This episode of Eating the Fantastic came about due to a serendipitous convergence of guest and venue. I drive through Berkeley Springs, West Virginia quite a bit, and one day discovered a restaurant there called Mythical Pizza. When I checked the menu, I found everything they served was cryptid-based, with pizzas and decor inspired by Bigfoot, Mothman, and other monsters. So I of course had to check the place out.

But I didn’t want to do it solo, and with a theme like that, it seemed the perfect place to record an episode of a podcast devoted to the fantastic. Luckily, writer/editor Lesley Conner, with whom I’ve been trying to arrange a chance to chat and chew, was just as enthusiastic about the concept as I was.

Longtime listeners will have heard Lesley’s voice way back in 2017 on Episode 53 when she took part in a Horror 101 roundtable. Back then, she shared the microphone with five other creators, but a lot has changed for her over the past seven years, and now that she’s the Chief Editor at Apex magazine, I thought she deserved a spotlight of her own.

You’ll understand why Lesley was the right dining companion for such a place just from the titles of the anthologies in which her fiction has appeared — all horror-focussed such as Mountain Dead, Dark Tales of Terror, Big Book of New Short Horror, Ruthless, and A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre. Her horror novel The Weight of Chains was released in 2015. In addition to being the Chief Editor over at Apex magazine, she’s also co-editor of the anthologies Do Not Go Quietly and Robotic Ambitions, as well as of the upcoming The Map of Lost Places.

We discussed why horror is where she feels the most comfortable as a writer, how her role at Apex magazine grew from Social Media Manager to Chief Editor, her “Price is Right” method of filling out an issue’s word count, why she hardly ever reads cover letters, the trends she’s seen in the slush pile and what they mean, the key difference between editing magazines vs. anthologies, her longtime obsession with serial killers, how to go on writing after one’s writing mentor passes away, and much more.

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This completely unpredicted, absolutely unanticipated, and totally unexpected new episode—with horror writers Brian Keene, Lesley Conner, Mary SanGiovanni, Damien Angelica Walters, J.P. Sloan, and Eric Hendrixson—is one I had no idea I was going to record until I was about to record it.

Last week, former guest Brian Keene—who can be heard in Episode 34’s career-spanning conversation—tweeted about an appearance he’d be making at Frederick Community College for a panel discussion on publishing and horror. Since Frederick’s only an hour away, I figured I’d drop by. And at the last minute, as I was about to take off early this past Monday afternoon, I thought—hey, why don’t I record the event?

I wasn’t planning to repurpose it here, but I’d thought Brian would perhaps want to use it for his own podcast, The Horror Show with Brian Keene, the podcast on which I’d appeared back in June 2015 which inspired me to create this podcast. So I grabbed my recording equipment before hopping into my Jeep and heading East.

What happened instead was that after all those horror writers were done entertaining a room filled with creative writing students, and I offered the audio file to Brian, he said—you know what, Scott? Since you did the work of recording the panel, you use it. Which I normally wouldn’t and couldn’t do, because my podcast is, after all, Eating the Fantastic, and not Sitting in the Front Row of a Conference Room Listening to Others Talk About the Fantastic.

But luckily, since the group had planned to grab a bite to eat after their  panel before they hit the road, we did get to chat while breaking bread together. I was able to sit with them at a large round table in the Frederick Community College cafeteria, and as we inhaled salads and stromboli, I pushed them to share some of the brutal truths of horror publishing, the ones they didn’t reveal on the panel for fear of crushing the hopes and dreams of young, innocent, beginning writers. Which I hope you’ll feel is a good enough excuse to justify sharing the panel itself as part of the episode before that meal.

So prepare to join Brian Keene (author of more than 40 novels, and winner of the 2014 World Horror Grand Master Award.), Lesley Conner (managing editor of Apex publications and author of the novel The Weight of Chains), Mary SanGiovanni (author of the The Hollower trilogy, whose most recent novels are Chills and Savage Woods), Damien Angelica Walters (Stoker-nominated writer of the short story collection Sing Me Your Scars and the novel Paper Tigers), J.P. Sloan (author of The Dark Choir urban fantasy series), and Eric Hendrixson (bizarro author of Drunk Driving Champion and Bucket of Face) for an fascinating afternoon as they share what they know about the business of writing and publishing horror.

And what did they discuss in what’s became Episode 53 of Eating the Fantastic?

Lesley Conner explained what most writers don’t realize about first serial rights, and why if you can’t take rejection, you should stop now. Mary SanGiovanni compared your social media presence to singing in your underwear, and revealed the dreadful warning Charles L. Grant shared with her about the writing life. J. P. Sloan recommended the small press, while at the same time recommending you watch out, and also advised to be careful about the illusion of access. Brian Keene passed on the the best writing advice he ever got—from Keith Giffin—and told of the time he was willing to walk away from life-changing money. Damien Angelica Walters shared the ways it never gets easier, and why you need to overcome your fear of saying no. And finally, Eric Hendrixson pointed out why contracts are like a superpower, and sketched the hierarchy of what kind of writing is valuable.

Here’s how you can get the details directly from them— (more…)