In a world without COVID-19, I’d be recovering from jet lag right about now after my trip to Wellington to attend CoNZealand, the 78th World Science Fiction convention. But that’s not what’s happening, because the con went virtual, as so many cons have this year, which meant I attended at home in my pajamas.

Which also meant there were no restaurant outings during that con with creators of the fantastic from which I could bring back conversations to share with you. But thanks to a push from some of my Patreon supporters, I decided — the chats I’d planned shouldn’t be lost. And so although my guests and I couldn’t be seated at the same table sharing the same food and breathing the same air, Eating the Fantastic goes on, even if that means sharing meals across thousands of miles and a dozen or more time zones.

Last episode, I had a long-distance meal with the award-winning New Zealand writer and editor Lee Murray, my dinner and her lunch the following day — and this episode I have breakfast while Australian writer Stephen Dedman has dinner 12 hours in my future.

Stephen has published more than 100 short stories, some of which I was privileged to publish back when I was editing Science Fiction Age magazine. You can find many of those stories in his collections The Lady of Situations (1999) and Never Seen by Waking Eyes (2005). His novels, which include The Art of Arrow Cutting (1997), Foreign Bodies (1999), Shadows Bite (2001), and others, have been Bram Stoker, Aurealis, William L. Crawford, and Ditmar Award nominees. He’s also written role-playing games, stageplays, erotica, and westerns. And he at one time worked as a “used dinosaur parts salesman,” a job which had me extremely curious — and as you listen to us chat and chew, you’ll find out all about it.

We discussed how the Apollo 11 moon landing introduced him to science fiction, what his father told him which changed his plan to become a cartoonist, the huge difference the Internet made in the lives of Australian writers, his creative trick for getting his first poem published, what acting taught him about being funny in the midst of tragedy, his former job as a used dinosaur parts salesman, the way page one tells him whether he’s got a short story or novel idea, how Harlan Ellison became the first American editor to buy one of his stories, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation —

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts — where I hope you’ll also download a few of the 124 previous episodes.

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

3) Or check it out via the embed below.

Here’s what we ate during our respective meals —

Stephen’s Portofino Pizza
with prawns, bacon, and mushrooms

Scott’s Homemade Bagel
with butter and local cherry preserves

If you enjoyed this episode and want to support my mission of breaking bread with creators of the fantastic while letting you listen in, there are several ways you can help bring this podcast to the attention of potential new listeners looking for science fiction, fantasy, horror, and comics ear candy —

One is to rate Eating the Fantastic on Apple Podcasts and like it on Facebook.

Also — you could tell your friends about the show by sending them a link to your favorite episode and letting them know what I’m doing here.

Finally — because of Eating the Fantastic’s unique niche — that is, on-the-road restaurant interviews, to which I’ll return as soon as the pandemic allows — there are expenses beyond the usual ones for studio-based podcasts. I sometimes use ride-sharing services to carry me and my guests from convention centers to restaurants and back, or I gas up to drive them myself — and then there’s that food I use to entice those guests to wander off and share of themselves with you, food which loosens their tongues, relaxes them, and — counterintuitively, because we are after all out in public surrounded by other diners — results a much more intimate environment than if we were alone together in a sterile studio.

So I hope you’ll consider becoming a supporter of the show, and help fund this mission of mine.

You could make a small recurring monthly donation over at Patreon, where there are various perks involved depending on your level of support, such as access to a patrons-only blog, getting a shout-out on the show, stickers, postcards, and more.

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Next up will be another meal which had been meant to take place during the New Zealand Worldcon, with a fascinating guest I’ve dined with before and would have broken bread with face-to-face again had COVID-19 not prevented us.

Thanks for listening. Stay safe out there!