Out my window, the leaves may have all changed color, but in my heart — and on Eating the Fantastic — it’s still summer. That’s because it’s time for another conversation recorded at LAcon V, following my chats with Martha Wells and Thomas Ha, plus the lightning round Worldcon Donut Divertissment.

This episode’s guest is Fran Wilde, whom I last chatted with while you eavesdropped at Balticon way back in 2016, with exactly 10 years, two months, and 30 days passing between our meals. At that time, she’d just won the Compton Crook for Best First Novel — Updraft — and with last year’s A Philosophy of Thieves, she’s now up at nine. That includes the two other books which followed Updraft in her Bone Universe series — Cloudbound and Horizon — as well as Riverland, The Ship of Stolen Words, and others.

Since the last time we chatted and chewed, she’s also had stories published in magazines such as Uncanny, Asimov’s, Weird Tales, Fireside, and The Deadlands, and in anthologies such as Infinity’s End, Do Not Go Quietly, Monsters, Movies & Mayhem, and others. Many of those stories were gathered in her 2025 collection A Catalog of Storms.

She’s been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Dragon Award, and the Lodestar Award, and has twice won the Andre Norton Award. She’s also the co-editor-in-chief — with Julian Yap — of the Sunday Morning Transport.

We discussed the Viable Paradise story she wrote in 24 hours which became the inspiration for her Compton Crook Award-winning first novel Updraft, why she’s neither a plotter nor a pantser but a plantser, what it’s possible to teach and what it’s possible to learn, the importance of taking self-care when working on larger projects, why she called her latest novel a “genre turducken,” what it was like following Samuel R. Delany in a public reading on the anniversary of the publication of Moby-Dick, how she knows when an idea wants to be a short story, novel, or even series, coping with lengthy editorial responses, the many reasons an editor might reject a story which have nothing to do with that story, the prompts she gives people who don’t know what to write next, plus much more.

Here’s how you can join us at Niku Sushi —

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts — or wherever you choose to consume your podcasts — where I hope you’ll be tempted to sample a few of the 296 previous episodes.

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

3) Or simply use the embed below.

Here’s what you would have seen us nibbling had you been with us at Niku Sushi —

Edamame

Miso Soup

Salad

Fran’s Sushi

My Sushi

If you enjoyed this episode and want to support my mission of breaking bread with creators of the fantastic while letting you eavesdrop, 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 — I hope you’ll consider becoming a supporter of Eating the Fantastic, and help this podcast continue.

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.

Or if an ongoing level of commitment’s not for you, or if Patreon’s just not your thing, then consider tossing a couple of bucks in the tip jar instead and making a one-time donation of any size via Paypal.me.

Or you could head on over to https://ko-fi.com/eatingthefantastic and send me the funds to cover the cost of a cup of coffee.

Coming up next on the podcast will be another conversation from this year’s L.A. Worldcon, during which you’ll head out for dinner with Mari Ness, a prolific poet and short story writer who’s appeared on both Best Poem Hugo ballots since the category began, and was on the ballot this year with her poem “Care for Lightning,” which also appeared on this year’s Nebula Awards ballot. I hope you’ll join us!