If you believe the meatspace calendar, this year’s Worldcon is already in the rear view mirror, but as far as this podcast is concerned, the party isn’t over yet. That’s because it’s now time for you to take a seat at the table and eavesdrop on my third meal from Seattle, following Eugenia Triantafyllou and John Picacio.

My latest guest, Lara Elena Donnelly, is the author of the Nebula, Lambda, and Locus-nominated Amberlough Dossier trilogy, which consists of the three books Amberlough, Armistice, and Amnesty. Her most recent novel is the contemporary thriller Base Notes. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in venues such as Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Nightmare, and Uncanny.

Lara has taught in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College, as well as the Catapult Workshop in New York. She’s a graduate of the Clarion and Alpha writers’ workshops, and has served as on-site staff at the latter. She’s also one of four co-founders at Homeward Books, which currently has a Kickstarter running to fund the company’s first title, The Witch of Prague, by J.M. Sidorova — and if you’re visiting here within the first week or so of this episode going live, there’s still time to back the project, so please check it out.

We discussed the hot tub conversation which led to the sale of her first novel, why the contradictions of her Clarion experience were liberating, the reason her relationship to the writing process means she’s primarily a novelist rather than a short story writer, her complicated emotions about the conclusion to her debut novel, why she got sick of the word “prescient,” the gnarly origins of the perfumes we love (and the reasons she needed to learn about them), why she decided to start a service advising how to write better sex scenes, the novel she wrote without gendering a character (and the fun in following which readers assume which genders), how she and Sam J. Miller were able to collaborate without killing each other, and much more.

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

Just as I foretold, I spent Friday and Saturday participating in the Baltimore Book Festival. And I even have proof. See?

My name on the program board at the Science Fiction Writers of America tent!

I took part in four programming items—here I am (in a photo taken by Sam J. Miller) with Lara Elena Donnelly as I pontificate on Friday’s “The Future of Science Fiction & Fantasy” panel.

I had a great deal of fun hanging out with friends and interacting with readers, so much so I regret I didn’t stay on for today’s third day of the festival. And as usual, a lot of the fun took place outside the confines of the official event itself. (more…)