Midnight and Margaret are back to talk about the very real evils going on right now in Minnesota and, more broadly, against immigrants and the constitution by the Trump administration. We discuss the difference between how villainy in real life can be 1-dimensional, but in fiction, it needs nuance and for the villains to be understandable and not flat. We also address the different ways to approach villains, such as being foils, metaphors, or deeply personal to the hero...etc. Finally, we'll talk a little about how you can get involved currently with local organizations to become active against the villains of our time. Please note that we will talk about WWII and Nazis, both the confederacy in the US and its history of enslaving Black people, genocide against native people, like at Wounded Knee, and other historical horrors and also some mass shootings. If you need to sit this one out, we understand. Finally, for the show notes, if you want to get involved with the organizations we mention, here are the links to get started:

SURJ or Showing Up for Racial Justice Link – https://surj.org/

Indivisible Link – https://indivisible.org/

MoCo IRC or Montgomery County Immigrants Rights Collective Link - https://www.instagram.com/moco_irc/?hl=en

Margaret and Midnight evaluate what they were able to accomplish in 2025, where they missed the mark, and discuss the importance of recognizing progress steps before setting their 2026 goals for writing, reading, and the podcast.

In this minisode, Margaret and Midnight talk about writing holiday tie in stories, how to research them, optimize them as both gifts for fans and ways to encourage new readers to try you out as an author, and recommend 4 christmas-themed books (MM, MF, and FF) for your enjoyment this year.

It's our second year looking at the latest holiday offerings from Netflix, Hulu, and Hallmark. Did the Jonas Brothers movie even make sense? Could Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Cher Horowitz team up to save Christmas? As if! Which were our favorites and which were the real duds of the 2025 Holiday Season? Also, we offer some romcom writing advice as we go both in what to do and what not to do.

This week, we have m/m author Gemini Frost as a guest contributor. We talk about the surge of Dramione fanfic being pulled to publish and becoming the literary blockbusters of 2025. We discuss what fanfic can teach you as a new author, how it's a different medium than novels, the ethics and best ways to convert fanfic to profic, and our worries about publishing now being so open about wanting to promote and put out converted fanfics. Trigger warning = Alchemised is non-con so we just mention the idea of a book about non-consensual sex and abuse as well as depictions of enslaved persons; Since these are all stories based from Harry Potter originally, we do also call out J.K. Rowling for her transphobia and hatred.

The M&Ms talk religion, how it can motivate your character and reflect societal values, the dark side of leadership with cults, and how to world building religions in your fantasy convincingly. TRIGGER WARNING - as we discuss cults, some allusions to physical, financial, and other types of abuse of cult victims is mentioned. Also discussions of the People's Temple of Guyana and mass suicide. Please be aware before listening.

For the first of two Halloween-themed episodes, M&M talk about horror in movies and TV by comparing the works of Mike Flanagan and Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story Series, discuss favorite horror movies like the works of Romero and Jordan Peele, and then look at short fiction and why shorter horror is often more compelling. Finally, we explain why reading widely is good and that there are parts of horror that can help you with writing other genres as well.

This week, Margaret and Midnight take time to preview workshops they've submitted and will be part of The Writing Gals 2025 Conference. Midnight is presenting on "Writing Your Wildest Romantasy," while Margaret is presenting on "Rescuing Your WIP from being an RIP" and helping writers through their blocks. The Writing Gals and some of their other events and courses can be found at their facebook group here (https://www.facebook.com/groups/170375933609063). If you're interested in the conference and want $50 dollars off, then register through the affiliate link here -