{"id":25584,"date":"2018-12-28T09:34:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T14:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=25584"},"modified":"2018-12-28T09:34:14","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T14:34:14","slug":"have-hot-antipasto-with-andy-duncan-in-episode-85-of-eating-the-fantastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2018\/12\/28\/have-hot-antipasto-with-andy-duncan-in-episode-85-of-eating-the-fantastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Have hot antipasto with Andy Duncan in Episode 85 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final new Eating the Fantastic episode of 2018 is not only a last, it\u2019s also a first. That’s because up until now, I\u2019ve never invited a guest back to join me for a second meal, never repeated a guest — though K. M. Szpara — with whom I shared lunch in Episode 35<\/a> — did pop by for a few minutes as one of my 13 guests during Episode 39\u2019s completely chaotic lightning-round Balticon Donut Extravaganza<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But now it\u2019s time to revisit with Andy Duncan, whom you got to know in Episode 6<\/a>, because there happens to be a great reason for doing so. Twelve great reasons, actually. And those are the twelve stories in his new collection An Agent of Utopia<\/em>, published last month by Small Beer Press. <\/p>\n

A new Andy Duncan collection is a wonderful thing, as proven by the fact his first collection, Beluthahatchie and Other Stories<\/em>, published in 2000, won a World Fantasy Award. And that\u2019s not the only award his fiction has earned, because \u201cThe Pottawatomie Giant,\u201d which also won a World Fantasy Award, and \u201cClose Encounters,\u201d which won a Nebula Award, are two of the dozen stories in the new collection.<\/p>\n

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The last meal you shared with us allowed you to eavesdrop on a far-ranging conversation covering every aspect of his career up until early 2016, the kind of deep dive most of my episodes are, but it seems right that from time to time I should follow up for more sharply focussed discussions, and a conversation about a new collection nearly three years after our initial talk, chatting about this new milestone in his career, seemed as if it would be revelatory.<\/p>\n

Andy celebrated the launch of An Agent of Utopia<\/em> with a reading at Main Street Books<\/a>, an independent bookstore on Main Street in Frostburg, MD, so if you keep listening after our meal at Giuseppe’s Italian Restaurant<\/a> is over, you’ll be able to eavesdrop on that reading.<\/p>\n

We discussed why it took a quarter of a century to bring the book’s lead story from title idea to completion, how he was influenced by the research regimen of the great Frederik Pohl, the way a short story is like an exploded toolshed, why he deliberately wrote a deal with the devil story after hearing he shouldn’t write deal with the devil stories, the embarrassing marketing blurb he can’t stop telling people about in bars, what caused a last-minute change to the title of one of the collection’s new stories, how he feels about going viral after his recent J. R. R. Tolkien comments, what he learned about himself from completing this project and what it means for the future of his writing,\u00a0what it is about his most reprinted story which made it so, and much more.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s how you can listen to our conversation at Giuseppe’s —<\/p>\n

1) Subscribe over at the iTunes store<\/a> — and while you’re at it, check out some of the 84 previous episodes as well.<\/p>\n

2) Listen via the RSS feed of http:\/\/eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com\/rss<\/a> on the device of your choice.<\/p>\n

3) Or use the embed below to check it out right here.<\/p>\n