Benjamin Orchard hasn’t got any technical expertise in filmmaking whatsoever, and thus has no qualifications to talk about fantasy cinema other than being an avid fan of the genre since childhood. Ben is a fully qualified librarian who has worked various other boring office, retail and laboring positions to pay the bills. He’s also dabbled in stage acting and arts-journalism over the years. In his spare time (that is not devoted to watching 80s fantasy films) he enjoys reading, bushwalking, swimming and calling Claire on the phone to have profound discussions about philosophy and pop culture… a process which eventually gave rise to this podcast.
Claire Fitzpatrick is a multi award-winning speculative fiction and non-fiction author with a passion for weird international movies. She has been a regular non-fiction contributor to Aurealis, Australia’s longest-running small-press science-fiction and fantasy magazine, since 2015. She’s also a PhD candidate studying ‘Frankenstein.’ One of her favourite past-times is to speak to Ben for several hours about pop culture, music, and books.
Swords, Sorcery & Synthesizes 