Carolyn Ives Gilman was one of my earliest guests of the podcast, appearing all the way back on Episode 5. Nine years and two days later, the night she was taking part in the latest Charm City Spec, we decided it was time to chat and chew for you again.

Gilman’s books include her first novel Halfway Human, which has been called “one of the most compelling explorations of gender and power in recent SF;” Dark Orbit, a space exploration adventure; and Isles of the Forsaken and Ison of the Isles, a two-book fantasy about culture clash and revolution. Some of her short fiction can be found in Aliens of the Heart and Candle in a Bottle, both from Aqueduct Press, and in Arkfall and The Ice Owl, from Arc Manor.

Her short fiction has also appeared in Analog, Tor.com, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Interzone, Universe, Full Spectrum, Realms of Fantasy, and others.  She has been nominated for the Nebula Award three times and for the Hugo twice. Gilman lives in Washington, D.C., and works as a freelance writer and museum consultant.  She is also author of seven nonfiction books about North American frontier and Native history.

We discussed the way her ideas aren’t small enough to squeeze into short stories, how she shelved a novel she’d written because she felt her imagination at its wildest wasn’t ridiculous enough to match reality, whether our personal archives will be trashed or treasured, the reason she doesn’t feel she can teach writing, why authors need to respect what the story wants, why she’s terrible at reacting to writing prompts and how she does it anyway, how she generally starts a story not with character or plot but with setting, the ethics and morality of zoos and museums, how she manages to makes the impossible seem possible, our shared inability to predict which stories editors will want, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Tamber’s restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland —

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Here’s what you would have seen us nibbling had you been at the table at Tamber’s restaurant —

Garlic Naan

Carolyn’s Lamb Tikka Masala

Rice

Scott’s Lamb Korma

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Coming up two weeks from now — my dinner during Awesome Con with chef and comics creator Jarrett Melendez, author of the delightfully delicious graphic novel Chef’s Kiss.

Thanks for listening!