Posts Tagged ‘Eating Authors’

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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One of the things I like best about EATING AUTHORS is when I get to introduce you to a new writer, particular when her first novel is just being published. That’s the case with this week’s guest, J. Kathleen Cheney, author of The Golden City, which comes out tomorrow from Roc.

I’m especially happy to have J. here because I had the privilege of publishing her Nebula Award-nominated novella “Iron Shoes” back in 2010. I’m brutal when I’m wearing my editor’s hat, and she completely won me over with her lyrical style. So believe me when I tell you she’s an author you’re going to want to keep your eye on. You can begin by putting her new book on your To Be Read list right now.

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All Hallow’s Eve is fast approaching, and though it will see us much closer to a new moon than a full one, it nonetheless seemed like a good time to feature an author who knows a thing or two about werewolves. When that topic comes up, one of the best people in the biz is none other than the #1 New York Times best selling author, Patricia Briggs. Although she’s done stand alone novels as well as short stories, Patty is best known for series of books. Most readers of this blog will instantly recognize her name from the very popular Mercy Thompson series (the first book, Moon Called, came out in 2006; book #8 hits bookstores in March), and spin-off series Alpha and Omega (Cry Wolf, Hunting Ground, and Fair Game), set in the same world. Between these two sets, she’s been a finalist for the Endeavor Award three times.

Other series include Sianim (Masques, Wolfsbane, Shifter’s Wolf, Steal the Dragon, and When Demons Walk), as well as her Hurog (Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood) and Raven (Raven’s Strike and Raven’s Strike) duologies. That’s plenty of tricks and treats to tide you over for at least a week!

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Anyone who’s been reading this blog feature for a while will have realized that, as a general rule, I don’t feature self-published or “indie” authors here. It’s not that they don’t have great memories of meals, it’s more that I believe the whole signal-to-noise problem is a couple orders of magnitude greater with self-publishing than with traditional or even small press publishing. Every writer, newbie or pro, benefits from an editor’s careful eye. So, while I have no beef when experienced and established authors decide to self-publish reverted books from their respective backlists, I hold newer authors who have only gone down the self-published route to a different standard.

And yet, every now and then someone comes along that provides an exception to the rule, which is the way I’m choosing to introduce Christie Meierz, this week’s EATING AUTHOR guest. When I first met Christie, she’d self-published her first novel, The Marann. I stopped short of inviting her to talk about a meal here on the blog because, hey, self-published. But then her novel went and won the RWA’s 2013 Prism Award for Futuristic Romance (making her the first self-published author to win the award). Soon after, the fine folks at Sky Warrior Books approached her to buy the rights to the book. Christie provided some rewrites and expanded on a few scenes, and last week they released the new improved edition under their imprint.

I confess, I’m fascinated to see what’s going to happen next. Christie is still self-publishing, but she’s also now being published by a small press. Will she pick up another Prism Award? Will Sky Warrior offer a contract on the next book in her series? The answer to both questions may be affected by what you, gentle reader, choose to do. Especially if, after checking out her most memorable meal, you go out and pick up a copy of one or more of her books.

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If you’re reading this in the early morning hours when it automagically posts, be aware that I’m likely busily engaged in the thoroughly mundane act of sleeping in. I spent the weekend down at Capclave where I had a wonderful time talking with fans and pros and basking in all that is great about conventions. If your weekend was half as fine, you’re doubtless far ahead of most of humanity.

But it’s Monday again, and also (in the USA) Columbus Day. Rather than grapple with the incongruity of how best to observe a Federal Holiday when the federal government is shut down, allow me to introduce you to this week’s guest, T. L. Morganfield, a self-described writer of Aztec Science Fiction and Fantasy. She’s also a graduate of Clarion West, and a past finalist for the Sidewise Award.

I’ve had the privilege of attending Traci’s readings at conventions, and I’m here to tell you her short fiction has an incredible style and deft touch. But I’m even more excited to tell you that her first novel, The Bone Flower Throne, came out last week from Panverse Publishing. Personally, I have a weakness for tales laced with Aztec mythology, let alone set in tenth century Mexico, so this one’s a no-brainer; for those of you who need a bit more, the book grabs you with the simple question: “Can one woman alone defeat a god?” For me though, the better question is, what’s she going to do in book two, because there had better be another book!

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