My guest for the 250th episode of Eating the Fantastic is playwright, poet, and fiction writer Tim Paggi, whom I met at December’s Charm City Spec event where he read an excerpt from his recently published novella How to Kill Friends and Eviscerate People. His poetry chapbook “Workforced” won the 2015 Plork “Play/Work” Award for Creative Writing and Publication Arts. His next book, The Other Side of the Hallway, will be released later this year. He holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore. Additionally, for the past 15 years, he’s been giving ghost tours around the neighborhoods of Fells Point and Mt. Vernon.

We discussed the story behind his X-Files-inspired juvenilia, the reason he demanded a refund from Barnes & Noble for a volume of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, why a writing teacher (wrongfully) accused him of plagiarism, how the beginning of the pandemic was also the beginning of his fiction writing career, whether his recent Cthulhu references were intentional or unavoidable, why the Severance TV show has him feeling anxious (it’s probably not the reason you think), the C-word he avoids using in his fiction, whether facing down audiences on stage helped him deal with rejections on the page, the many reasons he loves cosmic horror, the drunkest group he ever led through Baltimore on a ghost tour, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at The Mint Room in Ellicott, Maryland — (more…)