Worldcon 76 announced today that the 2018 Hugo Awards nominations are now open. If you happen to be a nominating member, may I suggest you consider Eating the Fantastic in the category of Best Fancast?

The podcast, which last year brought you 31 episodes featuring 46 guests across 51 hours, replicates all the fun I’ve had since I was 15 at the conventions away from the conventions, when I’d wander off for good meals with good friends. With Eating the Fantastic, you get to pull up a chair to the table and eavesdrop! (more…)

The final episode from my recent trip to New York—which also had me lunching with Tor Art Director Irene Gallo and dining with Asimov’s magazine editor Sheila Williams—took me back to the magical land of my birth—Brooklyn!

At the suggestion of Barry Goldblatt, who founded the eponymous Barry Goldblatt Literary Agency in September 2000, we met at Bella Gioia, a Sicilian restaurant in Park Slope. A wonderful choice! But that’s to be expected when you get together with Barry, for he and I have eaten the fantastic many times before at such restaurants as Alinea in Chicago and Olo in Helsinki—though this is the first time you’re being invited to eavesdrop.

Barry’s clients including such writers as previous guest of the show Fran Wilde, Christopher Barzak, Libba Bray, Charles Vess, Nisi Shawl, and many others.

We discussed why he ended up as an agent rather than an astronaut, the happy accident that led to him being taught by the legendary science fiction writer James Gunn, the time Lloyd Alexander caused him to burst into squee-filled tears, J. K. Rowling’s first U.S. book signing and how she changed children’s publishing forever, what everyone thinks they know about agents that’s totally wrong, the sorts of things he’s told authors to help take their work to the next level, why it sometimes makes sense for him to submit a less than perfect book, whether the YA market is doing a better job with diversity than adult fiction, what he’s been looking for that he hasn’t been getting, and much more.

Here’s how you can grab a seat at the table— (more…)

Yesterday, after recording a lunchtime episode of my Eating the Fantastic podcast in Towson, Maryland, I headed into Baltimore to attend the second incarnation of Charm City Spec, a quarterly reading series which takes place at Bird in Hand Coffee & Books.

Last night’s featured writers were Malka Older, Tom Doyle, and Ariel S. Winter.

Do you regret missing it? Well, you don’t have to! Because I recorded all three readings, as well as parts of the introductions by Karen Osborne. And you can enjoy them all below.

Malka Older

Tom Doyle

Ariel S. Winter

The next installment of Charm City Spec will take place on April 25th with Leah Cypess, A.C. Wise, and Fran Wilde. I’ll be there. Will you?

Last night, the Horror Writers Association revealed those works which made its 2017 Bram Stoker Awards preliminary ballot—and if you examine that list closely, you’ll find a familiar name in the category of Superior Achievement in Long Fiction—

Alan Baxter: The Book Club (PS Publishing)

Tom Deady: Weekend Getaway (Grinning Skull Press)

Scott Edelman: Faking it Until Forever Comes (Liars, Fakers, and the Dead Who Eat Them) (Written Backwards)

Stephen Graham Jones: Mapping the Interior (Tor.com)

Todd Keisling: The Final Reconciliation (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Caitlín R. Kiernan: Agents of Dreamland (Tor.com)

Seanan McGuire: Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Tor.com)

Lucy Taylor: Sweetlings (Tor.com)

Jeff Vandermeer: The Strange Bird: A Borne Story (MCD x FSG Originals)

Tim Waggoner: A Kiss of Thorns (DarkFuse)

That’s right—me!

Check out the complete preliminary ballot here.

It’s important to note this does not make me or my story a Bram Stoker Award nominee or finalist—that still must be decided by members of the HWA voting between now and January 30, with the final ballot being announced on February 5. But I’m thrilled “Faking it Until Forever Comes” has gotten this far!

One reason I’m so pleased is that I’m currently the Susan Lucci of the HWA—that is, I hold the record for the most nominations without ever having won, as you can see below.

So if my story does happen to make the final ballot, I’ll have the unique opportunity to change my record from 0-7—

—to 0-8!

I can become even Susan Lucci-ier!

And as my photo from last year’s Stoker Awards banquet shows, I have a special way of celebrating.

If you’re a voting member of the HWA, and would like a copy of my story so you can consider it before casting your vote, please contact me and I’ll send one off right away.

And whatever happens next, I hope to see you at Stokercon in Providence this March!

Sometimes I choose a restaurant, sometimes a restaurant chooses me, and sometimes one of my guests asks to record at one of their favorite hangouts. That’s what happened this episode when I met with editor Sheila Williams for dinner in Manhattan. She highly recommended the Italian restaurant Cibo e Vino on Broadway and 89th Street, and based on our shared appetizer of flash-fried cauliflower with truffle Béchamel and brown butter … I’m inclined to agree.

Sheila has worked for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine since 1982, became its editor in 2004, and went on to win the Hugo Award for Best Short Form Editor in 2011 and 2012. She also co-edited A Woman’s Liberation: A Choice of Futures by and About Women with Connie Willis, as well as numerous other anthologies.

We chatted about her first day on the job more than a third of a century ago, meeting Isaac Asimov at an early Star Trek convention when she was only 16, which writer intimidated her the most when she first got into the business, what she learned from working with previous Asimov’s editors Shawna McCarthy and Gardner Dozois, the most common problems she sees in the more than 7,000 stories that cross her desk each year, the identities of the only writers she’s never rejected, what goes through her mind in that moment she reads a manuscript and arrives at “yes,” and much more.

Here’s how you can snag a seat at the tabe— (more…)

Since 2017 is coming to an end, it seems only right that the final Eating the Fantastic of the year should bring the world to an end as well. And through the miracle of time travel, that’s what you’re going to hear me and Episode 56’s guests talking about—in 1994!

Back in 1991, when I laid out for the publishers of Science Fiction Age the vision I had for that magazine—which I’d go on to edit through the year 2000—I knew that to compete with the existing SF mags of the time, and give readers what they couldn’t get elsewhere, one of the things we needed to do was deliver a science column unlike any published by the competition. So I decided I’d take science fiction writers who were also scientists out to lunch or dinner, then record, transcribe, and condense the conversations for publication.

Earlier this year, I happened to think back to those chats, and it occurred to me:

Eating in restaurants … while discussing the fantastic … with science fiction writers? Isn’t that what this podcast is all about?

So I ran to the basement and dug out the box which contained my old cassette tapes, all the while wondering whether any recordings of those Science Forums still existed, and if they did, whether the sound quality would justify sharing them with you.

Rummaging through that box, I discovered many tapes, and listened first to a recording of my March 1, 1994 lunch with Arlan Andrews, Sr. and  Charles Sheffield at the Bethesda, Maryland restaurant the Pines of Rome. Our subject was the many ways the world might end. I’d transcribed that talk, edited it down, and published it in the September 1994 issue of Science Fiction Age. 

The audio was in remarkably good condition for the three of us not having worn lapel mics, and since we were eating during the discussion—Charles even spoke about his cannoli—it seemed meant to be that our chat should get digitized and repurposed as an episode of Eating the Fantastic. The two of them uttered far too much wisdom for their voices not to be made more widely available. So get ready to slip back more than 23 years in time to hear their fascinating conversation about how the world might end.

Charles Sheffield won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette “Georgia on My Mind” as well as the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for Brother to Dragons. He was also a mathematician and physicist who served as a President of both the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society. Sadly, he passed away in 2002 far too young at age 67.

Arlan Andrews, Sr. is the founder of SIGMA, a think tank of science fiction authors, a concept which came to him while working at the White House Science Office in 1992, when he realized government technologists and forecasters could use a dose of practical futurism from science fiction writers. After retiring from Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico as Manager of the Advanced Manufacturing Initiatives Department, he cofounded several high-tech companies. He’s published more 400 pieces of fiction, fact articles, computer books and opinion pieces.

And I should point out that this episode’s guests did more than take part in the occasional Science Forum for Science Fiction Age—I also published fiction by each of them.

We discussed the end of the world, including the (then) coming millennium and whether that would be thing which took us out (hint: it wasn’t), whether the only way to survive might be for our species to evolve into something more, how strange it is that we worry more about changing the past than changing the future, whether we’re likely to destroy the planet ourselves before nature does it for us, why personal extinction might be all that really matters, whether cryonics will be the thing that saves us, why the process of dying is more frightening than death itself, why aliens coming to kill us is not a likely end, whether even if we do survive the end of the world, we can survive the heat death of the universe, why it makes no difference whether we choose to live as pessimists or optimists, and more.

Here’s how you can share eavesdrop on us— (more…)

Thanks to a tip from friends who were there last week, I visited the Renwick Gallery Saturday to catch the exhibition Murder Is Her Hobby: Frances Glessner Lee and The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. (It runs through January 28, 2018, so there’s still time for you to catch it, too.)

It features 18 miniature dioramas of crime scenes which have been used since the ’40s to train investigators. They were created by “mother of forensic science” Frances Glessner Lee, and are extremely detailed, with little bullet holes and blood spatter, tiny tobacco-filled cigarettes, working mouse traps, and more … but the detail which attracted my eye the most was on the floor of what’s known as the Blue Bedroom, in which the body of a box factory employee was found by his wife.

Old magazines!

I suspect these magazines, less than an inch high, are based on actual issues. I would expect nothing less from a woman who rejected a miniature rocking chair because it failed to rock the same number of times per minute as the full-sized rocking chair found at a crime scene.

I tried (and failed) to track down the cover dates for these issues based on what art was visible, but hope that somewhere out there is an expert in ’40s magazines who can succeed where I did not. Is that person you?

Can you ID these miniature murder magazines?

Little Pearl, the latest offering from the folks behind Rose’s Luxury and Pineapple and Pearls, is closed today, and it’s partially my fault.

They opened for the first time yesterday at 921 Pennsylvania Avenue SE in Washington, D.C., a few blocks away from the Pineapple and Pearls Cafe, where as you know, I once ate the entire menu. That venue was shuttered so the team could get ready for their new venture—where on opening day, I intended to once again do the same thing.

While I was likely the only customer who made the attempt, the enthusiasm in the neighborhood ran so high that Little Pearl late last night announced: “We have emptied our cabinets, fridges and cupboards, and have been eaten out of [carriage] house and home. We’re so sorry we can’t host you today. We are taking Sunday December 17 to reorganize … ” They will reopen Tuesday morning—when I hope you’ll be there!

So I apologize for you not being able to head there right now for their pastries and sandwiches, but … I’m really not that sorry. Because I sure had fun yesterday!

When I arrived at around 8:45 a.m. (they opened at 8:00), the line stretched to the front door, though not out the door, and remarkably, I was captured there in a photo taken by Larry Janezich of Capitol Hill Corner.

I wasn’t quite at the end of the line in this pic, as there’s a small front foyer not visible behind me within which a few more customers waited.

I intended to order every available breakfast item, but even though it was less than an hour after opening by the time I got to the front of their line, they’d already sold out of the breakfast wrap of potato, egg, and gruyere in a masa tortilla, as well as the cinnamon toast. (And when I say “every available breakfast item,” yes, I know, I could have ordered some of the sandwiches as well, but I’d planned to return later for lunch, so I figured those could wait.)

So here’s what I ate for breakfast yesterday at Little Pearl— (more…)