{"id":33677,"date":"2023-04-21T10:03:35","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T14:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=33677"},"modified":"2023-04-21T10:07:42","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T14:07:42","slug":"sheree-renee-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2023\/04\/21\/sheree-renee-thomas\/","title":{"rendered":"Share crispy spinach with Sheree Ren\u00e9e Thomas in Episode 196 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

My conversation with this episode’s guest, Sheree Ren\u00e9e Thomas<\/a>, didn’t take place because we were attending the same convention, which is the way most of these chats happen, but out of pure serendipity.<\/p>\n

Over on Facebook, someone in the group devoted to Capclave \u2014 a con where I\u2019ve harvested many conversations for you \u2014 mentioned Thomas was scheduled to speak at Maryland\u2019s Rockville Memorial Library. When I checked the details and saw the venue was only a 90-minute drive away, I reached out to see whether she’d have time in her schedule to grab lunch — and luckily she did. So early the same day as her presentation titled “Afrofuturism & Diversity in Sci-Fi,” I scooped her up from her hotel and took her over to Commonwealth Indian Restaurant<\/a>, where I\u2019ve had many wonderful meals. Here’s how the event organizers described Thomas and her career —<\/p>\n

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New York Times<\/em>\u00a0bestselling, two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author and editor Sheree Ren\u00e9e Thomas has been a 2022 Hugo Award Finalist, and her collection,\u00a0Nine Bar Blues<\/em>,\u00a0is\u00a0a Locus, Igynte, and World Fantasy Finalist. She edited the groundbreaking Dark Matter<\/em> anthologies that introduced a century of Black speculative fiction, including W.E.B. Du Bois’s science fiction stories. Thomas wrote Marvel\u2019s\u00a0Black Panther:\u00a0Panther\u2019s Rage<\/em>\u00a0novel (October 2022), adapted from the legendary comics, collaborated with Janelle Mon\u00e1e on\u00a0The Memory Librarian<\/em>,\u00a0and is the editor of\u00a0The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction<\/em>, founded in 1949 and Obsidian<\/em>, founded in 1975.\u00a0In 2022 she co-curated Carnegie Hall’s historic, citywide Afrofuturism Festival.<\/p>\n

We discussed how to prevent being an editor interfere with being a writer (and vice versa), the way a serendipitous encounter with Octavia Butler’s Kindred<\/em> caused her to take her own writing more seriously and a copy of Black Enterprise<\/em> magazine spurred her to move to New York, how her family’s relationship with Isaac Hayes nourished her creative dreams, the advice she gives young writers about the difference between the fantasy and reality of a writer’s life, how realizing the books she thought were out there weren’t launched her editing career, the rewards and challenges of taking over as editor for a 75-year old magazine, why she reads cover letters last, and much more.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s how you can join us — <\/p>\n

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts<\/a> — where I hope you’ll be tempted to sample a few of the 195 previous episodes.<\/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 simply use the embed below.<\/p>\n