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Posts by Lawrence:

My Tentative Worldcon 79 Schedule

Written on November 20th, 2021 by
Categories: News
Worldcon 76

I’m not willing to get on an airplane yet, but I can do a multi-hour car ride, and so I’ll be attending DisCon III, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention, which runs from December 15th thru 19th. This year’s WorldCon has been plagued with many problems, not least of which included being moved six months, having to scramble for a new hotel, and losing their chair and many of their staff. Between all these problems and the small matter of a global pandemic, actual attendance will be greatly reduced, but like so many conventions they are planning to also include an online track of programming, and I’ll be a part of both. Here’s where you can find me:

Thursday, December 16th
11:30 am | Autographs 1 | Signing.
Come by and I will sign all the things!

2:30 pm | (online) Congressional Room | Language in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.
From The Languages of Pao to Embassytown, authors from all eras have explored the limits of humankind’s greatest invention: language. In this panel, linguists and language experts discuss what works and what doesn’t, and how to walk the line between science and science fiction with respect to language.
With K.A. Doore (mod), Jenn Lyons, Hanne Paine, Nikhil Singh, and Eli K.P. William.

Friday, December 17th
11:30 am | Suite 325 Main Room | Kaffeeklatsch.
Fun small group discussion with me. I believe you have to sign-up in advance. Several other author friends are supplying lots of freebies so there will be gift bags for all participants!

2:30 pm | (online) Kress) | Xenolinguistics.
What makes a language alien, or at least non-human? This may involve grammatical systems not found (so far) in natural human languages, or even modes of communication distinct from spoken, signed, or written language. Will aliens have different understandings of the context in which a communication takes place?
I’ll be moderating and my co-panelists will be Yasser Bahjatt, Jana Bianchi, Ruthanna Emrys, Brenda Kalt. and Juliette Wade.

4:00 pm | SFWA Table | Bonus Signing.
If you missed my “official” signing time earlier in the day (or the line was just too long), I’ll be hanging out at the SFWA table doing an auxiliary bonus signing. Come by and receive a free, autographed, Science Fiction Trading Card!

Saturday, December 18th
9:00 am | Lobby? | Stroll with the Stars.
I am thrilled to report that I will once again be participating in this grand Worldcon tradition. Come start your day with me and other SF luminaries (heh, did you know I was a luminary?) for a leisurely, forty-five minutes as we strut our stuff.

It’s possible that some of the above will be in flux, and/or I’ll have supplementary information to share, but here’s where it all stands as this moment. If anything does change I’ll post an update.

How Many “Books?” (as of October 2021)

Written on October 18th, 2021 by
Categories: News

The other day someone asked me how many books I’d written and I didn’t have a quick answer. Why? Well, “books” is a funny term, and it’s gotten funnier as publishing trends have changed. For purposes of this list, I’m not counting any of the books that I edited of other authors’ fiction, just things that I wrote or co-authored and that were published as a standalone product. This includes titles that run much shorter than a typical novel, such as chapbooks and novellas, and at the other end of spectrum things like omnibus editions that may bundle multiple novels into a single package. Likewise, I’m also including collections in this count. Further muddying comes about when a book is initially released by one publisher, goes out of print, and is brought back later by a different publisher, with or without alterations to the second version.

Here then is my list of books as of October 2021. The parenthetical ratios show the number still in print vs. the total number in each grouping.


CHAPBOOKS
(2/5):
2003-01-01 – Buffalogic, Inc. – SRM Publisher
2006-01-01 – Buffalogenesis – SRM Publisher
2008-01-01 – Buffalogistics – SRM Publisher
2018-10-01 – Creature Academy – Paper Golem LLC
2020-03-09 – Excerpts of Jorl ben Tral – Paper Golem LLC
Chapbooks

COLLECTIONS (5/8):
2005-11-08 – Aliens and AIs – Eggplant Literary Productions
2010-08-23 – Sweet Potato Pie and Other Surrealities – Hadley Rille Books
2012-11-12 – Buffalito Buffet – Hadley Rille Books
2018-12-12 – Sweet Potato Pie – Paper Golem LLC
2019-07-21 – Buffalito Bundle – Paper Golem LLC
2020-07-02 – The Rule of Three – Paper Golem LLC
2020-10-12 – Openings without Closure – Paper Golem LLC
2020-12-10 – Eating Authors – Paper Golem LLC
Collections

NOVELLAS (8/12):
2012-08-03 – Barry’s Tale – Hadley Rille Books
2013-08-29 – Trial of the Century – Hadley Rille Books
2014-11-06 – Calendrical Regression – Noble Fusion Press
2017-11-09 – Barry’s Deal – Noble Fusion Press
2018-06-30 – Invasion (w/ Jonathan Brazee) – Semper Fi Press
2018-08-01 – Scorched Earth (w/ Jonathan Brazee) – Semper Fi Press
2018-09-05 – Bitter Harvest (w/ Jonathan Brazee) – Semper Fi Press
2019-07-31 – Calendrical Regression – Paper Golem LLC
2019-08-10 – Barry’s Tale – Paper Golem LLC
2019-08-28 – Barry’s Deal – Paper Golem LLC
2019-10-23 – Trial of the Century – Paper Golem LLC
2020-09-17 – Soup of the Moment – Paper Golem LLC
Novellas

NOVELS (12/14):
2009-06-01 – Buffalito Destiny – Hadley Rille Books
2011-05-11 – Buffalito Contingency – Hadley Rille Books
2015-12-29 – Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard – Tor Books
2018-08-14 – Moons of Barsk – Tor Books
2019-09-25 – Buffalito Destiny – Paper Golem LLC
2019-11-24 – Buffalito Contingency – Paper Golem LLC
2020-01-06 – Fight or Flight (w/ Brian Thorne) – Paper Golem LLC
2020-02-13 – Alien Thrill Seeker (w/ Brian Thorne) – Paper Golem LLC
2020-04-09 – Anger Management (w/ Brian Thorne) – Paper Golem LLC
2020-07-28 – Ace of Corpses – Paper Golem LLC
2021-01-05 – Ace of Saints – Paper Golem LLC
2021-02-04 – Slice of Entropy – Paper Golem LLC
2021-03-31 – Pirates of Marz – Paper Golem LLC
2021-06-15 – Ace of Thralls – Paper Golem LLC
Novels

OMNIBUSES (6/6):
2018-10-07 – Seeds of War Trilogy – Semper Fi Press
2020-05-07 – Command Performance – Paper Golem LLC
2020-06-04 – Adrenaline Rush – Paper Golem LLC
2020-08-22 – Galactic Capers of the Amazing Conroy – Paper Golem LLC
2021-08-31 – Ace of Agency – Paper Golem LLC
2021-10-03 – Conroyverse – Paper Golem LLC
Omnibuses

KEY:
SRM Publisher is Steve Miller (aka co-author of the Liaden Universe) who generously introduced me to publishing chapbooks.
Eggplant Literary Productions is Raechel Henderson, a pioneer in SF digital publishing.
Hadley Rille Books is Eric T. Reynolds, a publisher of anthologies to whom I had sold numerous short stories, until one day we said “hey, we both want to publish novels,” and then we did just that.
Noble Fusion Press is Barbara Hill, workshop organizer extraordinaire.
Semper Fi Press is Col. Jonathan Brazee (ret.), who introduced me to the glory of the Indie life.
Paper Golem LLC was originally my small press, but I shut that down a couple years back and nowadays it is my personal imprint.

So, depending on how you count things, I’ve published some forty-five “books,” of which thirty-three still exist out in the world. Many more are planned (some are already written and just await publication).

Eating Authors: Karen Heuler

Written on August 9th, 2021 by
Categories: Plugs
Karen Heuler

All good things come to an end, and I very much believe the ten years of EATING AUTHORS has been a very good thing. And it’s not exactly ending. I reserve the right to post the occasional author meal when inspiration hits, but yes, the weekly Monday morning posts end with this installment.

For those of you following me on Twitter, I’ll continue to post the Throw Back Thursday links to episodes three years in the past. I suppose that will continue for… three years. And of course all 500+ episodes are available on the master list which has a link on the my website.

The intention behind this series has been to give readers a glimpse at the writers behind the books. Ten years ago I imagined that authors might reveal something personal, even profound, when asked to talk about a meal that lingered in their memory. I still think that’s the case and I’m gobsmacked that so many people were willing to share those memories. If you’ve enjoyed them, my one request would be that you share the love by posting a review (or two). Authors appreciate that kind of thing.

All of which leads us, as you knew it surely must, to this week’s guest. Karen Heuler wrote her first book at the tender age of eleven and insists the manuscript is lost to us. Since then she’s bounced around between a wide range of jobs (more than a few in the publishing arena), wrote both short stories and novels, won an O. Henry award and numerous finalist kudos for such things as the Shirley Jackson award and Bellwether Prize. I think it’s fair to say that being a writer is her best destiny.

Next year the good folks at Angry Robot will be publishing her latest novel, The Splendid City. The equally fine (but less angry and robotic) folks at Wildside Press recently re-released her story collection, The Inner City.

LMS: Welcome, Karen. Please tell me about your most memorable meal.

KH: I went to the Galapagos and the Amazon thirty years ago, having made a few reservations here and there at the small tourist lodges— no electricity, some with no running water, etc.— after going on a very modest boat (8 passengers) through the Galapagos. My plane to Ecuador landed on the day that the U.S. state department warned all American travelers to avoid Ecuador because of terrorists. For my first night in Ecuador, I had a reservation at a small hotel which sent a bus to meet the plane. I was the only passenger on the bus.

The Inner City

I’m a vegetarian, so I had brought packages of powdered beans with me and hoped for the best. Pickings were slim, and I soon ran out of beans. On the boat, I was able to bargain my serving of fish for someone else’s rice or vegetables.

The Galapagos were wonderful—whether it was swimming with seals, watching the sea lions splash, penguins popping up unexpectedly, or walking down the trails past the blue-footed boobies. It was spectacularly weird. There were all sorts of surprises, even without the animal life. The boat’s toilet flushed by using a hand pump, and I overpumped once and it exploded. But we motored on.

The other passengers and I would point at things surfacing in the water and shout out the name of the wrong animal. Sharks for penguins, cormorants for seals.

After the Galapagos, I made my way (bus, car, canoe) to a tourist lodge in Ecuador’s Oriente, which had only three other tourists. It was great, because I had a guide all to myself and we canoed the river and visited small villages with raised huts. He told me about the giant snakes that lived in the river bends and could rise up and grab us.

Glorious Plague

There are mestizo villages along the river (one street running down to the water) with a few essential shops (plastic buckets; rice). Nothing for me. I traveled from a lodge in Ecuador to a lodge in Peru.

It was bargain time again, trading where I could in order to get enough to eat.

Somewhere along the trip I saw a tourist munching a bag of corn nuts. The image lingered and I began to lust after those corn nuts. From then on, whenever I ended up near one of those little shops, I would search fruitlessly for them.

I was hungry a lot of the time and those corn nuts represented some American salty goodness, a satisfaction that was out of my reach. They became an obsession for weeks afterwards as I scrambled to find enough to eat. There were fewer and fewer tourists to try to exchange foods with.

Finally, I left Peru on a boat going down the Amazon. It didn’t have many passengers, but it had the biggest spider I’ve ever seen (I’d seen a lot of large spiders by then), and we ended up in Manaus, Brazil. A really large city! With restaurants! I found one that had — of all things — cream of mushroom soup on the menu, and it was Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. I ordered it, and then I ordered it again. It was the most delicious meal I’ve ever had. Something to eat, something familiar, and while of course I knew it wasn’t local or exotic, it was delicious and out of place, as I was. I’ve never forgotten it. Every spoonful was superb. I’ve had great vegetarian meals before and after, but nothing that so magnificent or reassuring.

When Things Get Dark

There was a lot I hated about Manaus, which was poor and disheartening. I met some young travelers who were going to stay at a hut with a local family across the river. The hut had a hole in one section of the floor for a toilet, and when I looked down, I could see a few fat frogs. I instantly remembered reading about such a thing in, I think a Peter Matthiessen book — frogs staking out the toilet to eat the flies that were drawn there.

That hut also had the second biggest spider I’ve ever seen. Three spiders, in fact, lined up on the wall like family portraits.

I went back to Manaus. And then I found a store that sold corn nuts!
I’ve never really liked corn nuts, and I didn’t then, either, but I ate them all. I’ve never had them again, I’ve never longed for them again, but every once in a while, I heat up a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, and I think how good, how very good it is.

Thanks, Karen. I really wish I could think of something pithy and inspiring to say about Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom, or perhaps a remark about the global reach of American purveyors of soup, or even a tie-in to my novella Soup of the Moment. But I can’t. All I can think of are Grace Drayton’s Campbell Soup kids and the slogan mmmmm mmmmm good.

NB: links to authors and books here are included as part of an Amazon Affiliate account. If you follow any of them and ultimately make a purchase Amazon rewards me with a few pennies of every dollar.

#SFWApro

Eating Authors: Sanam Asif

Written on August 2nd, 2021 by
Categories: Plugs
Sanam Asif

I’m a creature of habit. I don’t like change. Which explains why once I settle into a routine I’m all about inertia and am unlikely to budge. A couple instances to illustrate this: I’m coming up on a 1500 day streak of daily language study on Duolingo. Need another example? Well there’s the small matter of ten years of this weekly blog, serving up the memories of meals of more than 500 authors.

I awoke this morning with the realization that breaking my inertia would be a good thing. A welcome thing. That the reason for doing something should be because I choose to do it, not because I’ve surrendered to the habit of it. So I’ll keep my Duolingo streak through 1500 days, and after I’ll still keep using the app to study languages, but if I miss a day, if my streak ends, that’s fine. Indeed, I might even get more pleasure out of it as a result.

And the same here with EATING AUTHORS. I’ll probably stop the weekly posting soon — I have a few other authors’ meals “in the can” and it would be unfair not to run them. But before the end of August, Mondays will come and go without the need for a post here. I may continue to do such posts, but going forward they won’t be regular or as frequent. We’ll see. Likewise, I’ll curtail the supplemental email that goes out to the folks who have subscribed to my newsletter. They’ll still get the monthly updates, but not the weekly Monday morning reminder and link to each current episode.

And we’re all going to be okay with that. Trust me.

But while I’m still here, let me do some good. This week’s guest is Sanam Asif, a Pakistani author who came to my attention when she reported how she’d gotten screwed over by a local publishing house. Sanam is an indie author trying to eke out a career in a country that apparently has little or no resources or support for indie authors. Fortunately, the community of indie authors is global, and quickly responded to her plight, with a couple of high profile members stepping up to offer to pay the printing costs that she incurred when the publishing house bailed on her. In that same spirit I reached out and asked her if I could do my part to boost her signal by featuring her here and help spread the word of her work.

And hey, maybe this being the week that I announce that I’m stepping away from this blog will make it a landmark of sorts that draws even more folks to check out her books. Bonus!

When she’s not writing fantasy romance, Sanam works from home as an Upwork freelancer, and also finds time to practice her entrepreneurial skills with an online natural skincare business. She’s married with two kids and a cat. She also introduced me to the word paracosm, which you’d think I’d know since I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.

LMS: Welcome, Sanam. Please tell me about your most memorable meal.

SA: I am one of those people who enjoy their food. So, you can say I am a bit of a Foodie. Never in my life was I able to go on a diet because of my sheer love of food.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I had high blood pressure and hyperemesis gravidarum, which is a fancy word for extreme nausea. So I was basically waiting for the baby to be born so I could enjoy a decent meal and keep it down.

Just Like Fire

Before I tell you about the most memorable meal of my life, let me give you a little intro about my Dad. He was the kind of man who wasn’t comfortable showing his affection. He was always strict with my siblings and me. But the day I gave birth to my daughter, something changed in him.

In Pakistan, it is customary for a woman to live at her parent’s home for a few days after giving birth. So when I came home from the hospital, my sisters were at work, and it was only me, my newborn daughter, and my parents. It has been ten years, but I still remember as if it were yesterday. My Dad asked what I wanted to eat, and I told him I want something spicy.

Crown of Fire

The man, who would never step into the kitchen, rushed to the market and got all the ingredients to make Haleem, a traditional Pakistani dish that includes wheat, barley, meat, and lentils. Then, following a recipe on Youtube, he prepared the meal, and all the while, I just stared in awe at him cooking. Since my mother had dementia and couldn’t cook, I knew he wanted me to feel loved and cared for.

Later, I helped him set the table, and it was just us three, me, my Mom, and Dad. The Haleem my Dad made for me that day is the most memorable meal of my life.

My parents are in heaven now, and no matter how many fancy meals I try, this one tops them all.

Thanks, Sanam. There’s surely no shortage of changes in parents when their children become parents, almost as if entering a new stage in your life signals a new stage in theirs (I’m thinking butterfly metamorphosis here). Then too, I have no kids, so maybe I’m just imagining this. But I don’t think so.

Next Monday: Another author and another meal!

NB: links to authors and books here are included as part of an Amazon Affiliate account. If you follow any of them and ultimately make a purchase Amazon rewards me with a few pennies of every dollar.

Want to never miss an installment of EATING AUTHORS?
Click this link and sign up for a weekly email to bring you here as soon as they post.

#SFWApro

Eating Authors: Wendy Van Camp

Written on July 26th, 2021 by
Categories: Plugs
Wendy Van Camp

The last few days are a bit of a blur that included the three-day 28th annual conference of the Klingon Language Institute — or as we like to call it, the qep’a’ cha’maH chorghDIch. Unfortunately for me, a freak storm (though some insist a tornado was involved) hit my area late the day before the conference, toppling trees and pulling down power lines. It knocked out the power here for 46 hours and there was also the small matter of an electrical cable that hung five feet off the ground spanning the entrance to my driveway so for most of that time in addition to being without electricity, we couldn’t leave. I got by, carefully husbanding various battery packs and overtaxing the hotspots produced by my phone, managing to put in some limited time at the conference. Eventually the power came back, we dealt with the horror of what had gone on in the freezer, and I returned to the conference. It was, as it always is, glorious! We had over 100 people attending, connecting from all around the globe. Hard to believe that I started all of this 30 years ago on a lark.

But I overdid it at the conference Thursday through Saturday, and paid for that indulgence on Sunday. I was tired all day, to the point where it’s about 10pm as I write this for you to be reading at 7:30 tomorrow morning. So, sorry, but no segue to cleverly introduce Wendy Van Camp, who is this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest.

Typically, the people who share their meals here are novelists, but after 72 hours of speaking Klingon, I’m okay bending the rules a bit. Wendy doesn’t just write science fiction, but also regency romance and, more significantly, poetry. She’s also incredibly organized, as I learned when we did a panel together on “Juggling Multiple Projects” for SFFcon last month. And she’s old-school, making use of day-timers and filofaxes and notebooks, generating calendars and scheduling entire years in advance, freeing up time for working on her own projects.

Wendy is also the creator behind No Wasted Ink, a blog on the craft of writing that features author interviews, sci-fi and fantasy book reviews and poetry, and her a scifaiku poetry collection, The Planets was a finalist for the Elgin Award.

In addition, a little tidbit that I doubt she realizes, Wendy and I both attended James Gunn‘s Speculative Fiction Workshop (albeit during different years).

LMS: Welcome, Wendy. Please tell me about your most memorable meal.

WVC: When Covid-19 arrived in March 2020, I remember feeling completely terrified of leaving my home and fearful because we had no food reserves in the house. The pandemic caught me unprepared.

The mail delivery system became my friend. To bypass the empty store shelves in my neighborhood, I learned to find small independent mail order groceries that still had supplies. Basics such as pasta, rice, flour, and canned goods slowly returned to my larder. We relearned how to bake bread and cooked everything from scratch. The cooking helped keep my mind off the troubles in the world.

The Planets

In October, our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary arrived. In the “before time,” as we now call the time before the pandemic, we would have treated ourselves to dinner out and perhaps catch a play. This anniversary, our entire state was in lockdown. No movie theaters were open. All our favorite restaurants did not allow a sit down meal. Delivery services were lackluster, even when they could find us. The best we could hope for was fast-food with a drive-thru window.

The afternoon of our anniversary, we settled into our car and drove toward the beach. The weather was warm. The wind through the car windows tasted of salt and seaweed. We played our favorite music on the radio and cruised through areas we used to visit when we were dating. We remained in our car to be safe.

Around four thirty, it was time to pick up our anniversary meal. One of our favorite restaurants was Ruth’s Chris. We love their steaks and have gone before for special occasions. The restaurant had no in-person dining along with a limited menu, but their take-out counter was still operating. I dropped my husband off and circled the lot because of no available parking spots near the restaurant. The restaurants in the complex had converted much of the parking lot to outdoor dining. The weather was hot, but a few brave souls were under the tents. Our restaurant had four little tables in front of it, all uncovered and in the hot sun. I was glad we had not considered that option.

The Curate's Brother

My husband remained inside for a quarter hour. Once he stepped out, I popped the trunk. In the back of our car, we had a pair of coolers. One for hot food and one for cold food. We packed the coolers according to temperature needs.

When we got home, I pulled out my china to set our table and opened a bottle of wine. We opened the coolers to see how the food fared during the forty-minute drive home. The steaks were still warm and perfectly done inside. Our baked potatoes were massive and flaky-dry as they should be. All the bread and sides were as good as they would have been inside the restaurant. The only thing that didn’t make the journey was the butter. It had turned into ghee. Opps. It had been in the wrong cooler.

We enjoyed every bite of that meal. It was a moment of semi-normality during a long period of stress that would continue to stretch out through 2021. I feel grateful for our home and for the years that I have spent with my husband. It was truly a memorable anniversary dinner.

Thanks, Wendy. The past months are a blur for many of us — and often that’s just as well — but it’s wonderful to read of someone who managed to carve out a lovely memory in there as well.

Next Monday: Another author and another meal!

NB: links to authors and books here are included as part of an Amazon Affiliate account. If you follow any of them and ultimately make a purchase Amazon rewards me with a few pennies of every dollar.

Want to never miss an installment of EATING AUTHORS?
Click this link and sign up for a weekly email to bring you here as soon as they post.

#SFWApro

Eating Authors: Lisa Silverthorne

Written on July 19th, 2021 by
Categories: Plugs
Lisa Silverthorne

The qep’a’ cha’maH chorghDIch begins later this week. For those that don’t speak the language, that’s the twenty-eighth annual conference of the Klingon Language Institute. It’s a lot like a family reunion (and indeed we’ve been doing this long enough that we have college-age second generation speakers who attend) but without the potato salad. Also, people tend to spit a bit more. We’ll be running virtual again this year, and last time I checked we had over eighty people signed up. The internet is a glorious thing.

And speaking of the internet bring people together, you may recall I was recently part of an online book bundle. Surely that’s segue enough to introduce you to this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest, Lisa Silverthorne, who was also a part of that limited offer.

Lisa has been publishing fiction for more than twenty years. This includes a dozen novels, two collections, and more than one hundred shorter works. She describes her writing as “heartfelt magical suspense.” This sometimes takes the form of paranormal angel romances (such as her A Game of Lost Souls series) and sometimes looks like genetic engineering or military science fiction. Somewhere in the middle she also writes paranormal time-travel ghost romances too.

She lives in Las Vegas, NV.

LMS: Welcome, Lisa. What stands out as your most memorable meal.

LS: My most memorable meal took place in my parent’s restaurant. World travelers, my parents had gathered favorite recipes from their travels and offered their own versions at the restaurant. It was the type of small college town, upscale restaurant that hosted many high school prom dinners and was packed on Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and college football weekends. All the tables had lit candles, tablecloths, and cloth napkins. And the wait staff wore tuxedo shirts, black pants or skirts, and black bowties.

And this occasion wasn’t even a holiday. It was Dad testing out items from his newest menu, but it was a family dinner — one of the few I’d had since high school.

Recombinant

Tucked in a cozy booth lit with a crystal chandelier and a flickering candle, my mom, brother, and I sat with my dad. But he never sat long, always up dealing with restaurant issues.

The meal began with a crisp, lemony glass of Chilean chardonnay and buttery stuffed mushroom caps that burgeoned with crabmeat and parmesan cheese. The mushroom caps melted in my mouth and didn’t last long.

A hearts of palm salad followed with thin-sliced tomatoes, capers, red Bermuda onion slices, white asparagus spears, artichoke hearts, and hearts of palm drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It looked like artwork, every layer arranged in a circle and drizzled with dressing. Back then, every bite had been an evocative new flavor, the tangy capers, artichokes, and vinaigrette mixing with the mellow hearts of palm and asparagus. I’d never heard of hearts of palm back then, so I’d been intrigued with the whole notion of this salad and its combination of flavors.

The Cinderella Hour

After the amazing salad disappeared, I experienced my first taste of Bearnaise sauce in a dish my dad called Salmon Oscar. The flaky cut of salmon nestled on top of a layer of white asparagus and grated potatoes topped with crabmeat and Bearnaise sauce. The tarragon mixed with the rich sauce, the tender salmon asparagus, the potatoes almost grounding the dish with a hint of shallots and garlic. Accompanied by my first glass of merlot, rich and hearty like a warm autumn beach bonfire.

Long after the entrees and the wine disappeared, the final course was a white chocolate mousse cake with fresh strawberry sauce and cups of hot coffee. I was already beyond full, but my mom and I split the cake with its white chocolate mousse icing decorated with shaved white chocolate. The fresh strawberry sauce was the perfect complement to the fluffy mouse and white cake.

This meal remains one of my favorite meals. My parents are both gone now and so is the restaurant. It was a place where I grew up, a place I worked for well over a decade, and a place I learned to appreciate food and family. Lessons I will forever carry with me as I cook and share these recipes with others.

Thanks, Lisa. A surprising number of authors in this series have grown up in restaurants. There’s potential for a themed anthology there, or at least a heck of a fine dinner party with hours swapping entertaining stories (as well as a drinking game anytime a tale mentions a Hobart).

Next Monday: Another author and another meal!

NB: links to authors and books here are included as part of an Amazon Affiliate account. If you follow any of them and ultimately make a purchase Amazon rewards me with a few pennies of every dollar.

Want to never miss an installment of EATING AUTHORS?
Click this link and sign up for a weekly email to bring you here as soon as they post.

#SFWApro

Eating Authors: Eric Klein

Written on July 12th, 2021 by
Categories: Plugs
AUTHOR

As happens every month, this particular Monday has me heading back to the hospital for my routine oncology check-up. What’s a little different this time though is I’m four weeks out from my third COVID-19 vaccination, a jab of the ol’ J&J brew to supplement the two ineffective (i.e., non-reactive) Pfizer vaccines from January and February. I’ll be getting tested for the presence of antibodies and maybe, just maybe, I will get to come out of lockdown mode. Here’s hoping.

Meanwhile, regular readers here will know that I was recently part of a book bundle organized by the IASFA. It was a good project, and it created the opportunity for me to become acquainted with more of the group’s members. That’s the segue today because one of my co-bundlists was Eric Klein, and it only made sense to invite him to be this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest.

He has a keen focus on how science and technology affect us, as can be demonstrated in his nonfiction activities in the world of Telecom and Cyber Security. Somewhere in there he found time to write fiction, a hard SF novel that includes a tour of the solar system.

Eric describes himself as an avid science fiction and fantasy reader, a huge Star Trek fan, and a Shakespeare aficionado. Clearly it’s only a matter of time before he applies himself to Klingon so he can read the Bard in the original language.

LMS: Welcome, Eric. What stands out in your memory as your best meal ever?

EC: Now that is a hard question, I have had many meals with great food and company. But the one that stands out is when I was knighted into the Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs. The Chaîne des Rôtisseurs is the world’s oldest international gastronomic society, founded in Paris in 1248. It was created when Louis IX, the French King later canonized as Saint Louis, ordered the establishment of several professional guilds including that of the “Ayeurs” or goose roasters. They were a well-established guild until 1793 when the guild system was dissolved during the French Revolution. In 1950 the organization was revived as the association founding the Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs.

The One

Now before I describe the meal, I would like to mention the location. Here we were, several hundred people in the ruin of an ancient Khan that was built in the 18th century during the Ottoman period. I was there with friends and family that came to see my knighting. The meal was based around venison, and each course used different parts of the red deer. Starting with the liver pâté through the filet mignon tips.

Truth be told, it was not the best meal of my life in terms of food, but the ambiance and ceremony more than made up for that. There we were, in this converted old ruin, with the light coming from candles in niches in the walls and on the tables and everyone dressed for a formal event. Then they got to the formal part of the event. There were three of us being knighted that night. And the official officiating had flown in from the main branch in Paris. But, he did not have a sword. In fact, the organization did not own a sword, so usually they would use something else for the knighting. As it happens, I do own one and had been asked to bring it. So there I was being knighted using my own sword in front of friends and family before they served the dessert.

Thanks, Eric. I’m a little surprised to learn that you had to bring your own sword. Then again, any meal that involves swords — whomever they belong to — is already off to a great start.

Next Monday: Another author and another meal!

NB: links to authors and books here are included as part of an Amazon Affiliate account. If you follow any of them and ultimately make a purchase Amazon rewards me with a few pennies of every dollar.

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Eating Authors: Michael J Adams

Written on July 5th, 2021 by
Categories: Plugs
Michael J Adams

I spent a portion of the past weekend rooting through piles of papers and boxes, much of which had been shoved into this corner or onto that shelf, items that came to me a few years ago in the months following my mother’s passing. Dusty report folders with memories of things I’d all but forgotten. I’m sure many of you reading this have been in similar situations and cringed upon opening scrapbooks of ancient photos, images perhaps best summed up by the question “What was I thinking?”

My particular flavor of neuro-atypicality hasn’t left me with much in the way of memories from my youth, but I can appreciate it when I hear about it from others, which was the case with this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest, Michael J Adams as he related his most memorable meal.

Michael writes about private eyes and tooth fairies, which wouldn’t be that unusual for a genre author, except when those job descriptions apply to the same person. I’d tell you more, but I don’t want to risk any spoilers. Michael lives in a suburb of Chicago with his wife and children, living a double life by working in IT by day, and writing fiction by night. I have no idea what he’s told his kids about the tooth fairy.

LMS: Welcome, Michael. As you look back over your life, what meal sticks out?

MJA: I have a notorious sweet tooth (something the main character of my debut series shares—which is humorous because she’s a tooth fairy). However, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a foodie and I wouldn’t say there are any specific meals that stick out to me.

A Tooth Fairy's Promise

What does stand out are experiences with individuals I’ve shared meals with. I was lucky enough to share a unique relationship with my late grandfather. I say that because he owned his own private plane (a 4-seat, single-prop Cherokee Piper). Every couple of months we’d fly out of the DuPage airport in the Chicago Suburbs, land across the border of Wisconsin, and then he’d buy lunch.

Sometimes it was just the two of us, and sometimes it was one of his other “flying buddies”. And the meals were never anything fancy — usually a simple Greek Family restaurant. But I’d get to sit and listen to them sweet talk the waitresses, share stories about landing in pot fields in Columbia, and pick up new vulgarities.

As with all teens, at some point hanging out with my grandfather wasn’t the “cool” thing to do. We flew less and less and before I knew it, we’d had our last flight. I wish I could say our last meal consisted of a grilled ham & cheese and fries and a country-fried steak, but I couldn’t tell you.

Cherish those memories.

Like the time he took the family to Hooters. Again, I can’t tell you what I ate, but the scowl on the faces of my grandmother and mother are all too clear in my mind’s eye.

Thanks, Michael. I’ve heard more than one pilot talk about the pleasures of a “$100 hamburger,” but that grilled ham and cheese is priceless.

Next Monday: Another author and another meal!

NB: links to authors and books here are included as part of an Amazon Affiliate account. If you follow any of them and ultimately make a purchase Amazon rewards me with a few pennies of every dollar.

Want to never miss an installment of EATING AUTHORS?
Click this link and sign up for a weekly email to bring you here as soon as they post.

#SFWApro