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- [00:01]
A
Honey, what are you listening to?
- [00:02]
B
Mom?
- [00:04]
A
Your teen might not share everything with you, but teens share everything with each other. And certain everyday behaviors, like sharing food, drinks or kisses, could mean sharing bacteria that can cause meningococcal disease, known as meningitis. Although meningitis is uncommon, about 1 in 10 who develop it will die. Ask your teen's doctor about missing meningitis vaccinations. Learn more@meningitis.com Vaccination may not protect all recipients.
- [00:28]
B
Sponsored by GSK welcome to Newbies, the podcast for new moms finding their way through the beautiful, messy, and exhausting first year of motherhood. Each episode brings honest conversations, real postpartum experiences, expert advice, and comforting stories from moms who have been there, too. From sleepless nights and breastfeeding struggles to celebrating first smiles and tiny milestones, Newbies is here to remind you that you are never alone in this beautiful journey. New episodes drop weekly. Find newbies wherever you get your podcast. Pass.
- [01:26]
A
Hi friends, I'm Will and it's story time. Except it's not actually story time, it's author interview time. This week I am speaking with Lavi Tidhar, who is the author of the Portal Keeper, that really beautiful story about, well, a portal keeper. We had a wonderful conversation about being authors and about consuming media and inspiration. He's very real and so wonderfully funny and charming, and I just wish he knew how awesome he is. I really enjoyed this conversation. I'm grateful that we were able to do it, and I hope you enjoy it too. We'll be back next week with another new piece of speculative fiction for you to enjoy, but until then, here is your pal Wil Wheaton and your new favorite author, Lavitar, talking all about the Portal Keeper.
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B
Foreign.
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A
Thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with us today. I asked you to be with us because I just loved the Portal Keeper so much. I would love for you to talk a little bit about where this story originated for you and what your process was like as you developed it.
- [02:40]
B
Thanks for having me and thanks for doing the story. It's one of those questions that you should have asked me when I wrote it. I might have had a clue. I think I vaguely I was thinking about portals for some reason as you do. I was, I wondered, lonely as a cloud, thinking about portals, how they work, what they do, what you saw. They tried to think in terms of science fiction portals and fantasy portals, and it occurred to me they're not inherently interesting, right? They're just a way of getting from a to B quickly. Sort of how I wished I could have got here.
- [03:13]
A
Of course.
- [03:13]
B
Right? Yeah. You know, when the trains weren't running and Uber wasn't available and you think a portal would be. But they're only useful for people to go through them. And so I started thinking, what can you do with them that that hasn't been done? And the thought was, what about the person has to look after them. I'm really interested in the people have to maintain things. I live here, one of the river locks in England. You actually have locks on the river and you have lock keepers. And I go past the lock keeper's house, and it looks very nice. I'd love to live in the lock keeper's house. But I guess you're wondering about we have lock keepers. I think it's in the story Cemetery keepers. And so the idea of a portal keeper, someone who never gets to go on any adventure, but just has to keep everything ticking over. And once I had this idea, I saw it because I'm a huge Roger Zelazny fan, and one of my favorite books of his is A Night in the Lonesome October, which is set over the 31 days of the month of October. And so once those two things came together, I started writing the story. And when you're trying to write a story, write it, and sometimes it comes out good. Sometimes I'm not so good. And with this one, I. What I remember is how much fun it was to write.
- [04:28]
A
Feels fun in reading it. There is an incredible sense of joy and whimsy and discovery. Did you pants this the way writers talk about. I realize. I'm sorry. British pants means very different than it does in America. But we do. We talk about. This is very carefully and very methodically plotted. Versus I had these kind of ideas. I connected them together, and I allowed myself to be surprised, and I let the story tell me where it wanted to go on that spectrum. Where would you put this process?
- [05:01]
B
I think this one definitely will see where it goes. As far as I can remember, I think you had the technical challenge that it's 31 days and you're thinking, this is insane. How is this supposed to work? That I can somehow rough up this story in exactly 30 days? You know, that seemed crazy. So, yeah, you go on a lot of faith, and it worked. I mean, sometimes I do, you know, I oscillate between them. So sometimes I will plan. Sometimes I would know what ending I want to reach and then work towards that ending. But with this one, I think this is one of those where it was just, let's see where it goes. The nice thing is, if you fail, no one has to see it.
- [05:39]
A
That is such great advice for all of us who are still early in our storytelling, creative writing careers. Right. I recently read this thing that's become my mantra. Write it badly or it will never be written. Write it badly and fix it. And it is always so heartening to me when I hear from an author who I respect, whose work I admire, something that validates that idea. How long did it take you to get from that place? Did you ever spend any time in that place as a writer where, oh man, I gotta nail it on the first time to where you are now, which seems like just such a happier, more enjoyable place to be as a creator?
- [06:20]
B
No, it's never easy. You never know if it's gonna be easy. And you have those books that are easy to write and you think that was easy. I've obviously mastered the art. And then the next one you try and write, you're struggling, you're bleeding over. It's a nightmare to ride. I think Jeffrey Ford, who's a fantasy writer, said, all you can really hope for is that your batting average improves over time. You get more. Yeah, more good than bad. But yeah, I think everyone has a hard drive full of terrible read. And from time to time I think I've got so many short stories or short stories that started and never went anywhere and I suddenly say I should probably delete all of that. You know, the way people used to burn their manuscripts in the old days.
- [07:03]
A
I've had these days where I'm working on something and my process is sort of. I just set some time aside and I'm just going to be here for this amount of time. No one's going to open the door and I'm going to get. I might get 3,000 words, I might get 50 words, I don't know. And I sometimes at the end of that writing session, I look at what I have and it just doesn't feel impressive. It doesn't feel like I've worked for five hours because I don't have a room full of balled up pieces of paper on the ground like I would 20 years ago. Do you have a similar process? Because you're talking about keeping it, throwing it away. I used to throw away stuff that I didn't like, but now I keep everything because I never know when something in there is going to end up sparking an idea or somehow helping me solve a story problem.
- [07:43]
B
Well, I can't delete anything. I can't bring myself to delete anything. So the trick is you make what's called a cut file. I'm going to just cut and paste it into another file where my perfect words are saved forever. Yeah. As soon as you cut it, you're never going to look at it again. It's gone. But at least it's some way. I think the worst part is when you're writing and, oh, yeah, I've done really good work. And then it comes to reading through the manuscript and you suddenly thinking it's awful. Or you get to the point where you think, I have no idea. This is good or bad. I can't see it. I've been too much in it.
- [08:19]
A
Yeah. It took me a while to. To understand that there is a part of my process when I am in that journey from idea to publication. The closer I get to publication, there's gonna be a moment where I am absolutely convinced I'm a fraud. This is terrible. It's the worst thing I've ever written. Everybody hates it. Everybody hates me. I should never try to put words down on paper ever again. I figured out eventually after, like, really, like hanging on a cross, feeling like that, oh, this is just part of the process. This is my internal editor going, you're very close to getting where you want to go, and I just want you to see the things that you need to change. Is your experience similar to that? Do you have that moment?
- [09:01]
B
Certainly. You're so sick of your own writing by the time it's gone through the various stages. I've just had to do proofs on a new book that's coming out and I loathe it. Did I write it? Who's going to read? Yeah, but I've read this so many times now, or I've gone over it so many times that I can't see anything good about it at all. I just have to assume that it's
- [09:23]
A
sanding point, like, so you just trust yourself. Right. When you get to that. Mary Robinette Kowal told me that when we get to that point to trust our taste, to remember this was a great idea when we started it.
- [09:39]
B
The other ways I always treat. For me, I only enjoy the writing part. I don't really enjoy the publishing, the editing, the occasionally being invited somewhere at someone else's expense is nice.
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A
But of course we love that.
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B
Especially if there's beer involved. I'm on the first flight out, but
- [09:55]
A
that sounds awesome, but.
- [09:57]
B
So as far as I'm concerned, once I've written the book that I wanted to write. That's the book I keep. And what comes out is the book that other people told me to move things around and change things.
- [10:08]
A
Yeah.
- [10:09]
B
And why not? And I don't consider that my book at that point. It's out there. And people get. So I don't get offended by bad reviews either. I'm okay. That's fair.
- [10:17]
A
I find that I don't mind a bad review if Roger Ebert always said, I review something, and I. I tried to just review it based on what it wanted to be. Like, this movie was promised it was going to be this. Even if I didn't like it, if it successfully did that, I should give it a good review because it did what it told me it was going to do. And I just think that's a great reminder that a bad review can be really useful if they're saying he was trying to do this fantasy thing and it just didn't quite get there. Okay, cool. Next time, I'm going to, like, focus on working that out a little bit more. Do you find that when you respond to that kind of feedback, how do you choose what to internalize and what to like? How have you learned, okay, this is useful. This is noise?
- [11:01]
B
I think it's all noise. And I find even, like, writer friends are absolutely useless if you want to ask them for feedback. Yeah. Then they're not interested. Absolutely useless. I don't know. I think maybe you'll figure it out. I think the most I ever did was I wrote a book called A Man Lies Dreaming, which is still one of my favorite books. It's a ridiculous concept that shouldn't work. It's about Adolf Hitler as a private detective, and it's very explicit and graphic and very funny. And, yeah, it's the book that gets the reviews that say, this is an absolutely disgusting approach. Calling the worst thing I've ever seen five stars. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
- [11:41]
A
Is it because in the story of this, did you manage to humanize one of history's greatest monsters? Wow. That's. That is no small feat.
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B
It's. But I love that. I love that people go, this is absolutely the worst thing I've ever read. Five stars. I can't imagine who I could recommend is both. So I like that. But, yeah, you know, you get reviews and you. You know what it's like? You get reviews that say, oh, greatest thing ever. Yeah, you get the review that say the worst thing ever, and you get the review saying it was okay, and so you stop paying Attention because everyone's going to have a different opinion. All you can hope for is that the good reviews may be skew a bit higher, but yeah, it becomes a bit meaningless. I also have a healthy enough ego. I don't care that much.
- [12:24]
A
I made a choice at some point to treat all of that stuff as not reflective of my value as a person or a creator. And I just look at it as like, how useful is this going to be in marketing and promotion? And is this going to make it possible for me to do the next thing? That's how I try to take all of that in. Because I cannot imagine being a creative person and caring about what are a critic says. It's got to be so hard for people who are not able to separate themselves from the. From that creative part of themselves that's. Have you always had this. This unflappableness in the face of reviews?
- [12:59]
B
I mean, I still get annoyed occasionally. But you, when you start, you're. You're no one and you still start. And you said actually I found it really exciting that I could send a story out to someone, some $10 magazine and get a rejection because that meant someone actually read it, which was amazing. The only problem is you, once you got your first $10 payment, the high is not the same. And next thing you need your $20 payment and next thing you want your. Your TV option and next thing you want your translated. So it never stops you just chasing that high. And. And a career isn't really built of highs. It's built of highs and lows and ideally some more highs and then some more lows. And why you're doing it is because you're enjoying it, not because of those things. But I like critics to actually just get the book or engage with the book or tell you something interesting about it.
- [13:50]
A
I had a couple of specific questions about the Portal Keeper and then I just wanted to talk a little more about writing process. One of the reasons I really loved the Portal Keeper was the pacing. Very much felt to me like a little bit of a meditation. The story feels to me, you know, you talked about portals, portals being this transitory space almost liminal that we just move through and don't even think about a portal being a place that's almost like a plot device in a lot of science fiction and sometimes in fantasy. And here we are with the person who maintains it, but we keep seeing all the people who use it. And I just felt like the Portal Keeper just quietly and respectfully stays there. Doesn't really offer a Ton of opinions on what's going on. Just wants to facilitate it. Did you have that intention when you were putting it together to, like, deliberately pace it out like that? There's just such a. Almost a Zen quality to the portal keeper's sense of self and the way that they're telling the reader what they're going through. Is that in the text or is that in my head?
- [15:01]
B
Your guess is good as mine. But the.
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A
Okay, that's fair.
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B
I think it's because it was going for a third and it's very much not my thing. I have to say, a lot of my books can get very action, plot, violence, so on.
- [15:15]
A
Yeah.
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B
And this is very much a cozy little thing. And it's so not me. So that was one of the things. Things that it has that atmosphere, that it's casual, but the fun is also all the people that will come and go through the portals and we get all those little references to the classic one. I'm having a big think about a giant fantasy novel, and I know I want to do something fun with portals, and maybe it comes from this.
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A
Do you think our portal keeper might cameo in the story? You might pull them in or. No, it's just okay. They get to live in their own universe.
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B
All right.
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A
Did you know the girl was going to end up staying there?
- [15:49]
B
No, I had no idea what was happening. Sorry. At all. I didn't. Ask me how it works because I honestly had no idea. And I never expected it to work. It was just blind faith that I'll get to the 31st of October and the story will end in some meaningful fash.
- [16:05]
A
That's so interesting to me, man. Because at the risk of just glazing you too hard, it's such a wonderful story and it's so enjoyable to read. And when I was prepping it and I was looking online, this has been narrated a lot of times. Like, a lot of people have loved telling this story. Are you aware of that? Do you see that? Like, wow, people really love this.
- [16:27]
B
No, because to be honest, you put out the story and you hope it connects with someone. And 99% of the time, there's one review or one mention somewhere and that's it.
- [16:38]
A
Right.
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B
With this one, I thought, oh, this one. I like this one. Maybe this will get some sort of thing. And frankly, any more than anything else, the one story I have that surprised me is a story called Selfies, which is a horror, which, again, I don't do horror very much. This horror short story, and that took on a life of Its own. And I have seen people just randomly. YouTube. I've seen YouTube readings of it around Halloween. I've seen school kids around a campfire doing it.
- [17:06]
A
Wow, that's so cool.
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B
I thought, that's bizarre. That's taken on some sort of life that I never anticipated. But 99% of the time, nothing. Okay. Or not that you know, because how do you know? And I always feel like I'm writing for the kid in the library who's sitting in the corner reading a book off the shelf. And you're never gonna meet them.
- [17:27]
A
Yeah.
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B
You're never gonna hear from them. But they're there. And you know they're there. Cause you were that kid at some point.
- [17:33]
A
I wrote something yesterday where I remembered being a weird kid going into the bookstore in the mall and finding some place in the bookstore where I could pull whatever off the shelf and just sit down and be left alone and know I was safe. I hear that from a lot of people who are readers the way I am a reader. The way I imagine a lot of people watching this are readers. Where it feels safe to be in a book, but in a library or in the corner of a bookstore or just someplace like that. It's something that I've always just been aware of, that books give us a sense of safety and a place to be. It's nice to hear an author I respect recognize all of us who are that kid in the bookstore or the library. That's wonderful.
- [18:18]
B
There are amazing spaces, libraries. And we're running out of public spaces for people. And the library is still that one place that you can go that it will take you in, give you something hot to drink. At the moment, where I live in London, libraries are one of the only warm places that people can go to in the winter. It's a designated warm place.
- [18:41]
A
Yeah.
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B
And that's a terrible thing in a way that we don't have those options anymore. But we still have libraries. We don't have bookshops, but we still have libraries.
- [18:50]
A
There's a really beautiful story that I read a few years ago about a woman who was on the spectrum, and she got lost. She got separated from the group she was without in the city, and she found a library and went to the library. And she said, as she walked in, she was saying out loud to the librarian, the library is a safe place. The library is a safe place. The library is where I can go, and I know I'll be safe. And the people I need to find me will find me. They know to go to the library. And I quoted that in a speech I gave to the library association, American association of Librarians, in the hopes that people who control the funding would really hear that and understand this is a really valuable piece of the human experience. And these are spaces like, we need a third space, but, boy, do we need a place for all of us who are, like, a little weird, who just need to slip into a book and just be there. That's why I tell stories. I want to give people that place to go. I'm very happy to hear you of libraries the way that I think libraries deserve to be loved.
- [19:55]
B
I still use my local library. You know that.
- [19:58]
A
Yeah, me too. So I want to talk a little bit about. About your writing, your writing process. This is for me and for other baby writers who are listening to the show. Do you have a secret trick or a secret weapon that you know you can rely on that is just helpful, A tool you have in your back pocket that you feel comfortable sharing?
- [20:31]
B
I wish there was.
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A
Is an entirely acceptable answer. I definitely accept that answer. Like, yeah, but you just got to do it. It's no trick.
- [20:38]
B
It's also. I think it's dangerous if you do have, you know, a bag of tricks. I. I can do an opening in this way, but then you get locked into it and you just repeat to yourself. So I don't think it really is very helpful. It's like you just have to start every day in front of the page. And my only trick is watching television. Ideally sitcoms, sitcoms. Just bring me into this sort of Zen space where I can actually put out a paragraph.
- [21:05]
A
Do you find yourself. So sometimes I will do that as well. If I'm working out a story or something I might put on TV or even put on a record. I'm not really paying attention to it. It's there, and I feel like it's giving the part of me that is in between the creator and the page something to do so that I can get to the page. Is your experience like that, or are you really into what you're watching and it's like, inspiring pieces for whatever is in development?
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B
No, that's the thing. I have to watch something that is soothing. It's just like listening to music. I always go through the 90s rock of a book, which is usually near the end of the book. It's, hello, YouTube and Nirvana and whoever else from the 90s. I just always hit the 90s phase. Just a sad plea for help, really,
- [21:53]
A
when I know that I'm in, like, the final lab I have a playlist and there's probably five albums that come up over and over again. I feel like maybe it's telling my body it's time to be in the last mile of the creative race. Like, here we go. I've never heard another writer say, yeah, I do that. That's wild.
- [22:12]
B
The danger is when you hit too much Radiohead in a row, I think, and you can feel yourself just depressing is like, you can do four, but you do a fifth, and that book's going to go some dark places, man.
- [22:26]
A
For whatever reason, I heard Paranoid Android the other day, and without realizing it, I was suddenly back on my Radiohead bullshit. It's just like, oh, apparently I'm only listening to Radiohead today. And you're absolutely right. It really affects the tone and the pace of, like, what I do. That. That's really funny to me. Was there a moment in your life where you knew, I am a capital W writer. This is who I am. This is part of my identity.
- [22:58]
B
It's the only thing I ever wanted to do, ever since I was a kid, ever since I learned to read. But it also seemed like the most impossible and preposterous thing to do, especially writing science fiction, fantasy where I grew up. It just. You might as well be living on the moon, so. And I still can't quite understand how I'm. It's for a living. It's a bizarre thing. So I can't take it very seriously because to leave is a hobby that people occasionally pay you for, but you would do it regardless.
- [23:27]
A
Have you had that moment where someone tells you, like, go get a real job. Like what you do? Like, I run into that all the time. Go get a real job. Go do something. This isn't a real job.
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B
Other than my wife, you mean? No, I want a real job. I don't particularly. I don't particularly want to get full time. I was looking at it today, actually, and I was like, I have no transferable skills. I'm completely useless. I can fix Windows 95 for you.
- [23:54]
A
I strongly disagree that you're useless. I think that what you're doing is extraordinarily important and really valuable. I've just pushed back on that idea. What inspires you? What are you reading or listening to or watching right now?
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B
I. Talking about, you know, 90s rock music. But I was a little. I discovered a band called Durie.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Dairy D U R. Yes. Who are. Yeah, a new band, but with a very 90s sound and sort of popped up. I've been Listening to those guys. And the thing that. The problem is I sort of run into this thing where I got this. This enormous Polish science fiction novel called Ice, which is. Just came out recently by a guy called Yatse dukai and in 1200 pages long. Okay.
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A
Little light reading for the plane.
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B
It's long and it's considered the greatest Polish science fiction novel of all time. Etc, Etc. But I've been reading it recent.
- [24:50]
A
Or is it from. Or is it from the before times 2007?
- [24:53]
B
Not even that early. But the English translation only just came out.
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A
Okay.
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B
And I've been reading it since Christmas and I've squeezed a few books in between. It's so long and you can't read it in one go. You have to read a little bit and stop. But it's. You don't have to rush the whole reading.
- [25:08]
A
Are you a reader who has like a bunch of things kind of going at the same time at any given moment? I'm usually at various stages in like maybe three or four different. Just different things depending on kind of like where I am emotionally when it's time to read. Do you work the same way?
- [25:23]
B
A lot of the reading I do is more non fiction because I'm researching something or I'm looking up something. So reading for fun is almost something reserved for. For travel, for flight.
- [25:33]
A
I get that that would be crime.
- [25:35]
B
That would be something fun. But I also get requests to read books to say something nice about and you feel obliged. And then I was. I was actually fantasy book columnist for the Washington Post for three years with Sylvia Moreno. Oh my gosh.
- [25:49]
A
I didn't know that.
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B
It was pure luck. I mean, they asked Sylvia and she asked me for one, how fun you think it would be. But we started with great enthusiasm and we said, send us the books we like. And then they, after three years, we said, we quit. And the first thing we did was basically write to all the publishers and say, please stop sending us books. It was a bit traumatic, but after three years I had to take a big step back from any kind of fantasy or.
- [26:15]
A
Sure. I find that my creative process is like a tide that comes in and goes out. And when the tide is out, that is when I wander the mud flat and I pick up books and movies and music. And I feel, okay, this is a consumption cycle while I'm filling myself up with inspiration and diversion. And then the tide comes in and now it's time to swim in that, in that water and tell all the stories that I scooped up out of the mud. Do you go through a similar input, output cycle.
- [26:45]
B
First you have that thing when you. Especially when you finish a long run, you feel like a novel. You almost go to bereavement, sure. But you're aimless, you're listless, you have no purpose in life. And you wander around in a days and you annoy everyone you live with.
- [26:58]
A
Yeah.
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B
And so even though you know that's such an important part of what you do is to stop, is to read, is to watch a movie, is to go for a long walk, all of those.
- [27:07]
A
Yeah.
- [27:08]
B
It's not work. You know, it's not. You're not writing. And so you kind of frustrated people yourself. And I don't think anyone can really pull away from that. You always feel guilty if you're not doing it.
- [27:19]
A
I have to tell people. There's this enormous amount of time in my creative process. It doesn't look like I'm working. It looks like I'm goofing off. Like, it looks like I'm playing an arcade machine or I'm building a LEGO set, or I'm going running. But while that is happening externally, internally, I'm working it out. I'm learning what a character sounds like. I'm trying out a conflict to see if I do. I want to do that. And then I'm, like, looking for whatever that weird magic thing is that happens where like, the writer assistant in my head goes, here, buddy, I got it for you. I put the outline together for you. How do you get through that without letting the guilt make you feel like I should be working more?
- [28:04]
B
You have to get to the point where you're so frustrated that the frustration makes you start, even though you're not quite ready yet, but you have to do something. But a friend of mine told me, Italian, he said he was lying in bed and his wife came and joined him. He was just lying there, and he's like, I'm working. Oh, it's so horribly relatable. I'm saying I became very good at working around the distractions. At this point, I basically, I work probably 5% of my debt. That's 95% distractions. 5%.
- [28:32]
A
That's not a bad ratio in our business. Every author has something that we have written that we love, that we really just. We can't stop talking about. And we kind of wish that more people had experienced it. What's yours?
- [28:58]
B
The problem is, I love my weird. My weirdest stuff doesn't sound like a
- [29:02]
A
problem to me, but go on.
- [29:04]
B
I said about a man likes dreaming with an Adolf Hitler thing. It's very hard sale.
- [29:09]
A
Yeah.
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B
So I'll give you just my two weirdest ones that I really love. I did a short animated movie. I mean I wrote a shorter called Loom Town and it's filmed in. It's actually filmed in live action in la. And he just features sent. It's a noir, but it's a balloon noir. The characters are all balloons.
- [29:28]
A
I love this.
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B
It's a noir. I love this beyond anything. It's a very hard fail to someone say, go and watch this. I think it's 18 minutes or so. Go and watch an 18 minute noir film with balloon. And we always.
- [29:39]
A
Where can we find it?
- [29:41]
B
It's on YouTube now. It's done a bunch of festivals and we say it's the Citizen K. I
- [29:47]
A
was gonna say is animated balloon based shorts. Is that a pretty deep genre? Highly competitive for eyeballs?
- [29:54]
B
It was mostly because my animator friend can't really draw anything. And I got frustrated and I said, can you do a balloon? It's just a separate.
- [30:02]
A
That's absolutely incredible.
- [30:04]
B
The world building is completely worked out from the fact that the lens, which is what I like. So it makes complete sense in the slang, you know, the hardball slang. All related. The plot makes absence within them. I really enjoy that. But I can't get anyone to watch it.
- [30:21]
A
Listen, hopefully you get the story time bump. I don't know how big the bump is. It's going to be at least two because I hear Gabrielle laughing on the other side of the glass waving at me. We're absolutely watching this as soon as we're done. And I know I'm hyped about it and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to sell this to my wife and both of our kids without any difficulty at all. So you're going to get at least five new views and I just. I hope that you enjoy every one of them.
- [30:44]
B
There is some balloon sex.
- [30:46]
A
Perfect. Listen, I was already on board. You don't have to sell it even harder. But yeah, great.
- [30:50]
B
My friend was laughing so hard when he was recording balloons rubbing against each other.
- [30:55]
A
I can't wait. I'm really looking forward to enjoying this. We will ensure that a link to this is somewhere in the. In this episode description so it'll be easier for you, dear listener, to find. I would love to give you the opportunity to hype up somebody who you think is terrific that you just want to put some eyeballs on. Who do you love? Who are you excited about these days?
- [31:16]
B
I had this Very nice writer come up to me at some convention. She was a guest of one and she said, I came across your anthologies of international science fiction by. And she said, what I really liked about is how nice and chatty you are about all the authors in your story introductions. And I stupidly said, God, it was so hard to lie so much because I can't die because they're so needy. I love writers at any time other than when I have to deal with them professionally, when they become the neediest and the most annoying people that I should say I just got to provide a nice quote for. But my writer that I do adore, she wrote a couple of brilliant short stories collections, writes stories the way no one else writes short stories. And this is her first novel and it's got a very long title. It's called A compendium of Supernatural Entities found in the Government Girls Higher Secondary School.
- [32:15]
A
That's wonderful.
- [32:16]
B
It looks brilliant. Yeah.
- [32:18]
A
Gosh, thank you for that. I can hear people opening up another browser tab to go to bookshop.org and grab it. That's awesome.
- [32:25]
B
I really recommend a short story collections but I think the novel also looks fantastic. So that's my name.
- [32:30]
A
That's great. Would you hype yourself up a little bit?
- [32:34]
B
I've lived in England too long to be good. I have to say, getting a Walt fan walled was nice insofar as I could actually stand up. I could say I have one of those that it helps you much in the real.
- [32:46]
A
Isn't that funny? We Every now and then I've gotten recognitions that feel like, how in the world did I get that? And then for a couple of weeks I'm insufferable and I. All I do is talk about it. Like, hello, I'm New York Times bestselling author Wil Wheaton. Or hello, I'm Saturn Award winner. I do it to my friends and my family until we're all exhausted by it. How long does that last for you? Like the joy of it before it's like, all right, it's time to get back into the mine and start digging.
- [33:15]
B
When you get. Because there's so few of them have come really. But you realize no one cares. My dad was talking to some cousin in America about my brother. He's a captain now. You know, he sold a movie to Hollywood. But not speaking.
- [33:28]
A
It's really important to just qualify everyone's successes with how it's not quite good enough.
- [33:34]
B
Right. Where do you mark it? So just take the little joy.
- [33:38]
A
That's wonderful advice.
- [33:40]
B
Okay.
- [33:40]
A
My last Two questions. What's next? Are you working on something right now? What do you want to promote? What do you want to let the
- [33:47]
B
audience know about the book I've got coming out literally in the next two weeks. Which is first the Portal Keeper in the vibe. It's very gentle. A book called the Three Coffin Problem. And it's just a collection of my Judge D Vampire mystery, which are very silly. Vampire. I'm straight Seth. Medieval something. It's like the Goldberg. The medieval something. So I can mess around with it. He's just a vampire judge and his human assistant traveling around Europe solving really stupid mystery.
- [34:19]
A
God, that sounds like so much fun.
- [34:21]
B
It really is. It's also the only thing I've written that people seem to be. Which gives me pause. But I actually enjoy it. You know, I. I always feel like I'm the sort of writer that you. I'm good for you. My carrots. I'm good for you. You should.
- [34:36]
A
Yeah, yeah. You're. It's time to take your vegetables.
- [34:38]
B
Yeah. But this one is more sort of like the popcorn that, you know you're actually coming.
- [34:43]
A
That's great. And at this moment, in the midst of the horrors, for real, like a novel that's like a collection that's popcorn is exactly what the doctor ordered. Just to get through, like this day of horror and the next day of horror and on and on and on.
- [34:58]
B
I've just come off doing four serious literary crime fiction, historical literary crime fiction novels. And even I got tired. Being a serious author. You get treated better. You get the better sort of review of the literary festival.
- [35:11]
A
Yeah.
- [35:12]
B
Even I was getting depressed. I was like, I need to do fun for a bit. I can't keep this up. So the next three or four. So all fun sort of core genre books. I've got a giant space opera coming out next. Should ride one giant up front.
- [35:27]
A
That's great.
- [35:28]
B
I mean, it has to be giant. It has to be galaxies getting destroyed. Left run in the center spaceship. So that was a lot of fun.
- [35:37]
A
That sounds fantastic. I'm going to pre order it when we're done because it is extremely relevant to my interests. Finally, one of my aims with its story time, is to introduce readers and listeners who don't yet know how much they love you to your work. Right. I want. That's the whole point of this podcast. Promote art, promote artists and promote literacy. And I know that there are a non zero number of people who listen to the Portal Keeper who have listened to us chat, who really want to know more about you. Who want to follow you, who want to engage with the rest of your work. And I just want to make it easy for your new fans to do that. Where can we find you online?
- [36:21]
B
I'm on Blue sky. If you just want to chat. I just hang out there and occasionally make snarky comments. Okay. Just Google my name and I've got a very basic website that I never bothered to do too much with, but just stick the basic info on. And yeah, I got off Twitter like most people.
- [36:38]
A
And when it becomes a Nazi bar, everyone in the bar is a Nazi if you don't leave. Right.
- [36:43]
B
It just wasn't fun, was it? Yeah, horrible. We all. It's been weird on the social media. I went on Instagram for a bit and it's fun because it's so relaxing generally around. Okay. The best place people can find me is in a bookstore.
- [36:58]
A
Yes, say it again. The best place to find LV is at a bookstore. Go into a bookstore and breathe in that smell of books that only exists in a bookshop. Love that smell, because if the bad guys get their way, that's gonna go away. Lavi, thank you so much. It has been such an extraordinary pleasure to talk to you. I am inspired as a writer and I am just so honored as a host and producer that you came to do this with us today. Thank you so much for your work and thank you for your time.
- [37:37]
B
Thank you. I mean, that was brilliant, Will. Thank you.
- [37:40]
A
I hope that I have the opportunity to narrate some of your other work in the future. Hey, everybody, it's me. Again, thank you so much for spending time with us, for listening today or for watching, if that's the way you chose to experience this. If you have follow up questions or comments about it, I'd really love to continue this conversation. If you're a member of our patreon@patreon.com storytime. Put your comments into this post and we'll have a really fun conversation. If you're not, you can try to hit me up on threads or you can come to my website@willwheaton.net really appreciate you being here. I hope wherever you are, you are having the absolute best day possible. And I'll be back next week with something new and fun for you to enjoy. Until then, I'm Will. You're you. Please take care of yourselves and take care of each other. It's story Time with Will Wheaton was produced in 2026 by Traveler Enterprises Incorporated. Who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our story producer and director. My partner in crime on the Other side of the Glass is Gabrielle D. Cure. Our Content Editor is Michael Thomas. Our podcast is edited, mixed and mastered by the great Alex Barton of Phase Shift av. Very special thanks to Wes Stevens, Christopher Black and everyone at Rhapsody Voices for helping me get this out the door. We are recorded at Skyboat Media in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, which you should all be very grateful for because without the San Fernando Valley, there's no Fast Times at Ridgemont High. If you would like an ad free experience as well as access to tons of really fun behind the scenes extras, how we go into finding the character beats how we make choices for what the characters sound like. If you want to hear me really struggling to pronounce common English words then you could check out our Patreon, which is@patreon.com storytime there you will find a couple of options starting at five bucks a month for all kinds of fun extra stuff. I would love for you to join us there. Thanks so much for listening. I am Wil Wheaton. You can find me@willwheaton.net that's all for now. Until time next. Until next time. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Bye.
- [40:23]
B
The Internet gives us a glimpse into the crazy happening all around us. Unhinged behavior, personal scenes, secrets. Unbelievable coincidences. It's all one big circus and the RR show is your front row seat. Each week we curate the wildest Reddit stories just for you. Whether you're into hilarious accidents, insane relationship drama, or pure chaos, these insane confessions are sure to make your jaw drop. Listen to the RR show weekly on Mondays via your favorite podcast platform, or get your episodes early and ad free by becoming a member. The RR show all of the drama, none of the hassle.