Eating the Fantastic

Eating the Fantastic

I've been going to science fiction, fantasy, horror, and comic book conventions since I was 15, and I’ve found that while the con which takes place within the walls of a hotel or convention center is always fun, the con away from the con—which takes place when I wander off-site with friends for a meal—can often be more fun. In fact, my love of tracking down good food while traveling the world attending conventions has apparently become so well known that one blogger even dubbed me "science fiction’s Anthony Bourdain." So I've decided to replicate in podcast form one of my favorite parts of any convention—good conversation with good friends over good food. During each episode, I’ll share a meal with someone whose opinions I think you’ll want to hear, and we’ll talk about science fiction, fantasy, horror, writing, comics, movies, fandom … whatever happens to come to mind. (There’ll also be food talk, of course.) Please note—this will not be a pristine studio-recorded podcast, but one which will always occur in a restaurant setting, meaning that mixed in with our conversation will be the sounds of eating and drinking and reviewing of menus and slurping and background chatter and the servers popping in … in other words, it’ll be as messy as life. And I hope you'll find it as entertaining, too.

Episodes

June 19, 2025 79 mins

Bite into blueberry pancakes with Silvia Moreno-Garcia as we discuss how short stories helped her find her voice, the way a gross dream combined with a teen cemetery trip led to Mexican Gothic, her love for abandoned places, why she found Madame Bovary startling when she read it in high school, how to successfully write genres in which the reader is more aware of the tropes than the protagonist, the beauty to be found in flawed cha...

Mark as Played

Feast on oysters with Kemi Ashing-Giwa as we discuss her conscious decision to not take any creative writing courses in college, the eight never-to-be published novels she wrote on her way to The Splinter in the Sky, how COVID-19 led her to take a deep dive into tea (and how tea then inspired her debut novel), her evolution from pantser to plotter, her outreach to 200 agents before she found the right one, how to craft compelling o...

Mark as Played
May 18, 2025 97 mins

Toast writer/editor Craig Laurance Gidney as we discuss how meeting Samuel R. Delany led to his attending the Clarion Writing Workshop, the influence of reading decadent writers such as Verlaine and Rimbaud, why he kept at trying to get published when so many of his peers stopped, the many ways flaws can sometimes make a story more interesting, our shared love of ambiguity, the reason there must be beauty entwined with horror, why ...

Mark as Played
May 3, 2025 108 mins

Break for brunch with writer Adeena Mignogna as we discuss how Star Trek changed her life, which Trek character she used as her screen name on fan forums when she first went online as a young teen, why she never wrote fanfic, the feedback from a friend which saved her NaNoWriMo novel from being trunked, how she discovered she's neither a plotter nor a pantser but rather something in-between, her favorite science fiction novel of al...

Mark as Played
April 19, 2025 121 mins

Pig out on pork belly with Jarrett Melendez as we discuss how his loves of food and writing combined into a career, the way running comic book conventions gave him the contacts he needed when it was time to create comics of his own, which franchise inspired his sole piece of fan fiction, the comics creator whose lessons proved invaluable, how he knew Chef's Kiss needed to be a graphic novel rather than a miniseries, the way he bala...

Mark as Played

Wolf down lamb with Carolyn Ives Gilman as we discuss the way her ideas aren't small enough to squeeze into short stories, how she shelved a novel she'd written because she felt her imagination at its wildest wasn't ridiculous enough to match reality, whether our personal archives will be trashed or treasured, the reason she doesn't feel she can teach writing, why authors need to respect what the story wants, why she's terrible at ...

Mark as Played
March 26, 2025 112 mins

Rip into roti with writer Tim Paggi as we discuss the story behind his X-Files-inspired juvenilia, the reason he demanded a refund from Barnes & Noble for a volume of Emily Dickinson's poetry, why a writing teacher (wrongfully) accused him of plagiarism, how the beginning of the pandemic was also the beginning of his fiction writing career, whether his recent Cthulhu references were intentional or unavoidable, why the Severance TV ...

Mark as Played
March 9, 2025 92 mins

Mangia mussels in Little Italy with David Simmons as we discuss how he manages to give such dramatic performances during his public readings, why his answer when asked to describe his genre of writing is "Baltimore," the way discovering the novels of Donald Goines changed his life, why his wife was responsible for his first short story being written and sold, how he hopes reading him will have you feeling as if you're in a frenetic...

Mark as Played
February 26, 2025 106 mins

Have a Nashville hot chicken sandwich with Robert Greenberger as we discuss our teen experiences at the first Star Trek convention in 1972, how TV taught him about the existence of Marvel Comics, the way George Reeves as Clark Kent made him want to be a journalist, the lecture Wonder Woman editor Robert Kanigher gave him after he dared give feedback, why so many DC Comics staffers walked around without their shoes on Fridays, how h...

Mark as Played
February 12, 2025 81 mins

Chat and chew with Shannon Robinson as we discuss how best to deal with rejection, the way our opinions about print vs. electronic publication have changed over the courses of our careers, when an untrustworthy narrator can be a feature, not a bug, the many ways readers can be misreaders of stories, how she realized she'd reached short story critical mass and it was time to assemble a collection, the way the genres in which we writ...

Mark as Played
January 26, 2025 98 mins

Munch on pepper chicken masala with Larry Hama as we discuss how cataract surgery changes the way an artist perceives the page, what really happened at a mid-'70s penthouse comic book party, Bernie Krigstein's anger at being asked questions about comics, why Wally Wood felt it was so important for his assistants to learn how to letter, what it was like being part of the famed Crusty Bunkers inking collective, why getting to edit Cr...

Mark as Played
January 15, 2025 116 mins

Share shawarma with the award-winning Eric Choi as we discuss what William Shatner's Captain Kirk might sound like dubbed into Cantonese, the wonders of fan-run science fiction conventions, how the Asimov competition gave him the courage to make his first submission, what it was like co-editing an anthology with the great Ben Bova, the accident that gave birth to his first short story collection, why his claim never to have experie...

Mark as Played
December 29, 2024 72 mins

Split a pastrami sandwich with Martha Thomases as we discuss her theory that your popularity in high school determines whether you'll move to New York, why she was into DC rather than Marvel at the start of her comics fandom, Denny O'Neil's explanation of the true difference between Metropolis and Gotham City, the realization she had at 35 as to the true reason her parents allowed her to read comics, the weirdness of Little Lotta a...

Mark as Played
December 18, 2024 114 mins

Settle in for a steak dinner with Marvel's Tom Brevoort as we discuss how a guy whose first love was DC Comics ended up at Marvel, why he hated his early exposure to Marvel so much he'd tell his parents not to buy them because "they're bad," the pluses and minuses of comic book subscriptions (and the horror when issues arrived folded), how Cerebus the Aardvark inspired him to believe he could build a career in indie comics, the mos...

Mark as Played
December 4, 2024 145 mins

Share scallops with the award-winning R. S. A. Garcia as we discuss how the idea for her Nebula-winning short story caused her to leap up and walk out of a writing workshop, how editor Ellen Datlow's advice changed her life, why writing is a verb, not an adjective, the way she decides whether or not to rise to the occasion of a themed anthology invite, her convoluted journey in finding an agent to negotiate her first novel sale eve...

Mark as Played
November 16, 2024 91 mins

Chow down on chicken tikka masala with Gareth L. Powell as we discuss the way a Diana Wynne Jones critique of his teenaged writing was a complete revelation in how to write fiction, how an adversarial relationship with a university professor who didn't want him writing science fiction actually ended up helping him, the New Year's resolution which led to him to both kick smoking and write a novel, how reading William Gibson's short ...

Mark as Played
November 4, 2024 68 mins

Feast on fish and chips with Paul Cornell as we discuss where he stands on the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby debate, how his UK mind was blown the first time he saw a U.S. issue of The Avengers, why fannish history fascinates him, the reason he went the self-funding route for Who Killed Nessie (and what that did to his blood pressure), how some of his Doctor Who fan fiction eventually became canon, the reason he's suspicious of nostalgia, ho...

Mark as Played
October 21, 2024 107 mins

Share a bowl of Cullen skink with the award-winning Wole Talabi as we discuss his love of combining contradictory ideas, why failing is an important step toward success, how optimism can be a choice (and why making that choice could also make the world a better place), how to convince others who might fear hurting your feelings you truly want their honest criticism, whether AI could ever actually be intelligent or create art, what ...

Mark as Played
October 6, 2024 99 mins

Share beef noodle soup with award-winning writer John Chu as we discuss the way he gamified the submission process when he started out, how the pandemic made him feel as if he was in his own little spaceship, when he learned he couldn't write novels and short stories at the same time, how food has become a lens through which he could explore a variety of issues in his fiction, the rejection letter he rereads whenever he wants to ch...

Mark as Played
September 22, 2024 112 mins

Chow down on cheesy garlic bread with award-winning writer Jeffrey Ford as we discuss why writing has gotten more daunting (but more fun) as he's gotten older, the difficulties of teaching writing remotely during a pandemic, how he often doesn't realize what he was really writing about in a story until years after it was written, the realization that made him write a sequel to Moby-Dick, why if you have confidence and courage you c...

Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

    The Breakfast Club

    The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!

    The Joe Rogan Experience

    The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.

    24/7 News: The Latest

    The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

    The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

    The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.