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…)