![Joe Haldeman Joe Haldeman](http://www.lawrencemschoen.com/authorpics/JoeHaldeman.jpg)
I don’t know about you, but so far April has been unfolding into quite possibly the best month I’ve had for a long time. And having this week’s guest at EATING AUTHORS continues that trend. He’s Joe Haldeman, and if you don’t know who Joe is, then you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog. But no, everybody knows Joe. He’s just that approachable, both in person and in his fiction.
I’ve had the great pleasure to be on panels with Joe at the Worldcon, and to sit and chat with him numerous times over the years, dating back to my first meeting with him at the Nebula Weekend in 1999 (where he won the Best Novel Nebula for Best for Forever Peace).
Joe’s career in the field is long and glorious. He’s won five Hugos, five Nebulas, a LOCUS Award, a Campbell Award (not that Campbell Award, the other Campbell Award), a Tiptree, a World Fantasy, and three Rhysling Awards for his poetry. Oh yeah, and in 2010 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America inducted him as a Grand Master.
But what I envy most about Joe is that he gets to spend half the year in Florida and the other half teaching at M.I.T. Speaking as a lapsed academician who misses that whole “life of the mind” thing, I can’t help but believe that he’s got it all.
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LMS: Welcome, Joe. Having you here is a real coup. So tell me, what’s your best meal?
JH: Lawrence, I think the meal I most enjoyed was a home-made pizza in Vietnam. A friend received a package from home that had a pizza pan and all the makings. We improvised an oven by digging a hole in the side of a bunker and heating it with C-4 plastic explosive. The crust was kind of random, but it was indescribably delicious after months of C-rations.
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Thanks, Joe. Brief and to the point. And seriously, any meal made with C-4 should probably be kept short.
Next Monday: Another author and another meal!
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Tags: Eating Authors