{"id":37976,"date":"2025-11-14T08:59:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T13:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/?p=37976"},"modified":"2025-11-14T08:59:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T13:59:40","slug":"alaya-dawn-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2025\/11\/14\/alaya-dawn-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Settle in for an Ethiopian feast with Alaya Dawn Johnson in Episode 268 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

This conversation comes to your ears not as the result of my convention travels, which is the source of so many of the chats I bring you, but instead due to the bookshop reading series Charm City Spec, which has been been taking place quarterly in Baltimore since late 2017.<\/p>\n

One of the last installment’s guests was Alaya Dawn Johnson<\/a>, an award-winning author of eight novels for adults and young adults. Her debut YA novel, The Summer Prince<\/em>, was long-listed for the National Book Award for Young People\u2019s Literature and was nominated for a Nebula (Andre Norton) Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her follow-up YA, Love Is the Drug<\/em>, won the second of those prestigious awards. Her most recent YA novel, The Library of Broken Worlds<\/em>, won the BSFA award for Fiction for Young People and was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin award. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Her most recent adult novel, Trouble the Saints<\/em>, won the 2021 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Her short story collection, Reconstruction<\/em>, published by Small Beer Press in January 2021, was an Ignyte Award and Hurston\/Wright Legacy Award finalist. That collection includes her Nebula-Award winning short story, “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” originally published by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Uncanny<\/em>, Reactor<\/em>, Clarkesworld<\/em>, Asimov\u2019s<\/em> Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015<\/em>, The Book of Witches<\/em>, and most notably, in collaboration with Janelle Mon\u00e1e, the title story in The Memory Librarian<\/em>. She is currently the visiting professor in the MFA program at Queens College CUNY.<\/p>\n

We discussed what led to her “life-defining obsession” with Mexican history, the allure of science fiction’s cognitive estrangement, how the German edition of her vampire novel saved her life, the serendipitous discovery which inspired her first published fantasy story, why she no longer owns any of her rejection slips, which franchise inspired her first fan fiction novels, how a novella which didn’t seem to be working turned into her award-winning novel Trouble the Saints<\/em>, the way a pajama party led to a novel sale, what she means when she says she’s a pantser while she plots, the way to determine which conflicting \u00a0critiques deserve your attention, how to prepare for uncomfortable conversations with editors, the importance of a single word or line to a story, the twin poles of ambiguity vs. explicitness, how Tanith Lee’s The Silver Metal Lover<\/em> inspired The Summer Prince<\/em>, the importance of meeting the moment in which you’re living, and much more.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how you can join us at Ethiopic restaurant<\/a> — <\/p>\n

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts<\/a> — or wherever<\/a> you choose to consume your podcasts — where I hope you’ll be tempted to sample a few of the 267 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