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Known as the “Wizard of Storytelling,” David Farland (a.k.a. Dave Wolverton)  is the New York Times bestselling author of fifty novels, including novels for adults, young adults, anthologies, middle-grade readers, and picture books. As a child, he wrote short stories and dreamt of growing up to become a fantasy writer. At BYU, he wrote “On My Way to Paradise,” based on a vivid dream, and entered it in L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest and won the grand prize the Gold Award. He was immediately contracted by Bantam Books to turn the short story into a novel, along with a contract to write two more. On My Way to Paradise spent months on the Locus Bestseller list and won a Phillip K. Dick Memorial Special Award. He wrote Science Fiction for ten years under his given name David Wolverton then decided to try fantasy. He has amassed many awards for his short fiction in particular, and set a Guinness Record for the world’s largest book signing, a record he still holds. A dedicated teacher, he is known for having taught many great emerging writers, including Stephanie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, Eric Flint and more. As part of his dedication to helping other writers, David writes David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants email bulletin for writers. He can be found on twitter as @DavidFarland, Facebook and via his website at DavidFarland.com.

[Editor's Note: David's son, Ben Wolverton, was in a tragic accident after this interview was conducted. Here's how you can help.]

SFFWRTCHT: First things first, where’d your interest in speculative fiction come from?

David Farland: Seriously, I think my interest in fantastic literature came from sitting on my mother’s knee and listening to bedtime stories. As a kid of twelve, I became a Star Trek fan-when I got to watch it in color. But my love for speculative literature really blossomed at sixteen, when I read Lord of the Rings.
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In episode 189 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with Author David Annandale.

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Philip K. Dick and World Fantasy Award Winning novelist James P. Blaylock is considered, along with Tim Powers and K.W. Jeter, to be one of the Founding Fathers of Steampunk. His novels include Lord Kelvin’s Machine, The Stone Giant, The Magic Spectacles, The Last Coin and The Disappearing Dwarf. His latest novel, The Aylesford Skull (now avilabale from from Titan Books) is a Langdon St. Ives steampunk tale set in Victorian England that follows up Lord Kelvin’s Machine, Humunculus, The Ebb Tide, and The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs. He is currently director of the Creative Writing Conservatory at the Orange County High School of the Arts, where Tim Powers is Writer in Residence. Mr. Blaylock was born in Long Beach, California and studied English at California State University, Fullerton, receiving an M.A. in 1974. He lives in Orange, California, teaching creative writing at Chapman University. Many of his books are set in Orange County, California, and can more specifically be termed “fabulism” — that is, fantastic things happen in our present-day world, rather than in traditional fantasy, where the setting is often some other world. His works have also been categorized as magic realism. He can be found online at Goodreads and via his website at JamespBlaylock.com/.

SFFWRTCHT: First things first, where’d your interest in science fiction and fantasy come from?
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Andrew P. Mayer‘s third steampunk superhero novel — a fantastic and fun read called Power Under Pressure  — came out from PYR Books in January. It’s the third book of his Society of Steam trilogy, following The Falling Machine and Hearts of Smoke & Steam. These stories capture the feel of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells while being set in Victorian New York City, where Mayer was born. Mayer is a game designer who has also has written comic books and short stories. You can find Andrew online at societyofsteam.com, andrewpmayer.com/, and on Twitter as @AndrewMayer.

SFFWRTCHT: Andrew, congrats on the completion of your trilogy. What’s it like to have that complete cycle under your belt?

Andrew P. Mayer: I’m still breathing the same sigh of relief that I started when I handed in the book.  It’s nice to have the completed story out in the world after six years of work.
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In episode 183 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author David Brin.

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Weston Ochse is the author of nine novels, most recently SEAL Team 666. His first novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel. He’s also had published more than a hundred short stories, many of which appeared in anthologies, magazines, peered journals and comic books. His short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Weston holds Bachelor’s Degrees in American Literature and Chinese Studies from Excelsior College. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from National University. He has been to more than fifty countries and speaks Chinese with questionable authority. Weston has studied martial arts for more than 30 years, including Tae Kwon Do, Ryu Kempo Jujitsu, Kali, and Kuai Lua.

His last name is pronounced “oaks.” Together with his first name, it sounds like a stately trailer park. He lives in the Arizona desert within rock throwing distance of Mexico. For fun he races tarantula wasps and watches the black helicopters dance along the horizon.

Weston took time out of his very busy schedule to chat with us about his newest novel, SEAL Team 666!

Kristin Centorcelli: Weston, thanks so much for joining us! Will you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?

Weston Ochse: Sure. Here’s the Cliff Note Version. Born just south of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Moved around a bunch as a kid following my English Professor father, until eventually settling down to life in Eastern Tennessee. Flunked out of two colleges and joined the army. After a twenty year career with time spent in infantry, special operations and special mission units, I retired and went to work for the U.S. military in a civilian status. Eventually received a Bachelor’s Degree in American Literature and Chinese Asian Studies, then a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Have written ten novels, more than a hundred short stories and an equal number of non-fiction. Won awards. Have a beautiful wife. Three Great Danes to curl around my feet. And a fine home in southern Arizona.
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In episode 183 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author Piper Maitland.

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Brian D’Amato has written for magazines, including Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Artforum, and he has taught art and art history at the City University of New York, Ohio State, and Yale University. His sculptures and installations have been shown in galleries all over the world.

You can keep up with Brian at his website and on Twitter.

Kristin Centorcelli: Brian, you have a background in art and also wrote for numerous publications before publishing Beauty in 1992. Did you always see yourself as a writer? Will you tell us more about yourself and what inspired you to write your first novel?

Brian D’Amato: The first draft of Beauty was practically written on a dare, and I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it except my Mom – who suggested doing something on cosmetic surgery in the first place. I do think I had an advantage over most other beginning writers because I never took a creative writing course, or any kind of writing course. So I didn’t think I had to start out by sending Chekhovian-realist short stories to the Quagmire Review, or whatever. If I’d done that, I’d be pumping gas right now, if pumping gas were still allowed. Conversely, I did study art and art history, and majored in painting in school, so my visual stuff started out in a slower way – I was almost about to say a worse way, but that’s not quite right – but anyway I’m still picking up the pieces.
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E.C. Myers is the product of German and Korean parents, and was raised in Yonkers by his mother and by the public library. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from Columbia which he put to no use as a technical writer, former software development, and women’s programming developer for TV. Currently a writer for a Children’s hospital development department, he spends way too much time gaming and on the internet. His debut young adult science fiction novel, Fair Coin (Pyr, 2012), received rave reviews and is a current finalist for the Andre Norton Award. His second novel, Quantum Coin, was released last October. He’s a graduate of Clarion West and member of Altered Fluid, a NY writing group. His short fiction has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and Shimmer, amongst other venues. His romantic short story featuring horny zombies, “In the Closet”, received Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008. His nostalgic short story about horny cavemen, “My Father’s Eyes”, got an Honorable Mention in The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 3. Horny characters are thus key to his success. Myers was also a finalist in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. He is an avid Star Trek fan who blogs about it at The View Screen. Myers can be found online at ecmyers.net, on twitter as @ECMyers, and on Facebook.

SFFWRTCHT: I couldn’t put your book down. But first things first: where’d your interest in science fiction and fantasy come from?

E.C. Myers: Thank you! That’s always a wonderful compliment to receive. Probably from cartoons I watched as a kid, like He-Man and Thundercats. And the first science fiction novel I read, Interstellar Pig by William Sleator.
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Edited by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen, Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond brings together leading fantasy writers such as Jane Yolen, Tad Williams and Seanan McGuire to create the ultimate anthology for Oz fans—and, really, any reader with an appetite for richly imagined worlds.

Here is the book’s description:

When L. Frank Baum introduced Dorothy and friends to the American public in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz became an instant, bestselling hit. Today the whimsical tale remains a cultural phenomenon that continues to spawn wildly popular books, movies, and musicals.

We asked a few of the authors a couple of questions…

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Nancy Kress‘ latest novel is Flash Point, a young adult science fiction story about a teen who takes a job on a virtual reality TV show that’s more than she bargained for. A former columnist for Writer’s Digest, Kress has been nominated for and won one Hugos and four Nebulas. She’s currently nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award and Nebula for her novella After The Fall, Before The Fall, During The Fall. Her novels include The Probability Trilogy and The Sleepers Saga, which includes Beggars In Spain based on her award winning novella. And she’s written writing books for Writer’s Digest and more. Her short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Omni, Galaxy, amongst others, as well as several year’s best anthologies. Along with Robert Silverberg, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Mike Resnick, she’s headlining the colonist science fiction anthology, Beyond The Sun, coming in July from Fairwood Press. She lives in Seattle with her husband, fellow writer Jack Skillingstead, and a spoiled toy poodle, Cosette. She can be found online at www.sff.net/people/nankress, on Twitter as @NancyKress and Facebook.
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Edited by John Joseph Adams and published by TOR, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination features all original, all nefarious, all conquering tales from the megalomaniacal pens of Diana Gabaldon, Austin Grossman, Seanan McGuire, Naomi Novik, Daniel H. Wilson and 17 OTHER EVIL GENIUSES.

The book description is this:

Mad scientists have never had it so tough. In super-hero comics, graphic novels, films, TV series, video games and even works of what may be fiction, they are besieged by those who stand against them, devoid of sympathy for their irrational, megalomaniacal impulses to rule, destroy or otherwise dominate the world as we know it.

We asked a few of the authors a couple of questions…

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In episode 180 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author Emma Newman about Worldcon, her new book Between Two Thorns, a slew of short stories and an ingenious bit of marketing.
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Kelly McCullough and I met at Convergence where we had a blast creating chaos on panels together. I hadn’t had time to read his books until he agreed to guest, but Broken Blade is an adventure fantasy. I couldn’t put down Book 1, it’s followed by Bared Blade and his latest Crossed Blades from Ace Books. He is also the author of the Webmage series of five books which mix internet and sorcery, so urban science fantasy perhaps? A full time writer/cat wrangler, he’s married to physicist Laura and lives in MN where he dabbles in politics amongst other things. He can be found online at http://t.co/hfjXQIJB, on twitter as @KellyDMcC and Facebook.

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Amber Benson co-wrote and directed the animated webseries Ghosts of Albion with Christopher Golden for the BBC. The duo then novelized the series in two books for Random House. She has written five novels about Calliope Reaper-Jones, beginning with Death’s Daughter, which were published by Penguin Books. As an actress, Benson spent three seasons as Tara Maclay on the cult show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She has also written, produced, and directed three feature films, including Drones, which she co-directed with Adam Busch.

Bradley Beaulieu:  1. The tone of the Calliope Reaper-Jones series is light and fun with a touch of gallows humor (how can there not be with books about Death, Inc.?), and it seems to me that it matches your personality. But as writers there are any number of places where we’re pushed out of our comfort zones. Where in the writing of The Golden Age of Death were you pushed out of your comfort zone?

Amber Benson:  I’m always accused of being earnest, but secretly I’m a total nut ball – so I’m glad you picked up on that! Well, if we’re talking ‘out of my comfort zone’ here then I should tell you that I actually imposed a whole bunch of that on myself when I conceived The Golden Age Of Death. The first four Death’s Daughter books were written entirely in first person – which was really starting to get boring for me – so I decided to mix it up a little. You still get Callie’s POV, but since I knew this was going to be the last book in the series, I wanted to give the fans some insight into the supporting characters. So Callie’s Executive Assistant, Jarvis, gets some play, as well as Callie’s little sister, Clio. It was scary to write that way, but I enjoyed the challenge. Hopefully it works out – that’s always the rub of experimenting.

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Miles Cameron is the author of The Red Knight, out now in the US. Published by Orbit Books, it is the first novel of The Traitor Son Cycle, merging epic fantasy with intricate plotting and scathing action. Nick Sharps was fortunate enough to discuss The Red Knight with Cameron. The following is an interview involving influences, POV’s, authenticity, film adaptations, and more.

Nick Sharps: Sell me The Red Knight in as few words as possible.

Miles Cameron: Excalibur vs. Alien. 

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Cassandra Rose Clarke is a speculative fiction writer living amongst the beige stucco and overgrown pecan trees of Houston, Texas. She graduated in 2006 from The University of St. Thomas with a bachelor’s degree in English, and in 2008 she completed her master’s degree in creative writing at The University of Texas at Austin. Both of these degrees have served her surprisingly well.

During the summer of 2010, she attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle. She was also a recipient of the 2010 Susan C. Petrey Clarion Scholarship Fund.

Her first published novel, The Assassin’s Curse, is a YA fantasy that was released in October 2012 by Strange Chemistry.  The second novel in that series, The Pirate’s Wish, is due out in June.   Her first adult novel, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, is a work of literary science fiction that was released on January 29th.

Carl V. Anderson:  We have the information from your official bio, but let me start out by asking for a less authorial answer to the question “Who is Cassandra Rose Clarke?”.

Cassandra Rose Clarke: Let’s see. I love to draw and paint. I used to crochet although I don’t do it so much anymore. I love to cook, but I hate eating leftovers, which means my refrigerator gets filled with boxes of old food that I have to force myself to eat for lunch everyday. I love watching movies at the theater. I hate shopping for shoes, or indeed, wearing shoes. There’s more, but I figure the shoe thing is a good stopping point.

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Brenda Cooper is the Chief Information Officer of Kirkland, WA by day and a Science Fiction writer by night. Her stories appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld and anthologies including Fast Forward and Footprints. She’s also headlining my forthcoming space opera anthology Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera For a New Age, due out in November 2013. Her novels include Building Harlequin’s Moon with Larry Niven, The Silver Ship and The Sea and two sequels. Her last appearance was to discuss Mayan December. Her debut at Pyr Books is The Creative Fire, first in a new duology, Ruby’s Song. She can be found on twitter as @BrendaCooper, on Facebook and via her website at brenda-cooper.com.

SFFWRTCHT: We talked about this before but briefly, where’d your interest in science fiction and fantasy come from?

Brenda Cooper: I’ve always read SF and F. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and Time Enough for Love, Herbert’s Dune, Madeline L’Engle, Arthur C. Clarke, Nancy Kress, L. Frank Baum’s original Oz. I’m also interested in science and the future. I think those matter.
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H.E. Goodhue is an author and educator. Zombie Youth: Playground Politics is Goodhue’s first published novel. It is the first installment in a new series from Severed Press that has been called “unrelenting”, “thrilling and exciting” by both fellow authors and literary critics. Since its release in April, Zombie Youth has posted sales throughout the US, Europe and Australia. H.E. Goodhue currently resides in New Jersey with his wife, daughter and two hardheaded pitbulls.

H.E. was kind enough to chat with SF Signal about his book, zombies, what scares him the most, and more!

Kristin Centorcelli: Will you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Did you always see yourself becoming a writer?

H.E. Goodhue: For the past nine years I have been a teacher. Currently I teacher 6th grade math. I began writing at an early age as a means to deal with recurrent nightmares. My parents suggested that writing down these dreams might help them not to continue night after night. This worked, but had the inadvertent effect of engendering a love of horror within me from an early age.

I began writing various types of stories, but always found myself returning to the genre of horror. Oddly it just feels the most comfortable and enjoyable to me. Go figure? Most of the stories I wrote were simply for my own enjoyment, though at the tender age of 10 or so I tried to sell some of my nightmares to a well-known children’s horror anthology. They passed due to the nature of the stories, but it completely floored and inspired me to receive an actual response from them, not just a form letter.

A few years ago I completed my first full-length novel, which was overwhelmingly rejected, but this caused me to reflect upon my intent and purpose. So when I began Zombie Youth: Playground Politics I decided to return to what I had learned as a child – just write something for me and if others get behind it, great. If not, so be it because I had written for me anyway. Though I will admit I was elated when Severed Press decided to release Zombie Youth as a series.

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