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Fictionable

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by Fictionable

5.0(8 reviews)

63 episodes

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Podcast Overview

Interviews, book chat and everything about the short stories and graphic fiction from all around the world appearing in Fictionable. "Storytellers, readers and creatives alike will love" – The Independent<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

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Publishing Since

6/27/2022

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Recent Episodes

May 16, 2026

Takiguchi Yūshō: 'When I’m writing fiction, I have very little sense I’m the one inventing the story'

We've already heard from Diana Evans, Bruna Martini, Joel Cox and Holly Edwards in this Spring series of podcasts. Now we bring it to a close with Takiguchi Yūshō and the translator Jesse Kirkwood. Takiguchi tells us that the wandering narrator in Peppermint is following the same method as his author. "It's when things start heading somewhere unexpected and when unexpected things begin to happen that it really starts to feel like the novel is working properly," he says. Just as in life, Takiguchi continues, "even if you don't want to go off track, you end up doing so. Things never quite unfold the way you intended, and you still have to keep moving forward in some way." And it's no good looking back. Memory may be "always with us", he explains, but it's also "profoundly unstable". So whether we reach for prose or images, it's impossible to capture the past. "No matter how many photographs we have, no matter how much we try to preserve something in words, it's never the same as the thing itself." That gap between words and the things they represent is familiar territory for the translator, Kirkwood adds. But you can start to solve the puzzle when you focus on the voice. "Once you have that voice," Kirkwood says, "a lot of your other decisions become very easy, because you just listen to the voice." It's an echo of the way Takiguchi writes his fiction. Instead of coming up with his stories, it's a question of paying attention to what his characters are telling him. "What matters more," he says, "is whether I'm able to listen well to someone's story." That's the last of these Spring podcasts. We'll be back with another season of stories for Summer.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

May 9, 2026

Holly Edwards: 'There's obviously something political about presenting trans characters'

Diana Evans, Bruna Martini and Joel Cox have already joined us on this Spring series of podcasts, and next time we'll be hearing from Takiguchi Yūshō and the translator Jesse Kirkwood. But this time we welcome Holly Edwards. The country comes calling in her short story Little Lamb, Who Made Thee? But Edwards has always lived in the city, so she doesn't have a store of memories to draw on. "What I have is – from very much an urbanite's perspective – an obsession with what it must be like to live in the countryside," she says, "ever since I was a child. And as part of that I have watched hours of shows like This Farming Life and River Cottage." The story follows Rose as she reconnects with her roots, the author continues, with much of the detail taken from those sessions. "I'm often eating my dinner while watching people lambing on telly." For Edwards, the comfortable rural life portrayed in TV documentaries is altered by viewing it through the queer lens. "I don't consciously set out to queer a story," she says, "but that's how I perceive the world and so I'll often have queer characters or queer perspectives in my stories." Queerness is inherent in Little Lamb, Who Made Thee? with the tension between Rose and her father coming from his discomfort with her transition, Edwards explains, but she didn't want to write a "battle cry". "There's obviously something political about presenting trans characters and trans lives," she says, "I think that's inescapable." There's something inherently political about presenting all sorts of queer lives, she adds, "but it wasn't my intention when writing it". Rose's father may have started out as the bad guy, Edwards says, but she knew from the start that it wasn't that simple. "As a queer writer, I do feel a responsibility to portray the complexities and the intricacies and the beauty of queer lives. Fiction definitely has an important role in helping people across the spectrum understand each other." We'll be exploring the convolutions of memory next time with Takiguchi Yūshō and the translator Jesse Kirkwood.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

May 3, 2026

Joel Cox: 'It's fine to have jerks in stories, but you have to have something that makes the reader keep reading'

We've heard from Diana Evans and Bruna Martini already in this Spring series of podcasts, and we'll be welcoming Takiguchi Yūshō and the translator Jesse Kirkwood, and Holly Edwards over the next couple of weeks. But this podcast is devoted to Joel Cox and Variable Rewards. Cox explains that this short story came out of his own move to the suburbs and his love for Richard Yates's novel Revolutionary Road. "A few months into living in the suburbs," he recalls, "I was thinking this story sounds really familiar." But while Yates's characters were all members of the Rotary club and hanging out at cocktail parties, in the 21st century the suburbs have become far more fragmented. "I couldn't tell you the name of our neighbours, probably for the last ten years," Cox admits. "So you're living in this strange world where you're in a village, or the simulation of a New York village, that's in the middle of nowhere, where you don't know anyone." This sense of disconnection is amplified by social media, he continues, which allows people to "project the image of the life you want to live, even if you're not really living it". And it's intensified by the wave of redundancies, as companies pivot to AI. "There's a lot of scrambling right now for everyone to figure out what their role will be in this new AI world," Cox explains, "and how they can leverage AI to survive, to hide out while this transition takes place." When people are jostling for position on a sinking ship, there's always room for fiction, he adds, but even if your characters are behaving like jerks you have to keep your sense of humour. "I like to have fun while I write," Cox says. "If my characters are having a laugh at themselves, I think it balances out their jerkiness." We'll be striking a balance with Holly Edwards next time, and her short story Little Lamb, Who Made Thee? <hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

63 total episodes available

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Susanna Clarke

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Jay Boss Rubin

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Frequently asked questions

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What is Fictionable?: Interviews, book chat and everything about the short stories and graphic fiction from all around the world appearing in Fictionable. "Storytellers, readers and creatives alike will love" – The Independent<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates weekly.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 10 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: Information about guest appearances is not available.

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