Sink your teeth into Sicilian with Barry Goldblatt as we discuss why he ended up as an agent rather than an astronaut, the happy accident that led to him being taught by the legendary science fiction writer James Gunn, the time Lloyd Alexander caused him to burst into squee-filled tears, J. K. Rowling's first U.S. book signing and how she changed children's publishing forever, what everybody thinks they know about agents that's totally wrong, the sorts of things he's told authors to help take their work to the next level, why it sometimes makes sense for him to submit a less than perfect book, whether the YA market is doing a better job with diversity than adult fiction, what he's been looking for that he hasn't been getting, and much more.
Share flash-fried cauliflower with <em>Asimov's</em> editor Sheila Williams as we chat about her first day on the job more than a third of a century ago, meeting Isaac Asimov at an early <em>Star Trek</em> convention when she was only 16, which writer intimidated her the most when she first got into the business, what she learned from working with previous <em>Asimov's</em> editors Shawna McCarthy and Gardner Dozois, the most common problems she sees in the more than 7,000 stories that cross her desk each year, the identities of the only writers she's never rejected, what goes through her mind in that moment she reads a manuscript and arrives at "yes," and much more.