ginn hale

Ginn Hale's newest book, *The Long Past*, is out as of 10/3/17! She joins THR to talk about writing and researching alt Westerns, world building, avoiding the whitewash of history, and also chickens. The episode has a chicken thing. Also discussed is the miracle of modern plumbing, writing religion when you grew up outside of religion, and yet more chickens.

Fantasy and speculative fiction is the topic of the day! Austin and Amanda throw around some loose definitions, give examples of their favorite queer fantasy (send Amanda more gaslamp manuscripts!). and writing fantasy with romance in it vs writing romance in a fantasy setting. They answer some questions from Twitter and wonder why people bother to transplant real-life oppression into fantastical settings. Austin and Amanda are big nerds who cry at *Lord of the Rings*, call out *Mass Effect Andromeda*, and demand more gay elves.