interviews

The other week I was interviewed by Patrick Hester and John DeNardo for an SF Signal podcast. They sent me a general list of items they wanted to cover before setting up the time and place, which, since we set this up on Skype, turned out to be my office, but minus the video.

I wanted to get decent sound quality so I deadened as many hard surfaces around the computer with towels and blankets to eliminate the bucket effect, closed the door so the cats couldn't crawl around and possibly knock something over ( yes, I do have a clumsy cat.) When we got connected Patrick did a sound check, during which I scraped a chair across the floor and ruined the take.

The half hour interview went well, from my point of view. I'd learned in the past that if you don't want to sound like a brainless idiot you prepare a checklist of items to cover and whatever notes you need in case memory fails. Nothing more embarrassing then to forget the title of some piece you wrote or the name of the character under discussion. Since my memory is like a steel trap (i.e. doesn't hold water) I made LOTS of notes.

John and Patrick made the conversation easy, hitting not only the points I'd prepared for, but bringing up material I hadn't thought of before. The feel of the interview was not unlike a bull session at a con. It was so comfortable that we chatted for at least a half hour afterwards about writing, the industry, cons, and other subjects. Nice guys.

The SF Signal podcast was released on December 22, 2010 at SF Signal #122. I was very satisfied with the result, especially that I didn't sound too egotistical or dumb.