E. E. Knight is a relative newcomer, even though, like most authors, he’s been writing for a LoOoOng time. I was most intrigued by how his path through a series of publishing house nightmares led to a mass market deal.  As a veteran of publishing house nightmares myself (see the Cautionary Tales Part 1 page link nearby and the link in the post immediately below), I applaud those authors who are not deterred by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Since he finally shepherded Way of the Wolf into a mass market deal in 2003, he’s released seven novelsContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #36 – E. E. Knight

Elizabeth Bear won the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for her story “Tideline,” which is about a sentient robotic battle tank and its relationship with a human child.  I didn’t get the chance to meet Elizabeth Bear at World Con this year, but I was pleased that at least someone I voted for actually won. “Tideline” also won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial award for Best Short Story.  She also took home the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer in 2005.  So it seems that while she hasn’t been neck deep in the industry for all thatContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #35 – Elizabeth Bear

We’re approaching the end of a long string of authors whom I met at World Con in August. This week we meet Francis Hamit, a gentleman and a scholar who’s just released his novel The Shenandoah Spy. As a history buff myself, I can certainly appreciate a great story set in a meticulously researched milieu. The history of spying is a fascinating topic that goes back millennia, and the American Civil War has been underrepresented in espionage fiction, overshadowed in recent decades by the Cold War and then the War on Terrorism. His new book certainly sounds like something outContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #34 – Francis Hamit

As a perfect horror-ific bracket around Halloween to accompany Ramsey Campbell’s interview last week, I bring you Carrie Vaughn. One of the cool things about SF/F/H fandom is that one can meet the most unexpected people at a con … and still not know who they are.  At the Omaha Science Fiction Festival last July, I met Carrie Vaughn briefly, when everyone is moving from panel to panel, but at the time, I had no idea who she was.  Dummy me. Then, at World Con in August, I attended the Weird Tales magazine party, and here was the same womanContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #33 – Carrie Vaughn

Just in time for Halloween, I would like to present a fantastic interview with the Grand Master of Horror, Ramsey Campbell. Few authors, unless their last names are King or Koontz, can match the number of awards he was received in his long writing career, the Bram Stoker Award, World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, and the list goes on. I encountered his work in my late teens, around the time I discovered H. P. Lovecraft–since much of Campbell’s work is so closely intertwined with Horror’s beloved Bard of Arkham.  I read his novel The Hungry Moon way back then.Continue readingAuthor Interview Series #32 – Ramsey Campbell

I was pleasantly surprised back in July at OSFest, the Omaha Science Fiction Society’s inaugural convention, when I met another genre author from around these parts named Matt Rotundo. We sat on a couple of panels together, wherein I discovered that this guy I had never previously heard of was racking up quite a number of significant short fiction sales in the top genre markets, most notably Writers of the Future and Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi magazine, Intergalactic Medicine Show. Then we happened to cross paths again at World Con, where–seriously–everybody in the genre publishing industry goes, has gone, orContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #30 – Matt Rotundo

At an event like World Con, one has the opportunity to meet authors at all levels of their craft and career, as I have said in previous interview posts. I introduced myself to David B. Coe after sitting in on one of that week’s many panels and listening to him and the other panelists discuss various aspects of the writing business. David is a self-described midlist author, which isn’t exactly glamorous, but it’s a darn sight further along the career path than legions of other would-be writers. It basically means that he’s a real live working fiction writer, not aContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #29 – David B. Coe

At the World Science Fiction Convention back in August, in yet another instance of meeting more authors through authors I just met, I had the good fortune to meet a pleasant, soft-spoken author and rocket scientist named Ian Tregillis.  We were introduced through Melinda Snodgrass, whom I had met at World Con when she recognized me from this series of interviews. You can still find her interview in the archives.  But at her recommendation, I attended a reading by Ian, wherein he read one of his short stories.  He was very modest about it when I complimented him afterward, butContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #28 – Ian Tregillis

If you’ve been following these interviews, by now you realize that one could not swing a deceased feline quadruped at the World Science Fiction Convention without hitting writers and authors at practically every stage of their careers. Jude-Marie Green is a published author of speculative fiction whose work is just starting to take off. And whilst swinging the above said carcass, I happened to meet her at the wind-down of a long exhausting day tramping for miles around the enormous convention center and downtown Denver, and so ensued one of those, “Oh, really? What do you write?” conversations. Strangely, sheContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #27 – Jude-Marie Green

Here comes another in a long series of interviews with authors I had the distinct pleasure of meeting at World Con in Denver last month.  Mary Robinette Kowal and I were introduced through one of the many globs of authors at the con, authors new and not-so-new, globs that migrate, coagulate, split away like mitosis, merge, disperse, etc., in those minutes between panels. During Hugo Awards ceremony, I was pleased to hear her name called as the winner of the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer.  So, having already asked her to do an interview for Blogging theContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #26 – Mary Robinette Kowal

Habitual readers of Blogging the Muse may recall that I interviewed Kristine Kathryn Rusch, prior to taking my first trip to the World Science Fiction Convention, and we discussed the nature of the publishing industry at length. At World Con, I had the good fortune to meet Kristine and her husband, Dean Wesley Smith, another author of perhaps slightly less renown (at least under his own name) but certainly no less accomplishment.  He has published over ninety novels under numerous pseudonyms–that’s right ninety, 9 – 0–with his real name being better known for media tie-in works, such as Star TrekContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #25 – Dean Wesley Smith