Each month, Future Tense Fiction will bring you a dramatic telling of a short story exploring how tech that's emerging today could dramatically reshape tomorrow. Science journalist Maddie Stone will then have a conversation with the author about what inspired their writing, and their vision of the future.
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Each month, Future Tense Fiction will bring you a dramatic telling of a short story exploring how tech that's emerging today could dramatically reshape tomorrow. Science journalist Maddie Stone will then have a conversation with the author about what inspired their writing, and their vision of the future.
On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to Annalee Newitz about “When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis.” Annalee’s short story follows a disease-fighting robot—and its companions, both human and crow—on a quest to track an outbreak and develop a vaccine before it's too late. The story was published in December 2018, but now, three years after the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, it offers a look at how public health responses could better reflect the needs of the communities they serve. Plus, Annalee shares how they learned to speak crow language.
Guest: Annalee Newitz, author of the Terraformers, the Future of Another Timeline, and Autonomous.
Story read by Gin Hammond
Podcast production by Tiara Darnell
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Future Tense Fiction
Each month, Future Tense Fiction will bring you a dramatic telling of a short story exploring how tech that's emerging today could dramatically reshape tomorrow. Science journalist Maddie Stone will then have a conversation with the author about what inspired their writing, and their vision of the future.
