Podcaster — and previously a publisher — Gil Roth has been the host of the Virtual Memories Show podcast since 2012, and as of today he’s released 424 episodes, featuring countless writers, artists, cartoonists, critics, musicians, and other fascinating people, many of them creators of the fantastic — including me. He also for a time ran Voyant Publishing, where he worked with previous guest of this podcast Samuel R. Delany to release multiple books, including his fascinating 1984: Selected Letters.

I’ve been wanting to bring Gil to you for awhile, and had been hoping we’d be able to sneak away for a meal during either Readercon or the Small Press Expo, but neither occurred last year, at least not outside of a virtual space, and both will be virtual again this year. So as you listen, I’d like you to think of yourself as being with us at one of those cons, and tagging along as we head off to chat and chew.

We discussed his surprising (and my unsurprising ) guest with the greatest number of downloads, the advice John Crowley gave him about his potential writing career, how a guy who used to memorize X-Men comics got turned on to Love & Rockets, the way we process the deaths of former guests, the song he wants played at his memorial service, how to get often-interviewed guests not to regurgitate their favorite soundbites, why no comic book movie beats the first Superman, how he became the publisher of every letter Samuel R. Delany wrote in 1984, why during his days reviewing for The Comics Journal readers thought he was the secret identity of another writer, the Italo Calvino quote which has kept him going through the pandemic, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation —

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts — where I hope you’ll decide to sample a few of the 139 previous episodes — a list of which you can see immediately below.

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

3) Or listen using the embed below.

Here are the pies on which we nibbled during our discussion —

Gil’s Rhubarb Pie

Scott’s Blueberry Almond Pie

If you enjoyed this episode and want to support my mission of breaking bread with creators of the fantastic while letting you eavesdrop, 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 —

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I hope you’ll join me two weeks from now when my guest will be Zig Zag Claybourne, with whom I got to share a panel recently at Boskone, and who’s the author of Afro Puffs Are the Antennae of the Universe, a novel which has been getting a lot of buzz.

Thanks for listening!