Plugs

My last convention of 2016 (though not my last author appearance) took place over the weekend. I spent Friday and Saturday at Philcon and among other delights, I found myself scheduled for a panel on Alien Language that had me sitting alongside Samuel “Chip” Delany — whose 1966, Nebula award-wining novel Babel-17, which I read probably read around 1972, was in large part responsible for sparking my interest in language and linguistics. So, yeah, a really nice weekend!

More recently in my career, the worldbuilding for Barsk (and its in-progress sequel) has had me reading more anthropomorphic work by other authors, including this week’s EATING AUTHOR guest, Renee Carter Hall. And for good reason. Renee’s earliest writing credit goes back to eighth grade as the co-author of a fan story that in one of the impossible Hollywood happenings ended up on the small screen as an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures (bonus points if you remember Buster and Babs). With an great origin story like that, she clearly had no choice but to become an author of anthropomorphic fiction.

Renee — known to many in the furry community as Poetigress — is comfortable writing both long and short forms. She’s been nominated for the Cóyotl Award six times, winning it four times (twice in the same year), for short story, novella, and novel. If you’re a traditional genre reader looking to expand your repertoire to more talking animals, Renee’s range of work is a great place to start.

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Online venues like Twitter and Facebook allow me an expanded community of authors whom I’ve never met, nor have much expectation to. Now and then, some international conference or convention provides an exception to that, as is the case with this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest, Mishell Baker.

We’d been trading tweets and I discovered she basically lives in my old stomping grounds in southern California. That led to more conversation and eventually an invitation to be a guest here. She sent in the meal below many weeks ago and it’s been working its way up the calendar. Meanwhile, we were both in Columbus, Ohio last month for World Fantasy and we shared a meal and wiled away several very enjoyable hours together. And in a hotel dedicated to Pepsi product, she graciously provided me with a bottle of Diet Coke!

Mishell writes strictly fantasy. She’s a Clarion graduate and has placed short stories with several of the list of well known magazines. Back in March, Saga Press published Borderline , the first volume of The Arcadia Project series, which features a protagonist who’s a double-amputee with borderline personality disorder and works with a secret border patrol responsible for the flow of traffic between our world and a magical one right next door. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, “That? Again?” The sequel, Phantom Pains is coming your way next March. Go read the first and put in your order for the second.

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I first met this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest at a hotel in Albuquerque, NM this past spring. I’d flown in the day before to get a leg up on the altitude and Rick Wilber was swinging by to give me a ride north up and to the community of Angel Fire where we were both participating in the Rio Hondo writers’ retreat. Despite my having no interest in the sport of baseball (if I can say that this week, having been born in Chicago) and Rick having a love for the game that is unrivaled in my experience (which he comes by naturally, as the son of professional baseball player, Del Wilber), we got along pretty well. We ended up sharing a condo (with David D. Levine) for a week, as well as more than a few meals.

I always like hanging out with other folks who have done time in the professorial trenches. Rick was generous with his time and experience in this writing business, both during formal critique sessions and after hours just hanging out. I’m very grateful for the experience, and no doubt a better writer as a result.

Rick’s probably best known for his many short story sales and his win of the Sidewise award. He’s also an anthologist, a poet, and a novelist. Naturally, when I learned he had a new book coming out (I’m referring of course to Alien Morning) tomorrow, I invited him to come on by, ostensibly to share the tale of his most memorable meal.

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If you’re reading this when it posts on Monday, then know that for the previous four days I’ve been away in Columbus, Ohio attending the 2016 World Fantasy Convention, which despite more than its share of early trouble turned out to be a really fine event and I take back all the snarky things I may have said or implied about Ohio. Seriously. But having just returned from WFC is as good a segue as I need to introduce this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest, Sharon Joss, who has dropped by to regale you with her most memorable meal, cuz, that’s what we do here.

Sharon’s probably known to you as the author of the Hand of Fate series of fantasy novels, but she also writes science fiction and horror novels, as well as short stories (and won the 2015 Writers of the Future Golden Pen Award).

She resides in Oregon, and I’m beginning to suspect there’s some authorial zeitgeist that is responsible for more and more genre writers taking up resident there. Perhaps I should succumb and move there too. Or at least couch surf from home to home of all the people I know there.

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Earlier this month I attended one of my favorite conventions, Capclave, where among other incredible things I was on a panel with this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest, Edward M. Lerner. As the panel’s moderator, Ed had the unenviable task of both keeping me on topic and telling me to shut up and let other people talk. He did both of these so well that I immediately invited him to come here and tell you about his most memorable meal. But before we get to that, a bit more about the man behind meal:

Ed writes both short fiction and long, everything from traditional SF to near-future technothrillers. He brings three decades of experience in aerospace and related high-tech industry to his writing and this probably goes a long way to explaining his nominations for the Locus, Prometheus, and Hugo awards. Last year he took home the first Canopus Award “honoring excellence in interstellar writing” for his novel InterstellarNet: Enigma. And of course, you’ve likely seen his name on the popular Fleet of Worlds series that he co-wrote with Larry Niven, because, seriously, Ringworld!

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I first met this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest last January at the amazing Michigan convention known as ConFusion. Tor Books had arranged a mass signing — some ten authors strong — at a nearby bookstore. I was a part of it, along with folks like Tom Doyle and Cherie Priest, Wesley Chu and John Scalzi. But we quickly discovered that 90% of the hordes of readers and fans who had come out were there for Susan Dennard (most of the remaining 10% were there for Victoria Schwab), all of them armed with copies of one or more volumes from her Something Strange and Deadly series as well as Truthwitch that had come out just days before.

After the signing and back at the convention I had a chance to chat with her and found her to be absolutely delightful. When I got home I read some of her work and found the same spirit and personality came through there too. If you’re not familiar with her books, here’s my endorsement. And if that doesn’t convince you to give her a read, maybe her meal will do the trick.

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One of the things I did this past summer was fly to Indiana and participate in the Writer’s [sic] Symposium at GenCon. It was great fun and allowed me to hang out with some old friends and make some new ones. One of the new was Melanie Meadors, who earned my instant goodwill by running a roast of my editor. Flash forward a couple months and I get an email from Melanie telling me about a new author, Amber Bird. It seems Amber has a new book coming out from a small press, and could I find it in my heart to offer her a spot on EATING AUTHORS.

I had to admit that I didn’t know the name — actually didn’t know a thing about her — but I was open to the idea and as most readers here know I do like to champion small presses when I can. So I told her that if she’d send me an ARC of the forthcoming book I’d try to take a look. If I liked the book, then sure, I’d make room in the schedule and give her a slot.

And lo, here we are. Amber’s new novel, Peace Fire — book one of a proposed Peaceforgers series — debuts tomorrow from Barycentre Press. I still don’t know much about Amber Bird, other than to tell you that she’s in a band. And yes, she was the model for the “Elves of Deep Shadow” Magic: The Gathering card. And also that she can write an enjoyable book.

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I met this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest in Kansas City back in August. There I was, up at the crack of 8:30, participating in the WorldCon’s “Stroll with the Stars” as I like to do. About two-thirds of the way through the route I noticed two women in front of me, chatting as they walked. The one on the left had a t-shirt with some superlative on the back (sorry don’t recall what now) that referenced whatever was on the front and I realized it was going to make me crazy if I didn’t find out what was on the other side. So I said “excuse me,” brazenly interrupting their conversation, apologizing for my rudeness, and explaining that I was the t-shirt variant of earwormed (or something like that).

The issue was quickly defused — I think it was a shirt for a local pizza place, but again, it’s a blur — and the three of us started talking about more traditional convention-type things. Which is how I learned that one of them, Jamie Lackey, was a novelist and her first book, Left-Hand Gods, had come out just the month before from my old publisher Hadley Rille Books.

Like many of the authors featured here, Jamie studied under the legendary James Gunn. She’s written more than a hundred short works in horror, science fiction, and fantasy (and check out her zombie post-apocalyptic novella, Moving Forward). But our usual focus here is novels, so let’s get back to her debut. It’s a fantasy adventure involving magic and handedness. Kudos, Jamie, for a marketing ploy that will get all the lefties picking up a copy!

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