UpperPen Podcast

Interviews and Book Reviews

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Category: Book Review

  • Inside Akira Kurosawa’s Mind

    Translator Anne McKnight talks about the difficulties of the well loved filmmaker About Long Take A multifaceted portrait of the great Japanese director For years, Akira Kurosawa resisted writing about himself. “It would turn out to be nothing but talk about movies,” he said. “In other words, take myself, subtract movies, and the result is zero.” The memoir he finally…

  • From Book One to Book Two: Raising the Stakes in The Breaking Annwn

    The Longwinded One and narrator Chris Tucci talk about book 2 of The Four Treasures Saga About The Breaking of Annwn, The Four Treasures Saga Book 2 After uncovering the truth about his origins, Bren begins a desperate effort to rally the scattered forces of the Celtic Otherworld against the Overking. But he’s not the…

  • Monsters, Murder, and Women’s Power in Victorian England

    Interview with Suzannah Rowntree on Rewriting the Past About The Werewolf of Whitechapel Murder, monsters…and a disreputable Victorian lady’s maid. A killer stalks the grimy streets of Whitechapel—but Scotland Yard seems determined to turn a blind eye. With one look at her best friend’s corpse, Liz Sharp already knows the truth: the killer is a…

  • Inside Mothra: Kaiju and post WWII Japan

    Interview with Jeffrey Angles, translator of The Luminous Fairies and Mothra About The Luminous Fairies and Mothra The original story that hatched Mothra, one of the most beloved monsters in the “kaijuverse”—available in English for the first time Mystical and benevolent, the colossal lepidopteran Mothra has been one of the most beloved kaiju since 1961,…

  • What are editors looking for?!

    Interview with R.B. Wood editor of Ruadán Books About Spring in the City Spring. Even in the shadows of skyscrapers, spring sees an awakening in the concrete jungle that we call “the city.”Spring in the City: A Collection of Dark Speculative Fiction is the next anthology in Ruadán Books’ “…In the City” series that takes…

  • Why You Should Read The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy

    edited by John Joseph Adams About The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor—a leading writer in the field—then chooses the…

  • Brooke Fast

    author of To Cage a Wild Bird About To Cage a Wild Bird Enter the brutal world of Endlock, a prison where the wealthy hunt the inmates for sport. The first novel in an electrifying dystopian romance series, this high-octane debut about forbidden love, found family, and a fight for survival will leave you breathless.…

  • Serra Swift

    author of Kill the Beast About Kill the Beast The Witcher meets Howl’s Moving Castle in this debut original faerie tale of revenge, redemption, and friendship—for fans of T. Kingfisher, Naomi Novik, and cozy fantasy with a dash of gritty adventure. The night Lyssa Cadogan’s brother was murdered by a faerie-made monster known as the Beast, she made…

  • Courtney Floyd

    author of Higher Magic About Higher Magic In this incisive, irreverent, and whimsical cozy dark academia novel for fans of Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde series and R.F. Kuang’s Babel, a struggling mage student with intense anxiety must prove that classic literature contained magic—and learn to wield her own stories to change her institution for the better. First-generation graduate student…

  • Harmon Cooper

    author of The Feedback Loop, The Cozy Abyss, Doom System, and so many more About A Pub in the Underworld Death is only the beginning for one warrior as he encounters adventure, friendship, and romance in the afterlife in the epic first book of this cozy LitRPG. There are three levels to the afterlife. The…