Fran Porretto: Rather than do a “straight” interview, which tends to bring out my discursive nature, I thought I might change things up a little. So I rounded up some of my favorite characters and brought them here so you can talk to them. Enjoy! I always do.

Sylvie Yngstrom Eisenbud: Well, it was no bed of roses, let me tell you! The man has a mind like a pretzel. Whatever you think he has in mind for you, his next move will come out of left field. You simply can’t anticipate him. I got a terrible case of neck strain from trying.

Father Raymond Altomare: You wouldn’t believe it. He started me out as a “punk priest,” more interested in social justice BS than in the Catholic faith. That was, of course, in “On Broken Wings,” the first novel he wrote. But the transformation from that sort of “protest-march / popular cause / hear a confession or two when there’s time” cleric to a worthy successor to the wholly admirable Father Heinrich Schliemann nearly gave me whiplash!

Gail Kristof Conklin: Oh heavens no! He treated me very well. Married me off to a billionaire with a heart of gold, bought me a whole new wardrobe, and made me a popular performer again after twenty years’ obscurity. Of course, it was hard to forgive him for what he did to my husband and our keyboardist, but as he likes to say, drama only happens when men must suffer for being good. He’s completely rigid about that. Besides, he did contrive a completely justified assassination of a sitting president and his vice-president.

Alanna of Urel, Grand Master of the Scholium Arcanum in the East: Here on Aeol we tend to take a rather detached view of the antics of Terrestrial humans, especially their writers. After all, they can’t do sorcery, so how could they be anything but a trifle deranged? You might get a different perspective from my son, but he’s off at the other end of the continent.

Celia Pryor, CEO and Chief Engineer of Arcologics Technologies: Just that I didn’t expect the interviewer to be such a stuffed shirt. Pull the railroad spike out of your ass and ask some serious questions. Jules and I aren’t here for our health, y’know. I’ve got a company to run.

Larry Sokoloff: I don’t think he was prepared for that, Ceil.
Celia Pryor: I wasn’t prepared to sit here listening to a moron try with all the power of his three functioning brain cells to get us to denigrate the guy who gave us our fictional lives, and in New York State’s most interesting county, at that. Do as you would be done by, damn it!
Larry Sokoloff: Well, yeah. He’s an asshole, but he’s trying.

Devin MacLachlan: Look, we all have problems. I’m a fictional writer of fantasy myself. I know the difficulties. It’s not like we get a lot of appreciation from wives and sweethearts—
Holly Martinowski: You can say that again!
Devin MacLachlan: And I probably will. But the main point is this: Marquee Characters must face trials of their strength and the strength of their convictions. Yeah, they’ll complain. A writer should be braced for it. But that doesn’t mean word-manglers like you should try to tear them down.

Althea Morelon: Watch it, Bud. Some of us are not in a good mood, and you’re the reason. If you want trouble—

Todd Iverson: For something that transcends the power of speech to capture? For something that baffles and dazzles the ordinary man? For the process by which the indescribable—the power to create worlds of wonder and discovery—manifests within a human mind and flows out through his fingers? Of the IMAGINATION ITSELF?? I think we’re done here.