Last episode kicked off a run of Nebula Awards weekend conversations as you joined Aimee Ogden for lunch, and now our time together in Kansas City continues as you head out to dinner with Curtis C. Chen.

Curtis C. Chen’s debut novel Waypoint Kangaroo (which was a 2017 Locus Awards and Endeavour Award Finalist) is the first in a series of funny science fiction spy thrillers. That was followed by Kangaroo Too (which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly) and True Blue Kangaroo (a Smashwords bestseller for three months running). From 2008 to 2013, he posted a new flash fiction piece every Friday on a blog called “512 Words or Fewer.” 117 of those very short stories were collected in the book Thursday’s Children. His shorter works have appeared in Playboy, the ENNIE Award-winning Kobold Guide to Roleplaying, The Year’s Best Fantasy: Volume 2, Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey, and elsewhere.

He has written for the Realm original podcasts Echo Park, Ninth Step Murders, and Machina. His homebrew cat feeding robot was displayed in the “Worlds Beyond Here” exhibit at Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum. He is a graduate of the Clarion West and Viable Paradise writers’ workshops.

We discussed how he discovered Star Trek through the bars of his crib, how the super spystar of his Kangaroo trilogy was born, what it was like being critiqued by Pat Murphy and Ursula K. Le Guin when he was starting out, how taking voice acting lessons kickstarted his desire to write, the way to tell when it’s time to quit your day job (or not), how his nearly five-years-long flash fiction story-a-week project began, his creative solution for referencing the 20th century in his future series, an intriguing exercise for writers when watching TV shows based on the written word, why he went indie for the third book in his series, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for BBQ at Buck Tui — (more…)

In the flesh and blood world, I’m about to head off for Readercon, but in the world of Eating the Fantastic, it’s instead the Nebula Awards weekend that’s about to begin, with the first of three conversations recorded last month in Kansas City.

My guest this episode is Aimee Ogden, whose short fiction has appeared in publications such as Lightspeed, Fantasy, Analog, Clarkesworld, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Her debut novella, “Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters”, was a 2021 Nebula Finalist, and just this year, she was once again a Nebula finalist for the novelette “What Any Dead Thing Wants.” Also, her short story “A Flower Cannot Love the Hand” was a finalist for the Eugie Foster Memorial Award in 2022. Her latest novella, “Starstruck,” was released in June She’s also is the co-founder, co-publisher, and former co-editor of Translunar Travelers Lounge, a speculative fiction magazine devoted to fun, optimistic stories.

We discussed the YA novel origins of her new novella and the way a watermelon radish gave birth to them both, whether we agree which of her characters therein will captivate readers the most, why she believes in “productive procrastination,” how having twins counterintuitively helped rather than hindered her writing output, our opposing views on plotting vs. pantsing, the Bible story she can’t stop thinking about, how she chooses the next best thing to write, her secret to writing successful flash fiction, how she was able to carry on in the face of rejection, why being an editor helped her become a better writer, which Ursula K. Le Guin quote she chose as a tattoo, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for BBQ at Jack Stack Freight House — (more…)

It’s time to return one last time to Balticon 2025 by taking a seat at the table for the third and final conversation I wrangled for you there. You’ve chatted and chewed with Kemi Ashing-Giwa and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, now it’s time for lunch with Samantha Mills.

Mills is a multiple award-winning author living in Southern California. Her debut science fantasy novel, The Wings Upon Her Back, came out in 2024 and won the Compton Crook Award for best SFFH debut in 2025. Her short stories have appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and other venues.

In addition to winning the Nebula, Locus, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial awards for her short story “Rabbit Test” in 2023, Mills has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, made the Locus Recommended Reading List and the BSFA long list multiple times, and was included in the best-of anthologies The New Voices of Science Fiction and The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2023.

She graduated from the University of Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Pre- and Early Modern Literature, and received a Master’s in Information and Library Science from San Jose State University. In the other half of her life, she’s a trained archivist specializing in primary documents, with a particular focus on local historical societies. When she isn’t working, writing or taking care of children, she’s watching B-movies, binding books, and crocheting stuffed animals.

We discussed how the eighth novel she wrote became her award-winning debut novel, what she means when she says that novel was “kind of” outlined, the way fascism takes root in a society, the trickiness of writing a narrative with split timelines (and why she’s never doing it again), how being an archivist helped her write about a world where archiving matters, the secret to writing believable fight scenes, her technique for switching up writing time between novels and short stories, the early influence of Xena: Warrior Princess, how years of research resulted in her award-winning short story “Rabbit Test,” the way an early pregnancy test led to a worldwide frog apocalypse, navigating the difficulties of the modern short story market, the organizing principle of her upcoming collection, how she was able to power through her initial rejections, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Nick’s Fish House — (more…)

Tragic events and happy anniversaries cause me to reminisce about the convention where I last saw Jim Shooter, how my immaturity cost me my Captain Marvel gig, my sudden realization DC Editor Mort Weisinger could have had a connection to my quitting comics, the time I almost ate Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel’s hair, how the Dreaded Deadline Doom discolored original artwork, my continuing regrets over accepting an assignment to write an issue of Omega the Unknown, and more.

You can eavesdrop on all those memories via the embed below or download them at the site of your choice.

Here are several images to illuminate the topics I touched on during the episode —

The day I went skydiving with Jim Shooter in 1976

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