I alluded to the fact that the interview I recently had with Melodie Bolt (now up at Radio Free Bliss) was the second one, but I never mentioned it in the podcast explicitly. Here’s the story.

I interviewed Melodie, who is a kind and gracious lady, last month. But when I went to edit the interview (after an horrendously, procrastinatingly long delay), it was a mess due to a distinct hum in the audio. And I couldn’t get rid of it without making Melodie sound like she was talking from the other side of a tinny wormhole.

Being the great person that she was, Melodie agreed to a re-interview but that meant I had to find the source of that damned hum. I thought it was due to the little aquarium on my desk (”Curse you, aqua-scum!”). Turns out I was wrong. Vibrations from construction going on across the orchard? Nope. Vibrations from something else travelling up through my desk? Nope. Turns out it was my USB hub, which was generating some kind of feedback through my USB headset.

Several tests with J later, we redid the interview and you have the result over at the Bliss site. Melodie has a particular penchant for dark fantasy. We talk about the social and physical tumult now gripping Michigan, her attitude towards women’s general attitudes towards science-fiction, and what new writers really really need in order to take their writing to the next level.

Because Melodie and I had been through this whole rigmarole once before, we were a lot more relaxed this time around (as can be evinced by the amount of machine-gun cackling I do through the whole thing … sorry), which made me think that I should really do TWO interviews with each guest. Or, on the other hand, I can just try harder to emulate Studs Terkel, who was — from what I’ve read — a complete natural at the interviewing craft as well as being a terribly interesting person in his own right. He will be missed.