His novels aren’t among my favorites, and he wasn’t the greatest interviewer I’ve ever heard. But Anton Strout was the easily the most important author in my development as a writer.

I was sad to learn that he died yesterday.

Note: Links for books in this post will take you to Amazon, but they’re not the usual affiliate links. No commissions this time around.

I was first introduced to Anton Strout as the author of the Simon Canderous urban fantasy series. It’s not The Dresden Files, but it’s fun enough: Simon is an appropriately conflicted character, the magic system (and its resulting bureaucracy) is interesting, and Strout’s New York City is practically a character in its own right. If you like urban fantasy, you could do a lot worse.

He was also host of The Once and Future Podcast, which for years has presented weekly interviews with fantasy and sci-fi authors. I stopped listening, at some point, because he had a handful of riffs that he would run through to make authors feel comfortable sharing challenging things — great for each individual author, who was hearing it for the first time, but a little tiring for me on the fifth, or tenth, or twentieth run.

Nonetheless, Anton changed my life.

I’ve always known — intellectually, at least — that I could be a writer. There were (are!) a lot of “ifs” that needed to follow that statement, of course — if I would focus, if I would write regularly, if I would finish things I started. I had read The War of Art, and The Artist’s Way, and so on. I generally like the words I put on a page, when I get around to it.

But for a long time, that intellectual knowledge had no effect. The “ifs” never materialized. I would delay and avoid. I would start things and then abandon them — indeed, I’d often abandon writing in general.

Anton’s podcast conversations dug into the challenges that he and his interviewees faced — in their practice, in their careers, in their lives — and explored how they overcame those challenges. And “one damned episode at a time,” something shifted in my head. I came to understand that I really could be a writer. The realization dropped from my “head” to something more like my “heart.”

I haven’t yet lived up to that knowledge, of course. I’m still dodging and evading, for the most part (though I did finally finish something I started!). But Anton’s death — at 9 years younger than I am — has kind of kicked me in the head.

RIP, Anton.

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For those interested, I most enjoyed his conversations with Amber Benson (Tara from Buffy, and author of the Witches of Echo Park series, and whom I admire). Perhaps because they were friends, the conversations seemed to me more vulnerable than others. He spoke to her several times — just search her name on the podcast’s website to find a list of episodes — but I especially loved Episode 46, where she served as guest host and interviewed him.

They also did a livestream together for Penguin/Ace & Rock Books, which was equal parts fascinating and silly. [Update: I just rewatched this, and it’s mostly silly. But maybe that’s best under the circumstances — pleasant memories of the too early departed.]