STORYBEAST

STORYBEAST
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A podcast for story lovers, Storybeast explores how we weave tales and why we love them. Co-hosts Ghabiba Weston and C. Shack chat with each other and legendary guests about different elements of various books, tv shows, plays, and other modalities to explore this fundamental aspect of humanity. Come for the story, stay for the snacks.

  1. 11/20/2025

    Episode #111: What makes a satisfying ending

    Welcome to the final installment of our spoiler filled breakdown of Arcane Season 2! In this episode, Ghabiba and McKell discuss that "WHAT JUST HAPPENED??" ending. In this episode, you'll hear about: McKell's aquamarine teathe conflict of happy endings for conflicting charactersthe two elements Ghabiba thinks make for a satisfying endingthe role of fairness and the shaping of villains in allowing viewers to extend grace to other charactershow specific character endings allow us to categorize the show's antagonistscreating towards a feeling For more storytelling content to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks! A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify. As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast. Be brave, stay beastly!

    1h 14m

  2. 11/13/2025

    Episode #110: How to fight write with Carla Hoch

    Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Courtney Shack have the pleasure of interviewing legendary Carla Hoch. CARLA HOCH is the author of the Writer’s Digest book Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes as well as Fight Write, Round Two: Crafting Chaos, Combat and Crime. Carla has been teaching the craft of writing fight scenes, action and violence since 2017 and is an instructor for both Writer’s Digest University and Writing Mastery Academy. Her award-winning blog, FightWrite.net, has been named in Writer’s Digest 100 Best Sites for Writers five years in a row. Carla is a world champion jiujitsu player and has experience in almost a dozen fighting styles. She lives outside Houston, Texas with her family and judgmental cats. In this episode, you'll: hear about Carla's research processfind your new weapon mottodiscover whether your character should store their second weapon in their bootlearn what your two most important considerations in a fight scene should behear how to teach yourself to write a fight scenehear how to pace a fight sceneface the question of what's more useful in storytelling: being realistic versus authentichear about Carlas's top pet fight scene peeveshear about Carla's consultation sessions on fight scenesuncover "dating" advice from Carlahear therapist Courtney talk about the power of enclothed cognition For more storytelling content to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks! A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify. As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast. Be brave, stay beastly!

    1h 30m

  3. 11/06/2025

    Episode #109: What makes us who we are: An ARCANE study

    Welcome to the second installment of our SPOILER FILLED breakdown of Arcane Season 2! In this episode, Ghabiba and McKell discuss what makes us who we are through the lens of analyzing Arcane's characters. You'll hear about: the alternate reality what-if episode that made our hearts achethe tool of using a character who reflects our feelingsthe types of grief that shape uswhere we situate the selfhow the shape of your world shapes youthe influence of time on characterthe constant state of becoming For more storytelling content to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks! A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify. As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast. Be brave, stay beastly!

    1h 15m

  4. 10/30/2025

    Episode #108: On vampires and villains with Kalla Harris

    Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Courtney Shack have the pleasure of interviewing legendary Kalla Harris. A full-time daydreamer, KALLA HARRIS has wanted to be an author since she was eight years old--although she's now traded her composition notebooks for a computer. When she's not writing high-stakes young adult books with lots of kissing, you can find her curled up with a good story, perfecting her mac and cheese recipe, or rewatching The Vampire Diaries (Hi, Damon!). Kalla resides in the Upstate of South Carolina with her husband. In this episode, you'll hear about: the inspiration behind the vampires in THE GROUND THAT DEVOURS USthe Vampire Diaries as core lorewhat makes a monster, what makes us humanadvocacy in publishing spaces as a chronically ill writerAaron Warner AndersonHow to change your life without (literally) losing your head The importance of frozen grapes For more storytelling content to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks! A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify. As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast. Be brave, stay beastly!

    1 hr

  5. 10/23/2025

    Episode #107: Part 1 of Arcane Season 2 break down: What makes a good redemption arc?

    Welcome to the first in a three-part series where Ghabiba Weston and Ruth McKell take a deep dive into the fantastic storytelling of ARCANE, Season 2. In this episode, you'll hear about: home made "something" berry jamemotional salience when consuming storyredemption arc essential ingredientsintention vs. consequencethe gift of empathy: redemption through perspective For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ subscribe to our newsletter . Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks! A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify. As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

    56 min

  6. 10/16/2025

    Episode #106: Dr. Grace Nosek on sleepover energy, climate action, and the unbelievable power of storytelling.

    Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Courtney Shack have the pleasure of interviewing legendary Dr. Grace Nosek. Dr. Grace Nosek is a long-time community organizer, storyteller, and sociolegal scholar focusing on environmental justice and democracy. She centers justice, joyful community, storytelling, civic engagement, and systems change in her work and scholarship. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto, Grace researched novel strategies to inoculate youth against climate despair, and co-authored the City of Toronto’s Youth Climate Engagement Strategy. Grace’s research has been supported by Fulbright, Killam, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation scholarships, and she holds a BA from Rice University, a law degree from Harvard Law School, and a Master of Laws and PhD in law from the University of British Columbia. Her research, fiction, and non-fiction writing have been published and shared widely and she has been a frequent public speaker and media contributor. In this episode, you'll hear: Grace bringing her iconic sleepover energy to the podabout the power of taking your time and the space to dreamabout ROOTBOUNDthe unbelievable power of storytellingGrace on humans as meaning making machinesinsight into external and internal storiesmore about re-releasing and the inspiration behind the revisions in ROOTBOUNDabout stan culture and meme cultureabout "magicifying" metaphorical real world systemsa real life map of climate action we can takemore on narrative seeding and real world dark magicabout the housewives of climatehow to approach networking through meaningful connection and authenticity For more storytelling content to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks! A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify. As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast. Be brave, stay beastly!

    1h 2m

  7. 10/10/2025

    Episode #105: Welcome to Spooky (book) Season

    Welcome to another episode of Storybeast where Courtney Shack and Ghabiba Weston discuss the transformative power of story. In this episode, you'll hear: the highlights for Crafting Horrorsome spooky book recommendationsa translation tangenta long chat about tea and coffee For more storytelling content to your inbox,⁠⁠⁠ ⁠subscribe to our newsletter⁠. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks! A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify. As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast. Be brave, stay beastly!

    40 min

  8. 10/02/2025

    Episode #104: Intuitive writing, being your own fan, and feminine rage with Sheila Masterson

    Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Courtney Shack have the pleasure of interviewing legendary Sheila Masterson. Sheila Masterson is the author of six books, including the gothic fairytale romance SONG OF THE DARK WOOD, the emotional epic romantasy, THE LOST GOD Series, as well as its standalone spinoff, A LEGACY OF STARS. Her forthcoming dark fantasy romance, THE POISON DAUGHTER, publishes October 3, 2025, and features a vigilante who uses her poison kiss to murder abusive men in her community until she's unwittingly thrust into an arranged marriage with the only man immune to her magic. When Sheila's not busy stabbing beloved side characters and dreaming up new ways to make her readers cry, you can find her practicing yoga, drinking fancy cocktails with friends, or curled up reading books or tarot. She lives outside Philadelphia with a small army of underwatered houseplants that survive out of spite. In this episode, you'll hear about: Sheila's libraryjuggling all the writer hatsTHE LOST GOD seriesintuitive writing and trusting your instinctsSheila's advice on timing and marathon writing and editingthe power of being a fan of your own worktips on contract reviewingthe audiobook processTHE POISON DAUGHTERthe exploration of feminine rage For more storytelling content to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter. Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks! A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify. As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast. Be brave, stay beastly!

    54 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

A podcast for story lovers, Storybeast explores how we weave tales and why we love them. Co-hosts Ghabiba Weston and C. Shack chat with each other and legendary guests about different elements of various books, tv shows, plays, and other modalities to explore this fundamental aspect of humanity. Come for the story, stay for the snacks.

Information

  • Creator
    STORYBEAST
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2025
  • Episodes
    112
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © STORYBEAST
  • Show Website
    STORYBEAST