Show Notes for Ep. 26 "The Good, the Bad, and the Chocolate Cake with Jed Hartman"
Is there such a thing as good and bad writing? What place does absolutism and relativism have in the critique of writing quality? Or is it all just about reader pleasure? These are the questions that have been brought up time and time again over the years in heated debates between Mary Anne, Ben, and Jed. This time, they are bringing it to the podcast.
Content note: mention of calorie counting.
Recorded 21 September 2020 / Published 11 October 2021
Contents
- 0:00:00: On where Mary Anne, Ben, and Jed stand on “good” literature
- 0:03:17: On religion being an influence point in the discussion
- 0:07:00: Defining sources of reader pleasure
- 0:09:17: Defining “good” and “bad” writing
- 0:17:15: Ben on the semantics they are using in the discussion
- 0:23:06: Absolutism vs. relativism
- 0:29:08: Jed on disagreement
- 0:46:18: Mary Anne’s chocolate cake analogy
- 0:55:36: On high art and Duchamp’s fountain
- 1:03:00: Intermission and following discussion of popcorn reading
- 1:10:47: On past writers and their writing quality
- 1:19:27: Ben on fan fiction
- 1:28:06: Mary Anne on reading Barbara Cartland as a kid
- 1:33:18: On writing speed vs. writing quality
- 1:45:00: Mary Anne on her choose your own adventure novels
- 1:48:13: Closing statements
Notes and Links
- Jed’s website
- Constellation Press, Jed’s publishing company
- Black Gate, magazine
- George R. R. Martin, writer
- Connie Willis, writer
- The Ant King, Benjamin Rosenbaum
- Fountain, sculpture by Marcel Duchamp
- Tao Te Ching, classic Chinese text
- The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
- Dune, Frank Herbert
- Cuties, Netflix film
- Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
- article on Molly Ostertag’s queer reading of Frodo and Sam
- Ao3, fan fiction website
- Nightwatch, Sergei Lukyanenko
- Anne Tyler, writer
- Ellen Kushner, writer
- Mary Anne and Ben recorded two podcast episodes with Ellen Kushner and her partner Delia Sherman! Links to Ep. 19 and Ep. 20
- The Death of the Duke, Ellen Kushner
- Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
- She-Ra, fictional superheroine
- Barbara Cartland, writer
- Robert Silverberg, writer
- Michael Moorcock, writer
- Jennifer Crusie, writer
- Welcome to Temptation, novel
- Faking It, novel
- Charlie All Night, novel
- Cinderella Deal, novel
- Getting Rid of Bradley, incorrectly referred to as Waiting for Bradley
- Jay Lake, writer
- Choice of Games, website
- Nicola Griffith, writer
- Kelly Link, writer
- Katherine in the City, Mary Anne Mohanraj
- Classics Professor, Mary Anne Mohanraj
- Michael Swanwick, writer
- In the Drift, novel by Swanwick
- Perdido Street Station, China Miéville
- American Gods, Neil Gaiman
- The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia A. McKillip
