I love Eating the Fantastic’s lightning-round donut episodes, for which I park myself in a heavily trafficked area of a con with a dozen donuts and chat with anybody who’s up for trading five minutes of talk for a freebie. It’s a fun contrast to my usual well-researched one-on-one conversations, in that it’s completely spontaneous, since I never know the identities of my guests until their eyes alight on my donuts and they choose themselves.

In 2016, listeners were able to eavesdrop on the Readercon Donut Spectacular, then in 2017 the Balticon Donut Extravaganza, in 2018 the Nebula Awards Donut Jamboree, and in 2019 — before the pandemic forced me to take a break from such things — the StokerCon Donut Spooktacular.

Because Capclave — which ended the day before yesterday as this episode goes live — not only has a patio, but this year, unlike last, had weather warm enough for us to gather there, I was able to bring back that tradition. On Saturday afternoon, I sat down out on the patio with two boxes of donuts from Donut King in Kensington, Maryland, and waited for potential guests to materialize.

So join us during the lightning-round Capclave Donut Carnival, where you’ll hear R. Z. Held and me bond over rejection, David Hacker explain his love of listening to writers read, Michael Dirda recall why Orson Scott Card once kneeled before him on an elevator, James Morrow share his fascination with Charles Darwin, how Katy Lewis found her husband through Dungeons and Dragons, Michael Walsh’s favorite moment as a con chair (which involved Howard Waldrop, Gardner Dozois, and George R. R. Martin), Bill Lawhorn clarify the creation of the bronze dodo, Sarah Pinsker reveal how and why her first science fiction convention was Capclave, Adeena Mignogna explain why space is cool but space travel gets really hot, Mike Zipzer’s memories of Terry Pratchett’s surprise visit, Sarah Mitchell’s arranging of a secret con wedding, Sunny Moraine opine on how the world’s response to COVID-19 changes our ideas of what would happen in a real-world zombie apocalypse, John Pomeranz chat about how the infamous Disclave Great Flood thrust him into being a hotel liaison — and much more!

Here’s how you can dig into those donuts with us — (more…)

Early this week, before it occurred to me that leaving the house to break bread might not be the wisest thing to do considering the times in which we live, I headed to Silver Spring, Maryland for lunch with Michael Dirda at All Set restaurant. Luckily, you won’t have to risk contagion from the coronavirus to take a seat at the table and eavesdrop on our conversation.

Michael is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post Book World with a special love for genre fiction. He’s the author of the memoir An Open Book, plus four collections of essays: Readings, Bound to Please, Book by Book and Classics for Pleasure. Since 2002, he’s been a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, and his book On Conan Doyle was awarded the 2012 Edgar Award in the Best Critical/Biographical category. He’s currently at work on The Great Age of Storytelling, an appreciation of British popular fiction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

We discussed the convention at which he thought he was about to be punched out by Harlan Ellison, the book he wants to write but which he realizes he could probably never publish, how discovering E. F. Bleiler’s Guide to Supernatural Fiction opened a whole new world for him, whether he faced judgment from his peers for believing Georgette Heyer is as important as George Eliot, why he wants to be buried with a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, how Beverly Cleary’s Henry Huggins is like a Proustian madeleine, the way he navigates the tricky act of reviewing the fiction of friends, the word he used which annoyed Gene Wolfe, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation — (more…)

This year’s World Fantasy Convention—which you may or may not have attended—ended Sunday. Even if you were among those present in Saratoga Springs, I doubt you were with me for all of the following 14 readings, which I recorded with a Flip mini-camcorder (mostly balanced on my knee), because I hate for history to vanish.

If you’d like to replication my experience, watch the first three (from Friday) one day, the next eight (from Saturday) another day, and the final three (from Sunday) the last.

Enjoy your virtual World Fantasy convention!

Carrie Cuinn

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If you picked up today’s Washington Post this morning and turned to the Style section, you’d have seen a familiar name—mine!

Ron Charles, editor of the Post’s Book World, had asked me to review Ray Bradbury Unbound, the second installment in Jonathan R. Eller’s projected three-volume biography. (The first volume, Becoming Ray Bradbury, was reviewed by Michael Dirda.)

The book was not all what I expected, for it was filled with heartbreak and disappointment, and sprinkled with such phrases as “missed opportunities,” “creative dead ends,” “never materialized,” “another deeply disappointing experience,” and “marked an ultimately irreversible decline.” Perhaps a reviewer who’s not also a writer struggling to get stories written in the face of life’s endless distractions would have reacted differently.

You can read my review online at the Washington Post here. And if you do track down Eller’s book—which is certainly worth doing—please let me know how you felt about this second stage in Bradbury’s career.

In today’s Washington Post, Michael Dirda recommended a grab bag of books from horror and specialty presses—and one of them was The Monkey’s Other Paw, a recent anthology which contained a story of mine.

Here what he had to say.

“The Monkey’s Other Paw” (paperback, $13.95), edited by Luis Ortiz for Nonstop Press, offers stories in which 13 contemporary writers re-imagine or pay tribute to the work of various classic horror authors. Don Webb’s “The Doom That Came to Devil’s Reef” opens quietly: “Among Lovecraft’s papers at Brown University was a large manila envelope containing . . .” and then reveals what may be the true origins of “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” Scott Edelman’s “A Most Extraordinary Man” neatly imagines a sequel to Saki’s most famous and witty shocker, “The Open Window.” Set against the loneliness of New York City, and in homage to Dylan Thomas’s “The Followers,” Paul Di Filippo’s “Ghostless” focuses on a spectral matchmaking service for ghosts and mortals.

Nice to be name-checked—and positively—by a Pulitzer Prize winner!

I went into D.C. Saturday to attend Awesome Con, where I took part in the panel, “Rise and Prevalence of Dystopian Science Fiction in Pop Culture” along with Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Robert Chase. When I arrived at the room in which the panel was to be held, I was surprised to find (since I’m used to programming at SF cons rather than media cons) a long line of con-goers that stretched down the hall and vanished around a corner.

Which meant that our panel was remarkably well attended, with at least 250 people showing up to hear us pontificate. (Perhaps there were even 300 or more. Once a room gets past a certain size, I lose all ability to guestimate.)

I’m fairly certain that the audience wasn’t there because they had any idea who we were. I’m guessing they’d shown up because the topic, which promised that we’d touch on such things as The Hunger Games and The Walking Dead, was compelling. But based on the reaction we received, I think we kept people entertained. There was much laughter, and many great questions.

Here we are after the panel ended, appearing remarkably cheery for three guys who’d just spent an hour discussing dystopias. (more…)

Michael Dirda reviewed the biography Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic last week, but I’m only just getting around to it.

I used to think I’d like to meet George Orwell, but after reading the following paragraph … not so much.

Actually, I don’t think I’d have liked either of these guys.

Scammell relates this telling exchange between the author of Darkness at Noon and the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four: George Orwell said, “When I lie in my bath in the morning, which is the best moment of the day, I think of tortures for my enemies.” Koestler replied, “That’s funny, because when I’m lying in my bath I think of tortures for myself.”

Both of them apparently had seductive personalities, but when you got within their orbits—watch out!

And speaking of quips exchanged between authors, here’s another one recently related in the pages of the Washington Post, this one from Erich Segal’s obituary:

While jogging in New York’s Central Park, Mr. Segal once recalled, he saw novelist Philip Roth and said, “I admire your work.”

“And I admire your running,” Roth replied.

What do you think? An actual incident or only an apocryphal one?