Nalo Hopkinson : Blackheart Man

Nalo Hopkinson : Blackheart Man

Author: David Naimon, Milkweed Editions September 1, 2024 Duration: 1:50:34

Todays’ guest is Grand Master of science fiction and fantasy Nalo Hopkinson. Together we center her first novel in over a decade, the remarkable Blackheart Man, and look at what it means to not only write an alternate Caribbean history, but within that history conjure an entirely new culture, one with its own language, sexual norms, family and gender dynamics, and racial politics. And yet a culture that remains, for all its invented differences, deeply Caribbean. Blackheart Man is a book exploring the “what-ifs” in the histories of marronage (autonomous fugitive communities of escaped enslaved peoples) and of what can be recovered from the ruptures and erasures in the archive. Nalo’s latest novel becomes the lens through which we explore everything from the use of vernacular speech in one’s work to the reckonings around race that have rocked the SFF community in recent years.

Nalo’s appearance on the show joins many archival conversations with touchstone writers of SFF today, from Nnedi Okorafor and N.K. Jemisin to Ted Chiang and Kelly Link, from Kim Stanley Robinson and Jeff Vandermeer, to William Gibson, China Miéville and Ursula K. Le Guin. I’ve created a “Legends of Sci-Fi and Fantasy” playlist on the show’s YouTube channel so they are easily found in one place but you can also sort for “SFF” at the show’s home page as well.

If you enjoyed today’s conversation, consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. There are an incredible number of rewards and gifts to choose from when you do. You can check it all out at the show’s Patreon page. 

Finally, here is the BookShop for today’s episode.


There's a particular kind of conversation that happens when a thoughtful reader sits down with a writer, one that moves beyond simple promotion into the real heart of the creative act. Between The Covers is built on that very premise. Hosted by David Naimon and presented with Milkweed Editions, this long-form interview podcast delves into the lives and minds of authors working across fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Each episode feels less like an interview and more like a privileged eavesdrop on a deep, meandering dialogue. You'll hear writers discuss not just their latest book, but the fragments of life, the stubborn questions, and the daily rituals that feed their work. Naimon’s approach is informed and curious, often leading guests into unexpected reflections on craft, influence, and the ideas that haunt them. The result is a consistently illuminating audio experience that feels like a private workshop in narrative, language, and thought. For anyone who loves the texture of words and the stories behind them, this podcast offers a sustained and intimate look at how literature is made. It’s a space where the finished book is just the starting point for a richer exploration.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry
Podcast Episodes
Martha Anne Toll : Duet for One [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:54:02
Today’s guest is writer and critic Martha Anne Toll. Through a discussion of her latest novel Duet for One we explore the perennial mystery of writing and art-making, namely how to render something that lives beyond repr…
Rob Macaisa Colgate : Hardly Creatures & My Love is Water [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:32:30
Today’s conversation with Rob Macaisa Colgate is about two books, his poetry collection Hardly Creatures and his verse drama My Love is Water. You could say these two books are approaching the same questions, but from op…
Robert Macfarlane : Is a River Alive? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:12:14
Don’t miss today’s conversation with Robert Macfarlane. A polyvocal deep dive into the mysteries of words and rivers, of speech acts as spells, whorls as worlds, of grammars of animacy, of what it means to river, and to…
adrienne maree brown : Ancestors [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:23:56
With the arrival of Ancestors, the third and final book in adrienne maree brown’s Grievers Trilogy, we take the iconic frames she has created in her nonfiction work—emergent strategy, pleasure activism, fractal responsib…
Madeleine Thien : The Book of Records [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:00:32
The Book of Records is many things: a book of historical fiction and speculative fiction, a meditation on time and on space-time, on storytelling and truth, on memory and the imagination, a book that impossibly conjures…
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson : Theory of Water [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:01:04
What would it mean for our writing, thinking, and living if we looked to land as pedagogy, or if we thought of theory as something embodied and kinetic? In Theory of Water Leanne Betasamosake Simpson takes us not only ou…
Keetje Kuipers : Lonely Women Make Good Lovers [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:25:57
From the craft of writing sex in poetry to the virtues of failing publicly, today’s conversation with poet Keetje Kuipers is not to be missed. We explore everything from storytelling within poems to the dialectic between…
Patrycja Humienik : We Contain Landscapes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:21:31
What does it mean to risk rupture for rapture, on the page, and in one’s life? Or for water to be one’s method, mode or muse? Are inherited forms (of womanhood, of sexuality, of national identity) a gift or are their bor…
Torrey Peters : Stag Dance [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:18:27
Four novellas, in four different genres—science fiction, horror, teen romance, and a western—Stag Dance not only interrogates genre, but gender through genre. Written over a ten year period, Torrey Peters’ new book spans…
Michelle de Kretser : Theory & Practice [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:02:36
Today’s guest, one of Australia’s most celebrated and daring writers, Michelle de Kretser, discusses her latest uncategorizable book Theory & Practice (one she describes as 80% fiction, 15% essay and 5% memoir). Theory &…