Episode 592-With John Wiswell

The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week, Patrick and Tracy welcome John Wiswell, author of BAD DOORS and the upcoming, SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN (DAW, 2024).

About BAD DOORS: Kosmo is a simple English teacher with no interest in evil magic doors. However one day they take an interest in him. A burgundy door with a shiny black knob appears in his hallway, where no door has ever been.

Kosmo does what he thinks anybody would do: he grabs his dog, runs out of his house, and never goes back in. He thinks it’s over, but the door isn’t finished with him, as they pursue him everywhere he goes. They beckon old Kosmo. He struggles with why they’re appearing, but refuses to ever look inside one. Everyone in his life chides him to be adventurous and not be so afraid. However, this is 2020 and it’s the same time when everyone around him isn’t taking this “COVID thing” seriously. What’s a man to do to dodge a cursed door and a pandemic?

“Bad Doors” is the story of a man who refuses to be in a Horror story. What happens to you when you refuse to answer the call of a nightmare?

About John Wiswell: John Wiswell is a Nebula-winning and Locus-winning author who lives in the middle of the woods. John’s work has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Tor.com, LeVar Burton Reads, Nature Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Weird Tales, the No Sleep podcast, Nightmare Magazine, Cast of Wonders, Podcastle, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and other fine venues. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. His fiction has been translated into Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Polish, Hungarian, Turkish, Hebrew, and Romanian.

He graduated Bennington College in 2005, and attended the Viable Paradise 17 workshop in 2013. He has multiple disabilities including a neuromuscular syndrome, and thinks healthy people’s capacity to complain is very funny. He finds a lot of things very funny and would like to keep it that way.

This week’s picks:

• John #1: Hollow Knight (game)
• John #2: Suzume (Anime)
• Tracy: Nemesis (Board Game)
• Patrick #1: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds “Those Old Scientists”
• Patrick #2: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds “Subspace Rhapsody”

Links:

• John Wiswell on Twitter
• Tracy Townsend on Twitter
• Patrick Hester on Twitter
• The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2023 Patrick Hester

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