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Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Howdy! I'm an author of novels and games. I'm interested in lots of things, including environmental issues that touch on the sustainability of human civilization on (and off) Earth. Thus I guess it's no surprise that I'm also interested in individual healthy living, and how factors such as exercise, lifestyle, and diet can affect quality of life and longevity. I'm also strongly concerned with animal welfare. What inspired you to be a writer and a game designer? I've been a reader since I was old enough to pick up books my Mom bought home every two weeks from the library--science fiction and fantasy novels all. The idea of becoming a writer struck me in high school, and that's when I began writing short stories. Like most writers, I have a folder filled with unpublished short stories, many of them with politely worded rejection letters. Not too many years after I began reading, during a late '70s Boy Scouts summer camp, I stumbled upon the older scouts huddled around a lantern-lit picnic table playing a wondrous game. The DM described how an ogre was eating dwarves like a cartoon cat eats a fish, then throwing each denuded skeleton behind him into a large pile. The PCs studied this tableau from hiding, worried that they were next. It was beyond anything I had ever imagined I could interact with. I was instantly hooked on D&D (Dungeons & Dragons). And if you run even one D&D game, you've already taken your first steps down the road of game design. Anyway, it was D&D that turned out to be the key for me writing novels. Years of kind editorial advice on my game design prepared me to be a writer with a modicum of knowledge of the craft. Now, continued editorial advice plus a couple of writers groups to which I belong continues to sharpen my pen. What led you to becoming vegetarian? I've dabbled with being a vegetarian a few times--the first period while I lived in Boulder CO, and just sort of picked it up by osmosis. The second period was when I first moved to work at TSR, and found a subculture of folks there already eating meat-free, and very vocal about it. In fact, the meat-eaters called them vegi-terrorists, but I was happy to join in. The most recent period, which I'm now into year 4 of, came about thanks to an audible news article I heard concerning a scientists doing research on these strange, high pitched sounds made by rats. Completely inaudible to human ears, rats make these high pitched noises in little barks and meeps, discernible only by special microphones that transcode the sounds down in pitch to human hearing. And no one could figure out why. Until one day this scientist who'd been studying the phenomena for years got an idea. He reached his hand into the enclosure and began tickling the rat under observation. And suddenly the high-pitched pips came in a flood. And when he tried to take his hand away, the rat nuzzled after it, wanting more. The sound was very familiar to him--and at this point in the podcast, they played the high pitched rat noises next to the sounds of a human baby laughing. The parallel was mind-blowingly clear. And I realized that if a mammal as simple as a rat could know such joy, then it probably could also know sorrow, fear, and anticipation--all the emotions that I might feel, the highs and lows... which further meant that by eating these creatures, we were cutting short the experiences of lives for no good reason, since we have healthy alternatives for nutrition in this modern age. This realization, along with the insane size of the environmental footprint required for raising animals for food, launched my current vegetarian lifestyle. I expect I'll not retreat from it, unless cell cultured meat ever comes to pass. Fantasy novels and vegetarianism aren’t usually linked together. How do you merge the two? 
Well, It wasn't until the book I'm currently writing that I decided to inject a vegetarian character into the mix. Because, when you think about it, there is much more call to be worried about eating a sentient creature in a fantasy world than in our own. The beef sandwich could be a minotaur, the smoked fish a mermaid. Really, I'd expect there to be a lot MORE vegetarians in a world where even dogs and donkey's could potentially talk. How has being vegetarian affected the way you look at life and how has it affected the people around you? Being meat free means I have to pay more attention to how I eat. And as the cook, it means my wife is pretty much by proxy also a vegetarian. Luckily, she's taken to it just fine. What role do you see diet playing in some of the issues challenging society today? Do some of those issues show up in your games or novels? As I touched on earlier, raising animals for food is insanely inefficient. In a world where we're busting the seams of sustainability, it's a practice that is contributing to ecological species lost and heat-trapping gas build-up in our atmosphere. I see the diet of most people, which was fine for pre-industrialized society, having a direct impact on our ability to survive as a civilization. Of course, saying these kind of things makes meat-eaters, who've been indoctrinated by diet every bit as thoroughly as they have by other dogmas, think you're a crazy person. What impact have you seen in your health? I'm not sure. I work out/train martial arts more than the average person already, and try to keep my calorie intake balanced with my calorie burn so I don't come up short. I already try to eat whole, unprocessed foods as much as possible, and have been avoiding partially hydrogenated oils/trans fats like poison since around 1991 (and have evangelized on this point a lot more than on being vegetarian, in the past anyhow). What changes have you seen food-wise and culture-wise since you first went vegetarian? In urban areas at least, you're not automatically considered an insane crazy person if you indicate you don't eat meat. Plus there's been a quite a growth in vegetarian alternative foods. For instance, I LOVE ME some Field Roast brand grain meats. Mmmm-mmm! Living in Seattle, you’re in one of the hot-beds of vegetarianism. Do you have a go-to restaurant to eat at? I can find great vegetarian fare in nearly any restaurant, actually, since I'm not vegan. That said, Cafe Flora is a big draw, and I'm going to try a place called Carmelita later this week for my Birthday. The menu looks fan-freaking-tastic. What is one of your favorite recipes you make at home? (Please share the recipe!) Harvest Pie! (recipe at the end of the interview) What advice can you give authors who aren’t necessarily writing about vegetarian issues, but want to address the topic in some of their work? If you're writing fiction, there are always opportunities to slip in little bits of philosophy you feel strongly about. However, it is very important to pull back from everything you'd want to say, because otherwise you'll come across like a sermon, and that runs the dire risk of breaking your reader's suspension of disbelief. What’s on the horizon for you? My day job looks like it'll continue to be writing D&D and related games, and I'll continue to write novels on the side. My novel Key of Stars is due out in September, and it wraps up a trilogy of books (Plague of Spells and City of Torment were the first two). I'm already writing my next novel, with the first draft due on May 16th. I can't reveal the title of this one yet, but it is the one containing the vegetarian character I described above. Thanks Bruce! Thanks for asking! Contact Info You can find Bruce at the following places: Touchstone: http://www.brucecordell.com Twitter: @brucecordell Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bruce.cordell Bio Bruce is an author with over 80 listed credits to his name, a mixed martial artist, a science groupie, and a stumbler through life's thorny briars. Besides writing books and games, he enjoys kickboxing and jujutsu, practicing healthy eating habits, living life large with his wife Dee and menagerie of pets, and reading like a fiend. Harvest Veggie Pie from Vegetarian Times Nov. 1996 with vegan adaptation by Jason Wyrick 2 28 oz. cans whole tomatoes in tomato juice 2 cloves garlic -- minced 2 tablespoons tomato paste 3 10 oz. bags washed ready to eat salad spinach OR 3 10 oz. pkgs. frozen chopped spinach -- thawed ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 1 teaspoon salt -- divided 1 teaspoon salt -- divided 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper -- divided 2 pounds mushrooms, stems included, cleaned 4 cups thinly sliced yellow onions 1 teaspoon sugar 1 cup feta cheese – crumbled (use Sunergy brand soy feta) 4 eggs (or Egg Beaters or substitute) – beaten (substitute 8 oz. of pureed extra firm tofu with a dash of salt and turmeric) 1 cup mozzarella cheese – divided (use your favorite white, mellow-flavored vegan cheese) 10 sheets phyllo dough In large colander or sieve set over bowl, drain tomatoes. Save juice, covered & refrigerated, for later use. Cut tomatoes in half; place cut side down in colander; drain well. Squeeze seeds out of cut halves. Chop each tomato half into 8 pieces. Place tomatoes in lightly oiled 12-inch nonstick skillet. Saute over high heat, stirring, until all juices have evaporated, about 5 minutes. Add garlic; cook, stirring until garlic is soft, about 3 minutes. Add tomato paste; stir gently to combine. Cook until no juice remains, about 5 minutes. Turn tomato mixture onto large plate lined with paper towels to cool. Cook spinach in batches with 1 cup water in skillet, covered, over high heat until spinach wilts, about 5 minutes. Remove to colander to drain and cool. Squeeze spinach by handfuls until very dry. (If using frozen chopped thawed spinach, skip the cooking step and squeeze until no more moisture can be extracted.) Chop spinach finely with knife on cutting board. Return to colander to drain. Squeeze a second time. In medium bowl, mix spinach with nutmeg, ½ tsp. salt, and ½ tsp. pepper. Place on paper towel lined plate. Trim woody ends from mushroom stems. In a food processor, using shredding blade, shred mushrooms finely in batches. (Can mince with a knife in batches on cutting board.) In lightly oiled skillet over high heat, saute mushrooms, stirring, until all moisture evaporates, up to 20 minutes. Season with remaining ½ tsp. salt and ½ tsp. pepper. Turn onto paper towel lined plate to cool. In lightly oiled skillet, saute onions with sugar, stirring, until onions are caramelized but not burned, about 20 minutes. Turn out onto paper towel lined plate to cool. At this point, the four filling ingredients may be put into separate self- seal plastic bags, each with a folded paper towel, and refrigerated. TO ASSEMBLE PIE: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, mix together feta, eggs, and spinach. Unfold phyllo sheets. Lay flat on length of waxed paper. Cover top completely with clean damp towel. Lightly oil a 9 to 10-inch round springform pan. Remove one sheet of phyllo from top. Cover remaining sheets with a damp towel. Working with the edges toward center, spray or brush phyllo sheet lightly with olive oil or olive oil cooking spray. Ease sheet onto bottom of springform pan. Pat dough against sides; let excess hang out over pan edge. Repeat with second sheet at an angle to first sheet. Repeat with third, fourth, and fifth sheets at angles so all four quarters of the pan are covered. Layer in 4 additional oiled sheets. Oil both sides of an additional sheet of phyllo; fold in half and ease into bottom of pan (for support of bottom of pie). Add fillings in layers as follows: spinach-feta-egg mixture, mushrooms, ½ cup mozzarella, tomatoes, ½ cup mozzarella, onions. Bring phyllo sheets up over top of pie and spray lightly with oil. Lightly oil another phyllo sheet. Cut into fourths, cutting along shot side of rectangle. Fold each piece in half lengthwise. Roll up *loosely* jelly-roll fashion. Pinch at bottom to make a rose and spread side slightly to make petals. Repeat with each piece. Place 4 phyllo roses in center of pie, pinching phyllo top to attach. Place springform pan on baking sheet to catch any drips. Bake in center of oven until phyllo is golden brown and filling is completely cooked, about 1 hour. (If some areas, such as roses, begin to get too brown, cover those areas with foil.) Remove from oven. Let sit for 10-15 minutes. With a small thin spatula, loosen phyllo from pan dies. Unclasp springform pan and remove sides. Lift pie (leaving bottom of springform pan with pie) onto a serving plate. Decorate sides of plate, if desired, with parsley, flowers, leaves, etc. *PRIVACY POLICY - Contact information is never, ever given or sold to another individual or company By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service. | subscribe contact contributors pro bonum classes meals |