An hour-long conversation with Matthew Hughes, award-winning (and multiply nominated) author of more than twenty novels of fantasy, space opera, and crime fiction and numerous short stories, focusing on What the Wind Brings, his latest, a magical-realism historical novel from Pulp Literature Press.

Websitematthewhughes.org

Facebook@hapthorn

Twitter@hapthorn

Matthew Hughes’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

Matthew Hughes

Matthew Hughes writes fantasy, space opera, and crime fiction, and has sold 22 novels to publishers large and small in the UK, US, and Canada, as well as 90 works of short fiction to professional markets. His latest are Ghost Dreams (PS Publishing), and What the Wind Brings, a magical-realism historical novel from Pulp Literature Press. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, Postscripts, Lightspeed, Amazing Stories, Pulp Literature, and Interzone, and he’s in a number of invitation-only anthologies as well, including Songs of the Dying Earth, Rogues, Old Mars, Old Venus, The Book of Swords, and The Book of Magic, all edited by George R.R. Martin and/or Gardner Dozois. He’s won the Arthur Ellis Award, and been shortlisted for the Aurora, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, Endeavour (twice), A.E. Van Vogt, and Derringer Awards. He’s been nominated for induction into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s Hall of Fame.

Matthew spent more than 30 years as one of Canada’s leading speechwriters for political leaders and corporate executives. Since 2007, he’s been traveling the world as an itinerant house sitter: he has lived in 12 countries and has no fixed address.

The (Lightly Edited) Transcript

So, welcome to The Worldshapers, Matt.

Thank you. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? When you hear it like that? Yeah.

I guess I have no idea where you actually are, right now, now that I think about it. Somewhere in B.C., I think?

I’m on Salt Spring Island, right on the sea, in a very comfortable and beautiful house that belongs to some wealthy people who are traveling in Argentina right now.

Oh, very nice. Now, we’ve been acquainted for a long time through Canadian science-fiction circles, and you have an unusual connection to me: you’re the first person I’ve interviewed for the podcast who has actually been one of my editors as well, because you edited my young adult fantasy series, The Shards of Excalibur,