I’m just going to say it. This may be the most fun I’ve ever had on a podcast. Nora Jemisin — better known by her pen name, N.K. Jemisin — just won the Hugo Award for best novel for the third year in a row. No one had ever done that before. Jemisin is also the first author to have every book in a single series win the Hugo for best novel, and the first black author to win a Hugo for best novel. She’s a badass. What makes Jemisin’s work so remarkable is the power and detail of the worlds she builds for her characters, and her readers, to inhabit. In this podcast, she shows us how she does it: Jemisin teaches a world-building seminar for sci-fi and fantasy authors, and here, she leads me through that exercise live. It’s a master class not only in building a new world but in understanding our own. You don’t want to miss this. Recommended books: The Murderbot Diaries series from Martha Wells Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler