The Fantasy Writer’s Toolshed is a fantasy writing podcast dedicated to:
- All things creative writing – tips, guides, advice and support
- Specialist insights from experts in their field, like historians, folklorists and literary agents
- Fantasy fiction
- Helping you build your author platform and brand, and ultimately, helping you create and build a successful writing career
Episodes are every two weeks, released on the 14th and 28th of each month, and you can write to us at any time with questions, queries or topic requests about fantasy writing, writing generally or building your author platform.
We strive to produce helpful content and it’s this ethos that’s helped develop a reputation as one of the best podcasts on writing fantasy.
Read on for more about writing podcasts, including statistics and how they can help you.
Proudly Working In Partnership With
If you’re interested in working with the podcast, either as a sponsor or to promote the authors published through your organisation, please get in touch.
Listen To The Fantasy Writing Podcast
All episodes are available to listen to on Acast, iTunes, Spotify, Google Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podbean and Youtube. Click the logos below to go straight to the channel.
You can also listen to some of our most popular episodes below too.
Happy listening!
Most Popular Podcast Episodes On Writing Fantasy
Here’s a list of some of the most popular episodes of the podcast, featuring:
- Former FBI Special Agent and body language expert, Joe Navarro
- Award-winning SFF author, Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Bestselling fantasy author, Stephen Aryan
- Award-winning fantasy author, Juliet E McKenna
- Bestselling fantasy YA author, Mary E Pearson
- India’s fastest-selling author of all time, Amish Tripathi
What Are Writing Podcasts?
Listening to writing podcasts is a great way to learn in a new and interactive way. Many of us aren’t great learners from books, whereas others simply lack the time. Research from the Reading Agency revealed that only 31% of adults don’t read in their spare time, and that figure increases to a massive 46% for people aged 16 to 24.
Seeing so many people not reading breaks my heart as a writer, especially when the benefits are significant. For instance, adults with the highest literacy proficiency generally have a higher income, according to the OECD. Further to this, 19% of readers say that books have the benefit of staving off loneliness, as well as enhancing empathy and an understanding of yourself and other people.
But podcasts often provide a solution to issues of non-reading. According to Statista, 3 out of 4 podcasts listeners in the United States say they tune in to learn new things. With around 51% of Americans listening to podcasts each year, that’s a number in the hundreds of millions.
So if you’re looking for the best podcast for writers, you’re quite literally spoilt for choice with so many options out there.
About Our Fantasy Writing Podcast
Around the middle of 2019, myself and fellow writer in crime, JM Williams, floated the idea of starting a podcast. I’d seen many people veering toward audio as an alternative form of learning. And let’s be honest, listening to podcasts while you’re doing a mundane chore like washing the dishes is a terrific way to multi-task and turn unproductive time into productive.
There are many great author podcasts, like the Writing Excuses podcast or the Writing Prompts podcast or the Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, which I’d appeared on a few years ago. But not many of them and not very many dedicated to writing fantasy.
So we decided to create our own fantasy writing podcast, and we christened it The Fantasy Writers’ Toolshed.
What Is A Fantasy Writing Podcast?
A fantasy writing podcast is a recorded audio broadcast that examines the mechanics of telling a story. In particular, it focuses on the fantasy genre.
That’s exactly what we do with The Writers’ Toolshed. Only we go a step further than just discuss principles and ideas. We bring on specialists to the show, from historians to folklorists, to give you fascinating insights and information to help inspire your own writing.
So a fantasy writing podcast can be more than what you’d expect it to be, and that’s what we try to deliver.
How Can A Fantasy Writing Podcast Help You?
It’s a sad reality of the modern world that we have less time to ourselves to try to do the things we want to do. For many, learning and studying can be tough to fit in around full-time work. That’s why podcasts are so useful. In this more fluid form, you can learn on the go, while you cook or while you clean. Unproductive time becomes productive, and we get to achieve what we set out to do.
With The Fantasy Writers’ Toolshed, I wanted to pack as much usefulness into it as possible, bringing in the perspectives of as many people as I could—book bloggers, historians, mythologists. Everyone has a unique insight to offer, and that’s why I bring them onto my fantasy writing podcast, to share those insights with you.
What Do We Cover?
We try to cover as much ground as we can. Our aim is to be the best fantasy writing podcast, the one that provides invaluable writing advice and writing tips and support. We want to help you in any way that we can so that down the line, you can create and develop a successful fantasy writing career.
Each episode, we focus on one subject—how to write fantasy characters, how to develop a plot, what is a theme, how do you create conflict… among many other topics. We also cover things like how to write a short story and how to design a book cover. We pretty much cover all aspects of writing and author marketing. We’ve covered a fair bit so far, but there’s still more to be done.
We don’t just cover fantasy writing, but fantasy literature too, as well as fantasy book reviews, competitions and giveaways. We also have regular guests to provide us with crucial insights into different aspects of writing and publishing, from editors and graphic designers to audiobook narrators.
Learning From A Science Fiction and Fantasy Podcast
With our lives getting busier and busier, finding the time to cram in some extra learning is becoming more difficult. Not all of us have the luxury to dive headfirst into a book on writing fantasy. But what we do have is the ability to learn as we’re doing otherwise mundane jobs, like washing those damn dishes!
The Fantasy Writers’ Toolshed doesn’t just cover fantasy, but science fiction writing too. Many of the episodes in our back catalogue take a look at the SF genre and how it uses a different approach to the likes of worldbuilding and creating characters. Yes, there is overlap between genres, but not everything applies in the same way.
To help us illustrate our points, we turn to real-life examples from novels and short stories, so if you’re looking for writing podcasts about fantasy books as well as those from the sci-fi genre, you may find this useful too.
Fantasy Fiction Podcasts
Scouring the internet looking for the best fantasy writing podcast, or even a fantasy fiction podcast, or a fantasy podcast on Spotify, can produce frustratingly little results. My favourite fantasy fiction podcast is Tall Tale TV. Chris Herron is a terrific narrator and he’s done brilliant things with two of my own stories. If you’re looking for a great fantasy fiction podcast to lose yourself in, check out Tall Tale TV.
Why not check out PodCastle too? That features some excellent fantasy fiction, beautifully narrated.
How To Find Podcasts On Writing Fantasy
There aren’t too many dedicated podcasts on writing fantasy on the web, but there are enough to satisfy your appetite. In the past, I’ve featured on the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, hosted by Jesper Schmidt and Autumn Bird. Jesper interviewed me about marketing a good few years ago. They produce an awful lot of excellent content so be sure to check them out.
A simple search on google for “fantasy writing podcast” or “podcasts for fantasy writers” will bring up even more results.
You may find you get some hits for more general creative writing podcasts. If so, don’t hesitate to check them out. There are a lot of awesome podcasts out there covering all elements of fiction writing. The Creative Penn is an excellent podcast and so too is Writing Excuses.
Learn More – The Best Podcasts About Writing
Other Resources and Guides
Below, you can find some other fantasy writing guides and resources you may find useful.
- Fantasy Name Generator – if you need a hand naming your fantasy characters then this free tool offers some quick and quality names.
- List of Fantasy Magazines – if you have some short stories you want to publish, this massive list of magazines and journals will help
- A List of Fantasy Novel Publishers – if you’ve written a novel then this list of publishers will help, featuring international houses and indie presses
- And A List of Book Reviewers – if you have a book out and available to read, you may want more book reviews. See this list to get started
- The Essential Guide to Worldbuilding – if you want to learn more about building fantasy worlds this in-depth guide offers lots of advice
- Learn How To Start Worldbuilding – starting the world building process is tough. This guide will set you on the right path
If you need any more information about my fantasy writing podcast, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Most nights you can find him up into the wee hours scribbling away or watching the NBA.
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