Joseph Fink, co-creator of Welcome to Night Vale, says the 1999 adventure game Grim Fandango profoundly shaped his understanding of storytelling. In a Verge interview, he also discusses his latest novella, The Nudge, and reflects on projects including the noir mystery podcast Unlicensed, which he considers especially successful creatively.

Fink says he would have continued writing Unlicensed indefinitely, but Audible ended the series after three seasons as it largely closed its original-shows division. He identifies Podcast Addict as essential to his Android use, says he mainly uses Bluesky, buys books frequently, and highlights musician Meshell Ndegeocello’s advice that skill is meaningless without listening.