This is my first full week back in the Philadelphia area, after taking a couple weeks away out on the west coast. As such, it seems only appropriate (as a I grope around for a segue) to welcome this week’s guest, Jenna Black, who used to live in Philadelphia before relocating North Carolin’s Research Triangle.

Jenna is a triple-threat, a status that I think many authors aspire to, so that whatever area of genre fiction happens to be enjoying a surge in popularity, she’s got it covered. Jenna has novels in the sub-genres of paranormal romance (the Guardians of the Night series and current stand-alone Prince of Air & Darkness), urban fantasy (the Morgan Kingsley and Nikki Glass series), and young adult fantasy (her Faeriewalker series, and Replica, the first book in a new series).

She is also a self-described “experience junkie,” having traveled to all seven continents (including Antarctica), sung barbershop, and become a Life Master in Bridge. As is almost always the case with a writer, it’s all grist for the mill of Jenna’s fiction.

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This week, I’m very pleased to bring you another member of that select group of authors, a winner of the Campbell Award. David Anthony Durham took the prize before I started showcasing the nominees here each year, but he was so gracious when I invited him to participate last month, I have no doubt he’d have happily joined in back then too.

In addition to his most recent and exceedingly popular fantasy trilogy (Acacia), David began writing historical fiction with such works works include the Gabriel’s Story (winner of the American Library Association’s Alex Award), Walk Through Darkness (a Best of 2002 selection in Black Issues Book Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution), and Pride of Carthage (shortlisted for the 2006 Legacy Award for Fiction from the Hurston/Wright Foundation).

If you’ve read some of his work, you won’t be the least bit surprised to learn that three of his novels are currently in development for the big screen.

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For those of you in the U.S., we’re coming up on the paradoxical holiday of Thanksgiving (or, as I’ve been calling it this year, Thanksgivikkah), traditionally a time for dysfunctional family gatherings and gastric orgies. As one example, I consider Turkey Day a failure if there aren’t at least three kinds of pie available. So, who better to have as this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest than Faith Hunter, a woman raised in Louisiana, home to some of the best food anywhere?

Mind you, Faith is actually several people in one. She wrote her first novels, the Garrick Travis series, under the name Gary Hunter. As Gwen Hunter she’s responsible for writing Thrillers such as the Rhea Lynch, M.D and DeLande Saga series, as well as half a dozen other stand alone novels. But readers of Fantasy have made her famous for the books in her Rogue Mage series (such as Bloodring), which she then followed with the even more successful Jane Yellowrock series (the seventh book of which, Black Arts, hits stores in a mere five weeks!).

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Although it pains me to admit it, this week’s guest here at EATING AUTHORS has a lower Bacon Number than I do. I refer of course to Wesley Chu who has a score of 2 (Wes => Hyowon K. Yoo => Kevin Bacon) to my score of 3 (me => Michael Dorn => Eddie Bo Smith Jr. => Kevin Bacon). And I can’t even complain about it, because Wes is also a Kung Fu master and might kick my ass (not that someone would need martial arts proficiency to beat me in a fight, but c’mon, let me save a little face here).

Wes is another of the authors I first met in Detroit at ConFusion, making that convention the best friend this blog feature has ever had. His latest book, The Deaths of Tao (a sequel to The Lives of Tao, both from Angry Robot Books) came out just three weeks ago.

The other thing I need to tell you about Wes is that he’s changed publishers. His next book, a time travel adventure, is currently expected from Tor Books in the first half of 2015. Coincidentally, Wes and I share the same editor at Tor, so you know the competition is on.

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I’m very pleased this week to once more “jump the pond” and bring you an author in the tradition of J. G. Ballard. I refer of course to James Lovegrove who has been making a splash with his Pantheon series of books, military-SF adventures that combine ancient gods and high-tech weaponry. The third book in the series, The Age of Odin landed him on the New York Times best seller list.

James has won the Seiun Award, as well as been a finalist for both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. In addition to his other novels, he’s written YA fiction, some of which has appeared under the name Jay Amory. As an illustrator he’s busy designing posters, postcards, and t-shirts. He also finds time to write reviews for fiction and graphic novels.

But the thing that makes me most envious of James is the view he has of the sea from his home on the Sussex Coast. It’s truly a wonder that he gets any work done at all.

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