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 The Silmarillion more interesting than The Lord of the Rings, 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 After Hastings, and much more.