Out in the real world, we’re in the midst of the Glasgow Worldcon, but here at Eating the Fantastic, it’s still Stokercon. So I invite you to take a seat at the table for my third culinary conversation captured there, following my Korean lunch with Ai Jiang and tea and scones with Chuck Tingle.

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam is the author of the horror novel Grim Root, which was officially released two days after our chat. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in over 90 publications, such as Popular Science, Lightspeed, and LeVar Burton Reads. Her short story collection Where You Linger & Other Stories and her horror novella Glorious Fiends were both published in 2022.. She’s a two-time finalist for the Nebula Award. By day, she works as a Narrative Designer writing games for a mobile game company. 

We discussed how her new horror novel toys with the tropes of reality TV, the importance of balancing multiple POVs in a novel to keep them all equally interesting, our differing views on the revision process, the three years she spent writing 1,000 words per day (and why she stopped), the message she took from her two Nebula nominations, the importance of community, what she learned about herself by rereading her short stories to assemble a collection, why we both believe in ambiguous endings, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for breakfast at the Broken Yolk Cafe — (more…)