Subterranean Press has an online magazine which is one of my favorites, so I was thrilled when I sold them a story. It’s up now, if you’d like to read “Waiting for Rain”

Mundari Vineyard 2045, Nashik (India), Shiraz

Black cherry, plum, and currant flavors mingle with aromas of sweet tobacco and sage in this dependable offering from India.

The sun peeking through the grapevines felt hotter on Bharat Mundari’s neck than twenty-four degrees. Another perfect day. Bharat scowled and worked his way down the row of vines, thinning the grapes so the remaining Shiraz crop would become fuller and riper.

Not that there was a point in having healthy vines when he couldn’t pay his weather bill. Without rain, the grapevines would weaken under the stress, and stressed grapes made poor wine. No one bought flawed wine.

There’s also an interview with me by Alethea Kontis. She saw me start the story back in 2005¹ — yes, sometimes it takes that long for a story to find the right home — and you can learn the answer to questions such as, “Whom do you admire most?

Subterranean will be bringing out a chapbook collection of my short stories in June of 2009 called “Scenting the Dark.” Given how gorgeous their other books are, I’m tremendously excited by this.

1. Later on, I’ll be posting the original version flash fiction version of “Waiting for Rain,” as a point of comparison in how stories change. [↩]

Charles Tan at Bibliophile Stalker did an interview with me that covers some new ground with questions such as, “What aspects of your storytelling cravings does puppetry satiate? How about fiction? Are there any areas where they overlap?”

Check it out; it was fun to do.

Travis Heerman interviewed me over at Blogging the Muse. Check it out.

Over at Tor.com Liz Gorinsky seduced me with her evil ways, by which I mean the Dessert Truck, into doing an audio interview. She had the molten chocolate cake, which was bubbling when they handed it to her. I had the vanilla creme brûlée. You should know that I have a weakness for cream brûlées and this one was perfect. I do not use that word lightly.

Afterwards I led her over to the Puppet Kitchen so we could do the interview in relative quiet. It was a fun evening. Check out the interview.

Marshall Payne of The Fix interviewed me before the Campbell. We agreed to do a follow-up question post-Campbell. I have to say this was a great process. We chatted on the phone first and then he came up with a series of questions based on what we talked about. It was fun.

I’ve enjoyed his reviews and am pleased to report that he makes the whole interview process quite painless.

Ekaterina Sedia has a new book coming out at the end of July. All the advance buzz makes Alchemy of Stone sound as if it will be as exciting, but totally different from The Secret History of Moscow. To spread the word, Matt Staggs has started this interview meme. The rules are simple.

If you get tagged, just come up with five questions for Ekaterina Sedia and email them to her. Ask about her work, her new novel “The Alchemy of Stone,” or anything else you’d like. Send them to her. She’s game. After you post your questions to your site, tag another person and let them know! Remember, this is just a game, so don’t sweat your questions too much. Just have fun, post the answers, and tag the next person.

Here are my questions.

1. Do you remember the moment in your writing career when you first thought, “Hey, I can actually do this?”

I’ll let you know when it happens! No, seriously I remember writing a few novels which weren’t any good, and then there was According to Crow, my first published novel. And I looked at it and thought, hey, this isn’t bad. So I actually sent it out.

2. What is your husband like?

He is a much nicer person than I am. He’s a psychologist, and he works with drug addicts — as you can imagine, it requires a lot of patience, which incidentally helps with many other things. Also, he is not a geek, and yet it never interfered with family harmony.

3. If someone were going to prepare the perfect meal for you, what would it be?

Hm. It would have to be some combination of Indian food and sushi. Or maybe just that Nepalese butternut squash they serve at Himal Chuli in Madison, WI.¹

4. Pretending for a moment that Alchemy of Stone isn’t your book, why would you tell someone that they have to read it?

Because it’s fun, has gargoyles, and asks important questions about automaton emancipation?²

5. How many authors does it take to change a light bulb?

None. It’s not like they would notice that the bulb burned out.

I tag Alethea Kontis³

Other interviews are at:
Matt Stags
Paul Jessup
Johnathan Wood
Mark Teppo

1. Mmmm….. [↩]
2. Hot dang. Gargoyles! [↩]
3. Alethea also has a new book out. Make sure you check out Beauty and Dynamite while you’re at it. [↩]

It’s raining audio!

My fellow Campbell nominee, Jon Armstrong, interviewed me for his podcastIf You’re Just Joining Us.

if you’re just joining us is a podcast about books, culture, media, ideas, and cheese. You know, the important things.

Jon is a charming host, and I had a great time talking with him.¹ We mostly talked about puppets, with brief forays into writing. This is the first of a series he’s doing, interviewing the other nominees.

You should check out his book, Grey, which is a science-fiction novel filled with fashion intrigue, including competitive ironing. Squee!

1. If only my microphone wasn’t buzzing and I didn’t say “um” quite so often [↩]

There’s an interview with me up on J. M. McDermott’s blog, which you should check out if you’ve ever wanted to know how I got started in puppetry.

SF Signal does a feature, called Mind Meld, where they ask several different writers the same question. This weeks question asks Is the Short Fiction Market in Trouble?

One of the many perennial arguments in the science fiction blogosphere centers on the health of the short fiction market, so we turned the Mind Meld microphone to people in the field and asked them:

Q: Nobody questions the relevance of genre short fiction, but there is some debate about the health of the market itself. From your perspective, is the short fiction market in trouble? If not, why the debate? If so, what is the cause?

I’m one of the writers they asked to pontificate.

Last week I spent an enjoyable hour being interviewedby Susan Marie Groppi for Strange Horizons‘ podcast. Susan was my editor for “Bound Man,” in Twenty Epics and also “Portrait of Ari” for Strange Horizons.

In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Susan Marie Groppi spoke with Mary Robinette Kowal. Mary is a puppeteer and writer, and she is also the art director of Shimmer magazine.

Edited to add: I was just listening to this to make sure I didn’t sound like an idiot. Which I mostly don’t, until I try to speak a little Icelandic. In fact, I talk about Iceland a bit and figured I would throw some visual aids up here. If you’ve listened to the podcast and want to know what the Land of a Thousand Throw Pillows looks like, it looks like this.

See! I wasn’t exaggerating my description, was I.

Susan was a really gracious host to the podcast. The only thing she seems to have cut was my closing remark, which was something along the lines of “Strange Horizons is one of the best things going for short fiction.”

Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest’s online magazine interviewed Beth about Shimmer. During the interview, I am compared to a horse…

Beth Wodzinski is the Editor-in-Chief of Shimmer Magazine. You’ve probably heard of it…attractive perfect-bound magazine that could probably call itself the young cousin of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Beth Wodzinski is respected and well-liked by the Apex staff, and we were pleased that she took the time to tell us more about her labor of love.

I was interviewed for this article about Apex Digest.

Cat Rambo at suite101 interviewed me about my work with Shimmer. We also touched on art, writing and puppetry. Check it out.