Only 10 days before this year’s Capclave kicks off, where in addition to recording several episodes of my Eating the Fantastic podcast, I’ll be on five programing items.

If you’ll also be in Rockville next weekend, here’s where you’ll be able to find me!

Great Over-Expectations: Do authors assume too much of their readers?
Friday, October 2nd, 5:00 p.m., Monroe
Genre fiction often assumes its readers have certain knowledge/experience with select tropes from its readers, but does this limit their audience?  Are writers missing an opportunity to attract more sporadic spec-fic readers by assuming everyone knows about FTL or what a faun looks like? How can writers include enough information for readers new to the genre without boring experienced readers? Or should there be starter lit for those new to the genre? 
with Drema Deòraich, Jack Campbell, Melissa Scott, and Cerece Rennie Murphy

What tangled webs we weave …
Friday, October 2nd,, 8:00 p.m., Eisenhower
Love is never as simple as people like to think. Monogamy and other traditional relationship structures are coming increasingly under critical review today in the 21st century, and we are seeing a growing acceptance of non-traditional relationships and families.  With the rise in acceptance for polyamory and other forms of ethical non-monogamy, along with found families, how do you adapt traditional romantic arcs and tropes to reflect, and extrapolate these trends in SFF?  What works do it well and which don’t
with Apurva Desai (M), Jennifer R. Povey, and Zack Be

Experimenting with New Forms of Writing
Saturday, October 3rd, 10:00 a.m., Monroe
There is more than one way to tell a story. Angel Down is considered a horror novel, it just won the Pulitzer Prize, and it’s all one ongoing sentence. What are some ways for writers to rethink story structure? How can writers experiment with different forms without it getting in the way of the story?  Are readers willing to read literary experiments? Are genre readers more or less willing to experiment than are readers of “literary” fiction? And how would publishers/agent market stories written in new formats?
with Dominick Rabrun, Nino Cipri, Zach Be, and Lawrence M. Schoen

Stories that Aren’t or Are They?
Sunday, October 4th, 11:30 a.m., Monroe
Must a story have a plot? Is it critical to have some form of conflict that’s resolved by the end of the story in order for it actually be a story? Some published stories are just lists of various things with description. Must a story have characters? What about action? What makes something a story instead of just a collection of words and how far can writers push those boundaries? Why are these “maybe” stories becoming mainstream? What makes them attractive to readers and get them nominated for awards?
with Scott H. Andrews (M), Matthew Kressel, Nino Cipri, and Joshua Palmatier

Author Reading
Sunday, October 4th, 1:30 p.m., Wilson
Perhaps I’ll read a piece of my upcoming Lightspeed story.

I hope to see you there!

Out in the meatspace world, it’s mid-September, and Capclave is just around the corner, but on Eating the Fantastic’s timeline, it’s still mid-summer, and we’re finally about to bid farewell to Readercon. I’ve already invited you to join my lunch there with Alex Jablokov, and now it’s time to take your seat at a table in Burlington for the final time this year with Barbara Krasnoff.

Barbara Krasnoff is a Nebula Award-nominated writer whose short fiction has appeared in magazines such as  Apex, Amazing Stories, Space & Time, Weird Tales, Electric Velocipede, Doorways, Sybil’s Garage, Escape Velocity,  Descant, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and many others, as well as anthologies such as Fat Girl in a Strange Land, Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy Tales of Challenging the Norm, Broken Time Blues: Fantastic Tales in the Roaring ’20s, Such A Pretty Face: Tales of Power & Abundance, Memories and Visions: Women’s Fantasy and Science Fiction, Clockwork Phoenix 2, and more.

“Sabbath Wine,” which was published in Clockwork Phoenix 5 in 2016, was a finalist for the Nebula Award in the short story category, and later collected in The History of Soul 2065, her 2019 mosaic novel released by Mythic Delirium Books. She’s also the author of a non-fiction book for young adults, Robots: Reel to Real (Arco Publishing, 1982), and covers tech as Reviews Editor for The Verge.

We discussed how our Brooklyn childhoods molded us, which fantasy novel taught her about sex, why when she hit college her allegiance switched from poetry to science fiction, the writing workshop taught by Joanna Russ to which she was accepted (and why it never happened), how a quarter century’s worth of short stories became a mosaic novel, the reason prepping her book for publication meant adding pigeons, how real-world family stories are transmuted into fantasy, why kind words from Jane Yolen were better than winning a Nebula Award, her encouraging encounter with Ben Bova on a first class flight to the UK, plus much more.

Here’s how you can join us at Karma Asian Fusion Cuisine — (more…)

It’s been three years since Eating the Fantastic’s last lightning-round donut episode — the Capclave Donut Carnival — so this latest dozen guests daring to down a dozen donuts has been a long time coming. Welcome to what I’ve dubbed — following that most recent experience as well as the Readercon Donut Spectacular, the Balticon Donut Extravaganza, the Nebula Awards Donut Jamboree, and the StokerCon Donut Spooktacular — the Worldcon Donut Divertissment!

The premise is simple — I plop myself down with a dozen donuts in a high-traffic area of a convention, and sit beside a sign offering a donut to anyone who’ll talk to me about their favorite con-going memories. I’m always happy when those memories range not only from guests whose first cons were more than half a century ago, but also those who were first-timers, both of which happened last weekend at LAcon V.

So please join us as and hear Caitlin Rozakis share how hanging out in the halls is often the most fun of all, Cody Goodfellow on pretending to be H. P. Lovecraft at his first Worldcon in 20 years, Nick Mamatas on his jokes being misunderstood at the 2001 Millennium PhilCon, Rosemary Claire Smith about the infamous 1983 Hugo Awards banquet crab mallet incident, Jennifer Middleton on a life-changing meeting at the 2008 Denver Worldcon, Craig Engler on how wild Worldcons used to be in days gone by (or maybe just how people wanted us to think they were), Ursula K. Le Guin’s reply when Neil Rest asked if she was an anarchist, why Kevin Anderson feels Worldcon is an intimate con, Bruce Robertson on watching the Star Wars trilogy until dawn, how dim sum was the cause of Catherine Green’s discovery of Worldcon (and the night she sang Weird Al Yankovic songs with Lois McMaster Bujold), Jordan Hiatt’s first timer experience learning his elevator pitch needed work, how selling and publishing his first novel to Del Rey a lifetime ago brought Lawrence Watt-Evans to his first Worldcon, and more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop as we nibble on a tasty dozen from M & M Donuts — (more…)

Now that Eating the Fantastic is finished with StokerCon, it’s time to move on to my first meal of Readercon — my first which you can join, that is — lunch with Alex Jablokov, who I feel I’ve been seeing at Readercons as long as I’ve been attending — and my first was its first, way back in 1987.

Since Alex’s fiction debut in 1985, he’s had more than 50 short stories appear in Analog, Asimov’s, Amazing Stories, and Aboriginal SF, plus some venues with titles further down the alphabet, such as Fantasy and Science Fiction, Far Frontiers, Future Boston: The History of a City 1990-2100, Interzone, and  Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology. Some of that earliest work was gathered in the collection The Breath of Suspension, published by the legendary Arkham House in 1994, an achievement of which I am so, so envious.

His first novel, Carve the Sky, was released in 1991, and was followed by A Deeper Sea, Nimbus, River of Dust, Deepdrive, and most recently, Brain Thief. 

We discussed how he came to publish a short story collection with the legendary Arkham House, what the ease with which he wrote some of his earlier stories led him to believe which he quickly learned was wrong, why writing workshops are good for surfacing rather than solving story problems, the one question every writer must ask themselves, plotters vs. pantsers (and whether one can turn into the other), the difficulty in getting writing done when life intervenes, what horseradish has to do with the publishing business, the story he believes he only sold because the editor liked spiders, the best way to believably write characters with whom you disagree, plus much more.

Here’s how you can join us at Woojeon Korean Cuisine — (more…)

It’s time for the fourth and final Eating the Fantastic conversation from StokerCon 2026, following my culinary chats with Arley Sorg, Kate Maruyama, and Jamal Hodge.

This episode’s guest is Todd Sanders, a poet as well as both the editor and publisher of Air & Nothingness Press, which is about to celebrate its 30th anniversary. I find the evolution of that press fascinating, for what began with the release of French Surrealist poetry in translation evolved into one of the more interesting genre presses out there — one with anthology calls so eclectic my reluctant muse — which is reluctant to rise to the challenge of theme anthologies — even woke for one of them.

We discussed how his love for French Surrealist poet Robert Desnos led to the creation of Air and Nothingness Press, why he’s been able to survive for 30 years when so many other presses have failed, which poet he wanted to be when he grew up, the art objects he created from from the short stories of Mary Robinette Kowal and Benjamin Rosenbaum, the reason he decided to publish an anthology of stories with obnoxiously long titles, what he’s learned from using Kickstarter to fund books,  a spam text I received which sparked his idea for a future anthology, plus much more.

Here’s how you can join us at Kabab King BBQ Grill — (more…)