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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: October, 2018
Oct 31, 2018

Chow down on fish and chips with the award-winning Steve Rasnic Tem as we discuss the importance of writing until you get to page eight, what he did the day after Harlan Ellison died, why even though he was a fearful kid he turned to horror, the thing which if I'd known about his marriage might have caused problems with my own, how crushed we both were when comics went up to 12 cents from a dime, why his all-time favorite short story is Franz Kafka's "A Country Doctor," the way joining Ed Bryant's writing workshop taught him to become a writer, how math destroyed his intended science career, why he made an early pivot from science fiction to creating horror, the reason it took him 48 years to take <em>Ubo</em> from initial idea to finished novel, how TV shows like "So You Think You Can Dance" had an effect on the way he writes action scenes, why beginning writers should consciously read 1,000 short stories (and what they should do once they're done), and much more.

Oct 18, 2018

Eat empanadas with Rebecca Roanhorse as we discuss the spark without which her award-winning short story would never have been written, the differing reactions her tale garnered from inside and outside of the Native American community, the compelling reason she chose to write it in the second person, what she learned as a lawyer that helped in writing her first novel, how she upped her game when she decided to be a writer for real, why she fell out of the reading habit and how a Laurel K. Hamilton novel drew her back in, what it was like to hear Levar Burton read her award-winning story, and much more.

Oct 5, 2018

Nibble naan with K. Tempest Bradford as we discuss how her Egyptian Afro-retro-futurism idea grew from a short story into a series of novels, the way she used crowdfunding to complete the research she needed, why her discovery of my <em>Science Fiction Age</em> magazine means I bear the responsibility for all she's done since, how an online writing community gave her the confidence to be a writer, the advice from Samuel R. Delany she embraces the most, why she set aside her goal of becoming an opera singer and decided to become a writer instead, the reason there are so many female monsters in Greek mythology, how she blew up the Internet with her "Stop Reading White, Straight, Cis Male Authors for One Year" challenge, her extremely strong opinions about Steven Moffat's version of <em>Doctor Who</em>, and much more.

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