Lunch on lamb with Steven H Silver as we discuss our shared status as record-breaking losers, my morbid suggestion about what he'll need to do upon my death, the reason he found <em>The Silmarillion</em> more interesting than <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>, how meeting Mel Brooks and other luminaries made him more at ease once he began attending science fiction conventions, the way a cancelled contest resulted in his first short fiction sale, what it was like to be in a writing workshop taught by Gene Wolfe, the allure of the alternate history subgenre (and how it differs from secret histories), what he learned publishing a novel in the middle of a global pandemic, the Easter eggs he scattered through <em>After Hastings</em>, and much more.
