Last episode, my first from the 2025 Readercon, you were able to sit in for my ramen dinner with Mur Lafferty, and this time around, you’ll get to tag along with Karen Heuler for a vegetarian Indian lunch.

Karen Heuler has published more than 100 short stories, which have resulted in her being a two-time finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, winner of an O. Henry award, and a host of other honors. Her short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Weird Tales, The Saturday Evening Post, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Ms. Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and dozens of other venues. Many of those stories can be found in her numerous collections, starting with The Other Door, which was published in 1995, and includes others such as The Inner City, which Publishers Weekly called “one of the Best Books of 2013,” Other Places (2016), The Clockworm and Other Strange Stories (2018), and her most recent one, A Slice of the Dark and Other Stories (2022). Her novels include The Made-Up Man (2011), Glorious Plague (2013) and her most recent The Splendid City (2022).

We discussed how she found herself embraced far more by the science fiction community than the literary one, why she never consciously thought about craft until she had to teach it, the “dud” novels she wrote before she got to the good ones, the students in her writing classes who only wanted to learn how to write bestsellers, why Bartleby the Scrivener seems to have a superpower, the reason she ended up writing science fiction rather than any other genre, the way in which she considers her short stories to be kittens, which character took over control of her most recent novel, the influence of The Master and Margarita, our mutual dislike of writer branding, where we fall on shredding vs. saving our archives, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for ramen at Mehfil Indian Cuisine —

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Here’s what you would have seen us nibbling had you been with us at Mehfil Indian Cuisine —

Papadums

Garlic Naan

My Hyderabadi Biryani

Karen’s Cheesy Pav Bhaji

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Coming up next on the podcast will be the last of my three Readercon conversations, where you’ll get to have lunch with Shirley Jackson Award-nominated writer Richard Butner, whose most recent short story collection The Adventurists was a marvel. I hope you’ll join us.

Thanks for listening!