It’s time to kick off a quartet of episodes recorded last month during the Seattle Worldcon, beginning with the award-winning writer Eugenia Triantafyllou.

Triantafyllou has been nominated for the British Fantasy, Hugo, Ignyte, Locus, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, and was on the Hugo Awards ballot that weekend for her novelette “Loneliness Universe,” published last year in Uncanny. Earlier this year she appeared on the Nebula Awards ballot twice, for both “Loneliness Universe” as well as “Joanna’s Bodies,” the latter of which was published in Psychopomp. 

Last year, she won the Shirley Jackson Award for her novelette “Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge” which also appeared in Uncanny. In addition to those venues, she has been published in Reactor.com, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Apex, Sunday Morning Transport, The Deadlands, and elsewhere. She’s a graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop. 

We discussed the online prompt which caused her to write her first short story, why she ended up as a fantasy writer rather than a comic book creator, what it was like being nominated for two Nebula Awards the same year in the same category, the two types of naysayers who thought she’d never be able to write artfully in English, how she terrified Stephan Graham Jones with a tomato, why she never outlines, the reason voice is so important to her process, how a pantser handles world building, why she feels writing mysteries is easy, how her mother’s memories helped teach her storytelling, why writers shouldn’t steal ideas, but ambition,  and much more.

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Here’s what you would have seen us nibbling had you been with us at Din Tai Fung —

Wood Ear Mushrooms
in a vinegar dressing

Bok Choy
with scallion-infused oil

Pork Soup Dumplings

Shanghai Rice Cakes
with shrimp

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Coming up two weeks from now, you’ll be able to head out for Texas BBQ with John Picacio, one of the most acclaimed American artists in science fiction and fantasy over the past decade, winner of three Hugo Awards, nine Chesley Awards, plus many other accolades. He’s also the co-author (with Leigh Bardugo) and illustrator of The invisible Parade, released earlier this month. I hope you’ll join us.

Thanks for listening!