Since the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America recently announced the start of its nominations period for the Nebula Awards—and the recommendations period for the Bram Stoker Awards from the Horror Writers Association is ongoing—plus all of my 2017 short stories have now been published—well, it’s that time of year again.

Since all the cool kids seem to be doing it, I’ve assembled info about this year’s publications in one place so eligible voting members of both organizations can take them into consideration.

And so …

First up, three science fiction tales—

“After the Harvest, Before the Fall”

This was the story that broke my 44-year dry spell with Analog. It’s an 11,600-word novelette described by the magazine as “people born to die struggling to live.” It takes place in a future in which the rich and powerful get to order new bodies whenever they wish, and the religion those who are harvested have created to deal with their oppression. (more…)

It’s time to say farewell to Helsinki—and hello to award-winning writer Amal El-Mohtar—in the final episode of Eating the Fantastic recorded during Worldcon 75. Our meal took place a mere 36 hours after she’d won this year’s Best Short Story Hugo Award for “Seasons of Glass and Iron,” for which she’d also won a Nebula Award earlier in the year.

We chose one of the city’s oldest seafood restaurants for our lunch—Sea Horse, which has been in operation since 1934. And it’s lasted that long for a good reason! We enjoyed the food and the ambiance so much I returned a few days later for dinner with my wife during our post-Worldcon stay.

Amal’s stories and poems have appeared in magazines such as Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, and Apex. Her stories “The Green Book” and “Madeleine” were finalists for the Nebula Award in 2011 and 2015 respectively, and “The Truth About Owls” won the Locus Award in 2015. She won the Rhysling award for Best Short Poem in 2009, 2011 and 2014, and in 2012 received the Richard Jefferies Poetry Prize.

We discussed the importance of female friendship, the first poem she wrote at age 6 1/2 (which you’ll hear her recite), how Charles de Lint helped her get her first bookstore job, the importance of welcoming newcomers into the tent of science fiction and fantasy, what she learned about empathy from Nalo Hopkinson, the only time she ever cosplayed, which book made her a writer, why Storm is her favorite member of the X-Men, the delicious magic of honey, the difficulties of reviewing books in a field where everybody knows everybody, and much more.

Here’s how to join us at our booth— (more…)

If you want proof science fiction fandom has always been at war, look no further than the infamous “yellow pamphlet,” written by David Kyle, the distribution of which resulted in Donald A. Wollheim, Frederik Pohl, Cyril Kornbluth, and others being banned from the 1939 World Science Fiction Convention.

It included such language as—

The World’s Science Fiction Convention of 1939 in the hands of such heretofore ruthless scoundrels is a loaded weapon in the hands of such men. This weapon can be aimed at their critics or can be used to blast all fandom. But YOU, the reader of this short article, are the ammunition. It is for YOU to decide whether you shall bow before the unfair tactics and endorse the carefully arranged plans of the Convention Committee. Beware of any crafty speeches or sly appeals. BE ON YOUR GUARD!

The full text of this document has long been online, so I’ve read it before, but I never saw an actual copy until a scan of one appeared as part of a recent eBay listing. That sale is now closed, though I can’t tell whether it’s because the seller got the $1,000 asking price for one of the few surviving copies or the listing period simply ended.

Whenever fannish controversies get me down, I think back to this pamphlet from 78 years ago, and am strangely comforted by the fact that … it has been ever thus.

You can read Kyle’s reminiscence of those times and the Great Exclusion Act here.

During the same deep dive into my archives that turned up a never-used plot for Marvel’s The Scarecrow #2, I also found a plot written on March 7, 1978 for an adventure of Supergirl meant to appear in an issue of DC’s mega-comic Superman Family.

I’d previously scripted a Supergirl story Gerry Conway had plotted for Superman Family #193 (February 1979), and wrote one entirely on my own which appeared in Superman Family #194 (April 1979).

That last one was inspired by the infamous Stanley Milgram experiments—

—but was also tied in with the mysterious energy being which had tormented Supergirl for many, many issues.

I no longer own a copy of Superman Family #194, so I’m not sure what kind of cliffhanger I used to end that story, but apparently, I’d planned for the next installment to begin moments later.

And here we go … (more…)

It’s time to head back to Helsinki for the fourth episode recorded during the 75th World Science Fiction Convention, following up on Johanna Sinisalo, Chen Quifan, and Xia Jia.

This time around, you get to listen in on my lunch at Mero-Himal Nepalese Restaurant with Karin Tidbeck during the penultimate day of the con. Tidbeck writes fiction in both Swedish and English, and debuted in 2010 with the Swedish short story collection Vem är Arvid Pekon? Her English debut, the 2012 collection Jagannath, was awarded the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts William L. Crawford Fantasy Award in 2013 and was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award. Her novel debut, Amatka, was recently released in English.

We discussed the serious nature of Live Action Role-Playing games in Nordic countries, the way pretending to be a 150-year-old vampire changed her life, how discovering Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics made her forget time and space, the most important lesson she learned from the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing Workshop, how she uses improvisational exercises to teach beginning writers, why Amatka grew from a poetry collection into a novel, what made her say, “I’m not here to answer questions, I’m here to ask them,” and more.

Here’s how you can share spring rolls with us— (more…)

For decades, people have been asking me which of two brothers had his body taken over by the Scarecrow, a character I created back at Marvel Comics in the mid-’70s. And for decades, I’ve been telling those people—I can’t remember!

But at last, the answer can be revealed.

For while going through a box of papers recently, I discovered my plot for a Scarecrow adventure which was never drawn. And this being Halloween, it seemed like a good time to unleash it on the world.

The Scarecrow concept led a complicated life, both before and after his first story was published.

I created him to appear as a backup in Monsters Unleashed, one of Marvel’s black-and-white books, where he was meant to rotate with Tigra and Frankenstein. His debut there was even announced in the August 1974 issue of the fanzine The Comic Reader.

But Monsters Unleashed was cancelled before the world ever got to see him.

Next up, he was going to appear as a back-up feature in Giant-Size Werewolf by Night … which also got cancelled before the world could meet him.

But at last, the first Scarecrow story was published … in Dead of Night #11, the final issue of what had previously been a reprint title.

After that, he was scheduled to move on to his own comic, as you can see from this subscription ad.

But that book never launched, swallowed by the great Marvel implosion, and the story which was to have been in Scarecrow #1 was burned off in Marvel Spotlight #26. (more…)

It seems like only yesterday I asked Sarah Pinsker to be my guinea pig for the first episode of a new podcast. Can it really be time to for me to invite you to eavesdrop on the 50th episode of Eating the Fantastic?

Amazingly—yes, it can!

Here we we are, more than 20 months later, and those of you who’ve followed my journey have listened as I’ve shared at times full meals—at times a donut, during my two lightning–round episodes—with more than 75 guests. And the feasting’s not over yet!

This time around, I’m inviting you to join me and my guest for lunch during Worldcon at Parrilla Española, the oldest Spanish restaurant in Helsinki.

And who is this episode’s guest?

Xia Jia, whose short stories have been published in Nature, Clarkesworld, Year’s Best SF, Science Fiction World, and many other venues. She’s won five Galaxy Awards for Chinese Science Fiction as well as six Nebula Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy in Chinese. But her science fiction skills have been visible on more than just the page, because she directed the 2007 science fiction film Parapax, in which she also acted, appearing as three different identities of the protagonist across parallel universes.

We discussed how reading science fiction gave her the courage to take risks; what it means when she says she writes not hard SF, nor soft SF, nor slipstream, nor cyberpunk, but “porridge sci-fi;” why Ray Bradbury matters so much to her; the challenges of writing in Chinese, writing in English, and translating from one language to the other; our mutual love for Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler; how The Three-Body Problem changed the perceptions of science fiction in China, why she has faith she’ll eventually get to Mars, and more.

Here’s how you can share tapas with us— (more…)

The program for next month’s Chessiecon has just been posted. Which means …

… now you know where you can find me!

Here’s what I’ll be doing there—

Emotionally Engaging Modern Readers with Futuristic Characters
Friday, November 24, 5:30 PM-6:30 p.m.
How can writers create characters who exist in far-flung places and times and make them relatable for readers of our own times? How can the writer evoke sympathy and understanding (or hatred and disdain, as the story and character requires)? If “human nature” is, for the purposes of a particular SF/F work, imagined differently, reinterpreted, or done away with altogether, how does that happen without losing the interest of potential readers?
with D.H. Aire, Carl Cipra, Mary Fan, Andrew Hiller

Reading
Friday, November 24, 9:45 PM-10:15 p.m.
I’ll read the opening section of “How Val Finally Escaped from the Basement,” a short story appearing this month in Analog.

The Psychology of Fear: Why Do We Love Horror?
Saturday, November 25, 12:30 PM – 01:30 p.m.
Panelists will discuss the enduring quality of horror tales. Why do we love being scared when the world is already a pretty darn scary place?
with Margaret Carter, Meg Eden, Meg Nicholas, Jay Smith

How The Twilight Zone Embraced ‘Less is More’
Saturday, November 25, 6:45 PM-7:45 p.m.
In 1959, Rod Sterling’s television anthology The Twilight Zone engrossed audiences with thrilling stories of all sorts. In 2017, many episodes of the five-season series and its various spin-offs are still intense, captivating, and even scary, often thanks to the show’s ability to say as much as possible with very few special effects. Our panelists talk about their favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone and how the minimalist style made it more effective and memorable.
with Elektra Hammond, Steve Kozeniewski, Karen MacLeod, Alanna Morland

If you’re also be at Chessiecon, stop by and say hi!

If you want to know what it was like to have attended the 1971 New York Comic Art Convention, which was held that year over the 4th of July weekend at the Statler Hilton Hotel, I’ve got two recommendations for you:

Either track down this guy wearing a headband and listen to his long stories of what it was like—

—and yes, that’s me, age 16, at that very con—

—or else (and this will likely be far more possible for most of you) buy a copy of Ron Kasman’s wonderful graphic novel The Tower of the Comic Book Freaks.

Because then you’ll really know. (more…)

Irene and I accomplished many things during our extended weekend trip to New Jersey and New York—she while attending the New Jersey Romance Writers conference, me while recording three new episodes of my Eating the Fantastic podcast—but the most important thing we did was to spend Sunday hanging out with our dear friend Marie Severin.

And as usual when visiting Marvel’s Mirthful One, there was much kibitzing involved.

Did you recognize Marie? No?

Then about about now? (more…)