Author

Rod Serling and his work – “Rod Serling” (University Press of Mississippi, 2018) – Nicholas Parisi interview

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Nicholas Parisi is a musician and vocalist and serves on the board of the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation. He’s recently written a book analyzing almost all of Rod Serling’s work and we discuss the book and Rod Serling’s works.

1:39 – Nicholas talks about how he got into Rod Serling. He discusses many of the projects that Rod had been involved with. The book is part biography, part reference guide and part a critique of the themes that Rod explored in his work. It covers his entire writing life.

4:13 – Nicholas covers Rod’s radio work more extensively than other writers on Rod have.

5:58 – Nicholas talks about how Rod ended up in front of a screen in addition to being a writer.

6:45 – Nicholas talks about Orson Welles connection to the Twilight Zone and a myth surrounding it.

12:20 – Nicholas wants to emphasize that Rod was more than the Twilight Zone. He also mentions Rod’s attempts to put out scripts based on the Emmitt Till case.

17:16 – Rod’s daughter Anne Serling provided some support for this book.

24:43 – Nicholas’s book addresses a 1952 tv show episode that addressed racism most likely for the first time ever on television. Rod tried to push an episode addressing racism and no other researcher has talked about this episode before.

28:19 – Nicholas talks about Rod’s WWII experiences in the Philippines.

38:05 – Nicholas has a facebook for the book at facebook.com/RodSerlingDimensions

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Nicholas Parisi

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: science fiction, sci-fi, rod serling, twilight zone, television, gold age, mystery, orson welles, Emmett Till, McCarthyism, racism, World War II, Philippines, US Army

Race, Gender, and Disability in Spec Fiction – “Bodyminds Reimagined” (Duke University Press, 2018) – Sami Schalk interview

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Dr. Sami Schalk is an academic who studies race, gender and disability in contemporary American literature and culture. We spoke about her latest book on science and speculative fiction as it relates to her studies.

1:05 – Sami first got into speculative fiction through Octavia Butler.

3:38 – Sami talks about her book.

5:00 – Sami mentions some of the works she studied like Stigmata by Perry and other works in the field.

10:29 – Sami talks about Octavia Butler’s letters and files and the studies she was doing in disability and science.

12:34 – Sami talks about some of the history of speculative fiction by minority groups.

14:45 – Film and tv are getting better with race and gender but not with disabilities.

16:35 – Sami talks about some of the fan websites she used to do her research.

21:41 – Sami talks about which disabilities are most written about and which are not written about as much.

25:37 – Sami talks about how Octavia Butler’s works presents power in uncomfortable ways. The dynamics Butler applies are complicated.

35:50 – Sami has a professional facebook page under Dr. Sami Schalk. She also has a twitter account @drsamischalk. Readers can buy the book on the Duke University Press at a 30% discount if they use the code “E18BODYM” without the quotes.

Links of interest

https://samischalk.com/

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

 

Guests: Sami Schalk

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: science fiction, speculative fiction, disability, gender, race, Octavia Butler, literature, culture

Frankenstein art – “It’s Alive!” (GILES, 2018) – Elizabeth Denlinger interview

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Liz Denlinger co-curates the Shelley collection of the New York Public Library system. She has helped develop a new exhibition on Frankenstein and has put together a visual history of Frankenstein for it. We discuss the book and the exhibit.

[Note: About 38:25, I mentioned that lobby cards did not get copyright protection in the past. Of course this is for a specific date range and that rule likely has changed.]

1:13 – Liz talks about how she started studying the Shelley’s and Frankenstein.

3:14 – Liz talks about the book and how she collected the art for the book. She considered how Frankenstein looks in the book versus how he was shown on stage or screen.

8:41 – Liz talks about Mary Shelley’s exposure to the Gothic prior to writing Frankenstein.

10:52 – Liz talks about some of the images she finds the most noteworthy.

13:26 – Liz talks about elements you often find in both Gothic art and depictions of Frankenstein.

20:05 – Liz talks about how they found their images for the exhibit and book.

23:19 – Liz about the collections that were the most fun to look through for this research.

25:00 – People during Mary Shelley’s time liked spooky stuff as much as they do now.

27:10 – The American and French Revolutions inspired gothic fears among the British.

36:00 – Liz talks about what the exhibit will have.

40:10 – The exhibiton information can be found by googling “It’s Alive Morgan.”

 

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

 

Guests: Elizabeth Denlinger

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: science fiction, art, gothic, frankenstein, shelley, new york public library, monsters