During last year’s Readercon, I recorded four episodes of Eating the Fantastic—one-on-ones with Resa Nelson, Jeffrey Ford, and F. Brett Cox, plus the extremely popular Donut Spectacular, which featured 12 donuts and 15 guests in a beautifully anarchic lightning-round episode. This year, however, I’d only planned to record two—which was a good thing, because hardware malfunctions ended my attempt to record with John Kessel just as we began, sending me scrambling around Massachusetts in search of replacement equipment.

I was able to locate a new H4n Zoom digital recorder in time for dinner with this episode’s guest, James Patrick Kelly, and my Friday breakfast with John was rescheduled to come off as a Saturday dinner instead, so all’s well that ends well, but still … I could have done without that kind of heart-stopping terror.

When I’d asked Jim which kind of cuisine he’d prefer for our chat—because as you may have noticed, I do try to keep my guests happy, the better to loosen their tongues for you—he admitted to a weakness for Fettuccine Carbonara. That led us to Quincy’s Gennaro’s Eatery, which didn’t have Fettuccine Carbonara on the menu, but as the place served both Tortellini Carbonara and Fettuccine Alfredo, that seemed close enough.

James Patrick Kelly is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning writer who recently published a career short story retrospective as part of the Centipede Press Masters of Science Fiction series. And had I not been turned down by the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in 1974, I might have shared a dorm room with him! (But don’t worry. I was accepted in 1979.)

We discussed the reason he needed to attend the Clarion Science Fiction Workshop twice—and why the rules were then changed so no one could do it again, the suggestion Kate Wilhelm made that saved one of his short stories, why his reaction to comics as a kid was “Marvel, yes, DC, feh,” how the science fiction field survived the Cyberpunk/Humanist wars of the ‘80s, why he takes an expansive view of fanfic, how Cory Doctorow inspired him to enter the world of podcasting early, what allows him and frequent collaborator John Kessel to work together so well, his advice for how writing 10 endings to a story in progress will help writers find the right ending, and more.

Here’s how you can join us for the feast—

1) Subscribe over at the iTunes store, where all 45 previous episodes are still available.

2) Use the show’s RSS feed of http://eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com/rss to download the episode to the device of your choice.

3) Or go ahead and listen right here via the embed below.

Check what we ate during our chat—

Toasted Ravioli
stuffed with seasoned ricotta, then breaded, toasted,
and served with marinara sauce

Tortellini Carbonara
Traditional cream sauce with butter, Romano, pancetta and prosciutto

Fettuccine Alfredo
Fresh, house-made pasta, hand-cut and tossed with creamy Alfredo sauce

Lemon Cake

Carrot Cake Square

If after feasting on this episode, you’re hungry for more, come back in two weeks when my guest will John Kessel, whose new novel The Moon and The Other was recently published by Saga Press, followed two weeks later by my first of five guests from the Helsinki Worldcon, Johanna Sinisalo. But, as always, remember—

If you’d like Eating the Fantastic to prosper to the point where I can afford to release more episodes more frequently, you can join with my other supporters by making a small recurring monthly donation (with perks for all patrons, of course) over at Patreon. This will help subsidize some of the travel, bandwidth, equipment (such as the aforementioned replacement H4n recorder), and meal costs associated with the show, and could someday shorten that gap. (Or, if you’re not up for that level of commitment, you could make a one-time donation via Paypal.me.)

And if you have a moment, rate the show on iTunes and like it on Facebook, both actions which will raise our profile and hopefully bring us to the attention of new listeners.

Hope to see you next time!