{"id":26195,"date":"2019-09-06T08:47:43","date_gmt":"2019-09-06T12:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=26195"},"modified":"2019-09-06T08:47:43","modified_gmt":"2019-09-06T12:47:43","slug":"jack-dann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2019\/09\/06\/jack-dann\/","title":{"rendered":"Chow down on chowder with the award-winning Jack Dann in Episode 104 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time to say farewell to Readercon<\/a>! Which means it’s time for a seafood dinner with Jack Dann<\/a>, following my burgers with the Nebula Award-winning writer P. Dj\u00e8l\u00ed Clark <\/a> and an Indian lunch with Bram Stoker Award-winning writer Lucy A. Snyder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jack’s an old friend I see far too infrequently ever since he moved to Australia. I was privileged to publish a story of his in Science Fiction Age<\/em> back in the ’90s, but that’s the least of his accomplishments. His first novel, The Man Who Melted<\/em>, was nominated for a 1984 Nebula Award, and since then he’s gone on to win a Nebula Award, two World Fantasy Awards, three Ditmar Awards, and the Peter McNamara Award for Excellence. His short story collections include Timetipping<\/em>, Jubilee: the Essential Jack Dann<\/em>, and Visitations<\/em>. His 1998 anthology Dreaming Down-Under<\/em> (co-edited with his wife Janeen Webb) is a groundbreaking work in Australian science fiction.<\/p>\n

He’s also created some amazing stories in collaboration with the likes of Michael Swanwick, Gardner Dozois, Barry Malzberg, and others, and since you know from listening to Eating the Fantastic that collaboration completely baffles me, we dove into a discussion of that as well.<\/p>\n

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We stepped out to The Chowder House<\/a>, which has been in operation since 1985, but has a history which goes all the way back to 1920, when Darcy\u2019s Irish Pub opened \u2014 and over the decades expanded into a row of family-owned restaurants. It was a comfortable spot, with good food, and the perfect place for us to catch up after far too long apart.<\/p>\n

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We discussed the novel he and Gardner Dozois always planned to write but never did, how a botched appendectomy at age 20 which left him with only a 5% chance of survival inspired one of his most famous stories, why he quit law school the day after he sold a story to Damon Knight’s Orbit<\/em> series, the bad writing advice he gave Joe Haldeman early on we’re glad got ignored, the secrets to successful collaborations, the time Ellen Datlow acted as referee on a story he wrote with Michael Swanwick, how it felt thanks to his novel The Man Who Melted<\/em> to be a meme before we began living in a world of memes, why he’s drawn to writing historical novels which require such a tremendous amount of research, the time he was asked to channel the erotica of Ana\u00efs Nin, the gift he got from his father that taught him to take joy in every moment — and much more.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at The Chowder House —<\/p>\n

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts<\/a> — where I hope you’ll be tempted to download some of the 103 previous episodes.<\/p>\n

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

3) Or check it out via the embed below.<\/p>\n