During last year’s Readercon, I recorded four episodes of Eating the Fantastic—one-on-ones with Resa Nelson, Jeffrey Ford, and F. Brett Cox, plus the extremely popular Donut Spectacular, which featured 12 donuts and 15 guests in a beautifully anarchic lightning-round episode. This year, however, I’d only planned to record two—which was a good thing, because hardware malfunctions ended my attempt to record with John Kessel just as we began, sending me scrambling around Massachusetts in search of replacement equipment.

I was able to locate a new H4n Zoom digital recorder in time for dinner with this episode’s guest, James Patrick Kelly, and my Friday breakfast with John was rescheduled to come off as a Saturday dinner instead, so all’s well that ends well, but still … I could have done without that kind of heart-stopping terror.

When I’d asked Jim which kind of cuisine he’d prefer for our chat—because as you may have noticed, I do try to keep my guests happy, the better to loosen their tongues for you—he admitted to a weakness for Fettuccine Carbonara. That led us to Quincy’s Gennaro’s Eatery, which didn’t have Fettuccine Carbonara on the menu, but as the place served both Tortellini Carbonara and Fettuccine Alfredo, that seemed close enough.

James Patrick Kelly is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning writer who recently published a career short story retrospective as part of the Centipede Press Masters of Science Fiction series. And had I not been turned down by the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in 1974, I might have shared a dorm room with him! (But don’t worry. I was accepted in 1979.)

We discussed the reason he needed to attend the Clarion Science Fiction Workshop twice—and why the rules were then changed so no one could do it again, the suggestion Kate Wilhelm made that saved one of his short stories, why his reaction to comics as a kid was “Marvel, yes, DC, feh,” how the science fiction field survived the Cyberpunk/Humanist wars of the ‘80s, why he takes an expansive view of fanfic, how Cory Doctorow inspired him to enter the world of podcasting early, what allows him and frequent collaborator John Kessel to work together so well, his advice for how writing 10 endings to a story in progress will help writers find the right ending, and more.

Here’s how you can join us for the feast— (more…)

During Readercon, you got to share Thai food with Resa Nelson, eat a full Irish breakfast with Jeffrey Ford, and down donuts with a parade of 15 writers, editors, and fans. Now it’s time to say farewell to Readercon with a visit to The Lobster Stop in Quincy, Massachusetts for (what else?) lobster rolls … and F. Brett Cox.

Brett co-edited (with former Eating the Fantastic guest Andy Duncan) Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (which featured a story about Randy Newman by yours truly!), and has had fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews appear in Eclipse Online, War Stories, Century, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Postscripts, and many other venues. He’s also hard at work on a book-length study of Roger Zelazny for the University of Illinois Press.

Over lobster rolls, we talked of the debate we witnessed between Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison in 1974 at our joint first Worldcon, how the Connie Willis story “A Letter from the Clearys” made the scales fall from his eyes, why George Saunders is his “favorite contemporary American short story writer,” and more.

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

I hate eating in hotel restaurants, but never more so than when I’m trying to record an episode of Eating the Fantastic.

Not only does the food there tend to rise only to the level of the merely edible (if you’re lucky), but breakfast during a convention means many interruptions as the usual tablehopping occurs, with people popping by to say hi. Plus you get no sense of place, as one hotel restaurant is pretty much like another, especially when it comes to breakfast.

So when it came time to seek out a good setting in Quincy, Massachusetts to chat during Readercon with six-time World Fantasy Award-winning and three-time Shirley Jackson Award-winning writer Jeffrey Ford, whose new short story collection A Natural History of Hell was recently published by Small Beer Press, I looked for something off-site and more authentic.

And found it in McKay’s Breakfast and Lunch. When I read a review about “a popular townie joint” that served food which was “simple and straightforward (no creme brulee French toast or maple ganache cinnamon bread here),” I knew I’d discovered a spot with some character. So that’s where I took Jeff.

We talked about how being edited by Jennifer Brehl made him a better writer, what it was like to be taught by the legendary John Gardner, why he admitted “I don’t really know dick about science fiction or fantasy,” and much more.

Here’s how you can join us— (more…)

I arrived home late last night from the Kansas City Worldcon, where I visited seven BBQ joints and recorded five more episodes of Eating the Fantastic. But before we get to any of those, it’s time for the first of three episodes captured during last month’s Readercon.

My guest and I wandered off from the con hotel to Quincy’s Pad Thai, from which Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, seems to have ordered takeout a lot.

Joining me was Resa Nelson, whose story “The Dragonslayer’s Sword” I published in the first issue of Science Fiction Age. My decision to purchase the story was validated when at the end of our first year, I tabulated thousands of subscriber surveys and discovered readers had voted that tale their second-favorite story—and their #1 fantasy.

We discussed how the short story of hers I’d published in Science Fiction Age grew into not just a single novel, but a series of novels, why she watches the Japanese movie The Mystery of Rampo before beginning any new writing project, what she learned from the hundreds of film interviews she did for Realms of Fantasy magazine, and more.

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

If you plan on being at Readercon 27 this weekend and hope to bump into me, there’s one more thing you need to know beyond what I’ve already told you—an item has been added to my schedule.

So if you’d like to get up close and personal, check out my Kaffeeklatsch timing below.

Thursday, July 7, 8:30 PM
Reading
I will read “The Man Without the Blue Balloon and the Woman Who Had Smiles Only for Him” … unless I see the audience filled with people who already heard me read an excerpt during Balticon.

Friday, July 8, 2:00 p.m.
Challenging the Coercive Muse
All writers have seen, and many have said, variations on the theme of “I write because I can’t not write.” Something mercilessly drives us to put words on the page even when we find the act of writing difficult, unpleasant, or onerous. If the muse were a real person who existed outside of the writer’s mind, we would call this behavior coercion and find it deeply troubling (as Stephen King so aptly depicted in Misery). In this open discussion, we will challenge the idea that our muses must necessarily be bullies, and explore other ways of experiencing and responding to creative urges and getting through the hardest parts of writing while valuing and prioritizing our own consent and happiness.
with Maria Dahvana Headley (leader), Marissa Lingen, Kate Maruyama, Gregory Wilson

Friday, July 8, 5:00 p.m.
Non-Explanation in Fiction
“Never complain, never explain,” said the Lady Mendl, and “Fuck the exposition,” said David Simon, “just be,” but as Junot Díaz said, “Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they think we’re taking over.” What are the pleasures of writing for an audience that already gets it—and the dangers of assuming they’ll understand? What can you get from reading works that don’t cater specifically to you? And how can refusing to spell it out bring depth to the fantastic?
with John Chu, Kameron Hurley, Kenneth Schneyer (leader), Ann Tonsor Zeddies

Saturday, July 9, 12:00 p.m.
Kaffeeklatsch
with Keffy Kehrli

I hope to see you there!

Readercon 27, which will run from July 7-10 at the Quincy Marriott in Quincy, Massachusetts, has just sent around a tentative program to the participants. While the dates and times of the following items in which I’ll participate might shift, with the con kicking off in only nine days, I thought it best to share the info now.

If anything changes, you can be sure I’ll let you know!

Thursday, July 7, 8:30 PM
Reading
I will read “The Man Without the Blue Balloon and the Woman Who Had Smiles Only for Him” … unless I see the audience filled with people who already heard me read an excerpt during Balticon.

Friday, July 8, 2:00 p.m.
Challenging the Coercive Muse
All writers have seen, and many have said, variations on the theme of “I write because I can’t not write.” Something mercilessly drives us to put words on the page even when we find the act of writing difficult, unpleasant, or onerous. If the muse were a real person who existed outside of the writer’s mind, we would call this behavior coercion and find it deeply troubling (as Stephen King so aptly depicted in Misery). In this open discussion, we will challenge the idea that our muses must necessarily be bullies, and explore other ways of experiencing and responding to creative urges and getting through the hardest parts of writing while valuing and prioritizing our own consent and happiness.
with Maria Dahvana Headley (leader), Marissa Lingen, Kate Maruyama, Gregory Wilson

Friday, July 8, 5:00 p.m.
Non-Explanation in Fiction
“Never complain, never explain,” said the Lady Mendl, and “Fuck the exposition,” said David Simon, “just be,” but as Junot Díaz said, “Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they think we’re taking over.” What are the pleasures of writing for an audience that already gets it—and the dangers of assuming they’ll understand? What can you get from reading works that don’t cater specifically to you? And how can refusing to spell it out bring depth to the fantastic?
with John Chu, Kameron Hurley, Kenneth Schneyer (leader), Ann Tonsor Zeddies

I hope to see you there—after I survive Escape Velocity, of course!

Whenever I attend a convention panel or reading these days, I tend to use my Flip mini camcorder to capture the event, because I hate for the wisdom of our field to effervesce. And whatever video I record—assuming I obtain consent from the parties involved—I then toss up on my YouTube channel.

Which is what I did for Readercon, from which I returned late Sunday night. Some videos I was able to get live during the con itself, honoring Edelman’s First Rule of Convention Reporting, while others had to wait until I got back home, because I was having too much fun with the likes of David Kyle (below) to spend much time online. (Except for Twitter, that is, which is too addictive to stay away from even in the midst of the Readercon whirlwind.)

Now that I’ve uploaded all 10 panels and 3 readings totaling 526 minutes and 27 seconds, though, I’ve gathered them together here so you can experience what I experienced there … minus the time I spent schmoozing in the bar, lobby, and con suite.

So here, in chronological order, is as much of Readercon as I was able to capture last weekend. (more…)

I learned an interesting data point about the new paperback edition of my short story collection These Words Are Haunted from Fantastic Books publisher Ian Randal Strock, who was selling copies of same at Readercon as well as my science fiction collection What We Still Talk About.

According to Ian, people walking by his table would be attracted to the cover of These Words Are Haunted and pause to pick it up—those monstrous green letters really pop, don’t they?—only to then put it down again and instead buy a copy of What We Still Talk About. By the time the con was over, he’d sold only a single copy of the former, but he’d sold out of the latter!

This does not totally disappoint me. The cover did its job, getting copies of the book into the hands of potential readers. That this time around, those potential readers were more interested in science fiction than horror doesn’t mean it wasn’t a success. A sale is a sale. At a different sort of convention, those figures will likely be reversed.

Coincidentally, while I was at Readercon, I received a photo from the artist who’d provided the zombie font which appeared on the cover of the book as part of Chris Kalb’s final design—Memo Angeles.

Memo lives in Veracruz, Mexico, and I worried that the copy I’d sent him might not survive the vagaries of international mail, but as you can see, it did. Noting Memo’s expression as he holds the book, however, I’m not entire sure he did!

My favorite photo from Readercon (my favorite of all conventions) was taken during my final moments of the con, almost immediately before I began my trip home. I’d paused on the way out to visit a lobby bathroom (as one does before a long drive) opposite the hotel restaurant. After I’d taken care of business, I noticed that on the other side of the glass wall separating the hallway from the restaurant was a large circular table of other attendees which included K. Tempest Bradford, who sat with her back toward me.

I tapped on the glass while pointing at Tempest until someone else at the table gestured that she should turn around. Once I’d caught her eye, I placed my hand against the glass, hoping she would raise her hand to mine.

And she did!

So as soon as our fingers were separated by only a pane of glass, I slowly intoned, with a voice I tried to make sound hoarse and weary …

“I have been … ”

And the table roared, for all recognized (1982 spoiler alert!) Spock’s dying words to Kirk from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (more…)