Welcome to the post-Thanksgiving (at least, if you’re in the USA) installment of EATING AUTHORS. I only just returned from a delightful week in sunny San Diego, California where I visited with relatives and ate far too much. I also seem to have munged up my laptop computer, and so this installment has been cobbled together at the eleventh hour, and as such is a bit shorter than usual

Our guest today is Mark Nelson, and I’m happy to tell you he’s another member of the society of authors at Hadley Rille Books. His first novel, The Poets of Pevana, has been described as both breathtaking and brilliant, a romance and a political tale, a floor wax and a desert topping (oh, wait, no, that last one is from an early SNL skit, sorry).

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Welcome to a special, Thanksgiving week of EATING AUTHORS. For those of you not residing in the USA, don’t let the whole Turkey Consumption Day throw you, and instead realize that what makes this week special is that I am far from the cooler clime of the greater Philadelphia area and instead spending a week in sunny San Diego, CA, soaking in my nephew’s jacuzzi, and slaving away at a book proposal while now and again fortifying myself with holiday eats. Magically (or perhaps just electronically) this post is going out a full twenty-four hours after I’ve left Pennsylvania. Yes, my friends, we’re living in the future!

Which, when you think about it, makes this week’s guest an especially ironic choice. M. K. Hobson is perhaps best known for her Veneficas Americana series, set in the late nineteen century. Indeed, she’s the founder of bustlepunk (she even wrote the manifesto!), and believe me when I tell you she makes it work. She’s a past nominee for the prestigious Pushcart Prize, and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for her first novel, Native Star. Last month she published The Warlock’s Curse, the first volume of a new duology. Just a few days ago she kicked off a Blog Tour for the book, and it’s going to keep her pretty busy for the rest of the year. Even so, she found time to drop by here, and answer our favorite question.

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Welcome to our first post-election Monday! I’m just back from Philcon, arguably the longest running science fiction convention in the world, and so it seems only appropriate to feature one of Philadelphia’s own talents this week here at EATING AUTHORS. As it happens, it’s an old friend, Victoria Janssen.

Far too many years ago, Victoria and I were both members of “The Nameless,” a Philadelphia-based authors’ workshop that included such talent as Greg Frost and Judith Berman. About once a month we’d gather and share portions of our respective works-in-progress, opening ourselves up for the unflinching critique of our fellows. It was during just such a halcyon session that I got my first glimpse of the scandalous prose that would go on to fill Victoria’s first book, The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom & Their Lover. As such, it’s a particular pleasure to have her here today to share with us some of her favorites from the culinary vastness that can be found here in the nation’s first capital.

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Welcome to the first post-Sandy episode of EATING AUTHORS. For those of you who experienced the effects of the storm first hand, you have my deepest condolences. So many people lost so much property, or had large chunks of their lives destroyed or disrupted. Meanwhile the rest of the nation (and beyond) watched helplessly as horrific images danced on their television screens each evening. Yeah, don’t get me started on the Global Warming naysayers. Sigh. As for me and mine, we emerged unscathed, not that I needed further reason to feel blessed.

But let’s put all that behind us. The sun has come out. It’s a new day and we have a great new author with us. I’m referring to Kameron Hurley whose novel God’s War totally blew me away earlier this year. Seriously, I rarely post reviews, but this book was so amazing that I had to make an exception. You can check it out here if you hadn’t already seen it.

Kameron’s work has attracted the attention of much smarter and better read people than me. She’s received nominations for a slew of shiny trophies including the Nebula Award, the British SF Association Award, the James Tiptree Memorial Award, the Locus Award, and others. Last month she published Rapture, the third book in her Bel Dame Apocrypha. Remember that title; you’re going to be seeing it on a lot of award ballots in the coming year.

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