Ever since Adeena Mignogna dared to eat a donut on the Capclave Donut Carnival episode of this podcast, I knew I’d eventually host her for a more in-depth conversation. And that time is now!

Mignogna is the author of the the Robot Galaxy series, which so far is a quartet, made up of Crazy Foolish Robots; Robots, Robots Everywhere; Silly Insane Humans; and Eleven Little Robots. As you’ll hear in our chat, there’ll be many more to follow. She’s also the author of Lunar Logic — the first novel in a series which doesn’t yet have an overarching title, though the second book will be titled Moonbase Mayhem, so who knows, perhaps there’ll be something alliterative there as well.

She’s also one of the hosts of the long running BIG Sci-Fi podcast. When not writing or podcasting, Adeena is a physicist, astronomer, and software engineer who’s worked for nearly three decades in the aerospace industry as a Mission Architect.

We discussed how Star Trek changed her life, which Trek character she used as her screen name on fan forums when she first went online as a young teen, why she never wrote fanfic, the feedback from a friend which saved her NaNoWriMo novel from being trunked, how she discovered she’s neither a plotter nor a pantser but rather something in-between, her favorite science fiction novel of all time (and the important lesson it taught her about her Robot Galaxy series), why she went the indie route and how she knew she had the chops to pull it off, the manner in which we gender robots, the reason writing each book in her quartet was more fun than the one before, why she remains hopeful about our AI future, how she finally learned she was a morning writer after years of trying to write at night, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Beans in the Belfry in Brunswick, Maryland —

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 252 previous episodes.

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

3) Or simply use the embed below.

Here’s what you would have seen us nibbling had you been at the table at Beans in the Belfry —

Scott’s Biscuits & Gravy
buttermilk biscuits with country sausage gravy

Adeena’s Breakfast Sandwich
croissant with egg, bacon, and cheese

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Coming up two weeks from now on the podcast — my lunch with three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist Craig Laurence Gidney, whose most recent short story collection is The Nectar of Nightmares.

Thanks for listening!