Most episodes of Eating the Fantastic are recorded during my travels on the convention circuit, but I also occasionally harvest conversations when it’s the guests who are doing the traveling, coming to my neck of the woods on book tours or to lecture at a local library or museum. My chat this time around came about because I was able to grab dinner with one of the participants of Baltimore’s Charm City Spec reading series before the most recent installment.

Jo Miles is the author of The Gifted of Brennex trilogy, which began with Warped State, continued in Dissonant State, which was released the week before our get-together, and finishes up in Ravenous State, which will be available February 20th. Jo’s short fiction has been published in magazines such as Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact, as well as in the anthologies Little Blue Marble, Game On!, Do Not Go Quietly: An Anthology of Defiance in Victory, and others. Their story “The Longest Season in the Garden of the Tea Fish” in Strange Horizons was nominated for a WSFA Small Press Award. Jo is a graduate of the Viable Paradise and Taos Toolbox writers’ workshops.

Oh, and by the way — the ebook of Warped State is currently on sale for $2.99 in celebration of the upcoming release of Ravenous State.

We discussed how what began as a short story blossomed into a trilogy, the way to juggle multiple points of view and keep them balanced, the science fictional precursors which helped them create their sentient ship, how to properly pace the arc of a burgeoning romance, the importance of making sure a redemption arc feels earned, the way their mandate for writing optimistic science fiction came to be, the differing ways we were each affected by the pandemic, how the Taos Toolbox workshop teaches writers to break down the beats of their stories (and why that terrifies me), plus much more.

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And here’s what loosened our tongues at Tamber’s Restaurant —

Garlic Naan

Peneer Chicken Massala

Rice

Lamb Korma

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Coming up next — take a seat at the table for my lunch with Ray Nayler, author of the Locus Award-winning debut novel The Mountain in the Sea, whose novella The Tusks of Extinction — the impetus for our get-together — was released last month.

Thanks for listening!