50 - Sara Flannery Murphy and the Witches They Couldn't Burn

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Sisters are doing it for themselves – literally! 

Our guest this week is Sara Flannery Murphy, author of Girl One – which is either a feminist dystopian nightmare or a superhero origin story, or both. It is an alternative history of genetic science that asks the question of what would happen if women no longer needed men to conceive a child. The answer is simultaneously complex and chilling.

Sara and I talk about writing as a feminist in the time of Trump (and living in a Red State), and whether her characters are witches in any sense of the word. We discuss how pathogenesis has always had a home in the horror genre. And I demand to know why, if she was going to rewrite history, she didn’t save poor Kurt Cobain. 

Enjoy! 

Girl One was published by on 1st June by FSG in the US and on August 5th by Raven Books in the UK.

Other books mentioned in the show include:

• Carrie (1974), by Stephen King
• Firestarter (1980), by Stephen King
• The Return (2020), by Rachel Harrison
• Marilou is Everywhere (2019), by Sarah Elaine Smith

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Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]. 

Thanks to Adrian Flounders for graphic design.

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