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February 18-20, 2022 — Westin Boston Seaport District
February 11, 2017

B54 Mini Interviews: Theodora Goss, Dan Moren and Tom Easton

We’re less than a week away from Boskone! Get excited for this year’s convention with on our latest batch of mini interviews.

Theodora Goss

theodoragoss_22Theodora Goss’s publications include the short story collection In the Forest of Forgetting (2006); Interfictions (2007), a short story anthology coedited with Delia Sherman; Voices from Fairyland (2008), a poetry anthology with critical essays and a selection of her own poems; The Thorn and the Blossom (2012), a novella in a two-sided accordion format; and the poetry collection Songs for Ophelia (2014).

 

She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, Seiun, and Mythopoeic Awards, as well as on the Tiptree Award Honor List. Her short story “Singing of Mount Abora” won the World Fantasy Award. Her novel The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is forthcoming in June, 2017 from Saga Press. Find her online at her website, Twitter and Facebook.

What are you working on now? What excites or challenges you about this project?

I’m writing the second book in a series forthcoming from Saga Press! It’s about the adventures of Mary Jekyll, Diana Hyde, Beatrice Rappacini, Catherine Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein in the late 19th century. The first book took place in London. In the second book, they head to Vienna and Budapest. I loved doing the research (which involved actually going to Austria and Budapest), and now I’m loving writing the book . . . The first one, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, will be out in June!

How would you describe your work to people who might be unfamiliar with you?

I have no idea. Fantasy? Magical Realism? Realism with some magic in it? I seem to write at the intersection of the real and fantastical, although honestly our world is so fantastical that I think of myself as a realist.

What is it that you enjoy most about Boskone?

Getting together with people who love all the things I love: fantasy books and films and art. It’s so much fun to hear great authors talk about writing, and wander through the art show, and look at (and buy) all the things for sale. Boskone is one of my favorite conventions.

 

Dan Moren

A novelist, freelance writer, and prolific podcaster, Dan’s work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Macworld, Popular Science, Yahoo Tech, Tom’s Guide, Six Colors, The Magazine, and TidBITS, among other places. He formerly served as a senior editor at Macworld. His first novel, the rollicking sci-fi adventure The Caledonian Gambit, is forthcoming from Talos Press. Dan’s repped by Joshua Bilmes and Sam Morgan of JABberwocky Literary Agency. Dan also co-hosts tech podcasts Clockwise and The Rebound, writes and hosts nerdy quiz show Inconceivable!, and is a frequent panelist on the Parsec-award-winning podcast The Incomparable. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he plays ultimate frisbee, enjoys games (of the video and tabletop variety), and is generally working on a novel or two. When he’s not wasting time on Twitter, anyway. Find him online at his website and Twitter.

What are you looking forward to at Boskone?

So, I’ve been attending Boskone for many years now—in fact, it’s where I first met my literary agent—but this is the first year I’ll be going to the con as a participant. I’m really looking forward to being part of the program, and getting to discuss topics that I love with the other panelists and attendees; I think it’ll be a lot of fun. Failing that, I hope it will at least be entertaining to the audience when I crash and burn.

From a fan perspective, what new book, film, TV show, or comic are you most looking forward to seeing/reading?

For my money, James S.A. Corey’s series, The Expanse, is just about the finest sci-fi going these days. As I write this, I think the next book is only about a week out, and I’m looking forward to devouring it while I’m on a beach the weekend following. The TV show adaptation of the series has also been incredibly engaging, even if it doesn’t entirely match up with what I pictured in the book (how could it, really?), so I’m eagerly anticipating the next season of that as well.

Who is your all-time favorite fictional character? What is it about this character that you love?

Miles Vorkosigan, from Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga. (You haven’t read it? Get thee to a library!) There’s an aura of chaos that whirls around the character; where Miles goes, trouble is sure to follow. He’s an unlikely hero, and I love that the books follow him as he ages and matures—it makes him more relatable to the rest of us who, with the exception of the odd vampire, are also getting older.

 

Tom Easton

Tom Easton is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a well-known science fiction critic (he wrote the SF magazine Analog’s book review column for 30 years), and a retired college professor. He holds a doctorate in theoretical biology from the University of Chicago. He writes textbooks for McGraw-Hill on Science, Technology, & Society and Environmental Science. Over the years he has published about fifty science fiction and fantasy short stories, ten SF novels, and several anthologies, of which the latest, coedited with Judith K. Dial, is Conspiracy! (NESFA Press, 2016).

What are you working on now? What excites or challenges you about this project?

Putting together retrospective collections (The GMO Future and Love Songs and UFOs) for Wildside Press. I am also writing short-shorts in hope of repeating my one sale to Nature Futures (published Nov 3, 2016).

How would you describe your work to people who might be unfamiliar with you?

I try to understand the trends that will shape the future.

What are you looking forward to at Boskone?

Talking up new projects.