Episode 669-With Uncanny Magazine’s Michael Damian Thomas

The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Michael Damian Thomas, to talk about Uncanny Magazine Year 12: Fly Forever, Space Unicorns!.

About Uncanny Magazine Year 12: Fly Forever, Space Unicorns!: Editor-in-Chief/Publisher Michael Damian Thomas and Team Uncanny Magazine have run successful Kickstarters for the seven-time Hugo Award-winning, 2024 World Fantasy Award-winning, and 2024 Locus Award-winning Uncanny Magazine Years One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, and Eleven. We promised to bring you stunning cover art, passionate science fiction and fantasy fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, and provocative essays by writers from every conceivable background–not to mention a fantastic award-winning podcast featuring exclusive content.

Through the hard work of our exceptional staff and contributors, Uncanny Magazine delivered on that promise every single year. Stories from Uncanny Magazine have been finalists for or winners of Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Sturgeon, Ignyte, and World Fantasy Awards!

If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to join or re-up with the Space Unicorn Ranger Corps, now’s your chance! We need your help to continue this mission for another year. This is your magazine, Space Unicorns! Let’s make Year 12 happen!

Though Uncanny continues to have multiple ways to support us, we still need the help of the Space Unicorn Kickstarter community to keep bringing you this amazing content. Unfortunately, there is a less-than-celebratory side to this Kickstarter. Recently, a very large online eBook dealer ended its magazine subscriptions and moved Uncanny onto their streaming service. This meant over a 75% reduction of our subscription earnings.

YOUR support, specifically, makes it possible for us to make our magazine freely available on our website and to pay our contributors and staff. We need your help more than ever, Space Unicorns!

About Michael Damian Thomas: Michael Damian Thomas is the eight-time Hugo, British Fantasy, World Fantasy, and Parsec Award-winning co-publisher (with Lynne M. Thomas) and editor-in-chief of the Locus Award-winning Uncanny Magazine. Michael was a Hugo Award finalist as the former Managing Editor of Apex Magazine (2012-2013), co-edited the Hugo Award finalist essay anthology Queers Dig Time Lords (Mad Norwegian Press, 2013) with Sigrid Ellis, and co-edited the anthology Glitter & Mayhem (Apex Publications, 2013) with John Klima and Lynne M. Thomas. Michael was additionally a contributor to the SF Squeecast podcast (with Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Lynne M. Thomas, and Catherynne M. Valente), a contributor to the Down and Safe- Blake’s 7 podcast (with Amal El-Mohtar, Scott Lynch, and L.M. Myles), and is currently the Content Editor (with Lynne M. Thomas) of the It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton podcast.

Michael was formerly the full-time caregiver of his late daughter, Caitlin. Caitlin had a rare congenital disorder called Aicardi syndrome.

This week’s picks:

• Michael: The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time List
• Tracy: The Revival Tea Company

Links:

• Uncanny Magazine Year 12: Fly Forever, Space Unicorns!
• Tracy Townsend on BluSky
• Patrick Hester on Instagram
• The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester

The post Episode 669-With Uncanny Magazine’s Michael Damian Thomas appeared first on The Functional Nerds.