While shredding nearly 10,000 pages of my accumulated papers, I made several discoveries worth sharing, including memorable hate mail I received while writing Captain Marvel, multiple reasons I’m unqualified to write my own autobiography, a job application at Comico, why I refused to meet editors until after I’d already sold them stories, my unsuccessful score on a DC Comics proofreading test, four rejected Tales from the Darkside pitches which didn’t end up published in Elvira’s House of Mystery, and more.

You can hear me borne back ceaselessly into the past via the embed below or download the episode at the site of your choice.

Here are a few images related to a couple of the topics I mention this episode —

My first and favorite Captain Marvel hate mail

My Media Whore business card
and the reason why

At the 1974 D.C. Worldcon
with Carl Gafford, Paul Levitz, and Steve Gilary

A cover story which got me an unexpected gig at Tales from the Darkside

It’s time to say farewell to this year’s Balticon with the second of two conversations I recorded for you there, the first being last episode’s BBQ lunch with Mark L. Van Name. This time around you’ll eavesdrop as I chat and chew with award-winning writer Somto Ihezue, who at the time of our conversation was both a Nebula and Locus Award finalist for “We Begin Where Infinity Ends,” published last year in Clarkesworld. Ihezue went on to win the Locus Award for that novelette shortly thereafter.

He was also nominated in 2023 for a British Fantasy Award — the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Tor: Africa Risen Anthology, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fireside Magazine, Podcastle, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, Poetry Magazine, Cossmass Infinities, Flash Fiction Online, Nightmare, OnSpec Magazine, Omenana, Africa In Dialogue, Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology, The Year’s Best Anthology of African Speculative Fiction, and others.

He’s also been involved on the other side of the writer/editor equation, as Acquiring Editor at Android Press and Associate Editor for Cast of Wonders.

We discussed why fireflies matter, how the social media algorithm led him to writing workshops, finding the courage required to write his award-winning story, why the literature of the fantastic is his chosen playground, how he brings the geography of his stories to life, the startling fact his first published short story was also the first he ever wrote, the way the Clarion workshop experience made his writing better, the importance of community, the way readers speak about his poetry vs. the way they speak about his prose, how his editing gigs helped make his own rejections less bothersome, plus much more.

Here’s how you can join us at R & R Taqueria — (more…)

I captured two fascinating Eating the Fantastic conversations for you during last month’s Balticon. I wish I could have squeezed in a third, but planning for and hosting the podcast’s 10th anniversary party there — where I served up 26 dozen donuts in the con suite — exhausted some of my spoons.

First up, my lunch with award-winning writer Mark L. Van Name, recorded on the con’s opening day several hours before programming began. Balticon was the perfect place to break bread with Van Name, because 18 years earlier there, he won the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel for his 2007 book One Jump Ahead. That was the first of his Baen Books about Jon and Lobo, which include Slanted Jack (2008), Overthrowing Heaven (2009), Children No More (2010), and No Going Back (2012). His short fiction has been published in magazines and anthologies such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, When the Music’s Over, Full Spectrum 3, Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic, and many more.

Van Name is more than his many short stories and novels, for he was also the cofounder of the Sycamore Hill Writer’s Workshop with previous guest of the podcast John Kessel, as well as the editor of the critical magazine of short fiction, Short Form.

We discussed his first short story sale to a 1979 Clarion classmate of mine, why it sometimes takes him decades before he feels a story’s ready to send out, the reason he still has a massive comic book collection (and why I don’t), the comic book which helped save his life, the reason he doesn’t require advances on his novels, his mixed feelings about writing workshops, the 17 minutes Harlan Ellison spent savaging one of his stories, why you have to let go of caring what readers make of your writing, how his John and Lobo series was born, the way he balanced a demanding day job with the writing life, plus much more.

Here’s how you can join us at Heritage Smokehouse — (more…)

I don’t have much to say this episode, but I’ve decided to say it anyway, sharing about the way Stan Lee saved me in a dream, what I was thinking (or not) 52 years ago today on the eve of starting my Marvel Comics staff job, the PTSD of older creators who lived through the creation of the Comics Code, why I won’t be writing my autobiography, when I’ll be shredding half a century of daily diaries, and more.

You can hear me wax nostalgic via the embed below or download the episode at the site of your choice.

Here are a few images related to a couple of the topics I mention this episode —

Hanging with Stan Lee at San Diego Comic-Con

Chilling with Brian Keene during StokerCon

Outside the White House during the 1974 Worldcon
with Carl Gafford, Paul Levitz, and Steve Gilary