It’s been more than three months since I met with Michael Dirda to record the last — though it would be more accurate to instead call it the most recent — face-to-face episode of Eating the Fantastic. Since then, I also shared two episodes recorded remotely — with Sarah Pinsker and Justina Ireland — each with its own special reason for allowing me to step beyond this podcast’s meatspace culinary mandate.

But because it still seems unsafe out there for a guest to meet with me within the walls of the restaurant, you and I are now about to sequester together, just as we did four episodes ago, when we sheltered in place, and two episodes back, when we practiced social distancing.

Thirty questions remained from my original call to listeners and previous guests of the show, and this time I managed to get through all of them. I did my best to give intelligent responses to Annalee Flower Horne, Daryl Gregory, Michael Dirda, Patrick Freivald, Kaaron Warren, Paul Kirchner, Sam J. Miller, Erik T. Johnson, Ursula Marcum, Nalo Hopkinson, Marv Wolfman, Glenn Ricci, Elisabeth Massie, Scott H. Andrews, Sunny Moraine, Chen Quifan, Brian Keene, Vanessa Rose Phin, Phillip Beadham, Jack Dann, and Xia Jia.

I answered questions about whether my early days in fandom and early writing success helped my career, which anthology I’d like to edit if given the chance, what different choices I wish I’d made over my lifetime, what I predict for the future of food, how the pandemic has affected my writing, if anything I’ve written has ever scared me, whether writer’s block is a reality or a myth, which single comic book I’d want to own if I could only have one, how often I’m surprised by something a guest says, the life lessons I learned from Harlan Ellison, and much more.

Here’s how you can sequester with me — (more…)