This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Amal El-Mohtar, author of Seasons of Glass and Iron.

About Seasons of Glass and Iron: Full of glimpses into gleaming worlds and fairy tales with teeth, Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories is a collection of acclaimed and awarded work from Amal El-Mohtar.

With confidence and style, El-Mohtar guides us through exquisitely told and sharply observed tales about life as it is, was, and could be. Like miscellany from other worlds, these stories are told in letters, diary entries, reference materials, folktales, and lyrical prose.

Full of Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Hugo Award-winning and nominated stories, Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories includes “Seasons of Glass and Iron,” “The Green Book,” “Madeleine,” “The Lonely Sea in the Sky,” “And Their Lips Rang with the Sun,” “The Truth About Owls,” “A Hollow Play,” “Anabasis,” “To Follow the Waves,” “John Hollowback and the Witch,” “Florilegia, or, Some Lies About Flowers,” “Pockets,” and more.

About Amal El-Mohtar: Amal El-Mohtar is an award-winning writer of fiction, poetry, and criticism. Her stories and poems have appeared in magazines including Tor.com, Fireside Fiction, Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Apex, Stone Telling, and Mythic Delirium; anthologies including The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories (2017), The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales (2016), Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories (2014), and The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (2011); and in her own collection, The Honey Month (2010). She is co-author, with Max Gladstone, of the multiple award-winning This is How You Lose the Time War. Her articles and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, NPR Books and on Tor.com. She has been the New York Times’s science fiction and fantasy columnist since February 2018, and she is represented by DongWon Song of HMLA.

This week’s picks:

• Amal #1: Clues by Sam – Puzzles
• Amal #2: Heated Rivalry (HBO)
• Amal #3: Goin for a Walk
• Amal #4: Time of Iron book series by Sarah Rees Brennan
• Tracy: A Short History of Stupid
  by Bernard Keane & Helen Razer
• Patrick: Marty, Life Is Short (Netflix)

Links:

• Amal El-Mohtar’s Newsletter
• Tracy Townsend on BluSky
• Patrick Hester on Instagram
• The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2026 Patrick Hester

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