Yesterday, CoNZealand opened nominations for the 2020 Hugo Awards. If you’re eligible to nominate this year, check out my my 2019 short story publications — but I’d ask that you please consider Eating the Fantastic in the category of Best Fancast as well.

During 2019, I invited you to eavesdrop on 41 guests across 27 episodes for 53+ hours of ear candy, attempting to replicate all the fun I’ve had since I attended my first convention at age 15 — and then started wandering off from those conventions for good meals with good friends. The only difference between then and now is — since February 2016, I’ve been inviting you to take a seat at the table and eavesdrop. (more…)

For the final Eating the Fantastic culinary conversation of 2019, we return to the Baltimore Book Festival, following up on last episode’s lunch there with Elsa Sjunneson-Henry. This time around, you get to take a seat at the table with Bob Proehl, who published his first novel in in 2016. A Hundred Thousand Worlds is about the star of a cult sci-fi TV show and her nine-year-old son making a cross-country road trip with many stops at comic book conventions along the way, and was named a Booklist best book of the year.

His latest novel, The Nobody People, about the emergence of super-powered beings who’ve been living among us, came out earlier this year. He also wrote on the Flying Burrito Brothers’ 1968 album The Gilded Palace of Sin as part of Continuum International Publishing’s book series 33 1/3. He has been a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Fiction as well as a resident at the Saltonstall Arts Colony.

We slipped away to Sabatino’s Italian restaurant during the two-hour gap between my panel on “Sandman to Saga: Great Comics & Graphic Novels for Adults” and his on “Dystopias, Near Future & Present,” where we chatted over orders of veal parmigiana and eggplant parmigiana. (I’ll leave it to you to guess which of us was the carnivore, though I suspect that if you’re a regular listener, you’ll already know.)

We discussed how it really all began for him with poetry, the way giving a non-comics reader Watchmen for their first comic is like giving a non-novel reader Ulysses as their first novel, why discovering Sandman was a lifesaver, the reason the Flying Burrito Brothers 1968 debut album The Gilded Palace of Sin matters so much to him, why he had a case of Imposter Syndrome over his first book and how he survived it, the reasons he’s so offended by The Big Bang Theory, what he meant when he said “I actually like boring books,” his love for The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the X-Men, whether it’s hard to get a beer in New York at six o’clock in the morning, why he wasn’t disappointed in the Lost finale, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation — (more…)

For the penultimate Eating the Fantastic episode of 2019, we head to the Baltimore Book Festival, a fun, free annual happening held near the city’s Inner Harbour. In previous years, I’ve invited you to take a seat at the table during that event with the likes of writers Sam J. Miller and Nalo Hopkinson.

My guest this time around is Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, who was a winner of the Best Semiprozine Hugo Award earlier this year for her work as a Guest Editor of Uncanny Magazine’s Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Special Issue. She was also a 2019 Hugo Award finalist for Best Fan Writer. Her fiction has appeared in such magazines as Fireside and Uncanny, as well the anthologies Ghost in the Cogs and Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling. She’s written non-fiction for The Boston Globe, Barnes & Noble, Tor.com, and other venues. She is a feminist scholar and disability rights activist (which I knew), but also a burlesque historian (which I did not know).

We lunched at La Tavola, where I’d previously joined Marv Wolfman during the 2017 Baltimore Comic-Con. We discussed her roller coaster of emotions the night she won a Hugo Award earlier this year during the Dublin Worldcon, how that editorial gig increased her empathy, the way writing roleplaying games and being a Sherlock Holmes nerd taught her about world-building and led to her first professional fiction sales, the dinosaur-themed Twitter feed that gave birth to her most recently published short story, the novel she’s working on which she describes as The Conjuring meets The Stand, her expertise in obscenity law and fascination with the history of burlesque, why she felt the Bird Box novel handled blindness better than the movie, her background in competitive improv and the way that helped her within science fiction, advice on how not to let Internet trolls get you down, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation — (more…)

I first met comic book artist and writer Larry Lieber when I worked in the Marvel Comics Bullpen of the mid-‘70s. Though perhaps that’s not really accurate — because that was only when I first met him in the flesh. I really first met him when I was seven, the year I picked up copies of Tales of Suspense #39, in which he co-created Iron Man, Journey into Mystery #83, in which he co-created Thor, and Tales to Astonish #35, in which he co-created Ant-Man.

Larry also contributed to comics in many other ways, with long stints working on the Marvel western comic Rawhide Kid, the syndicated newspaper strips devoted to Spider-Man and The Hulk, and so much more. He’s also responsible for one of the most memorable moments of my early comics career. During a party hosted by Bullpen pal Tony Isabella at his midtown Manhattan penthouse apartment atop the Hotel Edison, he and I and Tony sang “New York, New York” from “On the Town” while we danced back and forth across the roof, pretending we were Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munchin.

A week before Larry’s 88th birthday, we met for dinner at his favorite French restaurant, Bistro Le Steak, on the corner of Third Avenue and East 75th Street in Manhattan, where we chatted about the old days, as well as what he has planned for the days still to come.

We discussed the old-time radio shows which most influenced him, what he learned about humanity from reading Margaret Mead back in the ’50s, how the only reason he became a writer was because he was too slow to make a living an artist, who told him back at the start of his career that comics was a “dying industry,” the tips Stan Lee gave to make him a better writer, why his attempts to work for DC Comics never worked out, the warning artist Syd Shores offered he wishes he hadn’t heeded, how a quote he heard in a movie about Irish playwright Sean O’Casey helped him understand the arc of his own life, the three best-selling books he read before writing his own novel, his mixed feelings on winning the Bill Finger Award, how Jim Shooter helped him relearn how to be an artist, which comics assignment he enjoyed the most, what Stan Lee told him about the Rawhide Kid that made him decide to take it over from Jack Kirby, why he feels like Don Quixote, the surprising thing he thinks is the best thing he’s ever written, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation — (more…)

I’ve been attending the Maryland-based indie comics convention SPX — that is, the Small Press Expo — for 15 or so of its 36 years, and this time around took the opportunity to dine with artist Paul Kirchner, who breathed the same comic industry air I did during the ’70s.

Paul broke into comics in the early ‘70s through a fortuitous series of events which had him meeting the legendary comics artist Neal Adams, who introduced him to DC Comics editor Joe Orlando, and within the week getting a gig as assistant to Tex Blaisdell helping him out on the Little Orphan Annie comic strip and stories for DC’s mystery books. He also worked for awhile as assistant to the great EC Comics artist and Daredevil innovator Wally Wood. He moved on from mainstream comics to draw two wonderfully surrealistic strips — “Dope Rider” for High Times and “the bus” for Heavy Metal. His wide-ranging creative resume also includes a graphic novel collaboration with the great writer of detective novels Janwillem van de Wetering, designs for such toy lines as Dino-Riders and Spy-Tech, and much more.

Paul and I had dinner once the con wound down at the nearby and recently opened Commonwealth Indian restaurant, which had been favorably reviewed by the Washington Post.

We discussed how a chance encounter in art school led to him assisting cartoonist Tex Blaisdell on Little Orphan Annie, the life lessons he learned during his apprenticeship with EC Comics legend and Daredevil innovator Wally Wood, the ruse he used to convince the editor of Harpoon into commissioning more installments of his famed Dope Rider strip, how the office of Screw magazine was nothing like you thought it would be and the office of High Times was everything you thought it would be, where he learned “the only thing that’ll kill you bigger than a flop is a hit,” the techniques he uses to dream up new episodes of his surrealistic strip “the bus,” his druggiest fan encounter, our joint memories of “Fabulous” Flo Steinberg, Marvel’s “Gal Friday,” his graphic novel collaboration with famed writer of detective fiction Janwillem van de Wetering, the first person he ever met in comics, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at Commonwealth Indian restaurant — (more…)

It’s time to say farewell to Dublin, because as far as this podcast is concerned, the 77th World Science Fiction Convention is finally about to end. I previously invited you along to sit in on a Javanese dinner with the Nebula Award-winning Lisa Tuttle, share crab and eel with the Hugo Award-winning Cheryl Morgan, and brunch on the delightfully named dish Breakfast of Champions with Arcade Award-winning Maura McHugh. As for this fourth and final episode recorded during Worldcon, I can’t think of a better guest to bring live for you on Halloween than the great horror writer Ramsey Campbell.

Ramsey published his H. P. Lovecraft-inspired first book of stories The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants in 1964 when he was only 18, and hasn’t stopped since. He’s a two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, a four-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, and a TWELVE-time winner of the British Fantasy Award. He’s also received lifetime achievement World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Awards, and was named a World Horror Grandmaster. Previous guest of the podcast T. E. D. Klein called his collection Demons by Daylight “perhaps the most important book of horror fiction since Lovecraft’s The Outsider and Others.” High praise indeed!

We got together on the final day of Worldcon, long after the 4:30 p.m. closing ceremonies had ended. So instead of traipsing around to the usual dead dog parties, we had dinner at Rosa Madre, which I found via Eater’s list of the 38 Essential Dublin restaurants — where at one point as I looked across the table, it seemed as if he was nibbling on Cthulhu! (And sure, I know it was only baby octopus, and not the the Great Old One … but we horror writers like to dream.)

We discussed his early relationship with Arkham House editor and publisher August Derleth, who he might have been had he never discovered H. P. Lovecraft, how this master of unease is able to keep the sense of dread going for the length of a novel (hint: he’s not entirely sure himself), why he loves The Blair Witch Project, what it was like writing novels in the Universal monsters universe, how he felt when The Times listed The Doll That Ate its Mother as one of the silliest titles of 1987, how Twilight Zone editor T. E. D. Klein changed his life, our shared memories of the 1979 World Fantasy Convention, why he feels his attempts to write science fiction have been “clumsy,” the way he was made speechless on his first meeting with J. G. Ballard, why he admires Vladimir Nabokov, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at Rosa Madre — (more…)

It’s time to return to Dublin for the third of four mealtime conversations recorded during the 77th World Science Fiction Convention, following my dinner last episode with the Nebula Award-winning Lisa Tuttle and lunch with the Hugo Award-winning Cheryl Morgan.

Maura McHugh and I first met during the 2007 Yokohama Worldcon, where I was introduced to her by former guest of the podcast Ellen Datlow as one of the students she’d met at Clarion West, which Maura had attended after receiving the Gordon R. Dickson Scholarship. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Jabberwocky, Doorways, Paradox, Goblin Fruit, and other magazines. She also writes comics, the most recent of which was The Dead Run, a five-issue Judge Anderson: PSI Division story for Judge Dredd Megazine. In 2015, she won Best Irish Writer of comic books in The Arcade Awards. She also published a book on Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me through the Midnight Movie Monograph series from Electric Dreamhouse Press and PS Publishing. Her most recent short story collection The Boughs Withered (When I Told Them My Dreams) launched at the Dublin Worldcon.

Do you notice anything unusual about the photo of Maura from our brunch at Herb Street? Look closely.

I took half a dozen shots of Maura, and did not notice until later in the day that in every one of the images she’d been photobombed by previous guest of the show Sarah Pinsker, who was just finishing up her lunch in the same restaurant with another previous guest of the show, Sheila Williams.

Maura and I discussed how the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop sometimes makes people realize they shouldn’t be writers (and why that can sometimes be a good thing), how having lived in both Ireland and the U.S. affected her life and her writing, whether her attraction to dark fiction was ever a choice, what it was like getting to create comics in the Judge Dredd universe, how she decides whether ideas that pop into her head get transformed into comics or prose, her recent art project inspired by the works of Simone de Beauvoir, why she doesn’t speak much about works in progress on social media, what she learned pulling together the selections for her first short story collection, why Twin Peaks fascinated her so much she wrote a book about the show — and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at Herb Street — (more…)

It’s time to return to Dublin for the second of four mealtime conversations recorded during the 77th World Science Fiction Convention, following up on my dinner last episode with the Nebula Award-winning writer Lisa Tuttle.

This time around, you’re invited to lunch with Cheryl Morgan, who’s a four-time Hugo Award-winning science fiction critic and publisher — first as the editor of Emerald City, which won for Best Fanzine in 2004, followed by another for Best Fan Writer in 2009. She has also been the non-fiction editor of Clarkesworld magazine, for which she won her third and fourth Hugo Awards in 2010 and 2011. She is a director of San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions Inc., and a founder of the short-lived Association for the Recognition of Excellence in SF & F Translation. She is a co-chair of Out Stories Bristol and lectures regularly on both trans history and science fiction and fantasy literature. She’s also a Director of The Diversity Trust for whom she run trans awareness courses. She’s the owner of Wizard’s Tower Press.

We snuck away from Worldcon to Mr. Fox, which appeared not only on Eater’s list of the 38 Essential Dulbin Restaurants, but on Conde Nast Traveler’s list of 15 Best Dublin restaurants as well.

We discussed the only science fiction she was allowed to read in school as a kid, why she preferred American Marvel Comics over the British comics of her youth (and how she considers Jean Grey her big sister), the way Dungeons & Dragons made 10 years of her life disappear, how helping out on a Worldcon bid led to her meeting one of the most important people in her life, the reason deciding to go digital infuriated fanzine fandom, the legacy of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, how she hid behind the sofa while watching the first episode of Doctor Who (and which was her favorite Doctor), the unfortunate reason she stopped publishing her Hugo Award-winning fanzine, why I’m to blame (in part) for her first encounter with science fiction, whether the Retro Hugo awards do what they’re intended to do, the pre-history of robotics before R.U.R., the difficulties in judging the best translated work — and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at Mr. Fox — (more…)

Welcome to Dublin, for the first of four episodes recorded at the 77th World Science Fiction Convention!

My guest this time around is the award-winning writer Lisa Tuttle, who I caught up with one night after she was done with a 7:30 p.m. reading, which meant that by the time we began our meal it was a later than usual dinner (for me, at least). We hopped in a cab and took off for at Chameleon, an Indonesian restaurant I’d found via Eater’s list of 38 essential Dublin restaurants. The restaurant offers set menus from various regions, including Sumatra and Bali. We decided to go with Java, but added to that some pork belly bao, and the 10-hour Javanese anise short rib of beef, a signature dish of theirs which turned out to be my favorite thing eaten all weekend.

Lisa and I both had wonderful experiences 45 years ago at the 1974 Worldcon in Washington, D.C., me because it was my first Worldcon, she because of winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She’s accomplished a lot in the 4-1/2 decades since, including being awarded the 1982 Nebula for Best Short Story for “The Bone Flute.” She’s published seven short story collections, starting with A Nest of Nightmares in 1986 and most recently Objects in Dream in 2012, plus more than a dozen novels, the first of which was Windhaven (1981), written in collaboration with George R. R. Martin, who was my guest back in Episode 43. She was nominated for an Arthur C. Clarke award for her novel Lost Futures. She edited the pivotal anthology Skin of the Soul: New Horror Stories by Women (1990) as well as Crossing the Border: Tales of Erotic Ambiguity (1998).

We discussed the amusing series of mishaps which prevented her from learning she’d won the 1974 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best New Writer as early as she should have, the first thing Harlan Ellison ever said to her, how the all-male table of contents for a major horror anthology inspired her to edit her classic female horror anthology Skin of the Soul, the way emigrating from the U.S. to the UK affected her writing, why an editor said of one of her submitted novels, “I love this book, but I could no more publish it than I could jump out the window and fly,” how she and George R. R. Martin were able to collaborate early in their careers without killing each other, what she’d do if she were just starting out now as a writer, the reasons contemporary acknowledgements sections of novels should be shortened — and so much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at Chameleon — (more…)

It’s time to say farewell to Readercon! Which means it’s time for a seafood dinner with Jack Dann, following my burgers with the Nebula Award-winning writer P. Djèlí Clark and an Indian lunch with Bram Stoker Award-winning writer Lucy A. Snyder.

Jack’s an old friend I see far too infrequently ever since he moved to Australia. I was privileged to publish a story of his in Science Fiction Age back in the ’90s, but that’s the least of his accomplishments. His first novel, The Man Who Melted, was nominated for a 1984 Nebula Award, and since then he’s gone on to win a Nebula Award, two World Fantasy Awards, three Ditmar Awards, and the Peter McNamara Award for Excellence. His short story collections include Timetipping, Jubilee: the Essential Jack Dann, and Visitations. His 1998 anthology Dreaming Down-Under (co-edited with his wife Janeen Webb) is a groundbreaking work in Australian science fiction.

He’s also created some amazing stories in collaboration with the likes of Michael Swanwick, Gardner Dozois, Barry Malzberg, and others, and since you know from listening to Eating the Fantastic that collaboration completely baffles me, we dove into a discussion of that as well.

We stepped out to The Chowder House, which has been in operation since 1985, but has a history which goes all the way back to 1920, when Darcy’s Irish Pub opened — and over the decades expanded into a row of family-owned restaurants. It was a comfortable spot, with good food, and the perfect place for us to catch up after far too long apart.

We discussed the novel he and Gardner Dozois always planned to write but never did, how a botched appendectomy at age 20 which left him with only a 5% chance of survival inspired one of his most famous stories, why he quit law school the day after he sold a story to Damon Knight’s Orbit series, the bad writing advice he gave Joe Haldeman early on we’re glad got ignored, the secrets to successful collaborations, the time Ellen Datlow acted as referee on a story he wrote with Michael Swanwick, how it felt thanks to his novel The Man Who Melted to be a meme before we began living in a world of memes, why he’s drawn to writing historical novels which require such a tremendous amount of research, the time he was asked to channel the erotica of Anaïs Nin, the gift he got from his father that taught him to take joy in every moment — and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at The Chowder House — (more…)