Sometimes I choose a restaurant, sometimes a restaurant chooses me, and sometimes one of my guests asks to record at one of their favorite hangouts. That’s what happened this episode when I met with editor Sheila Williams for dinner in Manhattan. She highly recommended the Italian restaurant Cibo e Vino on Broadway and 89th Street, and based on our shared appetizer of flash-fried cauliflower with truffle Béchamel and brown butter … I’m inclined to agree.

Sheila has worked for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine since 1982, became its editor in 2004, and went on to win the Hugo Award for Best Short Form Editor in 2011 and 2012. She also co-edited A Woman’s Liberation: A Choice of Futures by and About Women with Connie Willis, as well as numerous other anthologies.

We chatted about her first day on the job more than a third of a century ago, meeting Isaac Asimov at an early Star Trek convention when she was only 16, which writer intimidated her the most when she first got into the business, what she learned from working with previous Asimov’s editors Shawna McCarthy and Gardner Dozois, the most common problems she sees in the more than 7,000 stories that cross her desk each year, the identities of the only writers she’s never rejected, what goes through her mind in that moment she reads a manuscript and arrives at “yes,” and much more.

Here’s how you can snag a seat at the tabe— (more…)

Since 2017 is coming to an end, it seems only right that the final Eating the Fantastic of the year should bring the world to an end as well. And through the miracle of time travel, that’s what you’re going to hear me and Episode 56’s guests talking about—in 1994!

Back in 1991, when I laid out for the publishers of Science Fiction Age the vision I had for that magazine—which I’d go on to edit through the year 2000—I knew that to compete with the existing SF mags of the time, and give readers what they couldn’t get elsewhere, one of the things we needed to do was deliver a science column unlike any published by the competition. So I decided I’d take science fiction writers who were also scientists out to lunch or dinner, then record, transcribe, and condense the conversations for publication.

Earlier this year, I happened to think back to those chats, and it occurred to me:

Eating in restaurants … while discussing the fantastic … with science fiction writers? Isn’t that what this podcast is all about?

So I ran to the basement and dug out the box which contained my old cassette tapes, all the while wondering whether any recordings of those Science Forums still existed, and if they did, whether the sound quality would justify sharing them with you.

Rummaging through that box, I discovered many tapes, and listened first to a recording of my March 1, 1994 lunch with Arlan Andrews, Sr. and  Charles Sheffield at the Bethesda, Maryland restaurant the Pines of Rome. Our subject was the many ways the world might end. I’d transcribed that talk, edited it down, and published it in the September 1994 issue of Science Fiction Age. 

The audio was in remarkably good condition for the three of us not having worn lapel mics, and since we were eating during the discussion—Charles even spoke about his cannoli—it seemed meant to be that our chat should get digitized and repurposed as an episode of Eating the Fantastic. The two of them uttered far too much wisdom for their voices not to be made more widely available. So get ready to slip back more than 23 years in time to hear their fascinating conversation about how the world might end.

Charles Sheffield won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette “Georgia on My Mind” as well as the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for Brother to Dragons. He was also a mathematician and physicist who served as a President of both the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society. Sadly, he passed away in 2002 far too young at age 67.

Arlan Andrews, Sr. is the founder of SIGMA, a think tank of science fiction authors, a concept which came to him while working at the White House Science Office in 1992, when he realized government technologists and forecasters could use a dose of practical futurism from science fiction writers. After retiring from Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico as Manager of the Advanced Manufacturing Initiatives Department, he cofounded several high-tech companies. He’s published more 400 pieces of fiction, fact articles, computer books and opinion pieces.

And I should point out that this episode’s guests did more than take part in the occasional Science Forum for Science Fiction Age—I also published fiction by each of them.

We discussed the end of the world, including the (then) coming millennium and whether that would be thing which took us out (hint: it wasn’t), whether the only way to survive might be for our species to evolve into something more, how strange it is that we worry more about changing the past than changing the future, whether we’re likely to destroy the planet ourselves before nature does it for us, why personal extinction might be all that really matters, whether cryonics will be the thing that saves us, why the process of dying is more frightening than death itself, why aliens coming to kill us is not a likely end, whether even if we do survive the end of the world, we can survive the heat death of the universe, why it makes no difference whether we choose to live as pessimists or optimists, and more.

Here’s how you can share eavesdrop on us— (more…)

I’ve visited the Society of Illustrators many times over the years, where I’ve been lucky enough to see exhibitions dedicated to the artwork of Harvey Kurtzman, Ralph Steadman, and Dick Dillon, as well as many others (and you should definitely pop by sometime if you can), but until my most recent trip to New York, I never had a good enough reason to dine at their third floor restaurant—The 128 Bar & Bistro. But no other location seemed quite so perfect a match for my lunch with Irene Gallo.

Gallo has worked as an art director at Tor Books for more than two decades, where she currently holds the title of Creative Director. She’s also the Associate Publisher of Tor.com, and is ultimately the one responsible for the look of the publishing company’s book covers, as well as its online output. She’s been nominated for a Chesley Award for her art direction an astounding 19 times, the first back in 1999, and has won 13, as early as 2001, and as recently as 2017.

We discussed what it was like the first time she realized she wasn’t the only one in the world who cared so strongly about art, how she felt the day she discovered Harlan Ellison as well as the title of his that made her go “whoa,” why seeing book covers as thumbnails started long before the trend of Internet bookselling, how a manuscript moves from cover concept through to final cover, whether the cliche that an author is the worst possible designer of their own book cover is true, how self-published authors who create their own books can get the best possible covers, and much more.

Here’s how you can share ice cream and chocolate chip cookies with us— (more…)

As I prepared to lunch with this episode’s guest, I was startled to realize I’d last interviewed him in 1974—43 years ago! Back then, I was an assistant editor in the Marvel Bullpen, while Marv Wolfman was (among many other things) scripting Tomb of Dracula and editing Crazy magazine, not yet having ascended to the role of Editor-in-Chief. And it was my job to report on his doings for the readers of F.O.O.M., Marvel’s official fan magazine.

Over the course of his career, Marv did a whole lot more than what I talked with him about back then. He went on to script the adventures of many legacy characters for both Marvel and DC, including the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Superman, and Green Lantern, and during that time he also co-created the characters of Blade, Bullseye, Destiny, Nova, and many others. He wrote the Teen Titans comic for 16 years. There’s even more to Marv than that, of course, as you’ll find out when you give this episode a listen.

Our lunch took place on the Sunday of the recent Baltimore Comic-Con when we fled the convention enter for La Tavola restaurant in the heart of Little Italy.

We discussed his horrifying early job as a DC Comics intern destroying (and in some cases rescuing) original art, why he loves the science fiction writer Alfred Bester, how his writing back when he started out was a blend of John Broome and Stan Lee, what he learned from binge-reading 181 issues of Spider-Man before starting to script it himself, what it was like returning to DC after his years at Marvel, why he felt he could write Tomb of Dracula even though when he was handed the assignment he’d never read the Bram Stoker novel or seen any of the movies, his secret to making the Teen Titans seem like actual teens, why he owes his career to Gene Colan, and much, more.

Here’s how you can share some lasagna with us— (more…)

This completely unpredicted, absolutely unanticipated, and totally unexpected new episode—with horror writers Brian Keene, Lesley Conner, Mary SanGiovanni, Damien Angelica Walters, J.P. Sloan, and Eric Hendrixson—is one I had no idea I was going to record until I was about to record it.

Last week, former guest Brian Keene—who can be heard in Episode 34’s career-spanning conversation—tweeted about an appearance he’d be making at Frederick Community College for a panel discussion on publishing and horror. Since Frederick’s only an hour away, I figured I’d drop by. And at the last minute, as I was about to take off early this past Monday afternoon, I thought—hey, why don’t I record the event?

I wasn’t planning to repurpose it here, but I’d thought Brian would perhaps want to use it for his own podcast, The Horror Show with Brian Keene, the podcast on which I’d appeared back in June 2015 which inspired me to create this podcast. So I grabbed my recording equipment before hopping into my Jeep and heading East.

What happened instead was that after all those horror writers were done entertaining a room filled with creative writing students, and I offered the audio file to Brian, he said—you know what, Scott? Since you did the work of recording the panel, you use it. Which I normally wouldn’t and couldn’t do, because my podcast is, after all, Eating the Fantastic, and not Sitting in the Front Row of a Conference Room Listening to Others Talk About the Fantastic.

But luckily, since the group had planned to grab a bite to eat after their  panel before they hit the road, we did get to chat while breaking bread together. I was able to sit with them at a large round table in the Frederick Community College cafeteria, and as we inhaled salads and stromboli, I pushed them to share some of the brutal truths of horror publishing, the ones they didn’t reveal on the panel for fear of crushing the hopes and dreams of young, innocent, beginning writers. Which I hope you’ll feel is a good enough excuse to justify sharing the panel itself as part of the episode before that meal.

So prepare to join Brian Keene (author of more than 40 novels, and winner of the 2014 World Horror Grand Master Award.), Lesley Conner (managing editor of Apex publications and author of the novel The Weight of Chains), Mary SanGiovanni (author of the The Hollower trilogy, whose most recent novels are Chills and Savage Woods), Damien Angelica Walters (Stoker-nominated writer of the short story collection Sing Me Your Scars and the novel Paper Tigers), J.P. Sloan (author of The Dark Choir urban fantasy series), and Eric Hendrixson (bizarro author of Drunk Driving Champion and Bucket of Face) for an fascinating afternoon as they share what they know about the business of writing and publishing horror.

And what did they discuss in what’s became Episode 53 of Eating the Fantastic?

Lesley Conner explained what most writers don’t realize about first serial rights, and why if you can’t take rejection, you should stop now. Mary SanGiovanni compared your social media presence to singing in your underwear, and revealed the dreadful warning Charles L. Grant shared with her about the writing life. J. P. Sloan recommended the small press, while at the same time recommending you watch out, and also advised to be careful about the illusion of access. Brian Keene passed on the the best writing advice he ever got—from Keith Giffin—and told of the time he was willing to walk away from life-changing money. Damien Angelica Walters shared the ways it never gets easier, and why you need to overcome your fear of saying no. And finally, Eric Hendrixson pointed out why contracts are like a superpower, and sketched the hierarchy of what kind of writing is valuable.

Here’s how you can get the details directly from them— (more…)

It’s time to say farewell to Helsinki—and hello to award-winning writer Amal El-Mohtar—in the final episode of Eating the Fantastic recorded during Worldcon 75. Our meal took place a mere 36 hours after she’d won this year’s Best Short Story Hugo Award for “Seasons of Glass and Iron,” for which she’d also won a Nebula Award earlier in the year.

We chose one of the city’s oldest seafood restaurants for our lunch—Sea Horse, which has been in operation since 1934. And it’s lasted that long for a good reason! We enjoyed the food and the ambiance so much I returned a few days later for dinner with my wife during our post-Worldcon stay.

Amal’s stories and poems have appeared in magazines such as Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, and Apex. Her stories “The Green Book” and “Madeleine” were finalists for the Nebula Award in 2011 and 2015 respectively, and “The Truth About Owls” won the Locus Award in 2015. She won the Rhysling award for Best Short Poem in 2009, 2011 and 2014, and in 2012 received the Richard Jefferies Poetry Prize.

We discussed the importance of female friendship, the first poem she wrote at age 6 1/2 (which you’ll hear her recite), how Charles de Lint helped her get her first bookstore job, the importance of welcoming newcomers into the tent of science fiction and fantasy, what she learned about empathy from Nalo Hopkinson, the only time she ever cosplayed, which book made her a writer, why Storm is her favorite member of the X-Men, the delicious magic of honey, the difficulties of reviewing books in a field where everybody knows everybody, and much more.

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It’s time to head back to Helsinki for the fourth episode recorded during the 75th World Science Fiction Convention, following up on Johanna Sinisalo, Chen Quifan, and Xia Jia.

This time around, you get to listen in on my lunch at Mero-Himal Nepalese Restaurant with Karin Tidbeck during the penultimate day of the con. Tidbeck writes fiction in both Swedish and English, and debuted in 2010 with the Swedish short story collection Vem är Arvid Pekon? Her English debut, the 2012 collection Jagannath, was awarded the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts William L. Crawford Fantasy Award in 2013 and was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award. Her novel debut, Amatka, was recently released in English.

We discussed the serious nature of Live Action Role-Playing games in Nordic countries, the way pretending to be a 150-year-old vampire changed her life, how discovering Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics made her forget time and space, the most important lesson she learned from the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing Workshop, how she uses improvisational exercises to teach beginning writers, why Amatka grew from a poetry collection into a novel, what made her say, “I’m not here to answer questions, I’m here to ask them,” and more.

Here’s how you can share spring rolls with us— (more…)

It seems like only yesterday I asked Sarah Pinsker to be my guinea pig for the first episode of a new podcast. Can it really be time to for me to invite you to eavesdrop on the 50th episode of Eating the Fantastic?

Amazingly—yes, it can!

Here we we are, more than 20 months later, and those of you who’ve followed my journey have listened as I’ve shared at times full meals—at times a donut, during my two lightning–round episodes—with more than 75 guests. And the feasting’s not over yet!

This time around, I’m inviting you to join me and my guest for lunch during Worldcon at Parrilla Española, the oldest Spanish restaurant in Helsinki.

And who is this episode’s guest?

Xia Jia, whose short stories have been published in Nature, Clarkesworld, Year’s Best SF, Science Fiction World, and many other venues. She’s won five Galaxy Awards for Chinese Science Fiction as well as six Nebula Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy in Chinese. But her science fiction skills have been visible on more than just the page, because she directed the 2007 science fiction film Parapax, in which she also acted, appearing as three different identities of the protagonist across parallel universes.

We discussed how reading science fiction gave her the courage to take risks; what it means when she says she writes not hard SF, nor soft SF, nor slipstream, nor cyberpunk, but “porridge sci-fi;” why Ray Bradbury matters so much to her; the challenges of writing in Chinese, writing in English, and translating from one language to the other; our mutual love for Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler; how The Three-Body Problem changed the perceptions of science fiction in China, why she has faith she’ll eventually get to Mars, and more.

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Early one morning during the recent World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki, I met Chinese writer Chen Quifan for breakfast at Café Engel, a restaurant located in a 1765 building which was originally a pipe factory. We ate by a window which looked out on Helsinki Cathedral, built from 1830-1852 as a tribute to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia.

Chen Qiufan has published more thirty stories in venues such as Science Fiction World, Esquire, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Interzone, and F&SF. His 2013 debut novel, The Waste Tide, was praised by Liu Cixin as “the pinnacle of near-future SF writing.” He’s the most widely translated young writer of science fiction in China. He has won Taiwan’s Dragon Fantasy Award, China’s Galaxy and Nebula Awards, and a Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award with Ken Liu.

We discussed why his favorite character from all of science fiction is Mr. Spock, what kept him going during the seven years between the sales of his first and second stories, the reasons H. G. Wells is a genius, why he believes science fiction is the greatest realism, the differences in reading protocols between Chinese and non-Chinese readers, why he hopes his own upcoming science fiction movie will defy his prediction there’ll be many bad SF movies to come in Chinese cinema, and more.

Here’s how you can join us in Helsinki— (more…)

Now that Readercon is over for Eating the Fantastic—you’ve already listened to the James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel episodes recorded there, haven’t you?—it’s time to head to Helsinki for the 75th World Science Fiction Convention.

I managed to record five episodes while in Finland, with the first being lunch at Kaarna Baari & Keittiö, which advertises itself as serving Finnish food with a Scandavian twist. I must admit, though, that I’m not familiar enough with either of those cuisines to know exactly where they’d converge on a culinary Venn diagram. I do know, however, that the food was excellent, and I was so impressed with what my guest and I ate there I later returned for dinner with my wife.

Joining me this episode was Johanna Sinisalo, who was one of this year’s Worldcon Guests of Honor. Her first novel, Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi (Not Before Sundown) won the Finlandia Prize for Literature in 2000 and the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial award in 2004. Her novel Enkelten vert (Blood of Angels) won the English PEN Award. She was a Nebula Award nominee in 2009 for “Baby Doll.” Her novel Auringon ydin (The Core of the Sun) recently won the 2017 Prometheus Award for Best Novel. She has won the Atorox award for the best Finnish-language SF short story seven times.

We discussed what she learned in advertising that helped her be a better writer, how Moomins helped set her on the path to becoming a creator, why she held off attempting a novel until she had dozens of short stories published, the reason the Donald Duck comics of Carl Barks were some of her greatest inspirations, the circuitous way being an actor eventually led to her writing the science fiction film Iron Sky, and more.

Here’s how you can munch on mushrooms with us— (more…)