This week we'll be introducing a new segment on select episodes of The Future is Bleak. Summer intern and inquisitive reader Narco Polo will be interviewing authors from all over the publishing world. So that you can better understand her line of questioning, we've decided to give her a ten minute introductory podcast. Here then, is that podcast.

Enjoy.

Alison is back from Deutschland and the podcast resurgence continues at full speed.

We're joined by Libby Fischer Hellmann, author of this spring's EASY INNOCENCE, and editor of last year's CHICAGO BLUES.

According to the Chicago Tribune, "Libby Fischer Hellmann has joined an elite club: Chicago mystery writers who not only inhabit the environment but also give it a unique flavor." While the Trib was referring to Libby's award-winning amateur sleuth series featuring Chicago video producer Ellie Foreman, her fifth novel, Easy Innocence, promises to do the same.

For more, visit http://www.hellmann.com

Ben is joined by Victoria Blake, publisher of Underland Press. Join us as we discuss the challenges facing small publishing houses, what makes a good book, and just what the hell a "wovel" is.

From the Underland Press website (www.underlandpress.com)--

WE LIKE STORIES that scare us. We like the macabre-monsters and magic and men with nothing to lose. More than anything, we like to be intrigued and entertained.

UNDERLAND PRESS was started to bring the best of the world’s scary and strange stories to life and to light.

CALL IT THE NEW WEIRD, or fantasy, or dark fantasy. Call it what you want. We like reading by flashlight under the covers at night. We want to make books you can’t put down.

We’ve got some good ones: Contemporary alt-lit master Brian Evenson’s latest-a story that started its life as a limited-edition detective novella set in a sect of self-mutilators; world-renowned fantasist Jeff VanderMeer’s new Ambergris novel, the third novel set in a world where nothing is what it seems; newcomer Will Elliott, a writer whose demonic clowns caused the critics to swoon and readers to demand more when they first saw print in Australia and Britain; the husband-and-wife team called Escober, a best-selling export from the Netherlands brought to America for the very first time; and rising star Kealan Patrick Burke doing the world’s firstever wovel, sponsored on Underland Press’ groundbreaking website.

Publishing whizbang Alison Janssen is out of the office and in Germany to discuss international book matters. Can one half of the team pull off a podcast with all of the wit and charm you've come to expect from The Future is Bleak? We don't know either, you'll have to tune in and judge for yourself as Ben talks with J.D. Rhoades, author of the popular Jack Keller novels.

BEA recap, more award nominees, and a discussion of a thunderstorm. What more does it take to waste your time?