It’s time to return to Balticon for another conversation with a fascinating writer, following last episode’s chat with Alex Jennings. This time around my guest is Elwin Cotman, with whom I slipped away for dinner at the nearby R&R Taqueria.

Cotman’s short story collection Dance on Saturday, published by Small Beer Press, was one of the finalists for the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award. His latest short story collection, Weird Black Girls, was released two months ago as this episode goes live.

He’s also the author of three other books: the poetry collection The Wizard’s Homecoming, plus the short story collections The Jack Daniels Sessions EP and Hard Times Blues. His writing has appeared in Grist, Electric Lit, Buzzfeed, The Southwestern Review, and The Offing, plus many others venues. He’s worked as a video game consultant and writer for Square Enix. His debut novel The Age of Ignorance will be published by Scribner in 2025.

We discussed why forcing science fictional elements into non-science fictional stories can weaken them, the interdimensional cross-genre story cycle he hopes to write someday about a wrestling family, the way the novella is his natural length, why he loves Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age stories, how to create compelling metaphors and similes, the way rereading Tama Janowitz’s Slaves of New York helped him with the connective tissue of his own sentences, the reason Mary Gaitskill is the world’s greatest living writer, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us at R&R Taqueria — (more…)

In a different world, I’d be in Pasadena right now for the Nebula Awards conference, but in this world, I’ve just survived two consecutive weekends of conventions — first Balticon, then StokerCon — and there’s such a thing as too much fun, even for an extrovert like me. So instead, I’m at home, inviting you to take a seat at the table with the first of three guests I hosted while in Baltimore — Alex Jennings.

Jennings is the winner of the 2023 Compton Crook Award for his debut novel, The Ballad of Perilous Graves. His writing has appeared in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Electric Velocipede, Strange Horizons, Uncanny Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, New Suns, and Current Affairs, and many other venues. Some of his short fiction was published in the 2012 collection Here I Come and Other Stories.

He also writes a regular speculative poetry review column for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction titled “Chapter and Verse.” In 2022, he was the inaugural recipient of the Imagination Unbound Fellowship at Under the Volcano, a writing retreat held annually in Tepoztlan, Mexico. He is also an instructor of fiction and popular fiction at The University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program.

We discussed his dream which commanded him to move to New Orleans (plus his brother’s dream which supported that decision), how writing his debut novel transformed him into the kind of person he needed to be in order to write his debut novel, how Octavia Butler invited him into the field, which artist he wishes would draw the comic book adaptation of his novel The Ballad of Perilous Graves, what China Miéville taught him at Clarion about the deadly nature of “second order cliches,” how joy is revolutionary in and of itself, the way his experience as a standup comedian helps him help you care about the multiple POVs of his novel, which issue of Uncanny X-Men was the first comic book he ever read, the nature of his quasi-mystical approach to writing, and much more.

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This episode’s dinner didn’t come about due to a convention, but rather because I attended another installment of Baltimore’s Charm City Spec reading series, and invited one of the participants, Tobias Carroll, to join me for an early dinner beforehand, the same as I did with Episode 218’s guest Jo Miles three months earlier.

Carroll is the author of the novels Ex-Members, Reel, and In the Sight, the short story collection Transitory, and the nonfiction book Political Sign. His essays and journalism have appeared in The New York Times, InsideHook, Literary Hub, Tor.com, the Portland Press-Herald, Tin House, The Collagist, The Paris Review Daily, Necessary Fiction, Bookforum, The Collapsar, Joyland, and many other publications. He writes a column on notable books in translation for Words Without Borders. Plus he has a podcast of his own — Framed & Bound, in which bookish people discuss movies set in the literary world.

We discussed which punk rock music made him a fan, why his heart belongs to novella-length works rather than massive epics, the artistic motivation for sometimes not giving readers what they’ve been taught to expect, the reason Ann Nocenti’s run on Daredevil was meaningful to him (and why he believes it aged so well), his fascination with deteriorating physical media, why Edward Hopper’s classic painting Nighthawks would have made the perfect cover art for one of his books, how you know when you’ve stuck the landing with a short story, and much more.

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This episode of Eating the Fantastic came about due to a serendipitous convergence of guest and venue. I drive through Berkeley Springs, West Virginia quite a bit, and one day discovered a restaurant there called Mythical Pizza. When I checked the menu, I found everything they served was cryptid-based, with pizzas and decor inspired by Bigfoot, Mothman, and other monsters. So I of course had to check the place out.

But I didn’t want to do it solo, and with a theme like that, it seemed the perfect place to record an episode of a podcast devoted to the fantastic. Luckily, writer/editor Lesley Conner, with whom I’ve been trying to arrange a chance to chat and chew, was just as enthusiastic about the concept as I was.

Longtime listeners will have heard Lesley’s voice way back in 2017 on Episode 53 when she took part in a Horror 101 roundtable. Back then, she shared the microphone with five other creators, but a lot has changed for her over the past seven years, and now that she’s the Chief Editor at Apex magazine, I thought she deserved a spotlight of her own.

You’ll understand why Lesley was the right dining companion for such a place just from the titles of the anthologies in which her fiction has appeared — all horror-focussed such as Mountain Dead, Dark Tales of Terror, Big Book of New Short Horror, Ruthless, and A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre. Her horror novel The Weight of Chains was released in 2015. In addition to being the Chief Editor over at Apex magazine, she’s also co-editor of the anthologies Do Not Go Quietly and Robotic Ambitions, as well as of the upcoming The Map of Lost Places.

We discussed why horror is where she feels the most comfortable as a writer, how her role at Apex magazine grew from Social Media Manager to Chief Editor, her “Price is Right” method of filling out an issue’s word count, why she hardly ever reads cover letters, the trends she’s seen in the slush pile and what they mean, the key difference between editing magazines vs. anthologies, her longtime obsession with serial killers, how to go on writing after one’s writing mentor passes away, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us at Mythical Pizza — (more…)

Balticon 58 begins in a dozen days, and my weekend will be extremely busy — I’ve been placed on ten programming items, plus I’ll be recording three episodes of my Eating the Fantastic podcast. I could have been on eleven items, but decided to turn down the offered reading slot because that would have made my days much too crowded.

If you’ll be in Baltimore as well, here’s where to find me — when I’m not off getting early morning donuts or late night cannolis, that is!

No Sh*t, There I was!
Friday, May 24, 8:30 p.m. (Guilford)
Everyone has one of these stories. Our panelists will share theirs.

How to Keep Writing After the Workshop
Saturday, May 25, 11:30 a.m. (Club Lounge)
Writing workshops can be energizing and inspirational, but not everything can be done within a workshop environment. How can we take what we learned and apply it to our writing process? What ways can you build on friendships made during the workshop, like building accountability or sprinting partners? Let’s talk about how to keep the benefits of a workshop going over the long term.

Autographing
Saturday, May 25, 4:00 p.m. (5th Floor Lobby)
with Adeena Mignogna

Podcasting on the Cheap
Saturday, May 25, 5:30 p.m. (Mount Washington)
Podcasting requires the use of specialized hardware and software, but starting your podcast doesn’t have to break the bank. Come learn about the best tools you can assemble on a budget, where to find free-to-use content, and production techniques you can use make even the cheapest gear sound good.

Structuring Your Story
Sunday, May 26, 1:00 p.m. (Club Lounge)
We’ve gone way beyond the Three Act structure. We have things like, the Nine Act structure, Beat Sheets, the Snowflake Method, and more. It’s all very confusing. If you’re a new writer, where do you start? If you’re an established writer, which of these techniques are useful to you, are you using them already? Our panelists will help you navigate the dangerous shoals of writing structures and new (or not so new) techniques.

Double Threats: Writing Both Science Fiction and Fantasy
Sunday, May 26, 4:00 p.m. (Mount Washington)
There are many authors who write both Science Fiction and Fantasy. How do writers approach writing each genre? Do writers tend to be better at one genre than the other? How do writers decide which genre suits the story they want to tell?

Best Resources on Writing
Sunday, May 26, 5:30 p.m. (Mount Washington)
What books should you have on your shelf when you’re trying to read about writing? There are some great YouTube channels out there too. Let’s talk about the best resources to help you write your story.

Write What You Love While Paying the Bills
Sunday, May 26, 7:00 p.m. (Guilford)
As a writer, how do you balance writing what you love and writing what the market wants? Balancing what sells with your passion while earning enough money to keep the lights on is a juggling act. How do you decide on your next project? Panelists will discuss how they’ve found their own place in this turbulent mix.

How to Incorporate Critique
Monday, May 27, 10:00 a.m. (Gibson)
Someone’s read your work in progress… and they have feedback. How do you know what should be incorporated, and how can you do it so that changes feel consistent with what you’ve written? How can you deal with conflicting suggestions? How do you tell the difference between impartial constructive feedback and a reader’s personal preference?

Dealing with Literary Rejection
Monday, May 27, 1:00 p.m. (Guilford)
Every creator has received a rejection at some point in their career. Just because you’re been rejected doesn’t mean your story is bad. There can be lots of reasons why your story was rejected. Let’s talk about some strategies to help you move forward and keep writing and submitting.

If you’ll be there as well, please say hi!

It’s time to return to Awesome Con for another conversation with a comics creator, following last episode’s chat with Zombie King Arthur Suydam. My guest this episode is Dan Parent, an artist and writer who’s worked for Archie Comics for 35 years. I was excited to talk with him for many reasons, a big one being how little I know about the inner working of that company, which I’ve only touched on briefly for you back during my lunch with Howard Bender in Episode 204.

Parent started at Archie immediately after graduating from the famed Joe Kubert School, another topic I was happy to explore. In 2010, he introduced the first openly gay character in Archie Comics when he created Kevin Keller in Veronica #202, which he wrote and drew. That character eventually got his own title with the publication of Kevin Keller #1 in 2012.

Parent’s been involved with several crossover titles which expanded the Archie universe, such as Archie vs. Sharknado in 2015, and the six-part crossover Archie Meets Batman ’66 in 2018. Parent’s creator-owned work includes Die Kitty Die, which he collaborated on with artist/writer Fernando Ruiz in 2016, and which I found to be a delightful spoof of the comics business and many of the characters I loved as a kid. In May 2013, Parent was presented with the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book.

We discussed why we both loved the legendary Ramona Fradon, how a Charlton Comics pamphlet gave him the tools to take his art more seriously, what he learned working at the start of his career with the great Dan DeCarlo, the character fans demand he draw the most during his convention appearances, the Archie artist who tormented him during his early days, how to respect legacy characters while still keeping them fresh, whose blood got added to the ink of which comics, how hopeful artists can do now what he did then, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us at Supra Georgian restaurant — (more…)