Minister Faust's Blog, page 14

JAY TURNER – WRITING VIDEO GAMES IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS (MF GALAXY 031)

VG writer for Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Army of Two, Sonic: Chronicle on VG vs TV writing, VG actors, and racist VGs vs queer-friendly VGs

Jay Turner began as a game journalist and for the last ten years has been a professional video game writer. His first gig was working as an editor on BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins. Then he levelled up and got to write for it, and then for first three Mass Effectinstallments, as well as for Sonic: Chronicles. For Visceral, he wrote Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel, and now he works at the N-Space studio in Orlando, Florida.

In today’s episode, Jay Turner discusses:Misconceptions about, and the pros and cons of working in the games industry What video game writers actually doWhy a game company inserted two famous hip hop artists into a game that was nearly finished productionHow game writing and TV writing are the same, and how they’re differentWhy some game writers are resistant to what playwrights call “workshopping”What “the Eye of Sauron” means in professional game developmentWhat video game actors can bring to the writing and realisation of video game charactersWhat it’s like to be hired to write something you find morally repugnantHow one game studio is creating a queer-friendly game universe, andThe socio-political differences between American and Canadian game studios and the content they create. Along the way you’ll hear some insider expressions:EA means Electronic Arts, one of the largest game corporations, which fund and distribute games.Studios are the teams of writers, artists, programmers, and others who actually make the games. Small studios fund their own production, but corporations buy the most successful studios to create game empires.An EP is a game’s executive producer, which is like a director in film-making.“Ship a game” means to deliver a completed game to retail stores or legal-download marketplaces. Some people work inside the industry for years on one cancelled game after another, or on a game that takes forever to complete. If someone hasn’t yet “shipped a game,” some veterans dismiss him or her as barely above amateur. Full disclosure: Jay Turner is a friend of mine, and we co-wrote the Kasumi downloadable content module for BioWare’s Mass Effect 2.
Jay Turner spoke with my by Skype from his home in Orlando on November 5, 2014. He begins by talking about what it’s like being a veteran in the industry.


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STEPHEN NOTLEY, CREATOR OF BOB THE ANGRY FLOWER (MF GALAXY 030)

Stephen Notley is the cartoonist who for more than 20 years has written and drawn the genre-hopping, politically satirical, gonzo fanboy comic strip Bob the Angry Flower about an evil, brilliant, and super-enthusiastic flower named Bob.

Notley got his start in cartooning at the University of Alberta Gateway newspaper where he also became the editor in chief. He went on to a successful career in the Seattle video game studio Pop Cap, but he’s never left cartooning, and has put out numerous Bob the Angry Flower compilation books and appeared at many major conventions including San Diego Comic Con. He has a vast following and counts among his fans no less than Joss Whedon, who also blurbed one of his collections.
In today’s episode, Stephen Notley discusses:

The personal significance for him of acclaimed socially satirical cartoonist Keith KnightHow San Diego Comic Con used to be before it went corporateHis own pre-Bob the Angry Flower superhero satire cartoon strip called The Germ How cartoonists develop their own style and content, and how and why newspaper cartoon syndicates constrain bothWhen mainstream cartoons such as Peanuts and Garfield were groundbreakingHow Notley’s personal life influences his cartooning, andHow he maintains humour in his political and social commentary without ever becoming preachy.Full disclosure: Steve Notley is a sponsor of MF GALAXY, and we’ve been friends for over 25 years. During our discussion, Notley names mutual friends and fellow cartoonists including the arts reporter Fish Griwkowsky and the late video game journalist and writer Darren Zenko, after whom the character Darwin Zenko is named in my novel The Coyote Kings .

Stephen Notley spoke with me via Skype from his workplace in Seattle, Washington on November 20, 2014. The date is noteworthy because it’s just over five months before May 5, 2015, the day of the provincial election in Alberta. Stephen is the son of the late Alberta NDP leader Grant Notley, and the brother of Rachel Notley, the recently-elected and first-ever NDP premier of Alberta. And yes, he’ll talk about his famous family in this interview. SUPPORT MF GALAXY ON PATREON
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THE ARROW WRITERS PANEL (MF GALAXY 029)

Emilio Ortega Aldrich worked his way up from production assistant to write tie-in Arrow comics for DC and an episode of the hit CW superhero action series Arrow. That’s where he met Oscar Balderrama, who’s written an Arrow tie-in novel and the forthcoming Arrow graphic novel; he’s also been a script coordinator for the series.

Both of them spoke on the Arrow screenwriter panel at Eagle Con on May 15, 2015, where they discussed:The path to writing for a Hollywood seriesThe significance of not just who you know, but who knows youThe job descriptions of writers’ assistant, script coordinator, and showrunnerTo what degree these writers needed to know the DC universe in general and Green Arrow in particular to write for ArrowHow screenwriters on a television show work as a team under the leadership of a showrunnerHow writers working in collaboration can garner an individual “written by” credit, which is the top glory for a writer, and the top payThe shocking secret behind the show bible for Arrow, andHow the writers react to fan responses and expectations


The moderator on the panel is science fiction scholar professor Patrick B. Sharp. He’s the driver of Eagle Con itself, a student-focused science fiction and fantasy media conrunning at the campus of California State University at Los Angeles. I’ve been to a lot of cons, and Eagle Con is excellent, and I’m not just saying that because I was a special guest. During the Q&A session of the panel, you’ll hear me asking the first question of Aldrich and Balderrama.

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This episode is sponsored by the multiple-award-winning comic book store Happy Harbor Comics in Edmonton.

Happy Harbor offers every comic and manga and more you could possibly want and if they don’t have it in stock, the friendly staff will get it for you. Happy Harbor supports charities, schools and libraries, its own Artist in Residence, and even a scholarship. The store is family friendly, and the place where I buy all my comics and graphic novels, and where I have all my book launches. In short, it’s a great place.

If you’re in E-Town and shopping for comics, find Happy Harbor in the heart of downtown across from MacEwan University campus on 107th Street and 104th Avenue, and tell them you heard about Happy Harbor on MF GALAXY.

LEVAR BURTON ON KUNTA KINTE, GEORDI LAFORGE, AND A REAL-LIFE ASTRONAUT (MF Galaxy 028)

  People loveLeVar Burton. He’s got just under 1.9 million Twitter followers and in 2011 was on Twitter’s Top 100 Globally Followed list. He’s been an iconic figure in North American television since 1977, when he starred as Kunta Kinte, a Gambian man in the prime of life taken to the American rape gulagto be worked to death.
Roots was the first American miniseries and at that time the highest-rated US television show ever made. Burton received an Emmy Nomination for his work. He later appeared in television series about Jim Jones and Jesse Owens, and even played a young Booker T. Washington. In the 2001 feature film Ali , he played Martin Luther King, Jr. And while becoming a highly successful television director, he’s known to hundreds of millions of people as Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation , and as the host of Reading Rainbow .

This episode’s conversation is from the upper floors of the archives of the Grand Lodge of Imhotep. Burton spoke with me by telephone from his California home in March, 2011, just before coming to Edmonton for the Collectible Toy and Comic Show.
Among many topics, we discussed:
His final and startling career choice before choosing actingWhy he loves science fiction, and the most important question the genre asksThe cultural importance of Lt. Uhuraspecifically and African heroes generallyWhat he views as his special responsibility in his work as a director, and how directing has affected his perspective on actingThe impact of Roots on how US television portrayed Africans, and how Burton views his Roots collaborators nowHis ongoing internal relationship with Kunta Kinte and Geordi LaForge, and the impact Geordi LaForge has had on othersHis special connection with a real-life astronaut, andHis mental approach to making his dreams reality

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CHARLES SAUNDERS, MASTER OF SWORD + SOUL (MF Galaxy 027)

Charles R. Saunders is the ground-breaking founding author of the genre called sword and soul , which employs the mythic structure of Eurocentric sword-and-sorcery inside an African-based fantasy setting. As you’re about to hear, Saunders’s innovation arose in response to the profoundly racist dimensions of North American publishing, especially inside fantasy.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1946, Saunders achieved a degree in Psychology before moving to Canada in 1969. He lived in Ottawa for fourteen years, and since 1985 has lived in Nova Scotia. He’s been a community college teacher, research assistant, civil servant, journalist, editorialist, and copy editor.
Never one to let anyone stop him, Saunders has authored of seven novels including Imaro, The Quest for Cush, Dossouye, andAbengoni: First Calling, and four books on African-Nova Scotian history, including Sweat and Soul: The Saga of Black Boxers from the Halifax Forum to Caesar’s Palace, Spirit of Africville, Share & Care: The Story of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children , and Black & Bluenose: The Contemporary History of a Community.  
This episode’s conversation comes from deep inside the catacombs of the Grand Lodge of Imhotep. It’s a never-before aired interview we recorded by telephone on August 10, 2008. Saunders discusses:
Why come he came to CanadaHow he achieved an Africentric point of viewWhy young African-Americans and African-Canadians liked science fiction in the 1990s, despite how much the genre excluded or mistreated themThe racist imagery inside science fiction and fantasy including in Robert Heinlein’s novel Farnham's Freehold and in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the RingsContemporary authors of Africentric science fiction and fantasy he admires such as Nalo Hopkinson, Nnedi Okorafor, and Carole McDonnellWhat it’s like to be told by Euro-North American publishers that African North Americans don’t read, andThe troubled publishing history of his own classic novel Imaro

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NNEDI OKORAFOR ON AFROFUTURISM, BARACK OBAMA, AND STEPHEN KING'S SUPER DUPER MAGICAL NEGROES (MF Galaxy 026)

Nnedi Okorafor is the celebrated author of ten books, including The Shadow Speaker, Who Fears Death , and the forthcoming The Book of Phoenix. Zahrah the Windseeker , Okorafor’s debut novel about a highly technological world based on Nigerian myths and culture, was nominated for the Locus Best First Novel Award, shortlisted for the Parallax and Kindred Awards, a finalist for the Golden Duck and Garden State Teen Choice awards, and it won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature.
This episode’s conversation with Okorafor comes from way down deep in the archives of The Terrordome: The Africa All-World News Service . I spoke with Okorafor by telephone back on January 18, 2009, but back then aired only a portion of what you’ll hear now. Okorafor talked about many issues, including:
Her definition of what Euro-American literary critic Mark Dery called AfrofuturismThe appeal of science fiction to African audiences who have for most of the genre’s existence been excluded by itHer thoughts on just how Africentric The Matrix series is, or isn’tAnd the thesis of her famous 2004 essay called “Stephen King's Super-Duper Magical Negroes,” and what it reveals about American literary culture and politics.
We also discuss the powerful effect on self-conception that the American continent-wide rape gulag had on the West Africans who became the African-Americans, which were profoundly different from the effects that mass enslavement had on the so-called “indentured servants”—that is to say, European slaves, not to mention the rest of humanity since slavery existed across the planet.
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NK JEMISIN, AWARD-WINNING SFF AUTHOR, PSYCHOLOGIST, BLOGGER (MF Galaxy 025)

 

Celebrated novelist NK Jemisin is the author of The Inheritance Trilogy, The Broken EarthTrilogy, and The Dreamblood Duology. Her writing has won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and three Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards. Jemisin’s work has also received nominations for the Crawford, Gemmell Morningstar, and James Tipree, Jr. Awards, two nominations for the World Fantasy Award, three nominations for the Hugo Award, and four nominations for the Nebula Award.

Along with Nalo Hopkinson and Nnedi Okorafor, NK Jemisin is one of the N3, a nucleus of highly influential contemporary writers of science fiction and fantasy. Jemisin is also well-known as a blogger on politics, feminism, and racism; in what writers would call a “day job” and what others would call a full-time career, she’s a counselling psychologist.

In today’s episode, Jemisin speaks on her craft, specifically:
World Building, including what to leave in, and what to leave out and whyThe importance of a “Beta Readers”Pessimism vs sociopathy in characterisationWhy some SFF readers react angrily against the use of unfamiliar literary techniquesFan reactions against novelty, and reader single-mindednessHer alternative to meat-and-potatoes epic fantasyHow being a psychologist affects her character creationOutlining vs pantsingJemisin spoke with me by Skype from her home in New York City on January 24, 2015.


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NALO HOPKINSON, AFROFUTURIST VISIONARY NOVELIST, ON THE CRAFT OF WRITING (MF Galaxy 024)

The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science calls acclaimed novelist Nalo Hopkinson a luminary in the science fiction community. She is widely identified with Afrofuturism, an Africentric aesthetic movement in music, fashion, film-making, comic books, and novels that draws upon global African aesthetics and histories to imagine new Africentric futures.

As you’re about to hear, Nalo Hopkinson has lived in many regions and communities of the Western hemisphere, making her an insider to many and an alien to many more. She’s the author of ten celebrated books including Skin Folk, Sister Mine, The New Moon’s Arms, and her explosive debut Brown Girl in the Ring, a dystopian science fiction adventure set in near-future Toronto featuring an African-Canadian heroine and the orisha gods of Nigeria and Benin who are central to the New World African cultures and religions of the Caribbean and South America.
 In many ways Hopkinson and fellow author Tananarive Due novel helped re-launch Afrofuturist literature, and broke ground for novelists such as Nnedi Okorafor, N K Jemisin, Andrea Hairston, and Daniel Jose Older, and the Kenyan science fiction filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu. She’s now a professor of Creative Writing at the University of California Riverside in the only dedicated SF writing programme anywhere in the English-speaking world.

In this episode, Hopkinson discusses the craft of writing, addressing:

Her stance on pantsing vs. outliningWhat unites the work of Terry McMillan, Neil Gaiman, and Ursula LeguinThe importance of symbolism, andThe experience of readers misreading what she’s written
I began our discussion by asking Hopkinson about her work at the University of California Riverside. Note that at one point we’re discussing the Terry McMillan novel Waiting to Exhale and the movie adaptation directed by Forrest Whitaker, and unfortunately neither of us can remember the title, and later Nalo graciously cites my own novel The Coyote Kings but without naming it.

Hopkinson spoke with me from her home in Riverside, California by Skype on November 30, 2014.

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WILLIAM B. DAVIS, THE X-FILES' CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN (MF Galaxy 023)

Actor William B. Davis is best known as Cigarette Smoking Man, AKA Cancer Man, from the 1990s hit science fiction television series The X-Files . By know all you X-Files-ophiles know that the Chris Carter-produced show will be returning to television in 2016 as a six-episode miniseries shot in Vancouver, and will feature stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. And returning with them will be the sinister Cigarette Smoking Man, whom the readers of TV Guide voted Television’s Favourite Villain.

Davis, the Canadian screen legend, is also an acting teacher who founded his own acting school where he taught stars such as Lucy Lawless. Davis is the author of a memoir called Where There’s Smoke... Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man . In this episode’s conversation you’ll hear Davis talk about the craft of acting and his odyssey to enrich his own artistry, including the time when his fellow student Donald Sutherland was, in Davis’s words, “not very good.” He also discusses his thoughts on:
The difficulty of creating credible tears and laughter, and David Duchovny’s major acting liabilityWhy some good actors falter in genre actingWhat works on stage that doesn’t work on screen, and vice versaThe difficulties of merging divergent acting styles into the same fast-paced television productionHis take on fellow actors such as Marlon Brando, Robert Downey, Jr., the Baldwins, and Dame Judy Dench.
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This episode is sponsored by the multiple-award-winning comic book store Happy Harbor* Comics in Edmonton.
Happy Harbor offers every comic and manga and more you could possibly want and if they don’t have it in stock, the friendly staff will get it for you. Happy Harbor supports charities, schools and libraries, its own Artist in Residence, and even a scholarship. The store is family friendly, and the place where I buy all my comics and graphic novels, and where I have all my book launches. In short, it’s a great place.
If you’re in E-Town and shopping for comics, find Happy Harbor in the heart of downtown across from MacEwan University campus on 107th Street and 104th Avenue, and tell them heard about Happy Harbor on MF GALAXY.
*While there should, of course, be a "u" in the word "harbour," the store is named after the Justice League's headquarters, and there's nothing I can do about that.

BUK AROP: EMMANUEL JAL IS STOKING CIVIL WAR IN SOUTH SUDAN

Buk Arop, president of the Edmonton-based South Sudan Development Foundation, says that Emmanuel Jal, the award-winning South Sudanese hip hop artist, activist, and actor, is stoking the South Sudanese Civil War. To hear my interview with Jal, download episode 021.

Like Jal, Arop is a so-called “lost boy”--a person who lost his childhood to the Sudanese Civil War. Born in 1981, Arop entered the Pinyudo Refugee Camp in Ethiopia where the Sudan People’s Liberation Army conscripted him as a child soldier.

When the Ethiopian regime fell in 1991, ten year old Arop and all the other refugees were forced to leave on foot. He arrived in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp in 1992, where he stayed until the year 2000. Then, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees nearly sent him to Norway, but at the last moment switched his destination to Canada, where Arop earned a BA in International Development Studies and an MA in Cultural Studies.

Today Arop speaks five languages and works with immigrant youth in Edmonton. He’s also the Secretary General for Abyei Youth Association in Diaspora.

While Emmanuel Jal spoke to youth across Alberta as part of a John Humphrey Centre-sponsored tour, he made remarks that Buk Arop denounced on Twitter: “Emmanuel Jal, a peace soldier beating South Sudanese war drums. Is Ban Kimoon et al aware?”

I spoke with Buk Arop on April 17, 2015 at the University of Alberta campus to ask him about what Jal was saying and why he objected.

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My acclaimed novel The Alchemists of Kush is about two Sudanese lost boys. Click here for reviews, videos, text, and audio about the book, and to order the paperback or ebook.