Eating the Fantastic

Savor a seafood pancake with the award-winning writer Ai Jiang as we discuss why being nominated for multiple awards may actually have made her Imposter Syndrome worse,  what  the Odyssey workshop taught her which helped her finish her first novel (and whether that book might be too ambitious a debut), the novels which made her want to be a writer, what makes us power on in the face of rejection, how writing is like competitive bad...

Gab over garlic bread with Sally Wiener Grotta as we discuss when we first met (and can't quite figure out whether it was a third or a quarter of a century ago), how her first storytelling impulse began because she'd fall asleep while being read stories as a child, the importance of the question "what if?," why she often finds horror difficult to read, the early experience which allowed her to have such a good relationship with edi...

Bite into a burrito with writer Elwin Cotman as we discuss why forcing science fictional elements into non-science fictional stories can weaken them, the interdimensional cross-genre story cycle he hopes to write someday about a wrestling family, the way the novella is his natural length, why he loves Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age stories, how to create compelling metaphors and similes, the way rereading Tama Janowitz's Slaves of...

Dig into duck with Alex Jennings as we discuss his dream which commanded him to move to New Orleans (plus his brother's dream which supported that decision), how writing his debut novel transformed him into the kind of person he needed to be in order to write his debut novel, how Octavia Butler invited him into the field, which artist he wishes would draw the comic book adaptation of his novel The Ballad of Perilous Graves, what Ch...

Polish off paneer biryani with Tobias Carroll as we discuss which punk rock music made him a fan, why his heart belongs to novella-length works rather than massive epics, the artistic motivation for sometimes not giving readers what they've been taught to expect, the reason Ann Nocenti's run on Daredevil was meaningful to him (and why he believes it aged so well), his fascination with deteriorating physical media, why Edward Hopper...

Chow down on cryptid pizza with writer/editor Lesley Conner as we discuss why horror is where she feels the most comfortable as a writer, how her role at Apex magazine grew from Social Media Manager to Chief Editor, her "Price is Right" method of filling out an issue's word count, why she hardly ever reads cover letters, the trends she's seen in the slush pile and what they mean, the key difference between editing magazines vs. ant...

Devour a Georgian dinner with Dan Parent as we discuss why we both loved the legendary Ramona Fradon, how a Charlton Comics pamphlet gave him the tools to take his art more seriously, what he learned working at the start of his career with the great Dan DeCarlo, the character fans demand he draw the most during his convention appearances, the Archie artist who tormented him during his early days, how to respect legacy characters wh...

Sup on scallops with Arthur Suydam as we discuss the way a lengthy hospital stay resulted in him falling in love with comics, what Joe Orlando said to convince him to start his comics career at DC instead of Warren, the permission he was granted upon seeing the ghastly artwork of Graham Ingels, what he learned from dealing with cadavers during his art student days, how Gil Kane hurt his feelings by chewing out his early work, the g...

Join writer Sunny Moraine for dinner as we discuss how the short story version of Your Shadow Half Remains exploded into a novel (and whether either of them would have existed at all without COVID-19), why pantsing is good but can sometimes become a nightmare, the way stories come to them cinematically,  several questions to which I didn't want to know the answers but only whether they knew the answers, the unsettling demands of Sk...

Join biographer Julie Phillips for Jӓgerschnitzel as we discuss why she called The Baby on the Fire Escape "a weird hybrid monster of a book," the one thing she regrets not researching more thoroughly for her Tiptree bio, the reason there's more space for the reader in a biography than a memoir, why some children of artistic mothers can make peace with their relationships and others can't, the three things she felt it important to ...

Nosh pastrami with Glenn Hauman as we discuss how he shook things up during the earliest days of electronic publishing, the embarrassing high school newspaper writings of Ted Chiang, the way the assembly-line nature of comics keeps many creatives from seeing the big picture, why he's nobody's first choice for anything but everybody's second choice for everything, his pre-teen encounters with another pre-teen fan who eventually beca...

Snack on sushi with Ray Nayler as we discuss how his time living outside the U.S. helped him become a better science fiction writer, why he feels the greatest effect of having written The Mountain in the Sea was a culinary one, the reason we agree our favorite part of writing is rewriting, the sad results of his accidental Facebook experiment, whether his mammoth memory behavior is based on scientific facts or is purely speculative...

Nibble garlic naan with Jo Miles as we discuss how what began as a short story blossomed into a trilogy, the way to juggle multiple points of view and keep them balanced, the science fictional precursors which helped them create their sentient ship, how to properly pace the arc of a burgeoning romance, the importance of making sure a redemption arc feels earned, the way their mandate for writing optimistic science fiction came to b...

Munch MVP sandwiches with MVPs Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan as we discuss why The Coode Street Podcast is "the Cheers of podcasts," the foolish statement made during their first episode which meant there had to be more, the identity of the guest who was most resistant to appearing on their show, the reason the podcast made Paul Cornell want to run, the different interviewing techniques necessary when having conversations with...

Join Izzy Wasserstein for Kansas City BBQ as we discuss the way Sarah Pinsker sparked her lightbulb moment, why it's important for her to learn your chosen D&D character, which Star Trek: The Next Generation characters caused her to take her first stab at writing, the change she'd make in her life if she were independently wealthy, why we both miss those paper rejection slips from publishing's pre-electronic days, the disconnect be...

Join Pat Murphy for lunch at "the single best restaurant in the world" in Episode 215 of Eating the Fantastic as we discuss the part of Robert A. Heinlein's famed rules of writing with which she disagrees, why she felt the need to attend the Clarion writing workshop even after having made several sales to major pro markets, the occasional difficulties in decoding what an editor is truly trying to tell you, the importance of never g...

Feast on crab fried rice with Nina Kiriki Hoffman as we discuss the way a ghost story which left her wanting more led to her taking her writing more seriously, her early reactions to reading Robert A. Heinlein and Ursula K. Le Guin, how the Clarion workshop convinced her she could have a career as a writer, the way she wanted to grow up to be a combination of Ray Bradbury and Zenna Henderson, what she learned about characterization...

Snack on spanakopita with Neil Clarke as we discuss how Clarkesworld was born (and what he wishes he'd known back when the magazine launched), the motivation behind his unrivaled response times, the irresponsible impact of AI on science fiction and what he's doing to help ameliorate it, how he proactively analyzes submission data to make sure he receives stories from diverse voices, the differing effect of the pandemic lockdown on ...

Polish off a Peruvian lunch with Alex Shvartsman as we discuss how intimations of mortality got him to start writing fiction, what he learned as a pro player of Magic: the Gathering which affected his storytelling, why he set aside his initial urge to write novels in favor of short stories, which U.S. science fiction writers are more famous in Russia than their home country, the reason his success as a writer and editor of humor ca...