For the Season 4 finale, we close with a book that asks the sharpest question of all: once the world is listening, who owns the story.

In this final episode, I’m joined by Kevin Maina (@mainamind) to talk about Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. We follow Zelu, a Nigerian American writer whose sudden success turns her into a public argument, even as she tries to stay a person. The novel folds in excerpts from Zelu’s breakout sci-fi epic, creating a layered meditation on fame, disability, family pressure, and the violence of being misunderstood at scale.

In this episode:

• The difference between writing a book and surviving its reception

• The story-within-a-story, and why it hits harder than it sounds

• Success as a machine, and agency as a decision

• Our Season 4 takeaways: desire, power, and the cost of being seen

I’m @globemich. Kevin is @mainamind. Thanks for listening this season.

This week it’s just me, and we’re pairing two very different books that are secretly in conversation about the same thing: desire, and who gets to shape it.

First, Female Fantasy by Iman Hariri-Kia, a sharp, funny, romance-saturated novel about a devoted romantasy fan and fanfiction writer, Joonie Saboonchi, who starts measuring real life against fictional longing, then goes looking for the “real man” behind her favourite merman love interest. It’s satire, it’s sincerity, and it’s an unexpectedly tender look at what we think love should feel like.

Then, Uprooted by Naomi Novik, where a village girl, Agnieszka, is taken to a wizard’s tower, discovers a wild kind of magic that does not obey neat rules, and learns that the real enemy is the corrupted forest known as the Wood. It’s folklore, ferocity, and a heroine who becomes powerful without becoming polished.

In this episode:

• Fantasy boyfriends versus real-world intimacy

• What “female fantasy” reveals about hunger, control, and choice

• Two heroines who refuse to be edited down

• A quick listener practice: name one desire you’ve been taught to downplay

Follow the show, rate and review if it stayed with you. I’m @globemich.

This episode was meant to be about robots.
It starts there, briefly. Tin hearts, code, sentience, the usual.

Then Kevin Maina (@mainamind) takes the wheel and somehow we end up in poetry, longing, and the lost art of the love letter. No one is more surprised than me.

What follows is a very real conversation about why people still write to be remembered, why tenderness is a form of courage, and why a good line can outlive a perfect argument.

In this episode:

• The robot book we were supposed to discuss, in spirit

• Kevin’s case for poetry as emotional technology

• Love letters as archive, evidence, and risk

• The difference between saying “I miss you” and writing it so it stays

If you have ever drafted a message ten times and still sent just “hey”, this one is for you.
I’m @globemich. Kevin is @mainamind.