Gordon Van Gelder

answers the Usual Questions

Gordon Van Gelder

In 2000 Gordon Van Gelder became publisher of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF). He has edited several anthologies.

Has your interaction with fans, for example, at conventions, affected your work?

Regarding The Very Best From Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume Two, fan interactions helped me decide which stories I'd omitted from volume one should go into volume two.

Is there any particular incident (a letter, a meeting, a comment that stands out?

It's hard to pick out one comment amid the cries of "Van Gelder, you're an idiot! How could you not include So-and-So???"

Do you have a favourite author or book (or writer or film or series) that has influenced you or that you return to?

Many, but it's not often I have time to return to many of them. I did recently reread a Kate Wilhelm story that I loved as a kid and I was pleased to find the story was even better this time around.

Who is the person you would most like to be trapped in a lift with? or a spaceship?

I find myself thinking of politicians like Barack Obama and Cory Booker, athletes like Graig Nettles and Jorge Posada, performers like Diana Rigg and Tina Fey, and a couple of objects of lust I won't name . . . but I can't pick one. I *can* tell you that I don't ever want to be trapped again on a slow-moving elevator with three or four defensive linemen from the New York Jets. They took up all the available space.

Who is the person you would most DISlike to be trapped in a lift with? Or a spaceship?

Charles Grodin. Or Martha Stewart. They're not the same person, are they?

What would you pack for space? (Is there a food, beverage, book, teddy bear, etc that you couldn't do without?)

Whatever my daughter might give me for good luck on the trip.

What is the most important thing you would like to get/achieve from your work?

To meet my own standards. My work might sell or it might not, it might get raves or it might get panned, but if I'm satisfied that I've done the work I'm capable of doing, I don't worry much about the rest.

What is the special satisfaction of your work?

Hitting that bullseye.

submitted by Gordon Van Gelder

13 August 2014

For other answers to The Usual Questions Click here

Just the facts:
Born: New York City, 1966.
Resides: New Jersey, USA
Bibliography/Awards:
World Fantasy Award - 1999
World Fantasy Award - 2003
Hugo Award - 2007
Hugo Award - 2008

Web site:
WWW.FANDSF.COM

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