Posts Tagged ‘Eating Authors’

Hebraic calendrical conventions aside, I tend to think of the week as starting on Monday. Which makes it all the stranger, at least for me, to have the year end on a Monday. I’m not sure who to complain to about this, nor what might be done about it so late in the game, but I expect to be experiencing chronal confusion for the rest of the day. If you’re the same way, then I hope you’ll make use of today’s installment of EATING AUTHORS to help ground you. Because whether it’s the beginning of the week or the end of the year, that’s what Mondays are for.

Our guest today is Julia Dvorin whose first novel Ice Will Reveal, came out just last month.

Julia describes herself a woman of many hats and not enough sleep, a statement that I can completely relate to (well, except for the woman part, but let’s focus on the predicate, okay?). She did her undergraduate work at UC Santa Cruz (hey, I started there too!) and completed her Masters at UC Santa Barbara. She’s a graduate of the Viable Paradise workshop and is hard at work on her second novel.

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Hello and welcome to the special 2012 Christmas Eve (depending on what time you get here) edition of EATING AUTHORS, the weekly blog feature that advises you to not eat too many authors over the holidays.

Our guest today is Gareth L. Powell, and rumor has it that Santa will be bringing him a brand new book! That’s right, his novel Ack-Ack Macaque, based on the award-winning short story of the same name, will be released on Christmas Day, which as it happens, gets to him a bit before our US readers, because Gareth lives in Bristol, in the UK. But the point is, if a copy isn’t already waiting in your stocking, then click on the link because this one has it all, including nuclear-powered Zeppelins and a cigar-chomping monkey!

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Welcome to the post-Hannukah, pre-Christmas 2012 edition of EATING AUTHORS, the weekly blog feature that eschews literary cannibalism by requiring writers to inspire us with retellings of their most memorable meals. Or something like that. Our guest this week is none other than Lavie Tidhar who’s ending the year with a checklist for his recent novel Osama that includes wins for the World Fantasy Award and the Kitschies Award, and as well as nominations for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the BSFA Award.

Many of you already know that Lavie is an Israeli born author and that he grew up on a Kibbutz. Since then he’s bounced around the globe, living in the UK, South Africa, Vanuatu, and Laos, and his writing has benefited from all that travel. His Bookman series (Bookman, Camera Obscura, and The Great Game) have redefined Steampunk in glorious ways, and his work as an editor on the The Apex Book of World SF and more recent The Apex Book of World SF 2 anthologies have brought attention to the genre authors far beyond the traditional venues of the US and UK. If you haven’t been reading him, doing so should be high on your list of new year’s resolutions.

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I’m a little under the weather this morning, and so I hope you’ll understand if I keep this week’s introduction somewhat brief. Our guest today at EATING AUTHORS is Heather McDougal, who had her first book published just a few short weeks ago and so still has that new author shine about her. In addition to her writing, Heather is versed in many crafts including pottery and weaving. She has an MFA in sculpture, which when combined with her skills in welding and glass blowing probably goes a long way to explain her love of clockwork automata. I could say more, but instead I’ll direct you to her novel Songs for a Machine Age and let you discover it all yourself.

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It’s been a rather elemental week since the last installment of Eating Authors. Here at home, our furnace went out, just in time for the coldest days of the season. My wife and I spent plenty of time shivering, as well as piling extra comforters onto the bed, because for three days and nights the temperature in the house dropped to the low 40’s. We resolved that problem on Saturday. On Sunday my sister-in-law and her partner showed up, a result of a broken water main that under better circumstances serviced their housing complex, and will again by Friday. None of which really bears on today’s entry, but it provides some local color.

Rising out of these housing disasters I’m pleased to present this week’s guest, author and personal friend, Walter H. Hunt. I’ve actually had the pleasure of dining at some rather nice restaurants with Walter and his wife as our paths have crossed at more than a few conventions. We’ve even shared some memorable moments on panels together (if you should have the pleasure of seeing him at a convention, ask Walter to explain about Jar Jar Binks). But I digress.

Walter is perhaps best known for his Dark military SF series (The Dark Wing, The Dark Path, The Dark Ascent, and The Dark Crusade), but he’s also ventured into both music and religious history, exploring the Templars and Roslyn Chapel with his novel A Song In Stone. More recently, Walter has taken up with Eric Flint’s 1632 universe and is currently co-authoring a book (tentatively titled 1636: Drums Along The Mohawk) with Flint that brings the series to North America.

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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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