For the latest episode of Eating the Fantastic, I broke away from Balticon for lunch with Fran Wilde at a restaurant extremely close by, and in doing so ended up replicating for you an aspect of con-going I’d yet to bring to you before—the fact we sometimes get so busy at these events that it’s impossible to squeeze in a leisurely meal.

And so this is an Eating the Fantastic first—an episode recorded not just during lunch at Family Meal, but also later, back at the con over cookies from Vacarro’s (because there had to be food involved, of course), in a room set aside for kaffeklatches.

Fran is the Nebula Award-winning and Compton Crook Award-winning author of Updraft, plus the host of the Cooking the Books podcast, which has a writers + food focus just like mine.

We talked about what she lost the night she won her Nebula Award, her love for Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang, the power of poetry, why she tries to do one thing a month that scares her, her Cooking the Books podcast, and much more.

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

Readercon, which concluded its 27th incarnation yesterday in Quincy, Massachusetts, is consistently my favorite convention of the year. Since it’s always been special to me, I thought I’d do something special in return. And once I learned that back in 1950, Dunkin’ Donuts was born just a few miles from our hotel, and the first restaurant still stood, I knew exactly what that something would be.

I paid a visit to that original location—which is decorated with a retro flair—

—and returned to the con with a fresh dozen.

I planted myself in the lobby (as captured in the photo below by Ellen Kushner), where I offered free donuts to the first 12 random passersby willing to give brief interviews about their favorite Readercon memories.

I had no idea who might wander over, but knew that something entertaining would surely come out of this sugary experiment. And it did! I ended up with 15 guests digging into those 12 donuts—the differential being because there were three who eschewed—in a “lightning round” 13th episode I’ve decided to call the Readercon Donut Spectacular. Surprise visitors included Greer Gilman, Maria Dahvana Headley, Rajan Khanna, plus a dozen more.

Guests—some of whom had attended nearly every Readercon, and some for whom this was their first—shared their peak Readercon moments, many of which revolved around Samuel R. Delany.

Here’s how you can join us for a sugar rush— (more…)

For the fifth and final episode of Eating the Fantastic recorded in Las Vegas during StokerCon, I headed out to Hash House A Go Go, one of my favorite restaurants—at least in its San Diego incarnation. My breakfast there is always one of my favorite Comic-Con meals. But alas, there turned out to be more than a 90-minute wait that Sunday morning in Vegas, so I moved on to Yard House at the recommendation of my guest, Gene O’Neill, who’d eaten there earlier that weekend.

Gene, with whom I attended the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, has been nominated 11 times for the Bram Stoker Award, and has won twice, in the categories of Long Fiction and Fiction Collection.

We reminisced about our shared Clarion experience way back in 1979, our reaction upon seeing a stack of Jack London’s rejection slips, the personality trait he shares with Harlan Ellison, what he learned from Carol Emshwiller, what he and Kim Stanley Robinson taught each other during their eight-hour drives to Eugene, Oregon for workshops with Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm, and much more.

Here’s how you can get a seat at the table— (more…)

For my fourth episode of Eating the Fantastic recorded during StokerCon, Linda Addison joined me at Yardbird, a Southern food restaurant inside The Venetian which Eater, a site I trust, promised that once you’re done, “you’ll feel like you just ate at your favorite Southern relative’s home.” Since I have no Southern relatives, I can’t attest to the truth of that statement, only that my Chicken ‘n’ Watermelon ‘n’ Waffles was excellent.

You may know Linda primarily as a four-time Bram Stoker Award-winning poet, but she is oh so much more, as you’ll learn should you give this episode a listen.

We talked of how someone who earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics transforms into a four-time Bram Stoker Award winning writer, the way a chance encounter with Grand Master Frederik Pohl during a New York is Book Country Festival helped her make her first sale to Asimov’s, why this acclaimed horror poet has now decided to go from micro to macro and write a science fiction trilogy, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us—though sadly, you’ll have to get your own Shrimp ‘n’ Grits. (more…)

Are you up for lunch at a spot in Las Vegas once once dubbed “the best Thai restaurant in America” by Gourmet magazine? Then pull up a chair to the table at Lotus of Siam, where Mary Turzillo and I snuck away to during StokerCon for some great food—and great conversation. You can eavesdrop on the latter, but as for the former, the photos below will have to suffice.

I had the great honor of publishing Mary’s story “Mars is No Place for Children” when I was the editor of Science Fiction Age, and then the additional honor of being Toastmaster at the Nebula Awards banquet the year she walked away with a trophy for that very story.

We talked about whether there’s a Venn Diagram overlap between her horror and science fiction readership, how her Cajun Sushi Hamsters from Hell writers workshop got its name, why she won’t be self-publishing her unpublished novels, what Gene Wolfe taught her about revising her fiction, and much more.

Here’s how you can pull up a seat to the table— (more…)

During the recent StokerCon in Las Vegas, I did what I always do during conventions—slip away as often as possible to chow down and catch up with friends. One of those meals took place in old-timey ice cream parlor Serendipity 3, and was recorded (as so many convention meals will be from now on) as an episode of Eating the Fantastic.

My dinner companion this time around was Maria Alexander, whose debut novel, Mr. Wicker, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. But in addition to being a novelist, Maria’s also a poet, screenwriter, games writer, swordswoman, and so much more—and I attempted to explore all those facets in this episode.

So join us as we discuss Mr. Wicker‘s transformation from a short story to a screenplay to a Stoker Award-winning novel, how she convinced Clive Barker to be her mentor, what’s wrong with most of the swordswomen we see on book covers and TV, and much more.

Here’s how you can pull up a seat to the table— (more…)

I got together with Lynne Hansen and Jeff Strand for lunch earlier today at the Carnegie Deli inside The Mirage for the first of what I hope will be five episodes of Eating the Fantastic recorded during the inaugural StokerCon in Las Vegas.

Lynne is a horror novelist turned filmmaker whose recent short, Chomp, received 21 nominations at a variety of film festivals, winning 7 times, including the Fright Meter Awards Best Short Horror Film of 2015, and Jeff Strand is not only the author of the wonderfully titled horror novels I Have a Bad Feeling About This and The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever (and many others)—he’ll also be the emcee Saturday for the Stoker Awards banquet.

Over sandwiches which were —unexpectedly for a deli like the Carnegie—not quite as big as a baby, we chatted about how the horror supercouple came together after the 1995 World Horror Convention, why she’s moved on from novels to movies while he’s gone in exactly the opposite direction, what writers must keep in mind when creating YA horror, how she’s turning one of his novellas into a full-length movie titled Cold Dead Hands, and much more.

Here’s how you can have a seat at the table with us— (more…)

The latest episode of Eating the Fantastic was recorded 15 years before Eating the Fantastic began.

How is that possible?

Well, when it comes to Chip Delany, all things are possible.

On June 18, 2001, while Chip was in the middle of a book tour supporting the 25th anniversary republication of Dhalgren, I interviewed him at Bistro Bis in the Hotel George. The recording I made that day wasn’t created to be heard, but was merely a tool so it could be transcribed and run as text in Science Fiction Weekly, a site I edited during my 13 years at the Syfy Channel.

It had been awhile since I’d thought of that interview, but once I got the first half dozen episodes of Eating the Fantastic live—all of which you can download from iTunes—I dug deep into the vault and found the tapes of that meal. And when I asked Chip if he’d mind me sharing that audio with you, he was gracious enough to say—go for it!

We took no photos that day— of either the food or each other—so this pic of us together during the 2014 Nebula Awards weekend will have to suffice. Knock off a decade or so of age and you’ll get the idea.

And now it’s time to time travel back to 2001 for lunch with Chip as we discuss the 25th anniversary edition of his magnum opus Dhalgren, the “sheer madness” of trying to write such a book in the first place, the state of the science fiction field during the mid-‘70s, the joys he receives from teaching, and much more.

Here’s how to pull up a chair at the table— (more…)

Andy Duncan and I got together Wednesday at the Princess Cafe—where Harry and Bess Truman had lunch one Father’s Day more than 60 years ago—and recorded the sixth episode of Eating the Fantastic while seated in the same booth they’d once occupied.

Andy’s an award-winning writer many times over, having won a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, a Nebula Award, and three World Fantasy Awards. Plus he’s also been nominated for the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards. His collections include Beluthahatchie and Other Stories (which came out in 2000) and The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories (published in 2011).

We discussed the profound influence of Richard Pryor on his writing, why he loves playing with real-world historical characters and events in his stories, what it was like to collaborate with Ellen Klages on their award-winning novella “Wakulla Springs,” what, if anything, writing teachers can teach, and more.

Here’s how you can join us— (more…)

A new Eating the Fantastic is now live! Episode 5 was recorded with Carolyn Ives Gilman at Range in Friendship Heights, Maryland.

Carolyn is a Nebula, Hugo, and Tiptree-award nominated author whose first novel, Halfway Human, was called “one of the most compelling explorations of gender and power in recent SF.”

We discussed what’s kept her coming back to her Twenty Planets universe for a quarter of a century, how her first science fiction convention was “total sensory overload,” what it was like working with David Hartwell as an editor, why she’s not visible on social media, and more.

Here’s how you can listen in— (more…)