And so we bid farewell to StokerCon — now that you’ve enjoyed the ear candy of the lightning-round StokerCon Donut Spooktacular plus John R. Little’s awesome burger — with Kathe Koja, one of this year’s StokerCon Guests of Honor.

Kathe’s debut novel The Cipher, for which she won a Bram Stoker Award, had a tremendous impact on the horror field — as much of an impact on horror, in fact, as William Gibson’s first novel Neuromancer did on science fiction — a tremendously rare thing for a debut. She’s also written historical fiction, such as her Under the Poppy trilogy, as well as a number of young adult novels, starting with Straydog in 2002, and most recently Headlong. Her short stories have been published in Asimov’s, Weird Tales, Realms of Fantasy, F&SF, and many other magazines, plus anthologies such as Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells and Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction. She is the founder of nerve, a Detroit-based immersive theatre company.

We snuck away during StokerCon to San Chez Bistro. Not only is this tapas restaurant well-reviewed and highly rated, but they’re also amazingly sensitive to the needs of their guests, so much so they have multiple full specialized menus — not just a Vegan menu, but ones for soy allergies, tree nut allergies, citrus allergies, shellfish allergies and more. It’s one of the most accommodating restaurants I’ve ever visited when it comes to food preferences. My one regret from my trip to Grand Rapids is that time didn’t permit me to experience the full dinner menu.

We discussed her love of immersive theater (and dissected her previous night’s performance at StokerCon), why her groundbreaking debut novel The Cipher will always be The Funhole in her heart, what caused her to move into the YA world after her dark adult novels and why it’s harder to write for a younger audience, how she accidentally wrote her Under the Poppy trilogy, the allure of writing historical novels, how being in the presence of Kate Wilhelm at Clarion changed her life, what she got out of her many collaborations with Barry Malzberg and others, plus much, much more.

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

As I indicated yesterday, I won’t fully enjoy the World Fantasy Convention here in Columbus unless I know you’re watching from afar and are kicking yourself for not being here. To make sure you’re doing just that, here are two additional readings I attended Friday.

First up, K. Tempest Bradford, who is accompanied in the reading of her short story by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Next, Kathe Koja, reading from her new novel Under the Poppy. (more…)