I. O9 presents The Geek's guide to the Galaxy. And here are your hosts, John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley.

Hello and welcomed to episode 49 of Geek's Guide to the Galaxy.

Hi, this is John Joseph Adams.

I'm the editor of Lightspeed in Fantasy magazine.

And I've also edited several anthologies such as The Way of the

Wizard which features tales of Wizardry and witchcraft from authors such as Neil

Gaiman and George R. Martin. And I'm David Barr-Kirtley. I'm the author of

many short stories including Blood of Virgins

about a college student who comes to fear the blood-guzzling dragons written by his classmates.

The story was originally published in realms of Fantasy magazine and also appeared as

episode 88 of the Escape

Pod podcast. And our guest today is Ari Salvatore. He's the author of dozens of

fantasy novels, most of them connected to the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game.

He created perhaps the most popular

character in the history of Dungeons and Dragons, a dark elf named Drits to Erden.

Salvatore's novel Homeland describes Drits growing up as the only child with a conscience in an underground city where society is based on selfishness and cruelty.

His most recent novel featuring Dritz, which is out now, is called Neverwinter.

All right, let's get to our interview.

All right, so we're here with R.A. Salvatore, welcome to the show.

Good to be here.

Okay, so you know, back in 2001, I attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop, and you came for the day and sort of told us about some

of your experiences as a writer.

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