The restraints of knowledge harmed this wild power. In order to use it, Zillah could not know what it was. It would only answer a being as untrammeled as itself.

Time for elves, centaurs, demons, gods, witches, monks, princes, soulbonds, spaceships, sex, death, and an ever-present toddler, in undoubtedly the wildest book of Diana Wynne Jones' career to date.

Transcript available here [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vTTKxVdf2If-PLSfi0NhJkuKC3EeQOUo/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=104165161002412880034&rtpof=true&sd=true], and we'll be back in two weeks with Hexwood!

A Sudden Wild Magic

What's the good of being civilized? That's what I want to know. It just means other people can break the rules and you can't. 

 The gender dictatorship, the horror of conformity, the limits of word power, and how to stop your mother-in-law from living rent free in your brain.

Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gnTKOU9XOofGvXZR4CdpBVJI-qYp5UqO/view?usp=sharing

And we'll be back in two weeks with A Sudden Wild Magic! 

Black Maria

‘That djinn has taken liberties with a person's castle,’ Sophie said. 'Unless I'm entirely turned around, this used to be our bathroom.'

Richard Burton's Arabian Nights and Edward Said's Orientalism, fairy tale and retail, big dreams, big crimes, and Diana Wynne Jones' empire of the imagination.

Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s-yK-BV-i6hpFtn-kpxpMUCdZe3Gr3Nf/view?usp=sharing

And we'll be back in two weeks with Black Maria! (or Aunt Maria, depending on your location)

Castle in the Air

Nobody should be losing lives at this rate. What is wrong, Christopher?

In our first episode of Season Three, the brilliant Iona Datt Sharma joins us for a discussion of bureaucracy, cricket boys, Burton and Kipling, and the limitations of escape into fantasy, 

Transcript available here [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uYYPzPtYkdXbZ5gOUNkCd-_Pvtx2rGy_/view?usp=sharing], and we'll be back next time with Castle in the Air! 

The Lives of Christopher Chant

The first time round most of the catching-up you do is retrospective. The second time round you see it happening.

In our final S2 bonus episode, we do a terrible job of not looking ahead to Hexwood as we work our way through a wonderful pile of letters to discuss class, adulthood, lying DWJ fathers, the many (more) layers of Fire and Hemlock, and the real meaning of "The Master." 

Transcript available here [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HziN-TKYX9IpH2UW9r8RSC87BtYvDVMe/view?usp=sharing]. This episode wraps up our second season, but we plan to be back in November with Lives of Christopher Chant and a guest! 

S2 Bonus Episode 3 - Q&A

"She has tremendous talent, of course, or she couldn’t do it at all, but I do sometimes feel that she—well—she repeats herself. Put it like this: I think maybe Carol doesn't give herself a chance to be herself any more than she gives us."  

Endless questions, out-of-control characters, silly adults and weird bad dads: this week we're discussing the playground of ideas that makes up DWJ's short fiction of the seventies and eighties. 

Titles discussed include  "Carruthers" (1972), "Auntie Bea's Day Out" (1978), "The Fluffy Pink Toadstool" (1979), "The Sage of Theare" (1982), "Warlock at the Wheel" (1984), "Dragon Reserve, Home Eight" (1984), "No One" (1984), "The Plague of Peacocks" (1984), "Carol Oneir's Hundredth Dream" (1986), "Enna Hittims" (1987), "The Fat Wizard" (1987), "The Green Stone," (1988), and "The Master" (1989). Transcript available here [https://drive.google.com/file/d/12RPK4Z7560dpSOO5sRCvA1e4svP95t5B/view?usp=sharing].

Please note: we've postponed recording our Q&A episode for the eighties until September 25th, so if you understand what's happening in 'The Master,' please write in and tell us!

S2 Bonus Episode 2 - DWJ Shorts of the 70s and 80s

The thing we must notice is frequently identified by what is not described or told or explained.

In our first Season Two bonus episode, Farah Mendlesohn -- who literally wrote the book on Diana Wynne Jones -- joins us to bring a critic and historian's eye to the first two decades of DWJ's career. 

Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pUoTY4vf69pSgYCj-nTVKA7DCE_gePEF/view

In our next bonus episode, we'll be covering the short stories of the seventies and eighties as collected in Unexpected Magic and Mixed Magics, including:

Unexpected Magic: "Carruthers" (1972), "Auntie Bea's Day Out" (1978), "The Fluffy Pink Toadstool" (1979), "Dragon Reserve, Home Eight" (1984), "No One" (1984), "The Plague of Peacocks" (1984), "Enna Hittims" (1987), "The Fat Wizard" (1987), "The Green Stone," (1988), and "The Master" (1989)

Mixed Magics: "The Sage of Theare" (1982), "Warlock at the Wheel," (1984), and "Carol Oneir's Hundredth Dream" (1986)

And on September 17th we record our Q&A episode for the eighties, so please send us any thoughts before then!





S2 Bonus Episode 1 - With Farah Mendlesohn

Twenty Century refugee equipment. Case is open to show clothing and protective mask. 

A tale of one or two cities, three or four Vivians, four to fourteen badly translated old women, and at least two hundred thousand dollars' worth of butter-pie.

Transcript available here [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uPBZeQKunxu4-0JzlBbvg61ngOuHtDe3/view?usp=sharing].  This is the last official episode of our eighties season, but once again we have a few bonus episodes up our sleeve -- we'll be recording a Q&A episode September 17th, so if you have thoughts or questions for us on the 80s please send them in before then!

A Tale of Time City

Her mind was such a blank that for a second, it actually seemed to her that Howl had no faults at all. How stupid! 

The fantastic Freya Marske joins us for a discussion of John Donne, fairy tales, unmusical Welshmen, and Diana Wynne Jones' first truly romantic novel.

Transcript available here [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_vxKMaZMOg0YXnMCx6l6Mv4IX7z9316h/view?usp=sharing], and we'll be back next time to close out our season with A Tale of Time City!

Howl's Moving Castle

She realized he had sat down on purpose near the door, and she knew, perhaps without quite understanding it, that if she ran away, it would mean he had to go back into the funeral again. She was his excuse for coming out of it, so she stayed.

A man who wants to craft himself a Janet, a girl who wants to make herself a hero, and the full three hours we spend working through the powerful fictions and terrible truths that result.

[NB: themes of grooming and child abuse are woven pretty inextricably through our conversation this episode. Also, it is Three Hours Long.] 

Transcript available here [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UZqppjGkpeunU25d0_trGgv3FVyWnQ42/view?usp=sharing], and we'll be back next week for Howl's Moving Castle with another incredible guest! 

FIre and Hemlock

The works of Diana Wynne Jones, in order, one decade at a time, with Emily Tesh and Rebecca Fraimow

Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones