Having just returned from World Con, I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of writing as a career, what it takes to create one, build one, sustain one. One cannot attend an event like World Con (or World Fantasy, for that matter) and not find that one is up to one’s waggling fanboy eyebrows in the likes of George R.R. Martin, John Scalzi, Robert Silverberg, Ellen Datlow, and many other luminaries of the speculative fiction field.

Kat Richardson is the national bestselling author of the Greywalker paranormal detective novels. Yours truly ran into her last fall at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, amidst floating schools of writers and publishing industry professional.  One meets the most interesting folks in hotel bars, particularly at industry conventions (long-time readers of BtM may notice a repeating theme…).  How many people have you ever met that live on boat?

The thing for young and/or inexperienced writers to remember is that is soon as one starts treating your work professionally, as something serious and worthy of effort, not to mention respect, one can enter a world of other creative people who have the same struggles, goals, and roadblocks. We all go through the writing life in various stages, with similar milestones, similar roadblocks, but all with unique stories.  All one has to do is make that mental shift from closeted, cloistered, would-be fiction writer, toiling away forlornly in a lonely garret, to Real-Life Fiction Writer.  Once you make that shift,Continue readingAuthor Interview Series #61 – Elaine Isaak

At Readercon in Boston this past July, at a Codex Writers’ Group lunch, I was introduced to Cat Rambo. Cat Rambo’s stories have been described as “works of urban mythopoeia”, a mashup of mythology and urban fantasy. She has worked as a programmer-writer for Microsoft and a Tarot card reader, professions which, she claims, both involve a certain combination of technical knowledge and willingness to go with the flow. Her stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Weird Tales, Clarkesworld, and Strange Horizons, plus several anthologies and Year’s Best collections.  On top of all that, she’s the managing editor at Fantasy Magazine.Continue readingAuthor Interview Series #60 – Cat Rambo

I ran into a pleasant British gentleman at the book launch party for Peter Straub’s American Fantastic Tales. He introduced himself as Tony Richards. Tony is a long-time author of horror and dark fantasy stories, these days numbering over a hundred short stories, novellas, and novels, with a career spanning thirty years.  His debut novel, The Harvest Bride, first appeared in 1987 and was nominated for a Stoker award. In addition to being a darn fine writer, he’s a great guy to share a conversation with over cocktails. Read on!

I hadn’t been sitting at the bar in the Fairmont Hotel at the World Fantasy Convention, nursing a Bombay Sapphire and tonic, when this dame slides onto the stool next to me.  But a second glance proved this to be no dame, but a lady looking as if she had stepped out of a 1940s noir film. I wondered if she was packing heat in that little clutch. Wearing a vintage ensemble complete with white gloves, Gail Carriger made a striking first impression, and the conversation quickly went interesting places, her book that just came out, her career as anContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #58 – Gail Carriger

Continuing a tradition of encountering really interesting people at conventions, I met author Chloe Neill this summer at OSFest, the Omaha Science Fiction Education Society’s annual sci-fi convention.  Although she’s not a katana-wielding vampire badass like the main character in her Chicagoland Vampire series, she perhaps could be with some training.  Neill grew up in Arkansas (maintains a touch of the accent) and now makes her home in Nebraska, where she recently launched her pro writing career with her first novel Some Girls Bite, out this year from Penguin.  She managed to wrangle us some interview time in the midstContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #55 – Chloe Neill

This week I have the distinct pleasure of interviewing a person who has had a tremendous impact on me (and hopefully my writing career!), Jeanne Cavelos.  Jeanne is a former senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell, and these days is the brains and (most of) the brawn behind one of the premier writing workshops for genre fiction, the Odyssey Writing Workshop.  In addition to Odyssey, she also teaches fiction writing at St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH.  One doesn’t have to look very hard to find praises being sung for the quality of the Odyssey experience, and that is dueContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #54 – Jeanne Cavelos