Last episode, my first from the 2025 Readercon, you were able to sit in for my ramen dinner with Mur Lafferty, and this time around, you’ll get to tag along with Karen Heuler for a vegetarian Indian lunch.

Karen Heuler has published more than 100 short stories, which have resulted in her being a two-time finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, winner of an O. Henry award, and a host of other honors. Her short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Weird Tales, The Saturday Evening Post, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Ms. Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and dozens of other venues. Many of those stories can be found in her numerous collections, starting with The Other Door, which was published in 1995, and includes others such as The Inner City, which Publishers Weekly called “one of the Best Books of 2013,” Other Places (2016), The Clockworm and Other Strange Stories (2018), and her most recent one, A Slice of the Dark and Other Stories (2022). Her novels include The Made-Up Man (2011), Glorious Plague (2013) and her most recent The Splendid City (2022).

We discussed how she found herself embraced far more by the science fiction community than the literary one, why she never consciously thought about craft until she had to teach it, the “dud” novels she wrote before she got to the good ones, the students in her writing classes who only wanted to learn how to write bestsellers, why Bartleby the Scrivener seems to have a superpower, the reason she ended up writing science fiction rather than any other genre, the way in which she considers her short stories to be kittens, which character took over control of her most recent novel, the influence of The Master and Margarita, our mutual dislike of writer branding, where we fall on shredding vs. saving our archives, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for ramen at Mehfil Indian Cuisine — (more…)

In which I track down the Fantastic Four panel which caused me to first enter comics fandom, look back at a 1975 Planet of the Apes contents page where I was credited for no reason I can remember, remain confused about Daredevil‘s Matt/Mike Murdock subterfuge, laugh at the way “Fabulous” Flo Steinberg gave The Thing a super headache, 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 related to some of the topics you’ll hear me touching on during the episode —

Bob Larkin’s cover to Planet of the Apes #4

Planet of the Apes #4 Table of Contents

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Having survived my trip to the Seattle Worldcon, I share a few comic book dreams, learn why I should no longer feel guilty about one aspect of my Omega the Unknown fill-in issue, read up on how Marvel Comics artists felt during the mid-’70s about writers receiving original artwork, explain why the Comics Code Authority didn’t seem to understand how to read comics, reveal the way a wolfman was responsible for me being credited on my DC mystery stories, 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 related to some of the topics I touched on during the episode —

My guilt-inducing Omega the Unknown panels
from issue #7 (March 1977)

The Omega the Unknown panel which assuaged that guilt
from issue #4 (September 1976)

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In the real world, I’m still haven’t fully recovered from last weekend’s Seattle Worldcon, but in Eating the Fantastic’s timeline, we’ve just arrived at the beginning of last month’s Readercon. And my first guest from the first night of that con is the multi-talented Mur Lafferty.

Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster from Durham, NC. She’s been a podcaster since December 2004, working on such shows as I Should Be Writing, Ditch Diggers, Pseudopod, Mothership Zeta, Escape Pod, and others. Ditch Diggers (with Matt Wallace) won the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Fancast. Her longest running show is I Should Be Writing, which she’s been hosting and producing since 2005. All of those activities have also resulted in her winning the Podcast Peer Award, three Parsec Awards, and being inducted in 2015 into the Podcaster Hall of Fame.



And the awards have come for her writing as well, starting with her being the 2013 winner of the Astounding Award — then called the John W. Campbell  Award — for Best New Writer. She was the 2014 and 2015 winner of the Manly Wade Wellman Award for her novels The Shambling Guide to New York City and Ghost Train to New Orleans. Her 2018 clone murder mystery in space, Six Wakes, was a nominee for a Hugo, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, and Manly Wade Wellman Award in their novel categories.



Infinite Archive, the third book in The Midsolar Murders series — following Station Eternity (2022) and Chaos Terminal (2023) — was released in July. She’s also written Solo: A Star Wars Story, the writing workshop in a can I Should Be Writing, and so much more.

We discussed the problems which come from being a discovery writer who sells a novel via a pitch, how to play fair with readers of science fiction mysteries, the reason everyone’s worried she wants to kill her agent, one major difference between Hollywood and publishing, why the character she often thinks will end up being the murderer doesn’t end up being the murderer, how to deftly recap previous books in a series, whether going too weird might alienate a writer’s audience, what keeps her continuing to podcast after 21 years, the importance of shrugging off rejections, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for ramen at Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ — (more…)