{"id":33997,"date":"2023-07-14T06:54:13","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T10:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=33997"},"modified":"2023-07-14T06:54:13","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T10:54:13","slug":"rhondi-salsitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2023\/07\/14\/rhondi-salsitz\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s time for a ramen reunion with my 1979 Clarion classmate Rhondi Salsitz in Episode 202 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

My guest this episode — my penultimate conversation while in California for this year’s Nebula Awards Conference — is Rhondi Salsitz<\/a>, whom I met when I attended the Clarion\u00a0Science Fiction Writing Workshop in 1979. This is the second time you\u2019re getting the chance to eavesdrop as I chat with someone I met during that long ago summer, the first being Gene O\u2019Neill<\/a> way back in Episode 12.<\/p>\n

You might have read Rhondi’s work without realizing it \u2014 because she’s also appeared under the names Charles Ingrid,\u00a0Kendall Rivers, Sara Hanover, Emily Drake, Anne Knight, Elizabeth Forrest,\u00a0Jenna Rhodes,\u00a0Rhondi Greening,\u00a0R.A.V. Salsitz, and Rhondi Vilott\u00a0\u2014 and those are just a few of the pseudonyms under which she\u2019s published over the past four\u00a0decades.\u2028\u2028 Rhondi\u2019s first publication was actually\u00a0one of the stories written while at\u00a0Clarion, and was chosen by by our\u00a0teacher, Damon Knight, for publication in Orbit 21<\/em>. (And believe me \u2014 we were envious! And some of us were even jealous.)<\/p>\n

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Since that time, she\u2019s written so many books under so any names\u00a0\u2014 not only science fiction, fantasy, and horror, but also romances, westerns, and\u00a0choose your own adventure books\u00a0\u2014 her prolific career has unfairly been overlooked, and I\u2019m so glad I was able to get her to step out from behind the mask so you can learn more about her. Her series\u00a0\u2014\u00a0include\u00a0The Sand Wars<\/em> (written as\u00a0Charles Ingrid), Elven Ways <\/em>(as Jenna Rhodes), Dragon Tales<\/em> (as Rhondi\u00a0Vilott), and many others.<\/p>\n

We discussed her early missed opportunity to workshop with Octavia Butler, the terrible thing Tom Disch told her during their one-on-one meeting during Clarion, the animated series which inspired her to write her bestselling Sand Wars series of novels, why she feels she’s still standing when so many of our Clarion comrades aren’t, what caused a reader to write an angry letter to Dean Koontz about one of her novels, how she progressed from recognizing there was a problem but not knowing how to fix it to understanding what needed to be done, and so much more.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s how you can join us for a ramen and sushi at at The Good Fish<\/a> in Fullerton, California — <\/p>\n

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts<\/a> — where I hope you’ll be tempted to sample a few of the 201 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