This conversation comes to your ears not as the result of my convention travels, which is the source of so many of the chats I bring you, but instead due to the bookshop reading series Charm City Spec, which has been been taking place quarterly in Baltimore since late 2017.

One of the last installment’s guests was Alaya Dawn Johnson, an award-winning author of eight novels for adults and young adults. Her debut YA novel, The Summer Prince, was long-listed for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and was nominated for a Nebula (Andre Norton) Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her follow-up YA, Love Is the Drug, won the second of those prestigious awards. Her most recent YA novel, The Library of Broken Worlds, won the BSFA award for Fiction for Young People and was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin award.

Her most recent adult novel, Trouble the Saints, won the 2021 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Her short story collection, Reconstruction, published by Small Beer Press in January 2021, was an Ignyte Award and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist. That collection includes her Nebula-Award winning short story, “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” originally published by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Uncanny, Reactor, Clarkesworld, Asimov’s Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, The Book of Witches, and most notably, in collaboration with Janelle Monáe, the title story in The Memory Librarian. She is currently the visiting professor in the MFA program at Queens College CUNY.

We discussed what led to her “life-defining obsession” with Mexican history, the allure of science fiction’s cognitive estrangement, how the German edition of her vampire novel saved her life, the serendipitous discovery which inspired her first published fantasy story, why she no longer owns any of her rejection slips, which franchise inspired her first fan fiction novels, how a novella which didn’t seem to be working turned into her award-winning novel Trouble the Saints, the way a pajama party led to a novel sale, what she means when she says she’s a pantser while she plots, the way to determine which conflicting  critiques deserve your attention, how to prepare for uncomfortable conversations with editors, the importance of a single word or line to a story, the twin poles of ambiguity vs. explicitness, how Tanith Lee’s The Silver Metal Lover inspired The Summer Prince, the importance of meeting the moment in which you’re living, and much more.

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

[If you’ve already read my original post, scroll down for a November 17th update.]

[And a November 26th update as well.]

On August 12, 1971, my 16-year-old self mailed the first story I ever wrote off on its first submission. The publication I hoped would buy that story, my dream market, was The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

My tale was quickly — and justifiably — rejected.

On July 17th, 2025, one month shy of 54 years later, I finally sold a story to that magazine. It was my 85th submission across five editors. (I can tell you those precise numbers because when it comes to my writing, not only am I persistent, but I also keep good records.)

I was thrilled!

And I looked forward to the day I could use that sale and subsequent publication of my story to continue sharing a message which has long been my rallying cry to the other members of my writing community. It’s what I shouted to the world after I finally sold a story to Analog after 44 years of trying — (more…)

It’s time to say farewell to this year’s Worldcon by brunching with Natalia Theodoridou, the last of four guests from Seattle following Eugenia Triantafyllou, John Picacio, and Lara Elena Donnelly.

Theodoridou’s debut novel, Sour Cherry, was released earlier this year by Tin House (in North America) and Wildfire (in the UK and the Commonwealth). He’s a five-time Nebula Awards nominee, and shared an award earlier this year in the category of game writing for A Death in Hyperspace. He won a Nebula Award for short story in 2018 for “The Birding: A Fairy Tale,” published in Strange Horizons.

He’s also the winner of Moniack Mhor’s 2022 Emerging Writer Award. Additional fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Apex, Uncanny, Psychopomp, khōréō, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and numerous others. He is also a Clarion West Graduate (class of 2018) and holds a PhD in Media & Cultural Studies from SOAS University of London.

We discussed what it felt like attending Clarion the same year he was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, how Karen Joy Fowler’s advice changed the texture of his descriptions, what he needs to know before beginning to write a short story, whether he’s as confident in the writing process as his voice seems to me on the page, why the fact readers won’t need to know anything about Bluebeard to enjoy his Bluebeard-inspired novel is a tragedy, the question to which that novel itself must stand as the only possible answer, why it’s so important for readers to be able to sit with ambiguity and uncertainty, the reason we’ve yet to see a short story collection from him, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us at Luna Park Cafe — (more…)

While watching the second episode of the documentary series Mr. Scorsese, I spotted two Joes hiding in a photograph of Martin Scorsese directing Robert De Niro during one of Taxi Driver‘s most intense scenes.

In case you can’t see them, I’ll flip over the relevant detail to make it easier for you.

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I grow a bit verklempt this time around while I rap about the Spider-Man rock album for which I made sure the band didn’t miss a note, remember watching Dave Cockrum and Len Wein create Giant-Size X-Men #1 out of thin air, pass along the surprising truths Steve Ditko’s family most wants you to know, critique the Metropolitan Opera’s production of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, choke up while praising Marie Severin’s posthumous induction into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, walk the exhibit hall at Baltimore Comic-Con where only a single item of comics memorabilia tempted me, and more.

You can eavesdrop on all those memories via the embed below or download them at the site of your choice.

Here are some images related to some of the topics you’ll hear me touching on during the episode —

Stan Lee sells Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Super-Hero

My autographed copy of that album

Praising Marie Severin at the Society of Illustrators

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