Podcast
Fantastic Fiction at KGB
Hosted by Matthew Kressel · EN
Fantastic Fiction at KGB is a monthly speculative fiction reading series held at the famous KGB bar in NYC, and hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel. Some of our past readers include N.K. Jemisin, Joe Hill, Jeffrey Ford, Scott Westerfeld, Kelly Link, China Miéville, Nancy Kress, Paul Tremblay, Joyce Carol Oates, Samuel R. Delany, Holly Black, Michael Swanwick, Kit Reed, Peter Straub, Catherynne M. Valente, Jeff VanderMeer, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear and many other talented authors.
13episodes
Episodes
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Audio from April 8th, with Michael Swanwick & Mike Allen
Apr 1500:58:39Tap to summarizeHere’s the audio from the April 8, 2026 Fantastic Fiction at KGB, with guests Michael Swanwick & Mike Allen. Both read from their works to wow the audience. Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here! Michael Swanwick Michael Swanwick has been writing fantasy and science fiction at every length from flash fiction to novel trilogy for over forty years, during which time he has received the Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards, as well as five Hugo Awards. As a hobby, he writes critical non-fiction and the occasional interview. & Mike Allen Mike Allen’s most recent novel is Trail of Shadows, published in 2025. Two of his collections of horror tales, Unseaming and Aftermath of an Industrial Accident, were finalists for the Shirley Jackson Award, and as an editor, he’s a two-time World Fantasy Award nominee. His short fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Cosmic Horror Monthly, Interzone, Weird Tales, and Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology. With his wife and creative partner, Anita, he runs Mythic Delirium Books in Roanoke, Virginia.
Transcribe →Audio from March 11th, with C.S.E. Cooney & Kristina Ten
Mar 2100:55:20Tap to summarizeHere’s the audio from the March 11th, 2026 Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading with guests C. S. E. Cooney & Kristina Ten. Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here! C. S. E. Cooney C. S. E. Cooney is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: for her novel Saint Death’s Daughter, and her collection Bone Swans, Stories. Other work includes Saint Death’s Herald, The Twice-Drowned Saint, Dark Breakers, and Desdemona and the Deep. She’s a Rhysling Award-winning poet and a SAG-AFTRA voice actor, having narrated over 130 audiobooks. As singer-songwriter “Brimstone Rhine,” Cooney has produced two EPs, an album, and an SF musical. With her husband Carlos Hernandez, she co-designed the collaborative tabletop roleplaying game Negocios Infernales, out now from Outland Entertainment. Find out more at C. S. E. Cooney’s website, her Substack newsletter, and elsewhere on social media. & Kristina Ten Kristina Ten is the author of Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine, a collection of dark, strange stories released in October from Stillhouse Press. Her writing appears in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction, The Best Weird Fiction of the Year, and elsewhere. Along with winning the McSweeney’s Stephen Dixon Award, she has been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Locus Award. Ten is a graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop and the University of Colorado Boulder’s MFA program in fiction, and has received fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation and the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing.
Transcribe →Audio from Jan 14th, with Rachel Harrison & Robert P. Ottone
Jan 1800:48:28Tap to summarizeThe following audio was recorded live at the KGB Bar on Jan 14th, with guests Rachel Harrison & Robert P. Ottone. Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here! Rachel Harrison Rachel Harrison is the New York Times bestselling author of seven horror novels, most recently Play Nice and the forthcoming Kiss Slay Replay. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and in her collection, Bad Dolls. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and their cat / overlord. You can find her stuck on NJTransit or at rachel-harrison.com & Robert P. Ottone Robert P. Ottone is the two-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Triangle and There’s Something Sinister in Centerfield. He is also the author of The Vile Thing We Created as well as the collections Her Infernal Name and Tear Me Open: Fears Unwrapped. His next novel, Amityville Awakens, is coming from CLASH BOOKS October 6, 2026. A bagel-loving fabulist of spooky absurdity, Ottone enjoys cigars and time with his wife at their home in upstate New York.
Transcribe →Audio from Dec 10th, with Daniel Braum & Martin Cahill
Dec 1200:52:39Tap to summarizeHere’s the audio from the Dec 10th Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading, with guests Daniel Braum & Martin Cahill. Both read from their work on a rainy evening to a packed enthusiastic house. Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here! Daniel Braum Daniel Braum writes short stories that explore the tension between the supernatural and the psychological. He intentionally adopts the term “strange tales” for his “Twilight Zone-like” stories in homage to author Robert Aickman and the intentional ambiguities in his work. His most recent books are the illustrated short story collections Creatures of Liminal Space (Jackanapes Press) and Phantom Constellations: Strange Tales and Ghost Stories (Cemetery Dance). His stories also appear in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Shivers 8, and the Best Horror of the Year Volume 12. Braum is also the host of the Night Time Logic Series which has entered its tenth year of interviews and spotlighting dark fiction. & Martin Cahill Martin Cahill is the author of the USA Today bestselling book, Audition For The Fox, released in September from Tachyon Publications. He is also the writer of Critical Role: Armory of Heroes, and contributed to Critical Role: Vox Machina – Stories Untold. Martin was a 2022 Ignyte Award nominee for Best Short Story and a graduate of the 2014 Clarion Writers’ Workshop. He has published fiction with Reactor, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed Magazine, appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019, and much more. Martin also writes, and has written, book reviews, articles, and essays for Reactor, Writer’s Digest, Catapult, and others.
Transcribe →Audio from Nov 12th, with Lara Elena Donnelly & Sam J. Miller
Nov 2800:41:34Tap to summarizeHere’s the audio from the Nov 12th Fantastic Fiction at KGB, with guests Lara Elena Donnelly & Sam. J. Miller, Nov 12th, 7pm ET (Note: we continue to troubleshoot an audio issue that caused the author intros to be overmodulated; please pardon our mistake as we work to isolate the issue.) Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here! Lara Elena Donnelly Lara Elena Donnelly is the author of the Nebula nominated Amberlough Dossier, the contemporary thriller Base Notes, and short fiction in Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Nightmare, and Uncanny. She has taught in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College, as well as the Catapult Workshop. She is a graduate of the Clarion and Alpha writers’ workshops, and has served as on-site staff at the latter, mentoring amazing teens who will someday take over the world of SFF. You can also find her at Homeward Books, where she’s one of four co-founders working to bring genre-defying literature into being. & Sam J. Miller Sam J. Miller’s books have been called “must-reads” and “bests of the year” by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among others. They’ve also been banned in Florida, and stolen by AI. He’s received the Nebula, Locus, and Shirley Jackson Awards. He’s also the last in a long line of butchers. Sam lives in New York City, and at samjmiller.com
Transcribe →Audio from Oct 8th, with Leanna Renee Hieber & Shveta Thakrar
Oct 2201:05:39Tap to summarizeHere’s the audio from the October 8th, 2025 Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading with guests Leanna Renee Hieber & Shveta Thakrar. (Due to a technical glitch, the audio in this recording is overmodulated in some spots; we apologize for this and we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen next time!) We need your help to stay funded! Support the reading series by clicking here! Leanna Renee Hieber Leanna Renee Hieber is a professional actress, playwright, tour guide, and award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction for Tor, Kensington and more. A Haunted History of Invisible Women was a Stoker Award Non-Fiction Finalist and America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction was just released. A 3-time Prism award winner for her Gothic Strangely Beautiful saga and a Daphne du Maurier finalist for Darker Still, Leanna’s stories and essays have been featured in notable anthologies and magazines. Featured on TV shows like Mysteries at the Museum discussing Victorian Spiritualism, she works for NYC’s Boroughs of the Dead and tells ghost stories nationwide. & Shveta Thakrar Shveta Thakrar is a part-time nagini and full-time believer in magic. Her work has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including Enchanted Living, Uncanny Magazine, A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, and Toil & Trouble. Her debut young adult fantasy novel, Star Daughter, was a finalist for the 2021 Andre Norton Nebula Award, and her second and third novels, The Dream Runners and Divining the Leaves, take place in the same universe. Her adult fantasy novella, Into the Moon Garden, is available as an Audible Original audiobook. When not writing, Shveta crafts, reads, daydreams, travels, bakes, and occasionally plays her harp.
Transcribe →Audio from Sept 10th, with Fran Wilde & Shiva Kumar
Sep 2500:56:30Tap to summarizeHere’s the audio from the September 10th, 2025 Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series with guests Fran Wilde & Shiva Kumar. Both read from their work to a full house. We need your help to stay funded! Support the reading series by clicking here! Fran Wilde Fran Wilde is a two-time Nebula Award-winner, a Best of NPR author, and finalist for multiple Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and Locus awards. Her most recent books include A Catalog of Storms, collected short fiction (Fairwood Press, August 2025) and the speculative heist novel A Philosophy of Thieves (Erewhon Books, October 2025). Her short stories appear in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny Magazine, and multiple years’ best anthologies. Fran is also Co-Editor in Chief for The Sunday Morning Transport with Julian Yap and writes nonfiction for publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, and Tor.com. & Shiva Kumar Shiva Kumar is the author of the South Asian mythology inspired science fiction fantasy trilogy, The Lanka Chronicles, comprised of An Awakening, A New Reality, and Path of Destiny. As a screenwriter, Kumar has won numerous awards and best screenplay at the Long Island Film Festival for Journey to Babylon. Kumar is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker with several films on PBS, BBC, and Amazon Prime. As an actor he has appeared in several network shows such as Madam Secretary, Law & Order SVU, FBI-Most Wanted, and Quantico.
Transcribe →Audio from Aug 13th, with Cassandra Khaw & Debra K. Every
Sep 1400:48:39Tap to summarizeHere’s the audio from the August 13th reading with guests Cassandra Khaw & Debra K. Every, recorded live at the KGB Bar, guest hosted by Amy Goldschlager & Mercurio D. Rivera. We need your help to stay funded! Support the reading series by clicking here! Cassandra Khaw Cassandra Khaw is the USA Today bestselling and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Library at Hellebore, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, The Salt Grows Heavy, Breakable Things, and coauthor of The Dead Take the A Train with Richard Kadrey. Khaw is also an award-winning game writer. & Debra K. Every Debra K. Every is an author of horror, thrillers, and stories with twisted perspectives. Her 2024 horror debut, Deena Undone, has won multiple awards, most notably an American Fiction Award, a Storytrade Book Award, and a Page Turner Award. A Spanish edition will be released in 2025. Her short stories have been published by Hippocampus Press, Fairfield Scribes, Etched Onyx, Fractured Lit, and Querencia Press.
Transcribe →Audio from July 9th, with John Kessel & Caitlin Rozakis
Jul 3000:51:43Tap to summarizeHere’s the audio from the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading, with John Kessel & Caitlin Rozakis, recorded on July 9th, 2025, live at the KGB Bar. We need your help to stay funded! Support the reading series by clicking here! John Kessel John Kessel’s most recent books are the collection The Presidential Papers, in PM Press’s Outspoken Authors series, and the career retrospective The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel from Subterranean Press. His novels include The Moon and the Other and Pride and Prometheus. His fiction has twice received the Nebula Award, in addition to the Theodore Sturgeon, Locus, Shirley Jackson, and Otherwise awards. At NC State University he taught fiction writing and co-founded the Sycamore Hill Writers’ Workshop. He lives in Raleigh with the obligatory three cats and the absolutely non-obligatory spouse, author Therese Anne Fowler. & Caitlin Rozakis New York Times best-selling author Caitlin Rozakis writes fantasy with a satirical twist and a cozy heart. Her most recent novel is The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association. Her previous book, Dreadful, but turned out not to be dreadful at all. Her contemporary romance novella Leah’s Perfect Christmas, written as Catherine Beck, was adapted as the Hallmark Channel Original Movie Leah’s Perfect Gift. She lives in Jersey City with her husband and son.
Transcribe →Audio from Jun 11th, with Christopher Barzak & David Surface
Jun 2200:57:09Tap to summarizeHere’s the audio from the June 11th, 2025 Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading with guests Christopher Barzak & David Surface. Both read from their work to a full house. We need your help to stay funded! Support the reading series by clicking here! Christopher Barzak Christopher Barzak’s most recent book is the novella, A Voice Calling. He is the author of the Crawford Fantasy Award winning novel One for Sorrow which was made into the Sundance feature film Jamie Marks is Dead. His novel, Wonders of the Invisible World, received the Stonewall Honor from the American Library Association, was selected for inclusion on the Human Rights Campaign’s list of books for LGBTQ welcoming school libraries, and included in CNN’s 2024 Pride Recommend Reading list. He is also the author of Before and Afterlives, which won Best Collection in the 2013 Shirley Jackson Awards. & David Surface David Surface is the author of the collections Terrible Things from Black Shuck Books and These Things That Walk Behind Me from Lethe Press. David and co-author Julia Rust have written the novels Angel Falls which was winner of the 2025 Whippoorwill Book Award, and Saving Thornwood from Haverhill HousePublishing’s YAP Books. David is also creator of the newsletter Strange Little Stories which explores the line between truth and fiction by offering writers the chance to discuss and write about the strange and inexplicable things that have happened to them.
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