Eric Molinsky is the creator and host of Imaginary Worlds, a podcast on the Panoply network about science fiction and other fantasy genres, which looks at how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. Episodes have ranged from interviews with authors like Kim Stanley Robinson and filmmakers like Joss Whedon, to conceptual episodes that look at how horror movies help people grieve lost loved ones, and why the character alignment sheet in Dungeons & Dragonscan be a blueprint for understanding pop culture. The podcast has also explored issues of race in cosplay, how fanfiction can veer the superhero genre away from heteronormative stories, and what Muslim readers think of the way Frank Herbert incorporated Islamic themes into the Dune series. And Imaginary Worlds sometimes veers into fantastical, as Eric has interviewed vampires, Captain Hook, and the animated brain of H. P. Lovecraft.
Eric is also a public radio reporter and producer. His work has appeared on The New Yorker Radio Hour, Studio 360, Marketplace, KCRW’s unFictional, 99% Invisible, WNYC, and NPR. He was also a staff writer on the audio drama podcast The Truth. A long time ago, he used to work as an animation storyboard artist on Nickelodeon cartoons, and he still sketches people on the New York subway using a drawing app on his iPhone.