The Salon: A Changing Conversation

001, Discussions

Each month Cheryl Morgan invites a number of celebrity guests to visit The Salon and talk about some topic related to speculative literature.

This month we welcome Gary K. Wolfe, Nnedi Okorafor and Fábio Fernandes. The topic of conversation is, perhaps appropriately, The Conversation — how we talk about science fiction and understand its history.

If you have difficulty listening this podcast you can also find it here, or via iTunes.

Some of the items mentioned during the podcast are linked to below.

The only translated novel ever to be nominated for the Best Novel Hugo Award was Sylva by Vercours (Jean Bruller). It featured in the 1963 Hugos awarded at Discon I in Washington DC. The winner of Best Novel that year was The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. More information about Vercors can be found in his obituary at the New York Times.

The regular podcast featuring Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan can be found at Jonathan’s blog, Notes from Coode Street.

For more information about Wanuri Kahiu’s film, Pumzi, see the official website.

And here are some links:

Gary K. WolfeGary K. Wolfe, Professor of Humanities and English at Roosevelt University and contributing editor for Locus magazine, is the author of critical studies The Known and the Unknown: The Iconography of Science Fiction; David Lindsay; Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy; and Harlan Ellison: The Edge of Forever (with Ellen R. Weil). His Soundings: Reviews 1992-1996 received the British Science Fiction Association Award for nonfiction, and was nominated for a Hugo Award. Wolfe has received the Eaton Award, the Pilgrim Award from the Science Fiction Research Association, the Distinguished Scholarship Award from the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, and a World Fantasy Award for reviews and criticism. A second reviews collection, Bearings, appeared in 2010, and a collection of essays, Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature, will appear in early 2011.

Nnedi OkoraforNnedi Okorafor is a novelist of Nigerian descent known for weaving African culture into creative evocative settings and memorable characters. In a profile of Nnedi’s work titled “Weapons of Mass Creation”, The New York Times called Nnedi’s imagination “stunning”. Her YA novels include Zahrah the Windseeker [Purchase] (winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature), The Shadow Speaker [Purchase] (winner of the CBS Parallax Award) and Long Juju Man [Purchase] (winner of the Macmillan Prize for Africa). Her first adult novel, Who Fears Death (DAW) [Purchase], was released June 1, 2010. Her next YA novel Akata Witch (Penguin Books) [Purchase] and chapter book tentatively titled Iridessa and the Fire-Bellied Dragon Frog (Disney Press) are scheduled for release in 2011. Nnedi is a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University. Visit her at nnedi.com.

Fábio FernandesFábio Fernandes is a science fiction writer living in São Paulo, Brazil. His short stories have been published in online venues in several countries, and one of his stories has just been published in Steampunk Reloaded, the anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Fábio is currently finishing the two final novels for his Convergence Trilogy (in Portuguese) and a novella in English. He can be found at his blog, Post-Weird Thoughts, and he is also a contributor for Fantasy Book Critic, Tor.com, ConReporter.com, and The Portal.

The theme music for The Salon is by Dmitiry Lukyanov and is licensed from Loopsound.com.