I last chatted with John Wiswell the same month he won a Nebula Award for his short story “Open House on Haunted Hill,” which had been published the previous year in Diabolical Plots. He’d only released highly regarded short fiction at that point, but oh, how his life has changed since then — for The Dragon Has Some Complaints, published just a few days before this followup lunch conversation, was in that brief span of time, his third.

His first novel, Someone You Can Build a Nest In, was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula award, winning the latter, and his second novel, Wearing the Lion, was also a Nebula Award finalist.

We discussed why his book tour’s stop at the Strand was so meaningful, how publishing three novels has changed him, why he’s “a character guy first” before world-building, theme, or plot, the importance of getting out of your own way, how monstrosity is nothing more than a social construct, why his writing process includes only the most skeletal of outlines, the most fun thing about writing secondary world fantasies, how our lives being finite is both terrifying and good, why the original title of The Dragon Has No Complaints only lasted three days, the techniques it took to convince readers to believe in the book’s unique method of dragon flight, who he had to grow into to be able to pull off this novel, our shared love of ornate titles, how we felt about The Bear‘s final season, plus much more.

Here’s how you can join us in Baltimore at Tamber’s restaurant —

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

John’s Chicken Sandwich

Scott’s Burger

John with a dragon fruit

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Coming up next on the podcast will be the first of a run of four episodes from this year’s L.A. Worldcon, beginning with Martha Wells, who was part of the creative team winning the Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form Hugo Award that weekend for the adaptation of her Murderbot novella All Systems Red. But she is so much more than Murderbot, and I hope you’ll join us for a meal which spotlights all her multifaceted marvelousness.