Watch this episode here: https://youtu.be/5fsc-6-XpNU

Randy Winston, writer, Director of Fiction at The Black List, host of the podcast, Read the Acknowledgments, and former Creative Director for the Center for Fiction. Find him at RW.

Watch this interview at https://youtu.be/kePiTHOhDLU

Hugh Martin, poet and author of In Country and The Stick Soldiers, editor of War, Literature, and the Arts, professor, and veteran of the conflict in Iraq.

Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned, Marval and a Wonder, The Boy Detective Fails, and Book of Extraordinary Tragedies; editor and professor.

Natalia Theodoridou is a transmasculine writer whose stories have appeared in publications such as Kenyon Review, The Cincinnati Review, Ninth Letter, and Strange Horizons, and have been translated into Italian, French, Greek, Estonian, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. He won the 2018 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction, the 2022 Emerging Writer Award by Moniack Mhor & The Bridge Awards, and the Nebula Award in 2025. He holds a PhD in media and cultural studies from SOAS, University of London. Born in Greece, with roots in Georgia, Russia, and Turkey, he currently lives in the UK. His debut novel, Sour Cherry, a queer Bluebeard retelling about toxic masculinity and cycles of abuse, came out in April 2025 from Tin House (US) and Wildfire (UK).

Website: www.natalia-theodoridou.com

Elizabeth Lukács Chesla is the daughter of Hungarian refugees and a mother of three. Her award-winning fiction debut, You Cannot Forbid the Flower, was published in 2023. She writes, edits, and teaches from the suburbs of Philadelphia, where she was born and raised.

Liz holds an MA in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and certificates in Transformative Language Arts and trauma-sensitive yoga. She has taught a wide range of writing and literature courses and is an emerging literary translator. A dedicated and compassionate editor and educator, Liz serves as fiction editor for Consequence Forum and senior editor for Inch and Meter. She teaches at Gwynedd Mercy University. Find her (and purchase her book!) at ELIZABETH LUKÁCS CHESLA – author and editor.

Adrian Bonenberger is the author of The Afghan Post and The Road Home, a New York Times and Foreign Policy contributor, the founder of Wrath-Bearing Tree, and a combat veteran.