In the world of cutting-edge speculative fiction, Ann VanderMeer (the award-winning fiction editor of Weird Tales) and her husband Jeff (the author of the bestselling City of Saints and Madmen and Finch, among others) loom large as an editor/writer power duo. In their new book The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals, Ann and Jeff (under the nom de nonsense "Evil Monkey") tackle questions which have plagued the unhealthily curious for ages: can you serve a phoenix to your rabbi? What about a manticore? What about...E.T.?

With the feeling that there were a few questions left unanswered by their book, we reached out to Ann and Jeff (in his Evil Monkey guise), for further illumination.