This week the team goes back before colonisation with a brand-new audio series. Out-Lore tells the stories of queer lives from centuries before European contact, and part one, Heron Woman and the Naming Dawn, opens as winter ends in the village of the Bdóte. At its centre is a Winkte of the Sioux Nation — one of those the Lakota understood as neither man nor woman — and Steph, who created the series, explains why that history matters now: that five genders and Two Spirit roles were not an invention but a long-standing fact of life, and that the series is written with care and checked against the historical record so the right words are used for people the language has since tried to forget.

Later, Madam Lether joins the team from Reading — drag queen, horror and science-fiction writer, and one of the driving forces behind Reading Pride Extra, which has grown from a single day into something that runs all year. She talks about the moment Drag Race made her realise drag was something she could actually do, about the live reading she gave at this year's Extra of a story built around her drag sister Ruby Goldsmith, and about the writing itself: Tales from the Algorithm, the novella Bonnie in the Machine, a sequel and a new collection on the way, and the podcast Writers and Worlds, where she talks to authors about how they work — with a second season set to widen out to screenwriters and games writers.