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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 after toying for quite awhile with the idea of attempting to replicate in podcast form one of my favorite parts of any convention—good conversation with good friends over good food—it’s finally happening. 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 hopefully as entertaining, too. And now … please pull up a chair to the table and get ready to dig in.
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Now displaying: August, 2018
Aug 24, 2018

Dive into Vietnamese Seafood Noodle Soup with Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning writer Rachel Pollack as we discuss why Ursula K. Le Guin was such an inspiration, the reason celebrating young writers over older ones can skew sexist, what Tarot cards and comic books have in common, how <em>2001: A Space Odyssey</em> isn't a science fiction movie but an occult movie, why Captain Marvel was her favorite comic as a kid (Shazam!), the serendipitous encounter which led to her writing <em>Doom Patrol</em>, how she used DC's <em>Tomahawk</em> to comment on old Western racial stereotypes, the problems that killed her <em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em> Tarot deck, how she intends to bring back her shaman-for-hire character Jack Shade, and much more.

Aug 15, 2018

Join Bram Stoker Award-winning writer John Langan for fish and chips as we discuss how reading <em>Conan the Barbarian</em> comic books as a kid made him hope he'd grow up to be a comic book artist, why his evolution as a writer owes as much to William Faulkner as it does to Peter Straub, what he learned about storytelling from watching James Bond with his father and Buffy the Vampire Slayer with his wife, the best way to deal with the problematic life and literature of H. P. Lovecraft, the reason his first story featured a battle between King Kong and Godzilla, his process for plotting out a shark story unlike all other shark stories, why a writer should never fear to be ridiculous, what a science experiment in chemistry class taught him about writing, his love affair with semicolons, that time Lucius Shepard taught him how to box, the reason the Shirley Jackson Awards were created, and much more.

Aug 3, 2018

Eavesdrop on a Sunday brunch with JY Yang as we discuss why they consider themselves "a master of hermitry,” the catalyst that gave birth to their award-nominated Tensorate Universe, why they think of themselves as terrible at world-building, how their dislike of the Matt Damon movie <em>The Great Wall</em> gave them an idea for a novel, the surprising results after they polled fans on which of their works was most award-worthy, their beginnings writing <em>Star Trek</em> and <em>Star Wars</em> fan fiction, why they never played video games until their 30s, the Samuel R. Delany writing advice they hesitated to share, and much more.

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