95 – J.M. Miro and Throwing Your Arms Around the Monsters

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This week we go to magic school, but there isn’t a f***ing owl or a talking hat in sight.

Instead, it’s a much more macabre affair, as J. M. Miro begins his trilogy of dark sorcery with Ordinary Monsters. 

J. M. goes by a different name in his other, more prosaic writing life, but here, with us, in the blood and the shadows he writes as his second self. Which is a long-winded and torturous way to say this is a pseudonym.

We talk about the creative and practical reasons behind that, as well as his tragic family history, his obsession with Victorian London, female detectives in history and how to write a compelling action scene.

And we manage to do all that without saying a single hateful or prejudiced thing. Imagine!

Enjoy!

Ordinary Monsters was published on June 7th by Bloomsbury and Flatiron Books 

Other books discussed in this episode include:

• By Gaslight (2016), by Steven Price (AKA J.M. Miro)
• Lampedusa (2019), by Steven Price
• Blood Meridian (1985), by Cormac McCarthy
• The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1974), by Patricia A. McKillip
• Washington Black (2018), by Esi Edugyan

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