After a holiday break, Galactic Chat returns! David McDonald interviews author Peter Clines on the eve of the release of his new book, Ex-Isle.

In a wide ranging interview, they cover topics from the"Ex" series to Peter's Hollywood career, and discuss the nature of heroism and the power of storytelling.

Join them as they fanboy over Classic Doctor Who and Supergirl, and listen in amazement as David tempts Peter into joining him on his soapbox about "Man of Steel".

NB: Sadly, technical issues mean that David's first few questions are a bit distorted (though intelligible), but please bear with it as Peter is crystal clear and Skype reins in its anger in time to let you hear David gush.

As Sean is on sabbatical, this is David's first attempt at creating a podcast so all issues are his fault, and should not reflect on the podcast as a whole!

Peter's website
Ex-Isle Amazon Page
The Doctor Who episode they are talking about
The Dragon Movie

This week's chat sees Sean interviewing fellow chatter and recent HarperCollins author David McDonald.  

They talk about David's new film novelisation and  volunteering in the speculative fiction community.  Of particular interest will be some of the expectations on writers when writing for tie-in properties.

David also talks about the wonderful and enlightening responses he's got to his Paying For Our Passion guest post series.

The Salon article David mentions can be found here.  If you are interested in his guest post series the initial post is here. 

You can find more on David McDonald here.

In this week's chat, Alex talks with Garth Nix about exploring character through story, how Garth approaches writing for different genre categories and there's also a lengthy discussion on how he came to write The Old Kingdom Series. 

There's news on upcoming releases both short stories and novels as well as the sad tale of how his 1990's Thriller/Regency Romance never came to be.

You can find out more about Garth at his website.

This week David chats with award winning author and blogger Kameron Hurley. Kameron has been nominated for the Nebula, Clarke and the BSFA, selected for the Tiptree honour list and this year won the Hugo for Best Fan Writer.  Additionally, her essay "'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle and Slaves' Narrative" also won the Hugo for Best Related Work.

Please enjoy their chat where they talk about the influences on her most famous trilogy( including a dodgy rental apartment with bugs), when authors should speak out on issues of poor or disadvantageous contracts and what's next on Hurley's agenda.

You can find Kameron at her website

This week David chats with author and assistant editor at StarShipSofa, Jeremy Szal. They talk about sourcing stories for narration, what sort of stories Jeremy likes to feature on the podcast and Jeremy's own writing career.

This week Galactic Chat reporter Helen Stubbs chats with Sue Wright of Tiny Owl Workshop.  Tiny Owl Workshop are the new small press outfit from Brisbane responsible for a number of quirky and popular projects such as Napkin Stories, Krampus Crackers and Pillow Fight.