I’ve known writer/editor/artist Larry Hama for at least half a century now, but his career started long before that, when he sold his first cartoon to Castle of Frankenstein magazine in 1966. He’s probably best known as a writer and editor for Marvel Comics, where he wrote the licensed comic book series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, based on the Hasbro toy line, writing nearly every issue of the book’s 13-year run.

He’s also written for the series Wolverine, Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja, and Elektra. He worked as an editor at both DC and Marvel, and at the latter edited the humor magazine Crazy, as well as Conan, The ‘Nam, and Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham. He co-created the character Bucky O’Hare, who not only appeared in comic books, but as a television cartoon. Last year, he was inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.

We discussed how cataract surgery changes the way an artist perceives the page, what really happened at a mid-’70s penthouse comic book party, Bernie Krigstein’s anger at being asked questions about comics, why Wally Wood felt it was so important for his assistants to learn how to letter, what it was like being part of the famed Crusty Bunkers inking collective, why getting to edit Crazy was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream,  which Marvel Comics Bullpenner was the visual inspiration for Obnoxio the Clown, why getting his freelancers to hit their deadlines was never a hassle, the editing advice Archie Goodwin gave him early on, the real reason he needed to create that famous silent issue of G. I. Joe, the differing zeitgeists of Marvel vs. DC during the ’70s, his approach to taking over the editing of legacy characters, our joint confusion over memes of previous generations, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at New York’s Anjappar — (more…)

I plucked Eric Choi‘s short story “From a Stone” out of the slush pile to publish in the September 1996 issue of Science Fiction Age, and our paths have unfortunately rarely crossed since. When he popped by my kaffeklatch during the Glasgow Worldcon last year, that was probably the first time we’d had the chance to chat face to face in decades. So when I heard he planned to also attend Capclave in Rockville, MD, where I’m a regular, I took that as a sign.

Choi was the first recipient of the Asimov Award (now the Dell Award) for his novelette “Dedication.” He also won the Aurora Award for his short story “Crimson Sky,” and a 2023 Sidewise Award for Best Short Form Alternate History for his novelette “A Sky and a Heaven”. His short story collection Just Like Being There was published in by Springer Nature in 2022. He edited the anthologies The Dragon and the Stars with Derwin Mak in 2010 (winning a 2011 Aurora Award in the category of Best Related Work) and Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction with Ben Bova in 2014.

He’s also an alumnus of the International Space University.  Over the course of his aerospace engineering career, he’s worked on a number of space projects including QEYSSat (Quantum Encryption and Science Satellite), the Meteorological (MET) payload on the Phoenix Mars Lander, the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station, the RADARSAT‑1 Earth-observation satellite, and the MOPITT (Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere) payload on the Terra satellite. In 2009, he was one of the Top 40 finalists (out of 5,351 applicants) in the Canadian Space Agency’s astronaut recruitment campaign.

We discussed what William Shatner’s Captain Kirk might sound like dubbed into Cantonese, the wonders of fan-run science fiction conventions, how the Asimov competition gave him the courage to make his first submission, what it was like co-editing an anthology with the great Ben Bova, the accident that gave birth to his first short story collection, why his claim never to have experienced writer’s block comes with a footnote, his moving memories of the Columbia accident as experienced at the Kennedy Space Center, the Richard Feynman quote he shared throughout the pandemic, why the first Harry Turtledove story he read wasn’t written by Harry Turtledove, his unfortunate introduction to The Lord of the Rings, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Rockville’s Lebanese Taverna — (more…)

It’s time to return to the Baltimore Comic-Con for your chance to chat and chew with a second comics creator following last episode’s steak dinner with Tom Brevoort. Get ready to hit one of Baltimore’s best delis with Martha Thomases.

Martha Thomases is a freelance journalist who has been published in the Village Voice, the New York Daily News, High Times, Spy, the National Lampoon, and more. She’s a VP of Corporate Communications at  ComicMix.com as well as a weekly contributor there. From 1990-1999 she was Publicity Manager at DC Comics. She also worked as a researcher and assistant for author Norman Mailer on several of his books, including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Executioner’s Song, On Women and Their Elegance, and Harlot’s Ghost. She created Dakota North with Tony Salmons for Marvel.  Next year, A Wave Blue World will publish Second-Hand Rose, her graphic novel with Richard Case.

We discussed her theory that your popularity in high school determines whether you’ll move to New York, why she was into DC rather than Marvel at the start of her comics fandom, Denny O’Neil’s explanation of the true difference between Metropolis and Gotham City, the realization she had at 35 as to the true reason her parents allowed her to read comics, the weirdness of Little Lotta and Baby Huey, why she was more nervous meeting Denny O’Neil than she was meeting Norman Mailer, how Dakota North was born, our mutual love for the She-Hulk TV series, selling comics to comics fans vs. selling them to potential readers who don’t yet know they’d like comics, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Attman’s Delicatessen — (more…)

Now that the Glasgow Worldcon is in the rearview mirror, it’s time to head off to this year’s Baltimore Comic-Con.

First up — dinner with Tom Brevoort, who holds the record for being the longest-running editor ever at Marvel Comics, having been hired there in 1989 right out of college. Over the decades, he’s overseen titles such as New Avengers, Civil War, and Fantastic Four. He became Executive Editor in 2007, and in January 2011, was promoted to also serve as Senior Vice President of Publishing. He’s an Eisner Award-winner for Best Editor, and is currently the Group Editor of The X-Men.

We discussed how a guy whose first love was DC Comics ended up at Marvel, why he hated his early exposure to Marvel so much he’d tell his parents not to buy them because “they’re bad,” the pluses and minuses of comic book subscriptions (and the horror when issues arrived folded), how Cerebus the Aardvark inspired him to believe he could build a career in indie comics, the most unbelievable thing he ever read in a Flash comic, how he might never have worked at Marvel had I not gone to school with Bob Budiansky, the prevailing Marvel ethos he disagreed with from the moment he was hired, what it takes to last 35 years at the same company without either walking off in disgust or getting fired, the differing ways Marvel and DC reused their Golden Age characters, how to prevent yourself from being pedantic when you own an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of comics, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for dinner at Rec Pier Chop House — (more…)

The final Eating the Fantastic guest you get to join at the table during the Glasgow Worldcon — following Jenny Rowe, Wole Talabi, Paul Cornell, and Gareth L. Powell — is R. S. A. Garcia.

Garcia won both the Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for her short story “Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200,” published in Uncanny , and was a Nebula finalist the previous year as well for her novella  “Bishop’s Opening,” which appeared in Clarkesworld. She is also the winner of the MIFRE Media Award, and a Sturgeon, Locus, Ignyte and Eugie Foster Award finalist. Her short fiction has appeared in venues such as Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, and Internazionale Magazine, as well as a number of anthologies, including the The Best of World SF, The Best Science Fiction of the Year, and The Apex Book of World SF. 

Her Amazon bestselling science fiction mystery, Lex Talionis, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and the Silver Medal for Best Scifi/Fantasy/Horror Ebook from the Independent Publishers Awards. Her sci-fantasy duology, beginning with The Nightward, was published by Harper Voyager US in October, plus The Unbearable Taste of Fruit and Wine will be out next Valentine’s Day from Android Press.

We discussed how the idea for her Nebula-winning short story caused her to leap up and walk out of a writing workshop, how editor Ellen Datlow’s advice changed her life, why writing is a verb, not an adjective, the way she decides whether or not to rise to the occasion of a themed anthology invite, her convoluted journey in finding an agent to negotiate her first novel sale even though there was already an offer on the table, why there are some rejections you should be grateful for, how Sigourney Weaver’s role in Alien inspired the sorts of stories she wanted to tell, the Easter eggs in her fiction only a Trinidadian would get, how and why she’s a complete pantser, the importance of community as well as the danger of it disappearing, her hope that readers get even more from her fiction upon rereading,  and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Two Fat Ladies at The Buttery — (more…)

The fourth Eating the Fantastic conversation you get to eavesdrop on from the Glasgow Worldcon — following my chats with Jenny Rowe, Wole Talabi, and Paul Cornell — is with Gareth L. Powell.

Powell  has twice won the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel — in 2014 for Ack-Ack Macaque and in 2019 for Embers of War — and has become one of the most shortlisted authors in the award’s 50-year history. He’s also been a finalist for the Locus Award (twice), the British Fantasy Award, the Seiun Award, the Premios Ignotus, and the Canopus Award. His short fiction has appeared in the magazines Clarkesworld, Interzone, Galaxy, Worlds of IF, and others, and has been featured in numerous anthologies, including Shine: The Anthology of Optimistic Science Fiction, Solaris Rising 3: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection.

As a freelancer writer, he has written a strip for long-running British comic 2000 AD, articles for The Guardian, Irish Times, Acoustic Magazine, and SFX Magazine, and currently writes a monthly column about future tech for The Engineer. He’s the Managing Editor of Stars and Sabers Publishing, the publishing imprint he founded with his spouse, the American author Jendia Gammon.


We discussed the way a Diana Wynne Jones critique of his teenaged writing was a complete revelation in how to write fiction, how an adversarial relationship with a university professor who didn’t want him writing science fiction actually ended up helping him, the New Year’s resolution which led to him to both kick smoking and write a novel, how reading William Gibson’s short story collection Burning Chrome shook him up and made him realize what kind of short stories he really wanted to write, the message he most wants to convey to beginning writers in his workshops, the importance of stepping outside your comfort zone, how to make a good impression when approaching an editor in a convention bar, the way he developed his propulsive writing style, why he’s so receptive to editorial suggestions, what it was like collaborating with Peter F. Hamilton and Aliette de Bodard, his techniques for deciding which of many story ideas you should write, the reason his mother refuses to read his books, why writing novels can be like telling a joke and waiting two years for somebody to laugh, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Shish Mahal — (more…)

It’s time for the third of five culinary conversations I brought back from the Glasgow Worldcon, following my chats with Jenny Rowe, creator of the one-woman show Tiptree: No One Else’s Damn Secret But My Own, based on the life of the remarkable James Tiptree Jr./Alice Sheldon, and Wole Talabi, author of the seemingly universally acclaimed Nommo Award-winning novel Shigidi And The Brass Head Of Obalufon.

This third episode I brought back features Paul Cornell, with whom I’ve been trying to break bread ever since the 2019 Dublin Worldcon. Paul started out writing Doctor Who fan fiction, which led to him writing canonical Doctor Who novels (where he created the companion Bernice Summerfield), audio plays, and comics. Plus he recently won the Terrance Dicks Award for lifetime achievement in Doctor Who writing from the Doctor Who Appreciation Society.

But aside from his achievements in the Doctor Who universe, he’s created so many other awesome experiences for us. He’s written episodes of Elementary, Primeval, Robin Hood, and many other TV series, including his own children’s show, Wavelength.  He’s worked for every major comics company, including his creator-owned series I Walk With Monsters for The Vault, The Modern Frankenstein for Magma, Saucer Country for Vertigo, and This Damned Band for Dark Horse, plus runs on Young Avengers and Wolverine for Marvel, and Batman and Robin for DC,  

He’s the writer of the Lychford rural fantasy novellas from Tor.com Publishing. His short fiction has been published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Interzone, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, and at Tor.com, plus he also written for George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards short story anthologies. He’s won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, a Hugo Award for his SF Squeecast podcast, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his Doctor Who work.  He’s the co-host of Hammer House of Podcast.  

We discussed where he stands on the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby debate, how his UK mind was blown the first time he saw a U.S. issue of The Avengers, why fannish history fascinates him, the reason he went the self-funding route for Who Killed Nessie (and what that did to his blood pressure), how some of his Doctor Who fan fiction eventually became canon, the reason he’s suspicious of nostalgia, how he knows when ideas pop into his head which of his many projects they’re right for, the legacy comics characters he’d love to write more of, what he learned from the great Terrance Dicks, how he manages to collaborate while remaining friends with his co-creators, his fascination with Charles Fort, why he announced there’d be no more Doctor Who in his future, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at the 106-year-old University Cafe — (more…)

The year’s Glasgow Worldcon marked the 50th anniversary of my first Worldcon, and I had as much fun this time around as I did then. One big difference — five decades later I have a podcast, which means you get to share in some of that fun, too — such as joining me for breakfast with writer, editor, and engineer Wole Talabi.

Wole Talabi is the author of the critically acclaimed Nommo Award-winning novel Shigidi And The Brass Head Of Obalufon — which was also a finalist for the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award, and the Ignyte Award — plus was named one of the best books of 2023 by The Washington Post.

He’s actually a three-time winner of the Nommo Award – because he also won in 2018 (for “The Regression Test”) and 2020 (for “Incompleteness Theories”). He’s been a finalist for the Hugo Award for his novelette “A Dream of Electric Mothers,” a story which also won him the Sidewise award for alternate history. His fiction has appeared in such magazines as Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, and Clarkesworld, and anthologies such as The Big Book of Cyberpunk, Africa Risen, and Nowhereville: Weird Is Other People. Many of those stories may be found in his collections Incomplete Solutions (2019, Luna Press) and Convergence Problems (2024, DAW Books).

We discussed his love of combining contradictory ideas, why failing is an important step toward success, how optimism can be a choice (and why making that choice could also make the world a better place), how to convince others who might fear hurting your feelings you truly want their honest criticism, whether AI could ever actually be intelligent or create art, what he means when he says he often writes “two or three people in a room science fiction,” how a friend’s gift of a story seed led to the longest piece in his new collection, the things he learned from writing his first novel which are helping him write his second, the secret to writing successful flash fiction, the accidental catalyst which launched his editing career, the stubbornness that keeps him going both on the page and in the ring, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for breakfast at Cafe Gandolfi, one of the city’s oldest family-owned restaurants — (more…)

It’s time to say farewell to Readercon with one final meal there following last episode’s lunch with Jeffrey Ford — so get ready to take a seat at the table with the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning writer John Chu.

John’s a microprocessor architect by day, and a writer, translator, and podcast narrator by night. His fiction has appeared in magazines such as Lightspeed, Uncanny, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Apex, and at Tor.com, plus in anthologies such as The Mythic Dream, Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, New Suns 2: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, and others. His translations have been published or are forthcoming at Clarkesworld, The Big Book of SF, and other venues.

He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Ignyte Awards, won the Best Short Story Hugo for “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere,” plus the Nebula, Ignyte, and Locus Awards for “If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You.” In the days before our lunch, he surprised us all with the announcement he’d sold his first novel — and you’ll hear my own surprise during our conversation.

We discussed the way he gamified the submission process when he started out, how the pandemic made him feel as if he was in his own little spaceship, when he learned he couldn’t write novels and short stories at the same time, how food has become a lens through which he could explore a variety of issues in his fiction, the rejection letter he rereads whenever he wants to cheer himself up, how writing stories at their correct lengths was one of the most difficult lessons he had to learn as a writer, what it was about his 2015 short story “Hold-Time Violations” that had him feeling it was worthy of exploring as a novel, how he was changed by winning a Hugo Award with his third published story, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Pho Pasteur Vietnamese restaurant — (more…)

I last chatted with Jeffrey Ford — last for your ears, that is — eight years ago during the 2016 Readercon — in a conversation which appeared on Episode 17. Back then, I described him as a six-time World Fantasy Award-winning and three-time Shirley Jackson Award-winning writer whose new short story collection A Natural History of Hell had just been published. But now that it’s 2024 and we’re back for yet another Readercon, he’s a seven-time World Fantasy Award-winning writer and a four-time Shirley Jackson Award winner.

Since that previous meal, he’s also published the novel Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage in 2018, A Primer to Jeffrey Ford in 2019, The Best of Jeffrey Ford in 2020, and Big Dark Hole in 2021, plus three dozen stories or so new stories.

We discussed why writing has gotten more daunting (but more fun) as he’s gotten older, the difficulties of teaching writing remotely during a pandemic, how he often doesn’t realize what he was really writing about in a story until years after it was written, the realization that made him write a sequel to Moby-Dick, why if you have confidence and courage you can do anything, the music he suggests you listen to while writing, the reason he thinks world building is a “stupid term,” the advice given to him by his mentor John Gardner, how the writing of Isaac Bashevis Singer taught him not to blink, why he prefers giving readings to doing panels, the writer who advised him if everybody liked his stories it meant he was doing something wrong, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Gennaro’s Eatery — (more…)