What unexpected thing are you really good at?
How well do you know your FR Authors? Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you can expect an update to the author roundtable, featuring many of our best Forgotten Realms authors’ answers to the world’s most important questions, right here on this blog. Submissions for new questions welcome through private message.
Elaine Cunningham(co-author of The City of Splendors): Baking pies. That’s not exactly an exotic skill, but I suppose it qualifies as “unexpected.”
Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): Remembering my way around, in cities I haven’t been to for forty years. Though the restaurants and cool old stores—especially bookstores—I go seeking have this depressing habit of shutting down, in the years I’ve been away. Not to mention all the prices going up sharply. I must be getting old.
Erin M. Evans (author of The God Catcher): Cursing. I am so good it routinely startles people.
Mark Sehestedt (author of The Fall of Highwatch): Movie quotes. Once you learn Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Ghostbusters, and Animal House, you have a quote ready for any occasion. “Seven years of college down the drain . . .”
Richard Lee Byers (author of Unholy): Probably nothing unexpected, since I’ve mentioned pretty much all my talents in “About the Author” notes and such. I’m a halfway decent epee fencer and a good poker player. I also seem to have a good rapport with animals. It’s a rare dog or cat that doesn’t take to me.
Philip Athans (author of A Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt): I sing like an angel, but not in front of people. If you can render yourself invisible and hide in the backseat of my car driving home from work on any given day you’ll get the full-on American Idol show of a lifetime.
Erik Scott de Bie (author of Downshadow): I am surprisingly good at improvised cocktails, which I am not all that good at drinking without getting really, really funny. 
Jaleigh Johnson (author of Mistshore): In my high school P.E. class we had to learn to juggle and were graded on how long we could keep three bean bags in the air. At the time I was obsessed with getting straight A’s, so I got pretty good at keeping those bean bags flying.
Richard Baker (author of Avenger): Firearms. I’ve had occasion to fire pistols, rifles, shotguns (many times), grenade launchers, and machine guns. Turns out I’m a terrible shot with a machine gun though. It was really a little humbling.
Rosemary Jones (author of City of the Dead): Cooking a large meal for many people. I enjoy it. Most of the time I’m a lazy cook who just wants to reheat something and I love eating out. So finding that I can get a turkey and all the fixings on the table at the same time is unexpected joy.
Bruce R. Cordell (author of City of Torment): I’m good at learning things, whether those things are physical skills or mental tricks. But I’m not -quick- at learning things; I’m just good at putting in the long hours of practice required to get good at things.
James P. Davis (author of Circle of Skulls): Apparently I’m quite good at Feng Shui. According to my wife, who studies such things, my writing-office/library/geek-museum has perfectly balanced feng shui. Pure accident. Who knew?
Lisa Smedman (author of Ascendancy of the Last): Roofing. When we bought our current home, I turned a dilapidated freestanding garage into a writing/gaming studio. Shingles are incredibly heavy (especially lugging them up a ladder) but the backache was worth saving several thousand dollars!
go to previous question, "The Zombie Apocalypse"
go to next question, "Hero or Villain?"
