I wouldn't be sloppy when interviewing Harlan Ellison that's for sure. I'd love to get a crack at him though, and I love hearing him interviewed. Cheers for the link.

Posted by Jose on Thursday June 01, 2006 at 12:14 PM at 12:14 PM

If I may, Jose, you guys at Meme Therapy are doing some of the coolest stuff with interviews. I love the idea of Brains on Parade - one question for multiple people (even if one of those people happens to be BDO's James Bloomer. Hi James )

Just wondering...how do you work the logistics of that? Do you have a bunch of prepared questions, ask them at one time, then post the cross-section of answers? Or, do you ping each interviewee with the single question each time?

Posted by John on Thursday June 01, 2006 at 12:43 PM at 12:43 PM

Scott, the SFFaudio editor who interviewed Harlan, did a ton of research before making the call. He went in with a number of prepared questions and Harlan had plenty to say around each - plus a ton of good stuff more. They key, I think, is going in with good working knowledge of the author and his or her work - that will give you the kind of questions to ask, and the kind not to.

Jesse

Posted by Jesse Willis on Thursday June 01, 2006 at 11:05 PM at 11:05 PM

John, the weird thing about it is that there isn't a formalized systyem. I've sent 30 query letters and gotten five lines of text and I've done 5 query letters and gotten several thousand. But yes for the most part its interviews, follow up questions and a bit of cut and paste surgery. It requires a bit of foresight in asking the questions and organizaing threads but it usualy works just fine.

Thanks for the kind words,

Regards,

Jose

Posted by Jose on Sunday June 04, 2006 at 6:18 PM at 6:18 PM