I visited the Watergate Hotel recently, and in case those of you familiar with the history of that infamous location might be thinking I went there to bring down a president with a Bob Woodward/Carl Bernstein-style investigation, let me quickly add … no. Rather, I went there to investigate the food at the recently opened Kingbird restaurant, with a guest who surprised me with her sudden visit to Washington, D.C., and whom I somehow managed to convince that a meal with me would be oh, so much more fun than visiting the National Air and Space Museum.

Joining me within the walls of the Watergate Hotel was Cynthia Felice, who published her first short story, “Longshanks,” in 1976 in the pages of Galileo, a science fiction magazine published by the late, great Charlie Ryan, and her first novel, Godsfire, two years later. She is also the co-founder with Ed Bryant—about whom, alas, I must also say late and great—of the Colorado Springs Writer’s Workshop.

We discussed how Frank Herbert’s Dune made her say, “Hey, I can do that,” the virtues of owning a motel while being a writer, the marriage advice Kate Wilhelm gave her at Clarion, what Thomas M. Disch told her that fixed one of her short stories, why we all loved the late, great Ed Bryant, the extraordinary lengths David Hartwell went to as he edited her second novel, how her collaborations with Connie Willis began, and more.

Here’s how you can break into the Watergate with us— (more…)

During last year’s Capclave in Gaithersburg, Maryland, Brenda Clough tantalized me with tales of JDS Shanghai Famous Food, telling me they made some of the best soup dumplings in the D.C. area. So when it was time for her appearance on Eating the Fantastic, how could we go anywhere else?

Brenda has published short fiction in Analog, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, my own Science Fiction Age, and many others, and was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for her novella “May Be Some Time.” She’s also written many novels across multiple series, and teaches writing workshops at the Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

We discussed how Superman started off her science fiction life, whether she’s a steeplechase horse or a Kentucky derby horse, the time Harlan Ellison phoned to tell her she wrote like an angel, how surrendering to the concept of “false endings” helped her become a better writer, why she’d never want to be one of her own characters, which Anne McCaffrey book she threw in the trash, why she decided to knit a life-sized giant squid, and more.

Here’s how you can dine on dumplings with us— (more…)

I wish I could get to Baltimore’s Woodberry Kitchen more often. This should help you understand why: Bill Addison, Eater’s restaurant editor, has written of Woodberry Kitchen that when it opened in 2007, “it was the most forward-thinking Baltimore restaurant in years,” and in 2016 he included it on his list of 38 restaurants that shaped and defined American dining.

So I was glad to be able to return for a meal with K.M. Szpara, who has published short fiction in Lightspeed, Shimmer, Glittership, and other magazines, and has recently completed his first novel. He edited the acclaimed anthology Transcendant: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, about which Kirkus wrote that it “challenges readers’ expectations in ways that few have managed to do before.”

Listen in and learn about his formative years writing Hanson and Harry Potter fanfic, which darlings he had to kill to complete his first novel, why rewrites are like giving a floofy poodle a haircut, what he didn’t know about short stories when he began to write them, the many ways conventions are like big sleepovers, the reason he was able to eat one of George R. R. Martin’s dragon eggs, and more.

Here’s how you can join us at the table— (more…)

And now for something completely different—the first (and likely only) episode of Eating the Fantastic to be recorded during a live-streamed fundraising telethon.

I’d been trying for quite a while to schedule the recording of an episode with Brian Keene—on whose podcast The Horror Show I appeared nearly two years ago, inspiring me to create this podcast. Unfortunately, our schedules never synced.

But when it came time for Brian to record the 100th episode of The Horror Show as a live 24-hour-long telethon to raise funds for the Scares That Care charity, he had a brainstorm—that I invade his event with a meal of some sort, and record my own show as part of his livestream.

So that’s what I did—show up at a conference room of a Hunt Valley hotel with a ton of takeout from Andy Nelson’s Barbecue, which has repeatedly been voted best BBQ by Baltimore Magazine—bringing enough to feed Brian, his co-hosts, and some of the live studio audience you’ll hear in this episode, too.

Brian’s published more than 40 novels, including the best-selling The Rising, and he’s the winner of the 2014 World Horror Grand Master Award. He’s also written comics, including the adventures of the Doom Patrol.

We discussed why the ending to The Rising isn’t as bewildering as some seem to think it is, whether new horror writers should try to replicate his career path, how Marvel Comics creator Steve Gerber is responsible for him becoming a writer, the shady way Brian amassed the largest comics collection in the sixth grade, if he’s a Scully who changed into a Mulder as he got older or if he’s been a Mulder all along, and more.

Here’s how you can share the BBQ with us— (more…)

If everything had gone according to plan, you would have heard an episode of Eating the Fantastic recorded at Convivial, a restaurant in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C., last February with guest Tom Doyle in Episode 4. But reservations were hard to come by, because the spot was #5 on Tom Sietsema’s list of the Top 10 restaurants in The Washington Post’s 2016 Fall Dining Guide and #9 on Eater’s Winter 2017 list of The 38 Essential D.C. Restaurants.

One year later, though, I had better luck, and so was joined there by Sunny Moraine, who has published short fiction in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Apex, Uncanny, Lightspeed, and other magazines, as well as many novels, and was dubbed in Locus Online to be the most promising author of 2013.

We discussed the best writing advice they’ve heard, how being named the most promising author of 2013 messed with their mind, their favorite Ray Bradbury story (which is one of their all-time favorite stories period), why they write Walking Dead fan fiction, the contradictions of writing a breakout book, how they decided their trilogies were meant to be trilogies, and more. (They refused, however, to tell me for whom the bell actually tolls or why birds suddenly appear every time you’re near.) Plus—I reveal how Tim Burton prevented me from eating a perfect sticky toffee pudding!

Here’s how you can get convivial with us— (more…)

I love Momofuku Noodle Bar, but it’s in Manhattan, 275 miles away.

I love Momofuku Shoto, but it’s even further away, more than 400 miles, and on top of that, it’s on the other side of the Canadian border.

So when Chef David Chang expanded his empire to Washington, D.C. which only requires a minor rather than a major road trip, I was thrilled. I’ve made several visits to the new Momofuku CCDC since it opened, and knew that when it came time to record an episode of Eating the Fantastic with Rosemary Claire Smith—who was part of my 2013 Franklin BBQ expedition—this was definitely the place.

Rosemary has published multiple science fiction stories—plus multiple guest editorials—in Analog. And between the time we recorded this episode and you’ll be hearing it, she’s received an additional recognition from the magazine, and has become an AnLab Awards finalist.

We discussed why she can’t seem to stop writing about dinosaurs, how her years as a lawyer helped her become a better writer, what caused an angry audience member to confront her after one of her readings, whether she’d be willing to risk Ray Bradbury’s butterfly effect by traveling back in time, if there are editorial differences between Analog editors Stanley Schmidt and Trevor Quachri, and much more.

But before you give this episode listen, remember—if you’d like episodes of Eating the Fantastic to come at you more frequently, you can help me achieve that goal by making a small recurring monthly donation over at Patreon. Check it out!

And now—here’s how you can share the ramen— (more…)

Twenty-two years ago this very weekend, I was in Atlanta attending the 1995 World Horror Convention, where—without realizing it—I recorded what would eventually become Episode 31 of Eating the Fantastic.

Who knew?

You can thank Dave Slusher for that.

In 1995, Dave was the host of a national radio talk show of the fantastic titled Reality Break, which launched in 1992 on WREK 91.1 FM in Atlanta. Dave chronicled the World Horror Convention that year, stealing Adam and me away from the con venue—the Sheraton Colony Square Hotel—to the food court of the Colony Square Mall next door. And since food was involved—especially Adam’s pizza, about which we seemed to joke a lot—it seemed especially serendipitous to revisit that day in this episode of Eating the Fantastic.

Back in 1995, I was a couple of years into editing Science Fiction Age magazine, and my 13 years at the SyFy Channel—as well as this podcast—were still far in the future. And as for Adam, though he had published his first short story collection, plus the first story in the first issue of Science Fiction Age, his Andrea Cort novels, his Gustav Gloom series, and his 100 more short stories were still to come.

Note that this is not a photo of Adam and me (along with Nancy Holder and Connie Hirsch) at that year’s World Horror Con. However, as it is a photo of us from a World Horror Con three years earlier, we’ll let it stand. I don’t think either of us changed that much from 1992 to 1995.

So prepare to time travel back to a 1995 mall food court lunch as I talk about my first job at Marvel Comics, how I broke into writing for Tales from the Darkside, and the beginnings of Science Fiction Age magazine, while Adam-Troy Castro reveals how he created the first story in the first issue of that magazine, as well as how a cab ride he feared he wouldn’t survive turned into one of his most memorable works of fiction.

Here’s how you can join us at the mall— (more…)

The final meal of my NYC trip—following Ukrainian with Ellen Datlow, BBQ with Craig Engler, and deli with Barry Malzberg—took place on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village at Café Reggio, which opened in 1927, and was apparently the first cafe in the U.S. to serve cappuccino. It’s also famous for its on-screen appearances, so you’d recognize the place if you’ve ever seen such films as The Godfather Part II, Shaft, and Serpico.

The venue was suggested by this episode’s guest, who happens to be a long-time resident of Greenwich Village—science fiction and fantasy writer Richard Bowes, who’s a two-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, and who has also won the International Horror Guild Award as well as the Lambda Award. That photo of him below is not from Café Reggio, however, but rather from the nearby New York Frost Factory, where we went in search of something sweet after the recording.

We discussed his early career as a designer of board games for clients like National Lampoon, why “going to conventions sober is beyond me,” the political transformation of Li’l Abner creator Al Capp, why everyone during the old folk scene days loathed Bob Dylan, what attracts him about writing mosaic novels, and more.

But before giving this episode a listen, remember—if the two-week wait between last episode and this one seemed a little too long for you, you can help me get to the point where I can increase the show’s usual frequency by making a small recurring monthly donation over at Patreon. (Or, if you’d prefer, making a one-time donation via Paypal.me.) I won’t be able to pick up the pace on my own, not with the travel, bandwidth, and meal costs associated with the show, so I’d appreciate your support as I attempt to capture all the amazing creators out there.

And now—here’s how you can dive into pugliese with Richard Bowes— (more…)

My trip to Manhattan to record episodes of Eating the Fantastic started off with Ellen Datlow and a Ukrainian lunch, followed by Craig Engler and a BBQ dinner. And now, at the request of this episode’s guest, it’s time for deli at Ben’s New York Kosher Delicatessen.

My guest loves Ben’s more than any other NYC deli, and who am I to turn down Barry N. Malzberg, who among other things, was winner of the first John W. Campbell Award for his novel Beyond Apollo, and both a Hugo and Nebula Award finalist for stories I published when I was the editor of Science Fiction Age magazine?

One unusual aspect to this episode is that it features as mere onlooker a writer deserving of his own episode someday—Paul Di Filippo, who felt compelled to come along and witness this recording. After all, the first of his more than 100 published stories was a Malzberg homage!

Barry and I discussed why being able to sell his first drafts was so important at the beginning of his writing career, how his debut short story collection came to be published under the pseudonym K. M. O’Donnell, what it was like to edit both Amazing and Fantastic magazines during the late ’60s, the identity of his greatest discovery during his years at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, what’s up with the long-promised movie version of Beyond Apollo, how Harry Harrison could have (but didn’t) shut down the filming of Soylent Green, and more.

Here’s how you can nosh with us— (more…)

When I moved out of New York more than 30 years ago, there was no such thing as authentic BBQ there. (Well, as far as I knew. Feel free to prove me wrong.) But all that’s changed, as my visits to such places as Hometown Bar-B-Que and BrisketTown show. So when this episode’s guest recommended we record at John Brown Smokehouse, which Eater has called “the most faithful rendition of Kansas City-style barbecue in NYC,” I was so in.

My guest for this 28th episode of Eating the Fantastic is my former Syfy boss of more than 13 years, Craig Engler, who’s now the Co-Creator/Writer/Co-Executive Producer of the hit zombie TV show Z Nation, which was recently renewed for a fourth season on Syfy. (And would you like to see me taking a bullet in the head for Craig? Of course you would!)

Join us as we discuss what life’s like when you’re a professional game player for Nintendo, how running the Syfy Channel’s digital side led to him getting a shot at writing TV movies such as Zombie Apocalypse, why he wrote Weight Hacking, his geek guide to losing weight and getting fit, plus much more, including behind-the-scenes secrets on the past, present, and future of his hit zombie TV show Z Nation.

Here’s how you can share the BBQ— (more…)