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 —

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts — or wherever you choose to consume your podcasts — where I hope you’ll be tempted to sample a few of the 207 previous episodes.

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

3) Or check it out right here via the below embed.

Here’s who partook of a gratis donut during Capclave —

R. Z. Held
strawberry frosted with sprinkles

David Hacker
shockingly donutless!

Michael Dirda
maple

James Morrow
chocolate frosted with sprinkles

Katy Lewis
old fashioned

Michael Walsh
chocolate frosted with sprinkles

Bill Lawhorn
chocolate frosted

Sarah Pinsker and Adeena Mignogna
chocolate

Mike Zipser
chocolate frosted

Sarah Mitchell
chocolate frosted with sprinkles

Sunny Moraine
vanilla frosted with sprinkles

John Pomeranz
glazed

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Coming up up next will be the conversation you were supposed to sit in for this time until I was finally able to pull off the Capclave Donut Carnival — my dinner with Lauren Beukes, author of the new novel Bridge, plus five other critically acclaimed novels, including Zoo City (winner of the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award) and The Shining Girls, adapted into an Apple TV+ series with Elisabeth Moss.

Thanks for listening!