Episode 266: Lara Elena Donnelly

Polish off pasta with Lara Elena Donnelly as we discuss the hot tub conversation which led to the sale of her first novel, why the contradictions of her Clarion experience were liberating, the reason her relationship to the writing process means she's primarily a novelist rather than a short story writer, her complicated emotions about the conclusion to her debut novel, why she got sick of the word "prescient," the gnarly origins of the perfumes we love (and the reasons she needed to learn about them), why she decided to start a service advising how to write better sex scenes, the novel she wrote without gendering a character (and the fun in following which readers assume which genders), how she and Sam J. Miller were able to collaborate without killing each other, and much more.

You can listen to Episode 266: Lara Elena Donnelly online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Episode 266: Lara Elena Donnelly is an episode from Eating the Fantastic by Scott Edelman.

This episode is 02:04:30 long.

This episode was published on Oct 20, 2025.

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