It’s time to say farewell to Readercon! Which means it’s time for a seafood dinner with Jack Dann, following my burgers with the Nebula Award-winning writer P. Djèlí Clark and an Indian lunch with Bram Stoker Award-winning writer Lucy A. Snyder.

Jack’s an old friend I see far too infrequently ever since he moved to Australia. I was privileged to publish a story of his in Science Fiction Age back in the ’90s, but that’s the least of his accomplishments. His first novel, The Man Who Melted, was nominated for a 1984 Nebula Award, and since then he’s gone on to win a Nebula Award, two World Fantasy Awards, three Ditmar Awards, and the Peter McNamara Award for Excellence. His short story collections include Timetipping, Jubilee: the Essential Jack Dann, and Visitations. His 1998 anthology Dreaming Down-Under (co-edited with his wife Janeen Webb) is a groundbreaking work in Australian science fiction.

He’s also created some amazing stories in collaboration with the likes of Michael Swanwick, Gardner Dozois, Barry Malzberg, and others, and since you know from listening to Eating the Fantastic that collaboration completely baffles me, we dove into a discussion of that as well.

We stepped out to The Chowder House, which has been in operation since 1985, but has a history which goes all the way back to 1920, when Darcy’s Irish Pub opened — and over the decades expanded into a row of family-owned restaurants. It was a comfortable spot, with good food, and the perfect place for us to catch up after far too long apart.

We discussed the novel he and Gardner Dozois always planned to write but never did, how a botched appendectomy at age 20 which left him with only a 5% chance of survival inspired one of his most famous stories, why he quit law school the day after he sold a story to Damon Knight’s Orbit series, the bad writing advice he gave Joe Haldeman early on we’re glad got ignored, the secrets to successful collaborations, the time Ellen Datlow acted as referee on a story he wrote with Michael Swanwick, how it felt thanks to his novel The Man Who Melted to be a meme before we began living in a world of memes, why he’s drawn to writing historical novels which require such a tremendous amount of research, the time he was asked to channel the erotica of Anaïs Nin, the gift he got from his father that taught him to take joy in every moment — and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at The Chowder House —

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts — where I hope you’ll be tempted to download some of the 103 previous episodes.

2) Listen using the RSS feed of http://eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com/rss on the device of your choice.

3) Or check it out via the embed below.

Here’s what we shared as we spoke —

Caesar Salad

Seafood Chowder

Prime Rib

Roasted Vegetables

Seafood Casserole
scallops, schrod, swordfish tips and crabmeat

Carrot Cake

Ice Cream Sundae

If you enjoyed this episode and want to support my mission of breaking bread with creators of the fantastic while letting you listen in, there are several ways you can help bring this podcast to the attention of potential new listeners looking for science fiction, fantasy, horror, and comics ear candy —

One is to rate Eating the Fantastic on Apple Podcasts and like it on Facebook.

Also — you could tell your friends about the show by sending them a link to your favorite episode and letting them know what I’m doing here.

Finally — because of Eating the Fantastic’s unique niche — that is, on-the-road restaurant interviews — there are expenses beyond the usual ones for studio-based podcasts. I sometimes use ride-sharing services to carry me and my guests from convention centers to restaurants and back, or I gas up to drive them myself — and then there’s that food I used to entice those guests to wander off and share of themselves with you, food which loosens their tongues, relaxes them, and — counterintuitively, because we are after all out in public surrounded by other diners — results a much more intimate environment than if we were alone together in a sterile studio.

So I hope you’ll consider becoming a supporter of the show, and help fund this mission of mine.

You could make a small recurring monthly donation over at Patreon, where there are various perks involved depending on your level of support, such as access to a patrons-only blog, getting a shout-out on the show, stickers, postcards, and more.

Or if an ongoing level of commitment’s not for you, or if Patreon’s just not your thing, then consider tossing a couple of bucks in the tip jar instead and making a one-time donation of any size via Paypal.me.

Or you could head on over to https://ko-fi.com/eatingthefantastic and send me the funds to cover the cost of a cup of coffee.

I hope you’ll come back in two weeks when my guest will be Lisa Tuttle, who won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1974, the 1982 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, and has accomplished a whole lot more since those early achievements. I hope you’ll join us!