Author Interview: Mary Robinette Kowal

Summary

---

It's Storytime with Wil Wheaton

Author Interview: Mary Robinette Kowal

Date: May 27, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this rich and lively episode, Wil Wheaton sits down with award-winning author (and fellow narrator) Mary Robinette Kowal for a wide-ranging conversation focused primarily on Kowal's story "With Her Serpent Locks"—a speculative Medusa post-myth set on another planet. The conversation journeys through Mary Robinette’s creative process, her experiences as a puppeteer and actor, the interplay of worldbuilding and narrative efficiency, and her insights into writing, story structure, and narration. The episode is both an author chat and a mini masterclass for writers and readers alike.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis of "With Her Serpent Locks"

• Origin Story: The story began as a prompt—“angry snakes”—in Mary Robinette’s “Make Me Write” workshops. She mashed up myth (Medusa), science fiction, and internalized craft.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [02:44]:
    “Honestly, the way the story itself happened is kind of funny. I was running something that I call Make Me Write…one of the people had said…they had a head full of angry snakes. And so, okay, everybody prompt today is angry snakes. And I just got really lucky...Sometimes all of the work that you've done, internalizing how the craft [works]—you get lucky. It all lines up.”
• Developing the Story: Designed as an experiment in extremely short scenes and controlled release of information.

2. Worldbuilding: Specificity and Efficiency

• Efficient World Creation: Wil lauds Mary Robinette for compelling worldbuilding in only a few lines, painting clear and evocative settings.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [04:25]:
    “You can create a world very rapidly, often with just one specific detail...I like it to be something that implies additional things.”
• Collaboration with the Reader: Writing is collaborative—the author provides suggestive details, the reader fills in the world.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [06:14]:
    “With writing, I put words on the page, but I am relying on you to build everything outside of those words…I really do feel like half of the story comes from the reader.”

3. From Puppetry & Acting to Writing

• Audience Awareness & Body Language: Her puppetry background informs her writing, focusing on body language and directing attention—what’s implied by actions on the page.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [08:49]:
    “...one of the things that I really took from puppetry is the power of body language. And the power of body language on the page comes through...‘What did you say?’ She leaned across the table is wildly different from, ‘What did you say?’ She pushed back from the table.”
• Visual Imagination: Both discuss seeing stories visually in their minds, casting actors, and translating those imagined visuals into words.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [11:29]:
    “I very much am [a visual writer]...I can see the apple and turn it in my head.”

4. Narrating Your Own Work

• Narration Experiences: Mary Robinette discusses recording her own audiobooks, getting to tweak the narrative during the first read-aloud. She enjoys hearing other narrators bring new dimensions to her stories.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [13:30]:
    “The best compliment I ever got was from my dad...he forgot it was me narrating.”
  • On other narrators:
    “This is a gift. It is the only time I get to be inside somebody else’s head when they’re experiencing my stuff.”

5. On Story Structure & Delayed Gratification

• Controlled Release of Information: Mary Robinette shares how tension isn’t always about conflict: anticipation, unanswered questions, and careful juxtaposition keep readers engaged.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [18:53]:
    “I was interested in...controlled release of information. I've been thinking a lot about what creates tension in a story…juxtaposition in particular, creates space in the story for the reader.”
• Wil’s Reaction:
  “I felt so clever and so smart and so brilliant because I got there about maybe two thirds of a page before you told us about it.” [17:36]

6. Process: Writing in the “Fog”

• Navigating Uncertainty: Both discuss how to find the “next stake in the ground” when lost in a project. Kowal recommends structural awareness, brainstorming, bad pitches, and listing what you know.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [25:33]:
    “One is an understanding of story structure…Sometimes I will literally go for a walk and let my hind brain work on it…Write down the things that you know, and you’ll be surprised at how many things you actually know.”
• Pantsing & Etymology: The origin of “by the seat of your pants” comes from flying—feeling connected and in-tune, not just being unplanned.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [29:27]:
    “…flying by the seat of your pants is a good thing because it means you're in tune with the aircraft. And so when you are writing by the seat of your pants…you are in tune with the story.”

7. Personal and Community Aspects

• Transitioning Careers: Mary Robinette discusses not calling herself a writer for years, identifying first as a puppeteer.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [32:07]:
    “That [being a Writer] doesn’t always sit in my bones because I defined myself as a capital P puppeteer for such a long time...I think it wasn’t until [writing] started to take over.”
• Imposter Syndrome:
  “...imposter syndrome is mostly just that you've leveled up and haven't recognized it.” [32:35]
• Sharing Inspirations: Stays current reading award finalists, praises authors (Sarah Beth Durst, John Scalzi, Annalee Newitz), and amplifies voices she admires (e.g., Leslie Penelope).

8. Advice for Writers & Creators

• Trust Your Taste:
  “You have honed it over your entire life as a consumer...Don’t try to create for other people...You can trust your taste.” [37:38]
• Structure Isn't “Hacky”: Using familiar story structure is like using a blueprint or recipe—creativity happens in the details.
  • Mary Robinette Kowal [46:13]:
    “When you learn to cook, you use recipes because that's how you learn...Then as you progress, you're like, ‘oh, I can do these ingredient substitutions.’”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Narration and Identity:
  Mary Robinette, [13:30] — “Probably the best compliment I ever got was from my dad, who was listening to The Calculating Stars, and he said he forgot it was me narrating it.”

• On Imposter Syndrome:
  Mary Robinette, [32:32] — “I do think that the idea of imposter syndrome is mostly just that you've leveled up and haven't recognized it. In real life you do get the new gear, but no one tells you about it. And the loading screen is just anxiety.”

• On Retellings and Fan Reactions:
  Wil, [20:03] — “As we were approaching the reveal, I was like, I think that's Zeus. I think I’m putting together…she’s Medusa’s sister. And that’s Zeus!”

• On Collaboration in Writing:
  Mary Robinette, [06:14] — “I put words down on the page, but I am relying on you to build everything outside of those words. So I really do feel like half of the story comes from the reader.”

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:36] – How “With Her Serpent Locks” began as a prompt and became a story
• [04:25] – Worldbuilding through specific evocative detail
• [06:14] – The collaborative nature of reading (words+reader imagination)
• [08:49] – Puppetry’s lessons for fiction: body language & audience direction
• [13:30] – Narrating your own work and hearing others narrate it
• [18:39] – On the deliberate use of delayed gratification in fiction
• [25:33] – Navigating uncertainty (“the fog”) in story creation
• [29:27] – The true origin of “flying by the seat of your pants”
• [32:07] – When Mary Robinette began to call herself a Writer
• [37:38] – “Trust your taste”—core advice for creatives
• [41:46] – Kowal plugs two “neglected” books: Ghost Talkers and Apprehension
• [44:12] – Writing Excuses: “Tools, not rules, for writers by writers”

---

Recommended Works & Resources

• Mary Robinette Kowal:
  • Lady Astronaut series (esp. The Calculating Stars)
  • Ghost Talkers (WWI with ghosts – “deeply love this book”) [41:46]
  • Apprehension (“Hitchcock in space”) [42:37]
• For Inspiration:
  • Sarah Beth Durst (“cozy books that are so comforting, also, you cannot put them down”) [35:20]
  • John Scalzi (“I could not put it down”) [36:55]
  • Annalee Newitz, The Road is Also a Wall
  • Leslie Penelope (“fiction relevant to today, historical, alternate histories, visceral”) [39:50]
• Writing Excuses Podcast:
  • [44:12] New tagline: “Tools, not rules, for writers by writers.”
  • Season 21 focus: story structure as a tool.

---

Further Listening/Reading

• Writing Excuses – Specifically the episode breaking down "With Her Serpent Locks"

• Mary Robinette’s Website & Newsletter:
  maryrobinettekowal.com (with updates, craft talk, and "Elsie’s Corner")

• YouTube Recommendation (Wil):

  • Jake W — for engaging retellings of mythology, including Greek, Roman, and biblical stories.
    Wil: “If this story and this little conversation about mythology tickled some part of you…Jake W. There'll be a link in the story description…” [66:26]

---

Tone and Style

The episode is witty, warm, and deeply generous—Wil and Mary Robinette exchange personal anecdotes, practical wisdom, and genuine mutual admiration. The conversation feels like a candid shop talk between multidimensional creators, encouraging writers to trust themselves, lean into their strengths, and enjoy the creative journey, bumps and all.

---

Brief Takeaway

A must-listen for readers, writers, and anyone fascinated by modern myth, creative process, and the playful seriousness of storytelling. Mary Robinette Kowal demystifies the magic behind her short story while Wil Wheaton provides a companionable, insightful space, both bearing testimony to the collaborative joy of fiction—on the page, in narration, and in conversation.

---

Transcript

[Wil Wheaton]

Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney. Let's go get ready for a new case.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

We're gonna crack this case and prove we're victorious Partners of all time.

[Wil Wheaton]

New friends.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

You are Gary the Snake and your

[Wil Wheaton]

last name the Snake Dream Team hid new habitats. Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home. You're clearly working at Zootopia 2 now available on Disney. Rated PG. Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC and for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal college deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn [e-mail] studentoffer once while supplies last ends June 30 [e-mail]. Hi, I'm Will and it's story time. I don't listen to many podcasts, but one I never miss is Writing Excuses, which bills itself as a fast paced educational podcast for writers by writers. One of the fabulous hosts is my friend Mary Robinette Kowal. Mary Robinette Cole welcome to the official It's Storytime Author Chat. I'm so incredibly happy that you're here. We're going to talk about With Her Serpent Locks, which I fell in love with the moment I began reading it. I came to it because I heard you talking about it on Writing Excuses, and for everyone watching who doesn't already listen to Writing Excuses, it was homework. Hey, read this story, then we're going to talk about the story. And I was like, this is exactly what I need as a writer. Like, it's just terrific. So let's talk about that a little bit as we get going here. Would you let people who aren't familiar with Writing Excuses know about the genesis of this story, how it started, and then we'll get a little bit into the process of developing it.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Sure. So Writing Excuses is a podcast where we take a different aspect of craft and we drill into it every week. And for this particular episode, one of the things we've realized is that it really helps people if they have a concrete example. So we used one of my stories with Her Serpent Locks, which is basically a Medusa post story, I guess. And honestly, the way the story itself happened is kind of funny. I was running something that I call Make Me Write, where I literally make writers write and I give them a prompt and I often take the prompt from conversation or environment. And one of the people had said that they were really struggling because it felt like they had a head full of angry snakes. And so. Okay, everybody prompt today is angry snakes. Yeah, got. And I just got really lucky. Sometimes all of the work that you've done, internalizing how the craft you. You get lucky. It's kind of all lines up. And this was one of those stories. A lot of times I have to fight for them a lot more than I normally do. And I was like, let me mash things up. Let me mash up gor and science fiction and run with it.

[Wil Wheaton]

When you set her on another planet, that feels so very far away from. From Earth. And I get the sense of, like, you've got to go through stargates or something to get there. And it's just. It's such a unique. The world building of that was. It was so economical. You really created that world for us in, like, I don't know, like, maybe one paragraph, half a paragraph. Like, I just. I knew exactly what that place was. Tell me about, like, just building that and, you know, and, like. Like putting. Hanging up the set dressing.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah. So this is one of the things that I've learned over the years and something that I can do a lot more intuitively than I used to. Yeah, that specificity and having the character interact with their environment, do so much. So, you know, you. You can create a world very rapidly, often with just one specific detail. Like talking about a ring in the sky or multiple shadows from multiple suns. Like, that's such a simple detail, but it has ripple effects. And so that's. When I'm having the character interact with something. I like it to be something that implies additional things. Like if you've got a character and they're handling a glass. Glass could exist in many different places. A glass on the hard wood of an old bar, that implies an old tavern or something around you. And so I look for that.

[Wil Wheaton]

The image that created in my head was so incredible. It's like when I read on writing and Stephen King was like, I'm putting a box in a room, and you're gonna open it. And I was like, oh, my God, I just did. That is. I love that. I just experienced the spark and joy of experiencing that artistic inspiration moment. That's gorgeous. I love that.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

I always think about writing as a collaboration. I think a lot of this is because I come out of theater and puppetry and specific, where we are relying on the audience to agree with us that that puppet is alive. And the example that I Use for most people is, you know, think about. Pull up Miss Piggy in your head and think about the way she flutters her eyelashes at Kermit.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yes. Yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Her eyes don't move.

[Wil Wheaton]

They never do.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

They do not move. So you do all of that work for the puppeteers. And with writing, I put words down on the page, but I am relying on you to build everything outside of those words. And so I really do feel like half of the story comes from the reader. And my job is to give them details that point them in the right direction.

[Wil Wheaton]

I just put a book down that I'm not gonna finish. It's a very heavy, big fantasy novel, Right? And it's gorgeous. The world building is incredible. Like, it's just. It's magnificent. But they really spend three pages describing the drapes, like, for real. And, like, I know that there are people who really love that, that really love to dive into that and, like, feel that, you know? And I'm like. You could just say that she struggled to pull em back because they were so heavy. That tells me everything I need to know about. I don't need to go onto it for three pages. There's just such a. I think when we say efficiency, it kind of makes. It sort of takes all of the beautiful seasoning out of the description. But there is an efficiency to writing of just kind of, like, getting to the point. Right. And that thing. Trust the reader to fill in the gaps. You mentioned being a puppeteer. I have had the extraordinary privilege of watching you do that. I watched a person try very hard to, like, show you that. They had. You know, they were like, but I can do this. Cause I watched it on YouTube and I watched you very patiently and very lovingly just demonstrate through your own puppeteering. This is not something you just pick up.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

It is not.

[Wil Wheaton]

So one of the things we sort of have in common is a previous life in entertainment storytelling in a really different way.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

What do you bring from your experience as a puppeteer and puppeteering is acting? What do you bring from that to your writing? How does one discipline support and inform the other?

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

So a lot of it for me is really the understanding of the audience. The thing that I experienced when I started writing was that as a puppet actor, you spend all the time building the character. What's my motivation? What's driving it? But someone else is deciding where you're gonna move. You know, they decide the blocking, they decide the structure. Someone else, the playwright has decided all of that as the puppet.

[Wil Wheaton]

You don't get to do that so as an actor, we get to feel the structure and move around and there's like blocking, but we have a certain amount of freedom to move around. But as a puppeteer, it's kind of set. Yeah, you don't get to make those choices.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

No, you do, you do. I was just thinking about rough blocking. When you're doing a solo puppet where it's just handling the figure all by yourself, it is very much like acting. You get to nuanced voices in a moment. When you're doing something with multiple people on it, it is choreographed, but. But you can still improvise when things go wrong. Actually, to that point, one of the things that I really took from puppetry is the power of body language. And the power of body language on the page comes through. So the first, after my internship at the center for Puppetry Arts, my first gig was a prerecorded production of Sleeping Beauty. So the dialogue was on tape. So your timing was exactly the same every single time. But if I did one movement, I could get a laugh from the audience. If I did a different movement, the laugh wasn't there. This movement I could get a gasp. So you realize how subtle. And because it was a nine month tour, I had a lot of opportunities to really play with that and to see like, oh, this sight line does that. The other sight line creates a different impression. So when I'm writing, a lot of what I am doing is thinking about that body language. There's a thing, aggressive, passive and regressive motion. So aggressive is anything you want to engage with, further regressive, you don't want to engage with it. So happiness, anger, you know, those sorts of things. And so on the page I can do the same thing that I can do with my puppet. What did you say? She leaned across the table is wildly different from what did you say she pushed back from the table.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

And so I wind up thinking about that a lot. I wind up thinking about where I am directing my audience attention because again, that's a thing that I am very consciously controlling as a puppeteer.

[Wil Wheaton]

It's so interesting to me that it sounds to me like you are describing, like. Would you call yourself a visual writer? Do you think about like what this looks. Sometimes when I'm writing, I'll like, I get a picture in my head. I think because it's a skill I developed as an actor, like reading a script and like deciding what it look, you know, what the other side of the set looks like, that the camera's never on. Do you bring Something. Is it a similar kind of, like, I need to see it. I'm moving around in it and like, okay, here I am. I'm in the room with them now.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

I very much am. You know, there's that. That spectrum where between you can see the apple in your head and. And the apple doesn't exist. That. That spectrum. Can't remember what it's called, but I am on the end of. I can see the apple and turn it in my head. And I was an art major in college, again, with the same thing where you have to be able to visualize things, or I shouldn't say you have to. It helps so much.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

But as a reader, when I'm reading books, they often go straight from the page to pictures in my head.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah. Do you cast actors for characters when you're reading? I do it all the time.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Not. Not when I'm reading a book. When I'm narrating. Yeah. Yes.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah. Me.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah. I'm like, yeah. Or your speech patterns, of course.

[Wil Wheaton]

You have, like. I have like, a sort of a. An ensemble that, like, is hanging out in a green room on the other side of the wall.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

Like, come on in. I need you.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yes, yes, yes. Maggie Smith gets cast a lot. Anytime there's like, oh, look.

[Wil Wheaton]

Oh, s. I am currently really enamored with Natasha Lyonne, and she's coming through in a lot of my strong, brusque women characters. And it feels fun. You know, I put on her body language when I. You know, when I do her characters. You are a rare, rare author who is extraordinary at narrating your work.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Aw, thanks.

[Wil Wheaton]

Um, I. We so frequently encounter authors, and I'm like, I get it. You know, you're. Oh, yeah, good try, everybody. Love you. I think I told you this. I was. I was listening to the calculating stars. Thank you. Extended moon joy. And I was on an airplane. And your. Your performance was wonderful, but your voice was so soothing. I kept falling asleep because I was just. And it's not because I don't love the story. It's not because I was just like, oh, man, this just. This feels so good. I'm sure you've gotten feedback about that from people who listen to your books. Just talk about that a little bit about narrating your own stuff and what that experience is like.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

It's weird. Probably the best compliment I've ever gotten was from my dad, who was listening to the calculating stars, and he said that he forgot it was me narrating it.

[Wil Wheaton]

Oh, that's amazing.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

It Was great.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah. I've received that myself from people in my life. And that is the best feeling.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Absolutely.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

The thing that I love about narration is building that world with the voice and that kind of collaboration with the author, trying to understand what their vision is and bringing it out. When I'm narrating my own things, one of the privileges that I have is that they let me narrate it from the first page pass. So I can still make changes to the text. Which means that when I'm narrating something and realize that I've accidentally done a homophone, that I can. I can't fix.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

That I wouldn't have been able to fix if it was somebody else's book, that I can just fix it. My favorite example of this for people who don't know what I'm talking about is the word copse. You know, a grove of trees, a cops of trees.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

And I had to read in somebody else's book. She ran from the police into the cops.

[Wil Wheaton]

No, no, no.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

And I'm like, I can't fix this. I can't. There's nothing I can do for this author. It's beautiful on the page.

[Wil Wheaton]

Could it be a golf.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Anything, Anything. But it's like, it's already in print. I have to be word perfect, and so I get to change my own stuff. The other thing that I love is this happens with my short fiction. I've narrated all of my novels, but with my short fiction, I love hearing someone else narrate it because. And I know other authors don't, because it sounds different from inside their head. But I'm like, but when a reader reads it, it sounds different inside their head too. This is a gift. It is the only time I get to be inside somebody else's head when they're experiencing my stuff. And I love it so much.

[Wil Wheaton]

I've been contacted by a few of the authors who have given me permission to narrate their stories on the podcast. And more than one has said something about how exciting it was to hear their story not in their voice. That one of the authors said, like, commented to me that, like, I didn't even realize how much I liked this story until I heard you do it. And I was like, I was reading it for the first time.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah, that's exactly it.

[Wil Wheaton]

What an incredible gift that is.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah. It's just the best thing. When I had. Oh, I can't remember the. The narrator's name. She narrated Lady Astronaut of Mars. This was also a great lesson to me in Specificity. I had a character. There's a character in the book that I named after my Aunt Jen. So her name to me is Genevieve. And she's Southern. I don't say that on the page. So the narrator sees that and knows that it's an international thing, and quite naturally calls her Genevieve and gives her a French accent. And I'm like, of course. Yeah, okay. Actually, you know what? Canonically, from now on, she is Genevieve, and that's a French accent. Like. But it was also like, all right. You know. Also, note to self, if you want someone to have a specific dialect, you need to mention it.

[Wil Wheaton]

I always ask Gabrielle, if she has not done it already, to reach out to the authors. And we get that. We've been doing a lot of work this year from international writers. It's gorgeous, incredible work. And we have had some stories where it's just like, I am not a polyglot. And I. I apologize in advance for butchering your gorgeous language. But I'm doing the best that I can.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

That is a lot. Sometimes someone asked me, oh, you speak French. I'm like, no, I can pronounce French.

[Wil Wheaton]

Let me tell you all about the story that we did with Marie Antoinette. That was something else I want to get specific about. With her serpent locks.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yes, yes. Right.

[Wil Wheaton]

In the discussion about this, on Writing Excuses, I really enjoyed listening to your colleague talk about how their discovery of what was going on and how satisfying it was. And you talked about delayed gratification for the reader, which is one of my. It turns out, is what I really love, because of the Twilight Zone, because that was so influential on me, that I love these stories where we think, this is what's happening. And then in the last act, in the last half of the last act, we go, by the way, it's actually this. So I was so into it. And you did that great trick where I felt so clever and so smart and so brilliant. Cause I got there about maybe two thirds of a page before you told us about it. So my question is, as a writer, are you doing this on purpose? You're deliberately. You're like, this is what I'm gonna give the audience. And do you have to rewrite that? Do you feel like, oh, this is too much, that. Cause I wanna learn so that I can do it more effectively.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

So I did make the decision with this one on purpose to delay that reveal. Sometimes those reveals happen because the author discovers it at the same time the reader does.

[Wil Wheaton]

I've had that happen, you know.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah, but this one was on Purpose. One of the things that I like to do with short fiction in particular is to play with crap and see how much I can push myself. And this one, one of the things that I was interested in when I was writing this was working on that controlled release of information. I've been thinking a lot about what creates tension in a story, and we think of it as conflict. But I think there's a couple of other levers that you can pull. One of them is unanswered questions. Another is anticipation, juxtaposition. I think these are all things that can cause the reader to lean in a little bit more to. And many of them, juxtaposition in particular, creates space in the story for the reader. So what I decided was that I was going to. I didn't want the reader to feel like I had done a bait and switch. So I made sure that I'm like, here's an answer to your question. Here's an answer to your question. Here's an answer to your question. You don't know that there's a question.

[Wil Wheaton]

I felt like there were some breadcrumbs that. As we were approaching the reveal, I was like, I think that's Zeus. I think I'm putting together, and she's talking about it and, like, the way her snakes respond to him is so awesome. And she's like, the snakes are gonna give me away. I was just like, well, why would she be. So that's.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

Went from the prompt to the text. How much did you know from the beginning? Every now and then I get an idea and I'm like, this, then this, then that. And I'm just gonna fill in the space in between it, and that'll be the that. And I go. And it's not that hard. And other times I have. I have a big idea, or I have a little idea, or I just have a scene and, like, I want to build something around this, and it can just be, like, so rough to get there. What was the experience like with this? Cause it's really short. It's like 1700 words, which is another thing. You told such a full story in such a short amount of time.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Thank you. That was the other thing I wanted to experiment with, was doing a series of extremely short scenes. So I probably knew as I was somewhere in the. Somewhere in the middle. Probably it was when she was with the. She had the pomegranate.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

And that was kind of when I knew what she was going to do to Zeus. Somewhere in there, I kind of knew the shape of That I didn't. And saying the shape of it is. It's like I could see the shadow that was being cast by the end. So I knew the general shape, but I didn't know the dimensions of it yet.

[Wil Wheaton]

I'm thinking, as a writer, I'm thinking, like, I would feel pressure, like, that's a great ending. I gotta earn that. No, you don't. I can tell you don't feel that way more confident in yourself than I do.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

No, I do have to earn it. But the way I think of it sometimes is. This is a weird analogy. In Iceland, there's this mountain, Esja, and people will just go for walks on it. And you start off and it's this beautifully groomed path, which is like the beginning of your story. And then you understand it. It is. You've got it. And then as you go, it transforms from this beautifully groomed path to one that's a little less groomed. And then the path goes away completely. And you just have stakes in the landscape, but you can see the mountain the entire time that you're heading towards. And so you're just following these stakes through the landscape and towards this mountain, which in Iceland, because they are all Vikings, has chains coming down the side of it to help you ascend it. And by this point, you're on the mountain and you understand what needs to happen. And it's hard, but you know where you are and you know what you're doing. And so this was one of those stories. Some stories, it's that same mountain, but there's a fog. And so you don't know what you're navigating towards. And you can only see the next stake when you like, as you are coming up on it. And you have to hope that you are heading towards the next one and not off into a lava field where you're going to perish. So this one, I got lucky because I wrote this on a clear day.

[Wil Wheaton]

I'm really excited that Quint's is sticking with its story time. If you've seen me on your television, probably figured out that my uniform is a black T shirt, black jeans and Converse. I'm very predictable in what I wear, and my wife is far more stylish and put together. I love the clothing from Quint's so much that when it was time to buy Ann some clothing for the holidays, I went to Quint's and got her cardigans and T shirts. And I can tell you that it did not cost what I thought any of it would here in Southern California. Winter is really on its way out. So I walked outside this morning and realized it's spring and it is time for your spring wardrobe staples. And this is where Quince shows up to take care of you. Think 100% European linen shorts and shirts from $34 Clean 100% Pima cotton tees with a softness that has to be felt. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're getting premium materials without the refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com storytime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. You get to have this thing for a year. And if you're like, you know What? It's day 364 and I've decided I really don't like it, send it back and Quince will be like, I got you, boo. Now available in Canada. Hi, Canada. I love you. Elbows up. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com storytime tomorrow morning is knocking.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink or a sweet vanilla smooth coffee? Caramel maybe, or white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.

[Wil Wheaton]

When you experience that fog, what are some things you do to find the next steak?

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

So I have a bunch of different tools depending on the kind of, the kind of that I'm experiencing in that moment.

[Wil Wheaton]

Again, incredibly relatable.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

One of them is an understanding of story structure. So I know, using the mountain analogy again, it's like I'm probably going to want to go, is the hill sloping this way up? That's probably towards the mountain. So I can use my understanding of story structure to go up is probably towards the mountain. But then sometimes using something like GPS or a flashlight and those, the versions of those in the, in the story world are sometimes I'll do a list of 20, like, what are 20 possible things that I could do? And then I look for the thing that is most interesting to me. Sometimes I will literally go for a walk and let my hind brain work on it and come back. Sometimes I do a thing that I learned from Liza Palmer, who we actually just lost, brilliant writer. But she calls, she comes out of Hollywood and she has something that she calls the bad pitch, which is, she's like, okay, let me just do the bad pitch. And then that tells me the shape of the thing that I'm looking for.

[Wil Wheaton]

My friend Amy Berg, who is also a writer in Hollywood, calls it the puke draft. Just puke it out. Oh, the puke draft. Just put it all out there and, you know, and then. And then go through it. Continue. I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah, no, no, no. But it's exactly that. But what I found is that I don't have to write the whole draft. I can just write notes to myself about, you know, and then this happens, and it's like, oh, no, that's not actually what I want to have happen. But it tells me that what I want. It tells me, again, the shape, the shadow. It's the shadow cast by that ending. It tells me that I want, you know, in one story, that I want an ending with magic and them doing their job together and in a safe place. That's what that ending tells me. I don't actually want them to wind up in the Faerie Queen's court because that would involve introducing new characters. So, you know, with this one, as I said, I wrote it on a clear day, but with others, it is that. What is the shape and what are the cues that I can take from what I already know? Oh, this is another great tool. Write down the things that you know, and you'll be surprised at how many things you actually know about the story. And once you have that list of things you know, it becomes so much easier to see the things that you don't know and to make decisions about them. And a lot of times when I'm in that. That phase of it's foggy and I. Where to go, it's because I don't know what I'm looking for.

[Wil Wheaton]

Sometimes I get to that moment, and I will realize I'm struggling because I. I'm actually. I've wandered off the path without realizing it. And I will back up until I realize, like, oh, I tried. That's. That's not what that guy sounds like. Or that's that they're absolutely not going there.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

Or. Or, you know, whatever, you know, that was resolved way too easily. Like, she needs to show us what she's made of. Right. Like, you do that. You back up to, like, oh, well, back up. Time to throw this away.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah. Especially when I'm pantsing. It's often the. Oh, this is not.

[Wil Wheaton]

For listeners who don't know what we're talking about. Pantsing is a term that authors use to mean we're, like, riding by the seat of our pants. My listeners have heard me describe the freight train behind us, and we're putting down the track Two or three feet in front of the cow catcher. And that's what pantsing feels like. Really fun if you're a blogger. Really fun if you're a short story writer. Terrifying if you're trying to do anything.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Here's an amazing thing that I learned. Do you know where by the seat of the pants comes from as a phrase? No flying. So I was taking flying lessons when I was working on the lady astronaut books, and you're in a little tiny plane. Like you're in the Cessna and it is smaller than a sound booth. It is so tiny. And when you are flying, you feel everything about the plane literally through the seat of your pants. And that is one of the things that they will tell you when you are learning, is that flying by the seat of your pants is a good thing because it means that you're in tune with the aircraft. And so when you are riding by the seat of your pants, when it's going well, you are in tune with the story. You are feeling the air around you. I was just like, oh, my God. So, yeah, flying by the seat, like riding by the seat of your pants is literally coming from aircraft.

[Wil Wheaton]

I'm a big fan of etymology. That's really intentional. I want to ask you some of the questions that I ask everyone. Oh, my God. But before I do that, I just. This is just a quick check in. How's Elsie doing?

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Elsie is good. So for people who are unfamiliar, I have a cat named Elsie. She uses buttons to talk. She's good. Although she did ask for medicine yesterday. She has. So again, for people who don't know, she has an arthritic knee that we call her fancy leg. And since she got diagnosed last year with that, she's only asked for medicine when snow was rolling in and I was like, oh, no. But the three previous nights she had wanted to go on the walk with Guppy, and so she had walked for a half mile three nights running. I'm like, yeah, baby girl. Yeah, your knee does hurt, doesn't it?

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

But it's like, yeah. So besides that, she's doing great.

[Wil Wheaton]

I deeply enjoy following along her life. And the conversations that you guys have, they're great. And I mean, it clearly played some role in the inspiration of Starter Villain, which I had an incredibly good time narrating. So thank you.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

You know that when John has a new book coming out and he'll ask me if I want to read it, I'm like, is Will narrating it then? No, thank you. I will wait.

[Wil Wheaton]

Oh, that's really sweet. I. We're working together again later this year. I'm really excited. So cool. Mary Robinette. I have five questions and a bonus that we have for our friends here. When did you know that you were a capital W writer?

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Oh, that. That doesn't always sit in my bones because I defined myself as a capital P puppeteer for such a long time. That was. And then the writing was the side gig. It was probably. I don't know. This should not be an existential question,

[Wil Wheaton]

but sometimes it is, which is why it's so fun to ask.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah. I do think that the idea of imposter syndrome is mostly just that you've leveled up and haven't recognized it. And it's not that I have. Our user interface is extremely bad. In a video game, you get beautiful loading screen and new gear. And in real life you do get the new gear, but no one tells you about it. And the loading screen is just anxiety.

[Wil Wheaton]

That's right. You never get to look at the skill tree and see, like, what's coming up. That's a really interesting. That's a. I'm gonna. I'm gonna spend some time with that.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

It's not that I have doubts about my writing. It's just as an identity, I think. Really. I only started calling myself a writer probably five or so years ago. Yeah. Even though it's not again. It's like, obviously I've been doing writing excuses longer than that. It's not the imposter syndrome thing. It was just like one piece of what I did. So I think it wasn't until it started to take over. But in terms of the aha. I can call myself a writer. That would probably have been the first sale that I made.

[Wil Wheaton]

Okay. I think it's inspiring and it's reassuring and I'm sure it gives comfort to a lot of our Gen X cohorts to know that at this point, you know, we are in middle age. Yeah. I'm gonna start this thing and I'm gonna define my career in middle age rather than allowing, you know, whatever I had done in the 80s or 90s to be the thing. And I'm glad to hear you say that. I think it's a thing that we really need to hear. Especially middle. Middle aged artists who are moving from one form of artistic expression to another. It's clear that you are a capital A artist. Like, game recognizes game.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[Wil Wheaton]

It's. But like, where we specialize, you know, and where we. Where we put those points during leveling up.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah. That's so weird.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah, that's really interesting to me. All right. Would you talk to me a little bit about some of your inspirations? What do you. What do you read? Listen to watch. That goes.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah, man.

[Wil Wheaton]

I want to do a story about. Blah, blah, blah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

So I do a lot of nonfiction, kind of in between the cracks. I'm trying to stay current on all of the Nebula and Hugo short story winners. Not the winners, the finalists. Because that's often where you spot new rising talent and also how the field is. I love Sarah Beth Durst right now is writing these cozy books that inspire me because they are so comforting, and also, you cannot put them down. And structurally, they are immaculate. There's spell. It's. There is the first one. It's so good. And you're like, how are you doing this? I have spent a lot of time and I can now talk about how she's doing it, but it's so. They're so good. I love John Scalzi. Besides being a friend, I know.

[Wil Wheaton]

I'm in the same day. Like, I, I. I'm a massive fan. Right? I'm like a Restraining Order fan of his work. And, like, and he's my friend. He's your friend. He's our colleague. Like, yeah, it's like, we collaborate. Like, it's just like. And, like, massive, Massive fan.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah. Yeah. I remember when we met, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna go read this Old Man's War. And please don't let it suck. Please don't let it suck. I really liked this human being was so cool, and we had good conversations. Please don't. Oh, my God. I'm crying in the first 10 pages. Oh, God.

[Wil Wheaton]

My copy of Old Man's War is an uncorrected proof signed by John that was given to me. We have. Our friend Michael is a former schoolmate of John's. And years before John was John Scalzi, Michael would say, my friend John wrote this book about space. I think you'd like it. My friend John did this book about science fiction movies. I think you'd like it. And then finally, after, like, years of that, said, you know, my friend John, he's got a novel coming out, and I think you're really gonna like it. And he gave it to me. And same exact experience.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

Could not put it down exactly.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

It's just. Oh, my God, he's so good in Cajun bo, obviously. Brilliant, brilliant writer. Annoyingly so. Also great human being. But anyway, carry on. I could just keep listing things Yeah, I know.

[Wil Wheaton]

I could do the same thing. Is there something you know now or something you picked up along the way that you really wish you had known sooner that, like, that you think a baby writer might benefit from, or like a podcast narrator might also benefit from knowing? As we attempt to just build our own toolbox and find our own reliable creative process.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Trust your taste. You have honed it over your entire life as a consumer, which means that you can trust it when you are being a creator. Don't try to create for other people. You will be in conversation with them, but that conversation will happen regardless. You can trust your taste.

[Wil Wheaton]

Thank you. That is what we call actionable intelligence. What are you reading or listening to right now? Do you have time? Do you have free time? Are you watching anything? Like what are you interacting with as an audience that you're enjoying?

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

I am listening to the Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez and I feel terrible. I can't remember the narrator's name right now. Fantastic audiobook. It's a Sapphic Gollum retelling. Whoa. It's so good. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yes. Such interesting things happening in this book. So that's my audiobook right now. I just finished reading Annalee Newitz's new book, Road is Also a Wall, which is. Oh, it's so good. Yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

I love her.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

I'm not gonna tell you anything about it except that it's amazing. And I will say for listeners or watchers, sentient slime mold and academia, but everything else is such a delicious discovery that I just want you to enjoy it yourself.

[Wil Wheaton]

Man. I love that. I've been experiencing some things recently where I've just gone in completely blind and it's really enhanced my experience and I hit that. It is a struggle, right? You want to tell someone about it and I'm just like, listen, I don't want to take that away from you.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

So I'm just going to tell you the title and where to find it and then come back when you're ready to, you know, have that moment that I, that I want to have with you so much right now. Would you like to hype up someone else? Someone you love, someone you really want people to know about? Go hype them up. Tell us who they are and what they're doing.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Leslie Penelope.

[Wil Wheaton]

Okay.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

A phenomenal writer. I don't think enough people know about her. She is writing fiction that is relevant to today. Historical. Often each book feels like a true lived in world. There are often alternate histories or secret histories of Earth. The word Monster is in it. And my brain is only giving me the maiden and her monster. And that's the wrong book, obviously, but it's set in black Harlem. People can make deals with gods to get power, but each deal comes with a price. And so it's a murder mystery, but also with this amazing world building and this like, incredibly rich cultural connections. And she writes like, really visceral. You can feel the books. She had one that was set in Mississippi and you could feel the heat just coming off of the pages. She's so good. I love everything she's written.

[Wil Wheaton]

Cool. We will check her out. Finally, I would love for you to talk about your own work. Plug your work. We never talk about our work enough.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

That's true. We don't.

[Wil Wheaton]

We are constantly. No. No matter how much we talk about our work, someone will be like, I didn't know you had that out there.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yes.

[Wil Wheaton]

Let's give some folks an opportunity to go check you out. I have talked extensively about how much I love the calculating stars, how wonderful it is. The entire Lady Astronaut series is fucking magical. But you've got just so many other things. What do you want folks to know about?

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

So I have two books. Last year I had two books come out. Martian Contingency Book four and the Lady Astronaut series. But I have books that are kind of my. They are neglected. One is called Ghost Talkers and it is World War I with ghosts. That's so good. Thanks. And it came out. My book tour began on election day of 2016. So this book was on nobody. This book just vanished. But I deeply love this book. And then the other one is one that I just had come out last year called Apprehension. And it is from Saga. It's a Saga double. So there's a different book on the other side by Sam J. Miller. And I also love Sam's writing, by the way. So there's two space noirs. Mine is Hitchcock in space. His is Chandler in space.

[Wil Wheaton]

Oh, my God. This is extremely relevant to my interests.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Hello, friend. So my main character's an 84.4year old grandmother who used to be a soldier in interplanetary warfare kind of stuff. And she has returned on vacation to the planet where she was a soldier when she was in her 30s with her son and grandson. And the grandson gets kidnapped and she has to pull up all of this old knowledge, but with an 84 year old body and she is an arthritic hip. And I'm like, we're just. We're gonna do it.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Let's have action, adventure, With a body that is not built for that.

[Wil Wheaton]

Listen, I mean, that sounds like aspirational fiction to me as I deal with my body, like just refusing to go along with the things I want to do day after day.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah, yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

Where can we find probably.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Oh, the best place to find me is my website, maryrobinetcoal.com and then once you're there, sign up for my newsletter because that's gonna keep you up to date on what's. It also has Elsie's Corner. You get a video from Elsie. I talk about what I'm crafting and give you a little backstage peeks, but that's the best route.

[Wil Wheaton]

I think that there's a significant part of this audience that enjoys the show that exists in the creative spaces as we do, and probably wants to know a little bit about writing excuses, if they don't already. Would you just talk briefly about that before we wrap up?

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah, yeah. So writing excuses. We are in season 21 right now. We have a new tagline for season 21, which is. Yes, it's more descriptive. The tagline for the first 20 years or 20 seasons was 15 minutes long because you're in a hurry and we're not that smart. The new tagline is tools, not rules, for writers. By writers.

[Wil Wheaton]

Incredible. It's been very. It's been really helpful for me.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

I'm so glad.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah, it's inspiring. It's validating. Helps create a safe place for me to explore those parts of being an artist where I feel, where I struggle, where I'm just like, I don't know, man. I feel like I'm really close to doing this, but like, I just. I haven't quite figured out how to properly hold whatever it is I have to hold to do this carving.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

And that's what we're aiming for. The hosts in the current iteration of it are myself, Howard Taylor, Aaron Roberts, and Dang Won Song. Dang Won is an agent and was formerly an editor. Aaron is a writer and also game designer. And Howard does web comics. I do short and long form and the goal is really to help people, giving them actionable information instead of. You just have to feel it, man. Which like there are pieces of it that in fact you do just have to feel. But a lot of it, most of it is not that actually a thing that I'm.

[Wil Wheaton]

That I've real. That I'm learning, that I'm internalizing. That's been so helpful for me is that using structure and leaning on well used, like well worn story building ideas does not mean you are doing a hacky by the numbers thing. It means that you are looking at a blueprint that works to build the house so you can decorate it how you want it to look.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Correct.

[Wil Wheaton]

It took me so long to accept that.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Oh, yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

Get comfortable with it.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Same, same. We've been using this analogy of cooking. It's like you can hand the same recipe to two people, and if one of them's a good cook, that's going to be delicious, and the other one, it's going to be not good. And sometimes it's just serviceable. And because everybody is bringing their own stuff to it. And so when you're writing, when you learn to cook, you use recipes because that's how you learn. And then as you progress, you're like, oh, I can do these ingredient substitutions. I understand how that works. And then you hit a point where you're like, what's in my pantry?

[Wil Wheaton]

Right.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

And then some people go on to do molecular gastronomy, and that's fine.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

But. But there's also nothing wrong with, like, a really good chocolate chip cookie.

[Wil Wheaton]

Sure. And that chocolate chip cookie can be one that you put together from, like, Pillsbury, right?

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah, exactly.

[Wil Wheaton]

Like how you cut it up and how you put it out there. Yeah, I totally. I totally get that. I'm excited to go make dinner tonight. I'll tell a story about it while I do it. Mary Robinette, I am intensely grateful to you for your time and just sharing your knowledge. It's just such an incredible pleasure.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Always a delight to see you, Will. And I have not actually said this, but I should say it loud to you while I can see your face. I'm loving what you're doing with the storytelling.

[Wil Wheaton]

Oh, God. Thank you.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

It is just such a gift. I'm learning new writers that I haven't heard before.

[Wil Wheaton]

So happy to hear that.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yeah.

[Wil Wheaton]

That is the north star of the show. Introduce the audience to their new favorite authors who they may not have heard of yet. I'm really happy. And if that's happening for you and you're well read, I feel so good about that. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Gabrielle. Thank you, everybody. Behind the scenes that makes this happen. Oh, my goodness. That's.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yay.

[Wil Wheaton]

Yay.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Yes. No, it's really good. You're doing a lot of work.

[Wil Wheaton]

Thank you. I'm just. I'm doing my best to promote arts and literacy and artists. So thank you. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you. Have fun. Going back to. I presume you're in the studio for narration. So I am So I guess we should probably get back to work. I appreciate you. Thank you.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Thank you, Will,

[Wil Wheaton]

If you want to level up your creative writing or even your basic creative process. I can't oversell how valuable and helpful writing Excuses has been on my ongoing journey from guy with ideas who wants to tell stories to guy who can occasionally turn his ideas into stories that can get published. This year, the hosts have been deconstructing and analyzing story structure, helping us see it as a tool we can use instead of a rigid set of unbreakable rules we must follow. A few weeks ago, they did a deep dive into a short story of Mary Robinettes, originally published in Uncanny magazine called With Her Serpent Locks. It is a gorgeous use of delayed information that I found intensely satisfying and I wanted to narrate it for its story time before I even got to the end. The only problem is its length. It is a very short story. It's just 1700 words and that's about a quarter of what we usually do every episode. But I couldn't stop thinking about the story and how much I wanted to narrate it. This is a bonus narration for you. This is a thank you from me for all of your support while we build this show into something that lasts and ultimately breaks new talent. Maybe, maybe, maybe we break talent that got an XP boost from writing Excuses. Maybe because they heard about it from me. That would be very cool. But let's get started. I hope you love this as much as I do. Here is With Her Serpent Locks. With Her Serpent Locks by Mary Robinette Kowal Originally published in Uncanny Magazine issue 62 hey cuz, it's been too long. Love to come out and see your digs. The message hung in the air, glimmering in her heads up display overlaid across the moss garden she was tending. The chill that swept over Euryale made the hair on her arms stand on end and her gut churn. Her cousin wanted to visit the asshole favorite grandson who got away with rape and murder and incest and never had to pay any consequences. She blinked the message off and stood up, looking into the sky, at the ring that arced over her world. It glowed with the golden light of a sun that was a mere star back on Earth. The other two suns were still low in the sky, but her skin burned as if they were all overhead. Beneath her cap, her hair shifted in a reflection of her rage. How far would she have to go to escape the family drama if she didn't respond to Him. He would send someone to track her down. He. He always did. She sent the message back, keeping it as short as she could. Why? With the lag to the relay station, then through the wormhole back to Earth. It would be a day and a half before she could get a reply from him. Uriah Lee turned back to the garden, patting moss on the stone back of a man huddled on the ground. She's peeling a pomegranate in the kitchen, knife cutting through the thick, waxy skin. When the new message arrived, her hair slithered and hissed with agitation. Euryale put the knife on the counter and let the pomegranate sink to the bottom of the bowl of water. She could have the replicator create perfect seeds, but this one came from a plant grown from seeds gifted to her by one of her kinder cousins. When she left, the imperfections gave her some of her few happy memories of home. She wiped her hands and stepped back, turning her head to look at a blank spot of wall. The honeyed sunlight dappled through the triple shadows of one of the bamboo like native plants that framed the house. She toggled the message. I thought you might want to bury your sister. I have what's left of her. It was like him to not tell her which sister? The one long dead or the one still living? Which? She could have asked more, but took petty satisfaction in making him wait for a single syllable. Hands shaking, she stepped back to the counter and picked up the knife. The fat, fuzzy worm nestled in her lap, thrumming with pleasure. Her sweet pet twined under Euryale's hand. Without eyes to see her, their striped tawny fur rippled with sensory cilia that slid under her palm like silk. Are you the perfect little creature who is so good? Is it you? She nuzzled butterscotch under the chin and their thousand tiny feet made biscuits on her thighs. A message pinged on her hood. Tilting her head back, she felt one strand of hair lash out and bite the chair behind her. She closed her eyes, unwilling to let his words taint any more of her view. The mortal one, of course. My daughter has decided to hang up her shield for the last time. So may I come? Lifting her hands from Butterscotch's body, she ran them over her hair, trying to soothe the strands, as if that would quiet her mind. The temptation to say no was strong, and yet a chance to set her youngest sister to rest, even if only her head. Her cousin's question was only the illusion of choice when the word was not an invitation. But he would read it as such. Opening her eyes, she lowered her hands to Butterscotch, trying to find comfort again in her little pet. Picking up the fuzzy worm, she cradled them to her body, feeling the warm snuffles against her neck. She carried them outside into the garden. They liked frolicking in the mo. A suborbital pod arced overhead with a muffled roar as it sliced through the air. Sighing, she watched the trajectory that was going to land at her town's small port. It did not have to be her cousin, but it would be like him to arrive without answering her question. It had been a week since she had asked. The timing was right. She went into the bedroom of her habitat and opened the drawer of her headscarves. She wrapped one around the snakes, binding them tight to her head so their movement did not betray her emotions. They hissed in protest. She took a face mask out of another drawer and hooked it around her ears in case a mortal accompanied her cousin to her home. The people in town thought she was modest. She just didn't want any more statues haunting her home. Light flashed in the garden, celestial blues and golds that had no place here. He could never abide walking and always needed a grand entrance. She waited until the light show died down, not granting him that pleasure. She waited until she heard him knock. Hey, you're Riley. I'm here. Who? She put lotion on her hands, rubbing it into the soft skin. His sigh of aggravation was music. It's me, Zeus. In the garden she served Zeus a tea brewed from the leaves of the basil lily, which grew abundantly near the waterfalls. It had a lovely floral scent with a sweet minty anise undernote of basil on ice. Cut from the glaciers on the northern continent. It was gloriously refreshing. Her cousin lowered his glass and looked at it in admiration. That is worth the trip alone. A bundle wrapped in silk sat on the ground next to his chair. She did not look at it except in the periphery of her vision, but it still occupied the whole of her attention. Gray, green, encrusted with old dried blood. It drew all the light of the suns toward it and made the shadows deeper. Euryale turned her head from it deliberately and pushed a plate of dullness toward her cousin. There was a grain that was not rice and had a flavor more like puffed corn, but with lemon from a tree she had grown here, and the broad, brine soaked leaves of the pickle gourd. They were a close approximation. In many ways, she thought their slight sweetness made them better. Thank you. Don't mind if I do. He looked around her moss garden with its high walls and golden light. This is a really lovely place you've made for yourself here. Design the whole place yourself. Euryale nodded and picked up one of the dolmas for herself, so that having a full mouth gave her an excuse to not answer him. He took a bite of his. By Jove, that's good. And then he laughed at his own joke. The three suns were high in the sky, spread wide as if they were running a race along the rings. Overhead, the shadows lay tripled around them. They sat in silence, eating the dolmas and sipping the tea, and she was not going to be the one who brought up the reason for his visit. Finally Zeus sighed and set down his empty glass. She refilled it. He watched her as she slipped her own glass under her mask. You don't have to wear that with me, you know. She shrugged and the snakes writhed in their binding. Her cousin sighed again, then clapped his hands. Well. He bent down and hefted the silk wrapped bundle. Here she is. For a moment Euryale thought that he was going to throw her sister's head to her, but he stood and carried it to her, looking as if he was bringing her a great gift, as if she should be honored that he had brought Medusa's head himself instead of sending a messenger. She cradled the bundle in her lap as if it were her fuzzy worm. Running her fingers over the outside of the bundle, she could feel the limp snakes underneath. She did not want to see what centuries of death and battle had done to her sister's features. Zeus stood over her, blocking out the light of one of the suns and leaving her more chilled than a single shadow should warrant. Well, aren't you going to say something? What? I don't know. Thank you, maybe? He put his hands on his hips, glowering like a sulking child. Or did you want to leave her hanging on Athena's wall? With a sigh, Euryale stood holding the bundle against her chest with one hand and beckoned him. She led him to a hole she had prepared lined with marble under a twisting snakebine tree. She knelt to place the bundle gently in its small tomb, looking up at her cousin. She patted the ground beside her until he knelt as well. He sighed but made a show of being respectful. But he shifted, clearly restless to be away. Do you want me to say a few words? Euryale shook her head. She tugged off her headscarf and the snakes tumbled free, writhing in frustrated joy at being released. She took off her mask and she looked at her cousin. Zeus had time to gasp. How? Then his body turned to pure marble, shot through with lines of blue and gold. A look of terror was frozen on his body. In those first moments, as the calcification worked inward, her statues could still hear. You ate food prepared by my hands from my world and drank water that was thousands of years old. Standing under the light of Gorgonia Prima, she scooped up a bit of moss and pressed it onto the ball of his shoulder. Her on my world, you are not a God. Euryale lifted the silken bundle out of the small tomb. She would not leave her sister buried under her cousin's shadow. Where, standing in her moss garden, she turned, holding the bundle and looked across the high walled sanctuary. Where would you like to be?

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

Be?

[Wil Wheaton]

She imagined her garden as if Medusa were alive and they were looking at a vista together. Euryale ran a hand across the silk and considered the best spot for a beloved sister. I'm going to give you a little tiny bit of coda on this and it's really just to encourage you to go listen to writing excuses, even if you only listen to the episode that is about this particular story. Because it's so fun and satisfying to hear these incredible writers, supremely talented writers, share the delight they felt. The delight I felt. The delight I hope you felt upon realizing before it was explicitly revealed to us. Oh my God, she's Medusa's sister. And that's Zeus. I love mythology. I first read Edith Hamilton's Mythology, I think in sixth grade. Reread it again in ninth grade. Reread it again when I was in my mid-20s. There's a terrific pair of books, I don't know if they're even in print anymore, called Classic Myths to Read Aloud. And they're myths that have been adapted to be read to children. And in addition to the myth, there's a little piece that tells the kid who's listening to the story. This is sort of what the Greeks or the Romans or the Carthaginians were talking about when they invented these myths. They created the myth of Persephone and Demeter and Hades in order to explain the changing of the seasons. They created the myths of Poseidon and Zeus to explain storms and things like that. Here's the thing about Zeus. Zeus is a fucking dick. I fucking hate Zeus, man. He sucks. He's. He's violent, he's aggressive. He's a word that rhymes with grapist. And he just, you know, I mean, he's Just sort of like what you would expect from a God who knows they're a God in his place. I just cannot imagine that this is your introduction to mythology. But if. If you are even the tiniest bit interested, track down these stories, however you want to do it, that are all about Hera, just totally owning Zeus or Jupiter or whatever he chooses to call himself, depending on who's telling the story. It's great because Zeus is so horny and so arrogant that he is constantly, constantly getting himself into trouble, and he is. Is always outwitted by the female gods and demigods. I absolutely love it. I'm gonna give you one last recommendation before I reach a point where I've massively overwhelmed you with information. There's a YouTube creator I love, and he only does mythology. He does biblical mythology. He does Greek and Roman mythology. He is amazing. He's called Jake W. And he makes these amazing, hilarious, extremely satisfying videos that tell you some stories from mythology. His biblical mythology stuff is incredible. He has all these episodes about, like, the Old Testament and, like, here's all about the Jews fleeing Egypt. And here's all the. Here's all the. Here's Genesis, but only the parts that are really fucked up. Here's everything that you ever didn't know. You actually wanted to know about Jason and the Argonauts and the Cyclops.

[Mary Robinette Kowal]

He's.

[Wil Wheaton]

He's great. I love him. If this story and this little extraneous conversation about mythology tickled some part of you that was like, I would like more mythology, please. I just can't oversell how terrific he is. Jake W. There'll be a link in the story description thing here. Just wanted to say thank you to Mary Robinette for saying yes, I'm going to say that again without kicking the microphone. I'd like to say thank you to Mary Robinette for saying yes. This actually came in. You know, I asked her to do this. She was on her way to a convention with Elsie, the talking cat. And I was like, hey, I'm really sorry to bother you while you're traveling. And, like, you know, you've got Elsie, and I know what that's all about. But I got studio time next week and I really wanna read this story. And she was as excited about it as I was. So, okay, that's all. I'll be back next week with a whole bunch of new fun stuff for you. Until then, take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Bye. It's Story Time with Wil Wheaton, was produced in 2026 by Traveler Enterprises Incorporated, who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our story producer and director is Gabrielle decur. Our Content editor is Michael Thomas. Our podcast is edited, mixed and mastered by the great Alec Barton of Phase Shift av. Very special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. Recorded at Skyboat Media. Where is that you ask? Let me tell you. It is in the San Fernando Valley. Thank you so much for listening. I am Wil Wheaton. You can find [e-mail], i'm ITS Wil Wheaton on most of the socials. If you would like an ad free experience with behind the scenes fun times and some making of and mean up pronunciations all over the place and laughing about it, check us out@patreon patreon.com Storytime memberships start at 5 bucks a month and I'd love to have you there like subscribe Recommend Rate Review Share with people Hit the notification button. Thanks a lot for listening. Until next time, take care of yourselves and please take care of each other. Bye.