If You're Just Joining Us

Typography, Wood Type, and Monsters! An interview with Nick Sherman.

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:17:50 +0000

Nick Sherman, a designer, musician, and skateboarder living in Boston. He works for MyFont.com and once spent an entire semester to produce one single type block — a single letter! We talked about that project and his trip to the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. We finished the interview talking about his involvement Nick Sherman’s website. (And his pizza site.)

The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum.

Video of Michael Beruit talking about fonts.

Kaiju Big Battel Site.

Interview with Author J. Robert Lennon

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:54:47 +0000

John Robert Lennon is a writer, novelist, composer, musician, professor, and former theremin builder.

His most famous novel, Mailman, was released 2003 and concerns a mail-carrying protagonist named Albert Lippincott who is losing his mind. His fourth novel, Castle, coming 2009, is about a man who buys a large plot of wooded land in upstate New York, only to find that someone has built a castle in the middle of it–and the castle is inhabited. Further investigation leads to a journey into the past, and into the darkness of 21st century America.

For the podcast, John read from a funny blog post of his about crappy crime novel tropes, and then we discussed genre reading, strange intruders, his novels Mailman and Castle, his music, and his foray into theremin production.

His website is JRobertLennon.com and the group blog he contributes to is WardSix.com.

Interview with the author of “Cycler” Lauren McLaughlin

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:52:09 +0000

Lauren McLaughlin spent 10 years in the film industry writing and producing films, but then abandoned her screen ambitions to write novels. Her first is titled: Cycler and is published by Random House Books for Young Readers.

We talked about actors behaving badly, her need for symmetry, teen and gender issues, the medicinal uses of marijuana, and her novel.

Lauren’s website and blog are at www.laurenmclaughlin.net.

Interview with Journalist Jonathan Bender about Legos

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:09:33 +0000

Jonathan Bender is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Post, ESPN.com, The New York Metro, The Kansas City Star, and AOL.com, among others. Currently he is working on a book about Adult Fans of LEGO and is spending a year immersed in the culture of LEGO fans to understand their drive to build and try to learn the secrets of building with bricks.

Jonathan Bender is chronicling his Lego adventures at is blog, BrickBender.

Interview with David Anthony Durham - Campbell Nominee

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:48:45 +0000

David Anthony Durham has published four acclaimed books including: Gabriel’s Story, Walk Through Darkness, Pride of Carthage, and Acacia. The first three are historical novels; Acacia is epic fantasy and it earned him the Campbell Nomination for Best New Writer in SF/F. David and I talked about his youth, his experience with Outward Bound, high school, and writing.

Visit David’s website.

Interview with Author Jeri Smith-Ready

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:53:29 +0000

Jeri Smith-Ready has been writing fiction since the night she had her first double espresso. She holds a master’s degree in environmental policy and lives in Maryland with her husband, cat, and the world’s goofiest greyhound.

She is the author of four novels, the newest is Wicked Game. Jeri and I talked about vampires, people who are stuck in time, childhood reading, and football.

Visit Jeri’s website.

Interview with David Louis Edelman Campbell Award Nominee

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:53:12 +0000

David Louis Edelman is a science fiction novelist, blogger, and web programmer. His first book, Infoquake, was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best Novel and named Barnes & Noble’s Top SF Novel of 2006. His latest novel, MultiReal, was released by Pyr in Summer 2008. He is a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer for 2008. He spoke about super heroes, his dad, and foreign toilets, among other things.

This is the third interview of the other Campbell Nominees. I say other because I am also a nominee.

Visit David’s website.

Interview with Joe Abercrombie Campbell Award Nominee

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:07:50 +0000

Joe Abercrombie is the author of an trilogy of epic fantasy novels based around the misadventures of the thinking man’s barbarian, Logen Ninefingers. Joe was nominated for the Campbell Award for the best new writer in science fiction and fantasy.

We spoke about his family editorial help, role-playing games, violence, bad reviews, and Google.

This is the second interview of the other Campbell Nominees. I say other because I am also a nominee.

Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal - Campbell Award Nominee

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:34:12 +0000

Mary Robinette Kowal is a professional puppeteer who does more than just moonlight as a writer. This year she had been nominated for the John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award.

Mary has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures and founded Other Hand Productions. Her design work has garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve.

Mrs. Kowal’s short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Apex Digest and All-Star Stories: Presents Twenty Epics. She is the art director of Shimmer and a graduate of Orson Scott Card’s Literary BootCamp.

This podcast is the first in a series of Campbell Nominees.

Follow this link to Mary Robinette Kowal’s website.

A link straight to her FREE fiction!

And finally: The John W. Campbell Award Explained.

Music for the show by The Loungebots and Frank Molder.

Interview with Russ Armstrong - Playing Jazz in Vietnam

jon@ifyourejustjoiningus.com (Jon Armstrong) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:16:38 +0000

Russ Armstrong (my dad) was in the Vietnam War and played jazz at a club in Saigon. In this interview we talk about his time in the war and the weekends he spent playing at a club called The Dai Nam.