Meet
Our Hosts

Caleb James K.

Caleb James K. is the former Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal, Drunken Pen Writing, and the host of the DPW Podcast. He’s also a fiction writer, poet, and aspiring novelist.

Spencer Church

A former aspiring comic book artist, Spencer is the cohost of the DPW Podcast as well as a short story writer and avid reader.

We kick off the episode with some bad news. Poet Joy Sullivan was scheduled for today’s episode, and she did join us on the podcast via computer, but unfortunately, we had some tech issues and couldn’t record the episode.

Since we couldn’t talk with Joy, we decided to discuss a topic that came to our attention recently. Some people think Stephen King is bad at writing female characters. Well, Spencer couldn’t let this King slander stand. So he found a list of great female characters in Stephen King’s work.

After we talk about the list, we go into some more details about this supposed fault of his. We discuss the faults of other writers and the problems with poorly written characters beyond gender.

A Murakami Minute: 1Q84 Book Three – Drunken Pen Writing Podcast

In today's episode, we finish our discussion of Haruki Murakami's giant novel, 1Q84. We share our thoughts on how the book ends, as well as the lack of resolution for the characters we've spent far too much time with. This leads to a brief comparison to the other notable Murakami, Ryu Murakami, who tends to write in a much faster-paced, grittier, and harder-hitting way. There are a lot of things to like about 1Q84, but there are also many things that bring the book down. Overall, it's still a solid read.