I first began this weekly blog feature in June of 2011. Since then, every summer I’ve set aside space here for the nominees of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer — or at least for any of them that choose to participate. Having been nominated myself I have a soft spot for the award, and yes, the 2013 nominees will start showing up here next month. But I mention it now because this week’s guest won the award in 2010.

I’m speaking of course about Seanan McGuire (as well as her alter-ego, Mira Grant). What can I tell you about her that you don’t already know? The woman is everywhere these days! In addition to her Campbell Award, she’s been nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award and won five Pegasus Awards for her work as a filker. Prior to this year she’d been nominated for four Hugo Awards (not counting winning the Hugo for Best Fancast in its debut year), and this year she’s nominated five times across four categories (yes, she’s in competition with herself!) on the Hugo ballot.

Many readers know Seanan for her October Daye series (including the novels Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses, One Salt Sea, Ashes of Honor, as well as Chimes at Midnight, The Winter Long, A Red Rose Chain, and Once Broken Faith currently scheduled for publication in September of 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, respectively), and that’s only the novels, there are also shorter works in the same series. If that’s not enough for you, there’s also her InCryptid series (two novels published so far — Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue-light — with three more slated), and under the name Mira Grant there’s her popular Newsflesh series (Feed, Deadline, and Blackout), as well as Parasite, the first book in her new Parasitology trilogy, coming in November. And please note: the first of these books appeared in September of 2009; this is one busy writer!

Fortunately for this blog, even the busiest of writers need to take time out to eat.

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Every now and then when I ask someone to participate in EATING AUTHORS something shows up in my email that blows me away. Today’s guest, Gregory Benford, managed just that, as you’ll see below. Meantime, on the off chance that you’ve been living under a rock — or simply don’t read hard SF — let’s go over the numbers.

First, on the moh’s hardness scale, his fiction comes in easily at corundum or better. Dr. Benford is a card-carrying astrophysicist and by day is a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He’s been Hugo Award nominee four times, a Nebula Award nominee thirteen times (two of which he won), and took home the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for Timescape. He’s probably best known for the seven books and one novella that make up his Galactic Center Saga, but he has many other novels and a seemingly endless list of short stories to his credit.

Outside of his fiction, I first crossed paths with Greg just last year, when we were both judges for the 2012 Endeavor Award. I had the good fortune to see him last month at the Nebula Awards, where I got to thank him in person for his answer to this blog’s weekly question.

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Here in the USA, it’s Memorial Day, a national day of recognition for the many men and women who died in service to this country. When I lived in Wyndmoor, PA, there would be a parade that passed right in front of my house, and members of the local chapter of the V.F.W. would drive by in old-style cars, waving and throwing candy to the kids lining the street. There would be cook-outs in the park, and a general feeling of joy and celebration because the day marked the “official” start of summer, which is fair enough, but I always feel that some of the true meaning of the holiday gets lost.

It’s a turbulent world we live in, and maybe it’s always been so and I just notice it more frequently as I move ever deeper into that “you-damn-kids-get-off-of-my-lawn” mindset that seems to come with growing older. I guess what I want to say here is that while it’s fine for you to smile and laugh and kick off the summer season today, to fire up the grill and overindulge in hot dogs and beer, before you start in that or other festivities, take a moment, a good, long moment, to appreciate what you have and express some thanks to the people whose sacrifice makes your life possible. Thanks.

Moving on now to the regular Monday feature, today’s guest, Merrie Haskell offers up a loving recollection that strikes me as very fitting for today. But before we get to that, a bit about Merrie herself. She recalls writing her first story at the tender age of seven, and somewhere around eleven a Langauge Arts teacher noted her ability and recommended to her mother that Merrie be encouraged to write. A very fortuitous moment for the rest of us. Merrie’s first book was a Junior Library Guild selection back in 2011, and her lastest, Handbook for Dragon Slayers comes out tomorrow morning.

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