Jeremy L. C. Jones

Interviews with Editors

June 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment

As I was juggling a lot of text for another round-table interview for Clarkesworld Magazine, it occurred to me that I hadn’t posted links in a while.

In this interview, I talk with six anthologists, including Jonathan Strahan, Ellen Datlow, and the VanderMeers.

Also for Clarkesworld, this interview rounds up ten prominent speculative fiction magazine editors, including Gordon Van Gelder, Sheila Williams, Shawna McCarthy, and Ann VanderMeer.

I have three more round-table interviews in the works:

* SF/F/H Book Editors for Clarkesworld Magazine
*SF/F/H Magazine Editors Who Are Women for Broadsheet (with Lettie Prell)
* Game Designers Give Advice on Game Mastering for Kobold Quarterly #11

I’m also working about four or five interviews ahead for the weekly (Thursday) interview for www.koboldquarterly.com, including a series on RPG cartography, a few fantasy artists, and the novelist and trollyslayer, William King.

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Dave Arneson Interview @ KoboldQuarterly.com

April 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment

An abridged version of my Dave Arneson interview is up on koboldquarterly.com . The print version of the magazine is due out later this month. The magazine went to press three weeks before Mr. Arneson’s passing.

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If Their Hearts Are Pure: A Conversation with Dave Arneson

“Dave Arneson’s impact on the concept and identity of the role-playing game is profound. His interest in story, setting, and character development helped RPGs offer players much more than endless serial combat, something far more satisfying than a tallying of dice rolls and stacked skill modifiers.”
–James Lowder, editor of the ENnie and Orgins Award-winning Hobby Games: The 100 Best

Before Greyhawk, there was Blackmoor. Before the Dungeon Master, there was the Judge. Before d20s, there were d6s, and a lot of them.

The seed for what we now know as role-playing games (RPGs) was planted in the mind of Dave Arneson during a college class when the professor asked Arneson and his classmates to role-play historical figures. But it would take many years—and many collaborations–for that seed to grow into the earliest RPGs.

An avid wargamer since he received Avalon Hill’s Gettysburg as a child, Arneson was heavily involved with Napoleonic miniature campaigns when he was struck with a bout of his characteristic mischievousness. What if, he wondered, instead of moving armies around, we move smaller commando forces? What if we deviate from historical events and make up our own stories? What if, instead of just combat, we add “other objectives”?

The next time he got together with his gaming group, he had a surprise for them in the form of a whole new world.

And Blackmoor, Arneson’s signature setting, was born.

Read the rest of the abrdiged interview here.

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Ed Greenwood Interview: World-building

December 2, 2008 · Leave a Comment

My interview with Ed Greenwood is up at Clarkesworld.  This 3K+ word interview is about one fourth of the full transcript.  Keep an eye out for the rest…

To Believe the Magic Is Real: A Conversation with Ed Greenwood

 

Ed Greenwood wanders the floor at GenCon 2008 with his arms full of Dungeons and Dragons miniatures.  At one of the country’s largest gaming conventions, just about everybody recognizes him as the guy who created the fantasy world The Forgotten Realms.

The Canadian library clerk seems unimpressed with how many people stop to shake his hand or ask him to sign a novel or gaming supplement.  He’s busy buying mini’s for his granddaughter, but not too busy to share a quick word or catch up with fellow gamers.

It’s been a few years since Greenwood has showed up at a convention dressed as the wizard, Elminster, who is the protagonist of his most famous series of novels, but he still sports the distinctive long white beard and pageboy haircut.  More to the point, Greenwood is infamously friendly and he loves to talk about what he does: write fiction, non-fiction, and game supplements.

At a signing earlier in the convention, the line wrapped halfway around the hall.  People lugged stacks of books from all over Greenwood’s canon – Spellfire, The Making of a Mage, Swords of Eveningstar, Silverfall, The Kingless Land, Dark Lord – and you’d think ever reader knew him personally.  That’s how his books feel, personable, just like he is.

Over the years Greenwood has built many fictional worlds, including Falconfar, Niflheim, and The Forgotten Realms.  He’s created them for short stories, role-playing games, novels, and for his own amusement. 

“Some folks collect bowling trophies, some rebuild cars in their driveways, and some try not to miss a single televised moment of football,” he says in the introduction to Castlemourn: A Fantasy Campaign Setting.  “I dream up fantasy worlds.”

“I started worldbuilding in my childhood,” he adds, “imagining what grew into The Forgotten Realms (now a shared world that continues to grow through the dreamings of literally millions of readers and gamers.)  It was the first of over a dozen worlds I’ve played with since.”

Greenwood’s worlds are lively, richly detailed, and fun to visit. Whether as dark as Niflheim or as versatile as The Realms, a world designed by Ed Greenwood is alive and waiting for readers or gamers to delve in.  And that’s what is most striking about Greenwood’s worlds: they are welcoming.  They also tend to feel both fully realized and full of possibility.  

After meeting Greenwood, it is easy to imagine him smiling and perhaps chuckling to himself as he pounds away at the keyboard.  The conversation that follows is a portion of a longer correspondence that started before GenCon 2008 and stretch well into the fall.

Read the rest of the interview here.

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Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman Interview

October 16, 2008 · Leave a Comment

An audio interview I did with Dragonlance authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman is up on Koboldquarterly.com.  I conducted the interview behind the Margaret Weis Productions booth at GenCon 2008. Every now and then one of them would duck away to sign a stack of books, then return only to pick up where the other had left off.

Listen to the interview here.

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Spartanburg Architecture

October 13, 2008 · Leave a Comment

An article I wrote this summer for Spartanburg Magazine is now online at www.goupstate.com.  The online version doesn’t have all the beautiful images taken by Tim Kimzey, but here is one of my favorites from the spread. 

 

For two hundred years, Spartanburg has been built and rebuilt. The eighteenth-century frontier town has grown into a twenty-first century city with a population of nearly 40,000.  In some South Carolina cities, such as Charleston or Abbeville, growth has been accompanied by a layering of architectural styles and historic sites. Spartanburg, however, has been torn down and replaced one building at a time, challenging the sense of place and the sense of aesthetic continuity or “look.”

 

Put more positively, Spartanburg is in constant exploration of how the new fits with the old, of how much to preserve and how much to clear away, and of how hidden history and contemporary innovations co-exist.

Spartanburg has long been a natural crossroads. The constant flow of people has brought rising and falling industries and a cross-pollination of architectural styles. More than anything, though, the economy has driven the architectural character of Spartanburg.

Early settlers constructed buildings they could afford that were big enough for their immediate needs. When the population of Spartanburg swelled, a common strategy was to level an old structure and erect a newer, larger one. In many cases, as many as three or four structures have stood on the same site.

The Great Depression solidified a predominant culture of fiscal cautiousness. With a few remarkable exceptions, it has not been until recent decades that Spartanburg has begun to see over-sized buildings that reflect financial optimism.

The buildings photographed below tell the story of a city rich with character and history, but also of a city that has both flourished and floundered economically. Mostly, Spartanburg’s architecture seems to be too busy doing other things to announce itself to the world. But it’s there, and well worth a second look.

Read the rest of the article here.

 

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Harley Stroh Interview at www.KoboldQuarterly.com

September 18, 2008 · Leave a Comment

My interview with Harley Stroh is up at www.koboldquarterly.com.  Keep an eye out for weekly interviews at KQ, as well as the occasional podcast with authors such as Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, and R. A. Salvatore.  Issue #7 of the print magazine will include an interveiw with Sandy Petersen.

Harley Stroh mostly writes adventures—good old, down and dirty dungeon crawls reminiscent of the AD&D modules of yesteryear. His scenarios feature vengeful rat kings, bat-riding goblins, and twisted, giggling evil gnomes who worship the eldritch crystal that deformed them.

In a Stroh adventure, there are plenty of new monsters, exotic magic items, and more than enough room for a spirited DM to improvise and for curious PC’s to wander off the mapped path. Mostly, there’s a lot of hacking and slashing without restricting role-playing and character development.
For the last few years, Stroh has kept busy writing adventures for Goodman Games and serving as the Line Editor for Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC). Recently, Stroh has written a few adventures set in the world of Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor and the first installment of the Master Dungeons (MD) line for Goodman Games.

Stroh’s 4E GenCon releases, DCC #53: Sellswords of Punjar and MD M1: Dragora’s Dungeon, show his range, as well as his love for books found in Gygax’s Appendix N. Dragora’s Dungeon has all the over-sized wonder of Robert E. Howard, as well as the grit, wit, and steel. Sellswords of Punjar, on the other hand, leaps from rooftops and races down back alleys, much like a Fritz Leiber Fafhred and Gray Mouser yarn.

The second paragraph of every DCC begins with the following: “Remember the good old days, when adventures were underground, NPCs were there to be killed, and the finale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20th level? Those days are back.“



Harley Stroh remembers those days, and he’s doing more than his share to keep those days alive. Early this year, Stroh and I talked about writing adventures that hook GMs.

Read the rest of the interview here.

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Jaleigh Johnson Interview

September 11, 2008 · Leave a Comment

This interview with novelist Jaleigh Johnson wasn’t on my flamesrising.com schedule.  But Johnson’s new novel, Mistshore, is so good I had to get in touch with her and ask her a bunch of questions.  It was hard not to go “all fanboy” on her.

Jaleigh Johnson’s second Forgotten Realms novel, Mistshore, opens with a letter from a grandfather to his infant granddaughter. “Someday,” the letter concludes, “you will go forth into the world and find your own adventure waiting. I want this for you, above all things, granddaughter. The world is spread out before you, and life is meant to be lived. Be well, and be happy…”

Mistshore tells the story of the granddaughter, Icelin, as she flees into Mistshore, a district of Waterdeep built upon the wreckage of sunken ships, warped planks, and violent crime. Mistshore is, as Ed Greenwood, the creator of the Forgotten Realms, says in his introduction to the book, “a corner of Waterdeep much whispered about by the fearful, who believe all manner of sinister half-sea-monsters, half-humans lurk in its sagging riggings and rotten cabins. Creatures with webbed fingers, gills hidden under high-collared robes, and sly, stealthy tentacles waiting to throttle or snatch.”

The second release in a series of standalone novels called “Ed Greenwood Presents Waterdeep,” Mistshore is no mere travelogue through under-explored territory. As the prologue promises, Mistshore is a book of adventure populated by well-developed characters. Johnson gives us Cerest the scarred elf, Sull the well-meaning guardian butcher, Ruen the legendary thief, and Icelin, a young woman with a sharp tongue and more backbone than any of the men she meets.

The Howling Delve, Johnson’s debut, merely hinted at the power Johnson would unleash in the Realms with Mistshore. Delve is good. Mistshore is stunning.

Johnson and I spoke last week, a few days after the release of Mistshore.

 

Read the rest of the interview here.

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John Lane and Best of the Kudzu Telegraph Interview

September 11, 2008 · Leave a Comment

A slightly longer version of my Spartanburg Herald-Journal interview with John Lane is up at the Hub City Writers Project webpage. Mostly we’re talking about Best of the Kudzu Telegraph, which was released on September 8th.


Best of the Kudzu Telegraph, released in September by the Hub City Writers Project, gathers 48 of John Lane’s weekly columns for the Spartanburg Journal. His readers will recognize their favorite stories and themes and will surely be surprised by some of the “oddballs,” such as “Old Maps Tell Stories,” “The Battle for Sugar Tit,” and “Venison Tacos.”

In the columns gathered in the book, Lane talks about land use, sustainability, and urban planning. He also covers pawpaws, dead deer, and parting with his beloved old pick-up truck. Folks familiar with his books, such as the recent Circling Home, will recognize Lane’s bold honesty regarding all things local, as well as his deep and abiding love of Lawson’s Fork.

The book contains four dozen of the most enduring of Lane’s columns, yet when Lane and I spoke last week about the Kudzu Telegraph, the conversation quickly went to its origins, nearly ten years ago, as an electronic newsletter. A newsletter that was, as Lane said, “as much a conscious ‘activist’ activity as it was a writing project.”

Read the rest here.

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Interview with Game Designer & Writer Monica Valentinelli

September 5, 2008 · Leave a Comment

A bonus interview this week at flamesrising.com.

Freelance writer Monica Valentinelli likes to play around with ideas, forms, rules, words…  and just about anything else that can be thrown into a creative stew pot.  She blends a love of history and philosophy with a love of dark fantasy and horror to create startling and exciting fiction and games.

“Monica possesses a genuine passion for creating and a sharply self-critical eye, both of which are essential for someone to grow as a writer,” said James Lowder, author and editor, whose most recent anthology, Worlds of Their Own was released last month.  “She has lots of good ideas and the discipline to develop them in interesting, genre-expanding ways.”

Valentinelli has worked on games for Abstract Nova, Eden Studios, Rogue Games, and Twilight Games in addition to several other companies for games that are not in print.  Most recently she contributed to Exquisite Replicas, Aletheia, and Noumenon, all from Abstract Nova.  The setting chapter of Exquisite Replicas, “Initiation,” shows Valentinelli at her darkest, weirdest, and most experimental…  which is to say, at her best.

“When I write, I feel like I’m right smack dab in the middle of the rivers of creation,” said Valentinelli. “Whether it’s a story, a business proposal or a game, I feel that each type of writing requires a different skill set to make the finished product sparkle.

“I thoroughly enjoy that the medium is constantly changing, and that I can continually learn and grow with every project. As any writer knows, if you’re not evolving with the times–you might as well trade in your laptop and build a time machine, instead.”

In the spirit of online test marketing, Valentinelli has been serializing her novel, Argentum, the first novel in the The Violet War series, and taking feedback from her many readers.

Valentinelli and I spoke around the time of GenCon 2008, while she was preparing for the debut of Exquisite Replicas.

 

Read the rest of the interview here.

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Elaine Cunningham Interview

September 1, 2008 · Leave a Comment

After a long while, my interview with fantasist Elaine Cunnigham has finally found a home on flamesrising.com.  It has been updated with some fresh comments from Ed Greenwood.

Elaine Cunningham writes character-driven fantasy stories that are rich with humor, complexity, and action. She could very well be speaking of her own fiction when she describes “a satisfying story” as “both surprising and logical.”

Since1991, Cunningham has written extensively in the Forgotten Realms, co-authored a novel with Ed Greenwood, ventured into the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and produced a steady flow of short fiction.

“When I read Elaine’s first Realms novel, Elfshadow, I was struck by two things,” said Ed Greenwood, creator of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting and co-author with Cunningham of The City of Splendors: a Waterdeep Novel. “First, how much more I wanted to read, for the rest of my life, about her two main characters, Arilyn and Danilo. Not only did she bring them vividly to life, she made me care about them and want to know everything else they did and that happened between them, from that moment on, until they died or I did.”

“Second,” Greenwood added, “[I was struck by] how Elaine had somehow managed to read my mind, or sidle into my dreams, to see Waterdeep, and Elaith, and the Harpers, and various folk of Waterdeep both humble and prominent, and bring them to life exactly as I had pictured them in my mind, for so many years. I still don’t know how she managed that, but she captured and portrayed them all perfectly.”

Cunnigham’s output in recent years has remained both prolific and varied. 2007 saw the paperback releases of The Best of the Realms III: The Collected Stories of Elaine Cunningham and Shadows in the Twilight, the second Changling novel. In the spring of 2008, Paizo Publishing announced that Cunningham would be writing fiction set in the Pathfinder universe. Last month, her story “Beyond Dreams” appeared in Beyond Magic, a three-author anthology from Tor, and “Lorelei” was included in James Lowder’s Worlds of Their Own from Paizo.

One thing remains consistent throughout all of Cunningham’s work: good story and great characters.

“Elaine understands and convincingly portrays characters better than most writers in any genre I’ve encountered writing today,” said Greenwood. “Elaine Cunningham deserves to be a mainstay of American popular literature, regular appearances on the New York Times bestseller lists and all. That she isn’t there already is a tragic mistake on someone’s part, and when I find that someone . . .”

When we corresponded via e-mail a while back, conversation quickly went to the topic of characterization.

Read of the interview the rest here.

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