BEHIND THE ZINES with Marguerite Kenner & Alasdair Stuart, co-owners & publishers at ESCAPE ARTISTS INC.

It is my very great pleasure to publish this interview with Marguerite Kenner and Alasdair Stuart, co-owners and publishers of Escape Artists. They happen to be two of my favourite people in SFF-publishing, and I am just thrilled that they were gracious enough to talk to me about their work in the speculative fiction field.

Escape Artists is home to five outstanding speculative fiction podcasts: Escape Pod, PseudoPod, Podcastle, Cast of Wonders, and the newest addition: CatsCast. These venues publish both original fiction and reprints, and if you're into spec-fic, these podcasts are some of the best places to find excellent short fiction, both new and old.

 

(Photo by Jeremy Carter of Edge Portraits.)

More about Marguerite Kenner:

Marguerite is a California transplant living in the UK. She co-runs Escape Artists, the media production company behind original, award-winning free weekly audio fiction.

A practicing technology lawyer, Marguerite loves doing voice work for podcasts, community organizing, and teaching business skills to creatives.

(Photo: © Edge Portraits 2019)

More about Alasdair Stuart:

Alasdair Stuart is a professional enthusiast, pop culture analyst, writer and voice actor. He co-owns the Escape Artists podcasts and hosts their weekly horror fiction show, PseudoPod. He is an Audioverse Award winner, a multiple Hugo Award and BFA finalist, writes the multiple-award nominated weekly pop culture newsletter, The Full Lid, blogs at www.alasdairstuart.com , streams on Twitch, and tweets @AlasdairStuart.

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Q. What’s your background: where are you from, where are you now, and what do you do inside and outside the world of speculative fiction?

Alasdair: I come from the Isle of Man, a small piece of land off the coast of Ireland and Liverpool. I’ve lived in York, Milton Keynes, California, Nottingham and now live in Reading. In the world of spec-fic, I’m the lead host of the horror podcast PseudoPod, occasional host of the science fiction podcast Escape Pod and co-host of horror podcast Caring into the Void.

I’m also a game writer and my background there is in TTRPG. I’ve written for the Doctor Who, Primeval and Star Trek RPGs and have also written original work for After the War, a game I co-created.

I also write a weekly pop culture newsletter called The Full Lid and write about The Walking Dead for SciFi Bulletin. Adjacent to that is my work for Obverse Books on long-form critical analyses of individual pieces of TV.

Outside the world of speculative fiction I love to cook and living across the street from an arthouse cinema means I get to indulge my deep love of movies.

Marguerite: I was born and raised in California, and this year is the 10th anniversary of my moving to the UK, where we live in Reading, about 30 minutes outside central London by train. Inside the spec fic world Alasdair and I co-own and run Escape Artists. We took over from Serah Eley in 2014. There we focus on the invisible and less glamorous sides of publishing so that the editorial teams can focus as much of their attention as possible on reading and producing great audio fiction.

I give lots of presentations and talks about business skills for creative people; the last one I gave was about Fan Art policies for indie creators. I’m on lots of different committees for different orgs, I volunteer at different cons and orgs (like Dream Foundry), and in the past Alasdair and I co-led the Redcloaks, the Fantasycon volunteers for the British Fantasy Society.

But that’s the nights and weekends work, because like lots of creatives we both have full time day jobs. And mine’s as a commercial / privacy lawyer for a big US software company. I also have a few personal legal clients, all in the podcast and genre fiction space. *laugh* I always tell people to find a lawyer who will answer their questions for drinks or cookies, and that includes me!

Q. What attracted you to the speculative fiction genre as a child or young adult (or adult)? What were your “gateways” to genre fiction, and is there a specific genre that appeals to you and has that changed over the years? Are there some specific books, movies, TV-shows or similar that you feel were responsible for sucking you into the world of SFF?

Alasdair: One of my earliest memories is watching the Fourth Doctor get trapped under a collapsing pillar by weird disco-looking aliens. Another is a deeply terrifying children’s TV movie where two kids from the present time-slipped to the 19thcentury and helped a third child fight a horribly burnt fairground ride owning villain. There was a fight in a burning house where at least one of these kids clearly died and then… they were all on a merry-go-round smiling and waving over the end credits.

Also The Adventure Game, in which a group of cheery 1980s BBC celebrities were transported to an alien space station and competed to finish challenges. The first episode featured beloved children’s newsreader John Craven consigned to the vacuum of space. I mean he was in the van back to Earth at the end but still, the trauma was real and usually on TV on Saturday mornings after the Transformers cartoon and before the football.

Anyway those had a big effect on me and they catapulted me into the Sylvester McCoy era Doctor Who, the first Star Wars movies and a lot of one-season American TV. Then I found books and I was in trouble. Then I found comics and I was in Trouble.

For the longest time I convinced myself I was just an SF fan. Then it occurred to me I’ve hosted a horror podcast for 15 years and that I’m maybe in fact very fond of horror which was a really nice realization to have.

L. D. Lewis talks about asking panelists at cons ‘Are you a fan or WERE you a fan?’ It’s a great question and one I’m aware I look like I’m on the wrong side of given those answers. So! Recent stuff I’ve really enjoyed includes Fonda Lee’s stunning Jade City books, Jen Williams’ excellent fantasy and crime novels, especially Dog Rose Dirt and the most recent Jordan Peele movie, Nope.

As to how my tastes have changed? I think I’ve made a conscious choice to be more open. When you’re a guy growing up in the West, emotion is viewed as weakness. I’m much more willing to explore and interact with media that elicits emotional response now and that’s a really good thing.

Marguerite: My intro to genre was my Uncle Brian, who loaned me his Zelazny and Heinlein and Niven books. Like many in our industry I read Tolkien young. He tried to teach me his love of Pratchett as well, but that particular variety of British humor just doesn’t work for me (likewise Gaiman). From there as a teenager I fell headlong into the ‘reclaiming of sword and sworcery’ era of fantasy - Lackey, Zimmer Bradley, Cherryh etc.

I’d definitely say my introduction to fantasy was driven by books, but my love of science fiction is all down to Star Trek. I adore everything about it. I’m a second generation Trekkie, and my mom and I went to my first fan conventions together when I was a teenger. Star Trek or other science fiction was ALWAYS on the TV when I was younger. And then I started to branch out into related fandoms like Doctor Who, reenactment / the SCA, comics, anime, cosplay, etc.

I literally can’t remember a time in my life where genre of some kind was front and center. TTRPGs were a huge part of my life for a long time, though somehow I’ve never really played D&D -- these days videogames occupy that spot, especially my beloved Bioware titles. I’ve read very little what we could call ‘literary fiction’ outside of academia, mostly because… it bores me. I prefer nonfiction over literary fiction, which is probably a slightly snobby way of saying I’m very into worldbuilding. I know it’s a trope that ‘lawyers only like legal stuff’ but yeah, it’s a self-reinforcing cycle. Give me an examination of the economics of the undead, or essays on the Star Trek legal systems any day (and yes I own both of those books).

Q. As co-owners and publishers of Escape Artists, you are two of the driving forces behind EA’s wonderful podcasts. What drew you to the world of podcasting, how did you first get involved with Escape Artists, and can you tell us a bit about the history of Escape Artists?

Alasdair: Serah Eley set up Escape Artists around the time the podcast was formally born, about 2005. Serah wanted, if I remember correctly, something fun to listen to in the car on the way to work so she recorded herself reading short stories. Then, she decided to release them as a podcast and as the first genre fiction podcast at the time, they really took off.

Meanwhile in the UK, a very kind friend (Hi Steve! And thank you!) had burned episodes of I Should Be Writing to dvd for me and I’d listen to those while I worked. When I got an internet connection in my new house, I downloaded, via dialup, the first episodes of Escape Pod and PseudoPod and I was DOOMED. Especially when Mur announced she was stepping down as co-editor on PseudoPod. I volunteered, they said yes and 15 years later here we are.

Marguerite: *laugh* You can literally blame PseudoPod - it was my introduction to podcasting. An episode and a drive-through coffee was my Friday commute routine forever. From there I got involved with slush reading at Cast of Wonders, and then because it’s host and editor. When Alasdair and I took over at Escape Artists, integrating Cast of Wonders was one of our first goals.

Then Serial happened, or The First Time Someone Invented Podcasting. Those who had been actively working in the space for a while rightfully took umbrage, but the success of Serial and then Welcome to Nighvale raised podcasts in public perception. And most of that indy work was speculative in nature, specifically dark fiction and horror.

At the time EA had always been run firmly on the speculative fiction magazine model using podcast convention wisdom - establish a schedule and stick to it. But podcasts with different models were becoming popular and starting to meld in the audience’s mind as its own medium. So we made a really concerted effort to go out and meet and engage with the indy podcasting community, especially here in the UK. These days EA has one foot firmly in each space - spec fic mag and podcast.

Q. What is your role in the day to day running of Escape Artists, and how have your roles evolved since you first started out?

Alasdair: I started out as a co-host, graduated to host and I’m now lead host at PseudoPod for a fantastic team. We always try and provide teaching opportunities for our staff and opening up the hosting spots has really helped do that. I’m really proud of how varied the voices you hear on PseudoPod are and I’m honored to be part of the team.

Marguerite: Alasdair and I work really well together, and each of our strengths are in different arenas. He’s very much the ‘face’ of the company -- promotion, talking about what makes us unique, being actively involved in the larger community. I’m a ‘devil in the details’ person. I like an agenda, a schedule, goals and deadlines. As I talked a bit about earlier, our job is to make anything not directly related to editorial work as painless and streamlined as possible. Contract questions, filing the taxes, wrangling tech issues, awards prep - a gigantic grab bag of things most podcast fans won’t ever see or hear about.

When we first started as co-owners I foolishly thought I could do that, and edit Cast of Wonders, AND work full time. That lasted longer than it should have, to be honest. We intentionally scaled up the ‘back office’ team around the end of 2019 - now we have nearly a dozen people in roles that aren’t related to producing a weekly podcast episode. Managing that team has become a bigger part of my role, especially since we try really hard to find and pass along opportunities for learning new skills, building a CV, etc.

Q. Both of you host podcast episodes and also narrate stories for the podcasts. What are some of your favorite episodes that you have hosted and/or narrated?

Alasdair: I’m still SO fond of "Why I Hate Cake" for PseudoPod. It was one of the earliest ones I did and I was late for a dental appointment and I just…kind of forgot to act. So it opens with this long suffering sigh and goes into horrifying detail about a very good reason to hate cake and then I went and got a filling. All very synchronous.

I love doing the White Street Society stories by Grady Hendrix. Grady is a genius and those stories are a chance to basically have my extrovert and introvert selves on stage at the same time. Also I never, ever make it through a page without corpsing.

More recently, Episode 821, which was my 15th anniversary in the job, was "Celestial Shores" by Sarah Day and Tim Pratt and we got to read it together and it was a TIME. Loved doing that one.

Marguerite: Seconding the "Celestial Shores" narration. We crammed into our little tiny recording closet together for that one and it was SO good.

My favorite event that I got to host at Cast of Wonders was Banned Books Week, a tradition I’m really heartened Katherine Inskip has continued. Being able to talk about censorship and the so many different ways it impacts a person and a community is really powerful.

Q. Good narration can really add another dimension to a story. Do you have any tips for people who want to get started as narrators, or who might want to become better narrators? What do you look for when choosing narrators for a story at EA? How does that process work?

Alasdair: I’ll do the first one here, because I know Marguerite can speak to the back two a lot more specifically.

First tip; find people you want to sound like and impersonate them. For the last 15 years I have been doing audio cosplay of DJ Chris Stevens from Northern Exposure. Endlessly enthusiastic and kind, always open to new experiences and just a big amiable vortex of love for all culture.

Jack Killian too, the lead character of a show called Midnight Caller and absolutely the sort of character a tabletop RPG player would roll up and the DM would go ‘…FINE but you need more flaws too.’ Ex-cop turned DJ in a show which was basically an excuse for Gary Cole to monologue. His outros are a big part of why mine are like they are.

Rod Serling too, as well as Valentine Dyall, Edward DeSouza, Mark Gatiss and Jordan Peele. All of them have done excellent work as that slightly alien narrator of the story but not in the story.

Second tip; read everything aloud before you record. I never do this. I should. My dad prints a script off and marks it up too with breath points, pauses and odd words. Always worth doing.

Last tip. If you want to become a better narrator it plays a lot like becoming a better artist in general; be brave enough to get out of your own way. That sounds pat but its act of courage not to be under-estimated. My proudest moment in narration this decade is in "The Secret of St Kilda". There’s a flashback sequence where a character is in hospital and I was praised by a couple of listeners for how emotional the narrator sounded. It wasn’t acting. It was channeling and using prior experience. Which, now I see it written down, probably is in fact acting but the point stands.

Marguerite: The short answer is: try it. Podcasts have NEVER been more prevalent, and the technology more readily available. Yes, you can record on your phone. Or many public libraries or community centers have accessible recording equipment or space. Get a group of friends together and record plays or scripts to other podcasts you like. Technology isn’t the barrier to participation - it’s time and opportunity. Take advantage of any you come across, and work with others to make those opportunities available for more people.

Regarding choosing narrators for stories, that is truly the secret ingredient of audio storytelling. We can all think of examples where a wonderful story was diminished by its telling; good audio fiction takes a good story and makes it better.

One of the things I’m extremely honored to be a part of is how hard the audio drama community works to center lived experience in performance. Our editors and producers work hard to find representational voices for protagonists and characters, bringing the author’s full intention to life. It’s time consuming and at times heartbreakingly difficult, but it’s also critical.

Q. Each one of the EA podcasts seems to have a devoted and hardworking team at the helm. What are your thoughts on how to put together a good editorial team, and do you have any “management tips” on how to help a podcast or any other publication get a strong editorial team, and develop a strong editorial voice?

Alasdair: Work with people you trust who do not feel the way you do about everything and listen to them when they come to you with concerns. Even if there’s nothing you can do, creatives are perpetually so endlessly overlooked or downtrodden that simply saying ‘I hear you’ is more than most people bother with. When they have a problem that you can solve, solve it.

When you screw up, say so. You’re going to screw up. Everyone does. When it’s your fault, own it. Say so out loud. Very little is more powerful, or more classy, than ‘I’m sorry, here’s what I’m going to do to fix it.’

Marguerite: Creating a spec fic magazine is a side hustle for all but a privileged few. Which means it isn’t going to be the only thing - the only priority - for anyone, no matter how much they love it. If you can build a team with complementary strengths, like pairing someone who lives for spreadsheets with someone who can spot a gem in the slush at ten paces, it’ll minimize the amount of time anyone has to do a thing they dislike. Redundancy is good, flexibility is critical. And you MUST look outside your personal circle or echo chamber. Lining up editorial taste is important, yes, but less critical than having perspective outside your own experience. Without that, you’re going to turn into a publication that is only being read by the people who want to be published by it.

Q. What have you learned since you started out at Escape Artists, and what are the most enjoyable things vs. the hardest things about your work at EA?

Alasdair: Never have one person in a job. The old military maxim of ‘two is one, one is none’ exists for a reason. Every show has multiple editors, multiple producers, hosts and associate editors. They don’t just do vital work, they stop one person doing all the vital work. That helps people stay energized and healthy, means bottlenecks are kept to a minimum and ensures that we’ve always got opportunities for folks to learn new things.

Marguerite: That’s too many projects, put some back. No, more. *laugh* Every single thing you want to do will take three times as long as you plan through no one’s fault. You just have to accept and be flexible with that reality.

The hardest part? Not being able to raise rates, or pay everyone more. Don’t get me wrong, EA is incredibly fortunate to be entirely donation supported for coming up on twenty years. And we’re one of the few - maybe the only? - genre mag that pays absolutely positively everyone, from our senior editors to our community moderators. That’s just mind-boggling. But we can only spend on stories what we receive in donations - they’re directly related. Most podcasts these days receive a big portion of their funding through either a single crowdfunding campaign per season (which doesn’t work for how we publish), or through advertising. We’re starting to dip our toe into ads, and we have another big change we’re trying to roll out next year which we hope will help incentivise more donations.

The most enjoyable part is when a new author tells you one of the EA podcasts was their first published story, or is their dream market to crack. That always makes me so happy.

Q. What advice would you give to writers submitting stories to your podcasts, and podcasts / publications in general?

Alasdair: Rejection isn’t criticism. We have a lot of vastly talented writers who bounce off our submission windows not because of the work they do being bad but because it isn’t a good fit at that moment. I know that sounds like a truism and I hate those but it really is.

Read the submission window guidelines. For the 98% of you going ‘Come on, Man!’ right now, I’m sorry. This is for the 1% that don’t. The 1% who think it’s funny to send massively offensive stories we’ll never buy can’t and won’t be helped. Or published.

Last one. I have NO editorial say whatsoever. None. Never have had. That’s what our amazing editors are for.

Q. How has your work at EA over the years affected your view of the world of speculative fiction publishing? Do you feel podcasts are getting the love and respect they deserve in and outside the speculative fiction community? What do you see as the main challenges, and the main positive changes you’ve seen in SFF publishing over the years?

Alasdair: Let’s do these one at a time:

1. It has added depth to the vast ocean of respect I have for creatives. It’s also shown me that the level of talent in the field is truly astounding. SF especially is vastly guilty of bemoaning the fact time passes. I would, and have, argued that we’re living in a new renaissance of science fiction, and one that constantly betters and improves itself. Often despite the best efforts of those who’d rather salute the past.

2. No. Honestly. We have a running gag that once every six months someone will write the ‘Audio dramas are back!’ piece and we reset the big clock from Pacific Rim. Closer to home we’ve had recent, contemporary experience of journalists completely failing to understand what audio producers do, companies who’ve reached out to us four times for the same collaboration that has yet to appear, and anecdotal data that because we’re a podcast we’re viewed as more ephemeral than other publications. None of that’s true. None of it’s fair. But it’s what we deal with.

3. The biggest challenge is that no one’s paid a living wage unless they’re one of a half dozen authors or editors. That’s wrapped around an equally large challenge: the belief that you have to ‘pay your dues’. If you’re creating? If you’re working? If you’re wearing PANTS right now you’re paying your dues. No one has to earn their spot and yet, at every level, we see SF creatives expected to do just that and sneered at when they make money doing it. A friend of mine jokes that Patreon is just a few thousand of us passing the same ten bucks around and it’s only just a joke.

4. The first positive change is that this stuff is being talked about. The second is that digital publishing has empowered a vast amount of people. Look at the sheer amount of fiction out there. Short fiction, novels, novellas. Entire forms are being brought back into the Sun and it’s amazing to see. The challenges built into that are threefold; to ensure the financial and infra-structure barriers to entry (Internet connection, computer) are as low as possible. Then there’s the challenge of reaching and maintaining an audience. This is just one manifestation of how vastly uneven the playing field publishing mega-corporations and indie presses share truly is. Finally there’s the need to empower your audience. The ongoing pandemic has understandably convinced a lot of folks that they only need to interact with fiction they know. I get that absolutely, there is no blame here. I’ve done that myself. But once you move outside your comfort zone? There’s so much great stuff out there.

Marguerite: I’d definitely say that becoming a publisher has given me a broader perspective of the industry as a whole. One of the advantages in-house lawyers have is that they can see over the silo walls between departments in a company; that’s how I think of my perspective on genre these days. For example, one of the projects I’ve been working on for several years now with SFWA is reworking the qualified markets scheme. I felt it was really important that group of people wasn’t just made up of only authors, but would have the perspective of the issues and pressures that publishers have as well. It would have been all too easy to make standards that small publishers would have found impossible to meet.

Are podcasts getting love and respect? I think the genre community does a slightly better job than media in general, probably because audio drama is such a successful category of podcasts, and they’re almost always speculative.

Main challenges to the genre publishing? Oof, that changes almost every week it seems. Right now the ‘fan versus pro’ debate is back, which I loathe. If I had to summarize it, I’d say we’re facing a regime change, a generational tipping point in assumptions about things like creation in the face of capitalism, and building new systems which center inclusion when our old systems fail us. And those are the positive things I see as well. The fact that more of us are saying ‘No, it’s not right that X isn’t happening, we’re going to make X happen’ and bluntly, just not taking no for an answer.

Q. What would you say are some of the most important issues to think about for people who are running podcasts or zines?

Alasdair: Those financial barriers I just mentioned. As important? The fact everyone has to be able to play. Inclusivity and diversity aren’t just ethical obligations, they're going to help you. The more people feel welcome and feel seen listening to your show, the wider and more appreciative and more interesting your audience will be.

Genre audio fiction and audio drama is the secret garden of podcasting. There are thousands of us out here and more every day. An hour or so ago I read a piece about how podcasting is ‘just radio now’ and nothing has ever been as big as Serial. If that’s the only thing you ever look for? That’s on you. And you’re missing so many incredible shows.

Marguerite: Know what you want out of the experience before you start. That old saw about ‘twice is tradition’ can be an unhealthy assumption. If you want to do something purely to learn a skill and then put it down, you can do that! You don’t have to continue past that point. And whatever you do, under commit and over deliver. Audiences hate being disappointed, but they’re usually pleased to be surprised.

And for the love of all that’s holy, spend two minutes to Google search a name before you use it!

Q. Marguerite, I first got to know you through your work as editor at Cast of Wonders. I love CoW, and I sort of wish there were more YA-focused publications in general in the SFF community. I know you’re not the editor there anymore, but what are your thoughts on young adult SFF-fiction and the role a venue like CoW can play in the speculative fiction community?

Marguerite: I desperately, desperately wish that YA wasn’t such a novel-centric genre. And yes I think it’s a genre; it’s moved far past being the marketing label for which it was originally created. But it’s still primarily centered around novels, which makes publishing YA short fiction a particular challenge.

You’re also a lawyer, and I was wondering if there are any specific legal issues that you wish writers, publishers, and others in the speculative fiction community were more aware of, or had a better understanding of?

Marguerite: Okay how much time do we have? *laugh!* Seriously, I could teach an entire course on Basic Business Skills for Creatives. Probably the most universal recommendation I have is to find an advocate - an editor, an agent, a lawyer, even a peer or someone senior in your field that you can talk to when you have questions. Creatives are often taught that learning about money or how to negotiate a deal is counter-productive, or shameful, or unnecessary. None of which is true, but does make them targets for predatory behavior. You wouldn’t buy or sell a house with help; don’t sell a show or a novel without help either.

Q. Alasdair, you run a great weekly newsletter called The Full Lid where you write about various aspects of pop culture, and you’ve also written non-fiction books and essays that deal with speculative fiction and pop culture. What are your thoughts on the importance of analysis, serious critique, and in-depth explorations of speculative fiction for the genre?

Alasdair: Thank you! I think serious cultural analysis is vital and I also think it’s far, far too often mistaken for nitpicking or snark. It ties into my earlier point about how guys from my generation are raised to fear emotion. If something elicits an emotional response, the first logical action for a lot of folks is to attack it. Witness the ongoing horrific realization that its no longer 1977 every time Star Wars does something political, a woman in charge of opinions, a voice and a starship speaks on Discovery or someone thinks it’s a good idea to defend Providence, Rhode Island’s most famous racist from his own famous racism.

See? Snark. It’s easy.

But it can’t be the only thing we do. When I was coming up, one of my oldest friends told me something I’ve never forgotten: it is almost impossible to finish a creative project. Anyone who does deserves at least basic respect.

Over the years, what I’ve added to that with the realization that it’s almost impossible for something to be entirely bad. I’ve seen terrible movies with great special effects. I’ve read books with gorgeous turns of phrase hidden inside purple prose. An analyst’s job, a critic’s job, is to not just talk about the bad stuff but raise the good stuff too. To treat the text with respect and context.

I first came to know you through your work at PseudoPod and Escape Pod, and I love your narration, and your commentary for the episodes you host. What are your thoughts on how the field of science fiction and horror short fiction has changed since you first got involved with EA?

Alasdair: Thank you! And WOW, that is a question and a half. I think it’s expanded massively and in the direction it desperately needed to; into non-English as first language markets. Magazines like khōréō and Constelación do incredible work and continue to prove that this weird trio of genres don’t end when Europe and America do. There are some amazing voices out there, and I’m especially excited to see folks like Sasha Stronach, Cassie Hart and the Fiyah team continue to do amazing work.

Q. You are both based in the UK. How do you feel about the sometimes rather North America-centric focus in speculative fiction when it comes to SFF awards, cons, publishing, etc?

Alasdair: I think it’s slowly killing the field or at the absolute least seriously damaging it across multiple axes. Worldcon being outside the US twice a decade at most. A measurable percentage of assistant editors in genre fiction quitting on one day because the wages and demands were equally ridiculous. The belief, although this is being challenged at last, that if you’re not in New York or London it’s not real publishing. The enraging decision from some conventions to downsize their online component. The times have changed and they aren’t going back despite a lot of genre’s best efforts to do the same.

This is always a hard time of year to have this conversation due to award season which takes all that pressure and doubles it. But it’s a conversation, hell it’s a fleet of conversations, we’re decades past due on and superficially there’s very little you can do other than read diversely, support online events, vote for what you love and lift up as many creators as you can.

This is a little silly but there’s a line in The Day After Tomorrow that always haunts me. It’s the last communication from Sir Ian Holm’s character. He just says ‘Save as many you can.’. I think ‘help as many as you can.’ Is a pretty good, less fatalistic variant on that and it’s what the parts of the field that truly sing and will survive all this, do.

Marguerite: ‘Rather’ nothing, it absolutely is, and for the same reasons most things are english speaking western hegemony centric. Which means changing those assumptions involves tackling all the systemic barriers that have been staunchly defended for centuries now. But I don’t think that’s the core of the issue, those are just facts. What’s core -- what we COULD change -- is the VALUE we place on those institutions, those publications, those awards. They’re prestigious because we collectively decide they are, even when we’re presented with alternatives. But that goes back to that mentality, that cycle of abuse that says ‘I paid my dues, I earned this, it’s my turn.’ Which is hard to break individually, let alone systemically. But I have hope, I see the signs its starting to happen.

Q. For people out there who might be thinking about getting involved with a podcast or a zine in any capacity, what would you say to them? Any cautionary tales? Any tips or advice

Alasdair: Absolutely do it. It will change your life.

There are some caveats. Never, ever, EVER pay to play. We’re entirely donation funded, most other shows I know run off crowdfunders or are in one of the five corporate walled gardens that dominate the field. If you want to donate to a show, do it. If you’re being asked to pay an entry fee, you’re being scammed.

Manage your expectations and your time. Writing is very hard. The rest of the process is harder. Get a team you like and trust. Set boundaries and have regular meetings.

Marguerite: Two points here. First, I’m not a writer, but every writer I’ve ever talked to who was also a first reader / slusher / associate editor said that the experience was helpful.

Second, whenever I’m evaluating whether to do a project or presented with an opportunity, I ask myself seven questions. If I can’t answer the majority of them with yes, I walk away:

1. Is this a community or organization I want to serve? I.e. do I care?

2. Does this organization’s values align with my own? Is there proof of that?

3. Will this project accomplish a goal that is important to me? Not just ‘does this need to be done’, but do I personally care about this outcome?

4. Is the commitment of my time, talent or treasure something I’m willing and comfortably able to donate?

5. Are these skills I am seeking an opportunity to learn and develop? If you’ve done something for years and it’s become an expectation you no longer find pleasurable, say no! Or offer a final transitional period.

6. Do I trust my potential teammates? If the people involved with the project aren’t ones you’d share a meal with, think twice about collaboration.

7. Will I be provided with / have access to the resources and support I need to succeed? Or are you being brought in to make a token effort to appease, to fill a seat or tick a box?

Q. I know both of you do all sorts of work in the SFF-world besides your work at Escape Artists. What are some of your own favourite projects outside of EA? Do you have any new things coming up?

Alasdair: I love writing The Full Lid every week. It’s incredibly useful as writing practice and as a means of getting stuff out of my head. It’s also just really fun to work with Marguerite on it. She’s an amazing editor and we’ve got very good at thinking like each other. She writes me better than I do and I have an editorial instinct now that sounds a lot like her.

I’m also really enjoying working with Brock Wilbur and Will Biby hosting Caring into the Void. CiTV is a great podcast where the two hosts tell each other a horrific true story and then find something positive in it. I’m work cover over there for Meghan, the fantastic regular host, and it’s always a blast to record.

Also, I act now! My work on The Magnus Archives as Peter Lukas kind of kicked off a voice acting career, and I won an award for it. Some of my recent audio dramas were the SF disaster show Roguemaker, Celtic horror The Secret of St Kilda, and an upcoming legal superhero show, Supersuits, where I’m working with Marguerite. IT IS SO WEIRD. I love it tremendously.

Oh! I also co-created an excellent memetic tabletop horror RPG called After The War. It’s set on the last planet standing after a catastrophic war with a piece of sentient alien music and discusses themes of community building, individualism, horror and PTSD and also how amazing being somewhere new is. I co-created it with Jason Pitre of Genesis of Legend and other amazing creators like John Adamus and Jacqueline Bryk and it’s a lovely game. I get to go back there soon too which will be fun.

Last thing promise! I do regular non-fiction work for Obverse Books. Paul and the team over there do my favorite thing; non-fic deep dives and I’ve had the honour of doing two. One on the Doctor Who Anniversary Special, "Day of the Doctor", and one on the Star Trek: Discovery episode, "Through the Valley of Shadows". Loved doing them both, and I’m working on their next new Doctor Who Project too which will be fun.

Marguerite: Like Alasdair I love getting to do more voice acting, though I prefer smaller supporting roles and helping out behind the scenes.

Most of the projects I’m working on right now are behind the scenes at EA. Some of them have been reactive or defensive, but a couple are things we’ve wanted to do for years with EA finally coming to fruition. Keeping a company with five active shows and over 100 people focused, supported and happy isn’t a new project, but it’s my best!

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Huge thanks from the bottom of my heart to Marguerite and Alasdair for doing this interview!

• More about Marguerite Kenner: https://margueritekenner.com/about-me/ 
• More about Alasdair Stuart: https://alasdairstuart.com/ 
• More about Escape Artists Inc.: https://escapeartists.net/ 

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About Behind the Zines:

In this interview series, I talk to people working behind the scenes at various speculative fiction publications. My goal is to highlight the work that goes into keeping these publications alive, and to share insights from the people doing that work. Each interview is available exclusively on my Patreon for one week, and is then posted here at Maria's Reading. 

If you want to support my work, check out my Patreon or Ko-Fi.