Welcome to Gender Reveal, a podcast where we hopefully get a little bit closer to understanding what the hell gender is.

I'm your host and resident gender detective, Chuck Woodstock.

Hey everyone. I hope you've all been hanging in there. Today in the show, I am very, very excited to share Ozzy's in my conversation with Violet Allen.

Violet is the author of many short stories as well as the upcoming book Plastic Prism Void, which is an experimental T-for-T sci-fi romantician novel coming out in May from Little Puss Press.

We talk about this book a lot in the interview. There's a lot

going on within the book. And honestly, you're going to have to pick up a copy somewhere for yourself

to really understand exactly what's going on in there, even just on a visual and design level.

But all you really need to know for now is that the main character is a woman named Akrasia,

who you will hear us mention a lot. And also that the book was edited by Cat Fitzpatrick, who you may remember from her own past appearances on gender reveal. So when we mention Cat, that's who we're talking about. By the way, this doesn't come up in the interview, but Kat has her own book coming out next month. It's called The Dinner Party, and it's really beautiful, and you should buy it. But this episode isn't about that. This is about our interview with Violet. And in

this episode, Violet and Ozzy and I talk about many of the elements that make plastic prism

void so unusual and exciting, including Violet writing a theme song for the book, using several

different colors of text, and somewhere between 40 and 99 fonts,

including Easter eggs for people who can read Greek or Latin or French, and getting the reader

actively involved in the storytelling. And when you read the book, you're helping to do something,

whether the thing you're helping to do is good is up to you. Near the end of the interview, we also talk about Sailor Moon, Joyce Carol Oates, HBO's Girls,

the worm from Dune, and a surprising amount, or maybe not so surprising, about the musical cats.

That's all coming up, but first, it's time for this week in gender.

This weekend. First, it's time for this week in gender. This week in gender, we are continuing our series of short documentaries celebrating a handful of past gender-review grant recipients.

This series is produced and edited by Nicole Kelly, who you may know as the creator of the podcast Basketcase.

Today's audio piece features the

Best Practices Policy Project, which describes itself as a sex worker-led and transled organization

dedicated to supporting groups and advocates working with sex workers and related communities

...