Dive into Fantasy with Benjamin Schwarting #86

Books and Brews: the place where beer and literature meet!

Benjamin Schwarting is a fantasy author, high school English teacher, and co-owner of Williams & Rose Publishing. Author of The Sum of Ages series & the Daughters of the Storm prequel series, Ben’s work emphasizes writing complex fantasy cultures that highlight real-world issues of systemic oppression and social injustice. After earning his MAT, Ben has taught as an adjunct professor of Education at the College of Idaho and designed creative writing and young author’s courses for high schoolers.

We talked about languages, cultural differences, the biggest challenges for new writers–then and now; the inspirations behind Ben’s two fantasy series, and much more.

00:00 START
05:45 Drink 1: Vieux Carre
8:20 Reading 1: Out-swimming Destiny
17:50 Connection to Asian Cultures
23:26 A Cascade of Consequences and the 5 Ideas
27:26 Drink 2: Dark and Stormy
29:38 Reading 2: 5 Trapped in a Trunk
33:45 Getting in a Character’s Mind
35:59 The Bechtold Test and Erasing Part of Humanity
41:45 Drink 3: Fish House Punch
44:14 Reading 3: The Bartender’s Shady Business
52:50 Writing villains who aren’t 1-dimensional
55:15 Biggest difficulties for new writers

Visit our PATREON for our extended AFTER HOURS with Ashley and Andrea
Www.booksandbrews.net
www.lauravosika.com
www.gabrielshornpress.com
www.glenmirrilfarms.wordpress.com
Www.benjaminschwarting.com

~ ~ ~

If you enjoy our interviews or have benefited from them, we invite you to help us continue our work. It takes a great deal of time and money to produce Books and Brews. We’ve been doing interviews since January 2017 as a free service to authors. We continue to promote those authors on our social media for years after their interviews.

  • Subscribing, following, liking, commenting and sharing all help us to keep doing what we do.
  • A $5 tip helps us pay for our many expenses: Libsyn hosting, web hosting, Google meets, providing the drinks for the interview and the many hours of preparation and editing that go into each episode.
  • Patreon: patreon.com/BooksandBrewswithLauraVosika
  • Tip Jar: paypal.me/booksandbrewsMN
  • Books and Brews products:
    https://www.zazzle.com/store/books_an… (more to come)
  • Sponsor an episode to promote your product or service: contact us booksandbrewslive@gmail.com

COMING NEXT MONTH:

Randy Lerch — memoir, former MBL player

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Gabriel’s Horn is accepting submissions for its anthology NEW THEMES: CHILDREN and AMERICA.
See Laura’s interview at Central Valley Talk
Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get notifications of all our new videos. We have now interviewed more than 115 authors around the world! Would you like to be featured? Leave a comment.

If you liked this episode, you might also like these Books and Brews episodes:

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get notifications of all our new videos. We have now interviewed more than 115 authors! Would you like to be featured? Leave a comment.

https://www.youtube.com/@booksandbrews
https://www.youtube.com/@booksandbrews

Telling Stories from the Great Wall of China to Minneapolis: Loren Niemi, Episode #1

This month Michael and Laura spoke with Loren Niemi about his newest book, a collection of short stories entitled, What Haunts Us.

Loren is a storyteller with 40 years of creating, performing and teaching Stories that Matter. He has told stories everywhere from China’s Great Wall to the backrooms of German restaurants and the theaters of Minneapolis.

His work has been called “post-modern,” pushing the boundaries of narrative form “with a dark beauty of language that is not ashamed of poetry.”

Loren is also an author. His books include the award winning The New Book of Plots, an examination of oral and written narratives; and the critically acclaimed Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories, which he co-authored with Elizabeth Ellis. In 2016 he received the National Storytelling Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award. His collection of original and collected ghost stories What Haunts Us came out in February 2019.

www.lorenniemistories.com

Loren’s stories:

  • Remodeling the Kitchen10:59
  • Barbecue Bus – 26:53
  • The Hungry Carpet – 47:23

Michael’s beer pairings:

  • Oh Fudge!, Prairie
    Artisan Ales – 9:02
  • Aecht Schlenkerla
    Rauchbier Märzen, Brauerei Heller-Trum – 24:14
  • Kriek Boon, Brouwerij
    Boon  – 44:45

Interview highlights:

  • The impact of
    growing up moving on storytellers – 15:54
  • Becoming a
    storyteller – 17:33
  • Storytelling…on
    the Great Wall of China – 21:05
  • Why we tell
    stories – 22:55
  • Why we’re drawn to
    ghost stories and other dark tales – 36:53
  • Telling stories
    vs. writing stories – 51:00

Our theme music is from www.bensound.com.

If you liked this episode, you might also like these Books and Brews episodes:

HELP US GROW

If you enjoy our interviews or have benefited from them, we invite you to help us continue our work. It takes a great deal of time and money to produce Books and Brews. We’ve been doing interviews since January 2017 as a free service to authors. We continue to promote those authors on our social media for years after their interviews.

  • Subscribing, following, liking, commenting and sharing all help us to keep doing what we do.
  • A $5 tip helps us pay for our many expenses: Libsyn hosting, web hosting, Google meets, providing the drinks for the interview and the many hours of preparation and editing that go into each episode.
  • Patreon: patreon.com/BooksandBrewswithLauraVosika
  • Tip Jar: paypal.me/booksandbrewsMN
  • Books and Brews products:
    https://www.zazzle.com/store/books_an… (more to come)
  • Sponsor an episode to promote your product or service: contact us booksandbrewslive@gmail.com