material girls

Material Girls Hits the Road

Welcome back to The Monthly Hoot: Witch, Please Productions' Newsletter!

Witch, Please Productions

— 7 min read
Material Girls Hits the Road

Hey lovely people!

Happy Pride! It’s always a great day to be gay here at Witch Please HQ, but we hope you’re spending this month being seen and feeling queer. But let’s get right to it: we’re doing a LIVE SHOW in Vancouver! And we’re all going to be there (even those of us on the East Coast/in the United States)!

Join us on July 3rd at The Rio Theatre in Vancouver for a night of live shenanigans, bits, and visual gags only possible in-person. The show will feature friends of the pod and podcast royalty, Helen Zaltzman and Martin Austwick (The Allusionist). Get excited! And get your tickets here! We couldn’t be more excited to see you!

Hugs,

Hannah, Marcelle, Coach, Zoe, and Gaby

First, Hannah and Marcelle get into Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros! This romantasy from Entangled Publishing was an undeniable hit, but in a saturated market, how did it rise to such fame? To get to the bottom of this book's popularity, resident publishing expert Hannah explains how Entangled's market-driven approach to publishing and reader engagement set Yarros up for a certain kind of success. To add some much-needed theory to the mix, Hannah draws on Foucault to consider "authorship" and the "the author function." At the end of the episode, Hannah offers a thesis about authorship, originality and modern publishing that is not to be missed!

Next up, Hannah and Marcelle welcome guest Matt Wildcat (he/him) to discuss the hit reality TV show, The Traitors! Marcelle and Matt begin by offering a quick rundown of the game’s mechanics and its charm (TLDR: Alan Cumming). Whether you’re a fan, like Marcelle, or you’ve never watched the show, like Hannah, this episode is for you. Tune in for an hour deep dive into the lasting effect(s) of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023 and the rise of reality star celebrities!

We’ve also got THREE new episodes of Material Concerns! You can get Part II of these deeply chaotic conversations over on Patreon. Get in there!!

Patrons get a discount!!!

We’re constantly offering fresh perks over on Patreon and hours of bonus content, but now is a GREAT time to join because our patrons get a discount to the live show in Vancouver. Join today and you’ll get access to the $5 off code. :)

Be a Hero, Join Our Patreon

Gender Playground Season Two is Coming OUT!

Pun intended! Every Thursday we’re dropping a new episode. This season features truly incredible guests. Our episodes with Hannah McGregor, comedian Charlie James, and Elder Richard Jenkins are already OUT. Listen wherever you get your podcasts and show this passion project from our team some love!

Take Me to the Playground
not related to the playlist, I just love Snoopy dancing

We’ve got an Apocalypse Toolkit (Music Edition) playlist for you all this month! And YOU helped add to it. Enjoy! Get it here.

I had the great pleasure of interviewing V.E. Schwab about her new book, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, which means I got my nasty little grabbers on an early copy, and let me tell you folks, this book is extremely gay. If you're into toxic lesbian vampires and pondering important feminist questions like whether it's better to drink the blood of men (who are bad, but also taste bad) or women (who are good, but also taste good), then you should probably also read this book.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a minimalist. I love stuff. I'm a total sucker for stuff. A friend once said I was really easy to buy for because I like stuff so much. But you know what I like even more than random stuff? Functional stuff! I love getting myself and others cute shit that is also functional, and one of my favourite cute-and-functional purchases still brings me joy every day: this pair of useful kitchen scissors masquerading as a toucan. I mean just LOOK AT THEM! They are so goddamn cute and so goddamn functional I kinda want to buy another pair. I keep mine on the refrigerator (just like in the picture!) thanks to the handy magnet attached to the beak. Heads up, though: the decorative "eye" might pop off after lots of use (easy to glue back on, just FYI).
I’m listening to Gender Playground because it’s my job and also because the episodes make me emotional! If you haven’t checked it out, allow me to recommend the Charlie James episode. I love Charlie. He is a dear friend of mine and he’s also really funny and smart about a lot of things, including gender.
While I am still very much on the Sinners train (I have now seen it three times and it gets better every time), I feel like I should mention another notable thing I watched recently. Over the weekend I saw The Crow (1994) for the first time. And boy, would middle-school Zoe have eaten that shit up! Sad beautiful man gets retribution for his fiancee’s murder AND plays electric guitar on a rooftop in the pouring rain with a CROW on his shoulder?? I am there! It’s honestly wild that I didn’t watch it before now. So many good fanfic years wasted. In middle school my friend showed me her coveted VHS copy of The Crow. She told me about how Brandon Lee (the lead actor) has been killed on set. She told me it was all because of The Crow curse! Ever since then I had steered away from it because I was steeped in a household that held strong beliefs about cursed films. For instance, my Dad would not allow copies of Hellraiser or Nightmare on Elmstreet to cross into the threshold of our home because he believed they were cursed. I’ll admit, The Crow hasn’t aged super well. The dialogue is laughable and some of that CGI is not looking good, but you can definitely see why its a cult classic. It has an amazing soundtrack, and the world building is gnarly and bleak in the best way. The crown jewel is of course, Brandon Lee. It was both sobering and wonderful to see him in action. He wanted to break out of his fathers (Bruce Lee’s) shadow and make his own impact on the film industry. And I would say he succeeded.
It’s hot as hell on the East Coast this week, so cooking and turning on the stove is frankly out of the question. Instead, I’ll tell you about what I’m eating: this salted honey graham ice cream from a local worker-owned Baltimore ice cream shop called Taharka Brothers. It comes in pints at a local corner cafe and I’m there to restock more often than I’d like to admit. It’s some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had, and I have HIGH standards!

Have a topic you want us to tackle? Feel free to submit to this form!

Something else you want us to know? You can always email us at ohwitchplease@gmail.com.

Want to talk to us all the time? Join our $30 Patreon tier and find us on Slack, where we live.

Want to sponsor an episode of Gender Playground? Learn more here!

Have a strongly worded comment about this newsletter? You can now reply right on Substack and we’ll be able to see it and even reply! Just be nice to us.

You can also leave us a review for Material Girls or Gender Playground on Apple Podcasts! We love that. They make us happy.

Okay, bye! xoxo

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