Welcome to the first of two episodes recorded during the massive pop culture event Awesome Con, held each year in Washington D.C. My first guest of the weekend was Patrick O’Leary, whose debut novel, Door Number Three (1995), was named a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly.

His second book, The Gift (1997), was a finalist for both the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award. The Impossible Bird (2002) was selected as one of Locus’s top novels of the year. His new novel, 51, was just published in February. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as SCI Fiction, PostScripts, and Electric Velocipede, and anthologies like Mars Probes and We Think, Therefore We Are. Many of them have been collected in Other Voices, Other Doors (2000) and The Black Heart (2009). And even if you’ve never read Patrick O’Leary, you’ve certainly heard him, because he wrote the poem “Nobody Knows It But Me,” which was used in the 2002 advertising campaign for the Chevrolet Tahoe and recited in the commercial by James Garner.

We discussed the way his new novel 51 is similar to The Great Gatsby, why he believes his books will crumble if he attempts to describe them, the perils and pleasures of pantsing (and how his stories often don’t get any good until the 15th draft), the tragedy of being an invisible creature, our mutual fears of what aging might bring, his love for Marvel Comics (and especially the Silver Surfer), how Laura Ingalls Wilder introduced him to literature, the way reading Kurt Vonnegut taught him there were no rules, the two science fiction greats who literally left him speechless, and much more.

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Here’s what we nibbled during our lunch at D.C.’s Chinatown Garden —

Fried Meat Dumplings

Shredded Crispy Beef Szechuan Style

Shrimp and Scallops with Garlic Sauce

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Please join me two weeks from now to eavesdrop on the second of my two Awesome Con guests — Sam J. Miller — whom you got to hear me chat with 5-1/2 years ago back in Episode 24, but since his first short story collection Boys, Beasts & Men is just out, I knew we had to chat and chew again.

Thanks for listening!