Welcome to the first of five Eating the Fantastic episodes recorded during DisCon III, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention, which ended just a few days ago as this episode goes live. That recent event was quite a nostalgia fest for me, because the first time I attended a Worldcon was in 1974, the last time one was in held in D.C. I was only a teenager in that long ago year, but even then, I already knew — getting together with good friends over good food to yammer with them about science fiction was as much fun as anything offered by the official convention programming.

My dinner companion the first night of the D.C. Worldcon was José Pablo Iriarte, a Cuban American author of science fiction, fantasy, and children’s fiction. Their novelette, “The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births,” was a finalist for the Nebula Award and was long-listed for the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award. Their short fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, and many other venues, stories which have then been spotlighted on best-of lists assembled by Tangent Online, iO9, and others.

When Jose told me one of his favorite foods was pizza, I knew I had to feed them D.C.’s best, leading me to 2Amys, which Thrillist says prepares “near-perfect, delicate pies with bubbly crusts, fresh mozzarella, and fragrant basil. The Margherita is the baseline against which all Neapolitan pies in DC are judged.”

We discussed their go-to karaoke song, why being a math teacher makes it even harder to write about math, what they learned from Speaker for the Dead, how their feelings about Orson Scott Card help them empathize with those struggling over J.K. Rowling today, why they trunked their favorite story until a friend convinced them to send it out, their method for writing successful flash fiction, why they had no problem keeping their Nebula nomination a secret, how to create a good elevator pitch, and much more.

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Here are the pizzas we dined on as we chatted —

The Two Amys
tomato, fresh mozzarella

The Etna 2.0
tomato, smoked mozzarella di bufala, fried eggplant, pine nuts, parsley

The Marinara
tomato, garlic, and oregano

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Please join me two weeks from now for the second culinary conversation I harvested from the 79th World Science Fiction Convention in Washington D.C., as World Fantasy Award-winning writer Fonda Lee and I head out in search of the best Eggs Benedict in D.C.

Thanks for listening!