Toast writer/editor Craig Laurance Gidney as we discuss how meeting Samuel R. Delany led to his attending the Clarion Writing Workshop, the influence of reading decadent writers such as Verlaine and Rimbaud, why he kept at trying to get published when so many of his peers stopped, the many ways flaws can sometimes make a story more interesting, our shared love of ambiguity, the reason there must be beauty entwined with horror, why he’s a vibes guy rather than a plot guy, the time Tanith Lee bought him a pint and how that led to him coediting her tribute anthology, what he learned from his years editing a flash fiction magazine, and much more.

Break for brunch with writer Adeena Mignogna as we discuss how Star Trek changed her life, which Trek character she used as her screen name on fan forums when she first went online as a young teen, why she never wrote fanfic, the feedback from a friend which saved her NaNoWriMo novel from being trunked, how she discovered she's neither a plotter nor a pantser but rather something in-between, her favorite science fiction novel of all time (and the important lesson it taught her about her Robot Galaxy series), why she went the indie route and how she knew she had the chops to pull it off, the manner in which we gender robots, the reason writing each book in her quartet was more fun than the one before, why she remains hopeful about our AI future, how she finally learned she was a morning writer after years of trying to write at night, and much more.

Pig out on pork belly with Jarrett Melendez as we discuss how his loves of food and writing combined into a career, the way running comic book conventions gave him the contacts he needed when it was time to create comics of his own, which franchise inspired his sole piece of fan fiction, the comics creator whose lessons proved invaluable, how he knew Chef's Kiss needed to be a graphic novel rather than a miniseries, the way he balanced multiple plot arcs so they resolved in parallel, the magical pig whose taste is more trustworthy than any chef you've ever met, his early crush on Encyclopedia Brown, how he cooks up recipes connected with franchises such as Pokémon and Percy Jackson, the traumatic childhood incident which became the catalyst for his upcoming graphic novel, and much more.