Episode 49: Suzan Palumbo – ”Fricatives”

Tales from the Trunk

This episode’s reading carries a content warning for ableist themes around deafness. If you would like to skip this, skip ahead to the 11-minute mark to bypass the reading.

This time around, it’s my pleasure to welcome fellow gremlin Suzan Palumbo (@sillysyntax) to talk about…something. Suzan reads their trunked story, “Fricatives,” which leads us into a discussion about walking away from stories we’ve written that aren’t ours to tell. And then bagged pickles. We do get things back on track, amazingly, and have some great conversation about the place of emotion versus professionalism in writing, the current discourse around so-called “artificial intelligence” (large language models), and the baseball of crying.

Things we mention this episode

“Every Day is Halloween,” by Ministry

Joyce Carol Oates

“Apolépisi: A De-Scaling,” by Suzan Palumbo

Welcome to the Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance

Give Up, by The Postal Service

Plans, by Death Cab for Cutie

Pickle tweets

Shut the fuck up Friday

Friends at the Table

“Bloody Therapy,” by Suzan Palumbo

Shimmer

Elise Tobler

John Wiswell

Personal Canons Cookbook

Miri’s episode

Clarkesworld AI submissions

1. D. Perry’s Resident Evil novels

Harley Quinn

Poison Ivy

“Soup Boys” and “NYC Cops” by Heems

“Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” by Das Racist

“Douen,” by Suzan Palumbo

Skin Thief: Stories, by Suzan Palumbo

dave ring

Cult of the Lamb

“Temple,” by River Boy

Interview with the Vampire

Tell me I’m Worthless, by Alison Rumfitt

Sergei Prokofiev

Romeo and Juliet Suite, by Sergei Prokofiev

“The Death of Tybalt,” by Sergei Prokofiev

Suzan’s insta, mastodon, and website

Join us next month, when my guests will be Ladz and Brandon O’Brien!