Category: Great Big Beautiful Podcast

This week, we’re chatting with author Lamar Giles about his newest book, ‘The Last Last Day of Summer,’ and the brand-new Versify imprint it’s helping launch.

On this episode, we talk to Ronald L. Smith about growing up as a military brat, why bullying recurs as a theme throughout his books, the role of adults in kids’ stories, playing in the Marvel sandbox, and Baltimore.

On this episode, I geek out with Tom Angleberger about his criminally underappreciated ‘The Mighty Chewbacca in the Forest of Fear.’ And the 10th anniversary of Origami Yoda. And what else he’s got up his sleeve. Buckle up!

This week, we’re talking to author Hena Khan, whose book ‘Amina’s Voice’ was one of the launch titles for Simon & Schuster’s Salaam Reads imprint.

This week, we’re talking children’s poetry through the lens of rock and roll, baby! We welcome Rhett Miller, lead singer of the Old 97s, to the show to talk about his new book of, yep, children’s poetry!

We’re gettin’ nerdy this week, people! We’re donning our lab coats and venturing into a scientific conversation we have no business discussing: CRISPR/Cas9.

This week, we’re marking the release of Oliver #1 with the creative team responsible for bringing this hopeful dystopia to life.

This week, we’re entering the world of myth. The mythological world of the Maya gods through the lens of J.C. Cervantes’s ‘The Storm Runner,’ to be exact.

Prolific on the page, vocal online, and just a damn fine gentleman, I can think of no better way to kick of 2019 than with Chuck Wendig. Enjoy! And Happy New Year!

On this episode, Shiri and I talk to Peter Beagle about his early career, writing and selling ‘A Fine and Private Place,’ the legacy of ‘The Last Unicorn,’ why unicorns are so compelling, why he’s returned to the story numerous times over the years, and his other recent work.

On this episode, we talk to Matt Forbeck about his history with game books, how writing a branching storyline with multiple pathways presents unusual creative challenges, and what the new (and upcoming) Endless Quest books have in store for us.

On this episode, we talk with R.A. Salvatore about his many years playing in the Forgotten Realms sandbox, the freedom he had to develop the world and characters, returning to Drizzt with Timeless, playing EverQuest, novelizing Star Wars with Attack of the Clones, and killing Chewbacca.

This week, we turn our sights back to music and composing – television scores, to be specific. We welcome Siddhartha Khosla to the show and dive deep into his career and experiences as a musician.

This week, we’re geeking out about ‘Star Wars’ again. Big surprise, right? Joining us is Jason Fry, who’s certainly no stranger to the franchise. His in-universe bibliography is lengthy, having written everything from fiction to “nonfiction” to visual guides to RPG supplements and covering nearly every corner of the ‘Star Wars’ galaxy. His most recent foray to the galaxy far, far away is the novelization of ‘The Last Jedi.’

On this episode, we talk to Rebecca Roanhorse about balancing two completely different professional lives, writing in the first-person, crafting a story that’s both heavily rooted in Native cultures and incredibly relevant in 2018, and portraying a different side of familiar mythical characters. We also talk about Navajo tradition and what else she’s got on the horizon.

On this episode, we talk to Kris Bowers about his parents’ somewhat unusual influence on his music, learning to collaborate with a larger creative team in television, his genre-spanning music for ‘Dear White People,’ and how to write music that evokes specific colors.

On this episode, I talk to J. Harrison Ghee about how he got his start on the stage, his stint at Tokyo Disneyland, his many personal parallels with Lola and ‘Kinky Boots,’ what the show means to him personally, and what it means to “be a man.”

On this episode, we talk about Aliki Theofilopoulos’s history with Disney feature animation and ‘Phineas and Ferb,’ how she made the transition to producing and showrunning (and what she brought with her), the directive they were given with the ‘Harvey Street Kids’ legacy characters, and how she and Brendan Hay brought the characters into the 21st century without losing the core of what makes them unique.

On this episode, we talk to Jeff Russo about his musical roots, writing music for films versus television, getting the ‘Star Trek’ gig while on a camping trip, the soul of Trek music, and why he sometimes still needs to pinch himself in the morning.