Mysterious Goings On with Alex Greenwood

What makes a movie work—even when it seemingly shouldn’t?Film critic, screenwriter and returning Mysterious Goings On favorite Lucas Hardwick joins Alex Greenwood to discuss his debut book, Death by Snails, Volume 2: How to Watch Anything Through the Art and Majesty of Film Criticism.

A finalist for the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Book, Death by Snails collects five years of Lucas’ writing on more th...

Bob ran the invoices for twenty-two years. Then he retired on a Friday, and by Tuesday nobody could open the spreadsheet.

This week it's a solo episode: three essays from the Radical Competency lane of my Substack, All the Fits That's News, read back to back for the first time. On their own they're about a small business I ran for fourteen years, a guy named Bob and my first newsroom job on the obituary desk in 1991. Together they t...

The bomb ended the war in one sentence. The real story took five months and a president three weeks into the job.

Everybody thinks they know this ending: two cities, two bombs, one date, case closed. James M. Scott has spent twenty years proving otherwise.

He's a Pulitzer Prize finalist, New York Times bestseller, and the author of Black Snow, Rampage, Target Tokyo, The War Below, and The Attack on the Liberty (plus Targeted: Beirut...

What if readers paid to help you make your next novel better?

Author, podcaster and indie publishing advocate Matty Dalrymple returns to Mysterious Goings On to explain how she serialized her seventh Ann Kinnear suspense novel on Substack, releasing one chapter a day for six weeks to paying subscribers.

Matty walks Alex through the mechanics of the experiment: how she structured free and paid access, encouraged reader feedback, navig...

Everybody wants a piece of you. At some point, that stops feeling like flattery and starts feeling like a bill coming due.

This episode, Alex steps away from author interviews for essays on what happens when being good at something quietly turns into being available for anything.

One essay looks outward, at the moment a favor stops being a favor. The other looks inward, at what it costs to keep saying yes long after yes stopped bein...

Two essays this week.

First: polysemy sounds like a skin condition, but it's why one word can mean several things without anyone getting confused. Usually. An essay about the word "asylum" and the lowest bar in public discourse.

Then, a serious publisher called my book proposal "true and valid and in our wheelhouse," and said no anyway. Why that rejection was worth more than most acceptances, and what it says about an industry court...

June is handing out lessons Alex didn’t expect.

Ever felt like a month was trying to teach you something? Tag someone who needs to hear this!

In his latest thoughts, Alex delves into three intriguing topics:

• A Civil War reunion that should never have happened.
• The quiet disappearance of the letter T in our speech.
• The powerful lessons from Anthony Bourdain about being aware of our surroundings.

These aren’...

This week, two essays about mondegreens and eggcorns—those moments when the brain mishears something or rewires a phrase to make it fit better. How we confidently get language wrong in ways that make perfect sense.

Featuring:

• "There's a Bathroom on the Right" — On misheard song lyrics and why the brain prefers coherence over accuracy
• "In One Foul Swoop" — On eggcorns, language evolution, and why getting it wrong ...

In this episode, Alex reads his latest essay from All the Fits That's News — a piece that starts with a Star Trek argument and ends somewhere considerably less comfortable.

The essay traces what happens when group membership stops being a background feature of how we live and starts running the cognitive show. Drawing on Henri Tajfel's social identity theory experiments from the 1970s, it looks at how we sort ourselves into gr...

In this episode of Mysterious Goings On, Alex shares his latest essay, “The Heat Travels Slowly.”

The short version: "when I was five, my aunt told me not to touch the iron. I touched it anyway. The longer version is about why that kind of direct, immediate feedback no longer applies to most of the decisions that actually matter, and what happens when the consequences of bad choices arrive so slowly and indirectly that ...

Cross-posted from All the Fits That's News. In this episode:

When Friendships End (And Nothing Went Wrong) - Most friendships don’t explode. They run out of gas. Why the seasonality of relationships isn’t failure, it’s just life doing what it does.

Being Right Isn’t Enough. Being Effective Matters - Outrage doesn’t change behavior. Money does. Why closing your wallet might be the most honest re...

What do you get when a writer builds a dystopian world that feels uncomfortably close to the one we already live in? A trilogy worth paying attention to.

Alex sits down with Lynette M. Burrows author of the Fellowship Dystopia series, for a conversation that covers a lot of ground; from the moral weight of violence in fiction to the long, sometimes painful arc of developing a protagonist worth following across multiple books.

Lynett...

Alex explores the complexities of navigating a creative career, particularly in writing and podcasting. He discusses the pervasive influence of the Author Services Industrial Complex, which capitalizes on authors' anxieties rather than genuinely helping them succeed. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the local nuances of podcasting and marketing, warning against the pitfalls of outsourcing these tasks to firms that lack...

On the Season 17 Premiere, Alex reflects on Robert Greene's book 'Mastery' and its profound impact on his understanding of personal growth and the writing craft.

He discusses the concept of the long apprenticeship, the importance of recognizing one's true self, and the influences that have shaped his journey as a writer. Alex emphasizes the value of dedication and the gradual process of mastering a craft, while also looking forwar...

In this reflective piece, Alex challenges the conventional narrative surrounding the holidays as a time for renewal and optimism. Instead, he emphasizes the importance of acknowledging personal loss and the complexities of life. He advocates for clearer thinking, honest conversations, and modest wishes that focus on competence and responsibility rather than empty optimism.

Alex's message is a call to embrace the nuances of life, re...

In this episode, Alex reads his essay, “Tend Your Garden, But Don’t Forget the Gate,” originally published on his Substack, All The Fits That’s News. The piece explores the limits of the old Stoic maxim, “Don’t complain, don’t explain,” and how silence, when taken too far, becomes a form of avoidance rather than strength.

Alex reflects on a difficult period in his professional life, wh...

Alex takes a look at this year’s Spotify Wrapped for Mysterious Goings On and talks through what the numbers say about a small, strange, independent show that refuses to behave like a big studio podcast.

He points out which episodes surprised him, where listeners are tuning in from, and even what kind of music and audiobooks the audience seems to love.

There’s curiosity, a little pride, and plenty of thanks to the folks ...

What happens when a children’s book is written for adults who know better? Filmmaker and author Cevin Soling joins Alex to talk about his brilliantly twisted storybooks that hide sharp social commentary behind bright illustrations and dark comedy.

His ⁠Rumpelville Chronicles⁠ wrap heavy themes in playful visuals, inviting adults to laugh, cringe, and think at the same time. Soling’s been poking at cultural absurdities si...

What keeps an artist going when fame never quite shows up? For songwriter, drummer, and now novelist Douglas Bales, the answer is simple: the people who actually listen.

In this episode, Douglas joins Mysterious Goings On to talk about his 40-year journey through the garage shows, the smoky clubs, the late-night drives, and the long odds that define a life in music.

We get into what it really feels like to be onstage in front of an ...