{"id":39291,"date":"2026-08-14T09:25:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/?p=39291"},"modified":"2026-08-14T09:25:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:25:04","slug":"jamal-hodge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2026\/08\/14\/jamal-hodge\/","title":{"rendered":"Break away from StokerCon for BBQ with Jamal Hodge on Episode 289 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

My third Eating the Fantastic conversation during the 2026 StokerCon — following my chats with Arley Sorg<\/a> and Kate Maruyama<\/a> — was with the award-winning writer of horror poetry and prose Jamal Hodge<\/a> mere hours after his Bram Stoker Award win of the previous night.<\/p>\n

That isn’t the only award recognition Hodge has received along his writing journey, for he\u2019s also an Elgin Award winner, a Dwarf Stars Award winner and a Rhysling Award finalist. His collections include The Dark Between the Twilight<\/em>, which earned him his first Bram Stoker Award nomination, as well as Everything Endless<\/em>, written with previous guest of this podcast Linda Addison<\/a>, which is what resulted in this year\u2019s win.<\/p>\n

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His creative life isn\u2019t limited to the page, for he’s also a multi-award-winning filmmaker who\u2019s a sitting Board Member of Harlem Film House and Axs Lab. His films have been an official selection in over 100 Film Festivals, and have won more than 50 awards including The Vanguard Award (Best of The Fest) at the Hip Hop Film Festival (2020), Best Director at The Chelsea Film Festival (2020) and Best Director at GenreBlast (2020). He co\u2011produced the Academy Award\u2011nominated documentary Armed Only With a Camera: The Life & Death of Brent Renaud<\/em>, and is producing the upcoming animated feature Pierre the Pigeon Hawk<\/em>. He also directed the first season of the Discovery ID series Primal Instinct<\/em>.<\/p>\n

His upcoming books include I’m Not a Good Person, I’m a New Yorker<\/em> from Crystal Lake Publishing in Sept\u00a02026, plus Shards of Gotham: New York City Through the Looking Glass<\/em> from Ruad\u00e1n Books in June\u00a02027.<\/p>\n

We discussed how winning a Stoker Award the previous night altered his ambitions, why Linda Addison is his favorite collaborator, how most things we think of as choices aren’t, why he prefers Batman to Spider-Man, the reason the environment in his stories is not your friend, the way the living are controlled by the dead, how he always starts a project thinking it’s one thing only to discover it’s something else, what Mega Man has to do with him becoming a better writer, his favorite short story of all time, how 1984<\/em> made him realize what writing could do, the way poetry healed him, plus much more.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how you can join us at Walters BBQ Southern Kitchen<\/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 288 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