‘Nanjing’ in the Alaska Quarterly Review
Short story ‘By the Pantheon’ in Kenyon Review
Short story ‘The Poster’ in the Gulf Coast journal
Weike Wang on the Privilege of Not Having to Think About Race
Question Index
01:01 Your background is in Chemistry and Public Health - how have you come to mix these with writing and are you still doing Chemistry?
03:23 You wrote an introduction to Villette - does Bronte inspire your writing, and who else inspires you?
06:02 Why an unnamed narrator?
08:34 How did you come to strike the balance between the presence and the lack of a presence in regards to the narrator's boyfriend?
10:10 Was the dog always a part of the book, and can you discuss his role?
11:55 Is the dog based on your own?
18:00 Is the writing style (vignettes and so forth) something that was in your mind and something you'll continue in future?
20:46 So with this 'excess', you've potentially got lots of ideas you could use for future books?
21:23 When did the narrator first arrive in your mind, so to speak?
23:25 How did you com to strike the balance between the different cultures and how important was it to the overall effect?
25:33 Is there a lot you see in chemistry that we can learn from?
30:32 The narrator's growth in knowledge of English idioms and metaphors
32:21 Might the narrator be a successful teacher one day?
33:35 How true to life are the experiences of specific pressures for PhD students?
36:44 What's next?
Purchase Links
Chemistry:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Waterstones
Hive
Barnes & Noble
I am an Amazon Associate and earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.
Photograph used with permission from the author. Credit: Shang Saavedra