Mondays are hard enough for most people, marking as they typically do the return to the work week. Mondays that also happen to be beautiful Spring days (as is the case hereabouts) are tougher still. To help ease your soul, here’s another installment of Eating Authors, the weekly blog segment that asks Science Fiction and Fantasy authors about their most memorable meals. Our guest this week is Jim C. Hines. I had the great pleasure to include Jim in the pages of Prime Codex, the first book from Paper Golem. On the (ahem) off chance that you haven’t read that anthology, you might have come across Jim’s work in his Jig the Goblin series (Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero, Goblin War, and Goblin Tales), and his Princess series (The Stepsister Scheme, The Mermaid’s Madness, Red Hood’s Revenge, and The Snow Queen’s Shadow), and more recently Libriomancer , the first of a promising new run.

Today on Eating Authors we’re visiting with Leah Bobet, a writer I feel like I’ve known forever through one online community or another, though I’ve probably seen her face to face fewer than a dozen times. You probably know her for her poetry and short fiction, which routinely ends up reprinted in one or another of the “Year’s Best” anthologies by the likes of David Hartwell, Ellen Datlow, or Rich Horton. She’s also Publisher and Editor over at http://www.ideomancer.com/, where she and her team routinely bring you some of the best of online fiction.

On the first of this month, Leah moved from the ranks of short story author to novelist with Above. Early reviews are giving it five stars out of five, and if by chance you haven’t come across her work before, then I’ve definitely done my good deed for the day by introducing you to her. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this book. But first, take a moment to enjoy her most memorable meal.

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The Eating Authors segment this week is the second visit to this blog from Laura Anne Gilman who joined us back in June of last year for a bit of Q & A. Back then I mentioned that she was the author of two urban fantasy series (the six books of Retrievers, and four more books that make up Paranormal Scene Investigations), the award-nominated The Vineart War trilogy, as well as another series under the pseudonym of Anna Leonard. In addition to other projects, she’s adding another pseudonym to her business card, the first of several new mysteries from her begin appearing in November under the name L. A. Kornetsky.

Laura Anne is always working, always busy, always under deadline (or so it seems). So recently, when she wanted to write about one of the supporting characters from the world of her Cosa Nostradamus, and her publisher wanted her to focus her efforts in another direction, she followed the contracts and went to work. Except, that character (let’s call him Danny) wouldn’t leave her alone. Which would be fine, but that’s not the book the publishers wanted, and unasked for books don’t pay the rent. The pragmatics of the situation would have stopped another author. Instead, Laura Anne has embarked on a KickStarter project, leaving the viability of the book in the hands of her many fans. It’s just this kind of audacity that you can always expect from her. Oh, and by the way, there’s still plenty of time for you to click that link and participate in the effort.

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It’s another Monday and though as mentioned in a previous post, I’m off celebrating Doctoral Day in the company of some bison, I do so only after making sure I leave you in good company. Specifically, Kim Vandervort, another of my fellow Hadley Rille authors. Actually, Kim has the further distinction of being Hadley Rille’s first fantasy novelist with The Song and the Sorceress. She quickly followed that book with sequel The Northern Queen.

Armed (and armored) with a Master’s degree in Medieval Literature, when she’s not writing novels, or serving as one of HRB’s Fantasy Editors, Kim is on the faculty at California State University, Fullerton, doing her part to ensure the next generation of writers.