Will McIntosh 2010 Interview
Will McIntosh was nominated for his short story “Bridesicle”.
“Bridesicle," published in Asimov’s January 2009, concerns a woman, Mira, who awakes in the future from cryogenic suspension and has to convince a male suitor to completely revive her. What inspired this story?
I conduct research on Internet dating, and met my wife through an Internet dating site (even though she works just 200 yards away), so this sort of pragmatic dating, where strangers interview each other before deciding whether to move on to coffee, is fascinating to me. I also have a severe phobia of anesthesia, of being unconscious and unable to wake of my own accord. “Bridesicle” is a mix of this fascination and fear.
Because of the story’s set up, Mira has little visual awareness of what’s going on around her. I was impressed with how you overcame the difficulty of being able to describe the lack of setting. How difficult was this?
I was afraid the story would come across as too “white room” to be of interest to readers, but as I wrote I realized that there was something eerily appealing about a character who has a very limited visual field. The claustrophobic nature of it, the looming faces, turned out to be fun to work with.
Of all your short fiction, do you have a favorite and why?
Besides “Bridesicle” I’d have to say “One Paper Airplane Graffito Notebook,” which was published in Strange Horizons. It’s the sort of short story I like to read--kind of quirky, lyrical. I’m usually unsuccessful when I attempt to write that sort of story, so that one is especially close to my heart. “Soft Apocalypse” is also up there, because it was the closest I’ve come to getting down on the page what I had envisioned before I began writing.
You attended Clarion 2003. What was the most important thing you brought away from the workshop?
Clarion was like a switch being turned on for me. I learned so many things, and I still carry flashbulb memories of at least a dozen “aha” moments from those six weeks. I guess the most important thing I brought away was the understanding that, for me, the most effective aspects of a story are the characters’ thoughts and reactions, not the external action, and I shouldn’t skimp on that internality. Until then I’d assumed that too much internality would bog stories down. In another sense the most important thing I brought away was the feeling of community. Until Clarion I didn’t know any other writers. Going to Clarion gave me this wonderful sense of being among people who spoke my language, who loved what I loved, and that really lit a fire under me.
By day, you’re a psychology professor. I’m sure this has helped you greatly when creating characters. What can you tell us about that?
It probably does help me when creating characters, but I’m not really aware of it. I’m usually trying to think of someone I know, or some celebrity, to fashion characters after. Part of that may be that I’m a social psychologist rather than a clinical psychologist, so I don’t have much training in plumbing the depths of the human psyche. I know a lot about how shopping malls are designed to compel people to spend money, and how men are aroused by the color red. Consciously, the benefit I draw from being a psychology professor is mining the interesting research findings I come across. For example, recently I read that most bullying in schools isn’t carried out by stereotypical bullies--it’s carried out by the popular kids as a strategy to gain and maintain popularity. That seems like a cool idea to work with. I wrote a story called “New Spectacles” after reading a student’s thesis on how you can tell when people are lying, and it got me wondering what it would be like to know for certain when people are lying. I wish I knew more about the hard sciences to draw on, and I envy writers who do, but I try to make use of what I do know.
What is it about the field of SF that excites you most?
I think I was hard-wired from birth to love anything and everything science fiction. There’s something wonderful about living with one foot in imagined futures. I love that in a science fiction story the sky’s the limit--anything can happen, you might encounter any sort of creature and you won’t even know the rules of the world until you’ve read a ways in.
Which writers have had the greatest influence on you?
Jim Kelly, Kelly Link, and Walter John Williams, not only as writers but as mentors. Jonathan Lethem, Nick Hornby, Michael Bishop, Stephen King, M. Rickert, Ray Bradbury.
What’s ahead for you? What are you working on now?
I recently finished my first two novels (I finished them in the same month, after bouncing back and forth between them through various stages of revision). One is based on my short story “Soft Apocalypse,” which was published in Interzone and shortlisted for both the British Science Fiction Association award and the British Fantasy Society award for short story in 2005. The other is a slipstream baseball novel. I’m seeking an agent at the moment.
A nominee for both the Nebula and Hugo awards this year, Will McIntosh’s work has appeared in Asimov’s (where he won the 2010 Reader’s Award for short story); Science Fiction: Best of the Year 2008 and 2009; Strange Horizons; Unplugged: The Year’s Best Online Fiction 2009, and many other venues. In 2005 his story “Soft Apocalypse” was nominated for both the British Science Fiction Association and the British Fantasy Society awards for best short story. His story “Followed,” which was published in the anthology The Living Dead, is currently being produced as a short film. A New Yorker transplanted to the rural south, Will is a psychology professor at Georgia Southern University, where he studies Internet dating, and how people’s TV, music, and movie choices are affected by recession and terrorist threat. He became the father of twins in 2008.
Marshall Payne has worked as a touring musician, music producer, sound technician, a salesman, and a waiter. He has written over 100 short stories and his fiction has or will appear in Aeon Speculative Fiction, Brutarian, Talebones, Hub Magazine, Fictitious Force, to name a few. He has a website at http://marshallpayne.com/ and a blog at http://marshallpayne1.livejournal.com/.
Sarah Beth Durst 2010 Interview
Sarah Beth Durst was nominated for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy for her novel Ice.
Firstly, congratulations on the Andre Norton nomination for Ice! This is not your first appearance on the Andre Norton ballot, with your debut book, Into the Wild, also featuring - does the feeling change with second nomination?
Thanks so much!
Being nominated feels a lot like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUQX2B67KL4
For those of you who didn’t click, that’s the Snoopy Dance of Joy. 
Somewhat to my surprise, the second nomination is actually even cooler than the first. The first one feels like someone you really respect saying, “Ya done good, kid.” But the second one feels like someone you really respect saying, “You’re doing this right.” And I really, really want to be doing this right. I have wanted to be a writer, specifically a fantasy writer, since I was ten years old, and to be nominated by SFWA for this award for a second book… it means more than I can say. I’m truly honored.
You are clearly very well acquainted with fairytales, with them featuring strongly in the “Wild” books as well as Ice - what’s the fascination?
I think the words “once upon a time” are some of the most powerful words in the English language. Right up there with “I love you” and “free ice cream.” Fairy tales have such tremendous power. They resonate with us on a deeply emotional level—in part because many of us associate them with our childhood and in part because they touch on so many universal themes, such as love, revenge, helplessness, and talking bears.
What can you tell us about the inspiration for Ice?
ICE is a YA fantasy novel set in the present-day Arctic. It’s about a polar bear, true love, and one girl’s impossible quest across the frozen North.
The original inspiration was a Norwegian folktale called “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” about a fearless girl who embarks on a quest to save an enchanted prince. When I sat down to write ICE, I knew I wanted to work with a fairy tale, but I didn’t want one where the girl spends the whole story asleep—or worse, dead—so this tale felt perfect to me.
I then went and changed pretty much everything about it.
It still has a talking polar bear, of course, but he’s a “munaqsri”, a shapeshifter responsible for transporting the souls of the dying into the bodies of the newborn. And my fearless girl is the daughter of an Arctic research scientist who doesn’t believe in talking bears or souls…
There is quite a lot of detail about the Arctic and the professions of the people living there in Ice. What sort of research did you do for the book?
I love doing research. Such a great excuse for immersing oneself in other places and other lives. (And such a great excuse for buying lots of books!) Before writing ICE, I read pretty much every Arctic-related nonfiction book that I could find. I kind of got a wee bit carried away. I’m the only person I know who owns a North Slope Barrow dialect Inupiaq-to-English dictionary…
Ice, and your forthcoming novel, Enchanted Ivy, are both for an older audience than your “Wild” duology (or are there more to come?). Was writing for the upper end of the young adult stratum a conscious choice you made, or does the story set the rules?
I did make a conscious choice for Cassie in ICE to be 18, for Lily in ENCHANTED IVY to be 16, and for Julie in the Wild books to be 12 years old. But after that initial choice, the story set the rules.
I think the important thing is to stay true to your characters, not worry about a specific audience. The worst thing that a YA writer can do is write down to her readers in a misguided attempt to “write young.” Okay, maybe this isn’t the worst thing. Writing without verbs would be pretty bad. And leaving out all vowels, also not good…
6. Ice is identified as a YA novel, but some might argue that an 18 year old protagonist, and the events that happen in the book, might place it on the adult reader spectrum rather than Young Adult. What do you think it is that identifies a story as YA? What do you think it is about Ice that makes it more a YA novel (that can be enjoyed by adults) rather than an adult fantasy (that can be enjoyed by teens)?
A huge theme in YA lit is the coming of age story. YA novels tend to be about characters, be they cheerleaders or wizards or vampires, who face a pivotal moment wherein they are challenged to redefine themselves, their relationships, and the places they call home. ICE is a fantasy, an adventure, and a romance. But at its core, ICE is
about the experience of outgrowing one’s childhood home. Cassie leaves her beloved research station to save her mother, and she treks across the Arctic to find Bear, but in the end what she discovers is her place in the world, though she had to journey east of the sun and west of the moon to find it.
Does Enchanted Ivy also have a fairytale theme? If not, why the change of focus?
ENCHANTED IVY is a story about getting into college. You know, taking the campus tour, talking to the gargoyles, flirting with the were-tigers, riding the dragons…
This novel doesn’t draw on any fairy tales, but as you can tell, it is fantasy. Fairy tales are a wonderful subset of fantasy, but I love the whole genre. I believe it’s an extremely important type of literature because it’s about empowerment and also about restoring a sense of wonder, two things that I believe people need.
You’ve written a number of essays examining the works of other authors. Does this study of other storytellers’ worlds help with your own writing?
Honestly, the essays were just a great excuse to reread some of my favorite novels. But I do believe that the more you read, the better you’ll write.
Can we look forward to more non-fiction writing from you in the near future?
I don’t have any immediate plans to write more non-fiction, but I’m sure I’ll return to it at some point. I really had a lot of fun writing those essays for the BenBella anthologies. Plus Leah Wilson at BenBella is a fantastic editor.
Thank you so much for interviewing me!
Sarah Beth Durst is the author of Ice (Simon & Schuster, 2009), as well as Into the Wild and its sequel, Out of the Wild (Penguin, 2007 & 2008). She has been writing fantasy stories since she was ten years old and holds an English degree from Princeton University. Sarah lives in Stony Brook, New York, with her husband, her children, and her ill-mannered cat. She also has a miniature pet griffin named Alfred. Okay, okay, that’s not quite true. His name is really Montgomery. For more information, visit her at www.sarahbethdurst.com.
Tehani Wessely was a founding member of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine in 2001. Now firmly entrenched in Australian speculative fiction and small press, she has edited for Twelfth Planet Press (among other duties), judges for the Aurealis Awards, reads far more in one genre than is healthy, and writes reviews, non-fiction and interviews for ASif!, Fiction Focus and Magpies. In her spare moments, she works as a Teacher Librarian and enjoys her husband and three children.
Tehani is the editor of ASIM #4, #16, #27, #31 and #37, three Best Of ASIM e-anthologies, co-editor of ASIM #36, the Twelfth Planet Press anthology New Ceres Nights and other projects. She is currently working on an anthology of children’s stories titled Worlds Next Door, and a reprint anthology of Australian alternate mythologies from her own press, FableCroft Publishing.
China Miéville 2010 Interview
China Miéville was nominated for his novel The City & The City.
Tony: So, I’d just like to welcome on board China Mieville. China, hello sir!
China Mieville: Hi there, thank you for having me Tony!
Tony: The last time we spoke you’d just come back from India, you’re been in London, and now you’re in America. You seem to be all over the globe? Is that just part of everyday life now for China Mieville?
China Mieville: Uh, not really. It is slightly anomalous. The India thing was highly unusual. That was the first time I’d been to India and that was a special thing involving the British Council which organized a kind of cultural event in India including me and a bunch of other genre writers, but I spend quite a lot of time in the United States because my partner works here. She is a doctor here, so I come out to spend time with her as and when we can do that, so I’m back and forth to the United States quite frequently.
Tony: Are you one of the writers then, China? Can you fit in your day job writing anywhere in the world or do you like to get home and get settled back in your home in London? Can you just write in America, any time zone, or anything?
China Mieville: No, I tend to work mostly in the United Kingdom. There are plenty of other things I can be getting on with when I’m out here, so it’s not like I have nothing to do. In terms of the actual hard core writing, it is part of the reason I spend a lot of time alone because I tend to work best when I’m on my own and really sort of kind of focus in. But, I work in very intense kind of bursts of a few weeks at a time. I’m not somebody who has a regular writing routine. I don’t do you know six hours per day every day. There might be some weeks of the year when I’ll do very, very long hours like 12 to 14 hours or more per day, and there might be other days when I’m doing lots of other things but not sitting down writing, so I’m very uneven.
Tony: So your book, City and the City is up for a Nebula Award? Now, you’ve had a few books out now, you’ve been in this game awhile. Is winning an award still a little bit special for you, or do you just kind of like to put that behind you and just keep on trying to get your work out?
China Mieville: No, it really – it would be you know, maybe one could sort of pretend insouciance to prove how kind of cool and relaxed one is, but honestly I think it is still very moving and exciting to be listed for awards, let alone if you end up winning them. I mean, you know, you may know on one level that these things are – you know all the kind of horse trading and ins and outs that go into them and stuff, you don’t have to be sort of dewy eyed about it. You know, we can all think of times when we’ve disagreed with the decision of an award committee, but at the same time when you come up for them it’s lovely. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. It feels very exciting and yeah, particularly awards that you’ve never won before. So yeah, no, I’m not blasé about it at all to be frank. That doesn’t obviously mean that you sort of expect anything from it. I mean, it’s all gravy. You don’t write for awards but if something happens and you end up getting short listed or whatever, yeah, it’s lovely.
Tony: How long was it, I’m curious to find out, with City and the City, how much preparation before you can actually get into the nitty-gritty of the writing, how much preparation for a book like that did you have to do?
China Mieville: Well, I’m quite a careful preparer. I’m not someone who just kind of jumps into books. I’m someone who spends quite a long time doing planning and trying to work things out and so on. So, I can’t honestly remember in terms of number of days or number of weeks or anything like that, it doesn’t really work like that. But I certainly spent some time preparing the geography of the city, the histories, a certain sense of the kind of language, the background, and so on because I wanted to be writing something which felt very much embedded in real places even though they are imaginary places. The way to do that, paradoxically, because what I wanted to do was have a character who is from those cities, so who therefore does not explain it very much, but the way to kind of naught for ground explanation is to have it taken very much for granted. The way to have it very taken for granted is to have a pretty strong sense of it when you start. So, there’s a sort of paradox whereby it needs to have a certain presence in your mind so that you don’t have to explain it, if that makes sense. So I actually worked reasonably carefully to give the cities a sense of their specificity, their reality, and their history so that the narrative could get on with just living in them.
Tony: I think that’s what I liked about it as well. Soon as you open a few pages with it you’re left there really to work it out yourself as the reader. As you say, the narrator is just narrating the story and you’ve got to work out what on earth is going on there and I think that was an excellent kick-off for the book.
Is your research the same for every book, or is every book a different beast that has its own little complications you’ve got to tackle by themselves, or are they all basically the same? Do you have a kind of set little period of research and then you’re straight in with the writing a bit?
China Mieville: No, I mean – they’re all different. I always leave if you like sort of blank spaces on the map so there’s always stuff for each book further that I don’t know or decide in advance, that I don’t go into, then there’s stuff that I work out in some detail. But you know, obviously, this book for example, City and the City because it’s set in the real world although in a kind of nonexistent corner of the real world the research was quite specific because I had to think in terms of the intersection of these cities with real world flows of commerce and jet travel and history and things like that. Whereas with the more fantastic ones, I can kind of spin off and be a little more wild or so on. So – each one is different, but mostly I always have a strong sense of a different voice for each book and once I’ve got the voice sorted in my head the research to some extent almost follows from the voice, I’d say.
Tony: Are you a private writer, China, or do you like get a first draft down and then pass it off to friends and say “Have a read of that, see what you think”, or do you like to really get it all done yourself and it’s basically all your work?
China Mieville: No, I have a group of people who are kind of my close readers. I have my partner and a couple of friends and my agent, and [other] people. I like to work in terms of drafts. In an ideal world what I would do is do the first draft completely on my own and then give people the second draft and then kind of work with them to get it to a third and fourth draft, but it doesn’t always work that way and sometimes, you know, I might want feedback on a particular chapter and then I might give that to various people, so it does kind of vary. In my head, theoretically, I don’t like giving things away too early because it is very misleading apart from anything, because you know you’re going to change a lot of stuff so it feels a bit perverse to be handing it over.
Tony: Are you a fan of the crime detective genre, or is this something that you’ve discovered yourself just recently?
China Mieville: I am, I mean it’s not my main kind of literary home which was always science fiction and fantastic fiction but I am an admirer of crime fiction. I mean, I think like a lot of readers in genre it is something that we have an admiration for it because there is a very strong sense of plotting and of rigors of narrative. In my case, it also has very much to do with my mum who was an enormous reader of crime fiction and that was really her main genre and so periodically she would, throughout my life, give me particular crime books and I would read them. So, although I would not consider myself by any means an expert in crime, it is a genre I’ve always been very interested in and very admiring of. I have tried to kind of keep up with a little bit of it over the years.
Tony: Was it daunting to write a little part crime detective novel? Just, you know, for the idea that you’ve got other people now, other critics looking at you, like the crime critics are now coming in and checking you out. Was that a little bit daunting as well?
China Mieville: Yeah, it was! I did not want readers of crime fiction to feel that I approached this without respect and honor to their genre. I mean, if you grow up reading science fiction and fantasy one of the things that always irritates you a great deal is when a writer from outside of the genre comes in and writes something and you get this really strong sense that they don’t particularly have any kind of love or feeling for the genre but they’re just kind of knocking it out and there’s a slight sense of – it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel embedded. I didn’t want to do that at all, so I was very concerned that crime readers wouldn’t feel that this guy had written this thing with no love for the genre and no respect for the genre. I was very anxious that the book read as a completely faithful crime novel as well hopefully as something that comes out of the fantastic tradition and tries to do something new with a crime novel using the tools of the fantastic. I was certainly very anxious because crime readers are very rigorous and vigorous readers, and crime readers are very unforgiving of books that for example they think “cheat.” You hear this a lot, you know, crime readers saying “I didn’t like that book because it cheated” and so I really wanted to make sure that crime readers didn’t feel that I was cheating any way. I very much wanted it to be a book that a crime reader who has no particular interest in the fantastic could read and not feel manipulated by in any unfair way.
Tony: Have you had any feedback from crime writers expressing if they liked it or they didn’t like it?
China Mieville: Well, the only feedback I’ve had has been very good. I mean, it got a couple of reviews in crime websites and so on and they were very nice. I’ve spoken to a couple of crime writers who have actually reviewed it online and always very positively, so I had a nice review by a crime writer in the Los Angeles Times and meeting crime writers at conferences and stuff where a couple of them have commented on it. I wouldn’t say that I’ve seen an enormous plethora of reviews or feedback but I’ve certainly had three or four very lovely pieces of feedback all from within – very much within the crime community. I haven’t seen any negative reviews. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but I’ve not seen any from within that milieu.
Tony: I’m just wondering, have you got a tough old skin when it comes to reviews? I mean, negative reviews – can you kind of take them on the chin or do they cut deep? I bet you haven’t had any, have ya?
China Mieville: Oh, I wish, I wish! No, of course I have. You know, I don’t enjoy them. I mean, certainly I read them, I’m not one of these people who claims never to read reviews. I do read reviews and I would be lying if I said that a negative review – you know, I would much rather get a positive review than a negative review, but I think you have to make distinctions because you have to try to maintain enough of a sense of I suppose almost humility in that sometimes a review might pick problems with a book or might make some criticisms and you have to be able to hear it and say “Well, actually, okay, they’ve got a point there.” There’s a difference between that, you know, and a review which is negative which you feel is unfair or which misses what you were going for or any of those things. But, obviously, it’s not your place to argue with a review – that’s a Bad Idea. That’s not a very sensible thing to do. So, even if you disagree with it, very, very occasionally you might feel outrageously misrepresented or something in which case it’s very difficult to bite your tongue. For the most part you have to just swallow it and deal with it and stuff. I do dislike the defensiveness of writers when it comes to negative reviews. Sometimes you can really learn from a negative review, you know? It is a difficult thing to do, but it is quite good to be able to hold on to it if possible.
Tony: I found your book had this sort of post-Soviet East European feel. Totally lovely and rich there – and yet, it’s got these elements that had me writing little notes when I was listening to it. It has for me, the Sweeney, the flying squad, and all them kind of elements that are coming in as well. Especially Dart, the protagonist, you know, Inspector Borlu’s counterpart in Ul Qoma – I thought he was The Sweeney’s Jack Regan. Just his mannerisms, his actions, his vocal language – was there anything like that in your mind when you were writing it, the likes of the Flying Squad and the Sweeney?
China Mieville: Yeah, well I mean – it’s an attempt to write something that is very much within the tradition of the police procedural and so it was kind of riffing off a load of different police procedurals and one of the things I was trying to do – you know the book has three main parts – and I wanted it to move through three different ways of doing a crime novel. So the first part is a classic kind of police procedural whodunnit with the kind of lugubrious cop and his intelligent young side kick. Then the second part when he goes to Ul Qoma and meets that is much more in that tradition of the 48 hours movies or with the mismatched cops who have very different methods and don’t like each other but then end up with a grudging respect for each other. Then the third part moves into almost a kind of political thriller, a kind of conspiracy thriller. So yes, I mean – the Flying Squad and the Sweeney and so on and so forth did sort of loom over it, but it was quite consciously a kind of riff on a whole bunch of different police traditions so they’re certainly part of it, but not the only ones by any means. “Charmed”, well obviously, is a very big influence as well.
Tony: Like I say, when I was listening to it, you’ve got all these elements and then you realize just how many strings you’ve got going on [in] this little story. Because it’s only I think 300 pages long, but there’s LOTS of elements there. Was it a difficult beast in itself, to keep hold of the story and try to get it to the end without wandering off too much?
China Mieville: Uhm, not as much as you might think because I’m a very neurotic planner, so you know – I have my timelines, I spent as I do with all books several weeks and possibly even months before I start writing. You know in my room I’m surrounded by paper. I’m surrounded by timelines, I’m surrounded by little snips of paper, I’m taking little cards with events written on them and moving them around and drawing lists of characters and trying to make sure I know who is where at what point and so on and so forth. So, it is quite important that I try to dot all the i’s and cross the t’s before I get to the point of writing. Now, inevitably you drop a couple of balls and you realize it through the course of the writing. You think “Oh, shit!”, you know....
Tony: That was going to be my next question, was it this “Oh, DAMN!”
China Mieville: I mean, it’s inevitable, and you’re like “Oh, I haven’t mentioned so and so for 60 pages – what’s happened to him?” and so on and so forth, and that is where the process of editing comes in and that is when other people can be very helpful because sometimes you miss things yourself. So, you think you’ve got it all sorted then you always learn you’ve missed this, you’ve missed that, and that’s when you have to kind of come back over and tweak it into shape post facto.
Tony: I think one of the best little bits of this book was this unseen element, where they cannot really look directly at characters. I found that really amazing, that little part or device to get the story – was that not even difficult? I mean, you know, you can’t have your characters looking at each other, which I thought was fascinating?
China Mieville: Well the whole idea of this book was that, you know, my other books have been very kind of dramatically and exaggeratedly fantastic in the sense of the way I’m trying to use the fantastic is to really quite vigorously estrange the reader from the everyday, whereas with this book I wanted to do something different which was to try to exaggerate a difference but through very nearly familiarity, so the sense is supposed to be one in which this is almost completely familiar but a little bit skewed, a little bit twisted. So what that means is both geographically the cities are an attempt to seem like they are concrete East European or Asian cities, but equally the logic of the cities so that what you’re talking about like unseeing is not a new fantastic logic. It is simply the logic that we all have every day in the way we live our lives because we filter out enormous amounts of information and we ignore enormous amounts of information. What we choose to ignore and not ignore is not innocent – it is something we get trained into politically. So, it is just that logic sort of extrapolated and exaggerated and you know, brought out a little bit further. I’m glad it worked so well for you, and it’s something really that we all do all the time, just sort of exaggerated that little step.
Tony: You know, this book is just full of politics, East-West relations, all this kind of history of cold war and everything like that, and all your political views. Is this the book you’ve always wanted to write?
China Mieville: Well, no, it’s more kind of more specific than that. I mean, the book that I’ve been working up to for a very long time was more The Iron Council really, that’s my previous two books. This book was something that came up quite strongly in the last few years and it is funny that you think that it is highly political because I sort of felt like although there is an awful lot of politics in it, it’s less overtly sort of political than some of the other things I’ve written I think. The effort is always to write stuff which anyone who is interested in politics can find bits in there that they can kind of have a conversation with, but that if you’re not interested in it, that’s okay and you can still hopefully get a lot out of it and get a good story out of it. So this was a book that I’ve been working on. It felt really lovely to do something that was quite different, that was quite distinct from a lot of the other stuff I’ve done, but it isn’t something that I sort of felt like I had been working years and years towards. It was very much something I had to write within the last couple of years, it was very strongly a part of the last couple of years.
Tony: Now, I think I’ve got this right – both those cities were the fantastical – I hope I’ve got that right? Were you ever tempted to make one of those cities real, like Berlin or somewhere like that? Did you specifically want these two cities to be fantastical?
China Mieville: Well, I mean, they’re fantastical to the extent that they don’t exist, but because I wanted this to be the notion of these two cities that had been in this long running complicated relationship for many years and which were defined in part by that relationship, for that reason I invented them both because they were both invented to be defined by each other over many centuries. If I had had one city say, I don’t know, be Budapest or Prague or Berlin or whatever and then invented a second one which existed in this strange kind of overlapped relationship with it, I would be quite radically changing the real nature of Prague or Budapest, or whichever that city was. I didn’t want to do that – I wanted it to be very much a question of not changing those cities. If I did that, people would be sort of thinking “Well, in what way is this different from the real Berlin?” and I didn’t want them to feel that they had to be looking for differences. What I wanted to do was to have people have a sense of exploring a city which felt reasonably familiar but which was new.
Tony: You know, it’s funny, because I was honestly thinking “Is one of those cities real?” I was on the Internet one night in the middle of the night looking, you know, on Wikipedia and everything.
China Mieville: Oh, well, I’m honored!
Tony: I was thinking “Is this a real city?”
China Mieville: Well that’s perfect! I consider that the great vindication because I really did want it to have the sense of semi-familiarity.
Tony: Well yes, like you said, I had to get it right because I was thinking “If I ask China this and China says ‘Well, of course! Ul Qoma, it’s just next door to Prague, did you not know?’ and I was like ‘Oh.’” You know, you hinted on it a little bit, or you say you wrote City and the City for your mom, but she never got to see the completed book. Was that hard thing for you as well?
China Mieville: Yeah, well I mean – it was a very tough year. It was a very tough few years. She was very ill for a long time and part of the reason the book was written was because she was, as I say, a great reader of crime novels. She admired my other books and she always read them, but she wasn’t someone who particularly grew up on science fiction or fantasy, so part of what I wanted to do was write a book that was very, very much a book for her, like a present to her, and so to make it as completely straight a crime novel as possible. I was writing it while she was ill, and then, as you say, she died before I finished it, so obviously I was very – I mean it sounds silly to say I was sad about that, I wasn’t – in a sense at the time she died that was the least of my worries. I was just, you know. The fact that she died was devastating and was a very difficult time for me and my sister, so she was ill for a long time. But certainly I do wish she had had a chance to read it because I think she would have really loved it and I think she would have been very touched that I was writing it for her, because I didn’t really kind of go into that because you know, we had other stuff on our minds. So yes, I wish I’d finished in time for her to read it, but not nearly as much as I wish she hadn’t died or that hadn’t been the situation in the first place. So it is melancholy, but I still feel very much, you know the book is dedicated to her, and it feels very much like her book and everything that has happened to it and all the good responses feel very much to me like they have a lot to do with sort of honoring her memory I guess. So, yes, it’s sad, but within the context of things there were a lot of things very difficult about that time.
Tony: Well, it was like I say, for me just a great crime book. I loved it for that point of view as well.
China Mieville: Well, good! I’m very pleased.
Tony: I’ll tell you what, I’m interested because I’ve read your Un Lun Dun about two years ago in Italy on holiday and I actually left the book in a villa over there, hoping someone else might pick it up and read it there. [China: Ah, Cool!] My next question was: Did you have to write Un Lun Dun first to get the ease of it, as that’s got a hidden city in there as well, or is Un Lun Dun just out of your imagination as well and that has nothing really to do with The City and the City?
China Mieville: No, it felt – I mean, it felt very different. I mean, most of my books end up sort of percolating in my head for a good two or three or four or five years before I write them, so Un Lun Dun was something I’d been thinking about for a long time and so Un Lun Dun is much more, you know, more of a kind of traditional hidden city story and that is a very classic tradition particularly with London but with lots of series there is a whole idea of kind of, you know, the under city, the unknown city, the hidden city, the magic city, the interstitial city, and so on. Un Lun Dun was an attempt to do that kind of down the rabbit hole alternate London thing. The City and the City feels a bit different to me because it felt you know, like in a sense it’s not hidden cities. There’s this possibility about the third city that obviously we can’t go into without spoilers, so there are elements of that, but it doesn’t feel like part of that tradition so much as an attempt to kind of try to honor a tradition of Eastern European fantastic writing cross-fertilized with a kind of noir-y tradition of city crime writing. So, it felt quite different in my head, but I do always think that the writer is often not the most sensible person to talk about these things. So the fact that it felt different in my head doesn’t mean that there is not necessarily any truth to what you say, it’s just that that’s not, you know, writers are often the last people who know what is going on in their own work I think.
Tony: I read somewhere as well about your sketches, your personal sketches for Un Lun Dun. You said it was quite a daunting experience as well. These were your drawings, fair enough everyone knows you’re writing, but now you’re actually showing another side to yourself. What was that like, then?
China Mieville: Well I liked it! It was very simple – I mean, I’ve always drawn. I’ve never drawn professionally before but I’ve always drawn, and then what happened was while I was chatting to the publishers for Un Lun Dun and they said “We want to get this illustrated” so I said quite shyly almost, that well, you know, if you’re interested I do have some of my own illustrations and I could show them to you because I didn’t want them to feel trapped. I didn’t want them to feel like they had to say yes to be polite and they thought they were shit, you know, so I was quite nervous about that. I kept saying to them look, if you don’t like them, it’s okay, it’s no big deal. I didn’t want it to come across like a vanity project. Because, you know, you’re not necessarily the best judge of your own work. I thought they were good, but I didn’t know if I was right. But they liked them and most of the feedback on them has been good so I think it was a challenge that paid off is the theory anyway, so yeah, no, it was a bit nerve wracking but I figured by the time they were published I was reasonably assuaged. My anxieties were assuaged because I figured the publishers would not have let me put my name to them, or put them in the book, if they didn’t think basically they could hold up.
Tony: Again with like writing Un Lun Dun, did that throw up its own difficulties? I’m just thinking – did you have to change your style of writing because it was a children’s book? Did you sometimes have to put the brakes on the thing and think “Wait now, I’m getting a little bit too heavy and a little bit too deep here for this story.”
China Mieville: Well, I think that it probably reads like it has its own voice and stuff, but as always – it’s not really a question of deliberately changing your voice because I don’t really think that one has necessarily a default voice and then things deviate from that. I think that the voice is quite different between Perdido and Iron Council. I mean, you can see continuities as well, but there are certain differences, different between that an King Rat, different between that and Un Lun Dun. I think what it is, is that obviously there is a certain element that is shared and that you can always see, but with each book one of the ways I work is that I spend quite a long time before the book is started trying to get into a voice, trying to sort of create that voice, and by the time I write I am kind of in that head space so that the writing of it is reasonably natural, so it doesn’t feel like an effort. It’s not like “well, left to my own devices I would write all books like Perdido Street Station, but by a herculean effort I’m going to try to make this one a little bit more suitable for children.” By the time I write Un Lun Dun I’m in the head space that that’s the voice I’m using so it’s not an ongoing effort. Now, you know, when you go back and you edit you might say “Well, this is a little bit not it. I’ll change this.”, but not that much because for each book you’re in that head space, you’re in that voice when you’re writing it, kind of pretty much definitively for me.
Tony: I thought in Un Lun Dun , the imagery in there, especially the Spider Windows crawling around and going into lost rooms and you get all distracted and lost in them rooms. I thought was an excellent little part of the story as well.
China Mieville: Well, thank you, I’m glad you thought so. A lot of that book was just a question of indulging in really stupid puns! So, you know, I like these kind of really idiotic puns, so I just took a kind of really simple idea like you know, black widow spider, just add an end, Black Window, and then you’re like okay, what would that be? How would you make a window both half spider and really scary? How would yo do that? So a lot of it I would start with a really stupid pun and then try to take that very seriously and try to kind of forget that it was stupid for a minute and really work out how that might work.
Tony: I thought it came over! They were scary! Like you say, my daughter read it as well, and that is how these things were picked up. These were kind of scary windows, these things!
China Mieville: Actually, how old is your daughter?
Tony: She’s 14.
China Mieville: Fourteen, okay, so she was probably about 12 at the time. Well, that’s great! I mean, I’m very pleased. I know when I was a kid I liked being scared by books. I think sometimes as adults we worry about whether a book is too scary for a child or so on, and I think that obviously I do think that some books are not necessarily appropriate for younger readers, but on the whole I think readers are pretty good at having a sense of how scared they need to be, you know? So I think kids like being scared. I liked being scared. They’re quite good about policing so they get to be as scared as they need to be. My figuring was I didn’t mind it being scary because I was trying to write the sort of things that were scary in places that were the kind of scared that I liked being when I was younger.
Tony: I’ve heard as well you like all genres? You’d like to tackle them all maybe one day, so – are we going to see a China Mieville lovesick teenage vampire story kicking around lately?
China Mieville: I think I’m probably on vampire strike. At the moment my feeling is I’m on vampire, zombie, and steam punk strike, because there are simply too many of them. It’s not that I don’t like these things – I love them! - but because I love them I think we should give them a bit of a break so I’m sure some people could do wonderful jobs with them but for me I think it’s time to knock that stuff on the head for awhile. Maybe when things have calmed down a bit, you know, maybe in a few years, then I’ll write my pretty sparkly vampire novel but until then I think I’ll be objuring the undead for awhile.
Tony: That is my next question, I was going to say what do you think of the current industry? You must get asked this all the time, but you know, it moves on, and now we’re in this little bit where it is teen vampire weepy kind of things. Is it a little bit sugar sickening for you?
China Mieville: I’m not the police – people can read what they want, people can watch what they want. I mean, I have my opinions about them. I haven’t read the Twilight novels so I can’t comment on them specifically. I saw the film and I understand why people are pretty appalled by some of the gender politics in it, but you know, I think I’m kind of appalled by the gender politics in washing up ads, so I don’t think – not that it’s not a real thing, but I sort of think sometimes singling those things out can be a little bit misleading. I get depressed – well, I wouldn’t say depressed – I get a little bit sort of flat about the kind of herd like nature. You know, you’ve got this kind of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which is kind of quite a funny one liner spun off into a book and now spun off into books after books after books, these kind of mashed up things, and this kind of herd like nature of publishing so that now everyone is doing an adolescent vampire novel. You know, we had the whole kind of wave of zombie novels, and you can see these trends coming up so at the moment there’s a big trend for fallen angel books. And you know - some of these might be really wonderful ideas, but there’s something slightly exhausting about the way they simply become so fashion driven, and so one of the things one wants to try to do is not fall straight into all these fashions if possible. So, yeah, I mean I think it’s always been that way, but publishing is an industry of… it’s like a herd of bison. If one of them gets a sniff of something and then one goes rumbling off in one direction, they all follow. Herds of bison can be very powerful, but they can also be kind of stupid.
Tony: [laughing] That’s why you’re the writer! We talked last time about has science fiction ever disappointed you, and you kind of said a lot of science fiction films have come around and disappointed you. Why do you think a lot of the films do just miss the mark?
China Mieville: Well because their mark is not our mark, you know? I think in a way when we talk about films and we talk about culture we need to be a little bit more exact than we are. You know, we have to be kind of argumentative at times. To take an example, look at a film like what’s it called, Transformers, you know?
Tony: Yes?
China Mieville: Lots of people including me hated that film. I thought it was offensive, tedious, narratively incoherent gibberish consisting of a succession of bangs strung together. But when people sort of turn around and say “That was a really bad film.” I sort of want to say “Yeah, well, you know, what do you mean by bad? You know, it didn’t do what you wanted it to do – and I would agree with you, it didn’t do what I wanted it to do – but who is to say that is what it was designed for?” I mean it was Michael Bay, you know? It was Michael Bay, designed to make an enormous amount of money as quickly as possible. They don’t care about narrative coherence. They don’t care about character development. They don’t care about those things. Those were not part of what it was trying to do. So criticizing it for not doing it seems to me to be a little bit missing the mark, you know what I mean? I mean, this is not to say I don’t think it should be criticized – I think it was a piece of shit! But I don’t think criticizing it on the basis that it didn’t do what we wanted it to do is necessarily the most sensible thing. So, this is a long winded way of answering your question why do they miss the mark – well, I don’t think they do miss their mark. You know? Transformers did exactly what it was intended to do. Avatar, I think Avatar is ludicrous. Ludicrous, tedious, and offensive. But – it did what it wanted to do. You know, it didn’t care about trying to do something interesting with development or plot or writing or characterization or alien design or anything. What it intended to do was showcase a new kind of computer generated imagery and make wheelbarrow loads of money. It did it! So for me to criticize it as having been tremendously you know, having a very poor script is true, but is irrelevant. It didn’t think it had a good script. It didn’t care about having a script, you know what I mean? So I guess basically the reason I think so many of these films are not terribly good is because within the terms that we’re interested in, they’re not designed to be good. They’re designed to make an awful lot of money, and most studios are going to play safe in terms of making money. What that means is they don’t even need to be films that – studios don’t even particularly care whether or not people enjoy the films as long as they pay to see them. That’s it. Now obviously in the long run it might be good if they enjoy them because then they’re more likely to come to the sequels or buy the DVDs or whatever, but basically all you actually need is to get paying bums on seats, and that means that even if a studio executive is a huge fan of James Joyce and the Bicycle Thieves and Eisenstein and Vertoven, all kinds of tremendously interesting culture, they’re not going to use that as their touchstones when they pour 300 million dollars into a film because it’s risky. They’re going to play very safe because what they have to do is make a big ass return on their investment. That’s why – there’s no mystery to this. This is completely obvious and probably they would admit it. That’s why these films disappoint so many of us, I think, because in their very nature their makers are going to play very safe.
Tony: Did you by any chance see, and what are your views on, the film called Moon?
China Mieville: I did see Moon. I quite enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was absolutely, you know, I didn’t think it was flawless, but I quite enjoyed it. I liked the fact that it didn’t revolve around CGI. I liked that very much. I wasn’t – you know, it struck me as a film that was trying to do more interesting things than most and I thought it was a very good first film and I hope that the director goes on to do more stuff like that. I think one of the problems we have is films, because I think the standard is pretty poor at the moment, films which are decent get exaggerated so that films get described as “Absolutely amazing!” when they’re just decent, they’re good, and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong especially with a starting out director with making a good film. It doesn’t have to be the best film in the world. It doesn’t have to have nothing wrong with it. I think that sometimes we don’t help films by getting excessively excited. I felt the same way about Let the Right One In. I thought Let the Right One In was a really good film, but I didn’t think it was this kind of absolutely revolutionary thing that some people were talking about, and I think that there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, you don’t help that film by exaggerating its innovation or its amazingness. I think it’s perfectly legitimate to be a very good, interesting film, and I thought those two were.
Tony: I want to talk about the Internet now, China, if that’s all right.
China Mieville: Okay.
Tony: Are you Internet savvy or are you finding its passing you by too quick, you know what I mean?
China Mieville: Well, on the whole I’m internet savvy to the extent that – I’m not quite sure that I 100% understand. I mean, I’m Internet savvy in terms of I use it all the time – I’m a huge fan of research on the Internet, I read a lot of blogs, I spend a lot of time online, I use e-mail all the time, so to that extent I’m not a Luddite at all. There are things that move too fast. There are aspects I don’t get. I’m not on Twitter, I’m not on Facebook, I’m not on any of those things. I make no aspersions to those people who are – I know people get a great deal of pleasure and use of them, but they don’t do anything for me. I didn’t you know have a web site for many, many years, and my web site at the moment is extremely lo-fi and not designed to have forums or discussion or anything like that. So, I’m not someone who’s particularly interested in using the internet as a writer to create a kind of online brand identity. That is not something I’m interested in doing.
Tony: I wanted to ask you as well, it was actually Charles Tan who asked the question, he says “Why have you started your blog up again?” Have you just started writing in your blog?
China Mieville: Yeah, I just started I mean, I wince. I wished it weren’t called a blog. I don’t think of it as a blog. I mean, I know it is, but I much prefer thinking of it as a scrapbook. Basically, that’s just me being cowardly. Basically I didn’t have a web site for years until about two or three months ago and what happened was I was on a book tour last year, or maybe it was even the year before, for The City and the City, and a reader came to one of the readings, and – you know, I’ve had a few readers who were kind of exasperated with me for not having a web site and sort of saying you know you really need a web site, you owe it to us to have a web site, which I just did not understand – but this guy anyway basically he had bought chinamieville.net and he gave me the login details and he basically said to me, I can’t remember his exact words, but basically in a kind of more or less polite way he said “put something online for God’s sake, you’re a disgrace.” I was very touched that he bought it for me and gave it to me, and I was also, I felt a bit cowed, and like I owed it to him to put something online. So for months I didn’t do anything and I just kind of dithered, and then I sort of decided, you know, I like taking these kind of very sort of simple photographs and putting together little juxtapositions and little snips from like my notebooks, little snips of things that I’ve read that I think are really interesting or whatever and I just decided to sort of do that. But, you know, I think a lot of people who had been badgering me to have a web site will probably be disappointed with it because it’s not the kind of web site that you can really sort of interact with in that way. I don’t think there’s any reason anyone in the world should be remotely interested in it [Tony laughs]. I don’t expect anyone to ever care about it, but I hope if anyone does look at it I hope they enjoy it. It’s a little ongoing scrapbook artwork I suppose and hope.
Tony: We’ll get a link up there as well once this interview comes out, send some people over.
China Mieville: Sure!
Tony: Now, this is a nice one and you’ll probably shy away with embarrassment here, but Michael Moorcock says “China Mieville is perhaps the current generation’s finest writer of science fantasy.” Is that – did you ever get to meet Michael Moorcock? Are you friends with Mike Moorcock?
China Mieville: I haven’t seen him for a couple of years, but we’ve met several times and he’s always been very lovely to me about my stuff, and we’ve sort of had dinner and chatted about a lot of things because we share a lot of interests not just in terms of fiction but also sort of politically and so on and so forth, so I – yes, he’s a friend and obviously that was an extraordinarily kind thing for him to have said. He’s a very generous writer, he’s very generous about other writers, which is a quality I really, really like – not just because he’s being nice about me! But I just think he’s been a wonderful thing for the field because he’s extremely excited about other people. He’s not someone who just kind of constantly refers stuff back to himself which I think is a wonderful quality. But yeah, I mean, of course, that was a wonderful thing for him to have said.
Tony: Just what you said there, about he’s kind to the whole genre and the internet, the whole science fiction world there – we flew over to Paris when he was there when we first started StarShipSofa and we were lucky enough one of the listeners like owned a TV crew, so when we did this video, like to spend a day with him, like “A Day in the Life of Michael Moorcock”, and it’s actually up on Youtube, and what a lovely guy he was, do you know what I mean?
China Mieville: Yeah, he’s a diamond! He’s an absolute diamond, and he’s you know a great writer – not just a great science fiction writer, a great writer in any field. He’s one of our most important literary figures I think. He’s a thoroughly good, important thing in the world. I think he’s wonderful.
Tony: Now, just getting back to The City and the City, China, just for a second there, you know I was saying I found it very Sweeney-ish and it’s all the old fashioned style, but I’ve just been to see Green Zone today with Matt Damon and directed by Paul Greengrass and I loved that as well. It does, you know, your novel does ramp up there at the end. Is there anything like that, any kind of Hollywood action movies coming about with this, or any hints that it might get made into a movie?
China Mieville: Well, you know, we have discussions, you know. I think like probably any writer I’ve been in discussion with some film producers at various points over the last couple of years – I’m sorry, I mean over the last several years. One of my short stories is currently under option and we have discussions ongoing about a couple of the novels. Uhm, you know, maybe something will happen. I think the trick is to not hope too hard or you’ll make yourself go crazy, but sure! If it happens that will be a nice thing and you might even hope that they manage to make a good film which would be even better, so yeah – no, I mean, it’s one of those things that yes, there are discussions, they are ongoing even as we speak, but I don’t hold out – it’s not something I kind of set out too much store by, but if something happens I’ll be delighted.
Tony: Is this the last we’ll see of this universe, The City and the City? Is that it, you move on now, or do you ever think you’ll go back – with any of your books – go back and write a sequel?
China Mieville: Um, no, I mean – I might. I suppose I could go back there. I honestly don’t know. I mean, The City and the City was conceived of as part of a series, but it was conceived of - I had this plan in my mind. Basically the idea was that it was the last of a series. That was the idea. Originally, what I had was the subtitle for that book – it has a kind of invisible subtitle – when I first wrote it was called The City and the City and then subtitle was The Last Inspector Borlu Mystery. The idea was that there was a whole series of previous ones, or previous mysteries in this city which you hadn’t read but which were there, and then you finally pick this one up and it happens to be the last one in the series. That was my kind of conceit. When I told my publisher and agent that, they said “No, you can’t do that, because what will happen is people will pick it up and they’ll say ‘Oh, it’s the last one. I’ll buy the first one. Oh I can’t find the first one. Okay, I’m not going to buy it at all.’ So I was kind of strongly dissuaded from doing that. But, to me there are a couple of references in the book to previous cases, and those cases in my mind are previous volumes within this series. They’re just volumes that haven’t been published yet. So, for me, this book was always part of a series – just a series that kind of was written in an alternate reality and this is the only one that’s come out in this reality. So – I might do. I don’t know, there’s also a strong drive and desire to do something new, so – never say never.
Tony: Well you hinted there – are you working on anything new at the moment or is there anything new that’s coming out soon?
China Mieville: Well I’m just on the final edits on a book that will be out this time next year called Kraken which is a big fat fantasy novel set in London. I am working on a book for younger readers which I will hope come out at some point in the next two or three years, and then there’s a couple of other projects I’m working on which I don’t… On the whole I’m a bit superstitious about talking about work in progress so I sort of don’t tend to do so, but yes, there’s plenty of stuff going on in the background, yeah.
Tony: China, it’s been lovely speaking to you again. Thank you so much for taking the time out.
China Mieville: Not at all, thank you Tony!
Tony: And good luck with the award!
China Mieville: Oh, geez.
Tony: Take care.
China Miéville has published several novels, a collection of short fiction & one book of non-fiction. He lives & works in London.
Tony C. Smith is the host/producer of StarShipSofa. The audio science fiction magazine has been running since July 2006 with new episodes weekly. Each week the show delivers a full package of SF related audio material all free including audio fiction, fact audio essays, flash fiction and poetry, by leading names in the SF field. Starting in 2010 Tony C. Smith began StarShipSofa Interrogations. Its mission, to immortalize the immortals. Fifteen standard questions were compiled by listeners and staff of the StarShipSofa and put to the great writers of science fiction. Writers who have been interrogated are among others: Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Jack Vance, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K Le Guin and Gene Wolfe plus many more. On April 4, 2010, StarShipSofa became the first podcast in history to be included on the Hugo Awards ballot. It was nominated in the category Best Fanzine.
China Miéville’s City And The City supplied by Audible
Jason Sanford 2010 Interview
Jason Sanford was nominated for his novella “Sublimation Angels”.
Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, what’s the appeal of science fiction for you?
For me, science fiction is the literary genre best suited to exploring today’s ever-changing world. You have to remember that most humans hate change, even if they won’t admit it. Our species came of age in extremely small hunter-gatherer groups, where technological and societal change was measured across millennia. Now we’re dealing with more social change in a single day than our ancestors experienced in a lifetime. That’s why science fiction is so important. At its best, the genre explores the intellectual and emotional needs of humans in the face of such massive upheaval. As such, science fiction is very much the literature of today’s world.
Of course, this flies in the face of the general public’s view of science fiction, which is that it’s only about the future--and specifically about predicting the future. Which is totally silly because if you look at science fiction’s track record on predictions the genre performs rather poorly, having missed major events like the Civil Rights, Equal Rights and Decolonization movements, the Green Revolution, the creation of the Internet, the beginnings of an information economy, and the slow speed at which humanity is reaching into space. Instead of being about predicting the future, I see science fiction as humanity’s dream of the future. How we go about creating our future. How we go about surviving and processing the incredible changes facing us, and dealing with the consequences of such change.
Since you founded storySouth and run the Million Writers Award, do you see a significant difference between genre fiction and non-genre fiction?
One difference is that non-genre or “literary” fiction has largely abdicated its role of understanding large-scale societal issues, replacing that with concern about the mind-numbing minutia of individual life. In fact, genre and non-genre fiction have essentially traded places over the last half century. Initially genre fiction was criticized for cardboard characters and poor prose--although that stereotype was hardly true of all genre writings--while literary fiction was where readers turned for true-life characters, quality writing, and a deeper understanding of life.
Now, literary fiction has become a joke, endlessly examining the fluff in each author’s navel and overlooking the bigger issues in life, while the best genre writers have merged great writing and dead-on characterization with larger-picture insight. This has been so successful that many of the biggest literary writers--people like Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, and Michael Chabon--now dive full-force into genre archetypes and ideas within their works.
What made you decide you wanted to become a writer?
Stories. I love stories. The personal stories we whisper to each other. The self-told stories our minds create to make sense of life. The big stories we write in books and show in films and pass on to our children so we can all understand existence. Sometimes I feel like that damn kid in The Sixth Sense because I see stories everywhere. If I didn’t write them down I’d probably go crazy.
What were the hurdles you ran into before getting published? How did you overcome them?
The biggest hurdle was created by my own idiocy as I initially wrote the stories I thought other people wanted to read, instead of the stories I wanted to read. I’m sure many writers go through this phase, but it’s still an ugly thing to behold. I was lucky to nip this idiocy before it became terminal.
Another hurdle I encountered is the difficulty in publishing short genre fiction in today’s market. For new writers, it is often easier to publish a first novel than a first short story. The reason for this is simple: There are only a few professional-level speculative fiction magazines, while the marketplace supports a much larger number of book publishers. But that said, the short fiction market has some great editors who are willing to take chances on new writers, so if you love short stories you must keep writing and submitting until you start landing acceptances.
How has your experience as an editor affected your fiction?
My editorial experience causes me to rewrite my stories over and over. I’ve heard some authors say they hate revisions--me, I love the process. Every time I rewrite a story I improve it. In fact, the biggest problem I have is letting go of rewriting, to finally realize the story is good enough to put out there.
How about your experiences in Thailand and the Peace Corps: have they made an impact on your writing?
I loved my Peace Corps experience, even if there were days when I wondered what the hell I was doing there. Living and working in another culture is a tough experience, especially in a situation where you’re not around other expatriates and able to recreate a simulacrum of your culture. In fact, among Peace Corps Volunteers it is the cultural adaptation that is always hardest. Being outside your culture makes you a true outsider, and forces you to reexamine all of the beliefs and ideas you once took for granted. Many people don’t like having such experiences, which is why there’s a high drop-out rate among Peace Corps Volunteers.
It’s hard to state how the experience influenced my writings. I feel I’m better at understanding my own cultural biases and beliefs, and am also able to express this understanding in the stories and characters I create. And being immersed in another language really opened my eyes to how the words we use help create the realities we experience. I sometimes wonder if humanity might get along better if more people in the world--and especially more people in the United States--were bilingual.
What’s the appeal of the short story format for you?
I believe the short story format is the purest form of storytelling in our current literary tradition. By their nature, novels flow and ramble as they pull in extra characters and plot events to reach their longer length. But with short stories, the author must focus on the story’s essential elements. If a novel digresses, no harm done. If a short story does that, it’s dead.
That said, there are also many great things you can do with novels that are impossible to attempt with short stories. But I do love the short story form.
When you started writing “Sublimation Angels,” did you know it was going to be the length of a novella? Was it difficult finding someone to publish it?
I started the story with certain characters and ideas in mind, but didn’t realize how long it would take to capture these aspects until I began banging into novella length. And the story still isn’t done. I intend to continue the story from where the novella ended, with the overall story ending up as a novel. One complaint I’ve heard from some readers is that the novella didn’t answer all of the questions it raised. Very true. The following parts of the story will do that.
As for publishing “Sublimation Angels,” I was indeed worried about finding a publisher. Luckily, Andy Cox and the Interzone editors immediately loved the novella and wanted to publish it. Without Interzone, the novella would still be sitting on my computer’s hard drive, twiddling its digital thumbs and wishing it could find a home.
“Sublimation Angels” is both character-driven and concept-driven, at least from my reading of it. What was the inspiration for the story and do you begin your stories with a concept in mind or does that develop with the writing?
I usually begin with the concept first, often expressed in the language of how the story opens. I then look for characters to populate the story, and ideas to explore, and go from there. In many ways I see fiction writing as a form of experimentation, as the author investigates the causal relationships among variables such as plot, character, insight, and language.
“Sublimation Angels” was inspired by Fritz Leiber’s classic story “A Pail of Air.” I first read the story in one of my grandfather’s pulp magazines. The idea of the main character surviving on a frozen earth resonated with me, especially since I grew up in the subtropical heat of Alabama, where I rarely saw any snow. When I reread “A Pail of Air” a few years ago, all my childhood memories of how I’d loved Leiber’s story came spilling back. So I wrote “Sublimation Angels” to create my own frozen world where people struggle to survive and understand life.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m working on a mystery novel, which I plan to finish in the next few months. I then plan to complete the story of “Sublimation Angels.” I’ve also been working on a number of short stories. Finally, I’m right in the middle of this year’s Million Writers Award. Once the notable stories of the year are released in early April, I have approximately a month to read all of them and pick my 10 favorites. So I foresee a lot of reading in the weeks ahead.
Jason Sanford was born and raised in Alabama, where he majored in anthropology at Auburn University and worked as an archeologist. After serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand, he worked as an editor for a Minneapolis book publisher. He now lives in Ohio with his wife and two sons.
Jason’s fiction has appeared regularly in Interzone, where he won their 2008 Readers’ Poll. His stories have also been published in Year’s Best SF 14, Analog, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Tales of the Unanticipated, The Mississippi Review, Diagram, Pindeldyboz, and other places. He has won a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship and been nominated in the best short fiction category for both the BSFA and British Fantasy Awards. He also co-founded the literary journal storySouth, through which he runs the annual Million Writers Award for best online fiction. His critical essays and reviews have been published in The New York Review of Science Fiction, The Pedestal Magazine, The Fix Short Fiction Review, and SF Signal.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler, the editor of Best Philippine Speculative Fiction, and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, Philippine Speculative Fiction, and The Dragon and the Stars (edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi).. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Nancy Kress 2010 Interview
Nancy Kress was nominated for her novella “Act One”.
“Act One,” your novella on the final ballot for the Nebula Award for 2010 , is a story of genetic engineering in the near future. What was the inspiration behind this story?
It wasn’t any one thing, but rather a combination: a long-standing interest in the ambiguities of genetic engineering; happening to stumble across a fascinating book on dwarfism; an image of a beautiful woman descending a grimy basement stairs; and a poodle who seems exceptionally adept at reading body language. Such things cross-fertilize in the mind, and I’m usually surprised by what emerges.
The protagonist, Barry Tenler, suffers from achondroplasia dwarfism. Why did you choose him and his affliction as the main viewpoint character?
Again, I came across a book in the library, In The Little World by journalist John Richardson, and was intensely interested in what he had to say about dwarfism. I frequently choose as protagonists people who are somehow marginalized in society. “The Erdmann Nexus,” which won a Hugo last year, and “Fountain of Age,” a Nebula the previous year, both had as protagonists very old men - another kind of marginalization.
When writing “Act One,” what did you find the most difficult? The easiest?
This particular story was uniformly easy to write. They are not, alas, all like that. One of the most useful pieces of writing advice I ever received was from Gene Wolfe, very early in my career. He said, “It’s good to have two different things going on in a story, so they can end up solving each other.” “Act One” has three: genetic engineering by “The Group,” Barry’s hopeless love for Jane, and his relationship with his ex-wife and son.
Much of your fiction explores genetic engineering. What is it about this field of science that appeals to you most?
That this is the future - and closer than most people appreciate.
You write in both the long and short form. Which do you prefer more and why?
I prefer the novella over all other forms. It’s long enough to create an alternate reality, but short enough to (unlike the novel) be sustained by one major plot line. The three components I mentioned above are all part of that same line.
You’ve taught at Clarion over the years. What differences do you see in young writers today than when you started out?
Not much difference at all. Some are open to learning, some defensive; some are imaginative, some less so; some can persevere, others will too easily become discouraged. And the same basic mistakes turn up as did twenty years ago. People, and their core abilities, don’t change much.
Who are a few of your literary influences? Who do you like to read for pleasure?
I don’t know who my literary influences are, but for pleasure I read Ursula LeGuin, Bruce Sterling, Somerset Maugham, Jane Austen, Philippa Gregory, Connie Willis, and a lot of non-fiction.
What are you working on now?
Something different for me: a YA novel. We’ll see how that goes.
What haven’t you attempted in your writing that you’d like to try in the future?
Whenever something new occurs to me, I attempt it almost immediately. So there isn’t a backlog of new things waiting to be tried. Unlike many writers, I don’t seem to get a lot of ideas. I just try to make the best of the ones I do get.
Nancy Kress is the author of twenty-six books: three fantasy novels, twelve SF novels, three thrillers, four collections of short stories, one YA novel, and three books on writing fiction. She is perhaps best known for the “Sleepless” trilogy that began with BEGGARS IN SPAIN. The novel was based on a Nebula- and Hugo-winning novella of the same name. She won her second Hugo in 2009 in Montreal, for the novella “The Erdmann Nexus.” Kress has also won three additional Nebulas, a Sturgeon, and the 2003 John W. Campbell Award (for PROBABILITY SPACE). Her most recent books are a collection of short stories, NANO COMES TO CLIFFORD FALLS AND OTHER STORIES (Golden Gryphon Press, 2008); a bio-thriller, DOGS (Tachyon Press, 2008); and an SF novel, STEAL ACROSS THE SKY (Tor, 2009).
Kress’s fiction, much of which concerns genetic engineering, has been translated into twenty languages. She often teaches writing at various venues around the country.
Marshall Payne has worked as a touring musician, music producer, sound technician, a salesman, and a waiter. He has written over 100 short stories and his fiction has or will appear in Aeon Speculative Fiction, Brutarian, Talebones, Hub Magazine, Fictitious Force, to name a few. He has a website at http://marshallpayne.com/ and a blog at http://marshallpayne1.livejournal.com/.
Michael A. Burstein 2010 Interview
Michael A. Burstein is nominated for his short story “I Remember the Future”.
You earned a Bachelor’s in Physics from Harvard and a Masters in Physics from Boston University. What advantages has being well-versed in science, and particularly physics, brought to your writing?
Allow me to answer your first question by starting with a slight digression.
In 1993, I met Nancy Kress for the first time, and I told her how much I had enjoyed her novella “Beggars in Spain,” about a group of people genetically engineered before birth to live without sleep. I was curious about her scientific background, and when she told me that most of what she knew about the science of sleep she had learned from an AP Biology textbook used by one of her children, I was impressed. Nancy, for her part, seemed impressed that I had a background in Physics. She suggested to me that it would be invaluable when I was writing science fiction.
At first, I didn’t see it. I was desperately trying to learn the craft of writing, and I tended to think that my studies in Physics, while useful in general, were irrelevant when it came to writing science fiction. It wasn’t until years later that I learned the opposite, and it came about because of my many years of learning to write.
When I attended Clarion in 1994, I was told that after the workshop ended I might find myself unable to write for a while. The problem arises because aspiring writers might learn so many technical aspects of the craft that they become paralyzed when they first try to apply everything they’ve learned. You sit at your computer with technical information about plot and character and background and dialogue running through your head, and you simply don’t know how to begin.
But after a while – weeks for some writers, years for others, but months for most of us – you internalize all the craft you have learned and it becomes natural. You don’t think about what you’re doing, you just do it.
That’s the way my science background works for me. When I develop an idea for a story, I don’t necessarily have to do the same amount of research that another writer might. This isn’t to say that I don’t do research, but I’m starting with the advantage of already knowing most of the basic science I would need to extrapolate into the future.
You see, having internalized the science knowledge means that I can focus on other things when I write.
A writer’s background always informs the writer’s work, no matter what that background is. And, in truth, the science knowledge I acquired allows me to concentrate less on understanding the science of science fiction and more on understanding how to communicate my ideas through fiction effectively.
Religion and religious questions are key elements in many of your stories. What prompts you to explore these, and what is your reaction to the prevailing wisdom that science fiction should be about “science” only?
What prompts me to explore religious themes in my science fiction is most likely my own religious background – or, perhaps, the lack of it.
I grew up in a mostly secular Jewish home, but one in which being Jewish was still very important. My family tended to pay lip service to various religious customs; for example, we had two sets of dishes, one for meat and one for milk, but we would wash them together. We were members of a local synagogue, but we didn’t attend regularly. My brothers and I actually went to a yeshiva (a religious school) for elementary school, but that was primarily because we had tested well and the local public school wouldn’t let us enroll a year early.
Years later, I came to realize that there was something missing in my life, something I wanted to incorporate into my view of the world, and so I became more religiously observant. Being observant has opened my eyes to the great diversity we have in the human race, a diversity that has not always been appreciated in the world of science fiction. Let me explain.
There’s a fallacy in thinking called “false consciousness.” The basic idea, if I remember correctly from my college course on human nature, is that some believe that those of us who subscribe to certain ideologies might not realize how incorrect those ideologies are. To such a thinker, we need to have an experience that would allow us to break out of our false consciousness and see the world as it truly is. For example, a person who comes out of a deeply religious background might one day have the equivalent of an epiphany and become an atheist. Depending on her perspective, she might describe herself as having broken free of her “false consciousness” as she now believes that she understands the world more clearly. She may even go so far as to proselytize to others that atheism is the correct path.
The reason I cast the example the way I did is because that’s close to what happened in the world of science fiction. In the early part of the twentieth century, the science fiction community tended to shy away from organized religion in favor of the rationality of science. H.G. Wells, in his seminal work Things to Come, posited a future in which the world would eventually become a utopia run by scientists. Many science fiction readers saw religion as something outmoded that would eventually be replaced. They tended to assume that people who are following a system of faith just haven’t broken free of their conditioning. In their view, the human race needs to progress and grow to the point where we free ourselves from the strictures of relying on the belief in a supernatural being.
(As an aside, last year I found myself in a car with two other science fiction writers. One was an atheist with a background in Catholicism, and the other was an evangelical Christian. We had a fascinating conversation on some of these very topics.)
I don’t think anyone out there thinks that science fiction should be about “science” only. Science fiction should be about how scientific and technological development can change the world around us. But many writers chose not to focus on how science would affect religion, except to assume that religion would eventually disappear. I’ve chosen to take what I think is a more realistic view, which is that religion, like all human endeavor, will stay with us, but adapt as needed.
What themes tend to drive your writing? Is there anything in particular that is currently capturing your interest and pervading your writing?
My wife Nomi first pointed out to me the main theme that I seem to return to again and again in my work is the theme of memory. Specifically, I’m fascinated by the question of how the future will remember the past.
I think this obsession comes from my own desire to be remembered as a writer. We are all destined to become dust; I’d like to feel that I’ll be able to make my mark before that time comes for me.
If you want to go one step further, my father died when I was twenty years old. I had yet to finish college, let alone contemplate entering the “real world” and starting a family, and the bald fact of our mortality was suddenly shoved in my face. An armchair psychologist could easily see how my father’s death affected my writing. (My mother is gone now too, which may be affecting it even more.) I’ll leave this to academics to contemplate.
As for what is currently capturing my interest, well, I’ve become fascinated by the “veil of ignorance” concept described by John Rawls as part of his moral philosophy. I’ve been trying to make it the centerpiece of a story set on a Mars base. If all goes according to plan, we’ll see that in Analog sometime in 2011.
You have been Hugo and Nebula nominated several times, as well as winning a John W. Campbell Award, so obviously your stories resonate with readers. But has there been any story you have written that became your favorite? And why is that?
Of all the stories I’ve written, there are two that stand out as my favorites.
The first story is “Kaddish for the Last Survivor,” which was nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula. “Kaddish for the Last Survivor” is about the death of the last Holocaust survivor, and it deals with the question of how to preserve history when all the eyewitnesses are gone. At the time I wrote the story, there was a spate of Holocaust deniers in the news, all claiming to have evidence that either the Holocaust hadn’t happened or that it wasn’t as bad as it had been portrayed. Their influence was so insidious that at one point a survey of American adults should that a large percentage were willing to entertain the notion that the Holocaust had never happened. Can you imagine? That’s like saying that slavery never happened, and convincing people to believe you.
If a lie is repeated often enough, people start to doubt. “Kaddish for the Last Survivor” is a cautionary tale about the slipperiness of history. It’s one of my favorite stories because I think I managed to be more effective with it than with any other piece of fiction.
The second story is “Paying It Forward,” which was nominated for the Hugo but surprisingly not for the Nebula. I say “surprisingly” because it is the tale of a younger science fiction writer who finds himself throughout his life mentored over the Internet by an older science fiction writer. What made the story fantastic was that the older writer was already dead, as far as the younger writer knew.
“Paying It Forward” is a tribute to all those writers who came before us and influenced us. That’s why I thought it would appeal to members of SFWA in particular, but perhaps it worked better for the fans. I had high hopes for the story at the Hugos – it was nominated at Noreascon 4, my local Worldcon, held in Boston – but I came in second to Neil Gaiman, alas.
You have received many Hugo and Nebula nominations, but never a win. How does it feel to come to in second to others so many times, and what would a Nebula win mean to you?
The very first time I was nominated for a Hugo Award was in 1996, for my short story “TeleAbsence.” As it so happened, that was my first published story, so I was delighted when it ended up nominated for a Hugo. I still recall leaving the Hugo Awards Ceremony after I had lost, to discover that “TeleAbsence” had been leading for the first few rounds of balloting, only to lose by ten votes in the end.
Since then, of course, I’ve lost many more times.
Probably my biggest regret, which I’ve already mentioned, is that “Paying It Forward,” which was nominated when Worldcon was held in Boston, lost to Neil Gaiman. Had Neil’s story not been on the ballot, I probably would have come in first.
As for how I feel…
I’m reminded of a few lines of dialogue from the Aaron Sorkin TV show Sports Night. In the episode “The Local Weather” (written by Sorkin with Peter McCabe) two characters are discussing a long jumper who in his last competition finally achieved his dream of setting a new world record, only to see it broken a moment later:
Abby: You’re bothered because he came in second?
Dan: He held the world record for five minutes.
Abby: That’s five minutes longer than most people do.
Dan: You know, I’ve heard that kind of thing and I’m going to say this, okay? If you’re good enough to come in second place, then you’re good enough to be disappointed in it.
Anyone who loses an award is going to be disappointed. The disappointment of losing is not ameliorated by the joy of nomination, nor should it be.
It may be unpopular to say this, especially to writers who have never been nominated for an award at all, but having come in second so many times is tiresome.
Winning the Nebula would mean a lot to me; it would mean that my colleagues see the same thing in “I Remember the Future” that I do, and that they will not let me be forgotten.
That said, given the strong competition on the ballot, I don’t expect to win this year.
In 1998-2000 you served as Secretary of the SFWA. What about your experiences enriched you and what memories do you cherish from your time of service?
It’s hard for me to believe that ten years have passed since I served as SFWA Secretary.
At the time, there were a lot of controversial initiatives that the Board proposed. Very early in my time on the board, we sent out a referendum with ten questions on it and asked the membership to vote. The so-called Sawyer referendum (named for Robert J. Sawyer, who was president of SFWA at the time) irked a lot of people because they thought we were asking them to consider a whole slew of changes to SFWA without time for a proper debate.
What a lot of members didn’t seem to consider was that many of these issues were already being debated over and over, and the debate was sapping the vitality of the organization. We figured that a referendum would end the debates once and for all, allowing SFWA to move on to other things. In my opinion, we succeeded. For example, under the referendum, SFWA began to accept electronic sales as membership credentials; can you imagine how ridiculous the organization would look now if that hadn’t passed? No one seems to get worked up about requalification any more, as the referendum killed it, and since 1999 SFWA has given a Best Script Nebula (although this year the name of the award is being changed).
What astonishes me is how recently, the SFWA Board of Directors implemented some of the changes we proposed without a referendum – and the membership essentially yawned. We proposed eliminating the Nebula juries, but members complained, so we kept them in place. We wanted to change the way publications such as the Forum and the Bulletin were delivered, but people objected, so we didn’t. But the current board has implemented a bunch of changes by right instead of referendum, with nary a peep from the members.
Anyway. Of my two years on the board, there are two memories I cherish above all. Those were my tiny role in giving the Author Emeritus honor to Phil Klass, who wrote under the name William Tenn, and in giving the Grand Master Award to Hal Clement. They’re both gone now and I miss them a lot.
You have been writing for some time. How has the genre changed since you started publishing, and what positive and/or negative trends are you seeing within fandom?
Anything I say will come off as obvious, but the biggest change in the genre from my perspective is how many more people read their short fiction online instead of in magazines. Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF are still important to the field, but there’s now an explosion of websites that also provide good science fiction and fantasy and pay a professional rate. Sadly, I have yet to hear of one that pays its editorial staff a living wage. (I’d love to be corrected on that if I’m wrong.)
As for trends in fandom, again, this is rather obvious, but fandom seems to be aging and splintering. People are less interested in being part of fandom as a whole and more interested in pursuing their own tiny sliver of fandom. I think this has both positive and negative aspects, but I’m not the best qualified to discuss it.
Your collection I REMEMBER THE FUTURE including your Nebula nominated story of the same name was released as both a print book and ebook by Apex Publications. In particular, your collection was part of a promotion to sell the ebook for a $1 USD for a limited time. What kind of results did you see from that, and what effect do you think the ebook market is going to have on the science fiction and fantasy community?
The results were actually quite good. When the title story of the collection got nominated for the Nebula, there was a definite uptick in sales in all forms of the book.
I know some people were disappointed that I didn’t release “I Remember the Future” for free on the web, but the irony is that I was actually the first writer to suggest releasing award nominees onto the web. Back in 1996, when my first story got nominated for the Hugo, I contacted the Worldcon committee and arranged for the nominated stories in my category to be hosted on my own website. Yes, I hosted my competition, because I believed it was important for the voters to have a chance to read the stories as easily as possible, rather than having to track them down. (The committee actually thanked me for my suggestion in print, so I know there’s evidence out there proving that this was all my idea.)
And as it stands, I did make “I Remember the Future” available for free to all members of SFWA, who are the only folks eligible to vote in the Nebulas. Last year, many of the Hugo nominees were made available for free, but only to Worldcon members. It’s no different here. The story was free to read for those people who are eligible to vote for or against it.
That said, if “I Remember the Future” had been published in 2009 instead if 2008, and was eligible for the Hugos this year, I might have made it available for all readers. But it missed the Hugo ballot last year – I think it only got 18 nominations, which wasn’t enough for the Short Story ballot in 2009 – and so there’s no real good reason for me to make it available for free.
Especially when Apex made it, and my whole book, available for one dollar as a PDF. One dollar! If a reader isn’t willing to pay one dollar to read fifteen Hugo and Nebula nominated stories, what does that say about us as a culture? What does it say about the future of a writer’s ability to make a living?
As for what the ebook market is going to mean to the science fiction and fantasy community, I think it’s going to have the same impact to our whole society. Ebooks will become another way that people are able to buy books. I don’t think they will kill print books, but I do think we’ll move in the direction where more and more out-of-print work becomes available for people to read.
You have written quite a bit about the “pigeonholing” of using genre to define books. Without asking you to be repetitious, could you summarize your points, and why you feel the use of genre to define a book is a mistake?
I don’t actually feel that the use of genre is a mistake; to the contrary, genre allows readers to find other stories that have similar elements to ones they know they already like.
The problem I see is when genre becomes too limiting a factor and prevents people from trying stories they might actually like. To give an example, years ago Nora Roberts published her first J.D. Robb novel, which is a science fiction mystery romance set in the future. The publisher labeled it under one genre category, Romance, and that’s where it ended up shelved in the bookstores. Romance readers probably were confused when they first came across the book, and I imagine it took mystery and science fiction readers longer to discover it than it would have had the book also shown up in the appropriate other sections. (Today, her books are also placed in the Mystery section, but they’ve yet to be sheled with Science Fiction.)
In my ideal world, a book would be allowed to boast multiple genre labels, and would be shelved in multiple areas of the bookstore. Sadly, it’s never been economical to do so, and it’s even less economical now.
You have announced on your blog that you do not plan to make “I Remember the Future,” your most recent Nebula nominated story, available for the general public. Since the masses cannot access it for free, would you describe what the story is about, its genesis, and what ideas you were exploring?
The story is about trying to recapture that sense of wonder by honoring those who came before us. If people want to know more, I’ve written a short essay on the story that will appear in the Nebula Award issue of the SFWA Bulletin.
Thank you for loaning us your valuable time!
Thank you! You asked a lot of perspicacious questions!
Photo (c) 2008 Nomi S. Burstein
Michael A. Burstein was born in New York City in 1970, and grew up in the neighborhood of Forest Hills in the borough of Queens. He attended Hunter College High School in Manhattan. In 1991 he graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Physics, and in 1993 he earned a Master’s in Physics from Boston University. In 1994 he attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Workshop.
Burstein’s first published story, “TeleAbsence,” which appeared in the July 1995 issue of Analog, was nominated for the Hugo Award and was chosen by the readers of Analog as the best short story published by the magazine in 1995. Two years later, Burstein won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 1997 World Science Fiction Convention, LoneStarCon2. Burstein subsequently received Hugo nominations for “Broken Symmetry,” “Cosmic Corkscrew,” “Kaddish for the Last Survivor,” (also a Nebula nominee) “Spaceships,” “Paying It Forward,” “Decisions, “Time Ablaze,” “Seventy-Five Years,” “TelePresence,” and a Nebula and Sturgeon nomination for “Reality Check,” and a Nebula nomination for “I Remember the Future.” His novella “Sanctuary” (Analog, September 2005) was chosen by the readers of Analog as the best novella published by the magazine in 2005 and was nominated for the Nebula Award. From 1998 to 2000, Burstein served as Secretary of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Burstein lives with his wife Nomi and their twin daughters in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, where he is an elected Town Meeting Member and Library Trustee. He has worked as a Science teacher at all levels and currently edits Science textbooks for middle school and high school. He has given lectures and spoken at various science fiction conferences and libraries, and to groups at MIT and Harvard.
John Ottinger III is passionate about science fiction and fantasy. A prolific reviewer, he has been posting reviews online and in print since 2004. More recently, he has become a regular contributor to Tor.com, as well as landing gigs reviewing for Publisher’s Weekly, Sacramento Book Review, The Fix, Fantasy Magazine, Black Gate and the twitterzine Thaumatrope. His interviews have appeared in Strange Horizons and at Stephen Hunt’s SFCrowsnest. In addition, he runs his own popular science fiction and fantasy blog, Grasping for the Wind (http://www.graspingforthewind.com), where he posts reviews, interviews, free fiction, and news from the worlds of speculative fiction.
N.K. Jemisin 2010 Interview
N.K. Jemisin is nominated for her short story “Non-Zero Probabilities”.
Looking at the stories linked to on your site, you’ve had several stories published since 2004. For how long were you writing and submitting stories to editors before your first story was published?
I didn’t start out with short stories, actually; since childhood I’ve been writing novels, most of which were pretty awful. But I got brave and submitted my first novel to a publisher in maybe 1995? It sat in their slushpile for 2 years before being rejected, and I didn’t submit anything else for several years after that. I wasn’t idle during this time; I was in grad school, which kind of put a damper on my writing, though when I had time I spent it working on the next book (the one that eventually became THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, which was recently published by Orbit).
I didn’t start writing short stories until after I attended the Viable Paradise writing workshop in 2002. I’d thought of myself as a pure novelist up to then, but the instructors at the workshop—who were phenomenal, BTW—suggested that learning to write shorts would improve my novel-writing, so I decided to try it. It took me a year or so to learn the craft, which basically consisted of me getting a subscription to F&SF, joining a writing group, and churning out a whole lot of crap. But I finally made my first sale— actually in 2003, but to a small-press anthology that held onto it for awhile and went kaput before it was ever published. I resold that one later, and had a cluster of other sales around the same time.
So to make a long story short (too late!), I spent maybe six months seriously submitting stories before my first one was published.
Many authors have kept copies of their rejection letters as a means of motivation. Have you ever done so?
Yep. That first novel rejection letter—the one I waited two years for—is framed and sitting in my office right now. I also keep all my short story and novel rejections in a box, for the day when I own a house. I intend to wallpaper my bathroom with them.
Several of the short stories of yours that I’ve read so far are set in either New Orleans or New York City. What influences have these cities had on influencing your choice of story and setting?
Well, I lived in both cities for several years. I’ve lived elsewhere too—DC, Boston, Mobile, Iowa City—but NOLA and NYC are definitely my favorites. I think all cities are inherently magical places, but the magic in those two seems especially powerful somehow. It’s not really something I can explain.
I have another New Orleans story coming out soon, actually—it will be published in POSTSCRIPTS, a UK science fiction/fantasy anthology, this coming summer. That one’s called “Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters,” and is set in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It’s a heartwarming fantasy about a boy and his dragon—the boy is a drug dealer and the dragon caused the hurricane. There’s a monster too.
Very curious to read this story, especially since it touches upon a very real tragedy. Speaking of real-life pain and suffering, you recently posted a novelette, “The Effluent Engine”, on your website as part of the internet outreach to benefit those devastated by the January Haitian earthquakes, A Story for Haiti. What feedback did you receive from readers and fellow writers about this outreach program?
You can see all the comments I’ve received on the story on my blog, actually. A few responses from readers, generally positive—and better still, a few donations. No comments from writers that I know of, though in all several dozen writers participated in the “A Story for Haiti” benefit themselves, and there were quite a lot of fantastic stories posted thereby. Go check them out! And donate! Haiti still needs help.
Your Nebula-nominated short story, “Non-Zero Probabilities,” deals with luck run amok, with derailing rains to improbable lottery runs, to all sorts of things in-between. How much credence do you give to the notion of “luck” being a prime mover and shaker of human interrelationships and destinies?
I don’t give any credence to it, actually. I believe in probability, which most of us refer to as luck, mostly because that word is easier to say than “outlier” or “likelihood as n approaches infinity”. (Statistics and probability are pretty much the only maths that I actually enjoy.) But I’ve always found it fascinating how so many people ascribe real, personal meaning to what is essentially chance. I spent 8 years living in Boston, and “the curse of the Bambino” was broken by the 2004 World Series win while I lived there. The entire city was obsessed with this curse; it was hilarious. It was also beautiful. There was a real, palpable sense of relief and joy throughout the city when the curse was broken; I don’t think it was just because of the Series win. Everyone in the city – even skeptical, baseball-hating me—bonded over this sense of relief. So maybe there’s a whiff of Boston in “Non-Zero Probabilities” too.
Superstitions really aren’t more than old religious beliefs downgraded to suit the newer, dominant religious beliefs, huh? I have noticed that in several of your stories, including your debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, that syncretic religious beliefs are brought up. Have personal influences shaped your approach toward examining religious belief in fiction, or is something else at play?
Er—no, I don’t at all agree that superstitions are old religious beliefs downgraded to suit newer, dominant religious beliefs. Superstition can have nothing to do with religion, as I noted with my Red Sox example. Rather, I think superstitions, and religions too, are simply human nature. We’re a species that ascribes meaning to everything around it—life and death, the position of the stars, observed patterns, random events. Sometimes the meanings we ascribe have empirical value, sometimes intrinsic value, and sometimes they’re complete BS. None of that will ever stop us from seeking meaning, though—or at least, I hope not. Because I think the same human impulse that generates superstition also generates fiction and other forms of creativity. Without meaning we can’t have stories, and stories are what fantasy is all about.
The only personal influences that have shaped my approach toward religion are human history. Every belief system on this planet is syncretic to some degree. Even modern atheism didn’t appear as a burning bush, or spring fully-formed from somebody’s forehead; it’s the logical consequence of rationalism and historical analysis. Maybe the first religion ever created was pure, but everything since then’s been a moocher. All of them incorporate previous belief systems, *or* common understandings of the world that are treated as gospel truth—science, sexism, sociology – whether they admit it or not. So if I wanted to depict a “created” religion plausibly, as I did in THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, it was going to have to be syncretic. Or if I want to depict the religion of a woman who’s trying to reconcile her heritage with her own (admittedly amateur) understanding of cause and effect and probability, that would naturally be syncretic too. That’s what I tried to show in “Non-Zero Probabilities”.
Interesting. Would you agree that in part people read (and write) what we nowadays call “fantasy” because of a desire to reorder occurrences and perhaps also because of some desire to fiddle around with elements that are somewhat akin to religious beliefs?
Nope. I think people read and write fantasy because it’s fun! At least, that’s why *I* read and write it.
Fair enough. One thing that struck me about “Non-Zero Probabilities” is the hint of a mostly-hidden backstory to Adele, brought up in the first paragraph. In conceiving her character, what type of woman did you envision Adele being?
Exactly the woman described in the story: a typical young city-dweller, working a typical 9 to 5 and enduring the typical tribulations of life in the city—balancing safety with freedom, battling loneliness among millions of strangers, paying the rent. Typical stuff. Her backstory is typical too: she’s a New York transplant (like half the city), coming from some smaller place but adapting wholly; she’s got parents, friends, some ex-boyfriends. The usual. I wrote her as a very ordinary woman, to deal
with the story’s extraordinary events.
Interspersed among Adele’s recounting of her experiences are short, vividly drawn scenes of New York City, including street corner ministers and dice-rolling neighbors. How many of the interactions depicted in the story are events that a visitor or new resident to the city might expect to encounter? Are these encounters with the religious and the secular zealots just one more example of non-zero probabilities?
A visitor might see some of these things, I suppose—I don’t spend a lot of time in the tourist areas of the city, but I’ve seen preachers in Times Square and so on. But note the story takes place not just in New York, but specifically in *Brooklyn*, which (to my enduring surprise) tourists rarely visit and newcomers frequently avoid. Too many “Death Wish” movies, maybe. Brooklyn, far more than Manhattan, is a city of open (rather than concealed) faith. It’s not as pushy about that faith as I made out in the story, though—the story takes place during a time of crisis, much like the weeks after 9/11, so it’s kind of atypical of life in the city. My day job is in downtown Brooklyn, for example, and while I’ve never seen an evangelical proselytizer there, you can find adherents of various faiths all along Court Street on any given day. Black Israelites selling incense, Hasidim guys cruising in little trucks with speakers pumping Yiddish music, Catholic nuns walking for exercise, whatever. Most of them don’t preach, though – they just go on about the business of being who they are. Nobody bothers them, and they don’t bother anybody—but they don’t hide who the are, either, the way they might have to do in some smaller town. Here it’s all cool.
The story’s not really about religion, though, so there was no need to exaggerate the other events that take place in the story—I just borrowed small mundane scenarios from my everyday life, and “speculatized” them. I visit the farmers’ market at Grand Army plaza on most Saturdays. Anybody walking through Prospect Park will see the Long Meadow, where the projectile Italian ice scene took place. I tried to grow a garden on my balcony last year, to varying degrees of success: the collards grew beautifully until aphids got them, and the eggplants remained stunted and never flowered. So I didn’t get to romance a hot neighbor with an eggplant, alas. (Container gardening advice would be welcome, BTW, if readers want to offer it.)
Some writers like to recycle certain characters, place them in new roles or situations, to see if anything else can be wrung out of them. Have you given any thought to utilizing Adele in another story, perhaps under very different circumstances?
Nope. I’ve never done that, and I don’t think it would ever occur to me.
Adele in “Non-Zero Probabilities” and Yeine in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, are described as being biracial/bicultural. In Yeine’s case in particular, she appears to stand in the middle of several conflicts, those between mortals and those between the gods of the story. How important are these characters’ backgrounds to shaping the plot elements of their respective stories?
As important as any character’s background is, I guess.
Adele’s not biracial, note—she’s multiracial and multiethnic, a typical American. She acknowledges her European and African components because they’re the ones she knows something about, and because I wanted to show how a typical American might react to the situation that occurs in the story. It’s the sort of thing any of us might have to consider, if belief suddenly became a necessity of survival. Beliefs are culture-specific, so multicultural people can either take multiple sets of beliefs into account, or pick one. Adele chose multiples.
Yeine is biracial, but not bicultural, which is important to the story in that otherwise she wouldn’t be such a fish out of water among her mother’s people. She speaks the language and has some basic knowledge of the customs, but that doesn’t make her “culturally fluent”—she doesn’t understand them, doesn’t think like them, and she’ll never be one of them, in part because their culture values racial purity. This makes her a handy viewpoint character through which to introduce the reader to the world of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms… but it’s also the thing that might get her killed, as the story progresses.
Some readers have interpreted Yeine’s precarious situation among the Arameri as being a concrete metaphor for what bi/multi-racial peoples experience. Was there a conscious attempt to convey this in the writing, or are there other elements to consider when interpreting Yeine as a character?
It’s not possible to use a single person’s experiences as a metaphor or symbol for millions of people. That wouldn’t be a metaphor, it would be a gross overgeneralization. And while I know that kind of essentialism is common in epic fantasy, particularly with non-human races (e.g. “Orcs are inherently evil” or “Half-Elves are always bitter and unstable because nobody accepts them"), I think that’s a simplistic and unrealistic way to handle groups. Not to mention offensive, when this kind of thinking is applied to human beings.
So I wrote Yeine the way I write all my characters: as an individual for whom the various aspects of her identity (e.g., race, gender, religion, class) are important. This isn’t exactly new or unique, though—it’s something most pro writers do, because that’s what good characterization requires. It’s certainly common in epic fantasy to see that the hero’s race impacts the plot in some way; it’s just that usually this gets done with made-up fantasy races. Aragorn’s Numenorean heritage in LotR, for example, or Vin’s status as a halfbreed Skaa/Noble in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn. But some authors acknowledge the existence of real-world racial designations—for example, C. S. Friedman did it in her Coldfire trilogy (the people of the other continent were brown-skinned, while Damien Vryce’s people were white, which implies there was a racial division among the colonists when the planet was settled). Pretty much the only thing I’ve done different is make the brown person the protagonist.
I read somewhere that when you originally wrote the story that became The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, that you had envisioned Yeine as male rather than female. Why the shift?
Experimentation. I knew the story didn’t work in its old form—I first wrote it ten years ago and tried to get it published then, to a nice round set of rejections. When I decided to revisit the story, after writing some other novels and growing as a writer, I couldn’t see what was wrong with it; it still appeared to be well-written enough for publication. So I changed a number of random things just to see if mixing it up would make the story better. That’s a trick I learned from writing short stories, actually – if one character’s viewpoint doesn’t feel quite right, I might try rewriting it from a different viewpoint, and so on. In this case I had nothing to lose, so I just decided everything but the core concept and plot were fair game. I removed the prologue, got rid of some subplots, changed the story from third person to first, told the story from one viewpoint instead of several, changed the style from didactic to something more literary, changed several characters’ gender including the protagonist, and shortened the whole book by about a third overall. A gut renovation, as we say in New York. But as I did this, I finally realized the problem—I’d been trying too hard to make it a traditional epic fantasy. This wasn’t a “hero’s journey” kind of tale. It was more a fusion of several genres, with epic fantasy simply the most prominent of them. So I borrowed techniques from those genres—gothic mystery, New Weird, the literary field—wrote a test chapter or two, and was mostly pleased with the results. Then, since it’s pointless to try and revise something once those many changes have been made, I wrote the whole thing over from scratch. Scrapped the old file entirely.
Yeine’s gender swap wasn’t the most profound of the changes. (I would say the third- to first-person switch was that, along with the narrowing of viewpoints.) It did have a pretty significant effect on the story, though. All the characters’ interactions developed different sexual politics – for example, Yeine’s relationship with Sieh, the child god. In the earlier version Sieh was simply an untrustworthy advisor to the protagonist, but now there were obvious reasons to add a mother-child element. (A little stereotypical, yes, but it worked, so I went with it.) Also, the story pretty much requires a romantic element, since like the Greek gods, the gods in my book’s world are family, lovers, and enemies. Their relationships are the basis of the whole trilogy. With a male protagonist I’d felt constrained to keep things G-rated—openly homoerotic and with some implied transgender issues, but not explicit. I was afraid I couldn’t get it published unless I kept things fade-to-black, given how weirdly adolescent the SF/F audience is toward romance or anything that might have “girl cooties” attached. (See Debra Doyle’s great essay on girl cooties—specific to science fiction, but applies to certain subsets of fantasy, and extrapolates to “gay cooties” as well. http://www.sff.net/Paradise/girlcooties.htm) I didn’t like giving up that piece of the old story, because I think SF/F needs to get over its aversion to alternative sexualities… but SF/F needs to get over its aversion to women, too. (And people of color, and people with disabilities, and so on.) And with a female protagonist I felt more free to play with the sexual element in a way the story really needed. I could cootie it up! So I wrote it, and crossed my fingers to see if it would sell. Lo and behold, it did.
You bring up the issue of sexuality and transgender issues. What have been some of the reactions, both from the early readers of your manuscript and later from reviewers, about the sexual relationships found in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms?
I’ve seen wholly positive reactions to the sexuality built into the cosmology—namely the fact that the gods in my story happily fornicate with their siblings, their children, their creations (mortals), and their kitchen sinks. My gods are actually a bit more selective than the Greek gods—no cows were schtupped in the making of the Inheritance Trilogy—so I’m not surprised at the positive response to this. I’ve also seen very positive squeeage over the fact that the gods are essentially omnisexual. They don’t care about their partner’s (or partners’, since the Three are a poly relationship) gender, and their own gender is (if they choose) a flexible thing. This isn’t surprising either; they’re not human, and nobody seems to expect typical human behavior from them.
I’ve seen *mostly* positive reactions to the the sex scenes. There aren’t really enough negative reactions to characterize the dissenters, and note my earlier point about generalizations, but I’ll mention where I’ve seen “non-zero” negative responses: young readers (teenagers); readers who mistakenly think the book is YA because the protagonist is 19, or *want* the book to be YA because the protagonist is 19; readers who hate TWILIGHT and paranormal romance; and readers who are very wedded to the forms (and flaws) of traditional epic fantasy. I’m not sure what’s up with the young readers. When I was a teenager I loved to read books with “hot parts” and share them with my friends, but then we didn’t have the internet back then; these days “hot parts” are thick on the ground in the form of fanfic and porn on demand. So maybe they’re more jaded than my generation (wow, I feel old now). The YA readers are more understandable; YA has changed since I was young, and nowadays anything goes, but not too long ago YA meant “sex-free”. (I remember the uproar over Judy Blume’s ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET, and all that book really did was mention menstruation and breasts. The protagonist *thought* about sex and that got the book banned in dozens of school systems. I had to get my mom’s permission to read it for class. Amazing.) So some of those attitudes linger. The people who are backlashing against TWILIGHT and paranormal are understandable too, even though my book doesn’t really have anything to do with either—most likely anything with even a superficial resemblance is getting a negative reaction from these folks right now. Also, I think some people don’t expect to see explicit sex in a fantasy that borrows tropes from mythology or fairy tales—especially if they’re used to the sanitized, Disneyfied myths and tales that are common currency in Western culture now. Nothing wrong with that. But since I’ve been reading unadulterated myths and fairy tales for years now—e.g., Isis’ magic dildo and necrophilia, Zeus’ pederastic rape of Ganymede, the real version of Sleeping Beauty in which the prince doesn’t *kiss* her to wake her up—well, I’m not writing Disney. I guess that’s a shock.
I’m completely unsurprised by the negative reactions from traditional epic fantasy fans, however, because I’ve been one of them for years and I know how they think. Frankly, I’m amazed so many of them seem to actually *like* the sex, given how epic fantasy usually treats issues of sex and gender. For example, typical epic fantasy features almost exclusively male protagonists, and female characters who are objectified and lack agency (among many other problems). In these fantasies it’s common for the kind of sex that’s part of normal, everyday life—healthy, consensual sex between grownups who know what they want and ask for it, in other words—to take place offscreen or by implication only ("fade to black"). Readers just don’t get to see that much, probably because of that girl cooties phenomenon I mentioned earlier. But sex that’s used as a cheap way to define or create conflict for the male protagonists—e.g., rapes that show just how eeeeeevil a villain is, or motivate the hero to act; women who tempt the hero with their “wiles” as a distraction—gets shown much more often. The result of this pattern is that a lot of epic fantasy readers have gotten used to seeing sex only under totally pathological circumstances. =) So when they see *normal* sex, it seems gratuitous. Often they’ll declare that it “has no purpose”—i.e., it doesn’t fit the pattern of male-fantasy melodrama that they’re used to. At that point it doesn’t matter how well the scene is written, or whether it fits the character, or whatever; they’ll dismiss it as crap regardless.
In THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, Yeine has what is essentially normal sex. By that I mean: there’s no rape involved; it doesn’t motivate her to fight harder; it doesn’t cure some deep psychological trauma she’s been nursing; it doesn’t do anything to help the male characters. She’s just lonely and wants comfort, plain and simple, and since there are some willing folks around, she asks for their help. I’ve seen some readers label her way of thinking as “masculine”, but I think of her behavior as simply “unrepressed”, because she didn’t grow up in a patriarchial culture. She behaves like a woman, but one who hasn’t had her self-worth bludgeoned into nonsense by virginity pledges, or songs telling her to Shake It Like A Saltshaker, or laws labeling breastfeeding obscene because some guy nearby might get an embarrassing woody, or swimsuit issues with Photoshopped cover models. This kind of woman isn’t something epic fantasy readers see often, so I’m not surprised there are some negative reactions.
Plus I think the language just doesn’t fit some people’s tastes. I actually use the word “penis” at one point; I saw one review that completely lost it over that. Hilarious.
Besides finishing your epic fantasy trilogy, what are some of your other writing projects that you are hoping to have published in the near future?
Well, I mentioned the POSTSCRIPTS story. Aside from that I don’t have any other short stories forthcoming; I’ve been so busy working on the trilogy that I haven’t written short fiction in ages. When book 3 is done I’ll get back to that. I’d also like to start work on a YA science fiction novel that’s been on the back burner since the Inheritance Trilogy sold. That one is currently called ARCHETYPE and involves a young woman who discovers she’s part of an elaborate conspiracy to keep a group of AIs safe from humans who are paranoid about the Singularity. We’ll see how that one goes.
N(ora). K. Jemisin is an author of speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy) short stories and novels who lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing, she is a counseling psychologist (currently specializing in career counseling), a sometime hiker and biker, and a political/feminist/anti-racist blogger.
Her short fiction has been published in pro markets such as Clarkesworld, Postscripts, Strange Horizons, and Baen’s Universe; podcast markets and print anthologies; and has received Honorable Mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and The Year’s Best Science Fiction. Her short story “Non-Zero Probabilities” is on the Final Ballot for the 2009 Nebula and Hugo Awards.
Her first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, is out from Orbit Books as of February 2010. It is the first book of the Inheritance Trilogy (book 2 is forthcoming in November 2010), and has thus far received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, and a “Top Pick” from Romantic Times.
Larry Nolen is a history and English teacher who has taught for most of the past ten years in Tennessee and Florida, in both public and private school settings. Fascinated with languages from an early age, he devotes much of his spare time to reading and translating interviews and articles from Spanish into English. Larry also has an unhealthy fascination with squirrels and dreams to one day edit an anthology of squirrel SF. His blog can be found at ofblog.blogspot.com. He was named series editor for Best American Fantasy in January, starting with BAF 4.
Jeff VanderMeer 2010 Interview
Jeff VanderMeer is nominated for his novel Finch.
Interviewer Larry Nolen conducted a previous interview with Jeff VanderMeer here.
Recently, you completed the final Ambergris Cycle novel, Finch. What are some of the reactions you have heard in regards to it? In particular, what were some of the weirdest comments made about the novel and your writing in general?
I’m generally very pleased with what people have had to say. Each book is different than the last, and I know that means I pick up some readers each time and lose a few, too, and that’s fine. With regard to Finch, I think a lot of readers who thought I did more leisurely-paced fiction were surprised (although they shouldn’t have been) that I could write what amounts to a thriller-noir-spy story mixed with elements of visionary fantasy. It’s also a book that doesn’t have any desire to support the status quo or to let things return to “normal”, and a book making very pointed statements about what it’s like to live in a failed state. In other words, it’s, in part, a book about our present and how we got here, and it’s also about one particular person trying to negotiate living in a terrible place. But none of that works without the fantasy setting, which allows me to get up-close-and-personal while also getting some distance from real-life events so I don’t wind up lecturing readers.
I think the weirdest comments about my writing in general stem from the mistaken assumption that because I make myself widely available for interviews, aggressively tour, etc., that somehow my fiction is overly commercial. The fiction is always deeply personal and deeply felt. The second weirdest comments, and they’re not the norm, are, ironically enough, when someone calls the work “weird” in the sense of “too strange.” I think that it’s hilarious to be called too strange in a field like SF/fantasy.
Luckily for me, I suppose, in the current publishing environment, Finch seems to be “just right” for most. I’m just happy that the book is being read the way I intended for it to be read, and humbled by the positive response.
You bring up the personal/public divide. Have you ever encountered readers who have confused fact and fiction in your works? If so, how have you responded (if you did, in fact, respond) to such conflation of the two?
All the time. I put a lot of odd facts from history into my fiction, so readers often think something’s made up that’s from real life. But that’s the point—our world is so wide and deep and strange. As for how I respond, I just gleefully tell them the truth and usually they’re delighted to hear it. People want to know the world’s mysterious and odd.
According to a few posts you have made on your blog, you have quite a few projects in development, from kosher imaginary animals to a second steampunk anthology to an untitled anthology of weird fiction, as well as all other sorts of projects in-between. What can you tell readers about your plans for 2010 and any releases that may come out before year’s end?
The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals I co-wrote with my wife Ann, and comes out in early April. It’s exactly what it sounds like, copiously illustrated and lovingly designed by that mad genius John Coulthart. My story collection The Third Bear comes out in July, with a nonfiction collection called Monstrous Creatures shortly thereafter. Our Steampunk Reloaded anthology comes out in October, and then the big book of the weird fiction from Atlantic/Corvus in November. It’s a 750,000-word, 100-year reprint antho focusing on all permutations of the “weird tale,” from pulp to literary. My wife Ann and I have had an intense experience thus far, trying to make sure we don’t miss anything, and debating the relative merits of various authors and stories.
I would imagine that after reading for several anthologies that a huge mass of books has overtaken your living space. Have you ever found yourself wondering if you had a book addiction and if so, have you ever tried to cut back on your purchases?
Because of the book reviewing we get probably a dozen books a day, but that’s a particular type of sample. So we do buy a lot of books, too. It seems impossible to avoid, especially since the local library’s looking sadder and sadder. It’s an addiction I can live with.
Be honest, how much has having to stare at and read “weird” almost every day for months now affected your perception of things? Is weirdness a state of mind or a state of being?
Ha! Seeing the clichés in published fiction is an eye-opener. As I commented on my blog, there are a lot of classic ghost stories where at the end the protagonist turns to someone and says, for example, “I enjoyed meeting your son” and that someone says back, “My son’s been dead for twenty years.” It becomes tedious after the eighth or ninth iteration, and it’s made us impervious to the charms of a lot of ghost stories, and to define the “weird tale” as something a little more visceral—although it’s still a kind of “know it when you see it” thing to some extent. The overall effect is both exhilarating and horrifying and dull-ifying. It’s made us reevaluate some writers and stories. It’s also made us adamant not to just put something in for historical reasons. Everything in there has to be *readable* to a modern audience, even if still challenging. And, er, one unexpected result is that I do find shadows and whatnot at night a lot creepier.
Based on what you and Ann have been reading, what are some of the weirdest “real” creatures that have ever appeared in story?
I don’t know about real, but the ant-eater in Tanith Lee’s “Zelle’s Thursday” is remarkable, and I want to read this story called “The Bloat-Toad” that I heard about recently. Caitlin R. Kiernan does a nice job with weird critters. I like to write about them, too. I had a frog fixation in my fiction for several years. Then meerkats. Then squid. Then fungus (which isn’t, I guess, an animal, although they share some human DNA—crafty things fungi; be careful, because turn your back just once, and—). Then bears, and most recently a talking rabbit. Even a rabbit can be a strange thing. Friends of ours in Berlin have a brown one with floppy ears and rough fur that, because the ears go over the eyes, looks like just a tiny bison. In fact, that’s what I thought it was the first time I saw it, which was a little disconcerting. My friend K.J. Bishop has me interested in drop bears, though.
Jeff VanderMeer is a two-time World Fantasy Award winner and has been a finalist for the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Shirley Jackson Award, Philip K. Dick Award, and many others. Current projects include The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals, his forthcoming story collection The Third Bear, nonfiction collection Monstrous Creatures, and anthologies co-edited with his wife ranging from Steampunk Reloaded to a big book of weird fiction for Atlantic/Corvus.
Larry Nolen is a history and English teacher who has taught for most of the past ten years in Tennessee and Florida, in both public and private school settings. Fascinated with languages from an early age, he devotes much of his spare time to reading and translating interviews and articles from Spanish into English. Larry also has an unhealthy fascination with squirrels and dreams to one day edit an anthology of squirrel SF. His blog can be found at ofblog.blogspot.com. He was named series editor for Best American Fantasy in January, starting with BAF 4.
Richard Bowes 2010 Interview
Richard Bowes is nominated for his novelette “I Needs Must Part, The Policeman Said”.
Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview (again!). Maybe we could focus on your Nebula-nominated story this time. What was the inspiration for the story?
Pretty simple: I got very sick, was sent to the emergency room at St Vincent’s Hospital here in Greenwich Village and got operated on. Just like the story. They brought me a notebook. When I got out I had a whole bunch of notes. The first thing I did was finish the story I’d been working on when I got sick ("The Margay’s Children” coming out later this year in the Datlow/Windling Beastly Bride anthology). Then I wrote “I Needs must Part, the Policeman Said.”
What made you decide to include a character named Richard Bowes in “I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said”? What are the perils and rewards of using such a technique?
In stories that use a lot of personal material (though a lot of it isn’t autobiographical) it seemed easier to just use my own name rather than invent another persona for the narrator. Perils? I believe the genre has opened up a lot in the years I’ve been writing. Something like this still attracts notice but not condemnation. Rewards? Well, like I said, it’s easier.
Are you a fan of John Dowland’s music? Do you have an internal soundtrack, as it were, when writing?
Just before I got sick I’d been listening to an album of Elizabethan songs. “I Needs Must Part” was on it as was “Flow My Tears” which Philip K. Dick used as a title. I liked INMP a lot more, thought it had a better melody. They brought that CD to me in the hospital as in the story.
I listen to a lot of music. These days a lot of it is classical. But I listen to rock and jazz. I was at a Todd Snider, the country music writer/performer concert last week. For St Patrick’s Day I’m listening to Dubliners albums at the gym.
If there’s a soundtrack it varies.
When I read a Richard Bowes story, they tend to be character-centric. Is this intentional on your part and if so, why go this route?
This is not, I think, a question that would get asked outside our genre. In classic short fiction character development IS the story.
What is it about the novelette format that appeals to you?
Apparently it’s the format/length (7500 to 17,500 words) with which I’m most comfortable. I don’t intentionally write to it but that’s the way the stories turn out. I would note here that the novella format (stories 17,500 to 40,000 words) which some argue is THE best length for speculative fiction - from The Time Machine on. Recently (though to judge by the Nebula short list not this time) the novella has become something of an endangered species. Recently I’ve noticed that a lot of the newer genre short fiction markets concentrate on works of less than 7500 words.
Moving on to your other writing, what’s the update on your novel Dust Devil: A Life in Speculative Fiction?
I’ve now finished all fourteen of the stories that will make up Dust Devil: A Life in Speculative Fiction and am currently getting the project into proper shape to be shown and sold.
All these stories have been sold individually and lots of them have already appeared. “Waiting for the Phone to Ring” is in the current (Mar/April) F&SF. Others are forthcoming in that magazine and the Beastly Bride and Haunted Legends anthologies.
“I Needs Must Part”, is the third of the “Dust Devil” stories to be included on Nebula short lists. “Dust Devil” stories have won World Fantasy, International Horror Guild and Million Writer Awards.
Whenever I crack open the Wilde Stories anthology, your name is in every annual. What compels you to write gay fiction or include gay characters in your stories?
I write what interests me. But I believe if we totaled it up, most of my stories don’t include gay characters. With Wilde Stories I’m fortunate that Steve Berman who edits WS likes my work. Like any short form writer I’m very dependent on editors and in my case I’m very lucky in having Gordon Van Gelder and Ellen Datlow buy my stuff.
What other projects are you currently working on?
Recently I’ve been writing fantasy with gods and goddesses, elves and fairies. Last year I became fascinated by the stories of an English author, Barbara Leonie Picard, who, in the 1940’s and 50’s wrote and published fifty fairy tales. I’ve acquired all of those books from The Mermaid and the Simpleton on to a compilation of her personal favorites Selected Fairy Tales which came out in the 1990’s (this last can still be found used). We shall see what comes of this.
Richard Bowes lives and writes in Manhattan. He has written five novels and two short story collections. Bowes has won two World Fantasy, a Lambda, International Horror Guild, and Million Writers Awards. Forthcoming appearances are in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and the Beastly Bride, Haunted Legends, Digital Domains, Wilde Stories and Naked City anthologies.
Most of these stories will be chapters in a novel in progress, Dust Devil: My Life In Speculative Fiction.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Saladin Ahmed 2010 Interview
Saladin Ahmed is nominated for the short story “Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameel”.
Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, how did you first get acquainted with speculative fiction?
My father had a love for all sorts of ‘genre’ stuff, so I grew up with everything from The Hobbit and Dune to Heavy Metal magazine and Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials lying around the house. I’m lucky in that my dad inspired and encouraged geeky pursuits very early on.
What’s the appeal of the genre for you?
As a reader, I’ve always had a deep love for escapism – and I still love fantasy that provides a haven from the banal ugliness of this world, or from the limits of being human. But I think that my escapism has grown more complex over the years. I love reading work that imagines – that provides an escape to—a more exciting, more just, more beautiful world, but I’ve also come to love writing that gives more meaning to boredom, injustice, and ugliness.
As a fantasy writer, the genre’s appeal is multifold: Obviously, there’s the great range of possibility fantasy allows for. But there’s also the deep enthusiasm of fantasy readers, and, quite frankly, fantasy’s popularity. It may sound crass, but years of writing poetry and academic papers have made me deeply appreciative of a genre with a readership that numbers in the tens of thousands instead of in the dozens!
What made you decide to pursue writing, whether it’s fiction or poetry?
Again I can blame my father for that. The schools I went to growing up were…not very good. So my father was always supplementing my education in unorthodox ways. One of my clearest early memories is from the summer after first grade. My dad gave me a kind of summer school assignment: to write a little story every day for him. The result was the adventures of “Saver Mouse and the Human Dog,” a superhero duo of my own making. Saver Mouse (he *saved* people, you see) was basically a Mighty Mouse rip-off, and the Human Dog was...well, just a guy with a dog’s face, near as I can remember.
Maybe he had a gun.
Anyway, from there I was hooked.
Does your poetry have any impact on your fiction or vice versa?
I don’t write a lot of poetry these days, as I’m pretty tightly focused on fiction. But there’s definitely some crossover. My poetry appears mostly in academic and ‘literary’ small press venues, but much of it is certainly ‘speculative’ in terms of its imagery and sensibilities. Valkyries and djinn and geek references abound in my poems. And the plot of my Nebula-nominated story actually stems from a short poem I’d written years earlier.
Most, if not all, of your published stories have an Arabian flavor to them, whether it’s the characters, religion, or setting. Is this inclusion a conscious decision on your part, or more of what comes naturally?
Well, I’d avoid the word ‘Arabian,’ which is a sort of antiquated and inaccurate term on the order of ‘oriental.’ But yes, certainly, many of my stories feature Muslim characters prominently. And I’d say that this is both a conscious decision and what comes naturally, if that makes any sense. Of course, the curmudgeon in me feels compelled to point out that interviewers rarely bother to ask white American F/SF writers, “Hey, most of your stories have a white American flavor to them—why is that?”
Do you think there’s an absence of Arabian literature in the genre, or is there a piece of genre fiction that deeply resonates with you?
Well, there are obviously not a lot of Muslims or Arabs publishing genre fiction, though I think that’s beginning to change with writers like, say, Amal Al-Mohtar, who is writing and selling wonderful stories. Of course, a number of non-Arab/Muslim writers have written about Arab/Muslim or Arab-ish/Muslim-ish characters and settings, with inevitably mixed results. Hateful ‘terrorists in space’ military SF is hot right now, but beyond being patently offensive, most of that stuff is just plain bad. More positively, though it’s full of problematic depictions, I still love Dune. Ditto Robert Jordan’s first few Wheel of Time books, with their desert tribesmen, the Aiel. But my favorite spec fic depiction of the Middle East by a non-Muslim writer is probably When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger. I loved that book!
How have comics and RPGs shaped (or not affected) your path as a writer?
Profoundly! As I said, the schools I went to were crappy. Comics and RPGs—in particular, old school AD&D books and 80s Marvel comics – expanded my vocabulary, introduced me to all sorts of mythic themes, and made me want to tell similar stories. Thank you Gary Gygax and Chris Claremont!
What projects are you working on right now?
The big project is a series of Islamic-inspired heroic fantasy novels that are, subgenre-wise, somewhere between sword & sorcery and epic fantasy. They’re set in the Crescent Moon Kingdoms, the same secondary world setting as a couple of my short stories. But I’ve got chunks of a couple of other books that I’ve been toying with as well, including an early 20th century pulp hero story that’s sort of “Doc Savage and Mandrake the Magician meet Old New York racial politics.”
Saladin Ahmed was born in Detroit. His fiction appears or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Clockwork Phoenix 2, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Expanded Horizons, PodCastle, and DrabbleCast. His poems have appeared in over a dozen journals and anthologies including Callaloo, The Brooklyn Review, Big City Lit, Inclined To Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry, and Abandon Automobile: Detroit City Poetry. He is an alum of the Taos Toolbox and Rio Hondo workshops, an Active member of SFWA, and a member of the writers group Altered Fluid. He lives in Brooklyn.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Lisa Mantchev 2010 Interview
Lisa Mantchev is nominated for the Andrew Norton Award for her novel Eyes Like Stars.
Congratulations on your shortlisting for the Andre Norton Award! Eyes Like Stars has received a very positive response. As a first-time novelist, that must be extremely gratifying - can you describe what it has been like to see your baby be so well received?
It’s been thrilling… very much like standing on a stage and receiving applause at the end of an Opening Night performance. No actor is ever quite certain how an audience is going to receive a play, and I think it’s the same for writers. No one wants the curtain to come down for their to be only cricket noises… or worse yet, booing!
There’s a big focus on the theatre and Shakespeare in the novel - where does this interest come from? What made you pour so much of this interest into the book (and presumably the books that will follow), but in a fantasy setting? What challenges did this present?
I started doing community theater when I was seven years old, as well as writing scripts for class performances. That continued through high school, when I got a scholarship to study drama at the University of California, Irvine. At the time, I was far more interested in acting than writing, but I switched gears my senior year during an intensive playwriting course.
I’d been writing and publishing short stories for nearly seven years, and I was incredibly intimidated by the idea of writing something that was novel-length. When I decided to tackle something longer than five thousand words, I knew it would help to make it a very familiar world (to me) so I could concentrate more on the process of writing than the research. It’s that old adage of “write what you know”!
I know a lot of writers rarely write shorts after they become novelists, due to both time restrictions and the different requirements of the forms. Are you still finding the time and inclination to write short stories, or has novel writing taken precedence?
I haven’t actually found a lot of time for writing short stories lately, both as a result from the novel-writing and from Real Life getting progressively crazier. I did manage a really fun collaboration of James A. Grant called “As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers” which will be appearing in the steampunk-themed issue of Weird Tales and is also slated for reprint in the Vandermeers’ upcoming anthology Steampunk Reloaded.
Speaking of the series, is there anything you can tell desperate readers about the rest of the books?
Perchance To Dream will be out at the end of May, and it picks up where Eyes Like Stars left off *spoiler alert!* with Bertie, her fairy friends, and Ariel on the road, heading out to rescue Nate from the clutches of the Sea Goddess. I got to introduce several new characters in PtD, and I’m very excited to see how the theater readership feels about them.
Have you any more novel ideas percolating when you’re finished with these books? Anything on the drawing board you can tell us about?
In between revisions for Theater Book Three, tentatively titled So Silver Bright, I am revising a long-time-in-the-works steampunk novel (which I jokingly refer to as “retrofuturistic NeoVictorian.") At the moment, it is in decided need of more grime and grit to balance out all the schmancy costuming and gadgetry.
Eyes Like Stars has a gorgeous cover, but recently there has been quite a lot of controversy over book covers not accurately representing race and culture of the characters contained in the novel. How do you feel about your cover, and what are your thoughts on this issue?
I fell madly in love with Jason’s artwork the moment I saw it, and there isn’t a single thing I would change about the cover for ELS. He perfectly captured Bertie, the fairies, and the feeling of lurking backstage with the lights just out of reach.
The whitewashing issue is an extremely troubling one, and I’ve been exceptionally happy to see that publishers are listening when the blogging community calls them on their mistakes. Given the pervasiveness of the issue, however, I think it would be sensible of the publishers to discuss such things with the authors BEFORE art is commissioned or licensed.
It’s also important to remember that it’s not just an issue of race and culture, but one of body image as well… I see far too many covers of extraordinarily thin girls when the protagonists are dealing with weight issues as well.
It might be said that authors of young adult books have a big responsibility regarding the issues they examine in their writing, because of the nature of their readership. Do you agree with this? What do you think are the most important elements for the success of a young adult novel?
It’s the responsibility of any author to tell the story honestly, however dark and deep and ugly that story might be. Both my short stories and the novels tend to explore some dark areas of the soul, but I didn’t go into writing ELS thinking, “I need to be careful with this, because SOMEONE needs to think of the CHILDREN!” I wasn’t thinking about marketing slots when drafting it, and honestly I think “YA” is more a marketing tool, a place to set the book on the shelf in the store and a label under which to file it in an online store, than it is anything else. Younger readers do not want authors writing down to them, and they will call an author out faster than anyone on the planet for doing so.
As for success, there’s too many ways to define that! There’s the success that comes with busting out on the bestselling lists (which seems to require massive PR campaigns and hype/buzz) and there’s the success that comes with being an award winner, and there’s the success of taking an idea, putting it on paper, and then holding a finished book in your hands, with your name on the cover, two years after the whole crazy notion came into your head.
Lisa Mantchev is the author of Eyes Like Stars and the forthcoming Perchance To Dream, the first two novels in the Théâtre Illuminata series. She has also published numerous short stories in venues including Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Clarkesworld, and Weird Tales. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state with her husband, daughter, and hairy miscreant dogs. You can read more about it at http://www.theatre-illuminata.com
Tehani Wessely was a founding member of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine in 2001. Now firmly entrenched in Australian speculative fiction and small press, she has edited for Twelfth Planet Press (among other duties), judges for the Aurealis Awards, reads far more in one genre than is healthy, and writes reviews, non-fiction and interviews for ASif!, Fiction Focus and Magpies. In her spare moments, she works as a Teacher Librarian and enjoys her husband and three children.
Tehani is the editor of ASIM #4, #16, #27, #31 and #37, three Best Of ASIM e-anthologies, co-editor of ASIM #36, the Twelfth Planet Press anthology New Ceres Nights and other projects. She is currently working on an anthology of children’s stories titled Worlds Next Door, and a reprint anthology of Australian alternate mythologies from her own press, FableCroft Publishing.
Malinda Lo 2010 Interview
Malinda Lo is nominated for the Andrew Norton Award for her novel Ash.
Ash, a lesbian retelling of Cinderella, has been shortlisted for a whole BUNCH of awards and recommended reading lists and it’s only your first (published) novel! Have you been surprised by the reception for the book? What can you tell us about where the story came from and how it has been received by the general public?
Have I been surprised? Absolutely, totally surprised—and overjoyed, obviously!
Before Ash was published, I worked in the LGBT media, reporting on the representations of lesbians and bisexual women in TV, film, music, and books. Books in general are loads more progressive than Hollywood, so I hoped that Ash might be well-received, but at the same time, I am very well aware of mainstream beliefs about LGBT people. Young adult fiction has seen an increasing number of books about LGBTQ teens in recent years, but not so many in fantasy.
So, you know, it was within this context—which I was aware of—that Ash was published. I think that many readers have responded incredibly positively to the fact that being gay is totally normal in Ash’s world. Many queer teens I’ve spoken to have especially liked this. I’m also happy that Ash has found so many straight (heterosexual) fans. That was something I was worried about; I did want Ash to be accessible to everyone, straight or queer.
Where do you go after such success? Huntress is the forthcoming companion novel to Ash. Can you tell us a bit about the new book?
Well, luckily I wrote the first two drafts of Huntress before Ash was published. Otherwise, I think I would have been totally blocked by fear of failure. In fact, writing the third draft of Huntress was extremely difficult at first, because I was doing that while I was promoting Ash. That experience, though, really forced me to separate my identity as a writer from the accolades that Ash has gotten. Obviously, I’m so happy that Ash has been so well-received. But it’s only my first published novel. I do hope that Huntress is better. I hope that I continue to write better books. The only way to do that is to put my nose to the grindstone and work.
Huntress is a book I love so much. In Ash, hunting is a major sport; each hunt is led by a Huntress. The novel Huntress, which is set several centuries before Ash in the same world, is about the first Huntress in that Kingdom. It’s a heroine’s quest about the power of love and loss. And there are weapons and monsters and magic and lesbians!
We’ll definitely be looking out for Huntress! Have you any other projects in the works you can tell us about?
I’m superstitious, so, um, no.
You posted on your blog that while you personally identify your characters Ash and Kaisa as Asian, you don’t feel that Ash is necessarily identifiable as a book with characters of colour. Obviously though, sexuality, another aspect of mainstream literature that is often defaulted to a certain type of “normal”, is a big part of the book. What are your feelings about the importance of how these two issues are being represented in mainstream literature, and particularly in Young Adult literature?
I’d like to clarify that I see Ash and Kaisa as looking Asian in appearance, not as Asian in descent, because there is no Asia in Ash‘s world.
I think that the recent discussion in the YA blogosphere about the representation of people of color in YA fiction has been incredibly stimulating and useful. I think there are books being published with people of color as main characters, but often they fall through the cracks. The advantage of having this ongoing discussion is that it highlights some of these books and gets readers thinking about their own reading habits.
As for the queer stuff ... YA has increasingly included LGBTQ characters over the past few years. There are still more books about gay boys than gay girls, and I’d like to see that balanced out. There is a giant need for more books about transgender teens. In general, though, I think things are moving in the right direction, and I’m very excited to be part of that movement.
There’s a growing understanding among publishers, libraries, schools and the reading world in general that it is absolutely essential for there to be realistic portrayals of race other than white, and sexuality other than straight, in young adult fiction. What are your thoughts on this?
I think that including diversity in all forms of media (adult as well as young adult fiction, TV, film, etc.) is very important, and it’s great that more gatekeepers are aware of this these days.
Have you come across any fallout among parents or librarians because of the sexuality portrayed in this YA novel?
I’d say 98% of the reactions I’ve heard about have been positive. (I don’t google myself, though.) I have read a couple of reviews in which the reader was obviously uncomfortable with the lesbian story line, but that’s to be expected.
However, two things have happened that remind me that some people are still not OK with gay folks.
At one library event a teacher told me that she was unable to bring several of her students because their parents objected to my biography. I think she meant the copy on the book flap that says I was awarded the Sarah Pettit Memorial Prize for Excellence in LGBT Journalism—that’s the only thing I can think of that might have raised a flag, because it has the term “LGBT” in it. The cover copy of Ash itself does not trumpet the fact that Ash falls in love with a woman.
I was really shocked, actually, to hear this—probably because the teacher was so blunt about it. I am happy that she came and brought other students (oddly, younger ones) whose parents did not object to my bio.
I also had an amusing experience last fall. The Pacific Sun, a local newspaper, did a cover story about Ash and illustrated it with an image of two Disney princesses dancing together. (You can see it here: http://www.malindalo.com/2009/11/we-have-news/) Many parents wrote into the newspaper to object to that image, saying it was inappropriate for their children to see two girls dancing together. So, it wasn’t about Ash at all, but about a perception of sexuality where frankly there was none. In response to these parents’ letters, many other people wrote in and defended the image.
In 2010, there seems to be an expectation on authors that they play a big role in the online marketing of their books through blogs and other social media. What are your thoughts on this? You have a background in blogging; do you think this gives you an advantage in this area?
I think that every author should do what she can handle and what she’s comfortable with, while knowing that there is a limit to how much you can do on your own. Also, it’s much more important to write your next book than spend all your time promoting your last one.
I do think my background in working online helped me figure out what I wanted to do, but actually, the fact that my background was in online journalism helped even more. I came to this knowing enough about how the media works that I think I had realistic expectations of the kind of coverage I could get for Ash. And, honestly, I had some contacts in the media who helped me out. The fact that I worked in gay media was even better, because Ash has gay content. So, in a way I was perfectly prepared to promote Ash online.
On the other hand, I had never been a “young adult author” before, so I had no idea what that truly entailed. Figuring out what that means has also affected the way I view blogging and promotion. Basically, I’ve learned that writing has to come first, before any promoting, because I plan to be in this for the long haul.
(Photo by Patty Nason)
Malinda Lo is the author of Ash (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), which is a nominee for the Andre Norton Award, was a finalist for the 2010 William C. Morris Award, and was a Kirkus Best Young Adult Novel of 2009. Formerly, she was an entertainment reporter, and was awarded the 2006 Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for Excellence in LGBT Journalism by the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and has master’s degrees from Harvard and Stanford universities. She has lived in Colorado, Boston, New York, London, Beijing, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, but now lives in a small town in Northern California with her partner and their dog.
Tehani Wessely was a founding member of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine in 2001. Now firmly entrenched in Australian speculative fiction and small press, she has edited for Twelfth Planet Press (among other duties), judges for the Aurealis Awards, reads far more in one genre than is healthy, and writes reviews, non-fiction and interviews for ASif!, Fiction Focus and Magpies. In her spare moments, she works as a Teacher Librarian and enjoys her husband and three children.
Tehani is the editor of ASIM #4, #16, #27, #31 and #37, three Best Of ASIM e-anthologies, co-editor of ASIM #36, the Twelfth Planet Press anthology New Ceres Nights and other projects. She is currently working on an anthology of children’s stories titled Worlds Next Door, and a reprint anthology of Australian alternate mythologies from her own press, FableCroft Publishing.
Ted Kosmatka 2010 Interview
Ted Kostmatka is nominee for the novelette “Divining Light”.
Hi Ted! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, what made you decide to become a storyteller, in whatever medium be it prose, plays, games, etc.?
I don’t think that I ever made a conscious choice to be a storyteller. It was always something that was just in me to want to do from a young age. I’m not sure that I showed any particular early promise at it, but the interest was certainly there, and I kept returning to it again and again. My mother still has some of my early attempts—these crayon Star Wars stories that I wrote when I was probably seven or eight, folded over and stapled into pamphlet-style books. I was a double threat back then, doing all my own cover art. I think the only time choice ever came into it was sometime during college when I made a decision to take my writing more seriously. I remember wanting intensely to go to a Clarion writers’ workshop. There were all these great writers coming out of there, people I wanted to meet and learn from, but I could never scrape together the money to go. Later, when I had the money, I also had a job where I worked a ton of hours, and I could never get time off work to go. So I never went. In the end, taking my writing seriously and not taking it seriously at all looked very similar to each other. In both cases, I worked day jobs; wrote stuff at night. This was also true when I gave up on trying to be a writer altogether. (At that point, I’d written probably a half a million words, none of which I’d managed to publish.) I gave up, but I still kept writing. Which I know doesn’t make any sense, but it kind of circles back to writing not really being a choice.
I think “Divining Light” is one of your more developed and sophisticated pieces. What was the inspiration for the story?
When I wrote “Divining Light” I was working in a research lab that was, coincidentally, not so different from the one described in the story. I think laboratories are inherently fascinating places. They’re populated by interesting people doing interesting things, and by virtue of what takes place in them, they are places of mystery. They are places where people are trying to figure things out. The character called Satish in the story is actually based on one of my best friends who worked side by side with me in that lab for four years.
When I interviewed you back in 2008, you mentioned that elements like faith and religion were unconscious on your part. When writing “Divining Light”, is that still the case? Or do you see predestination as an entirely different subject matter?
It’s still very much an unconscious thing. I’m still surprised by the themes that keep surfacing in my work. I don’t know why I write the kind of stories I do. Story ideas pop into my head on a semi-regular basis, and most of them, I’ll admit, are pretty bad—they’re either clichéd, or too abstract, or too inert—which is why I don’t write them. But there are also these other story ideas that pop into my head, and I think, okay, that might have potential to be good science fiction… but then I find myself not writing those either, because I have a pretty full life, and between work and family, there’s only so much time in the day for me to write; and it seems like all the stories that I have to write are the ones that don’t just have the potential be good science fiction but also are stories where I’m trying to figure something out for myself. I’m trying to clarify my own thinking on a subject, make sense of something. So it’s like there is this filter in my head, and only certain kinds of stories get through and onto the page. Sometimes I feel that I can really only think when I’m writing. Writing a story is how I think about a subject that interests me.
What impressed me with “Divining Light” is how it’s grounded in real science, and then transitions into something that seems fantastical. Were you conscious of this transition? What were the challenges in writing the scene? How much research (on the science theory) did you have to do?
Great question. And yes. I wanted to draw a line in the story and say, here, right here is where this steps off from known science and becomes science fiction. Of course, I couldn’t do that, but the impulse was there. There was a lot of research that went into that story. Probably more than any other story I’ve written. One of the issues that I had to overcome in the story is that quantum mechanics itself reads like some impossible fictional conceit. You study quantum mechanics, and your first thought is, there’s no way the universe can really work that way. But it does. Or at least it seems to.
Currently, especially in light of your recent award nominations, how do you see yourself (or what amalgamation)? Scientist? Writer? Gamer? Father? Where do these lines intersect and where do they end?
I still think of myself as all those things. Though now less a scientist than a dreamer about science. Or maybe I was always just a dreamer about science. Where all those things intersect is just a function of the age I’m at right now. I’m doing my best to try to balance all the different competing aspects of my life, but it’s not always an easy thing.
What projects are you currently working on? Any update on your novels or short story collection?
I’m working on several projects right now. I have a short story collection that I’m continuing to write stories for, hoping it eventually catches a publisher’s eye. I’m also still shopping around my novel. It’s a difficult time in the publishing industry right now, and everything seems to be changing. I’m still trying to find out where I fit in to that. (Or if I fit in at all.) There are a couple of other non-publishing projects that I’m working on that are keeping me nicely busy as well.
Over the last five years, Ted Kosmatka has published more than a dozen stories in places like Asimov’s, F&SF and Subterranean. His writing has been reprinted in seven Year’s Best anthologies, serialized over the radio, performed on stage, and translated into Russian, Hebrew, Polish and Czech.
Ted was born in Indiana, not far from Lake Michigan. He studied biology at Indiana University and since then has gradually assembled one of those crazy work histories that writers so often seem to accumulate. Among other things, he’s been a zookeeper, a chem tech and a laborer in a steel mill. More recently, he worked for four years in a research laboratory where he got to play with electron microscopes.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
John Scalzi 2010 Interview
John Scalzi is nominee for the novella The God Engines and the Andre Norton Award for Zoe’s Tale.
Zoe’s Tale, a Young Adult novel which retells the events of The Last Colony (the third book in the Old Man’s War series) from the perspective of Zoe, was shortlisted for the Hugos last year and now it’s up for the Andre Norton Award, with your novella “The God Engines” also on the Nebula ballot. Would you please tell us how Zoe’s Tale came to be? And is it always exciting for your work to be recognised this way?
I wrote Zoe’s Tale partly because Tor, my publisher, was interested in me trying to write something that they could put into school libraries. This had coincided with my own interest in trying to write a story from Zoe’s point of view, which was convenient, so I went ahead and tried my hand at writing from the point of view of a teenage girl, which, if you are a late 30-something dude trying that stunt for the first time, as I was, is really a lot harder than it looks.
Getting award nominations for your work, whether from your writing peers (as in the case of the Nebulas) or from fans (in the case of the Hugos) is always a kick; to quote Sally Field, it means they like you! They really like you! And in the case of Zoe, it’s especially nice for me because it means I did a creditable job of bringing the character of Zoe to life, which as a writer was a challenge for me.
You say you struggled with Zoe’s point of view - what were some of the biggest hurdles in that journey? And have you had any feedback from young adults on the book and the character? Anything particularly special?
The biggest hurdle was simply that I had never been a teenage girl at any point in my life, so I had to work on making sure that when I wrote one, she didn’t sound like me in teenage girl drag (and I apologize for putting that image into your head). I ended up running early chapters past my wife and some female friends, including Mary Robinette Kowal, who gave me some excellent criticism when I needed it most. The end result has been pretty good; I do get a lot of “I can’t believe this book was written by a man” comments about it, which I take as a compliment.
You started out as a non-fiction writer, and your blog, Whatever, has a very high profile out there in Internet-land. I know you make use of a variety of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, as well. How much do you think your online presence has influenced your success as a writer? What do you think about social networking as a whole, as a tool for other authors out there?
I think in my case it’s pretty clear that online presence has helped my fiction career—after all, I sold my first novel because I posted it on my site! And I think social networks can help keep authors connected to fans, especially during those period where the author is between major works, and keeping in touch with your readers is always a good thing.
That said, at the end of the day, if you’re not writing fiction worth reading, it won’t matter how many Facebook friends or Twitter followers or blog readers you have. The work has to be there, and it has to be good, in order for any of this social networking stuff to be useful in one’s career. None of the online stuff means anything for one’s career otherwise.
You’ve had two books compiled from your blog writings, with the most recent, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever 1998 - 2008, winning the Hugo for Best Related Book in 2009. Are there plans for any more books from the blog? Or other non-fiction?
No current plan for more books from the blog, but remember that Hate Mail covered a whole decade. So perhaps in 2018 it’ll be time again. I do definitely have plans for more non-fiction, however—I like writing non-fiction because it uses other parts of my brain than the fiction writing, and that helps keep me from burnout.
You are running for President of SFWA. Why did you decide to take this challenge, and what changes do you hope to achieve for the organisation if you are elected?
I’m running in no small part because the current administration has a number of things in process—including reincorporation, new bylaws and other things fundamental to the well-being of the organization—that may not be entirely finished by the end of June, and thus may have to be seen to their conclusion. In a general sense I’ve supported these initiatives, so by running and by running with a slate of candidates who are also interested in seeing these processes to their conclusion, I’m helping to make sure these things get done. So in one sense this particular election isn’t about “changing” SFWA in a new way as it is about finishing the changes that are already underway.
Beyond this, however, I think one of the things I would very much like to do is help to bring in new members. I think the previous administration has done a good job in revitalizing SFWA’s reputation and appearance with non-members, and in particular with writers who could be members but are not. I’d like to help bring some of those writers into the fold in the next year—not only to give the organization a jolt of new blood but (and very importantly) to let these newer writers benefit from the experience and knowledge base that our current members have and can share. It’s an “everyone wins” scenario, in my opinion.
Is the novel The High Castle (set in the same world as The Android’s Dream) still in your sights? Fans of Harry need to know! Can you tell us a little about the journey you’ve taken with this novel?
I do still plan to write The High Castle although at the moment there’s no set schedule for it. The reason for its delay (it was originally meant to be out in 2009) is pretty simple: I was writing it, and it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, and I have strong quality standards. So I put it aside and worked on some other things instead. I have a good story for High Castle in my head, but if it’s not coming out in the writing I’ll wait until it does.
You recently became the creative consultant for Stargate Universe. What does your role on the show involve and what made you make this leap into the world of television? Would your career to continue in this direction, or is this somewhat of a sidestep?
My role is to read the scripts of the show and offer notes on what’s been written—often on science-related things, but also on characters and the overall arc of the show. I should note that my role is not to get the science 100% right—there’s always an element of speculation—but to make sure that we get right what we already know, and that what we speculate on doesn’t throw people out of the episode. I took the gig because the producers asked me, and it seemed like a fun and interesting way to explore the world of television. And it is. Will it lead to other things? I don’t know, and I’m not too worried about that. At the moment I’m having fun.
John Scalzi is the author of seven science fiction novels; he lives in Ohio with his family and pets. This is the first time he’s been nominated for the Nebula or the Norton. He’s very excited.
Tehani Wessely was a founding member of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine in 2001. Now firmly entrenched in Australian speculative fiction and small press, she has edited for Twelfth Planet Press (among other duties), judges for the Aurealis Awards, reads far more in one genre than is healthy, and writes reviews, non-fiction and interviews for ASif!, Fiction Focus and Magpies. In her spare moments, she works as a Teacher Librarian and enjoys her husband and three children.
Tehani is the editor of ASIM #4, #16, #27, #31 and #37, three Best Of ASIM e-anthologies, co-editor of ASIM #36, the Twelfth Planet Press anthology New Ceres Nights and other projects. She is currently working on an anthology of children’s stories titled Worlds Next Door, and a reprint anthology of Australian alternate mythologies from her own press, FableCroft Publishing.
Ysabeau S. Wilce 2009 Interview
Ysabeau S. Wilce won the Andre Norton Award for Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room).
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Whether it’s your short stories or novels, I find that you have a unique style and voice that no one else in the field is doing. How did you develop your particular writing style?
Reading, reading and reading. I have a theory that you can’t be a good writer if you aren’t a great reader. And you must read lots of different things too, with no regard for one particular genre, or for high or low literature. Obviously, I have more of an affinity towards the rococo and melodramatic, but I think it’s important not to be too limited in my reading choices, so I will read almost anything. Immersion in reading helped me develop an ear for rhythm, and made my style second nature. Now I just sit down and start typing, and out it all comes!
All your fiction so far seems to be set in the world of Califa. How did you come up with this cosmology? How do you keep track of all your characters and locations and interactions?
Califa evolved over a long long time. In the beginning elements of Califa could be found in a role playing game that my friends and I were obsessed with in high school. Back then, Califa was not called Califa, and it was more medieval. Later, when I got interested in American history, Califa began to turn into more of a California cognate. I decided, as a point of ideology, to have all my fantasy based in American mythology and geography. In my opinion, pastoral Tolkien-type fantasy is already well-picked over and I wanted to do something new. As far as keeping track of people and places, I do not do so formally. It’s all in my head. Thankfully my editor is very good at picking up continuity errors!
Have you ever considered writing fiction that’s not set in your Califa setting?
I’ve considered it, but rejected the consideration for the moment. Right now I’m still having fun with Califa and its environs, and my readers seem happy to be exploring that world along with me. But at some point I’ll have to stretch into something new.
What made you decide to write speculative fiction?
As a historian I was trained to speculate only within the facts, and after a while I found that limiting. The real world is interesting and fascinating but I like to play around with “what if”. And I wanted my female characters to be powerful and not to be constrained or defined by their femaleness--and, alas, that’s impossible in the world we live in.
How did your experience at Clarion shape your career and your life?
As far as changing my life, I met my husband there--so that’s was a major life change! As far my career goes, going to Clarion helped me make connections that proved invaluable when it came time to find an agent, so that was pretty helpful, too. Plus, I wrote the first two stories I ever sold at Clarion and I probably wouldn’t have written them otherwise, since short fiction is not my forte.
How about your travels and how it’s affected your writing?
Traveling has given me a chance to see how people live and work differently around the world, and has helped stretched my imagination. I recently read about a study that said that people are more creative when they live as expats and for me, though I haven’t been an expat in many years, I think that is true. Living or traveling abroad broadens your outlook and makes you more flexible and open minded. Which are two must-have qualities for a writer.
Having written Flora Segunda previously, is working on Flora’s Dare any easier or just as difficult? How about the upcoming novel, Flora’s Fury?
Every novel is excruciating in its own way. I am great with characters and background details and horrible with plot, so stringing the plot together is always very hard. Flora’s Dare was difficult because I was trying to combine two novels into one. Flora’s Fury is hard because I didn’t have a plot in mind before I started, so I’m starting from scratch there, and plots are quite difficult for me. Plus, I had a baby seven months ago, and he is quite demanding of my time and focus!
Since you’ve written both short stories and novels, which format are you more comfortable with? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?
I hate writing short stories. And in fact, one could argue that I have only written one true short story--the rest of my stories are novellas. I like to write long, it takes me a while to build up characters and plot, so squeezing everything down is very difficult for me. I admire those writers who can do so much in a short space, but I fear I am not one of them.
What’s the most challenging aspect of writing for you?
Description. I admire writers who can conjure up gorgeous description fluidly and effortless. I hack hack hack away at my description. Often scenery is quite vividly pictured in my imagination, but comes out on the page very stilted, and this drives me crazy. I particularly admire writers who can write action. I’m terrible at action.
Any other projects you’re currently working on?
My husband, James Thomas, and I have been collaborating on a middle reader that is sort of a mash-up of Little Lord Fauntleroy (if he were a girl and much more sour) and Frankenstein. I’m also working on a novel length extension of the Hardhands/Tiny Doom stories. But before I can finish those, I have to finish my biggest project to date: getting my son to sleep through the night so I am not quite as exhausted during the day!
Ysabeau S. Wilce was born in California and has followed the drum throughout Alaska, Spain, Mexico, Arizona, and Elsewhere. After training as a military historian, Ysabeau turned to fiction when the truth no longer compared favorably to the shining lies of her imagination. Her stories have been published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and various anthologies. Her work has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, the Andre Norton Award, and been short-listed for the Tiptree Award.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
When Ysabeau is not writing, she drinks cappuccinos and reads trashy nineteenth century novels, waiting for inspiration to strike again. She currently resides in the Midwest, with her husband, a cheese-swilling financier, and a border collie named Bothwell. They do not have a Butler. You may also find her at her blog.
Jeffrey Ford 2009 Interview
Jeffrey Ford is nominated for his short story “The Dreaming Wind.”
Before we discuss your career as a writer, I am curious about your other job, that of being a professor. In what ways has being a professor influenced your views of the world and its people? Have you found yourself ever taking a situation in the classroom and incorporating elements of it into your fiction?
Teaching has been its own journey that sometimes intersects with my journey as a writer. I enjoy it. I’ve been teaching for 25 years now, 22 of it teaching at least five courses a semester, two semesters a year, with anywhere from 75 to a 100 students, a lot of them writing a lot. In that time I’ve met thousands of people, helped some of them with their writing, gotten some of them into Early American Literature, listened, did way too much talking, and learned a great deal. Two important things I learned from teaching are: 1) If you let them, people will surprise you. 2) Even though it is not always evident, most young people have a desire to be successful, not necessarily in a monetary sense but in doing something worthwhile with their lives. Figuring out how to recognize that in each individual is the job of teaching. I’ve had much success in this, but can also recall, realizing too late, total failures on my part that I can never seem to shake no matter how many years go by. The people I work with are, to a person, all very cool. Brookdale Community College, where I teach, has stubbornly retained its sense of humanity over the years through the efforts of all. Not a bad gig, if you have to work.
Very cool! I’ve been a teacher myself for most of the past 10 years and I agree wholeheartedly with what you said there. I recently read your short story “The Honeyed Knot” and I felt a special attachment to that story because of how it seemed to intersect the personal and professional lives of a teacher. Have you written other stories that came close to touching upon what you’ve experienced as a teacher over the years?
There’s one other very brief story in my recent collection, “Ariadne’s Mother.” I’d like to write more fiction about my experiences teaching, but I’m torn in doing so. To write this kind of stuff, I’d have to base it on real-life experiences—it’s the way I know that I could get the most out of the subject—otherwise it would come across cliche. There are elements in the real world of the classroom and teacher/student interactions that are compelling but, like dreams, seem lame if faked. On the one hand, using the stuff of my students’ lives, even with names changed, seems somehow morally wrong. On the other hand, as a writer, I feel I need to express myself, my experiences of the world, that I have an intrinsic right to and that that should ultimately top all concerns. So I’m kind of stuck in the middle, and though there are at least a solid dozen stories I could tell (some of them genuinely weird or supernatural), and a hundred more I could develop, I don’t know. Perhaps when I retire I’ll put it all together in a novel.
I would love to read that if you ever do decide to do that. Your response raises another interesting question: Is there a “fourth wall” to writing, especially that of an autobiographical story, that would be transgressive to breach, or are limits more a matter of each individual writer’s comfort zones and not that of a societal one?
In a general sense, the fourth wall is an illusion. There is no fourth, third, second or first wall. These are limitations writers willingly place upon their fiction. The restriction of not breaking the fourth wall can result in some terrific fiction. I’ve seen where China Miéville says that by breaking the fourth wall it disrupts the flow of the story and is really only there to show the reader that the writer is above mere story-telling and is wanting to prove that he/she is clever and ironic. This is certainly the case sometimes, but there are times when the dissolution of the fourth wall can actually work to involve the reader more deeply in the fiction. I’m thinking of Prospero’s speech at the end of The Tempest, and certain meta-fictional devices of stories within stories or fictional narrators telling stories as in The Turn of the Screw and The King’s Indian, and the documents in The House of Leaves, and the scholarship of Pale Fire etc., etc., etc. In reality there are no rules for good fiction writing. Name a rule and there is always an instance that controverts it. Adhering to any self-imposed rule can result in a kind of “happy accident,” as in the employment of the stricter poetical forms. For whatever reason Miéville sets this limitation upon his work, it does result in compelling and powerful fiction, but his is only one facet of the argument.
What you’re asking about is a fourth wall concerning autobiographical material in a story. I’ve long since gotten over the fear of revealing things about myself, but I do hold back sometimes when it comes to writing about something someone close to me might recognize as an unflattering portrait of themselves or a recounting of something they’d done or said. In short, I’m afraid that it might hurt their feelings. Usually this concern only surfaces when it comes to people who are very close to me and I care deeply about. Even this, though, is a form of writerly cowardice. It’s important for the fiction writer to be able and willing to go anywhere. This said, there is also something important about being empathetic. So you weigh these things out. Often, I’ll build up the courage over time to tell a story I would feel some initial apprehension to. On other occasions Time, itself, will mitigate the problem and the story will be more accessible to me. Being blatant about things in fiction is not always the best policy. At times, it’s better and more effective to subsume the incident or character more deeply in the fiction. As Emily Dickinson said, she liked to tell things slant-wise. I use the autobiographical technique not so much to reveal things about myself and others, but because I think it’s a useful tool for conveying a story. Readers assume quite a bit that when I use the word “I” I’m writing about my real life. I have to remind them that there is a reason they call it Fiction. But that’s both the drawback and the beauty of it.
In reading your comments in regards to the differences between the “I” of fiction and that of real life, I am reminded of the closing line in Umberto Eco’s Baudolino, where Baudolino says, “You surely don’t believe you’re the only writer of stories in this world. Sooner or later, someone - a greater liar than Baudolino - will tell it.” How much truth is there in that statement about writers and the fiction they produce?
What, you mean that someone else will come along and tell your story better than you have? Not so. What will happen is someone will come along and tell their story better than you told your story, or in a manner more fitting the time, or appealing to a certain group, and that fiction will be in the ascendancy. No one can tell your story but you. Two writers can use a similar plot, the same character names, settings, try even to affect a similar style, but they can never write each other’s story. That’s the one thing that new writers need to remember when conceiving a plot. A lot of times they’ll get stuck on the fact that someone’s already used their idea in a well known fiction. So say they want to write a story where an individual sees himself and is followed by his double, who interferes with his life. Let’s see, you’ve got The Double, William Wilson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Prince and the Pauper, etc., etc. There are hundreds of double stories, and I can think, off hand, of at least 20 great ones. You mean to tell me there isn’t the possibility of another double story that could be interesting and worth reading? It all depends on how you tell your double story. The great recent example of this is the film, Let the Right One In. Anyone in their right mind would think that Vampire stories would have been generally staked in the heart and buried in consecrated earth, but along comes this new Vampire story with an idiosyncratic stamp on it that does its part in keeping vampires interesting. It’s not the vampires, per say, that make the story interesting, it’s the story tellers vision of the vampires that is important. No one else can tell your story the way you would.
Well, I was thinking more about the bit about writers being “liars,” but you raise an excellent point in regards to “originality.” What is “originality” to you?
Nothing can be 100% non-derivative, of course, but I guess for something to say here, I’d say that originality has to do with the power of the writer’s personal vision, the depth with which you experince the characters, the setting or the plot. It is also tied to craft in that you’ve got to know how to render that vision as clearly as possible so that the reader experiences it nearly as powerfully as you do. I always use the word “idiosyncratic” when discussing fiction writing. My students make fun of me for using it so often, but I can’t think of another one that sums up the nature of the type of vision I’m getting at. There is something integral about the writer’s psyche or personality that is at the core of the fiction, and I’m not talking here about some autobiographical aspect, but (and here’s another lousy word for what I mean) the spirit behind the creation of the fiction.
What led you to decide that writing was the profession or perhaps avocation for you? Was there a single “ah-ha!” moment, or was there a more gradual shift from whatever career aspirations you might have had until then?
I don’t remember a single moment when I decided I wanted to write, I just always wanted to write. I suppose it was from the earliest times I’d had books read to me. All of the adults in my life, when I was a kid, my grandparents and parents, were big readers. When my father read novels to my brother and I when we were very young, the experience of seeing the story in my head was powerful. I wanted to be able to do that. I never thought of doing anything else in my life, and as it turns out I’m not much good for anything else. The teaching, though I’ve always tried to do a good job and have enjoyed the students, is a necessity of survival. Writing comes second only to my family.
What were some of the stories that your father read to you and your brother? Have you in turn read them or other stories to your own children?
He read Stevenson (Kidnapped) and Kipling (the Jungle Books were awesome), the stories of Chekov, Oscar Wilde, Ryder Haggard (She). He’d bought this set of books at a flea market, all red bound, called The World’s Greatest Literature. 25 books for something like around 15 dollars. He read those to us. Like I’ve said before, I was the only kid on my block who knew who Theophile Gautier was. There were a lot of stirring renditions of the poems of Tennyson. When it came to reading to my own kids, we did Frog and Toad, Doctor Dolittle, dozens of Goosebumps, The Mushroom Planet Books, Curious George (he’s a pisser), and later I read them The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, The Narnia Books, The Baron in the Trees. Eventually they both got fed up with me reading to them and did their own. My younger son, though, this school year, his senior year in high school, had to do a paper on a British author. He chose Kenneth Grahame, the author of The Wind in the Willows. I told him I’d never read Wind in the Willows and had always wanted to, and he asked me if I wanted to read it to him for old time’s sake. So I read it out loud to him over a period of three or four nights, and we both dug the characters and the story. The writing is great. After that, months went by, and one day, remembering the story of Ratty and Mole, I remembered what a pleasure reading it aloud had been, and I realized that by his letting me read it, he’d given me a wonderful gift.
Although I’m not a father, when I taught sixth grade, I used to read historical myths from all sorts of civilizations aloud to the students and they loved it. It seems there still is a fascination with the spoken word in our society, based on the growing popularity of audiobooks and podcasts. Which stories, if any, of yours have been told via these formats?
I’ve had no novels and only a handful of stories committed to audio. I like the format. It does matter who the reader is, because just the tone of a reader’s voice can change the experience of the story. I listen to audio books all the time on my monumental drive to work and back (nearly two hours each way). The stories of mine that are on audio are “Creation,” which came out on an audio version of a Best of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction anthology. I’ve never seen the actual audio book, but was sent a copy of just my story by Gordon Van Gelder when it came out. The reading of the story wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t crazy about it. I’m kind of particular when it comes to this stuff. Reading one of these things successfully, I’ll admit, seems to me as though it would be very difficult. The others are—“The Dreaming Wind,” “The Annals of Eelin-Ok,” and “The Dream of Reason.” Tony Smith at Starship Sofa is currently turning the story, “The Empire of Ice Cream,” into audio and that should be available at his site before too long. Tony’s got a great treasure trove of audio fiction at his site as do the folks at Podcastle. The story, “The Dreaming Wind,” has been read for audio three different times by different readers. Two versions are at Podcastle and one is at Starship Sofa. “The Dream of Reason” will appear in an audio Year’s Best from Audiotext pretty soon. Haven’t heard that reading. Of the readings at Starship Sofa and Podcastle, I think they are all quite good. I am partial to the audio interpretations of my work done by Rajan Khanna. Others may like the Paul Tevis and Larry Santoro readings better. Like I said, they are all wonderful. Rajan’s approach and the tone of the telling, though, really appeal to me, personally. I’d love to someday have a publisher pay him to do an audio CD of my stories, especially the YA ones. I’d also like to be rich and good looking.
What about mixed audio/visual presentation? Ever think that might catch on with the reading public? Do you envision your stories working in that format?
You mean movies? I’d be interested in that Hollywood cash, to tell you the truth, but so far my phone’s not ringing off the hook. Would it excite me artistically? It probably would to see my characters before me on the screen. Plays have been done of some of my work, and seeing them was interesting and affecting. There’s nothing like this kind of “presentation” of fiction, taking it out of the individual reader/author format, for the potential to see a story in a new light. There have been vague rumblings from time to time from film makers and production companies concerning my fiction. It presents itself and then soon evaporates. What can you do? On the other hand, if they don’t make movies inspired by my fiction they can’t make shitty movies inspired by my fiction. Sometimes I see a film that has been inspired by a book, and it does interesting things with the source material, becomes a work of art in its own right, but that usually isn’t the case. In most cases the original text is used as a roadmap instead of an opportunity to play.
Good point about film adaptations, but what I meant to ask (and worded it poorly) was about your take on things such as “story remixes” that Cory Doctorow and others have pushed for the past few years that would allow authors and other artists to warp and twist the notion of a story beyond something that is just spoken or just written, but which would combine elements of both to create fiction of a different sort. Do you think there’ll be a viable market for that in the near future?
What the hell. If people enjoy creating it, go for it. Whether there’ll be a market for it is sort of beside the point. There eventually was a market for Burroughs’ cut up novels. This stuff doesn’t strike me as particularly “new” but if it wears that badge now all the better.
You have had six novels and three short fiction collections appear in wide-release in the past 12 years. Which consumes more of your time on average, working on the short fiction or working on a novel?
I think it balances out to almost even. Usually when I’m working on a novel, I don’t write many stories and the novels take me about nine months to write. The other times, when I’m not immersed in novel writing, I write stories. It’s hard to calculate because some stories take years to write, some take years to contemplate and decide just how to tell them. There is a different head required for each of these pursuits. I wish I could describe the difference, but like a lot of things I thought I was sure about with writing, this is one of those things that I’ve realized lately I really can’t express. I hate this question, not because it’s a bad question, but because I usually give a bad answer.
Speaking of the “different head” required for novels and short stories, I have noticed that your last three novels have taken place in specific historical periods (1890s, 1930s, 1960s) in the New York/Long Island area. Was there an extensive amount of research involved for The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, and The Shadow Year? If so, did the research initiate the stories, or did they affect the narratives after you had begun the writing process?
You’re on to me. You might be the only person to ever mention this to me, but yes, it’s no mistake that all of these stories take place on and around Long Island. I wanted to write a kind of thematically connected series of mysteries that, subtly, in the background, chart the history of this area. I want to write a contemporary mystery and also one that takes place in the old days, involving the European settlers and Native Americans. That’s for the future maybe. Now, I’m angling toward something more fantastic.
Are you far enough along that you could give a brief description about that “something more fantastic”?
I’ll take the fifth here and we’ll see what happens. I do have a new group of stories that could constitute a 4th collection. There would be 17 to 20 stories, and I’m considering calling Crackpot Palace. Quite a few of the stories have yet to appear yet in their original anthologies, so if this book does see publication (fingers crossed, it won’t be for a while. The stories I speak of will be showing up in a number of different venues over the next year or so.
Your first novel, Vanitas, was published in 1988. Almost ten years went by before your next books, The Well-Built City trilogy, were released. What changes, if any, occurred in your approach to writing during that time?
Forget my approach to writing, what happened is I had two sons. I spent a lot of time with them, reading to them, playing crazy games, and walking for hours with them in this double stroller we had, checking out the world. This was where it was at. I didn’t have time to write novels then, but I continued to write. I focused my attention on writing short stories. I wrote a bunch of them at night, after everybody was finally asleep. I was tired, but it was a blast. Occasionally, I’d sell one. I was sending more realistic stories to literary journals and obviously fantastic stories to genre magazines. During this time, two things happened as far as writing. I finally got the notion to combine the two types of stories I was writing. Not exactly genius—all revelations for me came slowly as far as writing went. Once I did that, though, I started publishing a lot more stories. I have to say that the genre magazines were much more accepting of my hybrids than the lit. magazines, and it seemed to me at the time, much more willing to take a chance with something either structurally or thematically different. The other thing I finally realized was the beauty of revision. Revision went from being a theoretical concept to an integral part of the creation of the stories. That personal discovery was thrilling to me. Every story is a combined creation of both the (and I wish I had better terms to describe this) conscious and the subconscious. They’re both important to crafting a good piece, but it’s essential that they both have the story’s best interest at heart and are willing to relinquish ground to one another when it is called for. A big part of learning to write fiction is getting to a point where you can feel their allegiance or lack thereof to the story. Still, mistakes are often made. What can I say?
I have two follow-up questions to this, as you raise some interesting points. First, in regards to the literary/genre publications: You note that the genre magazines seemed to be more willing to experiment with your literary hybrids. Is this still the case, or have you seen a greater willingness by lit journals to publish stories that incorporate fantastic imagery and motifs?
At the time I was referring to, the lit. magazines were heavily focused on “realism.” It wasn’t just my stuff they weren’t interested in. Remember, we’re talking about the mid to late 80’s, and that was pre-Chabon, Aimee Bender, Jonathan Lethem. In other words, it just wasn’t “Literarily” cool enough to have a story infused with the fantastic. Granted, they may not have wanted my stories because they were just flat out shitty stories, but I read a lot of the lit. magazines then, and I rarely saw a speculative story in any of them. Back in the late 70’s, when I was in college, the fantastic in “Literature” was business as usual—Pynchon, Barth, Barthelme, Coover, Carter, Gardner, Marquez. This whole thing seemed to re-emerge not too long ago with the advent of some of the writers mentioned above. Add Kelly Link to that list. All terrific writers. I think Chabon has done more toward bridging the bullshit divide between “genre” and “literary” than just about anyone recently. Still, people love those categories and camps. They can’t live without them. When I wrote The Physiognomy, it was sold as a “literary novel,” but it tanked like the Lusitania. The genre readers and reviewers revived it and gave it a life. Still, there was a lot of resistance to talk of hybrids of genre and literary techniques and concerns within the genre. I put my ideas about this in a letter to Locus Magazine as a response to a letter Rob Chilson wrote in which he defined what Fantasy and Science Fiction are. I thought his definitions were comically constrictive and really kind of reactionary. My letter got me little love from the genre stalwart. Funny thing is, just a couple years later, the stuff I was talking about was all the rage. This was right around the time Kelly Link’s work had begun to be recognized and Jeff VanderMeer’s. These writers, and a lot of others were all blending different genres (fantasy, horror, mystery, science fiction) and traditional genre concerns and techniques with those from what had always been labeled “literary.” It’s not that other writers hadn’t been doing this stuff forever. Avram Davidson, Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison, Lucius Shepard, Carol Emshwiller, to name only a few, it’s just that a pronounced interest in it seems to re-emerge for a brief time among readers and reviewers, and then it slips back down again. Right now, it seems to me that the genre is going through a period where it is pulling back toward its center, away from these hybrids, becoming more conservative, more emphasis on tradition in both science fiction and fantasy. Horror/Dark Fantasy, on the other hand, seems to be pushing the boundaries and blending styles more these days than its cousins. This might be as a result of economics or maybe the print to electronic evolution we are in the middle of or just part of a natural cycle. It might be for the better or worse. Who knows? These are merely my perceptions of a certain time. I’ll grant I could have gotten it all wrong.
Secondly, when revising a story, is there a gestation (perhaps digestion might be more suitable?) period between story conception, initial draft, and revision, or do these things vary based on the story being told?
All this varies greatly with each story. The story, “The Way He Does It,” was 15 years old before I finally finished revising it and selling it to John Klima for Electric Velocipede. “Giant Land,” another story took a solid decade. Then there is “The Trentino Kid,” which I wrote and revised in two days and sold to Ellen Datlow for the anthology, The Dark. Stories each have an idiosyncratic personality, some take forever to get right, some (rarely) come full blown with very little revision needed, and some, although they are published, with multiple chances at further revision for publication through their inclusion in anthologies, you can never get right, even though it seems like readers have no problem with them. As far as the conception part goes, it’s about the same. I have all manner of pieces of stories in different states of completion on my computer and in a filing drawer. I have to wait for quite a while some times before the path to proceed becomes clear to me. Ellen Datlow gave me a wonderful piece of advice back when I started out. She said, “Whatever you do, don’t throw anything away.” What usually happens with a story is that I’ll have the initial idea, and it will excite me, but then in trying to write it it will seem too complicated for me to get down. A point will come, though, sometimes completely out of the blue, where the way to proceed with a story that has seemed too complicated will instantly, for whatever reason, suddenly seem simple. The path is clear and I can then travel it.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but are there then “wrong times” for the “right idea” for a story?
Didn’t Dr. John do that song? Absolutely. You have a story you’re writing, and it seems like it should work, but at the moment, it doesn’t move you. Three weeks from now, it might. That’s what I was describing above sort of. The ideas for the stories don’t change, but your head about how to go about writing them might some day. When it comes to you and things all of a sudden fall into place, you realize the “rightness” of the idea and finish it.
How has the growth of online fiction markets, from the late Sci Fiction to current e-zines like Clarkesworld and Strange Horizons, affected the market for short fiction? Have you noticed an appreciable difference in the SF short fiction market in terms of overall quality or willingness to experiment as a result of the emergence of these e-zines?
Is there a willingness to experiment? I don’t know if “experiment” is the appropriate word. There does seem to be a willingness to take serious the work of new fiction writers with divergent styles. Strange Horizons has been doing this for quite a while, and I think Clarkesworld, under the editorial leadership of Nick Mamatas and now Kathy Sedia, has done a terrific job of this as well. These are the two most obvious examples, but there are many more. I’ve remained interested over the years in what’s going on in the smaller magazines and e-zines. I read, when I can, the stories and articles, and at times get a story accepted by one of them. I keep an eye on them with a writer’s sensibility as well as that of a reader. This phenomenon is one of the great strengths of the field. A lot of the writers you find in these magazines, you will soon find on the shelves at your local book store, and the stuff you can’t find at the book store can be found in these magazines. I wouldn’t say that the work here is generally better or worse than in the major magazines, but I think it needs to be considered as part of a larger whole, incorporating all of the venues. When you look at it that way, the speculative short fiction field seems vibrant.
As I re-read your fiction in preparation for this interview, I remember noting that many of the fictions that I enjoyed best used first-person point of view. Do you find it easier to tell a story in first-person, or is there something else involved in the choice of narrative approach?
I guess I like the first person for novels, because I like to inhabit the main character, to experience the fiction more directly as it unfolds. If you have a good character that the reader is interested in following, usually what the character assumes, the reader assumes (until they learn not to). The first person character, for me, effortlessly assumes the reality of the world of the story. In the writing, you can impart a lot more information with a lot less effort from a first person point of view. Some people feel third person is superior. It may be, but that’s not my story. I use third person in short stories quite a bit now, usually ironically. There’s something about the third person that has about it the air of “the expert,” which seems ridiculous to me; a certain distance. Is the third person ever anything but the first person tricked out in godly robes? I’m reminded of The Wizard of Oz (the film and the individual played by Frank Morgan). Behind the show of the flaming omniscience is a kind of goofy confidence man. It’s more realistic that the reader not know the inner thoughts and feelings of all characters they’ll meet or the back story on every element of a narrative. The unknowing aspect of the first-person adds a verisimilitude to the experience. I prefer wandering errantly through worlds than being confined to the panopticon. Another concern I always see about first-person characters is that if the story is being told from their point of view, you usually know their ultimate fate at the end of the novel, unless, of course, the writer is pulling a Sunset Boulevard. Not having this at your disposal, as a writer, could be a problem in a given instance, but there’s a lot, beside death, that can happen in life and is interesting to write and read about.
Your last comment about there being a lot more than death that can happen in life that can be interesting to read and write about reminds me of something else that I’ve observed about your novels (the short stories to a lesser extent): They tend to be episodic, with conclusions, but not the Big Conclusion of someone’s life ending at the end of the story. That sense of there being “something else” that might happen in the characters’ lifes after the final curtain is drawn, is that something that you’ve consciously aimed for in your novels, or did it just result from the demands of each individual story?
I have to be true to the lives of my characters. Rarely in life does it all come together in an amazing crescendo of completion and closure. I got some criticism for this on The Shadow Year, basically because everything wasn’t sufficiently explained. The character at the heart of the story remained uncertain about a lot of stuff in his life. Shit, there’s aspects of my own life from my early teens that I’m still trying to grapple with and figure out. You’d have to be one supremely psychologically well-adjusted motherfucker to not have any lingering doubts, wonderments, questions about your childhood. So if that’s the way it is in life, why should my character be expected to figure it all out by the end of the novel? I’ll have to write a book where that character spends the entire novel on the couch of a shrink, maundering over his doubts and at the end, as not to disappoint, he’ll put a bullet in his head for a heart breaking finality, tying things up neat and sweet. I like the endings you describe that hint that, yes, the reality of the fiction, the lives of the character, goes on. I really like the endings in a lot of Japanese novels, like Diary of a Mad Old Man by Tanizaki or the novels of Jonathan Carroll. Sometimes, not often, a perfection of closure, all ends being neatly tied up, seems right, and when you can get it and it feels honest, that’s cool. But a lot of times when writers go for it, you can feel the strings being pulled, the marionettes being manipulated, in the lead up to it and the fiction is compromised in order to get it.
That desire for “closure” by many readers, could that be attributed to certain formulae that have been used by storytellers for years, or is there something else to it?
I think it’s the influence of sit-com pacing and Hollywood story telling more than anything. I can think of more novels in which that kind of neat “closure” isn’t offered than I can ones where it is. God forbid some reader might wonder about the fiction beyond the confines of the book’s cover or that the character be unsure at the end of a story. The Japanese novelist, Tanizaki, is a master of original endings in books like The Key and Diary of a Mad Old Man. The endings are like whispers and their abruptness has a devastating effect. I also admire the ending of Jonathan Carroll’s The Wooden Sea. That book is so not a conventional novel. If you approach it as a conventional novel, especially concerning structure, and not on its own terms, it’s going to be confusing and disappointing, but if you are willing to forgo expectation of convention, you’ll see the book is a creature unto itself that elicits a powerful emotional response as well as ideas.
This raises another question: What exactly is a “conventional” story and why do you think it evolved to the point where many readers expect all stories to follow those prescribed forms?
I suppose the parameters for a “conventional” story are ever shifting, but in the readership as a whole, I would think there are certain aspects of story that are generally expected at certain points in the history of literature. Linearity is a big favorite. I’ve enjoyed writing stories that aren’t linear ("Pansolapia," “In the House of Four Seasons,” “The Bedroom Light,” “A Few Things About Ants"), but I have to say the general consensus isn’t strongly in favor of them. A lot of readers want to always have their expectations fulfilled. Hey, that’s what they want. Nothing wrong with that. Then there are other readers who feel let down if they get exactly what they expected. I just write the stories as they come to me. If you write them good, they’ll usually find at least a few appreciative readers. As a reader, though, I can tell when the writer is breaking with convention, and I usually like that. There comes a point, though, or I guess it is tied to the manner in which the writer tells the story, where it can get boring or too dissonant, and then I lose the fictional world and I might as well be reading the back of the cereal box. If the writer can somehow manage to keep a hold of the reader when entering strange new territory then that can be some of the most exciting reading. At this point I have no idea what I’m talking about.
You’ve already named in passing some of the authors whose stories have had an impact on you. What authors have you read recently that you would hold up to readers and say, “Damn! This book is worth reading!”?
I really liked that Wild Nights! Joyce Carol Oates book. A subtle approach to what could have been very heavy handed, with nice atmospherics and creepy effects. The juxtaposition, or I should say blending, of realism and the fantastic is seamless. And, I have to hand it to her, she really kicks Hemmingway’s ass. Mark Twain comes across as such a weird creep. None of them comes out the other side unscathed, but that’s part of the fun of it. It reminded me in some respects (the dream-like quality of the stories) of The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas. It was more reserved, though, perhaps due to the length of the pieces as opposed to a novel. That’s not to say it was better or worse, but just something else in the long run. The White Hotel is a truly unique reading experience. I’d say that’s a terrific one to check out. Another writer whose work I discovered some years ago but keep returning to is Alvaro Mutis. His novellas about Maqroll, the gaviero, collected now in one edition put out by NYRB, is a must read. I keep thinking about this horror novel put out by Vertical Press, Strangers by Taichi Yamada. It’s not just a ghost story, it’s a haunted story—more than just scary, which at times it is, but the whole thing has that overwhelming sense of not rightness that great horror does. It gets you where you live. A couple of fairly recent suggestions from fellow writers have turned out to be excellent. Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis, suggested by Jeff VanderMeer and Blood Sport by Robert P. Jones, suggested by Michael Swanwick.
You’ve mentioned several non-English language authors in passing during the course of this interview. Do you think there’ll be a time when foreign genre fiction will become very visible and influential here in the United States or in the British market?
I think foreign genre fiction is already influential with readers and writers in the US. The problem is we’re usually only seeing works that are older. That’s not to say that these are not worthwhile—they most certainly are, but I’d love to see the contemporary stuff. There are so many US novels translated each year overseas, and I’m not knocking that as I appreciate both the readership and the dough, but there are so few books translated into English on our side. It’s not fair, but that’s beside the point. It’s a product of America’s sense of manifest destiny, and it denies us the possibility of joining the rest of the world through the dialogue of literature. The US could do a great thing and put aside a billion or so—come on, you know that’s chump change in a time when we’re talking hundreds of trillions—and set about translating literature from all over the world. I love reading books from authors of other countries. I know no translation is perfect and that some will be flat out bad, but even if I was smart enough to learn Japanese on my own and read Tanizaki, I wouldn’t have time to also learn Arabic and read Mahfouz and Portuguese and read Amado. It all goes back to the Tower of Babel and that malicious prank God played on us. I have a friend who is a translator. She’s Japanese and translates from her native language into English and back. It seems like incredibly hard work. I think everybody could benefit by making contemporary literature more universally accessible.
In the novels and authors you list above, are there any perceived characteristics that make these novels, whether read in translation or in their original languages, somehow “different” from what you might find in an Anglo-American story? Or are there more similarities in story structure, thematic elements, characterization, etc.?
I’d say the aspects of structure and characterization are fairly similar to what I read in Anglo-American work. Occasionally you’ll read something like Amos Tutuola’s Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle, and although it is ostensibly in English, the structure of the story and the language will be influenced by the culture of the writer. It’s difficult with Tutuola, though, at least for me, in that I’m not sure how much of what I perceive as a difference is cultural or his unique, personal form of expression. What I enjoy about translation are both those moments of likeness and unlikeness. The things that are different are the cultural surroundings, the details of the place, the interesting anecdotes that are novel and exotic. I get to learn what it is like to be someone who lives in another part of the world I may never get to visit. It expands my world view. It engenders understanding and sunders, to an extent, that overshadowing illusion that is life in contemporary America fostered by our media and our government—all for the price of a paperback book. Man, that’s a deal everyone should take advantage of. On the other hand, I always find instances in these books where I find a shared humanity with the characters and through them the writer. For instance, I’m right now reading a book by a Muslim warrior/poet and anthologist/royal advisor from the 1100’s, who lived and wrote during the time of the Crusades—The Book of Contemplation by Usama Ibn Munqidh. The book is a compilation of anecdotes about the battles he participated in, the political intrigue of the area, everyday life, moral, religious, and political philosophy, etc. Usama’s got the stories to tell, and he’s got a sense of humor. In one part of the book, he’s relating his take on the honesty or lack thereof of one of his contemporaries and says of him, something to the effect of, “That guy is so crooked, he’d steal a loaf of bread from his own house.” I cracked up. It’s a line I could imagine Rodney Dangerfield having used in his comedy act. Just one small instance, but right then, across vast distances of time and space, cutting right through cultural differences, etc., I felt a real closeness to this writer. I got a glimpse of his humanity. That kind of experience really widens your world.
Many readers of SF like to pick up on literary trends. Whether it be New Wave, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, New Weird, or something else, fans seem to want some sort of “movement” to hang their hats on and to speculate about. What are your thoughts about “movements?” Is there anything that you’d care to speculate in regards to such things, even they in fact exist?
Some people have a good time with this bullshit, in which case, I say let it roll. I think for readers it’s vaguely useful as well in that they can discover new writers through it and find writers doing work that might be in some way similar to what they’ve liked in the past. It’s also a way to sell yourself as a writer. Like now, for some reason Steampunk is back, staggering around the ring. You know there are ready readers for it, so jump on it and write a steampunk book. You might catch the wave, get people interested in your fiction and cash in. You might not, though, too. I think the zombie thing is pretty shot by now. Science Fiction writers squeezed that singularity deal for all it was worth, and from what I see they’re still at it. Writers can use these appellations to distinguish themselves. Readers like that. It’s best if you can invent your own movement—then you are whatever...Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Beethoven’s Last Movement. I’ve been in anthologies devoted to Slipstream, The New Weird, Steampunk. I have a very poor grasp of what any of them, as movements, mean. I suppose, in the end, they are just constructs through which one can view and sell literature. I don’t think they’re essential, but a lot of people like them.
Would it be safe to say that current literary trends are more akin to re-explaining the literary wheel, or are there certain changes being introduced each time a “movement” emerges?
I suppose it would be “safe” to say that, but these appellations are very vague and a lot of times don’t stand up under close scrutiny. For a while I’d see my name along with those of Kelly Link, Jeff VanderMeer, and China Mieville in articles talking about New Weird. If you really look closely at the writing each of us does, I don’t think there is much of a similarity in the kinds of fiction we write with the exception of the fact that it is “speculative.” So it may be a re-explaining of sorts, but what it really is is a replacement of one inadequate taxonomy with another.
One final question: If Roland Barthes were somehow to be alive and in front of you today and started talking about the “Death of the Author,” what would be your response to him?
Ooo, Roland Barthes. I feel like Joseph Cotten in The Third Man (his character a writer of Westerns) when that reporter asks him, “And what, sir, do you think of Mr. James Joyce?” I don’t know if I’d say anything to Barthes, as his program is about reading, not writing. So basically, I don’t give a damn. People should read any way they want. I’ll say one thing for old Roland, though, he was a shrewd customer. In his Death of the Author deal he is about negating the influence of the “authority” of the author (her intentions, her biography, her utterances) on the interpretation of a given work. By disavowing the author the reader becomes the authority on the text. All well and good, but among readers, the critic has a certain culturally perceived authority, therefore leaving the critic the ultimate authority. Spoken like a true critic. Nice work if you can get it. The idea is that the “language” of the text is everything, and nothing outside the primary text should have a bearing on interpretation. This then establishes the reader, for all intent and purpose, as the “author” of the text, and since we are disavowing authors, the reader must then disavow herself. The noble thing about the post-modernist critical agenda is its attempt to deconstruct the sway of Western hegemony. The problem I have with it is the belief among many of its practitioners that the everyday reader doesn’t have the wherewithal to sort these ideas out for himself, that the reader is not making intellectual choices about how they want to read and interpret a text, or that their choice or mode of interpretation is in some way wanting. There’s a definite aspect of elitism to it. I’m reminded of a quote by Thoreau (approximate)—“If I knew someone was coming to my house to do me some good, I’d run in the other direction as fast as possible.” For how long had post-modernist criticism been the “authority” in academia? That said, I very much enjoy the ideas at play in this critical milieu, and it’s fun to think through them. The texts I like most are the essay, “The Detective and the Boundary” by William Spanos and the books of Michel Foucault (not so much for the overall philosophy but more for the anecdotes and tidbits of info I can steal for a story).
Jeffrey Ford is the author of The Well Built-City Trilogy from Golden Gryphon Press, and stand alone novels The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl In The Glass, The Shadow Year from Harper Collins. His three short story collections are: The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, The Empire of Ice Cream, The Drowned Life. Ford has the following stories forthcoming in anthologies—“Ganesha” in The Beastly Bride (Viking), “The Coral Heart” in Eclipse #3 (Night Shade Books), “Down Atsion Road” in Haunted Legends (TOR), “Daddy Long Legs of the Evening” in Naked City (St. Martins), “Daltharee” in Best American Fantasy 3 (Underland).
Larry Nolen is a history and English teacher who has taught for most of the past ten years in Tennessee and Florida, in both public and private school settings. Fascinated with languages from an early age, he devotes much of his spare time to reading and translating interviews and articles from Spanish into English. Larry also has an unhealthy fascination with squirrels and dreams to one day edit an anthology of squirrel SF. His blog can be found at ofblog.blogspot.com.
Charles Coleman Finlay 2009 Interview
Charles Coleman Finlay is nominated for his novella “The Political Prisoner.”
Authors, based on interviews that I’ve read and conducted, seem to be driven creatures. When was it that you realized that you just had to write stories?
I started drawing comics when I was 8 or 9 and writing stories shortly after that. In college, I wrote poetry and short stories, I drew comics and political cartoons, and had some very minor work published. But all in all, I was a dilettante. I daydreamed about being good at writing or art, but I wasn’t committed to doing the hard work. It wasn’t until I was almost 30, after my first son was born, that I decided to be serious about it.
You have to understand that my own father had wanted to be a painter but life had always gotten in the way. So there he was, struggling and in his 50s, when he won several million dollars in the lottery. Suddenly he had everything he needed, but he couldn’t seem to paint. He’d lost whatever spark he had. I looked at my own son and didn’t want to end up the same way. I didn’t want to be telling him “Go pursue your dreams” when I had never chased my own.
I’m not a naturally gifted writer like so many of my friends, but I love story. Story is very important. Fiction or non-fiction, history or autobiography--story is the way we make sense out of our experience in the world. So I started working at the craft of story-telling, trying to become the best writer I could be.
Interesting life story there! You speak of your love of story and how you had to work at the craft of storytelling. What are some of the things about story crafting that you learned over the years?
Not to overthink it. Internalize the skills and then stop thinking consciously about them. If I can make the story visceral and immediate and meaningful, I want to do that and get out of the reader’s way.
Your first novel, The Prodigal Troll, evolved out of a novella, “A Democracy of Trolls,” that was first published in Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. How did this story develop, from its initial novella form to its current state?
Actually, it worked the other way around. The novella was born of the novel. Back in 1999 or 2000--I forget now--Warner Aspect sponsored a first novel contest that was eventually won by my friend Karin
Lowachee for her amazing novel Warchild. I wrote a present tense fantasy novel about a young boy raised by trolls called A Democracy of Trolls. When I didn’t even make the finalists list with it, I started rewriting it into past tense and excerpting pieces as standalone stories, which were bought by Fantasy & Science Fiction and Black Gate. I’m vastly oversimplifying the story, but eventually Lou Anders got wind of the book and bought it for his debut line at Pyr. He insisted that I make some good changes, including the title. It was a much better book because of the extra revisions.
Interesting, as when I was reading it, I kept feeling as though it were a series of episodic stories tied into a whole. Didn’t know the original story started as a novel first. What sorts of changes did you make to the overall story once you decided to connect the excerpted pieces back into a unified novel?
The Prodigal Troll is an example of a story that I overthought. I wanted to create echoes of Tarzan and The Jungle Book with it, but structurally I also had in mind Daniel Defoe’s novel Captain Singleton, about a young boy who is kidnapped and raised by gypsies, makes a journey across Africa, and then ends up a pirate. So I wanted to show human society from the inside, and troll society from the inside, then explore Claye/Maggot’s inability to fit into either, and then his integration of traits from both cultures as he chooses his own path. I made revisions to emphasize those four distinct parts or phases of the book. The infant Claye/Maggot makes a journey out from the castle, and then returns place by place to the same scene where the book started, but transformed. I also wanted to critique the idea of the noble savage and fantasy’s fascination with nobility-as-heroes. And I was trying to do all that in the context of an entertaining adventure story.
Now I realize it was too much. For one thing, how many people have read Tarzan, The Jungle Book, *and* Captain Singleton? Some reviewers, like Rich Horton, seemed to get exactly what I was trying to do with the book. But for the most part, all the changes I made to emphasize the structure and themes seemed to get in the way of the adventure.
When I read The Prodigal Troll, I too got the Tarzan and The Jungle Book references, but being unfamiliar with that DeFoe work, I wouldn’t have made that connection. In your work since then, besides trying to avoid overthinking, what else has changed about how you approach telling a story?
I’ve tried to make my stories more direct and accessible. Many of my early stories were in conversation with the past, referring to or expanding on ideas or stories by other writers. I think a lot of science fiction is written in this vein, with authors counting on the fact that their readers have read certain other stories or novels that came before. The problem is that, as a culture, we have fewer and fewer pieces of shared written fiction. With “The Political Prisoner” or the Traitor to the Crown books I’ve tried to tell stories that stand alone and are immediate, that can be enjoyed by people whether they’re familiar with the past or not.
You are a member of the Blue Heaven writing group. What was the genesis of that group?
Back in 2003, I was trying to figure out how to make the transition from writing short stories to novels. A lot of my friends were in the same boat. Since we had a boat, we found an island.... Actually, the island found us. Another non-writing friend of mine, Marvin Robinson, owned a bed and breakfast called Himmelblau, or “Blue Heaven,” on Kelleys Island, this beautiful spot in Lake Erie. He had been after me to do a retreat there.
So I brought the two worlds together, and twelve of us spent a week’s retreat on the island critiquing each other’s books. The group that first year included Karin Lowachee, Christopher Barzak, Tobias Buckell, Paul Melko, M. Rickert, Benjamin Rosenbaum, and some other writers who ought to be just as well-known. We’ve been doing it almost every year since, the same core group of us, with new writers filling the empty spots. I’ve been lucky to work with and learn from some of the best young novelists of my generation that way--Paolo Bacigalupi, Daryl Gregory, Sandra McDonald, Tim Pratt, Sarah Prineas, Ian Tregillis, Catherynne Valente, Greg van Eekhout. The list goes on. The last time I counted, we’d sold twenty-five or thirty books.
Blue Heaven has made a huge contribution to my understanding of craft and of the business of writing. And it’s where my best friends are. It’s my favorite week of the year.
How would you describe the way each of you interacts with the others during this annual retreat? Is it akin to a traditional writing workshop, or are there other elements that go into the Blue Heaven retreat?
I wanted it to be like Damon Knight’s Milford workshops, but for novels, and I think that’s what it’s become. So in that sense, it’s very much like a traditional writing workshop. But it also requires a higher level of commitment: everyone reads eleven other first-fifties and at least two complete manuscripts. That’s more reading than for most workshop retreats, and we start preparing for it by mailing list a few months in advance.
We interact the way writers everywhere interact in my experience. We trade ideas about creativity and business, and have great conversations and tell great stories. The isolation creates a situation where we can focus on nothing but writing for a whole week. Most of us have other jobs, other responsibilities, so that immersion is something we look forward to.
Would it be fair to say that Blue Heaven, along with other writers’ retreats and workshops, helps writers not just with the mechanics of their writing, but with the social aspects that sometimes goes with being a published author?
Yes. It would be great to give you a longer, more complicated answer than that, but it’s not that complicated. As writers, we do most of primary work alone. The process takes so long that it takes years to build a body of personal professional experience. Workshopping not only alleviates the effects of isolation, but allows us to draw on the collective experience—successes and mistakes—of our peers. If you’re smart, and you get in with the right group of people, it can dramatically increase your creative and professional development as a writer. The downside is that, if you get with a group you’re not well matched with, it can really slow you down.
I have heard before that there is a major difference between writing short fiction and writing novels. Is there truth to this? Since you have published both short and long fiction, how does your approach vary in the planning and writing of each?
Short stories and novels are very different forms. I’ve written the rough draft of a story in one sitting, but I don’t think anybody has written a decent novel in one sitting. (Although saying that is like daring the internet to prove me wrong.) Short stories allow greater focus, placing a microscope on a single theme or idea. You can also have fun with style or voice without worrying about sustaining it past the point where it’s fun. From a practical perspective, at least for me, novels require greater pre-planning, more research, a plan for sustained writing effort, and so on. The basic unit of the story is the sentence, or maybe the paragraph. The basic unit of the novel is the page or scene. Novels need a much stronger through-arc, and at the same time greater variation in tone and content. You have to hit some of the beats harder, just so they stand out. And the climax has to reward the reader for marching 400 pages to reach it. I find I have to think about things on different scales as I write novels.
One of the criticisms I heard about The Prodigal Troll was that it felt like a fix-up novel, too episodic and meandering. A big part of that was because I was using short story skills to try to fix problems in the pacing and structure. When I started work on my new Traitor to the Crown series, I stopped writing short stories because I just don’t have the chops to jump back and forth as easily as some other writers do. It’s the same reason I stopped writing poetry when I started writing more fiction. I admire those writers who can make the quick and seamless transitions between different forms, but I’m not one of them. Now that I’ve turned in the third book to Del Rey, I’ve been working on some short stories while I outline and plan the next novel project. I love short stories, so ideally I’ll find a way to keep writing them.
How would you describe your prose style to potential readers who are unfamiliar with your work?
I strive to write simply and directly. When I use images or descriptive language, I want it to illuminate and add layers to the world-building or characters. I admire writers who can craft beautiful and moving descriptive prose, and at the same time keep the reader engaged with the story. But I’ve come to learn that’s not my strength.
Would you agree that style, whether it be ornate or a more “transparent,” plain style, is an essential part of the writing process? Which other authors’ styles have you admired most and who, if any, has influenced your prose writing?
Style = voice = what’s on the page. I don’t know how to separate them. But the writers I admire aren’t necessary the ones who’ve influenced my prose. These days, I seem to love writers whose styles aren’t anything like mine--Neal Stephenson, Patrick O’Brian, John LeCarre. Even someone like Naomi Novik, who’s also writing historical fantasy, has a very different voice and style. But if I tried to write like those authors I would sound like a bad imitation of someone else instead of myself. You have to learn what your strengths are and develop those to their fullest potential.
You mention a new trilogy of yours, Traitor to the Crown, that is forthcoming from Del Rey later this year. How would you describe the basic premise? Also, what lessons have you learned from your earlier writing that you incorporated into this trilogy?
Traitor to the Crown is a secret history of the American Revolution, where witches play a crucial role in the outcome of events. I was working as a research assistant on a history of the minutemen when I got to thinking about the connections between the Salem witchcraft trials and the first battles in and around Boston. So many things about the Revolution are still unexplained, starting with who fired the shot heard round the world. The books are about a young minuteman named Proctor Brown who has a hidden talent, and the way he’s drawn toward Deborah Walcott and her underground circle of Salem witches. Together, they change the course of the secret war for control of magic and the world while explaining many of those unsolved mysteries.
I’ve become a better writer over the past five years. The new books are more seamless, with the structure less visible and the adventure more prominent. The themes and the history are woven more smoothly into the narrative. My goal is to tell stories that keep people up all night reading the way my favorite books keep me up all night. I’ve still got room to improve, but I’m closer than I was before.
As a historian by training, I find the synopsis above to be very intriguing. What amount and type of research did you do while constructing the Traitor to the Crown trilogy?
Too much! I was already familiar with a lot of the history and the period from my own graduate school training and related work. So I was familiar with the minutemen, the major battles, and figures like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Betsy Ross. Then I read for the things that are, in Tim Powers’s words, “too cool not to use.” For example, in May 1780, near the end of the war, New England went completely dark in the middle of the day--not an eclipse, but no sun reaching the ground either. People at the time thought it was the end of the world, but it was largely forgotten as the war ended and time passed. Modern scientists have found explanations for it, but--if you’re writing a historical fantasy about the Revolution--you have to grab that and make it about the possible end of the world! There were so many events and people that tied into occult explanations that I couldn’t use them all. Then I did a lot of reading for the things that are too obvious too ignore--the clothes they wore, the food they ate, the version of the Bible that they read, the kinds of houses they lived in.
Interesting. In reading The Patriot Witch, I noticed the pains you went to tie in the characters and their actions with what was unfolding in the Boston area in April 1775. Were there times where you had to bend the “rules” a bit and have actual events take place in an altered time line in order to fit the story? Or did you find yourself having to change the story in order to make it fit in with the actual history to the smallest degree?
I tried not to alter the time line or bend the history. I worked hard to make sure that the historical figures were where in the right places at the right times, doing things that we know they did. With Proctor or the witches at The Farm outside Salem, I found the biggest problem was the need to cover periods of time where things didn’t happen. Phrases like “several days later” or “weeks later” were important throughout the series. In an invented story, I would have smashed events together and made them take place continuously without a break. By the time I got to the third book, it was a gift: Proctor needed to undergo some major changes, and this period of time between events that I wanted to connect was the perfect place for that to happen.
Your 2008 novella, “The Political Prisoner,” was recently announced as being a finalist for a Hugo Award. For readers wanting to know more about it, what would you say was the genesis for the story? Also, what theme or themes were you exploring there?
I went through a phase in college where I read concentration camp survivors like Tadeusz Borowski (This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman) and Primo Levi (Survival in Auschwitz), and, going further back, a Russian Jewish short story writer named Isaac Babel who served with the Cossack cavalry in the suppression of the Poles. The themes in those works—who counts as “human,” what are our obligations to strangers, how do we do right when all choices seem to lead to evil—resonate with me on a deep level. Science fiction is a great medium to explore those themes, because you can make the “non-humans” literally non- or (in this case) post-human. You can draw sharper lines around our obligations. You can move the setting off-earth to amplify and intensify the circumstances and their consequences. It’s like a laboratory for moral exploration.
But if I talk about it that way, it sounds like I’m overthinking things again! This novella is a sequel to “The Political Officer,” which was a Nebula and Hugo finalist in 2003. I started the new story before the first one was published. It took me six years and at least that many drafts to write because it took me that long to learn how to get out of the way and let the experience emerge directly on the page.
Are there any plans for writing more stories set in the world of “The Political Officer” and “The Political Prisoner”? What about the possibility of expanding either one or both of the novellas into full-length novels?
I’ve started a third Maxim Nikomedes novella, “Dukh and Strakh,” which takes place right after “The Political Prisoner,” and moves Max from his home on Jesusalem to the life of a political refugee on Adares, the home of the post-human camp survivors. It took me six years to write the last novella, so I don’t know how long it will take to write this one. It’s still gestating. The three novellas together, with some bridge material, form a single story arc, but I don’t know if there will be any interest in it as a novel. We’ll have to wait and see. I do know that I want to write more Max stories. I have a 30,000 word novella draft of Max as a child, before the civil war on his planet. It’s rough though, and the first part of a sequence of stories about his childhood. I won’t go back to it until after I finish “Dukh and Strakh.”
What are your future writing plans? Are there more short fiction or novel-length works due to be released after your Traitor to the Crown trilogy?
On the short fiction side, I have a Proctor Brown story I’m working on, the new Max novella, and half a dozen other stories in various stages of draft. But for the first time since around 2000, I don’t have any stories in inventory anywhere waiting to be published. These days I only work on short stories when they won’t leave me alone, when I love the character or idea so much I have to finish it. There are enough of those stories that I don’t worry about running out of things to write any time soon.
What I hope is that readers will like Traitor to the Crown enough that I can continue the story during the Civil War. With Mary Lincoln holding seances in the White House, William Mumler taking photographs of spirits on the battlefields, and missing Confederate gold, I think there’s plenty of raw material to start with… even before you get to the men who will later put on hoods and call themselves wizards. But this is a market-driven business: so much is going to depend on whether readers grab onto the first set of books. I’ve run a few ideas for new novels past my agent, including the Civil War series and some contemporary thrillers. I’m at the point where I need to start drafting first chapters for all of those projects so that they’re ready to go if there’s interest in them. Until then it’s wait-and-see.
photograph by Michell Daniel
Charles Coleman Finlay is the author of four novels (including the Traitor To The Crown trilogy, published as C.C. Finlay) and a collection of short stories. His fiction has been translated into numerous languages and reprinted in Year’s Best Fantasy, Year’s Best Science Fiction, and Best New Horror. He’s been a finalist twice for the Nebula Award (in 2003 for “The Political Officer” and in 2009 for “The Political Prisoner"), and has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Sidewise, Sturgeon, and John W. Campbell awards. He’s been an instructor at Clarion and the Alpha Writers Workshop, is the organizer of the Blue Heaven novel writers retreat, and from 2000 to 2007 he was the admin for the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror. He currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife (and sometimes co-author) Rae Carson Finlay and two sons, all smart readers, who keep him honest.
If you want to read some of his free fiction online or want to know more, like how many other famous Charles Finlays there are, you can visit his website at: www.ccfinlay.com
Larry Nolen is a history and English teacher who has taught for most of the past ten years in Tennessee and Florida, in both public and private school settings. Fascinated with languages from an early age, he devotes much of his spare time to reading and translating interviews and articles from Spanish into English. Larry also has an unhealthy fascination with squirrels and dreams to one day edit an anthology of squirrel SF. His blog can be found at ofblog.blogspot.com.
Johanna Sinisalo 2009 Interview
Johanna Sinisalo is nominated for her novelette “Baby Doll.”
Could you share with us a bit about yourself? Your background and life in Finland?
I’m fiftyish, a full-time writer since 1997 (before that I worked in advertising, as a copywriter/executive and a shareholder of the agency; I left to follow my muse). I have an university education, majored in literature and drama, and I also had side studies in journalism and social psychology. I’m living with a soul mate, have an adult daughter with a life of her own, and I’m a very keen mountain hiker – I have hiked, among other routes all over the world, half of the Appalachian Trail in USA in 2007.
I live in a town called Tampere, which is big by Finnish standards, having about 200 000 inhabitants, and it is very beautifully situated between two large lakes, surrounded with forest land.
Your novelette “Baby Doll,” which was recently on the final Nebula Award ballot, concerns the sexuality of prepubescent children who are forced to grow up too soon. I found it relevant to modern life with its emphasis on sexuality and exploitation. What compelled you to write this story?
Everyone who keeps one’s eyes open can see how the adult world has infiltrated the world of children. I have seen eight-year-old girls who wear clothing that, in earlier years, would signal “Hi, sailor!”
I’m not a prude – I know that playing an adult is a very important phase in childhood – but somehow I find it very disturbing that parents do allow their children to be mini-adults at the age when kids themselves do not really realize what kind of signals they’re sending around.
I had observed that phenomenon for quite a time, but what compelled me to do the actual story was when I was asked to write a short story for a crime fiction anthology. The brief was: combine crime with sexuality and/or eroticism. I did not want to write the obvious passion crime story or the story of erotic blackmail etc., and I gave the brief a lot of thinking time – and then I saw Repo Man, in which the petty criminal, when finally caught, said “I blame the society.” And I thought: hell, what if I wrote a crime story where the society really was the guilty party? The society – and the media? The peer pressure? And so “Baby Doll” was born.
To you, what makes this a speculative fiction story? Or is it?
To be honest, it is not a speculative fiction piece at all. Most of the feedback I have got has been like “I hated to read it because it was just like things are” or “It truly repulsed me and then I looked around and realized that omigod, we are living in that reality.” It is a comment on present day, but I had to write is as projected to the future, because it is the only way to make people to accept the premise – we do not want so see the obvious unless it’s somehow alienated.
English is a second language to you and since you write in your native Finnish language your work is often translated. Tell us about that.
Actually, English is not my second but my third language (Swedish is the second) and I have learned English at school like most Finns. I am not fluent enough to write fiction in English, so it’s obvious I’m depending on translators. “Baby Doll” was translated by David Hackston, who is British, but James and Kathy Morrow helped us edit the story to suit the American market (mostly language-wise).
Because in Finland we have just five million inhabitants, it’s crucial to know other languages. In addition to Swedish and English, I can get along with German and French, and I can speak and read even some Italian. For me, I’m often envious that you Americans can go almost anywhere in the world and be understood in your own native language!
I’m very proud of the Nebula nomination, because it seems extremely rare that a translated work gets nominated. As far as I know, there has been only two translated stories nominated for a Nebula before” Baby Doll”, and both of those were by very renowned writers, namely Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges. It’s a tremendous honour to be in that kind of company.
What is the speculative fiction scene in Finland like? How is it different than in English-speaking countries.
Actually, we have a very active sf/f community in Finland. Our national con, Finncon, is the biggest speculative fiction festival in Europe and attracts several thousand visitors. I have to mention that in spite of the fact that it is a three-day long con with foreign GoHs and a very ambitious program, Finncon is free to attend for everyone (and thus even mundanes drop in and have fun), the expenses are covered by sponsors, advertisers and public grants (and the volunteers who arrange all this are to be hailed highly). In other aspects, the scene is very similar to English-speaking countries – we have lots of sf/f clubs, websites, some very good prozines, etc.
It is true that in Finland the tradition in literature and cinema has been mostly realistic, but in past few decades we have seen more and more of speculative fiction and slipstream, and this trend has become more and more accepted in the literary circles in the past years.
How would you describe your fiction?
This is a tough question. I have some favourite themes that seem to surface regularly, like the question of equality in society (feminist touches here and there, of course), our domestic mythology, and the dichotomy between nature and culture. Sometimes I like to experiment with structure – compile polyphonic stories, or otherwise break the narration with fictitious or genuine documents, citations, etc. My novel Troll – A Love Story is a good example of this technique.
Of course I want my stories to have several layers – they are not just the plot. I was so glad that the jury of James Tiptree, Jr. Award (coming up later) realized exactly that.
Do you have a set writing schedule or do you write when the muse strikes you?
As a professional writer, I have to set schedules. I actually prefer working with a deadline, because that makes me sit down and write, even if I don’t particularly feel like it just then. When I have too much freedom with my schedule, I find myself being very creative – namely coming up with excuses why not to work just now.
Your novel, Troll—a Love Story, which tied for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2004, has been translated into English and published in the USA. What can you tell us about it?
It is set in an alternate history Finland which is, in every other aspect, just the normal Finland, but there is this large wild beast, troll, living in our forests. All the troll mythos and stories and fairy tales we know are thus based on this actual living animal species. In the beginning of the novel, a young photographer finds a sick troll pup and takes it home – and after that everything changes.
The novel was quite a success – it won the national Finlandia Award, the most prestigious literary award in Finland in 2000, and has thus far been translated to almost 20 languages. That’s not very usual for a Finnish book. Even the movie rights option has been bought in the USA.
You edited an anthology called “The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy.” When compiling these stories, what were you looking for?
I was looking for stories and novel excerpts that would be somehow very Finnish. We have our share of post-Tolkien standard fantasy like most western countries, but I tried to search for literature that would reflect Finnish themes and the Finnish way of thinking. We have a very strong, original, and unique mythology, in which nature plays a remarkable role, and our history produces interesting points of view as well. I also wanted to do a historical cross-cut, so there are samples of both the very old and the most modern works, and everything in between. There’s also one story of my own included (requested by the publisher), so, if you are interested, go for the Amazon!
Who are a few of your literary influences? Who do you like to read for pleasure?
I particularly like some authors who have experimented with both of the sf/f /slipstream and so-called contemporary fiction, like Margaret Atwood and Michel Tournier. Some classic writers like Jane Austen and Vladimir Nabokov never cease to charm me. Of genre writers I, of course, have to mention Ursula K. Le Guin. But there are hundreds of sf/f authors who have written things that have impressed me a lot: China Miéville, Lucius Shepard, Jeff Noon, Connie Willis, Gene Wolfe. I recently read David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, and just adored it. It’s not perfect, but it represents that kind of post-modern writing I just appreciate.
As a comics fan and writer, I also have to mention Neil Gaiman and his brilliant Sandman.
What are you working on now?
I’m writing the script for a movie, an internationally produced sf comedy, titled Iron Sky. It’s currently in pre-production. The premise is “In 1945 the Nazis went to the Moon. In 2018, they are coming back.” Go to www.ironsky.net and watch the trailer – it’s worth it! Some of you may know a sf parody movie Star Wreck, which was distributed online, and has had like 9 million downloads this far. Iron Sky is made by the very same garage Kubricks, but this time they have professional producers and four million funding euros from Germany (!) and Britain to help! It has been a lot of fun to work with these awesome guys. Their special effects skills are to watch out for, and the story is nothing like the usual stuff (to be a bit arrogant, here).
What are your plans for the future? Goals? Aspirations?
I’m working on a new novel and have negotiations on the way to perhaps join the team of an animated TV show for kids. As I have written a lot for television and do know a thing or two about screenwriting, I really would like to work on more scripts – more movies, or, to be very ambitious, some HBO-style slipstream TV series.
Johanna Sinisalo was born in 1958 in Sodankylä, Finnish Lapland, and now lives in the town of Tampere. She has studied theatre and drama and worked in advertising for 15 years before becoming a full-time writer. She started her writing career with sf/f short stories, and has this far been awarded with the national Atorox Award for the best domestic sf/f short story seven times. She has also written a generous amount of reviews, articles, comic scripts and screenplays, and edited two anthologies, including The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy.
Sinisalo’s debut novel Not Before Sundown a.k.a. Troll – a Love Story got the most prestigious literary award in Finland, the Finlandia Prize in the year 2000, and tied the James Tiptree Jr. Award in 2004.
She has published three other novels and a story collection and her works have been translated to almost twenty languages.
Marshall Payne has worked as a touring musician, music producer, sound technician, a salesman, and a waiter. He has written over 100 short stories and his fiction has or will appear in Aeon Speculative Fiction, Brutarian, Talebones, Fictitious Force, to name a few. He has a website at http://marshallpayne.com/ and a blog at http://marshallpayne1.livejournal.com/.
Mary E. Pearson 2009 Interview
Mary E. Pearson is an Andre Norton Awards finalist for her novel The Adoration of Jenna Fox.
What made you decide you wanted to write for young adults?
I am not sure I decided or chose to write for young adults. Those are the characters who spoke to me. I do love the teen years because it is such a pivotal time in our lives. We make many big decisions that can affect us for the rest of our lives. I know many decisions I made in my teen years have altered the course of my life. As a writer, I also have way more patience with teen characters who are making mistakes than with adult characters and since I spend a couple of years writing a book, patience is essential!
At what point did you decide you wanted to pursue writing professionally?
I was teaching second grade and trying to write on breaks and then when it looked like my job might be cut or I might have to transfer, I decided to quit and take a year off and actually finish the book I had been working on. And then I finished another one and sold it. I always intended to go back to teaching but writing there was always one more manuscript to finish up. Soon I realized I was a full time writer for good. That was fifteen years ago.
In your opinion, what are the qualities that make a book suitable for YA?
As for what actually makes a YA book a YA book that is a tough question. A few years back it would have been easier to answer because YA seemed to have more parameters: length, maturity, etc. None of those seem to apply now, and really, no one can agree on exactly what makes a YA a YA. For me, I think YA, most of the time, simply means the main character is a teen and it is written from a teen perspective, that is, not an adult looking back on their teen years. The questions of suitability is a whole different animal. Teens, and their reading interests, are every bit as varied as adults are, so I don’t think there are any one group of factors that makes a book more suitable to be a YA book. If I were to substitute the word adult for the term YA you can see how impossible it would be to answer that!
With several novels attached to your name, is writing the next novel easier or more difficult?
I always thought that once I had a published book I would be infused with immediate confidence and wisdom when it came to my writing. Maybe if I wrote the same story over and over again I would have that, but what I have found is that each story is unchartered territory that I have to find my way through, often with new processes and tools I haven’t used before. It doesn’t get easier, but I suppose that is what keeps it interesting and challenging for me too and yes, sometimes frustrating.
How have you improved as an author over the years?
I have learned to slow down and pay attention to the characters and what they have to say. Writing is such a mystery. Where do the voices come from? The snippets of dialogue that surprise you? The previously unknown characters who step on stage and turn your story around? Or the characters who are suddenly more pivotal than you imagined? I have learned to shrug when a story goes in a direction I hadn’t seen coming say, here we go-- and feel more like a participant watching it unfold than the architect of it all. So I guess you could say I have learned to trust the process more than I used to even when I feel very uncertain about it all… I trust that it will all work out somehow. That is a huge improvement for someone who liked to control all variables!
What influenced you to write The Adoration of Jenna Fox?
Two questions drove the story: First, How far would a parent go to save their child? And secondly, How far will medicine advance in another fifty years? I asked myself both of these questions when my youngest daughter was diagnosed with cancer, but still I didn’t think they would ever turn into a story. Years later these questions melded with an image I had of a girl looking out over water who I knew had been in some sort of accident and was recovering. By exploring these questions through the very different circumstances and time period of Jenna Fox, I was able to achieve the distance I needed to explore these questions.
What kind of research did you have to do for the book?
Since Jenna had brain damage of a sort, I needed to brush up on my basic brain anatomy, and also learn as much as I could about how the brain and mind work. I also read up on brain damage, stroke victims, language acquisition… anything I could to help me build this new world that Jenna was living in. I also tried to find what all the cutting edge research was in medicine and technology, and then just push it a little past that. It was a challenge because medicine and technology is advancing so rapidly, sometimes things that I thought were in the outer reaches of possibility were actually very close to reality. Prosthetics, for example were advancing by leaps and bounds as I wrote the novel and I had to keep upping the possibilities.
Any recent details on the movie adaptation?
Apparently the screenwriter has finished the screenplay and now she and the director are working on finishing touches together. I can’t wait to read what they have done!
For unfamiliar readers, which books of yours would you recommend they start with?
My books are all so different. I don’t write within just one genre. If they want something light and funny, David v. God, if they want romance, Scribbler of Dreams, for gritty contemporary, A Room on Lorelei Street, for science fiction, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, and if they want something more in the slipstream genre, I would go with my newest book out this September, The Miles Between. I write the stories that speak to me, and whatever genre they fit into comes later.
What projects are you currently working on?
It’s a secret. I don’t talk about my works-in-progress, but I will say that I think fans of The Adoration of Jenna Fox will be surprised--and I hope, pleased.
Mary E. Pearson writes for teens. Her books include: THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX, A ROOM ON LORELEI STREET, SCRIBBLER OF DREAMS, and her newest out in September, THE MILES BETWEEN. Her books have received numerous awards and honors including the South Carolina Young Adult Book Award, the Golden Kite Award, the ALA’s Best Books for Young Adults lists, NYPL Best Books for the Teen Age, and her latest was an Andre Norton finalist. She writes full time from her home in San Diego where she lives with her husband and two dogs. You can visit her blog at Live Journal for news and updates.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Gwyneth Jones 2009 Interview
Gwyneth Jones is nominated for her short story “The Tomb Wife”.
Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, what’s the appeal of science fiction for you?
It’s a way of thinking: basically, I’m insatiably curious. What is sex for? What do scientific revolutions look like? Why do human societies develop the way they do? What would be the consequences of a change that seems desirable? Or undesirable? Reading and thinking about (or otherwise consuming and creating) science fiction seems to tell me more about the world around me than any other art form.
What are the goals that you think a writer is capable of achieving through their fiction? What are your goals when you write?
I think I’m with Joseph Haydn here. He said something like, composing music gave him immense pleasure, and the thought that his delight in music might also give pleasure and comfort to others, even if it was only sometimes, made him very happy.
What’s the experience of juggling two pen names like? What are the advantages/disadvantages to you personally?
I’m never conscious of juggling.
Which are you more comfortable with, writing for teens or for adults? Or are both forms natural for you and it’s only after you’ve written the story or novel that you decide which is a better fit for your audience?
Usually I know what I’m doing. I enjoy both forms equally, and it’s very clear to me that when I write as Ann Halam I’m writing for adolescents, not for children, nor for kidults (I mean the Harry Potter type adult audience). But sometimes the distinction slips. The book I’m writing at the moment is supposed to be an Ann Halam, but it’s more adult in theme and treatment than I’ve ever tackled as AH before.
How about the short story vs. the novel, which is easier to write for you? What’s the advantage of each format?
I wrote some “modern fairytales” long, long ago, but for most of my career I’ve felt more at home writing novels. I draft, draft and redraft, I research and ponder everything, and the net result can be that my short stories take almost as long to write as a novel. Lately I’ve been getting better at short stories, and learning to enjoy the game
You’ve written several novels over the past few decades. In your opinion, how has your writing today improved since the last novel you published? Is writing easier for you easier or more difficult?
The ideation in some of my early sf novels was fierce! I was trying to understand, and translate into fiction, some very big ideas, plus I had (still have, but I’ve tamed it a little) a passion for economy of expression. Every word a wanted word was my rule, not a single sentence that didn’t absolutely have to be there. It was intense and exhilarating, keeping that up over 100,000 words; and a knotty experience for the reader. Nowadays I write more easily, and I think my narratives have more space.
How does the critic in you affect your writing?
Well, it means I tend to know what’s going on. I’m aware of the wealth of other science fiction that’s gone into forming my own work, and I’m more aware of the bigger picture in the genre, at any given time, than the non-critic novelist.
Currently, who are the authors that impress you?
I’ve been enjoying Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet. Anything by Kathleen Ann Goonan. Plus, recently I found an arty futuristic novel, kind of a thriller, called “The Art Of Murder”, Jose Carlos Somoza, translated from the Spanish, which blew me away. Somoza immediately became a star, for me.
Regarding your Nebula story, what was the inspiration for “The Tomb Wife?”
The story’s about a kind of interstellar travel, set on a kind of starship, and features an exotic alien character, but really the inspiration is rather personal. It’s about not wanting to go on, after a loss; not wanting to let go of a world that’s over. A mood that overtakes most people from time to time I suppose, as they grow older.
What projects are you currently working on?
A gothic novel by Ann Halam. A novella (I think!) set in the same milieu as The Tomb Wife; and as my recent UK novel, Spirit. A critical essay, a presentation on Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji for Brighton Festival; and that’s about it.
Gwyneth Jones is a writer and critic of science fiction and fantasy, who also writes teenage fiction as “Ann Halam”. She lives in Brighton UK. Her latest novel is Spirit, Gollancz UK.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
James Alan Gardner 2009 Interview
James Alan Gardner is nominated for his novelette “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story”.
Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, what’s the appeal of science fiction for you?
Science fiction seems to be the only genre interested in large-scale events. I don’t just mean intergalactic wars and blowing up suns (although that stuff can be fun); I mean anything that leads to substantial changes in the world.
Consider, for example, how conventional literature would treat Einstein. It might talk about his home life or his relationships with other scientists; it might try to analyze what made him so brilliant; it might examine the psychological consequences of being idolized as the smartest man on Earth. What conventional literature *can’t* do is say, “This guy changed the world! This guy significantly altered how we look at ourselves and the universe.” Other genres of literature ignore everything but the personal.
Science fiction can and does do the personal—not always with nuance—but it also has bigger fish to fry. Its perennial message is, “The world of today is fleeting; it wasn’t here yesterday and won’t be here tomorrow.” Science fiction says the world can and will be changed by individuals, by societies, and by impersonal forces. That’s an enormously important message that other genres barely seem to notice, let alone address.
How about your background in Applied Mathematics, does it have any impact on your fiction?
I wrote a story called “Kent State Descending the Gravity Well: An Analysis of the Observer” which I think is one of the best things I’ve done. It’s directly based on my Master’s thesis on black holes; it plays on the actual mathematical model of a black hole and draws out an analogy with the difficulties of how science fiction stories are framed.
I’ve already said that the great strength of science fiction is its willingness to address large-scale issues...but one of SF’s weaknesses is the tendency to tell a very limited range of stories. If, for example, we’re talking about technological change, there’s a great temptation to frame it in a way where technology goes disastrously wrong. We don’t have a lot of examples where someone invents something new and nothing bad happens at all. In “Kent State” I used mathematics to talk about the cheap-and-easy “you’ve seen it all before” stories that SF is often guilty of.
Apart from that, I like to throw in math where I can, but it’s an uphill slog to get equations past editors.
How have your experiences with Writers of the Future and Clarion West helped improve your writing? What were the valuable lessons you learned in each?
Both brought me into contact with other novice writers who were pretty much my peers. Many of us were all coming to the ends of our “apprenticeships” and about to break into the big leagues. It’s great to live with such people for a while and bask in the company of intelligent folks who think writing is a wonderful way to spend one’s time.
Of course, WotF and Clarion both taught me new ways of looking at stories. The WotF workshop was a week taught by Algis Budrys: a seasoned pro of the old school. Clarion West was six weeks long, instructed by Orson Scott Card, Karen Joy Fowler, Connie Willis, Lucius Shepard, Amy Stout, and Roger Zelazny—a tremendous line-up, each of whom gave me so many insights and tips I couldn’t possibly list them all. (But I still remember most of them and use them every day.)
What was the biggest hurdle you had to overcome before getting published?
The biggest hurdle was really just getting serious. For years I wrote but didn’t make a systematic effort to put things in the mail. Admittedly, that was probably a good thing—I wrote a lot of the usual novice crap, and if by some miracle some of it had got published, I’d now be dying of shame. During those years, I spent much of my writing time on self-indulgences...including a number of plays that were good enough for small local theatre productions but had no higher ambitions.
In the year leading up to Writers of the Future and Clarion West, I got more disciplined in sending things out. By then I was close to being ready for prime time...so things began to sell within a few months. But my biggest hurdle was simply getting my act together and saying, “I really have to go about this in a business-like way, rather than remaining in my comfort zone as an amateur.”
Which are you more comfortable writing, short stories or novels? What in your opinion are the strengths of each?
Every story and novel is different. I’ve whipped off some stories in a few days; others have taken weeks and weeks. When a short story falls into a long slog, it’s *really* painful—I feel as if a short story shouldn’t be that much work. I can see the end of the story hanging out in sight, and for some reason, I just can’t get there. With novels, I expect to be a tortoise rather than a hare, so it’s not as frustrating when it feels like I’m not making progress.
My short stories are more idiosyncratic than my novels, and I like that about them...but novels pay better and something in the back of my head keeps saying that novels are more *important* than short stories. (Of course that’s nonsense, but who ever manages to make those voices in the back of their head shut up?)
One strength of a short story is that it doesn’t have to be sustainable for too long. “The Ray-Gun”, for example, has a tone of voice that wouldn’t really work at novel length—it’s too dry. A novel needs ups and downs and lots of variation, but a short story can do a single thing with full intensity.
The strength of a novel is, of course, the opposite: it *has* that variation. Of course, a novel also has the advantage of time; the reader lives with a novel’s characters for a lot longer and bonds with them in a different way. A story can deliver a short sharp shock, but a novel can become a long-time friend.
How did you end up writing Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Man of Bronze? What’s your opinion of media tie-in fiction?
The easy answer is that I wrote it because I was asked...and I was asked because I’ve written a number of action-adventure books with strong female protagonists, so Lara was right up my alley.
I confess I’m also a video game addict, so I was delighted for the chance to play with one of the industry’s foremost heroes. Furthermore, the people behind the books were great; they let me write the book the way I wanted to, with practically no restrictions and a lot of helpful input.
So I had a blast writing Lara and I came up with plenty of fun scenes. How does that compare with media tie-in fiction in general? To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever read any other book of that type: no Star Trek, Star Wars, or the like. Oh wait...I read all “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” books back in the 1960’s. I was, of course, around 12 years old. I remember those as being fantastic (though I suspect I wouldn’t think the same today). They were the last media tie-in books I ever read.
When you wrote the first League of Peoples novels, did you originally plan it to stretch out this long? How did you initially come up with the concept?
If you’re going to write adventures with interstellar travel, you need to answer a fundamental question: “Why haven’t we met aliens yet?” Different writers have answered that in different ways: for example, that we *have* met aliens but didn’t realize it, or that interstellar travel is so expensive and difficult that aliens can’t be bothered. My initial answer wasn’t very original—that there’s an interstellar authority which forbids contact with “pristine” races like us—but then I dug deeper into the nature of that interstellar authority. If they wanted to protect untouched cultures, they must be reasonably benign...but I didn’t want them total goody-goodies. It was a small leap from there to the idea of, “Do what you like as long as you don’t bother your neighbors. If you cause trouble, you’re dead.”
Another important influence came from Samuel R. Delany. In one of his books (I believe it’s in “The Fall of the Towers” trilogy), he represents superior intelligence as the ability to predict events better than lesser intelligences. A human who wants to cross a street can look at cars in the distance and immediately judge how long it will take them to drive past...in other words, whether or not it’s safe to cross. A dog can’t do that; the dog’s eyesight is as good as a human’s, but its brain doesn’t have enough calculating power to assess the situation. Delany extrapolated from that to hyperintelligent non-humans; in his book, these non-humans can, for example, look at a coin spinning in the air and immediately judge whether it will land heads or tails. They’re amused that humans are too slow-witted to do the same.
I borrowed that concept: in the League of Peoples, the criterion of intelligence is the ability to predict the consequences of one’s actions. Humans are at the bottom of that totem pole, slowly evolving through the transition from animal ignorance to something higher. The best among us seriously care about the effects of what we do; the worst don’t.
All the League of Peoples stories grew from those two threads: “Don’t bother your neighbors” and “Intelligence is being able to predict the results of your actions.” Those threads have ramifications that haven’t yet come out in the stories; at some point, I’d like to do another League book or two to reveal more secrets.
What was the inspiration for “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story?”
When people ask me about science fiction, I always talk about the serious stuff (as in my answers to preceding questions). But I add that I also love SF because of spaceships and time machines and exploding planets and ray-guns. Despite the horrendous things that happen in science fiction and the grim importance of some subject matter, the genre also has a sense of exuberance that I’d hate to lose. Science fiction must always have a place for ray-guns. So I began to think about a ray-gun story for the twenty-first century: something that basked in the old gosh-wow but had the level of sophistication we now expect. “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” was the result.
Were there any difficulties in writing that novelette? What made you decide to make Jack’s love story run parallel with that of the ray-gun?
My approach was based on the idea of “stone soup” that Kirsten mentions in the final scene: that the novelette’s action arises from stories the human characters impose on the gun, and that the gun itself is simply an inert cipher. Thus the plot comes completely from Jack’s maturing narratives as he grows up. When he’s a kid, having a ray-gun makes him an action hero; when he discovers girls, the ray-gun turns into a symbol of how open he’s prepared to be; when he feels he’s been betrayed by Deana, the gun is about hurt and vengeance; when he’s finally ready for an adult love, the gun is the token of intimacy. (Of course, since this *is* a science fiction story, I turn everything on its head in the end...but still.)
What projects are you currently working on?
With the attention “The Ray-Gun” is getting, I’m preparing a number of pitches in the hope of catching an editor’s interest. Oddly enough, I’m looking at fantasy rather than science fiction… though in a science-fictional way.
I’ve always been interested in the concept of archetypes and the way that people so eagerly substitute mythology for reality. So I’m stirring together a lot of high archetypal ideas (including magic), but in light of the principle that you shouldn’t confuse myth with real life, *even if the myths have an element of truth*. We fill our heads with stories that were true once upon a time, but aren’t anymore; we treat the stories as real and ignore any experiences that conflict with them.
Not only is this a relevant topic for our current lives, I think it will become more important as time goes on. Technology has the potential to make us into beings akin to old myths. How do we still keep our heads straight?
So I’m looking at novels involving such ideas. I just hope the ideas don’t get lost in the usual complications of plot, action, character, etc., etc.
James Alan Gardner lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. He has published eight science fiction novels and a collection of short stories. Gardner has won the Aurora award twice, and has been a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Mike Allen 2009 Interview
Mike Allen is nominated for his short story “The Button Bin.”
Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Let’s talk about your nominated story, “The Button Bin.” What was the inspiration behind the piece?
Years ago my wife and I were visiting a charming fabric shop at the center of an equally charming little mountain town. While she shopped I took a seat beside an immense bin – an RC Cola machine, I believe, lying on its back with its front and all the mechanical parts removed – filled to the top with every kind of button you could imagine. Like any decent primate attracted to shinies, I started to run my hand through it, discovered I could submerge my arm in buttons at least past the elbow.
Then, I wondered: what if I pulled my arm out and the buttons had attached themselves to my skin? What if I could then unbutton my flesh, see what my soul looks like?
It may say a lot about how dark my view of the world can be that the entire plot of “The Button Bin” exploded into existence inside my head right then and there.
Using a second-person perspective is a tricky technique. What made you utilize this method?
The final line of the story wouldn’t work if I told it any other way. So I firmly believe.
At risk of tainting how others experience the story: I see “Button Bin” as an interior monologue. The narrator is addressing himself in a manner that borders on stream-of-consciousness. That’s why I did all these wacky things I’d be afraid to try in a more conventional story: second-person, present tense, no quotation marks, etc. Writing it that way made the story move when it hadn’t before.
What was the most difficult part in writing the story?
Without a doubt, figuring out how to tell it. From the moment of that download from the Muse in the fabric shop I was certain I had a terrific idea, at least in my head, but every time I attempted to set it down on paper it quickly grew bogged down and boring. I hung up on issues of style and plot. As I originally conceived it, at first the narrator didn’t know who the owner of the button bin was, and I couldn’t quite piece together how he figured it out — years went by before it occurred to me to just have someone tell him. Eureka!
Yet that was just part of the problem. The hallucinatory images and furious emotions that fueled the story as it existed in my brain didn’t appear on the page until I approached it in second-person present tense, the way I’ve sometimes written poems. I have to give some oblique credit to Joe Hill (specifically, Heart-Shaped Box and “The Black Phone”) and Cormac McCarthy (specifically Blood Meridian). Somehow exposure to those writings gave me tools I needed, in terms of plotting and voice, to get this single story done the way it needed to be done.
I think it’s true, too, that at the time I had the idea I didn’t yet have the life knowledge or writing skill to bring it to life as a full-blown story. I couldn’t pull it off without the experiences I gained in those intervening years as both a crime reporter and a poet.
How has your poetry background aided you in your fiction writing?
I’m not sure it has, in a larger sense, though I think it helped me in this instance. First, the second-person perspective, rare in fiction, is not that uncommon in poetry, so I had a fair amount of practice with it. Second, poetry plays an active role in this story: the sharing of favorite poems is essential to the friendship between the narrator and his niece.
More generally, writing poetry makes you sensitive to the sounds and rhythms of language, always a handy thing in any kind of writing. The subjective viewpoint of “The Button Bin” allowed me some flourishes along those lines that I hope add to its intensity.
Maybe, though, there is a pragmatic side to this poetry thing. In my day job, I work as a reporter, and over the past ten years I’ve written well over two thousand news stories. That can tap directly into the same well of energy and creativity that my poetry and fiction comes out of. Because of this it can take me a long time to finish a short story when I don’t have a hard deadline. The poetry has been a way to keep my creative baubles out there where they can be seen while I plod along on larger works.
How about your experiences editing anthologies like Clockwork Phoenix?
I have to say, in terms of experience, the next best thing to writing short stories is editing them. You can learn from others’ mistakes and others’ triumphs, and when unsolicited submissions pour in you’ll get direct exposure with a number of both in short order.
I’m a hands-on editor, as several of my contributors could tell you, but I’ll confess, it’s still much easier for me to deduce how to fix problems in someone else’s story than in one of my own. I think that has to do with distance. I can look at a story I’m editing for one of the Clockwork Phoenix books and say, here’s what the story does, here’s what I think it should be doing, here’s how to get there. With one of my own stories, of course, I know exactly what I intended — but is it really there on the page? I can’t always see whether it is or not. That’s why reliable and patient beta readers are just so damn essential. In the case of “The Button Bin,” those readers were Cathy Reniere, Jessica Wick and Sonya Taaffe. To them, my heartfelt thanks!
Can you tell us more about speculative poetry?
I can tell you a lot more than we have room to discuss.
The speculative poetry community is a lively, thriving entity inside the larger universe of speculative literature. Most of the major short fiction outlets publish poetry, and nearly all of the smaller ones do.
If you want to get a sense of what goes on in speculative poetry, I’d recommend starting in two places. First, the archives at Strange Horizons hold strong examples from just about every major voice in speculative poetry going back over the past 30 years. (Not to mention there’s a pretty wide sampling there of my own best work.) The editors who do the picking, Harold Bowes, Mardel James, Roger Dutcher and Mark Rudolph, are all accomplished veterans who publish or have published poetry journals of their own. Quite a few of the print mags that use poetry, Asimov’s especially, slant toward short humorous verse — which I think has inadvertently created a grossly wrong impression of what speculative poetry is about — while Strange Horizons has room and inclination for much more serious and ambitious work. I think it’s fair to say they represent the field’s “mainstream.”
Now, once you visit there, slide on over and have a look at the new kid on the block, Goblin Fruit, edited by two talented young women in their twenties, Amal El-Mohtar and Jessica Wick, with an emphasis on fantasy and folktale. These folks just broke the record for number of poems from a single publication nominated for the Rhysling Award. Explore the archives there, and you’ll see some overlap with Strange Horizons, but you’ll also see an almost completely different set of poets. What you’re looking at here is a new direction in speculative poetry (though technically, it’s been simmering for several years) that is going to become even more dominant in the years ahead.
I publish my own poetry journal, Mythic Delirium, that I feel falls somewhere between these two poles in its content. My newest issue features Neil Gaiman, so, you know, it’s not just career poets that play in these sands.
What motivated you to champion this medium?
Enlightened self-interest, of course. I write it, so I want people to read it.
When first I started volunteering with the Science Fiction Poetry Association, I quickly developed a sense the ship had lost its rudder, and wound up running for president in what was the organization’s first (and so far only) contested election. Becoming a spokesperson of sorts for speculative poetry essentially came with the job, and I set about (with many others’ help!) trying to raise my field’s profile at least a tad. Though my successor as president, Debbie Kolodji, is doing a fine job of steering, some of that advocacy role seems to have followed me off the boat. I don’t guess I mind.
As a writer, what challenges are you currently facing?
The usual: getting things finished. Then getting them published. Then getting them noticed. It’s funny, you know. Learning how to write isn’t enough. Learning how to promote your work is at least as important.
What projects are you currently working on?
Dare I say it? A novel. But who isn’t?
The first two episodes of my book in progress, stories called “The Hiker’s Tale” and “Follow the Wounded One,” have been quietly published in out of the way places, though reviewers who’ve noticed them, like Rich Horton, have said nice things about them. I’m now into what might be the fifth or sixth episode, and still going. I hope to finish the complete draft this year, we’ll see.
What I know will be out soon is the second anthology in the Clockwork Phoenix series, coming this July. Hopefully we’ll once again be able to debut the book at ReaderCon. It features a new novelette in Tanith Lee’s “Flat Earth” series, and new stories from Mary Robinette Kowal, Catherynne M. Valente, Marie Brennan, Steve Rasnic Tem, Gemma Files, Claude Lalumière and a host of others. I think the second volume is even stranger than the first; we’ll see what folks make of that.
Mike Allen wears many hats, and occasionally they’re purple. He edits a poetry zine, Mythic Delirium, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, and the anthology series Clockwork Phoenix, fhe first volume of which made the 2008 Locus Recommended Reading List. Obviously, he also writes fiction; stories have appeared in Interzone and Weird Tales, with new ones scheduled this year in Tales of the Talisman, Cabinet des Fées, and the Norilana Books anthology Sky Whales and Other Wonders. He lives in Roanoke, Va. with his wife Anita, a demonic cat, and a comical dog. You can view his website at www.descentintolight.com and read his LiveJournal at http://time-shark.livejournal.com. He also for no apparent reason has accounts with MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Richard Bowes 2009 Interview
Richard Bowes is nominated for his novelette “If Angels Fight”.
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. When you were a kid, did you ever imagine that you’d be a writer?
Writing wasn’t that alien a career when I was growing up. My father was an editor and ended up writing high school textbooks. My mother wrote for TV in Boston in the 1950’s. A couple of her uncles were well known Irish authors. One of them was Liam O’Flaherty who wrote the Informer.
I’d had a lot of problems in school - dyslexia among other things. If something really interested me I’d read it compulsively. Otherwise it was slow torture. But I could always talk and always write - express myself in words.
When I was in my late teens I decided that I wanted to write and my parents were good with it. There was no immediate way they could see me getting killed writing - unlike some of my other interests. Unfortunately once I decided to write, I froze and couldn’t write at all.
I’d flunked out of the first college I’d gone to. At the next one I took a writing class and the teacher Mark Eisenstein was great at getting blocked kids started. Years later I wrote a novella called “My Life in Speculative Fiction” about that time and that experience. It’s in my collection Streetcar Dreams and Other Midnight Fancies and in an earlier out-of-print collection Transfigured Night and Other Stories.
What made you finally take that plunge into writing professionally?
When I think of someone writing professionally, I envision her/him making a living at it. When I got out of school and moved to Manhattan I was twenty-two and for a few years I worked as a fashion copywriter in the Garment District. Outside of that time, I’ve never made a major part of my income writing.
What’s the biggest hurdle you had to overcome before getting published?
My lifestyle: after college there was a long period where I wrote almost nothing. I was young I was gay in New York. I had major drug and alcohol problems. I was busy. After a while I got things together and a while after that I started to write Spec Fiction. The SF first novel I completed sold quite quickly and I thought it was all going to be a piece of cake.
What’s the appeal of speculative fiction?
It’s where I was lucky enough to find people willing to buy my work and to read it. Spec fiction has the last of the viable short fiction markets. Short form work gets reviewed, talked about, given awards, anthologized. About twenty years ago I started writing short stories. I’ve written forty-two of them in the last twenty years. All but the first one I wrote have been published and even that got cannibalized.
What’s the best piece of advice you received from Mark Eisenstein?
Write what turns you on. Nobody is going to be interested in what you write if you aren’t.
What was the inspiration for your Time Ranger stories?
History: it drove my father crazy that I learned all my history from historical novels and Time Travel/Alternate Reality Spec fiction. Some serious history books I find very readable but most of them are deadly. From the Files of the Time Rangers is kind of my historical novel.
It’s a mosaic novel - made up of short stories as is my earlier Minions of the Moon. A lot of the stories were my attempts at different forms. One that made the Nebula short list a few years ago, “The Ferryman’s Wife” was my version of a 1950’s John Cheever/New Yorker story set in the suburbs but with Time Rangers, Greek Gods and an 18th century English Noblewoman thrown into the mix.
In Jeffrey Ford’s interview with you, you mentioned that you used to write rules for board games. What was that experience like?
Well, a lot of it was good, clean fun and sometimes the money wasn’t at all bad. We did commercial games (sold in stores) and promotional games (ones companies used to push products, ideas etc). I learned a lot about plotting and multiple viewpoints. Board games from Monopoly to Dungeons and Dragons are closer to dramas than short stories or novels.
Did you encounter any difficulty writing your “If Angels Fight” story?
It was a struggle - they all are. The year I wrote that novelette I only finished one other story. The parts set in 1950’s Boston - the scene on the river ice, the moment when young senator Kennedy visits his aunt on her birthday and the rest - came from memory and were pretty easy. The present day material and the time lines were harder.
What’s the most difficult aspect of being a writer? The most rewarding?
I wrote about this in a piece published last year called, “I Like Writing but Hate Being a Writer”
The actual writing is maddening but also wonderfully satisfying. A lot of the rest of it I’m less fond of.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m turning “If Angels Fight”, an earlier Nebula nominee “There’s a Hole in the City” and a lot of my other recent stories into a mosaic novel tentatively called, Dust Devil: A Life in Speculative Fiction.
Richard Bowes was born and raised in Boston and has lived in Manhattan for most of the last forty-three years. He has written five novels, the most recent of which is the Nebula nominated From the Files of the Time Rangers. His most recent short story collection is Streetcar Dreams and Other Midnight Fancies. He has won the World Fantasy, Lambda, International Horror Guild and Million Writers Awards.
Recent and upcoming stories appear in F&SF, Electric Velocipede, Clarkesworld and Fantasy magazines and in the Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Year’s Best Gay Stories 2008, Naked City, Beastly Bride, Haunted Legends and Lovecraft Unbound anthologies.
His story, “If Angels Fight” has been selected for all three of the annual best fantasy anthologies and for the Datlow, Year’s Best Horror. It and many of his other recent stories are chapters in his novel in progress Dust Devil: A Life in Speculative Fiction.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Cory Doctorow 2009 Interview
Cory Doctorow is nominated for his novel Little Brother.
Most of this Q&A was taken from Julian Bennett Holmes’ Publishers Weekly interview.
Why did you decide to write a young adult novel?
A bunch of my friends had written young adult novels and were having the best time. My friend Kathe Koja had been a famous horror writer who’d written very graphic horror, and she decided to write these very very spare, almost Hemingway-esque young adult novels. And the experiences she described were just so cool, writing for kids who read not just for entertainment but to try to figure out the way the world works. The feedback she got was so blunt and honest that she was really, really, really excited, and she let her horror novels go out of print.
The other thing is that I was going to write a book where the technology really worked, where it was real technology. I thought young adult was a good genre for that. In young adult fiction, there’s an honorable tradition of talking about how technology works—unashamed lectures—and I really like that mode. [Robert Anson] Heinlein was a great proponent of that. When I was a kid, I found out a lot about how finance and politics and so on worked through books like Have Space Suit—Will Travel. My book is sort of a radical, political Have Space Suit—Will Travel. So young adult seemed like the right genre.
What was the flash of inspiration for Little Brother?
One thing was the kids I was meeting, who thought of technology increasingly as something that controlled them and not as something that empowered them. That was the complete opposite of how I’d grown up. People in my Dad’s generation grew up thinking of computers as these soulless machines that would regiment them and put them in lines, but in my generation—I got a computer in 1979 and a modem in 1980, and it was like the whole world opened to me. The amount of control and power I had over my world as a nine-year-old was unbelievable. I don’t think there had ever been a nine-year-old before that who could travel across the globe with these things and have conversations and meet interesting people. But now I meet kids today who tell me, “The computer is used to spy on me, the authorities know what I’m doing, marketers know what I’m doing.”
Another inspiration was thinking about how all these techno-thrillers I read depended on technology that was like magic—technology that did something technology really can’t do. As a geek, I thought I’d be able to use technology in the story and not make it totally implausible. I thought, “Can I write a tight, well-paced techno-thriller where everything could actually happen?”
How much of the stuff in the book is real and how much is possible in the future?
I’d say 90% is real now, and 100% is possible in the future. Most of the stuff in the book just requires reconfiguring the bits we have today. The things that aren’t real yet are Microsoft releasing a free Xbox and making money by selling software licenses. The book relies on the idea that everyone has one of these in the closet because Microsoft is giving them away on the street.
For a while, merchants were giving us barcode scanners called QCats. They gave them away for free when you bought anything at RadioShack, and the idea was to be able to scan barcodes in magazine ads, and so pretty soon everyone had them lying around the house. And then someone figured out how to hack them to read any barcode. You could, for example, catalog your whole CD library. And you could count on everyone having one sitting in a closet. That’s a magic combination.
One of my favorite hardware hacks of all time is when someone figured out to build a WiFi antenna out of a Pringles can. The most amazing thing is that the directions for where to drill used the Pringles labels as landmarks: through the left eye, through the cholesterol count, and then the bar code in the middle, too. It’s pretty amazing when anyone interested in doing the project has access to a precision-manufactured piece of hardware: a Pringles can. It’s sitting there so cheap that anyone can walk out anywhere in the developed world, 24/7, and get one—that’s a really powerful thing for the transmission of an idea. So there’s a lot of stuff in the book that’s barely possible, a lot of stuff that actually exists, and stuff that could exist pretty soon.
What research did you do in preparation for Little Brother?
Little Brother was all stuff that I knew was going on, or stuff I’d written about, or could look up, or had already spoken to people about and written about on Boing Boing. So it’s the opposite of coming up with an idea and then figuring out what you need to know. It’s knowing a bunch of stuff and seeing what ideas come out of that.
I’m working on a new novel that’s a little more research-intensive and a little less foreknowledge-based. It’s set partly in India, and I know a lot of what I need to know, but I haven’t spent much time in China and I haven’t spent any in India. So I’m taking a research trip and spending a little time in both.
It’s going to be a young adult novel called For the Win. It’s an extension of a short story I wrote called “Anda’s Game,” which is about people who play video games, and this play is a form of work called gold farming. Games have a virtual wealth, a virtual gold, and a lot of people would rather buy the gold on eBay than do the repetitive tasks required to amass it. And so people in the developing world are paid to work in essentially sweatshops and play games all day, making virtual gold that’s then sold to rich players.
What were the differences between writing for adults and writing for young adults?
I once asked a young adult writer what she thought the soul of young adult fiction was. She said, “Being an adolescent is the state of perpetually going through these one-way changes, where you’re very brave, and you jump off cliffs. You can’t go back again. Like one day you’re someone who has never told a lie of consequence and then you’re someone who has. You can never go back and be that other person again.”
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the centers of our brain that govern risk don’t fully develop until we’re out of our teens. There was a court case last year or the year before in which a teen had done something very foolish, and part of the defense was that his capacity to understand risk was not physiologically fully developed. He literally couldn’t parse risk the way an adult would. I think if you could parse those risks, you probably wouldn’t take all kinds of momentous steps in your life. From a plotting perspective, I like to keep that in mind.
The only other big difference was that when it was all done, my editor said, you know Scholastic has some interest in distributing this as part of their book club. But they won’t do that if it’s got the F word in it, so do you mind if we just take it out of the two places where it is? And I said, take the F word out. No big deal.
Have you exhausted the issues covered in Little Brother?
Not at all. These are immutable topics for our era. Surveillance will be key to all the work I do, because we live in a surveillance state. I live in London. My photo is taken 500 times a day. London is the most surveilled city in the world. Scotland Yard recently advocated that five-year-olds should have their DNA logged into a police database if they exhibit so-called criminal behaviors so that later in life when they offend, we’ll know who they are and we can pick them up. London Metropolitan Police have put up posters all over the city advising us that if we see people taking pictures of security cameras, that we should rat them out to the police because they might be terrorists. It’s increasingly difficult to take note of all the ways we’re losing our civil liberties. Go into an airport and try saying, “I don’t see how I could blow up a plane with my shoe and some water.” They’ll throw you out of the airport, they might even arrest you for “making jokes about terrorism.” It’s not a joke; it’s a security discussion! We’re not allowed to ask the man who’s telling you to take off your shoes, why do I have to take off my shoes?
How do you balance your writing with your other activities?
I do a lot of stuff—I’m on a lot of advisory boards, I’m on some boards of charities, I do all this activism stuff, I write Boing Boing, I write six columns—and yes, this stuff takes up a lot of time. What allows me to do all this is that it’s all part of the same thing. I think the job of a science-fiction writer is to figure out how technology is changing society, how it might change society in the future, and sometimes to even influence how technology is changing society. But that’s also the definition of a tech journalist, a columnist, an activist.
One question I often get is, “How much time do you spend on Boing Boing?” Depending on how you calculate it, I either spend all of my time or none of it. Every time I run across something relevant to anything I do, I write it up for Boing Boing. So in addition to making it searchable, and having people comment on it, and making it clearer, putting it on Boing Boing is powerfully mnemonic for me—it means I remember it. These are sometimes like pieces of a puzzle that I don’t have the box art for. I find these pieces lying around, and I put them on Boing Boing so that I’ll know which pieces I’ve got—and every now and then I’ll find a corner piece, and a whole piece of the puzzle snaps in.
Little Brother was very much like that. I had a flash of inspiration, and I went home and wrote the book in eight weeks, from the day I started to the day I finished. Technically it’s a very research-intensive book—there’s a lot of factual and technological material in it—but everything there, I had already written about on Boing Boing. So I’d been collecting this stuff on Boing Boing without knowing what it was for.
I know a lot of visual artists who work this way—they have of boxes of stuff that looks like it should go into something someday, but they don’t yet know exactly what. My friend Roger Wood, a sort of mad clockmaker, has boxes and boxes in his flat labeled “doll parts,” etc. Boing Boing is like that, but machine searchable.
That said, I don’t have much of a social life.
What was the most difficult part in writing Little Brother?
As with anything, finding the time. Writing, even when conducted “full time,” always seems to be a discretionary activity that falls behind administration, interviews, etc.
What’s the appeal of science fiction for you?
It’s capacity to use parables about the future to describe the hidden shifts technology is wreaking on the present.
What projects can we expect from you in the future?
I’m presently working on a young-adult novel called For The Win, and it’s kind of a novelization of my short story “Anda’s Game.” It’s a book about trade unionists who use video games to organize people in the developing world, to work in special economic zones where labor organizers aren’t allowed to go in. And the way that they do that is by signing up people who work in gold farms, which are virtual sweatshops where people perform repetitive virtual tasks, or videogame tasks, to amass videogame wealth that’s then sold to rich players. It’s set about 10 to 15 years in the future, in the midst of a huge kind of hedge-fund bubble based on virtual goals. And these Industrial Workers of the World Wide Web, or the Webblies, set out to sign up and organize all these people. The book revolves around special economic zones in India, and in the coastal cities in China , and also in Orange County in Southern California.
Cory Doctorow is an activist, teacher, public speaker, and technology expert. A New York Times bestselling author, he is also co-editor of BoingBoing.net, one of the most popular blogs in the world and recipient of more than three million unique visitors per month, and a columnist for publications ranging from Information Week to The Guardian.
Most recently a visiting professor at the University of Southern California, Doctorow served as a Canadian Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy and also serves on a number of boards of directors and advisory boards, including those of the Participatory Culture Foundations, the Open Rights Group, the MetaBrainz Foundation, Technorati, Inc., Onion Networks, and others. He also served as Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation [EFF] for over four years, where he was a delegate to treaty negotiations at the United Nations in Geneva.
Doctorow has won the Locus Award three times, been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula, won the Campbell Award, and was named one of the Top 25 Web Celebrities by Forbes magazine for the past two consecutive years, as well as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He also received the Pioneer Award for significant contributions to online freedom from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He is frequently invited to speak at colleges and corporations across the country.
Cory’s novels include Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, and Eastern Standard Tribe, as well as two short story collections. Cory’s written and online work has been referenced by media outlets from CBS television show “Criminal Minds” to the “The Colbert Report.”
Born in Toronto, Canada, Cory currently lives in London. His parents both worked in education, his mom in early childhood education and his dad as a math and computer science teacher.
A New York Times Notable and an LA Times and Washington Post pick for one of the best books of 2008, Little Brother is his first Young Adult novel and it deals with issues of security, civil rights, censorship, and technology—but it is also an adventure story with smart teenage protagonists. The author hopes that you’ll use technology to change the world
Kristin Cashore 2009 Interview
Kristin Cashore is an Andre Norton Award finalist for her novel Graceling.
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Let’s start with your book, Graceling. For unfamiliar readers, can you tell us more about it?
Sure! Graceling is the story of Katsa, a young woman who’s been able to kill people with her bare hands since she was eight. Katsa lives in the seven kingdoms, where very occasionally, people are born with extreme skills called Graces. A Graceling might have impossibly good hearing, run superhumanly fast, or be able to calculate huge sums mentally. Some Graces are useless, like the ability to talk backwards; some are eerie, like mindreading or seeing into the future. Katsa has a fighting and killing Grace.
Gracelings are feared and exploited in the seven kingdoms, and none moreso than Katsa, who’s expected to do the dirty work of torture and punishment for her uncle, King Randa. But then she meets a mysterious stranger named Po, who’s also a Graced fighter and the first person ever to challenge her in a fight. The two form a bond, and each discovers truths they never imagined about themselves, each other, and a terrible danger that’s spreading slowly through the seven kingdoms!
What made you decide to write a full-blown fantasy novel, complete with the cosmology of the Seven Kingdoms?
That’s an impossible question to answer, because I don’t really know! A story simply started growing in my head, and I had to write it down. The plot required there to be numerous kingdoms, so my world grew.
I can say that the whole thing started with the characters. Katsa came first, and unsurprisingly, she came to me fighting—quarreling, to be more specific, inside my head, with another character who grew into Po. Really, Graceling began as conversations in my head between two characters who were furious with each other. My job was to listen to them argue, and figure out what they were so upset about, and what was going on in their world, and what that world was like. Katsa and Po kind of formed themselves for me—at the beginning, I was more of an observer than a creator.
What was the road to publication like? Were there any difficulties?
I had an atypical experience. The first agent I ever queried about Graceling turned out to want to work with me, and I turned out to love her. A couple of months later, she sold Graceling to the editor of my dreams at Harcourt. Talk about counting my lucky stars! I still can’t believe how fast everything has happened.
How about the writing process, what were the challenges in writing Graceling?
There were lots of challenges, first because I was a pretty inexperienced writer, learning to write by doing. I mean, I was trying to learn everything at once—dialogue, pacing, characterization, setting, mood, you name it. And second because… well… it’s a plot with some complexities, and I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into! I didn’t realize how complicated it would be to tell the story I imagined—or how tricky it would be to bring some of my main characters’ Graces to life. Writing this book was a real strain on my feeble brains; I always felt as if it was just outside my control. I was not in charge of it; it was in charge of me.
Could you tell us something more about the upcoming books in the series, Fire and Bitterblue?
Fire, out in October 2009, is a prequel-ish companion book to Graceling. It takes place across the mountains east of the seven kingdoms, thirty or forty years before the story of Graceling, in a rocky, war-torn kingdom called the Dells. There are no known Gracelings in the Dells, but there are beautiful creatures called monsters. Monsters have the shape of normal animals: mountain lions, dragonflies, horses, fish. But the hair or scales or feathers of monsters are gorgeously colored—fuchsia, turquoise, sparkly bronze, iridescent green—and their minds have the power to control the minds of humans. Fire, seventeen years old, is the last remaining human-shaped monster in the Dells. Gorgeously monstrous in body and mind but with a human appreciation of right and wrong, she’s hated and mistrusted by just about everyone. The book is her story, and if you’re wondering what connects it to Graceling, the answer is that (Graceling spoiler ahead!) one of the minor characters in Fire is a creepy little boy with mismatched eyes who seems to have some peculiar verbal abilities. (Fire is by no means Leck’s story, but it does reveal where he came from.)
Bitterblue, currently in progress, is a sequel-ish companion book to Graceling. It takes place six years after Graceling, and Bitterblue is the sixteen-year-old protagonist. Katsa, Po, and many other characters from Graceling will be part of the fabric of the book. Since it’s a work in progress, that’s all I’m willing to say about it at this time!
I didn’t write Graceling planning to write prequels or sequels. I thought of it as a stand-alone book. But then I simply realized at some point that there was a related book I wanted to write; and once I was writing that one, I felt the third one asking to be written. My hope is that Bitterblue will tie all three books together in some way, but again, work in progress, so no promises!
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I always wanted to be a reader and a daydreamer. Then, in college, I discovered that I also loved to write. I think it would be fair to say that I always suspected I wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know it for sure until I was about 19 or 20. And then, of course, it took a few more years for me to get serious about actually doing it. (I’m 32 now.)
Did you intentionally want to become a YA writer (or wrote your novels with a YA audience in mind) or was this something that happened later on?
I don’t write my novels with any particular audience in mind—and if the mail I receive is any indication, as many adults as young adults are reading YA literature. Sometimes it feels like more of a marketing distinction to me that anything else. The U.K. edition of Graceling, published by Gollancz, is marketed to adults—so I guess that sometimes it’s a judgment call on the part of the publishers.
In your opinion, what are the qualities of a novel that make it YA? Do you think there should be a distinction?
Since I have a degree from The Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College, I should be able to answer this question; but the truth is, I’ve always hated this question and have never known how to answer! I think it often has to do with the age of the characters, and maybe with the novelty of the situations they find themselves in. YA literature contains all of the same themes and subject matter as literature for adults, but often, since the characters are young, they’re dealing with these issues for the first time ever, perhaps with less personal experience to call upon. It gives the literature a freshness, in my opinion. And no wonder lots of adults love YA lit, because dealing with brand new hard issues seems to be something we never grow out of! Adulthood often seems to me like one new kind of adolescence after another.
One distinction that’s often made between YA and adult literature, but shouldn’t be, has to do with quality, of course. A lot of people seem to think that YA literature—children’s literature in general—is not as high quality, not as much Literature with a capital L, as books written for adults. Those of us who read lots of children’s literature of all kinds, study it, and plumb its depths know that isn’t true. But there is a sad cultural tendency to condescend to young people, isn’t there? And unfortunately, it extends to their literature.
Who are some of the authors that impress you?
In no particular order: E.B. White, Margaret Mahy, Melina Marchetta, Mary Stewart, Sigrid Undset, Dorothy L. Sayers, Edward Gorey, and Edith Wharton. Just to name a few favorites!
Kristin Cashore grew up in the Pennsylvania countryside as the second of four sisters. She received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College in western Massachusetts and a master’s from the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College in Boston, and she has worked as a dog runner, a packer in a candy factory, an editorial assistant, a legal assistant, and a freelance writer. She has lived in many places (including Sydney, New York City, Boston, London, and Austin), and she currently resides in northern Florida, where her daily activities include walking along the St. Johns River and counting pelicans on the dock.
Kristin Cashore’s debut novel, Graceling, grew from her daydreams about a girl who possesses extraordinary powers—and who forms a friendship with a boy with whom she is insurmountably incompatible. Her second novel, Fire, is a companion book to Graceling and will be released in the fall of 2009.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Ingrid Law 2009 Interview
Ingrid Law is an Andre Norton Award finalist for her novel Savvy.
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Let’s first talk about your book, Savvy. How did you come up with the title (or more appropriately, what made you decide to use savvy as the term for each person’s special abilities)?
First, I wanted to write a book about magical children without ever using the word “magic.” Second, I wanted the magic I created to have a distinctly American feel . . . I wanted to know, if there were an “American Magic,” what might that look like? I chose to use the word “savvy” in lieu of “magic” because the word itself has its roots in American slang. In fact, it was used as a noun for more than a hundred years before it was ever used as an adjective. So I saw no harm in turning it back into a noun again. The original definition of the noun, savvy, was: a practical sense or intelligence. When I discovered this, it seemed like the perfect word to use for my book.
It’s interesting for me how your book is translated into other languages and the titles are different. What’s your favorite foreign language title and why?
I love the German title, Schimmer, just because I imagine it must sound nice when said aloud. In the Netherlands, they titled the book 13!, which is fun as well. Those are the two I know so far. I suppose that translating the title of the book must be a challenge. Titles in general can be rather tricky.
The novel has a rural feel to it. What made you decide to place it in such a setting, in addition to the incorporation of these tiny magical elements?
I wanted to set the story in small towns in a part of the country many people might not at first imagine magical children to live. But small towns have big heart and a love for larger than-life-things. You can often find the World’s Largest curiosities—the World’s Largest Porch Swing, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, and so on—in the smallest of towns. Just because someone’s from a small town, that doesn’t mean that they don’t think big or possess extraordinary abilities. Some of the magical elements reflect rural or small town ideals. The grandmother in the book cans radio waves. When thinking up her ability, I asked myself what my grandmother was good at. I remembered jars of homemade jam and things canned straight from the garden. Then I asked myself what a “savvy” grandma might be good at and came up with Grandma Dollop’s jars filled with years of radio programs and songs.
Did you originally intend to write a YA book or is something that came out later on?
I’ve always known that I wanted to write for young readers, though I’ve been pleased to discover that the book has appealed to a wide audience. I’ve received email messages from six year olds and sixty-eight year olds, and just about everyone in between. But I love writing for young people because kids in the middle grades are still so totally tapped into their own sense of wonder. It’s still so natural to them to be able to suspend disbelief. Yet, they are also beginning to come into their own sense of who they are and who they will become. I like to think that the kids I write for have one foot firmly on the path toward growing up and the other foot hopping through make-believe games on the playground.
Any difficulties in the actual writing of Savvy?
Savvy came to me in a wonderful, exciting explosion of words and ideas. I had a lot of fun writing it and I learned a lot along the way. This particular story treated me very well. However, I tend to be a full-glass kind of person, so it’s easy for me to forget the parts of a thing that were difficult. I know I had a few hair-pulling moments along the way, but every story has to have some struggle or conflict to be good, right? Even our own?
How did Penguin end up publishing it?
My agent, Daniel Lazar, submitted the manuscript simultaneously to multiple publishers. Alisha Niehaus, my editor at Dial Books for Young Readers (a division of Penguin Young Readers Group), was one of the first to read the manuscript and express her enthusiasm. Her excitement was just one of the factors that won me over, but it was a big one. Another was the potential partnership with Walden Media. In the end, Penguin Young Readers Group and Walden Media acquired the rights to Savvy in a preemptive multi-book deal in July, 2007, in joint acquisition. So I have two amazing companies backing the book. Additionally, Walden Media secured the rights to develop Savvy into a feature film. It was a whirlwind right from the beginning . . . much like the first chapter of the book when the fictional Beaumont family has to move “to the deepest part of inland” because of the hurricane and the fact that one of the characters caused it.
What were the challenges in getting your first book published?
Savvy was not the first book I tried to get published, so I know the familiar feel of rejection. However, there is so much information available now for writers about how to write query letters, how to approach an agent, what to do, what NOT to do. By investing some time and energy into becoming educated about these things, when I did have a book that was ready to find a home, I already knew how to get started.
What is it about the fantasy genre that appeals to you?
I’ve always been a huge fan of fantasy. Fantasy allows us to explore aspects of conflict and humanity in all new ways, unfettered by the constraints of reality or of the every day. In many ways, learning to manage the onset of a “savvy,” dealing with new, out of control powers that arrive simultaneously with the thirteen candles on a birthday cake, is just a metaphor for dealing with the changes we experience as we grow up. But exploring this through fantasy allows young readers to come to these issues through the safety and fun of make-believe. Who doesn’t sometimes feel confused enough or angry enough to cause a storm? Who doesn’t struggle to weed the opinions and ideas of other people from their heads when trying to find their own true voice? Why not manifest these efforts as actual abilities? It’s a lot more fun that way . . .
How does it feel to have your book nominated for several awards?
I never expected it. I’m continuously stunned and completely thrilled. It’s an amazing honor to be nominated for awards alongside such talented people. And I do like shiny things . . . even if someone else gets them. It’s fun to get together to celebrate the fact that people still love creating story.
What projects are you currently working on?
I am working on a follow up to Savvy, exploring the family tree a bit more. Looking at new points of view. Discovering what else we can learn about ourselves through fantasy and magic. My next book should come out next year.
Ingrid Law is a big fan of words and stories, small towns and big ideas. Born in New York, Ingrid’s family moved to Colorado when she was six years old. Now the mother of a teenage daughter, Ingrid still lives in Colorado, where she is hard at work on her next book.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
James Patrick Kelly 2009 Interview
James Patrick Kelly is nominated for his short story “Don’t Stop.”
First off, how did you first get involved with speculative fiction?
I was a voracious consumer of fantastic stories (and movies and TV and comics) as a kid. When I went to college, sf was considered just a half-step above porn by my English professors, so I settled into a headlong infatuation with the Theater of the Absurd. When I first started submitting fiction for publication after college, I tried my hand at pretty much every genre I could think of, but it was clear that my best stuff was speculative. Then I went to the Clarion Writers Workshop and my fate was sealed.
You’ve dabbled in a lot of fields. What’s the appeal of cyberpunk for you? How about slipstream?
When Michael Swanwick published his controversial essay “A Users’ Guide to the Post Moderns” in Asimov’s, he lumped me in with my pals Connie Willis and John Kessel and Stan Robinson as one of the “humanists,” a group said to be in opposition to the cyberpunks. It was news to us. I went to Clarion with Bruce Sterling and had been following what he called The Movement pretty much from the beginning. I did think that the cyberpunk vision of the future was incomplete. I wrote a story called “Rat” which was a satiric take on the standard issue cyberpunk hero. And although my story “Solstice,” used cyberpunk tropes to forward the humanist agenda, Bruce bought it for Mirrorshades, which became something of a classic anthology. However, it was about that time that I started messing around with computers and realized that, although I was never going to get to outer space, there was an exciting future waiting for me in cyberspace. That’s when I began to lose some of my ironic distance from cyberpunk.
I started thinking about slipstream at the Sycamore Hill Writers Workshop in the eighties when I had to come up with something to say about wonderful and enigmatic stories by the likes of Carol Emshwiller and Karen Joy Fowler. Nothing in my literary toolbox seemed to be of much use. So I set out to acquire better tools.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Probably when I was in eighth grade, although it seemed rather an improbable aspiration. I thought it only slightly less likely that I would be a Martian when I grew up. My dad wanted me to be an engineer, I think. Or failing that, a lawyer.
What was the biggest hurdle you faced breaking into the industry?
Believing that I would make as a writer, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. It took me a long time before to become James Patrick Kelly . I sold my first story in 1975. In 1980 I crammed about 500 rejection slips into a box and tossed it into the attic. In the eight years after I went to Clarion, I published a clutch of stories and a novel; I now regard all of the early stuff as apprentice work. I was very proud of them at the time, but at this point I’m glad they’re hard to find and I intend to keep them that way.
You’ve attended Clarion before and currently the Vice Chair of the Clarion Foundation. Can you tell us the impact Clarion had on you back then and now, and its influences, if any, on the current industry?
Getting into Clarion was the first validation I ever had as a writer. The encouragement of my teachers at the workshop and afterward—especially that of the founders of Clarion, Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm—sustained me through the lean years of rejection. Probably the most enduring legacy of Clarion is my career-long reliance on the workshop method. Just about everything you have ever read of mine has been subjected to group critique. Before I found workshop bliss, I used to put stories away for a month or so to try to get distance from them before I attempted a submission draft. I have found nothing quicker or better for getting that necessary distance than hearing smart people unpack my stories—especially when they speak bluntly about what isn’t working.
As far as fiction podcasts are concerned, you’re a veteran. How do you think podcasts are affecting the industry and your career?
I have no doubt whatsoever that I wouldn’t have been nominated for the Hugo or won the Nebula for my novella Burn had I not podcast it. I talked Jacob Weisman at Tachyon Publications into letting me start with Chapter One the day he published. Four months later, it was available to anyone who had the patience to download all sixteen episodes. And that was quite a few people! There were upwards of twenty thousand downloads that I know about, but no doubt many more than that have listened in, since I released it on Free Reads under a Creative Commons. And Free Reads caught the attention of the good people at Audible.com, who approached me to podcast fifty-two of my stories for pay over at James Patrick Kelly’s StoryPod on Audible. So podcasting has been very good to me.
Having typed this brief history, however, I am not at all sure that my experience is reproducible. As you say, I was an early adopter and, insofar as I had an extensive bibliography, was a something like “name brand” in the early podosphere. It’s much more crowded now, which means that there many, many talented sf writers sharing their work in the hopes of growing their audience and maybe making a few extra bucks. The way I see it, podcasting is a good side bet against the inevitable changes in publishing, but it can’t carry a career.
You write in a variety of formats from short stories to novels. Is there a particular medium you favor and what are its strengths?
Of course, since I haven’t published a full-blown novel in more than a decade, I guess I favor the short form. Short story writers have to be nimble. The work must be focused. It’s a high impact art form; if a story doesn’t leave a strong impression, then it almost certainly has failed. That said, the reader’s investment of attention and emotion in a story is far less than it is with a novel, which is why sf has evolved from story genre to a novel – or trilogy! – genre. Readers tend to remember titles and authors of novels; if they’re trying to recall a story they may only have the vaguest notion of the plot. It’s that one where they push that girl out the airlock. It’s that one with all the forest fires.
Lately, there are a lot of changes happening in the publishing industry. How have you adapted to the changing scene and what steps do you think other authors/publishers/editors should take?
Vernor Vinge wrote about the possibility of a cultural singularity overtaking us someday, and I wonder if we might not be seeing the first signs of a publishing singularity. Of course, one of Vinge’s key insights about that larger singularity was that we who are on the near side of it can’t possibly know what those on the far side will be like. Similarly, it’s hard for me to imagine what a writer’s life would be like without the magazines, without books (or with paper books marginalized) and without the economic infrastructure of readers paying for the texts they read. Are we really going to have to earn our income from sales of tee shirts or some such paraphernalia or by slipping product endorsements into our stories? As you know, Bob, as a starship pilot I couldn’t even manage to navigate my way out of near earth orbit without my Microsoft Envision™ wetware.
So take this advice as from one who admits to being deeply confused about the future of publishing: work on your charisma. Having charisma doesn’t mean you have to soar into Neil Gaiman space, but it does mean that you have to do more than just sit at home and churn out stories that get honorable mentions in the Year’s Best Science Fiction. You have to find – or develop—some attractive personal quality that you can exploit to raise your profile. Blogging? Sure, but not about your goldfish, please. Podcasting? Absolutely, but buy a decent mic. Paneling at cons? Yes, but not if you’re going to spend the entire hour pimping your latest masterpiece. And I’m sorry, but if you’re not giving away some free content on your website, then nobody is going to click over to you.
Let’s talk about your story “Don’t Stop.” What was the inspiration for the piece? Were there any challenges in writing it?
“Don’t Stop” is a story that workshops made – and unmade. I wrote the first draft when I was teaching at Clarion West in 2004. Usually when I do a Clarion, I try to write something to show solidarity with the students and that skinny twenty-three year old wannabe Jim Kelly. Then as Norescon Four loomed, the members of my local workshop, the Cambridge Science Fiction Writers Workshop, proposed to the con that we would critique a story by one of our members in public as a kind of performance panel. I volunteered a very different version of “Don’t Stop.” Others may have a different recollection, but what I remember is that the comments were withering. In fact, I put the story in a drawer for a year because I was so confused by what my friends had said. Eventually I pulled it out again and ran it through BRAWL, another local Boston workshop, which had been kind enough to invite me as a guest. This time the comments were gentler, but no less confusing. There was something wrong with the ending, something missing in the middle. Okay, okay—back into the drawer. Again, it sat for the better part of a year. What finally got me to look at it again was the curse of the June story. Sheila Williams wondered often and at length whether I had something to keep my streak of consecutive appearances in the June issue of Asimov’s. I rewrote the story all over again, added a character, and totally changed the ending. And here I am, writing about a Nebula nominee!
But you really asked about inspiration, so here it is: I’m a runner, and every so often I have to write about my love of running. There is a short passage that includes a few sentences that some of my personal favorites. The main character and her coach are racing each other down a hill:
He always made a distinction between running and jogging. Jogging is a mental activity. You do it because you ought to. Running is a physical activity. You do it because there is no choice. Ought doesn’t win races. You win the race because there’s a tiger chasing you or because you absolutely have to get home in time or maybe just because it’s a beautiful day and you’re seventeen and life is impossibly sweet. Coach no longer looks sixty-eight. He is seventeen all the way to the bottom of the hill.
James Patrick Kelly has had an eclectic writing career. He has written novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, plays and planetarium shows. His most recent book, a collection of stories, entitled The Wreck Of The Godspeed, was published in the summer of 2008. His short novel Burn won the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Nebula Award in 2007. He has won the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo Award twice: in 1996, for his novelette “Think Like A Dinosaur” and in 2000, for his novelette, “Ten to the Sixteenth to One.” His fiction has been translated into eighteen languages. With John Kessel he is co-editor of Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, Rewired: The Post Cyberpunk Anthology and the forthcoming The Secret History Of Science Fiction. He writes a column on the internet for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine and the Board of Directors of the Clarion Foundation. He produces two (count ‘em – two!) podcasts: James Patrick Kelly’s StoryPod on Audible and the Free Reads Podcast. His website is www.jimkelly.net.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Mary Rosenblum Interview
Mary Rosenblum was nominated for her novelette “Night Wind.”
What was the inspiration for “Night Wind”?
When Deborah asked me for a story for the book, I was working on an alternate history project and was in that frame of mind. Myself, I see magic all over the place in the real world – we just think it’s science, or we don’t let ourselves see it – and that particular period in European history, when Spain began bringing its infusion of bloody treasure in from the New World, tied in with the alt history story I was working. And it enticed me since I saw that as a flow of darkness being piped into the magic fabric of Europe. So I set it then, made magic more commonplace in this version of history, and I even got to play with horses. I never quite outgrew being a horse-mad girl, even after owning several.
“Night Wind” appeared in Lace and Blade - what were your favorites among the other stories appearing there?
I have to say that it was Chaz Benchley’s story, In the Night Street Baths that really stayed with me. His characterization is excellent, the implications of larger story are wonderful, and he does it in narrative form which is common in fantasy, but not always well done. In fact often is not. It’s really powerful .
You write mystery as well as science fiction. How does the experience of it differ - if it does?
Mystery is totally different from fantasy and SF. There, the concept of the story, the message that I invariably weave into the backstory of my SF, that ‘lets look at the magic that’s all around us’ that I like to do in my fantasy, has no counterpart. I love mystery, but it’s like designing an intricate jigsaw puzzle. Lots of fun to do, and yes, I can create characters I really love, but the plot’s the thing there, the characters are a close second, and anything else I add to it needs to be seriously third. I enjoy writing mystery a lot, but I love writing SF and fantasy.
Have any other genres tempted you as a writer?
I do mainstream from time to time and have published in small anthologies. Generally, they have been intense little character stories, but again, I miss the larger stuff you can weave into SF and even fantasy.
What have you read recently that sparked story ideas for you?
Oh, gosh, what have I NOT read that has sparked ideas for me! Ideas I don’t lack. I just finished reading Beryl Markham’s ‘West With the Night’ which is an outstanding memoir of her life in Kenya in the thirties. And I’m finding there another of those built in conflicts that could power some very nice fantasy – the unnoticed (by the whites) friction between the indigenous culture and the white society. I’ll have to think about that for awhile. See what develops. Everything makes me think of story ideas! Science magazines, newspaper articles., even ads!
How do writing and teaching overlap for you? Do you enjoy both in the same way?
They’re a wonderful yin/yang. You can’t really understand something completely, in my opinion, unless you can teach it well. I teach writing with the same passion I bring to the writing. In order to really make someone comprehend how to do what they’re trying to do well, you have to understand what it is that you do at a much much deeper level than if you simply write and revise. The two are inextricably entwined now. I learn as much from teaching as I teach, I think.
You’ve talked about starting to write f&sf because you wanted to supply some of the strong women characters that were lacking. Do you see many gender-related changes in the field since you started?
Oh, of course I see changes! Cat, it was a desert back in the sixties! Women, in fantasy, were either victims or evil witches and only the evils witches seemed to have real power. The victim heroines always got saved by someone. Well, okay, you had a few fairy godmothers, but they were hardly very realistic. In SF it was worse. We only existed as wives who held their hubbies back from doing cool and heroic things, or shrill and nasty smart women who were just plain unlikable. Yuck! What a message. How power or be smart and you must be ugly and nasty. It’s hardly a gender-blind world today, any more than it’s a color-blind world today, but I can find women characters I love and admire. Ones that I didn’t create. J
What do you think of the Sci-Fi Channel’s proposed switch to the name, the Syfy Channel?
Well, sorry, what’s in a title? I’m not a fan of the visual-media representation of SF, whatever you call it. I’m afraid that most of the time it reinforces that stereotype that SF is nothing more than raygun and alien and Dangerous Cyber Being action adventure fluff.
You raise sheep as well as write. How did you begin doing that? Have the sheep ever appeared in your writing?
Gee, I don’t think I’ve ever put sheep into my writing. But may I recommend the totally hilarious horror spoof ‘Black Sheep’? If you haven’t seen it, rent it. I had a hard time staying in my chair, I was laughing so hard, they hit all the horror film clichés and did it with outstanding style. What a hoot! Okay, end of paid advertisement here. In reality, I raised dairy goats before I raised sheep. When I started writing, I lived on a small acreage, was a single parent, and was making squat money writing, as you might imagine. Since barter is not an approved from of payment to mortgage companies and the IRS, they got whatever cash I earned. The only way to eat well and not do food stamps was to grow the stuff. So for thirty years now I have raised all my food and heated my wood-heat-only house on my acreage. I no longer have dairy animals (milking twice a day, 365 days a year gets old fast when you live alone) but I do raise all my fruit, veggies, and meat. It’s a lot of work, but I still figure that it’s part of my income. I’d pay a LOT to buy the same organic stuff at New Seasons. And to be honest, mine is better. And think how much I’d have to pay a gym to stay in the shape I’m in. J I’d probably go to rabbits instead of sheep now, except that then I’d have to clear the weeds in my woodlot. My sheep do it better and besides I compete in herding trials with my dogs, so they’re also practice sheep.
Oh yeah, I do teach dog training and compete in herding trials, tracking tests, and obedience competitions.
As a child, Mary Rosenblum never really wanted to have a nine-to-five job to pay for doing what she wanted to do on the weekends. Grownups kindly explained that this wasn’t practical. So far, she has managed to actually fulfill that life ambition to be poor by writing. She started out at Clarion West in 1988 and published one of her Clarion stories, ‘For A Price’, in Asimov’s Magazine. Since that first publication, she has published well more than 60 short stories in SF, mystery, and mainstream fiction, (she stopped counting at 60) as well as eight novels. Her newest novel, Horizons, was released in November 2006 from Tor Books and came out in paperback in November 2007. Water Rites a compendium of the novel Drylands as well as three prequel novelettes that first appeared in Asimov’s were released from Fairwood Press in January 2007. The hardcover collection of her early short fiction; Synthesis and Other Virtual Realities is available from Arkham House. Her SF stories have been published in Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, SciFiction, and Analog among others. She won the Compton Crook award for Best First Novel, The Asimov’s Readers Award, and has been a Hugo Award finalist as well as an Endeavor Award finalist , an Ellery Queen Reader’s Award finalist, and short listed for a number of other awards. She publishes in mystery as Mary Freeman, teaches writing for Long Ridge Writers Group, and at writers workshops, and was an instructor for the Clarion West Writers Workshop this summer.
When she is not writing, she lives sustainably on a small acreage where she trains dogs, raises sheep, teaches cheesemaking, and grows all her fruits and vegetables. She managed to raise two sons who have turned out to be pretty cool people and has even done a bit of traveling in China. And she still doesn’t have a nine-to-five job. Or a lot of money, but hey, you choose your priorities. You can find more information at her website: www.maryrosenblum.com
John Barth described CAT RAMBO’s writings as “works of urban mythopoeia”—her stories take place in a universe where chickens aid the lovelorn, Death is just another face on the train, and Bigfoot gives interviews to the media on a daily basis. She has worked as a programmer-writer for Microsoft and a Tarot card reader, professions which, she claims, both involve a certain combination of technical knowledge and willingness to go with the flow. In 2005 she attended the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop and is a member of the Codex Writers’ Group. Among the places in which her stories have appeared are ASIMOV’S, WEIRD TALES, CLARKESWORLD, and STRANGE HORIZONS, and her work has consistently garnered mentions and appearances in year’s best of anthologies.
She is the co-editor of critically-acclaimed Fantasy Magazine.
Vera Nazarian 2009 Interview
Vera Nazarian is nominated for her novella “The Duke in His Castle.”
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Let’s first talk about The Duke in His Castle. What made you decide that the length would be that of a novella, as opposed to a novel?
Good question. Would you believe (to quote Maxwell Smart) that this work originally started out as a short story? I think all ideas start out as pre-inflated rubber balloons. Depending on their potential scope they grow as big and blimpy as a multi-book series or stay as tiny condom-sized condiments of flash fiction.
In this case, I think I did have a story, or at most a novelette in mind—just two characters interacting, Rossian and Izelle, yin-yang in a nutshell. But then all the introspection and the compounded thickness of the mental state of the characters forced me to switch gears. First, I broke the single story into scenes. Then something else happened, and the scope of the story shifted, expanded. I believe the Castle itself became a character and added all the baroque hoary atmosphere, and the servants, and the ancient history. . . .
I did consider briefly padding it out further into a novel but that was really not the story’s natural length. As is, I think it is just right. When Tanith Lee read the novella, she told me that she thought it would make a stage play, with the kind of insular stage-level intensity between characters, the one-on-one riffing off dramatic dialogue, etc. Indeed, a play makes better sense to me than a novel.
What was the most difficult part in writing it and getting it published?
As I mentioned elsewhere, this is a work of twenty years. I’ve always been an ambitious kid, and unfortunately my college-age aspirations had overshot my abilities by several decades. (Fortunately, these days my ambition works in Benjamin Button-reverse mode, and the older I get the less I think of my “razmakh”—a great Russian word that doesn’t exactly translate but means “the swinging wide of one’s arms” in the metaphoric sense.)
The difficulty in writing and rewriting The Duke in His Castle was that I knew long in advance this was supposed to be somehow an intense, “important” work, but the first short drafts were inadequate in every sense. I had to really learn to write first, before I could write it. And part of the learning meant I had to immerse myself in the claustrophobic mindset over time. As for the language—the thick, long sentences—it is the Castle speaking. It did not start out in such a dense style but evolved layers, like lichen growing over old moldy granite walls.
As a result, the characters are a little insane. Rossian, the young Duke, is not particularly likeable, and at times he is demonic. At others, he is a lonely little boy.
Now, most writers realize that novellas don’t have venues and there are very few places you can sell one. Although, these days I must say the situation has improved vastly, with places like PS Publishing and a number of other fine small presses that specialize in novellas. But it used to be you could only serialize them in the digests. So not many people intentionally start out with the intention of creating a novella unless they have a specific market in mind.
Erzebet YellowBoy was kind enough to take The Duke for her micro-press Papaveria Press, in order to do a marvelous hand-made art edition; that got delayed due to her moving to the UK, and other things came up, and in the meantime, my father died and I basically felt I really needed to bring this work out myself before a mass audience. I and it could no longer wait. And so I did the book through Norilana—in many ways to do a personal tribute to the strange cycle of death and life and death and life and….
Any update on its proposed hand-bound edition?
Not at this point. I’ve been extremely busy running Norilana Books and dealing with the dire economic stuff and Life (TM) and I am not sure Erzebet’s situation is right now. I do hope eventually we can do the Papaveria Press hand-bound edition and use my interior illustration and her gorgeous cloth covers and exquisite hand-sewn pages and gold foil…
What made you decide to tackle the setting in a moody castle?
I think it wasn’t so much my own decision as it was it that tackled me. And by “it” I don’t mean the castle, but the dark claustrophobic mindset, the strange powerless stagnation that underlies everything—a state of mind that came to overtake the story.
How do you manage to juggle your publishing duties at Norilana with your writing duties?
Right now I am not writing. And that truly sucks. I grieve. I started just one story last year, and it’s about 6,000 words, still unfinished, and I’ve had bare minutes to work on it, here and there. Let me repeat, I grieve. After all these months and years without a proper writing outlet I am now an overflowing vessel of Liquid Story, lidded up and bursting without an outlet.
That’s because I am working on Norilana book production non-stop, often 24/7 (yeah, I’ve gone without sleep for days straight, so this is not much of an exaggeration). Mostly the insane schedule is so that I can get an income steam going that will allow me to pay the bills and keep the house, and take care of mom. And this means I have to keep adding books into the system, and do all else that goes with it. Norilana Books is growing and I am almost there.
These days I wistfully see other people post their writing progress and talk about writers block and other vagaries and so-called writerly woes, and I want to take a two-by-four and slam them upside the head for being lucky enough to have a life and to have 15 minutes to write, or to wail about not writing. Seriously, I would love to have some of your problems, people.
On the other hand, I then take that same virtual two-by-four and slam myself upside the head to remind me that I am fortunate to be doing the other thing that I love instead of being stuck in a soul-killing office day job and taking hundreds of tech support calls a day as I used to.
I am publishing books—mine or other people’s—so it’s all good. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I am blissfully swimming in the sea of all of you—the industry—of all of us who love Language and Story and Adventure, and Thought and Dreams and True Wonder.
Can you tell us something about your publishing company, Norilana? Why is it named Norilana Books?
Okay, the dirty little secret is about to come out. What is Norilana? There is possibly one other person in the world who knows or remembers the word, and that’s my childhood friend Cathy who was there when I first came up with it in junior high. “Norilana” is a made-up word, a personal mantra of sorts. Get ready . . . it is the name of a mighty sorceress of the night in my first unfinished epic fantasy novel, titled (to shamelessly ape Terry Brooks) “The Sword of Norilana.” So now you get the tongue-in-cheek audacity, since that’s also the name of the upcoming high fantasy imprint of Norilana Books. My dreams live on in publishing, though not exactly as I’d originally envisioned them.
As far as Norilana Books the small press, I am proud to say that since I started this business in 2006, we now have over 230 books in print, and that’s a mix of classics of world literature, genre reprints and originals. In the imprints, YA Angst continues to bring out excellent YA fantasy by Sherwood Smith. Leda is the home of romantic fantasy and the Lace and Blade anthology series (volume one includes this year’s Nebula Award Nominee in the novelette category, “Night Wind” by Mary Rosenblum) edited by Deborah J. Ross. Curiosities, the imprint of poetry and unclassifiable delights, showcases Catherynne M. Valente, Mike Allen, and JoSelle Vanderhooft, and the there are various fantasy, SF, and women’s fiction titles by many other amazing authors under the general imprints.
Coming later this year is TaLeKa, the unique imprint dedicated to the works of Tanith Lee and the art of John Kaiine. Then, there’s Spirit, the imprint of the soul in search of meaning, where I plan to release several unusual fiction anthologies that mix history, philosophy, the arts, and inspiration. Finally, there’s the previously mentioned The Sword of Norilana and a very exciting announcement related to it coming soon, in conjunction with the debut of a stellar new author and a monumental epic fantasy series in 2010. In short, there are so many exciting things to come that I can hardly keep talking about it here. Stay tuned!
Do you consider yourself more of a short story writer or a novel writer?
Personally I see myself as a novelist, the writer of very long and possibly blabby and complicated yarns. It’s never an issue of expanding but cutting down, with me. Which in turn is likely the result of having grown up reading Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, and other old verbose classics—complex stories of introspection and very slow pacing. That’s what comes naturally.
On the other hand, I had to teach myself to write short stories, and even there I tend to put in a lot of effort into very intricate, possibly excessive worldbuilding for each short piece, so that they are potentially settings for novels.
Currently, what’s the most difficult aspects when it comes to writing? When it comes to publishing?
I would say, these days it is time and resources. When it comes to publishing there’s never enough time to get things done, and I am always doing the Red Queen trick just to stay in place and on schedule. I would also love to have more finances so that I could expand the business faster and add employees.
With writing, time and focus has also been an issue. As a writer I used to get easily distracted and tended to work in intense bursts, and not on a daily basis—that’s just how I roll. This made it difficult to produce creatively when under constant severe stress (as has been my experience for the last several years). Now I’ve gotten much better at managing to write when under emotional duress, and deadlines are always a good thing and act as a catalyst. But when there’s simply no time to write, there is little anyone can do.
As a writer I see myself as a precarious syringe-needle of intensity, cutting into a single initial point from which begins the injection of a story. To maintain the story, the focus must always be sharp and precise, else I lose the fine thread of creation. An odd metaphor, I know, but it’s how I visualize my process. It is never a blunt random outpouring. It’s very calculated and linear; one sentence follows another in a logical chain of succession. I may not know where exactly I am going—since I write organically without an outline, with only a vague idea of completion of a theme—but I always know how to end the immediate thought.
What are the projects you’re currently working on?
Oh, if only I could set all things aside for several months and just worry about nothing, and simply write! My first thing would very likely be the sequel to LORDS OF RAINBOW, already written in my head and to be titled LADY OF MONCHROME. Otherwise there’s a number of other novels and fantastic otherworlds in progress, including a second book in the Compass Rose milieu, GODS OF THE COMPASS ROSE, and COBWEB BRIDE, and AIREALM, and even that short story I started some time last year. . . .
But I am dreaming. Right now, it’s back to publishing work.
VERA NAZARIAN immigrated to the USA from the former USSR as a kid, sold her first story at the age of 17, and since then has published numerous works in anthologies and magazines, and has seen her fiction translated into eight languages. She made her novelist debut with the critically acclaimed Dreams of the Compass Rose
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Ian McDonald 2009 Interview
Ian McDonald is nominated for his novel Brasyl.
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. What’s the appeal of science fiction for you?
For me it’s not so much a thing of reading but a way of thinking. Science fiction is my way of looking at the world. It’s a compulsive neural twitch to look at events, history, technology, society and ask, ‘what would happen if I changed that, tweaked that, that was ten times larger or smaller, came back in one hundred years time?’ I can’t help but think this way--but I find it not a disability but a useful mindset. It’s enquiring, it assumes nothing will stay the same, it embraces change and it looks to possibilities, it assumes there will be a future and it broadens the horizons from the ‘Me! Me! Me!’ mindset endemic in Western 21st century society. It’s a way of navigating the now. And at it’s very best, it dazzles you with wonder.
What was the inspiration for Brasyl? What kind of research did you have to do?
After ‘River of Gods’ I had a slightly heightened awareness of places that science-fiction forgot about, but which have the potential to become major political, economic and cultural players. India was obvious --China has always been much more prominent in SF thinking of Asia, because the SF worldview is very much a US-centric worldview. I had an idea that I wanted to explore the Many World Theory: I’ve always been fascinated, scared and seduced by Brazil and it seemed a nation that better expressed than anywhere that sense of worlds, universes, lying next to each other, quite inaccessible to each other, but which can sometimes open on to each other into moments of madness. You get that sense in cities like Rio and Sao Paulo, where the social jump from even one end of a street to another can be from a palace to a favela. Parallel and inaccessible universes literally next door to each other. Brazil is huge --it’s larger than the conterminous states of the US, it’s almost completely unknown to us Northerners, who see nothing more than a bit of bootie-shaking at Carnaval, or the occasional performance by the Selecao, the national soccer team --who seem well on their way to becoming the Harlem Globetrotters of world soccer, alas, or wring our hands at the fate of the Amazon. Seemingly separate world, but all connected. Yet here is a huge, vibrant melting pot American culture that is completely its own thing: one of the things I love about Brazilian music is how it invents a totally different black music tradition from the one in North America. And beyond those obvious markers, the country is a blank to most people, hence the fair few comment on The Interweb from reviewers who ‘didn’t get all that Spanish’. Put it all together and it’s obvious…
What made you decide to structure the book using three timelines/characters?
It’s a book about connections between the disparate, specifically the quantum connections between things and, being me, I was perversely drawn not to the huge difference between parallel universes --the classic Hitler/Napoleon/Confederacy/Vikings win-- but to imperceptible differences between universes, that over time add up. So you see someone you think you know and slowly realise, hey; they’re not from round this neck of the universe at all. It’s a fun way of playing with identity, and questions of identity run all through Brasyl; it seems to me another Brazilian cultural trait, a sense of looseness of identity, of being happy to be several social selves in one body. It was originally just two timelines: the near-future Sao Paulo of Edson and the Rio of Marcelina… but as I read more about the history of the country, it became obvious that I had to set something in the past. Brazil’s history of stunning and appalling, and the late Mission period, before the Jesuits were expelled because they were the only force for social good in the colony, who spoke out against the mass enslavement, and thus destruction, of the Brazilian natives. As it turned out, that was the but I enjoyed writing most. I’ve always had a thing about the 18th century, it’s the fusion of elegance and refinement with brutality and passion.
What was the most difficult thing you encountered when writing Brasyl?
The inevitable one of not being Brazilian, the same as not being Indian, American, a citizen of any one of the ten thousand (and counting) cultures of my general purpose far future Clade. But then that’s the whole trick of any writing, as it is of acting, of people knowing you’re not what you pretend to be, but convincing them sufficiently. ‘The Other’ starts at your eyelids, I find. All writing is trying to extend ‘you’ into the rest of the universe that is ‘not you’, and communicate that. I try and immerse myself in a world over a long period of time: the River of Gods/Cyberabad Days (out now!) world has been evolving since 1999. I researched Brasyl for two years before writing a single word. I mass a colossal amount of information, most of which I never use, but if I don’t put in the spade-work, Ill never know whether it’s needed or not.
Moving on to your other writings, what are you currently working on?
I’m tunnelling into ‘The Dervish House’, part three of the unofficial ‘New World Order’ trilogy. It’s set in Turkey in the not-too distant future, five years after it joins the European Union (something the current government wants very much). There’s the usual pother of intermingling stories, told over five days and focused on a diverse group of people who live and work in an old converted dervish lodge in a tatty corner of Istanbul. Why Turkey? Look at it on a map. It’s immediately obvious that this is one of the planet’s strategically important countries. It’s undergoing a manufacturing boom. And when you go there, you realise how endlessly rich and fascinating the country is. Their history goes back to the very limits of human imagination. It’s been the highway of Empires and been capital of four empires itself.
When you start a novel or a story, do you have an agenda beforehand or is it something that surfaces as the writing progresses?
A bit of both. I have the science idea, some tool in the science-fictional trope-box that can be beautifully expressed through the society and history of that country, and which can change it, illuminate it in ways different from our Atlantic-centric thinking, and which the people can make entirely their own. I have the social and political set up well in advance, the triggers for social change which are the energy source for the book. It’s nice still be to be able to write a political novel --and SF is at its heart deeply political because it’s the way the world can be. As I write, things come into clearer focus, ideas that seemed brilliant and vital are dropped because they’re clunky, the whole edifice breaks forward. And I’m still sourcing material as I write. It’s kind of intense, like method acting. However, I’ve never yet thrown a Christian Bale on set.
You’ve featured a wide variety of countries/cultures in your books and tackled various causes. How do you decide to set your stories in this or that place?
Big, brash and overlooked --particularly by the US. Places that offer a completely different interpretation of the US-centric values and tropes of Science Fiction. Aliens come to Earth: okay, so what if, rather they land on the White House lawn, they land in East Africa? (Chaga/Evolution’s shore). Or India, where my particular take on artificial intelligence seemed to mesh perfectly with a predominantly Hindu democracy emerging as a major information technology centre. For Brasyl, as I said, I’d long wanted to explore the wilder shores of quantum theory, particularly the idea that quantum computing, because of its code-breaking powers, might be tightly regulated, and that a pirate quantum computing culture might evolve --and that seemed strangely South American. And Sao Paulo is so essentially science-fictional. The rich commute from tower-top helipads… how can you not love this?
What’s your definition of third world?
It’s not an expression I use any more. I like ‘developing world’. Third world, to me, reveals an old-style Eurocentric thinking: The First World is the Old world, then there is the New World (including Australia --so it’s clearly developed from British Empire thinking), and then the rest is the supposedly impoverished and struggling Third World. Except it’s not like that. India and China are motoring up to become major world players, Brazil is the regional superpower in South America and has ambitions to play a role commensurate with its size on the global stage. Information technology is a great leveller --I’m fascinated by the way that African villages have cellphones before they have a land line, and find exciting and innovative uses for them totally suited to their needs that we would never think of. There are political and social markers that I would think of as ‘underdeveloped world’: corruption, a weak state but a powerful government, reliance on families, lack of access to finance, poor rule of law, male gun culture, theocracy… They’re always the most interesting to wrote about.
What was the biggest hurdle you faced breaking into the industry?
The second third and fourth stories. The first one you sell is easier, because you’ve cried blood over that little gem, you polished it to a gleam over maybe years. Then you realise you need to follow that up --momentum is a key play in writing, maintaining a steady rhythm of work and delivery. But, for me, it’s been disgustingly easy. Sorry but that’s the truth. I didn’t have years of trawling through the slush pile, things fell towards me, which is odd for someone writing in a science-fictionally isolated place like Northern Ireland, at that time, which was the end-game of the Troubles, when everyone knew it was over because there was no clear win for any of the players, but no one could move first to finish it. It’s been a charmed life. Then again, there’s that second novel of which I do not speak: ‘Out on Blue Six’… I did suffer a big set back when I lost my first US publisher in 1996, and it took a good few years to recover from that and get working with Pyr, who may be small, but that means they have heart and soul and passion and rock mightily. On the upside it did mean that I had to get a day job, which has turned out to be a blessing, in that I get to meet Real! People! (well, as real as you can get in an animation company)
What’s been the most rewarding experience so far?
Writing? Rewarding? People are rewarding, the world is rewarding. Being part of a global science-fictional community, one that likes to talk and shout and argue and pulls together when the family is threatened from the outside, that’s very rewarding.
How has the present you differed from the Ian McDonald of two decade ago?
Well, there’s not an atom of me in existence then that is part of me now and yet, somehow, a sense of me persists. This is mystery, and I still maintain that keen sense of mystery that is the heart of SF. I’m older than I think, which baffles me. Writing seems easier now, so I mistrust that, as anything that seems too easy may not be very good. I’m duller, grumpier less tolerant of fools but keener to the tiny joys of life.
Ian McDonald’s mother is Irish, Fatrher Scottish, was born in England but has lived for almost all of his forty something years in Northern Ireland, more specifically, in that narrow strip of land along the southern edge of Belfast Lough. From that vantage he’s seen the Troubles start and also, he hopes, end. His first story was sold in 1983 to short-lived but very glossy local SFF magazine Extro. He bought a guitar with the money. His first novel, Desolation Road came out in 1988 from Bantam Spectra, this year PYR republish it for the first time since then in the US. His most recent novel was the Hugo and Nebula nominated Brasyl, just out from PYR in the US and Gollancz in the UK is Cyberabad Days, a collection of stories from the future India of his 2006 novel River of Gods, including Hugo winning novelette The Djinn’s Wife. In progress is a new novel, The Dervish House, set in near-future Turkey. In daylight hours he works for local animation company Flickerpix.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
K.D. Wentworth 2009 Interview
K.D. Wentworth is nominated for her novelette “Kaleidoscope.”
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. What’s the appeal of speculative fiction for you?
Ever since I was very small, I always wanted the world to be stranger than it really was. I had to be disabused of the notion of Santa Claus at a much later age than most children because I simply wouldn’t stop believing. Speculative fiction satisfies that itch for a wilder, stranger world.
At what point did you know you wanted to be a writer? What challenges did you have to overcome in order to do so?
I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was in the fourth grade and stuck with the notion, even writing two (very bad) Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels in high school, mostly designed to make my friends laugh. The main challenge for me (besides learning to type!) was learning to turn off the TV, the radio, the stereo, etc., close the door to my office and commit some real time to writing every day. I’m easily bored so it was hard to learn to be alone with my thoughts and the keyboard.
Is it easy for you transitioning between short stories and novels? Which do you prefer?
I love both so it’s easy for me to go back and forth. Sometimes I even work on my novel in the morning and work on a short story in the afternoon. Short stories are short term gratification. You can write them in a week or two and then send them out into the world to earn their bread. Novels are comfortable because you create these characters and worlds and then get to spend a really long time exploring and getting to know them.
How has the Writers of the Future contest affected you, both when you started out and in the present?
Writers of the Future was my first sale and the first indication that I’d ever received that I wasn’t wasting my time and that a career was possible. Winning gave me confidence, and then what I learned at the WOTF workshop gave me a head start.
How did being an elementary school teacher affected you as a writer?
It taught me a lot about human nature and it also taught me how to make good use of my time, since I had so little spare time! Also, the first few stories that I sold had child protagonists which can be traced back to the fact that I spent so much time with children.
What was the inspiration for “Kaleidoscope?”
The concept behind “Kaleidoscope” first came to me as a scribbled note in my writer’s notebook about someone having a “quantum memory.” Then an escaped dog named Sadie came running past my house when I was out working in my garden. I called to her and just for a moment we had two equally probable outcomes. Either she would come to me and I would save her life or she would ignore me and try to run across the six lane very busy street half a block away. Fortunately she came to me, but that dual moment stayed with me and I had the character for my story.
What were the challenges in writing that story?
The biggest challenge was how to collapse the wave so that Ally could go back to living a normal life. I do not plot my stories out in advance so it all has to weave together at the end.
For those unfamiliar with your work, could you tell us more about your novels?
I have seven in print. The first, The Imperium Game, is a humorous sf adventure/mystery taking place in the near future in an interactive residential game environment which recreates ancient Rome and has all the gods programmed into the computer. The gods keep manifesting and driving everyone crazy.
The second and third, Moonspeaker and House of Moons, take place on a long-ago human-colonized world where the gene pool has split into two groups, the psi-gifted Kashi and the normal Chierra. The Ilseri, aliens who share this world with them, come to the main character, Haemas, and teach her to walk the Pathways of When.
The fourth is This Fair Land, a Cherokee alternate history fantasy which takes place in a timeline where the Indians kicked Columbus out of the New World with their magic when he first appeared, then kept the White Man out for the next two hundred years. The main character is an Irish Catholic priest, Declan Connolly, who discovers to his horror that he has a talent for Indian magic.
The fifth and sixth were Black/on/Black and Stars/over/Stars, which deal with a fierce seven foot furred race called the hrinn. The main character is Heyoka Blackeagle, a hrinn kidnapped from his world as a toddler, sold as a slave, then rescued and brought up by a human on Earth. He feels human but longs to find his roots and in Black/on/Black finally travels to Anktan to find out how he came to leave. Once there, he encounters an unsuspected crisis with the Flek, an insectoid species engaged in a long term war with humanity.
The seventh is The Course of Empire, co-written with Eric Flint. Again it deals with aliens (my favorite subject), this time the Jao, a species uplifted into sentience, and their former masters, the insane Ekhat, who wish to scour the entire universe free of nonEkhat intelligence. When the book opens, it’s been twenty years since the Jao conquered Earth, but the humanity still resists its Jao masters where it can. Then a young Jao prince is assigned to Earth and is able to see the situation with fresh eyes.
Next March, The Crucible of Empire, co-written with Eric Flint and the direct sequel to The Course of Empire, will be published. It features the return of both the Jao and the Ekhat, along with a new species, the Lleix.
What kind of research did you have to do for them?
I did the most research for The Imperium Game (endless books on Roman culture) and This Fair Land (endless books on Cherokee culture and Georgia landforms), but I also did a fair bit of research on Arab, African, and Japanese culture when creating the hrinn. The latter was useful in helping me ferret out my assumptions and break free of a Western mindset.
What projects are you currently working on?
I just turned in a book so right now I’m writing a few short stories for invitation anthologies and dreaming up the background for a new stand alone novel series.
K.D. Wentworth lives in Tulsa with her husband, a combined one hundred eighty pounds of dog (Akita + Siberian Hussy) and writes full time since retiring from teaching elementary school six years ago. She has sold over seventy short stories and eight novels, with The Course of Empire (Baen Books) being the most recently published. Her next book, The Crucible of Empire, written with Eric Flint, will be out in March, 2010. “Kaleidoscope” is her fourth Nebula Nomination for short fiction.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Lisa Goldstein 2009 Interview
Lisa Goldstein is nominated for the novelette “Dark Rooms.”
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. What’s the appeal of science fiction for you? How about fantasy?
I like getting lost in different worlds, both in fantasy and science fiction. I like seeing how people build worlds, and how they make them consistent. I like them both for showing possibilities, the future in science fiction, and anything at all in fantasy. (People keep saying that fantasy is about the past, and a lot of it is, but there are amazing possibilities there—you can write about anywhere and anywhen.)
What made you decide that you wanted to be a writer? At what point did you consider yourself an actual writer?
I always wanted to be a writer, ever since I could read. I loved the idea of being able to create stories like the ones I enjoyed reading, of trying to do something as good as my favorite authors. I didn’t think of myself as a writer until I got my first book published, though.
How would you describe your writing?
That’s a hard one, because I’m not really sure. I’ve written lots of different things, fantasy and science fiction and mainstream. I mostly write fantasy, but even there I’ve done all kinds of sub-genres, urban fantasy and historical fantasy and magic realism and some stuff I wouldn’t know how to categorize. My favorite description of what I do is that I try to write about magic in everyday life.
Which medium are you more comfortable with, short stories or novels?
I like writing in both. Novels are great for spreading out and getting lost in, and short stories are fun because they focus down on one or two specific things.
What’s the biggest challenge you had to overcome before getting published?
Rejection, like almost everyone else. Also, at the beginning I had a hard time making myself sit down and actually work—there always seemed to be something more fun or more important to do. Okay, that’s two biggest challenges.
Who were the writers that influenced you back then? How about now?
Then and now I like Ursula Le Guin. When I first read her there weren’t a lot of women writing sf, and I was so thrilled to find a woman who could not only play by the rules of science fiction but who did it better than anyone else. Now I think she’s amazing for the breadth of things she can write well—science fiction and fantasy and mainstream and poetry. I can’t write half the things she does, but I learned a lot from her. Back then I also read writers who were part of what was called the New Wave—Samuel Delany and Roger Zelazny and Carol Emshwiller (another woman!), and I liked the way they expanded the possibilities of science fiction and fantasy. These days my favorite book is Possession by A. S. Byatt, which is about parallel stories—two writers in Victorian England, two literary critics in the present—and the way they echo and re-echo each other, and is just amazingly constructed—I find something new in it every time I read it. It isn’t fantasy, but there is a woman in it who writes fantasy and fairy tales. I also like Neil Gaiman—he’s definitely one of the people who takes advantage of the possibilities of fantasy.
How different is the field back in the 1980s compared to today? Do you think the industry is faring better or worse?
When I started out it was almost possible to read every fantasy and science fiction novel that got published, so you could have a conversation about the field and everyone would know what you were talking about. Now the field’s split off into dozens of different sub-genres, and no one could possibly keep up with it. I keep seeing books by new writers I’ve never heard of. With so much being published, it’s much harder for new writers to get noticed—I know it would be harder for me if I had to start now. Also, it seems to me that publishers are less willing to take chances now, especially with the economy so bad, so there are too many books all about the same thing.
On the other hand, there are more small presses these days, and people are taking them more seriously. So if you have something no big publisher would want to take a chance on, something quirky or different, there’s always a possibility a small press might pick it up. Of course you still have the problem of getting noticed ...
What was the inspiration for “Dark Rooms?”
It came from a book about movies called The Invisible Art, which had a picture of Georges Méliès, a pioneer of film, selling toys in a Paris train station. This seemed almost unbearable poignant, and I was sure there was a story there somewhere. In fact, I liked this image so much that for a couple of days I just circled it, the way a sculptor would circle a good piece of marble, hoping I could do it justice.
What kind of research did you have to do for the story?
Quite a lot. I read books on Méliès and saw his movie Voyage to the Moon, and I read books on the early history of film, and some books, on Hollywood for example, that turned out to have nothing to do with the story except for some touches in the background. And I got distracted by the history of magic lanterns and a Jesuit priest named Athanasius Kircher, who was supposed to have invented the magic lantern (pictures painted on glass and projected onto a wall) in the seventeenth century, and who will probably someday be the subject of another story.
To those unfamiliar with your work, which of your novels would you recommend?
I like Dark Cities Underground, because it worked out nearly as well as I wanted it too. I wanted to take unrelated subjects—subways and children’s books and Egyptian gods—and put them all together in a sort of grand secret history, with some steampunk thrown in. I’ve never been able to come up with another conspiracy theory that worked as well. I’d also recommend The Red Magician, which got lots of attention and is my most personal novel, a book based on stories my mother told me about growing up in a small town in Eastern Europe.
What is it like writing under a pseudonym?
It was strange, and I don’t know if I’d recommend it. (It was the publisher’s idea, because they thought those books were very different from anything I’d written before.) I was essentially starting over, and, as I said above, it’s hard for a new writer to get attention in this climate. Also, at the beginning I wasn’t allowed to let the secret out, and so I was unable to publicize the books at all—though finally I just said the hell with it and began to tell people. On the other hand, there’s something really fun about having a secret identity. My fondest hope was that I would hear something about my books (something good, of course) from someone who didn’t know I’d written them, but unfortunately that never happened.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m mostly writing short stories. Actually right now I’m writing another story inspired by The Invisible Art, this one about a huge set that D. W. Griffith constructed on Hollywood Boulevard that was supposed to represent ancient Babylon. (I have to say, that book was a very fortuitous find.) I also have an idea for a novel set in the early 1970s and based in part on some college friends, but that one will have to settle in my brain a little more.
Lisa Goldstein lives in a 90-year-old house in Oakland with her husband Doug and her cute dog Spark.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Nina Kiriki Hoffman 2009 Interview
Nina Kiriki Hoffman is the winner in the Best Short Story category of the 2008 Nebula Awards for her piece “Trophy Wives.”
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Let’s first talk about your story. What was the inspiration for “Trophy Wives?”
Inspiration came from many places. I wrote “Trophy Wives” for an anthology whose theme was fellowship; I wanted to write about women who were friends - that was my starting point.
Some of the story’s details were informed by research I did in the early nineties for my Arabian Nights collaboration with Tad Williams, CHILD OF AN ANCIENT CITY. I read a book called AESTHETICS AND RITUAL IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF FOOD AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT AMONG ARABIAN WOMEN by Aida S. Kanafani. Lots of fascinating information there.
What I enjoyed about the story was how there was a recurring theme of the trophy wife. What made you tackle this subject matter?
Power dynamics in relationships intrigue me.
What’s the appeal of speculative fiction--whether fantasy, science fiction, or horror--for you?
I like not being limited by consensus reality. Speculative fiction gives me much more room to play.
At what point did you decide you wanted to become a professional writer? When did you consider yourself one?
The turning point for me was attending Clarion in 1982. I’d always liked writing. At Clarion, my instructors told me I was doing good work, and that’s when I decided this was the career for me.
Did winning the Writers of the Future Award aid you in your career?
Sure! The money was the best payment for a short story you could get at the time, outside of selling to PLAYBOY, REDBOOK, or THE NEW YORKER. It was my third or fourth sale, which was very exciting. The contest administrators flew me and all the other winners that first year (1984) to Hollywood for a fabulous awards event, where we got to mingle with Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, and all kinds of other idols and luminaries.
I’ve been a judge for the contest for several years now, and I think the week-long workshop with Tim Powers and K. D. Wentworth is really wonderful for beginning writers (they didn’t start the workshop until a couple years after I won; I envy today’s winners). The Illustrators of the Future workshop with Val and Ron Lindahn is terrific, too. The writers and illustrators who win are wonderful folk from all over the world, and because of their time together at the workshops, they form a network/community that will support them in their careers and friendships for years to come. (It’s a lot easier to stay in touch these days.)
In the Strange Horizons interview, you mentioned that your family is composed of artistic types. How did this help or hinder you?
Our parents supported our artistic endeavors in many ways. Art lessons, music lessons - my mom set up a charge account at a bookstore for me! It had limits, but what a great gift.
We had art supplies (piles of scrap paper recycled from my dad’s work at a think tank) and musical instruments. If we expressed an artistic interest, our parents responded. I took guitar, piano, clarinet, and voice lessons. One of my brothers learned glass blowing. Another had a drum kit in the basement. All of us played some piano and guitar, at least, and many of us have learned to play other instruments. My sister didn’t get in on most of this, but she’s had a career in movie production ever since she moved out of the house.
My brothers and I competed artistically in some arenas - mostly drawing and music. Nobody else was writing stories (though they wrote and still write a lot of music and lyrics), so it felt safe for me to focus there- nobody nipping at my heels.
You have a large body of work across various genres and formats. Do you have a favored format (i.e. short story, novel, etc.) or genre? Is it easy for you switching among them?
I like short stories because they are smaller units, a shorter commitment of time and work. Novels are fun because I get to spend more time with the characters. I tend to write more fantasy than science fiction, because magic seems more malleable than science. I do enjoy switching around.
What’s the biggest challenge you had to overcome in your career so far?
Cancer took me out of the game for a year and a half. Just coming back from that.
As one of the veteran authors in the industry, what are the most significant changes you’ve witnessed in our industry?
The conglomeration of distribution from many to a few, leading to a more homogenized and smaller selection of books in the common outlets (supermarkets, now). Many of the specialty bookstores have gone out of business. They were so wonderful and eclectic, with knowledgeable staff. It’s depressing.
The expansion of online booksellers, and electronic books - things are melty and confusing now, and exciting. You can track down that book you read and loved twenty years ago, which is cool. There’s new room in self-publishing and online publishing for the quirky book. But how do authors get paid? It’s a time of terror and opportunity.
To those unfamiliar with your work, is there a book of yours that you’d recommend to them?
I love them all. If you can find it, SILENT STRENGTH OF STONES is one of my favorites.
What are the projects you’re currently working on?
Right now I’m writing a middle grade book for Sharyn November at Viking. It combines magic and science fiction, big weird families (my specialty) and dimensional portals.
Over the past twenty-some years, Nina Kiriki Hoffman has sold adult and YA novels and more than 250 short stories. Her works have been finalists for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Mythopoeic, Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, and Endeavour awards. Her first novel won a Stoker award.
Nina’s young adult novel Spirits That Walk in Shadow and short sf novel Catalyst came out in 2006. Fall of Light is due from Ace May 2009.
Nina does production work for the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and teaches writing through her local community college. She also works with teen writers. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, with several cats and many strange toys.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Catherine Asaro 2009 Interview
Catherine Asaro is nominated for novella “The Spacetime Pool.”
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. What’s the appeal of science fiction for you?
From the time when I first learned to read, I’ve loved science fiction and fantasy; even before that, in fact, as soon as I was able to imagine stories in my mind. That step outside of the mundane universe has always fascinated me.
I read and heard in an interview that you were hesitant to write fantasy at first. What made you eventually venture into fantasy territory?
I didn’t know if I could write fantasy well. I enjoy it as much as science fiction, but for me it’s more difficult to do. As a scientist, I find it easiest to write hard SF. When I tried fantasy, I’d think of a scientific reason for the magic, and my stories would turn into science fiction. Then Mary Theresa-Hussey offered me the chance to write for Luna Books when they were launching their fantasy line. I had been mulling over some ideas, she liked them, and so it all happened. And this time the magic stayed magic. Though I must admit, it is mathematically based. I really enjoy writing those books.
There’s usually an element of romance in your stories. Is this a conscious decision? Why does romance appeal to you?
No, it wasn’t conscious. The stories didn’t feel complete to me without that relationship aspect. I don’t know why; I’ve just always been that way. Relationships and our emotional involvement with one another seems to me to be thoroughly tied up with story-telling.
How helpful is your scientific background when writing your books?
A lot. The science and research comes easily to me. And it’s fun.
Here’s an example: I came up with the idea for my novel The Quantum Rose when I was writing my Ph.D. thesis in chemical physics at Harvard. My doctoral work used coupled channel quantum scattering theory to describe molecular behavior. So the ideas of my thesis and the story wound all around each other. At the time, it seemed obvious that the characters and their actions were analogs to the mathematics and processes of coupled channel quantum scattering theory. Looking back, I’m not sure why all those analogies seemed so obvious. But I had a blast writing about it. That analogy remains one of my favorite aspects of my stories.
At what point did you consider yourself a professional author? What made you decide to pursue writing as a career?
It sometimes felt as if the writing pursued me. I finished grad school, did my postdoctoral work, and became a physics professor, and the whole time the stories kept pulling at me. I wanted to write more than teach. In the end, the stories won out. At the time, I was a professor at Kenyon College, where science fiction author Joan Slonzczewski is a prof in the biology department. We became friends, and she recommended me to David Hartwell, her editor. That was the beginning.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome in your writing career?
Overcoming my shyness in talking to people and having my picture taken. It comes more easily to me now, but it didn’t when I first started. For the most part,though, people have been very kind about it.
Is it easy for you transition from short stories (novellas, novelettes, etc.) to novels? Which format do you prefer?
I’m much more a novel writer. That’s why most of my “short” works are novellas. However, I’m learning to write shorter fiction, too. I’ve a story in an upcoming Twilight Zone anthology that I think is one of my best.
When writing a story like “The Spacetime Pool,” what kind of preparations do you make? Did you envision the “science” aspect of it first or the characters or the plot?
I originally envisioned it as a book. I started it years ago, then put it aside. I was never sure what I wanted to do with the story. The characters and math of this one evolved together. That’s unusual for me; in most of my books, the characters come first and then the science/math. But in this case, they developed in the same time-line.
I had originally called the Fourier Hall in the story the Hall of Arches. But as I was describing that gorgeous hall, I realized the arches formed piecewise continuous functions, which you can model using Fourier series. I used to give my physics students problems like that. From there, the math ideas just flooded out.
I’ve included a picture of Moorish architecture showing arches similar to the type I envisioned in the story. I’ve also attached a mathematical plot modeling the arches. It’s not from a pure Fourier series; I used squared sine functions. I only needed a few terms to get a figure that close to the arches; with a more complex series, I could introduce a lot more of the small details you see in the architecture.
The second plot is the Fourier transform of the arches, what Janelle did by hand in the story. I used Maple, a math program that does a lot of the number crunching for you if you give it the equations you want to investigate. Janelle has a lot more patience than I do, to plot that all by hand. But then, she had a more compelling reason!
The story is up at the Analog site, for anyone who would like to see it. The address is:
http://www.analogsf.com/nebulas09/TheSpacetimepool.shtml
I also put an illustrated version up on my Facebook page: It’s given chapter by chapter in the “Notes” section:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Catherine-Asaro/33623623207
There’s some hard science puzzles in “The Spacetime Pool,” such as the part where Janelle is imprisoned. What made you decide to include such scenes?
Oh, that’s easy to answer. I coach math teams, including award winning students in the American Regional Math League, the USA Mathematical Olympiad, the USA Mathematical Talent Search, and for the younger students, MathCounts. The problem Janelle had to solve in the one scene is a classic math puzzle of the type you see on MathCounts tests. It’s not something most people would know off the top of their head, but these whiz students can zip through it moments. I had them check my answer when I was writing the story.
For unfamiliar readers, could you tell us more about your Saga of the Skolian Empire and Lost Continent series? What would be a good book to start with?
The Skolian Empire books are space adventure about the Ruby Dynasty. I started out basing the dynasty characters on the Greek pantheon from mythology, but it fast became clear that translating Greek gods and goddesses into a human dynasty made for a really dysfunctional family. So I just let the stories evolve the way they felt right.
The Ruby Dynasty books aren’t a series in the usual sense, because most of them stand alone. But they are all set in the same universe. The most recent book, Diamond Star, is due out from Baen in May 2009. It’s a good one to start with, because it doesn’t depend on the other books.
The Lost Continent Series is a collection of fantasy novels set in the same universe. A good one to start with there would be The Night Bird. I think it’s also one of my best. And it has a gorgeous, sensuous cover.
What projects are you currently working on?
I recently finished a music CD, titled Diamond Star, that offers readers a soundtrack for my book. Diamond Star. The CD will be released by Starflight Music in April 2009. The book tells the story of Del, a renegade prince who would rather be a rock singer than sit on the throne. His family wants him to stop, his friends want to use him, his label wants to own him, and his enemies want to kill him. Del just wants to sing—without starting an interstellar war.
To write the story, I needed lyrics to his songs, and to write those, I needed music for at least some of them. So I wrote words and a bit of music. In 2007, I sent one song to Hayim Ani, the front man for the rock band Point Valid. He “got it” right away, what I was trying to do. He had a natural feel for the idea. We started working together, and it grew into a great collaboration with his band and all these gifted musicians they brought into the studio.
Point Valid is an alternative band with Hayim on vocals and guitar, Adam Leve on drums, and Max Vidaver on guitar. Our recording engineer and co-producer, Dave Nachodsky, played bass on most of the cuts. The band wrote a lot of the music, with a few songs from me, and Hayim contributed three of his originals. It’s Point Valid’s second CD. Their first, Of Dreams and Memories, is available through CD Baby or iTunes. Songs from Diamond Star can be found at www.starflight-music.com.
(From left to right: Max Vidaver, Catherine Asaro, Hayim Ani, Adam Leve. Photo: Stephen Baranovics.)
Point Valid is dispersed right now. Hayim is in Israel to study for a couple of years and then serve in the military, and Max is at college in New York. Adam will graduate high school this year, study in Israel, and then go to college. But they’re all continuing their interest in music, and Hayim is writing the songs for another CD.
I learned to sing for the CD, doing backups and a ballad. I’ve always listened to music, and I trained in the piano from a young age, but I never sang. With this project, I found out I enjoy it a lot. I still have a long way to go, but I’m training at a music school and working with an accompanist, Donald Wolcott, an accomplished jazz pianist and rock musician. We do gigs showcasing the Diamond Star Project in the Baltimore area and at SF cons. I’m also learning covers by artists such as Nora Jones and Sade.
In October, I’ll be Guest of Honor at Necronomicon in Florida, and they’re bringing out Donald as a musical guest. We’ll be collaborating with a band there, at Necronomicon and possibly at another convention. It’s great fun!
I also joined the Central Maryland Chorale last year as a first soprano. Among the shows we’re doing this year, we’ll be performing Rutter’s Mass of the Children at Carnegie Hall.
So that’s what I’m working on.
Winner of the Nebula® Award for her novel, The Quantum Rose, Catherine emphasizes space adventure, world-building, and characterization in her fiction. Her latest SF novel is The Ruby Dice (Baen, April 2009), and her most recent fantasy is The Night Bird (Luna, June 2008). Her upcoming book—Diamond Star (Baen, May 2009)—is about a rock star in the future. It’s release is the culmination of another project; working together since 2007, she and the rock band Point Valid recorded a CD that offers readers a soundtrack to the book. This month, Starflight Music released the CD, also titled Diamond Star.
Catherine’s short fiction has appeared in anthologies and Analog, including “Walk in Silence,” “A Roll of the Dice,” and “Aurora in Four Voices,” all of which won the Analog Readers Poll for best novella and were nominated for the Nebula® and Hugo. She has a doctorate from Harvard in Chemical Physics and has authored scientific papers in refereed journals. Her paper, “Complex Speeds and Special Relativity” in the The American Journal of Physics (April 1996) forms the basis for some of the science in her fiction. Among the places she has done research are the University of Toronto, Max Planck Institut für Astrophysik, and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She was a physics professor until 1990, when she became a fulltime writer.
Catherine also coaches the Howard Area Homeschoolers and Chesapeake team in the American Regional Math League. Her students have distinguished themselves in numerous national programs, including the USA Mathematical Olympiad, MathCounts, and the USA Mathematical Talent Search. She served two terms as SFWA president and is a member of Sigma, a think tank that consults for the Department of Homeland Security. Her husband, John Kendall Cannizzo, is a NASA astrophysicist, and they have one daughter, a ballet dancer who is currently a first-year student reading mathematics at Cambridge University in England.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Gregory Benford 2009 Interview
Gregory Benford is nominated for his novella “Dark Heaven.”
What attracted you to science in general, whether it’s your career as a physicist or as an author?
I got interested in science fiction at an early age, because it’s the literature of ideas. I always think, “Gee, that’s interesting. I wonder what it’s like to do it.” I do that with essentially everything. I don’t watch sports, I play sports. I can’t resist going into fields that are of interest to me, so I’ve worked in biology, physics, astrophysics, environmental science, geoengineering. Being a science-fiction fan is a great way to get deeply into the culture, to understand where ideas come from, and what kinds of people have ideas. Most scientists aren’t like that, because most scientists do fairly well-defined research that isn’t idea-intensive. I like idea-thick subjects. Most scientists have read science fiction. Isaac Asimov said to me once that by his informal questioning, the majority of all scientists read science fiction when they were young, and after graduate school, if they read anything, it’s usually science fiction, but most of them don’t read anything after graduate school!
How has your career in one field aided you in the other? Which came first, the desire to be a writer or that of a physicist, or both?
They came together. Science fiction is deeply wrapped up in the doing of science. Science and its handmaiden, technology, dominate modern times. I realized that nobody wrote about the scientific mindscape, the way we think, how scientists interact with the rest of the culture. There was a huge, pregnant possibility, and I could write about it because I came out of it. The literary mandarins are virtually unanimous in their fear of science and technology, which undermines conventional world views, and always will. It’s the inherent revolutionary culture. Science fiction at its best is part of the undying revolution we call modern times. I felt this strongly, and sold my first story, written during a boring statistical mechanics lecture, in graduate school.
How did you get involved with the Mars Society? What is it that you do as part of the board of directors?
I was a founding director because I felt that the most important thing to do in the entire space program is to find out if there’s life on Mars. Did life begin there, then colonize the Earth? If it persists still, how different is it? If we find something really fundamental on Mars, exobiology will explode.
In your opinion has your writing improved compared to when you first started out?
I hope it has! The restless urge to write beset me early on, and still does…
You’re in a good position to comment on both the scientific and science fiction community. What’s the biggest change you’ve witnessed in both fields? Did this have any effect on you as a physicist/writer?
Science is loosening up. Nature runs an sf one pager each week. Cosmology is getting usefully more speculative. The culture grows more lively. I’ve branched out into human longevity, founding two biotech companies to advance our healthspan. I’m publishing papers on averting global climate change by geoengineering, both by reflecting sunlight and capturing carbon dioxide from the air. Science has to be more venturesome because the future is coming at us faster than ever.
I saw all this as I began heading down the straight, academic, professorial track, but had this other life, as a writer. I felt it was natural to do both things. But I had to do it. I’ve never seen the point in not doing what you want to. Most academics are content to be conventional—it’s safer. I didn’t fit that mold. You always pay a price. At faculty meetings considering my promotions, people asked how much money I made from writing. A lot of people are unwilling to admit that they’re motivated by envy, but we all know that many are.
Which are you more comfortable with, writing short stories or novels? What do you think is the advantage of each when it come to science fiction?
Short stories are a pleasant vice, most enjoyable. Novels have more weight and longevity. But I write for fun – even poetry! – so that matters little.
How does it feel to have created the Benford Law of Controversy?
That surprised me – a line taken from my novel, Timescape. There are a half dozen others have derived from my work, but I don’t state them as laws.
What projects are you currently working on?
Mostly running my biotech companies, whose focus is increased human healthspan – so we can see the futures we imagined!
For those unfamiliar with your work, what books or stories of yours would you recommend?
Timescape, Eater, Cosm, Artifact – all novels about scientists doing science – and The Martian Race, about astronauts doing science on the ground. Timescape’s popularity is somewhat mysterious to me. I finished it thinking, I’ve finally written the novel that completely indulges my pleasure in being able to write about my own experience. It’s sure to be a failure, I reasoned. It’s often said that review articles in a given field of science are actually forms of concealed autobiography. That’s also true of novels. There’s so much autobiography in Timescape! I appear as several different characters. Gregory Markham is me, and the two unidentified twins in graduate school at UCSD in 1962-63 are obviously me and Jim. It’s about going to graduate school, being an assistant professor, and being a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge, all of which I’ve done. I wrapped it around this plot that’s always obsessed me, the sense of missed possibilities in our lives. Nobody regrets on the death bed the things they did, but rather the things they didn’t do. To echo Jackson Brown: “Although the future is there for anyone to change, sometimes it seems it would be easier somehow to change the past.” I suppose I wedded a deep emotion to a deep facet of physics.
My first thoughts about Timescape were: Is time travel possible? You have to have the right physics. Is there any physics around today that might make it happen? Maybe tachyons. Suppose I was a real scientist—wait, I am a real scientist! What would I do first? Build some kind of phone booth that you walk into, and it turns you into tachyons and transports you? That sounds appetizing. Why don’t we test these ideas by sending a couple of tachyons into the past to see if we can convey some information? My first notes said, time telegraph? I want to send a signal to the past, and that’s actually enough. My God, if you do that, wow! Marconi wanted to send signals to other people; he didn’t want to transport human beings through radio waves. It was the investigation of how I would do it, what would be the first step. That led me through the logic to build the novel. I never got around to the phone booth that transmits people into the past. Bill and Ted did that, eventually.
Gregory Benford is a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, was Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, and in 1995 received the Lord Prize for contributions to science.In 2007 he won the Asimov Award for science writing. His 1999 analysis of what endures, Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia, has been widely read. A fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, he continues his research in both astrophysics and plasma physics and biotech. His fiction has won many awards, including the Nebula Award for his novel Timescape.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays..
Ruth Nestvold 2009 Interview
Ruth Nestvold is nominated for her short story “Mars: A Travelers Guide.”
Tell us a bit more about your story, Mars: A Traveler’s Guide? What was the inspiration behind this story and what did you hope to achieve?
The gestation period for my stories tends to be very long, so it’s hard for me to pinpoint any one source. I have an idea, and I park it in the back of my brain until it either starts bugging me to be written, or I’m looking for something new to write and I pull those ideas out and examine them, trying to decide which one grabs me the most at any particular time. But what I always want to do when I write is to move the reader in some way—to laughter, to tears, to thought. I want to leave an impression.
For “Mars,” one of the inspirations was that I like to play with new ways of telling a story, something that probably at least in part comes from my work in hyperfiction, fiction in hypertext. This story is like doing that _without_ the hypertext.
Another one of the inspirations, believe it or not, was a little lecture Michael Swanwick gave at a workshop a few years back entitled “How to win a Hugo.” (Really!) I didn’t do what he said, but the idea stayed with me. What Michael told us to do was to have a character stranded in a hostile environment in our solar system and have him or her solve the problems that arise using science. I just turned it around a bit and had the science take over and not solve the problems.
When you first started writing with the aim for professional publication, did you envision yourself where you are now?
Well, most of us would probably love to be in the running for a major award someday. Being nominated for a Nebula is like being knighted in our circles. Hoping and reaching for the stars aren’t quite the same thing as envisioning, but on some level I think you have to imagine yourself there in order to push yourself hard enough to keep learning and doing new things in your fiction.
When you sit down to write, do you have a clear vision in your head of what you want to write and how it will turn out?
The first thing I do when I start to write a story or novel is to sit down with a spiral notebook or some sheets of scrap paper and start taking notes, brainstorming in longhand. At that point, no, I do not have a clear image of what the story will end up being. But usually by the time I hit the computer I have a fairly fleshed-out idea of where I’m going, although characters can occasionally surprise me, as they do many writers.
Your first novel, Yseult, was released by Penhaligon (Random House Germany) this year. How does it feel to be a published novelist, and what were some of the challenges you faced before Yseult was picked up? What kept you going?
Having a novel out is of course one of the dreams of most writers, and it feels great. Getting there wasn’t easy, though. Both Yseult and a previous novel were requested repeatedly by agents and publishers in the U.S., but none of those interested ever decided to sign me on. Yseult is actually the fourth novel I’ve written but the first one to be published. Stubbornness is one of the most important attributes a writer can have, but it has to be paired with a certain amount of willingness to learn and take the opinions of others into consideration.
Yseult has also been picked up by the Dutch publisher, Mynx. Has this success influenced the way you approach writing?
The fact that the novel has had a certain amount of success, yes, that has had an influence on the way I write. My German publisher is interested in my next Arthurian book, and while I don’t have a contract or a deadline, my editor needs at least a general time frame when the book will be finished so that he can line up a translator. Trying to judge my progress and estimate when I can have a big, novel-length manuscript ready is something completely new to me, something that I’m having to teach myself as I go. I can easily guesstimate how long it will take me to produce 140,000 words, but it’s much more difficult to figure out how long I will need for the rewrite—I don’t have any numbers to base that on.
Between the short story and the novel, which form do you prefer and why?
I enjoy both, and at the moment I miss writing short stories, I have to admit. It’s nice to have the whole overview in my head, to complete something in a short space of time. With an epic novel like Yseult or my current project, Shadow of Stone, I can’t keep all the elements in my head at once, and I have to keep jumping backward and forward to figure what I’ve done and what I have planned. But the advantage of a novel is that you can immerse yourself in the world, both as reader and as writer. Short stories are better at delivering a punch, a quick, strong impression. I also find them better for experimenting, again both as reader and writer. The database entries I use to tell “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” would get pretty old if they were used for a whole novel.
What themes are you passionate about? How does this inspire you?
Themes change, but what inspires me is anything that makes me mad or sad or laugh out loud. For example, if something makes me start ranting while I’m reading the paper, it’s a good candidate as the basis for a story someday. Sometimes a topic makes me really want to tell a story, sometimes I mine my anger or my fear or my pain deliberately.
What do you look for when reading other people’s stories? When do you say: oh, that’s a really good story?
For me, stories that make me sit back and say to myself “Man, I wish I’d written that!” not only have a compelling plot and interesting characters and language that sings, they integrate the elements of craft and theme in such a way that everything works together to create a sense of perfection.
Would you like to tell us about your writing process?
First comes the brainstorming that I mentioned above. Depending on what I’m writing, this might also be combined with research. I love research, and it often gives me important ideas for the story or novel I’m working on. With Yseult I was doing research throughout the writing process. Sometimes if I’m in the flow of writing, though, I won’t stop to look something up; instead, I’ll just make a note to myself in the manuscript to check the facts later. I’m not a fast writer, but I do write almost every day.
Has writing influenced the way in which you read other people’s stories? In what way?
I’m stumped on this question. I’ve been writing so long that I can hardly remember reading as a non-writer. Besides, since I have a Ph.D. in English literature, I’m trained to read as a literary critic, which also has to do with reading fiction to understand how it does what it does.
What do you look for when reading other people’s stories? When do you say: oh, that’s a really good story?
For me, stories that make me sit back and say to myself “Man, I wish I’d written that!” not only have a compelling plot and interesting characters and language that sings, they integrate the elements of craft and theme in such a way that everything works together to create a sense of perfection.
Do you have any upcoming projects? Would you like to share about that?
I’m presently working on Shadow of Stone, a follow-up novel to Yseult concentrating on other characters, but continuing the Arthurian background story through to the battle of Camlann and Arthur’s death. Once that is completed, I would like to take a break to write some more short stories, but I don’t have a clue what they might be—I’ll dig out my idea files and see which ones grab me.
Photo (c) Derek Henthorn
Ruth Nestvold is an American writer living in Stuttgart, Germany in a house with a turret. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous markets, including Asimov’s, F&SF, Realms of Fantasy, Baen’s Universe, Strange Horizons, Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction, and several anthologies. Her novella “Looking Through Lace” made the short list for the Tiptree award in 2003 and was nominated for the Sturgeon award. In 2007, the Italian translation won the “Premio Italia” award for best international work. Her novel Yseult / Flamme und Harfe (Flame and Harp) appeared in translation from a German imprint of Random House, Penhaligon, in January 2009. She occasionally maintains a web site at www.ruthnestvold.com.
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz was born in the South of the Philippines, grew up in the mountains of the North (Ifugao), and moved to The Netherlands after her marriage. When she went to college, her mother insisted that she take up music, a thing for which she is grateful as it now supports her passion for the written word. She writes columns for the Philippine-Dutch publication (Munting Nayon), reviews for The Fix , and co-edits the online mainstream publication, Haruah: Breath of Inspiration. Her fiction has recently appeared in Weird Tales Magazine, Fantasy Magazine and Philippine Speculative Fiction volume four.
Kelley Eskridge 2009 Interview
Kelley Eskridge is nominated for her novella “Dangerous Space.”
In “Dangerous Space”, I could feel your passion for the story moving under the surface. What is it that you’re most passionate about in your fiction? What are the themes that inspire you to write?
I’m fascinated by all the ways there are to be human in the world. I’ve spent my life exploring human experience, mine and others’, and trying to report back what I find. Mapping our internal territory… it’s a vast and varied landscape, and I never get tired of traveling it.
I’m constantly astonished by the possibilities of being human. We build billions of different lives out of the small daily choices we make, the impulse of feelings we don’t always understand, thoughts that inspire or frighten us, actions that are better or worse than we ever believed we could be—and then we tell each other stories about our own lives or lives imagined. For those moments we can live other choices, other chances. We can be more than who we are.
It’s the most marvelous feeling in the world for a writer or a reader to be taken that way by a story. That’s what I’m passionate about.
As for theme, well… there are themes that run through my body of work, absolutely, but I am never inspired to write by theme. I find characters who compel me, and I get as far into their hearts and minds as I can. The themes that have emerged in my work are explorations of identity, love, isolation and connection, hope, choice - what makes us who we are, and what do we do when our sense of ourselves is challenged or changed?
Would you like to tell more about the writing of Dangerous Space?
Timmi Duchamp, the editor of Aqueduct Press, asked me to write a new story to anchor the collection. I wanted to write another story of Mars, a character who appears in two other stories; and I had been thinking a lot about what music means to me.
We had a tight deadline to put the collection together. I was scheduled to teach the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop in summer 2007, and I wanted to have the collection out before then. Timmi, Tom and Kath at Aqueduct Press all worked like mad to make it happen.
At the same time, I was working on my first screenplay. That was an intense creative and personal process - it essentially felt like I was going deeper into myself as a writer than I ever had before, taking more chances, being more vulnerable and more passionate and more…. I don’t know. Writers talk about the moments of transcendence that happen in the work - not where we lose ourselves, but where we find ourselves completely, without fear, ecstatic, absolutely in flow. Working on the screenplay made me remember what that’s like. And when it came time to write “Dangerous Space,” the story just poured out of me. I wrote 25,000 words in six weeks, and it was the most exhilarating, draining, crazy-beautiful experience I’ve ever had as a writer.
In your essay “Identity and Desire” you say you wanted Mars to be without gender. Would you like to tell more about this?
I don’t include gender markers for Mars in any of the stories, although the biology and gender of the characters around Mars is clear.
The thing is, as readers, by default we identify with the protagonist: but if that protagonist is “different” from us, there’s an automatic distance and resistance to letting ourselves “be” that person, walk in their shoes, live their lives. Gender is one of the great gaps, for whatever reason. Men often don’t want to identify with women characters, believing that women’s experience has nothing to offer them. And women readers learn early to squint sideways and fit themselves into male characters because the boys’ stories are so often the great adventures that we all want to have.
And that’s the key - we all, every single human one of us, want to have those adventures when we read. I give readers a Mars who is fully human, into whose skin anyone can step if they choose. Because Mars isn’t presented to the reader overtly as a man or a woman, Mars’ behavior becomes unhooked from gender expectations. Whether you read Mars as a woman or a man, at some point the character will do something that might contravene your own notions of gender. That’s an interesting moment. That’s the moment that the fences of gendered behavior (men don’t do this, women can’t do that) dissolve and we step into the territory where we’re all human - male, female, intersexed, transsexual, queer, straight, whatever we may be, all of us human beings capable of love, fear, joy, aggression, passivity, despair, courage, hope.
That’s the Big Idea in all the Mars stories. The F-tech in “Dangerous Space” is simply the externalization of that.
You are married to fellow writer Nicola Griffith. How has this marriage of two writerly minds influenced or informed your writing? What’s it like being married to someone who also writes and who is just as passionate about her work as you are?
I wouldn’t be who I am as a person or a writer without Nicola. We have different voices and different stories to tell, and we’ve agreed to help each other make those stories the best they can be.
My work is so important to me - it defines me, creates me, takes me places I couldn’t go any other way. Sharing that unreservedly with a partner on a similar journey is one of the great joys of my life.
A few years ago, we were asked to write this joint essay about writers-as-partners for the anthology Bookmark Now. It turns out we were the third writing couple the editor had approached: the other couples had backed away in horror at the idea of going public about this aspect of their relationship. We saw it as a chance to shine some light on some of the very real issues involved. It was the first time we’d collaborated on a piece of writing. It was fun.
You’ve engaged various forms of storytelling. The novel, the short story form, essay writing, and screenwriting. Which form appeals to you the most and why?
Oh, that’s like asking which is the favorite child (grin). I love them all, and would not wish to do without any of them. They take me different places and teach me different things. Short stories are where I am most experienced, where I have a mainline to the deep places in myself that I need to reach if I am to write well. Screenplay is the newest form for me, and we’re just coming out of the mad-romance stage where all we want to do is roll around with each other. I have a master plan for a kickass screenwriting career. I have at least a couple more novels agitating to be written. There are certainly more Mars stories. And because I blog regularly, I feel as though I’m writing little essays all the time. It’s all satisfying.
If you had to choose, would you write for love or for money?
I would prefer to write what I love and have money showered upon it.
What does a regular writing day look like for Kelley Eskridge?
When I’m in the beginning stages of a project, I become incredibly mentally distracted. Random thoughts, ideas, scenes, sentences come to me while I’m washing dishes or making tea, and I often forget what I’m supposed to be doing. Those days it looks as though I’m doing no writing at all, when really I’m working like mad under the surface.
When I’m actually writing and have some traction on the work, I start getting up very early. It turns out, inconveniently for both me and Nicola, that my best creative window opens around 4 AM and closes sometime after lunch. During these intense periods, I live on tea and music and story, and pretty much disappear from the world. I love those days. I love being a writer.
(photo of Kelley Eskridge by Julie Boycott)
Kelley Eskridge is the author of the novel Solitaire and the collection Dangerous Space. She lives in Seattle with her partner, novelist Nicola Griffith.
Solitaire was a New York Times Notable Book, a Borders Books Original Voices selection, and a finalist for the Nebula, Spectrum and Endeavour awards. A film based on the novel is currently in development with Cherry Road Films/Radar Pictures, with Nicole Kassell attached to direct, screenplay by Gregory Widen and Kelley Eskridge.
Stories in Dangerous Space include a winner of the Astraea Prize as well as finalists for the Nebula Award, two Tiptree Prize Honor List stories, and a story adapted for television.
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz was born in the South of the Philippines, grew up in the mountains of the North (Ifugao), and moved to The Netherlands after her marriage. When she went to college, her mother insisted that she take up music, a thing for which she is grateful as it now supports her passion for the written word. She writes columns for the Philippine-Dutch publication (Munting Nayon), reviews for The Fix , and co-edits the online mainstream publication, Haruah: Breath of Inspiration. Her fiction has recently appeared in Weird Tales Magazine, Fantasy Magazine and Philippine Speculative Fiction volume four.
John Kessel 2009 Interview
John Kessel is nominated for his novelette “Pride and Prometheus.”
Would you like to talk about the inspiration behind Pride and Prometheus?
I got the initial idea at the critique table at the Sycamore Hill Writers’ Conference in 2005. We were discussing Benjamin Rosenbaum’s story (later published as , a Jane Austen pastiche, when it occurred to me that Austen and Mary Shelley were contemporaries, and that both of them were, at least in part, about finding a “mate.” I jotted it down in my notebook and though about the story a great deal over the next months. I re-read Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice. When I did so I noticed that, at one point in Frankenstein, Victor and his friend Henry Clerval visit the town of Matlock, which is mentioned in Austen as being near Mr. Darcy’s estate of Permberly. When I discovered that, it seemed like a signpost telling me I had to write this story.
In the writing of Pride and Prometheus, did you have a particular favorite character? Who was this character and why was she/he your favorite?
I think my favorite character is Kitty, the heroine Mary Bennet’s sister. When I started she was merely the flirty sister of the serious Mary (with whom my sympathies primarily lay). But as I wrote my way into the story Kitty became more and more important, both to the plot (what happens to her leads to its resolution) and to its themes. I felt for her predicament, as an unmarried woman in her late twenties, without particular resources of character and judgment, in Regency England. She desperately desires to marry, but her prospects are fading. She’s become more than the silly sidekick to Lydia she was in Pride and Prejudice, but there seems to be no role for her in this world than “old maid,” which is to her a complete failure. Mary of course faces the same fate, maybe even more, but she has developed some greater understanding of herself and the world. Kitty affected me emotionally in a way that the typical “silly woman” would not normally.
Are there particular themes that attract you or which you feel moved to write about? What are you passionate about?
I am passionate about the choices people make, and how they affect their fates. I’m puzzled by human personality. Lately it’s come out in my work in a concern about male-female relationships. I suppose that’s been a concern of writers since writing began. But it’s certainly not exhausted.
You could say I’m obsessed with moral issues, but I hope it’s not in a moralistic way. I don’t mean sexual morality, I mean the ways in which people treat and mistreat each other, the social structures that make it easier for them to ct well or poorly, and how those structures can be changed for the better or worse.
Among the stories you’ve written is there one that you are proudest of?
I’m a little reluctant to pick favorites. Sometimes you like one story more than another for reasons that are not objective assessments of how they came out. But if I were to say which ones give me the best feeling long after having written them, I’d list a few: “Invaders,” “Stories for Men,” “The Franchise,” “The Baum Plan for Financial Independence,” “Buddha Nostril Bird,” and this one, “Pride and Prometheus.”
If I had to stake my reputation on a single story, I suppose it would be “Invaders.”
When you start a new project, do you know whether that project will be a short story, novella or novel? How do you know and how do you make the choice?
I generally know more or less how long it’s going to be by the time I begin putting words down. It just feels like a 7,000-word story, or a 17,000-word story, or a novel. I have seldom started a story and had it turn out to be much longer or shorter than I intended. It’s not really so much a rational choice as a feeling for what this story is about, the effect I want it to have on the reader. The idea of taking a short story idea and expanding it to a novel feels alien to me.
Has winning various awards changed the way you look at your position as a writer or the way in which you approach writing?
Winning awards is certainly wonderful, and makes me feel good. I have desired to win them, but I can’t say I have ever set out to win one--though I did have the feeling when writing “Stories for Men” that it might attract the attention of the Tiptree Award jury.
When I won the Nebula for my novella “Another Orphan” early in my career--I was 32 years old--it was a major surprise. It rather derailed me for a while. I didn’t know what it meant for me or my work. Was I an “award-winning writer”? What did that mean for my next story?
But that was so long ago. Now I have a sense of who I am as a writer, I think, and I write what I’m interested in, and just hope other people will find it interesting too. I’d love for “Pride and Prometheus” to win the Nebula, but it won’t be an iota better or worse as a story if it does or doesn’t.
You continue to teach as well as write. How do these two disciplines influence and inform each other?
As a teacher I’m always thinking about how stories work, and trying to convey that to my students. That often makes me think about what I’m trying to do. For instance, when I was starting “Pride and Prometheus,” I actually used it in class as an excersise in plotting--I wrote down a couple ideas I had for scenes on the blackboard, and we talked about how those might grow into a story, and who the characters were and what they wanted. I always talk about how plot and character are flip sides of each other, and this was a good way to make the point.
I don’t get as much writing done as I might otherwise because I am teaching. I do get to work with some wonderful young writers, and help them to make their own stories better. I’m very proud of the work they have created.
What’s the best piece of advice you ever got from another writer?
James Gunn, my teacher at the University of Kansas , said to me that stories aren’t written, they’re rewritten. At the time I disliked rewiting, but now it is my favorite part of the process.
I don’t know if I ever heard it in so many words from one person, but over my career and interactions with numerous writers, I’ve also learned that you should write what you like and let the market figure it out later.
What does your typical writing day look like?
Many days during the school year are not writing days. When I get time to write , I get up in the morning, have breakfast, maybe walk the dog, read my email, and take up where I left off on the story last. I’ll start by rewriting what I wrote the last time, and keep going forward. I have starts and stops, sometimes have to ponder issues as to what happens next. In the summer when I have my days more to myself, I’ll work until one pm or so, then break for lunch. I’ll come back and do some idle work--correspondence, etc--or read, or go out and get some exercise, or do the marketing for the family.
In the summer I often cook supper. When Sue and Emma get home, we have supper, and in the evening often watch some tv or a movie on DVD.
What’s your next project? Would you like to tell us about that?
Right now I’m sort of between things. I just finished editing an anthology, THE SECRET HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION, with James Patrick Kelly, due out from Tachyon Books in Fall 2009. I have a desire to get back to a novel I stalled on a few years back, set in the lunar background of “Stories for Men” and the others of the “Lunar Quartet.” We’ll see if that works out.
John Kessel co-directs the creative writing program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. A winner of the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the Locus Poll, and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, his books include Good News from Outer Space, Corrupting Dr. Nice, and The Pure Product. His story collection, Meeting in Infinity, was named a notable book of 1992 by the New York Times Book Review. Writer Kim Stanley Robinson has called Corrupting Dr. Nice “the best time travel novel ever written.” Most recently, with James Patrick Kelly he edited the anthologies Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology and Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. He lives with his wife and daughter in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz was born in the South of the Philippines, grew up in the mountains of the North (Ifugao), and moved to The Netherlands after her marriage. When she went to college, her mother insisted that she take up music, a thing for which she is grateful as it now supports her passion for the written word. She writes columns for the Philippine-Dutch publication (Munting Nayon), reviews for The Fix , and co-edits the online mainstream publication, Haruah: Breath of Inspiration. Her fiction has recently appeared in Weird Tales Magazine, Fantasy Magazine and Philippine Speculative Fiction volume four.
David J. Schwartz 2009 Interview
David J. Schwartz is nominated for his novel Superpowers.
In your Bookslut interview, you mentioned at how frustrating writing a novel can be. What made you persist? What’s the appeal of the novel format for you?
One of the things I said in the interview is that I think it’s easier to get lost in a novel than in a short story. I enjoy that experience and it’s something I’d like to replicate for other people. And my stories tend to sprawl, frankly, because ideas accrete and connect like hyperactive synapses, and that means that I often end up with more story than fits into a 5-7,000 word story. I can either trim it down, which works sometimes, or I can culture it into a bigger story. Both are satisfying in different ways.
I persist mainly because I’m stubborn, and because I think it’s one of the two keys to succeeding at this, or anything. The other is to never stop learning.
What was the most difficult part in getting Superpowers out?
Well, there were editorial challenges, mostly in that the editor who bought the book was let go before we actually got to do any editing! I think, too, that there was a little bit of disconnect on genre; the book is mainstream-y but it does have superheroes, and finding the balance of weird stuff that everyone was OK with was a negotiation. I don’t know how different that experience would have been, though, if the book had sold to a genre house.
How did the novel end up getting picked up by Three Rivers Press (in the US) and Vintage (in the UK)?
It happened pretty quickly, actually. My agent, the fabulous Shana Cohen, had sent the book around just a week or two before when Three Rivers made an offer to take it off the table. I know that some of the other editors hadn’t even looked at it yet. The Vintage deal came later, through the offices of both Shana and Will Francis in the UK.
Have you ever thought of trying your hand at writing comics?
Definitely. It’s a bit of a daunting prospect, to hold together a continuous storyline on a monthly deadline, but I’ve been a comics fan most of my life and I’d like to give it a shot. One of my goals for the near future is to put together a couple of proposals for both established properties and original stories.
Let’s talk more about your writing. What’s the appeal of speculative fiction for you?
I guess, primarily, it’s that much of “realistic” fiction doesn’t reflect the world as I experience it. The world is a pretty bewildering place most of the time, and it’s the weirdness of it, the slipstream-y texture of everyday life, that intrigues me. This is why I tend to spend a lot of time on the edges of genre. I like dragons and spaceships, too, and that’s part of the appeal; but I usually like to put that sort of thing in a more or less realistic context in order to really pull it apart. If an Apatosaurus walked down your street, you’d see everything in your neighborhood differently. The houses would seem small, the trees would look like snack food. If a door opened up in the side of that Apatosaurus and a clone of yourself stepped out, you’d see yourself differently. That perspective shift is one of the things I enjoy most about, say, Philip K. Dick, and it’s the thing I’d most like to inflict upon readers.
What made you decide to pursue fiction writing? At what point did you consider yourself a professional author?
I think I had always--at least since junior high--wanted to be a writer, but there were always people around telling me what a bad career choice that was. So I screwed around doing a lot of other things, the usual mixed bag of jobs that writers rattle off: bartender, warehouse worker, tech support drone, temp, temp, temp. Along the way, though, I kept on writing and eventually attended the Odyssey workshop in 1996, which convinced me that yes, I really wanted to do this and be serious about it.
I’m not sure how I feel about the word “professional” in this context; the easy answer would be that I felt like a “real” writer when I sold the novel. But I still get much of my income from other sources, and I’m not a dogged freelancer like some other folks I know. So I’m not as professional as some, and I’m not sure that the number of stories I’ve sold makes me more professional than any given up-and-comer, if that makes any sense.
What’s the biggest hurdle that you had to overcome before getting published?
I think it was learning to write stories that were really coming from me and not from my perception of what editors wanted. Market research is one thing, but there’s a danger in reading a lot of, say, F&SF to try and figure out what sort of story Gordon van Gelder wants. At some point you’re not writing your own story, you’re squeezing yourself into a box of your own making.
It was a huge boost for me when I wrote a weird little story called “The Ichthyomancer Writes His Friend With an Account of the Yeti’s Birthday Party” and sold it to Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. I wasn’t even sure the thing was a story, and I knew it didn’t fit with what I’d convinced myself was marketable, but they loved it and it taught me something. I had to worry less about what I thought would sell and more about what I could be proud of.
Can you tell us about your novella The Sun Inside?
It’s the story of an Iraq War veteran with a prosthetic leg who finds his way to the center of the earth via an Internet dating site. The setting is actually Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar, at least part of which is in the public domain. (I only wrote about that part.) It was inspired by Burroughs but also by Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, a book by Jeremy Scahill about the security company working in Iraq. I wanted to look at American imperialism and turn it inside out with some extrapolation as to what Pellucidar might look like now, 90-odd years later. So it’s part old-fashioned sensawunda adventure story, and part a critique of that sort of story.
How did Rabid Transit Press end up publishing it?
They were looking to make a change from the (excellent) multi-author chapbooks they had been doing and start publishing novellas. Two of the Rabid Transit editors were at the Sycamore Hill Workshop two years ago, and read the story that became “The Sun Inside” there. They expressed interest, and after doing some work on the story I submitted it to them, and they accepted it.
I’m quite happy with how it turned out. The cover is spectacular, and I’m really proud of the story. I wish more people had seen it; maybe the Nebula nom will encourage folks to check it out.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m recuperating right now from a long struggle with a difficult novel, but I’m getting ready to start another. It’s set here in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I grew up and which has a lot of interesting history. At least, I think it’s interesting, and I hope to make it interesting for everyone else! It’s going to have time travel, Dakota, Hmong and Irish folklore, mayoral politics, and John Dillinger. Naturally.
A quick Google search reveals that there’s another David J. Schwartz. How would you describe your doppelganger and what would happen if both of you met each other?
There are many David J. Schwartzes, but the one that I’m most often confused with is the one who wrote The Magic of Thinking Big. Given that he recently died, I can pretty safely say that if we met I would scream and faint, and he would either offer me financial wisdom from beyond the grave or eat my brains.
David J. Schwartz’s short fiction has appeared in numerous markets, including the anthologies Paper Cities, The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and Twenty Epics. He attended Odyssey in 1996 and has participated in workshops with the Semi-Omniscients, the Supersonics, and the Sycamore Hill Writing Workshop. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can visit his website at http://snurri.livejournal.com/
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Comics Village. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays..
Jack McDevitt 2009 Interview Interview
Jack McDevitt is nominated for his novel, Cauldron.
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Cauldron is the sixth book in the Academy series. What’s the appeal of Priscilla Hutchins to you?
I grew up watching Dale Arden faint every time she and Flash Gordon got into trouble. She was nothing like the girls in my school or, in later years, like the women in my life. I conducted management programs for the US Customs Service for ten years. We used to divide people into groups and provide life-and-death simulations that required smart responses. All-female teams survived more often than anybody. All-male groups usually did pretty well. The mixed groups, though, died on a regular basis. Why? Because they fell back into their social roles. Testosterone took over. The males assumed the lead and made foolhardy decisions that would never have been considered seriously in the all-male teams. The women got in line with hardly a murmur. And they’d leave the crashed plane --or whatever-- and start walking across the desert. Hutch is fun to work with because she’s her own woman.
Is it a challenge when writing these novels to both make it accessible to new readers in addition to building upon what you’ve already established before? How do you strike a balance?
Right: It’s a challenge. I’ve tried to make every series novel a stand-alone. Continuing characters against a constant setting. But eventually you may get to a wrap-up novel, where there will be a general climax, requiring some sense of what has gone before. My approach has been that each novel is its own narrative. Even with Cauldron, which is a wrap-up of sorts of the Academy series, I’ve tried to let the reader see, as the story progressed, what has come before, rather than tell him. It helps that SF readers are quick to figure things out.
You tend to have a solid supporting cast and recurring characters from the previous books. Do you keep track of them in a notebook or are they all in your head? Is it easy or difficulty for you to find their “voice?”
Combination of both. I keep notes on details. (E.g., the name of the Academy’s director, and the color of Chase Kolpath’s eyes.) But the more abstract stuff --like MacAllister’s conviction that women were meant to be cheerleaders-- is locked in the vault somewhere. Finding their voices is easy enough, because I’ve gotten to know them pretty well over the years.
In last year’s interview, you cited Walt Cuirle, a physicist, as the inspiration for Odyssey. How about for Cauldron, what was the inspiration for the book?
It was a question of finding a resolution for the cosmic clouds that were drifting, over thousands of years, into the Orion Arm, creating havoc. They’d been the background threat during the first five novels. Theories had been advanced by various characters trying to account for them. A runaway weapon left over from an ancient war, maybe. Or equipment used originally in some sort of galactic slum clearance. Hutch thought she had the answer: The march of clouds was intended as a galactic work of art. But who really knew? I’d planned to leave it simply as a mystery. (In fact, I had originally intended no sequels of any kind. That was a dumb idea, but it took me a while to realize it.)
Readers, however, insisted on an explanation. So eventually, I was confronted with trying to come up with one that didn’t fit any of the theories. I don’t recall the origin of the idea that became the resolution. It probably happened in the middle of the night. I can say that I was struggling with it for about three years before the lights finally went on.
Subterranean recently released your short story collection, Cryptic. How did they end up publishing the book?
Subterranean publishes a magazine of the same name. Bill Schafer, the man behind the enterprise, invited me to contribute a story, and at the same time asked whether I would be interested in doing a ‘best-of’ collection. He sent copies of a George R. R. Martin retrospective, and Phases of the Moon, a Robert Silverberg collection. The packaging for both was exquisite. At the time, ISFiC had just published Outbound, a collection of my stories. We didn’t want to glut the market, so we waited three years. When Outbound sold out and became unavailable, we decided we could go ahead with Cryptic.
Did you choose the stories to be included there or was it Subterranean? What was the criteria for the selection?
Bill asked me to make the recommendations. I presented them to him, we made a couple of changes, and we had our text. I’d be hard pressed to delineate a set of criteria. Fiction, at heart, is an emotional ride. So I wanted stories that would succeed, in my mind at least, in grabbing the reader. That’s a cliche, but I don’t know a better way to say it. I guess the reality is that after almost thirty years, I still don’t know the formula.
If you could travel back in time to over a decade ago, what advice would you give to your former self?
My first three books were separated by eight years. I’d have issued a stern warning that a writer needs more consistency to build a base of readers. You can’t do a novel every few years and expect very much to happen. Unless, of course, you’re loaded with talent. If I could go farther, where I could really do some good, I’d show up during my college years. I won the freshman short story contest at LaSalle. They published my story, “A Pound of Cure,” in the school’s literary magazine. And I decided I was on my way. But shortly afterward I read David Copperfield, and concluded I could never compete with Dickens. If I could go back, I’d tell myself, ‘You don’t have to compete with Charles Dickens. Just write good stuff.’ Anyhow, nobody was there to give me that advice. So I gave up. And made no effort to write anything more for twenty-five years.
What are you reading? Who are some of the modern authors that you admire?
I’m currently reading Barbara Tuchmann’s The Guns of August, Richard Dawkins’ A Devil’s Chaplain, and Mike Resnick’s The Branch. Getting ready to start The Modern Mind, by Peter Watson. I recently enjoyed Douglas Preston’s Blasphemy, which was not marketed as science fiction, but nevertheless qualifies. Modern authors I admire? Arthur Clarke and Ray Bradbury among a host of others. Outside the field: Herman Wouk and Irwin Shaw. I don’t have time to read much mainstream fiction anymore. Among nonfiction writers: Paul Davies, James Flexner, Dumas Malone, Timothy Ferris and Steven Weinberg. And a special favorite who doesn’t quite qualify as ‘modern’ any more: H. L. Mencken.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’ve handed in Time Travelers Never Die, which will be released by Ace in November. And am currently working on Sanctum, an Alex Benedict mystery in which a man with a starship who spends a lifetime trying to find an alien civilization somewhere, anywhere, eventually gives up, retires, and ultimately dies. Forty years later, evidence surfaces that he had indeed found something. But what? And why did he keep it quiet?
JACK MCDEVITT is a former naval officer, English teacher, and customs officer. He was for ten years stationed at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center , where he conducted management and leadership seminars for the US Customs Service.
He has been a Nebula finalist for several years, and finally won for his novel Seeker
McDevitt is probably best known for his Academy novels, featuring Priscilla Hutchins providing transportation and occasional rescues for teams of interstellar archeologists on the hunt for traces of aliens; and the Alex Benedict series, with a futuristic antiquarian who consistently finds himself confronted with historical mysteries.
A Philadelphia native, McDevitt lives in Georgia with his wife Maureen.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Comics Village. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Nalo Hopkinson Interview
You’ve written dozens of short stories, along with four novels (Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, The Salt Roads, and The New Moon’s Arms). Do you find yourself preferring one form over the other?
I used to prefer short fiction, because I found it easier to wrap my mind around a shorter piece. To me, short stories have the architecture of a piece of jewelery, while novels have that of a bridge; similar principles, different scale. They both have their beauty. But the fact is that novels pay better than short stories. So, from a practical point of view (you know, the part about ‘if I can’t afford to eat, I won’t be able to write’), I decided I needed to set myself the challenge of learning to write novels as well. I’m doing so and I’m learning a lot about writing and about managing larger pieces. I still write short stories and enjoy doing so, but I concentrate primarily on novels. And at this point, I don’t have a strong preference for one over the other.
You’ve taught at workshops, such as Clarion West. What value do you find you get from teaching? What do you enjoy (and not enjoy) about the experience of teaching?
Teaching uses a lot of my mental and creative energy. The more teaching I do, the less writing I find I can do. And the fact is, reading pages and pages of ineffective prose is unpleasant. It makes reading a chore. On the other hand, it can be extraordinarily rewarding work. I love the moment when the light goes on in a budding writer’s eyes about some aspect of craft that had been invisible to her before. I enjoy it when someone dares to push his writing beyond the expected. And when I try to describe something about how fiction works, it makes me think about how/whether it works in my own fiction, and that helps me to improve my craft. Students challenge me in that way all the time. Plus there’s the simple contact high of interacting with people who, like me, are excited by words and story.
If you had to identify a single work of yours that you feel best embodies your writing—which would it be, and why?
I don’t know that I can distill it down to one work. I have a restless brain that’s stimulated by difference and I write in different ways from story to story. I don’t know that I have enough distance to single out one story that’s emblematic, and I’m a bit resistant to trying.
What’s your daily writing process like?
Ai. I have a daily writing avoidance process. Ideally, I wake up early in the morning, grab something to eat, turn on my laptop, and work first on fiction. In actuality, I rarely have ideal days. I find it very difficult to sit and write. I keep working on it, though. One thing I’ve finally learned is to work as much as possible with the way my brain works. I’m impulsive, so I try to always have a notebook and writing implement on me so that if I’m inspired to write, I can do it then and there. My laptop is small enough to fit in my knapsack, so I carry it around a lot, too. I’ve learned to stop being a size queen; kudos to the people who can sit and bang out thousands of words at a go, but I often can’t. Yet even a sentence is forward motion. It’s surprising just how quickly you can build up a significant block of text one sentence at a time. I have made it a principle for myself that even if I only write one sentence in a day, I can consider that a successful writing day. I can close my notebook or laptop and do something else. The trick is, I have to believe that it’s a successful writing day. If I do, then I’m highly motivated to keep doing it, and over time, I get stories written. If I think of it as failure, I come to associate writing with failure, and that makes it discouraging to keep trying. Another thing I do is to simply open the computer file with my current project in it, or turn to the relevant page in my notebook. Candas Jane Dorsey calls this “showing up.” It works, because dollars to doughnuts I’ll find myself reading some of the writing, and then fiddling with a phrase to make it stronger, and next thing you know, time has passed and I’ve been writing. I try to make sure I can always access the current work-in-progress. I keep a copy on my computer and one on the Web, and update them simultaneously. And, especially with bigger projects such as novels, I use a manuscript organizing programme that allows me to see the chapters and scenes as file cards and move them around at will. That makes it less likely that the project will start to feel too big to encompass mentally. I talk to other writers and artists a lot—that contact high.
You’ve talked on your blog about ways that stories can go off track. Are there any tools in the writerly toolbox that you feel help keep a story on track?
Pacing, timing and delivery, i.e. growing a sense of when the energy in a story is lagging or going so quickly that it’s tripping over its own feet.
What draws you to editing anthologies? What’s the process of working with a writer on a story like? Do you find it changes your own experience of the process as a writer?
It’s the fun of seeing what other writers will do with an idea. As to what it’s changed for me, it’s taught me that when an editor says, “Does not meet our needs at this time,” it’s very likely that that’s exactly what they mean. I once got an amazing story that I ultimately ended up rejecting, because the publishing house had a limit to how many pages they could afford to publish, and I already had a story that dealt with the theme from a similar angle, but in a way that was riskier. I made a friend very unhappy with that rejection. A year later, the editor who did end up taking the story asked me why in the world I hadn’t. I struggled to explain, said about half a sentence, and he nodded. “You mean it had to do with the shape of the anthology,” he said. “That makes sense.” Before then, I hadn’t been aware that an anthology develops a shape as you read submissions, and that once you’ve decided which stories seem the strongest, that nascent shape partly affects your decision about which of them end up in the anthology.
What do you feel is the relationship between an author and politics? Does it change (narrow/sharpen/alter) for a spec-fic writer? Does it change/shift when an author considers themselves to fit within categories such as queer/black/Caribbean/Canadian/female, as you do?
And middle-aged, and cognitively challenged with a chronic disorder. Funny; the more of my “differences” I list, the more universal I feel. A lot of people share one or more of those experiences with me! However, the answer to your question is a book in itself, so I can’t do it justice here. But everything we do and are has a socio-political implication. I think that refusing to deal with that is a poor choice for an artist, especially for a writer working in a fiction form that has a tradition of examining social and political questions. Now, I’m not prescribing how anyone should deal with the fact that their work reflects on the real world. That’s not up to me to say. But I do believe that refusing to at least acknowledge and think about it limits your creativity. And yes, if you’re part of one or more marginalized groups, the fact that your writing means and has an effect in the real world becomes more evident. If I write a story where all the characters are white, or straight, or well off or young or able-bodied, you bet I notice it and spend some time thinking about why I’ve done that and whether I want to change it. You bet I notice when most of the stories I read in my field are like that. It does a certain emotional violence to the readers who are overwhelmingly under- or misrepresented. You bet I want to inject some of my experience of the world into the genre.
What projects are you currently working on? What do you see coming up over the next decade or so?
For the past three years I’ve been really ill with severe anemia that went undiagnosed until a few months ago. I wasn’t able to write – or do any other work – and I didn’t know why. I’m slowly getting better, and now I have to finish the three novels whose deadlines dates came and went as I stared numbly at the calendar and sank deeper into poverty. Now I’m working on finishing those three novels; two adult fantasies and one young adult one. First out of the pipe should be Blackheart Man, which is sort of an alternate history fantasy set in the 18th Century in a region something like the Caribbean.
How do you really feel about comma splices?
I’m not allowed to speak like that in polite company.
NALO HOPKINSON is a writer who has so far published a collection of short stories, four novels and an anthology or two.
John Barth described CAT RAMBO’s writings as “works of urban mythopoeia”—her stories take place in a universe where chickens aid the lovelorn, Death is just another face on the train, and Bigfoot gives interviews to the media on a daily basis. She has worked as a programmer-writer for Microsoft and a Tarot card reader, professions which, she claims, both involve a certain combination of technical knowledge and willingness to go with the flow. In 2005 she attended the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop and is a member of the Codex Writers’ Group. Among the places in which her stories have appeared are ASIMOV’S, WEIRD TALES, CLARKESWORLD, and STRANGE HORIZONS, and her work has consistently garnered mentions and appearances in year’s best of anthologies.
She is the co-editor of critically-acclaimed Fantasy Magazine.
Karen Joy Fowler Interview
When did you know you wanted to become a writer?
This is an ambition I’ve had on and off since I was about four. But mostly off, until my 30th birthday when I made the decision for real. But even after that decision, I probably didn’t understand how much I wanted it until I went to a writer’s conference in Napa, California, maybe a year or two later. I went hoping to learn whether I had talent or potential. I came home having learned mainly that I really wanted to be part of that world.
At what point did you consider yourself an actual writer? What were some of the difficulties you ran into before you considered yourself one?
I’m not sure I’m an actual writer even now. I think I share with many other writers the sense that I’m getting away with something and will be unmasked at any moment. Perhaps even as we speak.
What’s your writing process like?
Slow. I have really great ideas in the shower and then by the time I’ve toweled off, they no longer seem like great ideas. I start spare and spend most of my writing life filling in. Everything I like in my work is something I added in a later draft.
What’s the appeal of science fiction/fantasy for you?
Any world in which Arnold Schwarzenegger can be elected governor of California is not a world to which the tools of realism can be usefully applied. Realism is not sufficiently realistic. I want a literature big enough to deal with sheep cloning, pet psychics, Sarah Palin.
Which do you prefer more, writing short stories or novels? Does your writing process alter when doing one or the other?
I’d rather be writing short stories. They’re so manageable. So short!
Who are some of the authors or what are some of the books that you think have influenced your writing?
My first answer is going to be T.H. White’s The Once and Future King
I love Austen for her wit and her minute examinations of people and power, of how people see themselves as opposed to how other people see them. I love seeing the world the way she saw it.
Do you consider yourself a genre writer?
I don’t worry much about it. There are plenty of other people willing to worry about it for me. I love genre so I’m pleased to be thought a genre writer. But I love mainstream, too, so I’m really okay either way.
What’s it like having both a science fiction/fantasy audience and a mainstream audience? Do your fans read both?
I think most of my science fiction fans read both. I’m not so sure about my mainstream fans. I think The Jane Austen Book Club
Did you run into any difficulties penetrating either the science fiction/fantasy markets or the mainstream markets?
You bet! It’s hard to sell books. Ask anyone (except maybe Dan Brown.)
What made you and Pat Murphy decide to start the James Tiptree, Jr. Award?
We were annoyed. There were many sources for this annoyance, but one was that Carol Emshwiller‘s Carmen Dog wasn’t winning any awards. We wanted to create an award to give Carmen Dog 
What were some of the challenges in starting up and running the awards?
It was pretty effortless. Pat announced the creation of the award at Wiscon, the feminist science fiction convention, and before we knew it, other people were doing all the work of making the award an actuality. Mostly it’s turned out to be quite fun.
What’s the process like editing the The James Tiptree Award Anthologies
Again, I’m not really the one who’s done the heavy lifting. Debbie Notkin, Jeff Smith, Pat, and I confer and I enjoy being involved, but Debbie and Jeff are the real editors. It’s not clear we’ll be doing another, though. We’re exploring some online alternatives.
Can you tell us more about your latest novel, Wit’s End?
I did a lot of historical research on religious cults and I used some of it in the novel and some of it in my story “Always.”
I was trying to write a mystery novel. It turned out to be more of a novel about mystery novels than the real thing. It’s also a bit of a ghost story, bit of a gothic. Politics and the internet. And it’s meant to be funny.
You’re part of a book club. Has the book club helped in your writing?
Reading has helped in my writing. I just like everything to do with books.
In the decades that you’ve been writing, what in your opinion is the biggest change that’s occurred in the industry?
I think I was very lucky to come in when I did. My impression is that a lot of doors have closed for new writers. But maybe I’m being unduly pessimistic—the publishing industry has had a really bad couple of weeks. Maybe it will bounce right back!
All I really need is for the books I’m going to want to read to still be published. Just promise me that.
About Karen Joy Fowler
I was born in Bloomington, Indiana. I was due on Valentine’s Day but arrived a week early; my mother blamed this on a really exciting IU basketball game. My father was a psychologist at the University, but not that kind of psychologist. He studied animal behavior, and especially learning. He ran rats through mazes. My mother was a polio survivor, a schoolteacher, and a pioneer in the co-operative nursery school movement. Along with basketball, my family loved books. The day I got my first library card there was a special dinner to celebrate. And before I could read myself, I remember my father reading The Iliad to me, although really he was reading it to my older brother, I just got to be there. A shocking book! And I remember Mary Poppins and Winnie the Pooh in my father’s voice and a bunch of other things that weren’t movies yet. My parents strongly disapproved of the Disney version of things. Pooh believed in a spoonful of honey, but Mary Poppins did not.
I have great memories of Bloomington. Our block was packed with kids and we played enormous games that covered whole blocks of territory, with ten kids to a side. One of my childhood friends was Theodore Deppe, who’s now an outstanding poet. I planned to grow up to be a dog trainer myself.
Both my parents were raised in southern California and so regarded our time in Indiana as an exile. When I was 11 years old my father was offered a job with Encyclopedia Britannica that necessitated our moving to Palo Alto, California. My parents were thrilled to be coming back. My older brother, for reasons that escape me, was equally pleased. I was devastated.
Palo Alto was much more sophisticated than Bloomington. At recess in Bloomington we played baseball, skipped rope, played jacks or marbles depending on the season. In Palo Alto girls my age were already setting their hair, listening to the radio, talking about boys. I considered it a sad trade. The best thing about the sixth-grade was that my teacher, Miss Sarzin, read The Hobbit to us.
After reading many more books, I graduated from Palo Alto High in 1968 and went to Berkeley. I was a political science major and an antiwar activist. I was in Berkeley during People’s Park, when the city was occupied and there were tanks on the street corners, and I was there during the Jackson State/Kent State killings. I met my husband there. He’d been part of the free speech movement; that was my idea of glamor. We got married the year I graduated and we came to graduate school at UC Davis together.
As an undergraduate I had a special interest in India and Gandhi, and a general interest in imperialism. I find the intersection of cultures fascinating, the misunderstandings that occur, the mistakes that are innocently made. I’m not so fascinated by the mistakes that aren’t innocent, although there are a good many more of the latter kind. As a graduate student I focused on China and Japan. It’s not clear to me what my career goals were — whatever, I had my first child during spring break of the last year of my masters. Six days less than two years later I had a second child. My husband and I still live in Davis, although the kids have left for college and beyond.
I decided to try to be a writer on my 30th birthday.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Comics Village. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
Gene Wolfe Interview
Tell me a little in brief about “Memorare” your Nebula nominated work. Why did you write it and what do you hope readers will take from it?
It seems to me that I hear some story ideas better than I see them. In the southwest, particularly, memorials are erected at roadsides. I grew up in Texas, and I could hear the prairie wind and smell the dust. I was the lonely soul in the empty tomb, and I transferred the whole thing to space, the loneliest place (not) on earth. I wanted readers to feel the isolation and lonely majesty of it. I wanted them to realize, too, that God, the saints, and love can be found even there.
When you say that you hear stories better than you see them - could you clarify that a bit?
In a way I hear the characters talking, but not at the beginning. At the beginning I hear the sounds of their voices: Severian’s deep, smooth, slightly melancholy tones; Master Gurloes’s hard, harsh, implacable vowels, his throat clearing and occasional spitting. In An Evil Guest
What are more important are what might be called sound effects. In Pirate Freedom
The Commercial vs the Artistic in writing - is there a genuine difference between these two philosophies or are they artifical attributes? Are they in opposition, and if so, can they meet?
The difference seems to me very genuine. The error is to think them antithetical. The purely commercial writer writes for the editor. The purely artistic writer writes for himself or herself. I write for the reader. As long as the editor buys it, I don’t much care what he thinks of it. If it’s a good solid story, that’s enough for me. But if the reader doesn’t like it, it’s a failure.
Insofar as you’re aware thereof, which themes and ideas dominate the writing of Gene Wolfe? What do you think readers take from your work they get nowhere else?
My great theme is memory. I’m rarely aware of that as I write, but I realize it as I read. Another theme is reality. A good many writers are writing propaganda. I don’t do that. I know that not all politicians are crooked. I know that some soldiers are brutal criminals, but also that most are not even close to that. I have been accused of writing only good and bad women, but that is because those are the only kinds I’ve ever met.
There is nothing in my work that readers will find nowhere else, although I wish there were. I try to serve good, honest writing. I make the hot stuff hot and the cold stuff cold – or try to. A great many other writers are doing the same thing.
Will you still be read in a 100 years? Does it matter? Should writers write for the present or the future?
Will I still be read in a hundred years? I hope so. Does it matter? To me, yes – but I write for the present, not for the future. Books written for the future are not likely to get there. There are lonely men and lonely women in small towns all over the world. I want them to read me, now, and feel a little better.
The short story vs the novella vs the novel - what makes you decide to write an idea in one form over the other?
I don’t decide. The idea tells me. There are book ideas and short story ideas. And novelette and novella ideas. A short story can be padded out, and a novel cut down, but both are forced alterations to attain some preconceived length. If I know I need a novella, I look around for a novella-length idea, or whatever.
Your wikipedia entry claims you might be related to Thomas Wolfe - truth or fiction?
Although I can’t prove it, I think it’s true. We Wolfes came out of northwestern North Carolina about 1780 and settled in southeastern Ohio. (My father took me to an old family graveyard out in the country once; the earliest stone we could find bore that date.) Thomas Wolfe was from Asheville. That area is not thickly populated even now. In 1900 – the year that both he and my father were born – it would have been very thinly peopled indeed.
In passing… I got a fan letter from that part of the state once, and wrote back to the fan saying that my family had left it toward the end of the Eighteenth Century. He wrote, “I know all about it, and my family would like great-grandfather’s horse back.”
Speaking of respected - from praised to winning awards, does that have an effect? Does it add more pressure, a perceived standard of brilliance you’re expected to live up to?How do you handle the praise and the fame and the awards and still remain true to your writing, to yourself?
Of course I like to win. It’s fun, and I enjoy it. But it’s not important.
You’re known for creating unreliable narrators in your work - would you care to expound on the reasons why?
All real narrators are unreliable. That is a great strength: it is realistic. Another is that one can hint at things left hidden. A third is that you can reveal in Chapter 19 something that was hidden in Chapter 9. Please don’t ask for examples.
What is the story you’ve written you’re proudest of, and why?
By “story” I assume you mean a short story, novelette, or novella. Something under novel length, in other words. “Empires of Foliage and Flower,” perhaps, because it shows so plainly the brevity, tragedy, and comedy of life. But if you don’t like that answer, I have others. There are a good many stories that I’m very fond of.
How (if at all) has science fiction&fantasy evolved/ changed in the time that you’ve been working in the field? Does it still have value in the present milieu? Relevance to the future?
How has sf changed? The giants are gone. When I started writing, Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke were all producing. You have to have lived in both periods to understand what an enormous difference they made. Fantasy has lost Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The Harry Potter books are good, but they are YA. Neil Gaiman is our best fantasist and is giving us wonderful books and stories. Another giant has arrived, which may be why fantasy feels so much healthier now.
Both science fiction and fantasy have value, for the present and for the future. It’s important that they be there – and that they be good, and thus read by as many as possible. The interesting point is that fantasy is very, very old and SF a stripling. The oldest known fiction is fantasy, I believe. The first great fantasy, GILGAMESH, comes to us from the dawn of civilization. Fantasy assures us (quite truthfully) that the universe is inconceivably wide and wild. Once I wrote a poem about a man who lived on an island whose population believed it to be the only place. He walks around the island, and from a lonely beach sees another island. Fantasy is that walk. “Things could be different,” says fantasy. “They could be very, very different just over that hill. Have hope.”
SF assures (quite truthfully) that they will be. “They may be better,” says SF, “or they may be worse. But they will not be like this.”
Gene Wolfe is a prolific and critically acclaimed author of The Book of the New Sun
DAVID DE BEER‘s short fiction has been published in or is forthcoming from venues such as Chizine, Alienskin and Courting Morpheus. He currently resides in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Ted Chiang Interview
First of all, congratulations on adding a Hugo to your Nebula! Hopefully it doesn’t make ‘The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate’ too tough an act to follow - do you have any other stories in the pipeline just now?
I have a short story in Jonathan Strahan’s anthology ECLIPSE TWO, coming out from Nightshade Books in November.
‘The Merchant and The Alchemist’s Gate’ very strongly evokes The Arabian Nights
Obviously the basic structure of the story, a person telling stories to a king and hoping to avoid execution, is modeled on that of The Arabian Nights
The story very compellingly evokes medieval Arab society and life – what other sources did you draw on to achieve that evocation?
I did some reading about medieval Islamic culture, but my story is set in the storyteller’s versions of Baghdad and Cairo rather than the actual historical cities. For example, the wily and adulterous woman is a staple of The Arabian Nights
You’ve talked about the influence of scientist Kip Thorne on the story. What was that influence precisely? Was it more to do with the science of the story, or with the ethical implications of that science?
Many years ago the physicist Kip Thorne was on a book tour in Seattle, and he gave a talk in which he described how you could—in theory—create a time machine without violating Einstein’s general relativity. Here’s the general idea: imagine you have one mouth of a wormhole in a laboratory on Earth, while the other mouth is mounted inside of a spaceship. Have the ship travel at near lightspeed to a location ten light-years away and then come back. To observers on Earth, it will take twenty years for the ship to return, but to astronauts on the ship, the trip will only take a year due to time dilation.
Here’s the cool part: if you’re in the laboratory on Earth looking through the wormhole mouth, you’ll see the spaceship crew experiencing the entire journey within a year. A year after the spaceship left, you’d see the crew disembarking back on Earth and receiving their ticker-tape parade, even though no one outside is going to throw that parade for another nineteen years. And if you then stepped into the laboratory’s wormhole mouth, you’d emerge from the spaceship’s wormhole mouth, and you could talk to the people who, nineteen years in your future, are welcoming back the astronauts. Those people could step through the spaceship’s wormhole mouth to visit your lab, and see their past.
Of course the next question is, can you change the past? Thorne examined a situation where you set up the mouths of a wormhole so that, if you fired a billiard ball into one mouth, the ball would exit out the other mouth a second earlier and knock itself out of the way before it could enter the first mouth. This is essentially a version of the grandfather paradox, but unlike the scenario of a person going back in time with a gun, this one is amenable to mathematical analysis. You can actually set up equations that describe this situation and solve them.
What Thorne found was, basically, that the billiard ball doesn’t knock itself out of the way. The ball exits the wormhole mouth at a slight angle so that it doesn’t hit itself head on; it only gives itself a glancing blow, so that the ball then enters the other wormhole mouth on a slightly different trajectory, which is why it exited at a slight angle. So, no paradoxes; you can’t change the past.
(See Thorne’s bookBlack Holes and Time Warps
I thought this was all fascinating. Here was a version of time travel that actually made sense; it had limitations, but they followed naturally from the basic mechanism. Initially I considered writing a more traditional SF story about this, but any civilization that could realistically be able to manipulate wormholes would be so advanced as to be essentially unrecognizable to us. I could have set it in the near future, but that didn’t seem more plausible to me than setting it in the past; we’re not appreciably closer to real wormhole technology than medieval alchemists. Then it occurred to me that an “Arabian Nights” setting might be interesting, because the recursive nature of time travel fit with the convention of nested stories, and the idea of a fixed timeline seemed to mesh well with Islamic notions of destiny.
The story seems to be both a riposte to and an elaboration on ‘What’s Expected of Us, your short short piece dealing with the discovery of a device that proves, very simply and directly, that there’s no such thing as free will - how do you see the two stories as relating to / interacting with each other?
It’s mostly a coincidence; “What’s Expected of Us” had an entirely different genesis. I was thinking about the old trope that there exists a thought that kills anyone who thinks it. (The Monty Python skit about the joke so funny you die laughing is one example of this trope, which Wikipedia calls the “motif of harmful sensation.") It occurred to me that one form this idea might take is a proof that free will doesn’t exist. It’s been said that it doesn’t matter whether we have free will or not, only that we _believe_ we have free will; without that belief, we wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. So if there existed a truly convincing argument that free will was an illusion, that would be a pretty close equivalent to the lethal thought; it wouldn’t make your heart stop beating, but it’d sap your will to live.
Of course, even an air-tight proof that free will was an illusion wouldn’t convince most people; we’re all very good at denying unpalatable truths. It’d be more effective if there were a simple demonstration that free will was an illusion, something that anyone could try for themselves. The “Predictor” device in the story is what I came up with.
If a device for seeing the future actually existed, I don’t know that people would fall into akinetic mutism the way they do in the story, but I think something very odd would have to happen. Consider: suppose you see that you’re going to fall and break your arm later in one hour. There’s no way you can avoid it, because we’re assuming that the future is fixed. What goes through your mind as you walk toward the scene of the accident? One might argue that seeing your future means accidents like that won’t happen to you anymore, but what if everyone has access to this device? Is it possible that nothing unpleasant will ever happen to anyone ever again?
Finding meaning within a limited or pre-determined universe seems to be a recurrent theme of your writing, whether here or in stories like ‘Story of Your Life’ or ‘Tower of Babylon’ - what is it about that that keeps on pulling you back?
I’m surprised that you think of “Tower of Babylon” as a story about finding meaning within a limited universe. The protagonist of that story achieves the equivalent of circumnavigating the globe, and I wouldn’t think that most sailors who’ve done that would say the experience demonstrated to them how limited the universe was.
The most significant similarity between “Tower of Babylon” and “Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” to my mind, is that their protagonists both use religious faith to find meaning in what happens to them. In both stories, the universe could be seen as purely mechanistic, but neither protagonist interprets it that way; they look for and find evidence for their faith.
By contrast, the protagonist of “Story of Your Life” has to find meaning in a purely secular way, so in that sense it’s not clear to me that these three stories have anything in common, beyond the fact that most fiction is about making sense of our lives.
Many of your stories use fantasy props in an SFnal way - how do you see the two genres as interacting?
It may be true that I’ve used fantasy props in a science-fictional way, but in general it’s not something I set out to do deliberately. The instance in which I was most conscious of blending genres was in “Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” which actually does the reverse of what you describe: it uses a science-fiction prop in a fantasy way. The inspiration, as I’ve mentioned, was speculative science, but in every other respect the story fits the conventions of fantasy. For example, the frame story is a variation on the “old magic shop” trope. There is absolutely no extrapolation of the implications of introducing a time machine into medieval Baghdad would be; it’s assumed that the time machine will never become widely available, just as the relics or potions sold in mysterious magic shops never become widely available. In that respect, “Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” is probably the most atypical story I’ve written.
Extrapolating the implications of a speculative premise certainly isn’t exclusive to science fiction, but it’s more commonly associated with it. I think this has to do with the fact that science fiction is largely restricted to naturalism as its narrative mode, while fantasy is free to use modes like expressionism, or surrealism. As a literary movement, naturalism is said to have arisen in the wake of scientific discoveries like Darwin’s theory of evolution; Zola apparently described it as a way to write novels using the scientific method. While I wouldn’t go that far, I do think that science fiction is a product of the scientific age in a way that fantasy is not, and that the most useful way to characterize science fiction is not through adherence to known scientific fact, but through adherence to the scientific worldview.
You’ve talked before about the hiatus between your first three published stories in the early 90s and ‘Story of Your Life’ in 1998, triggered in part by dealing with just how impressively well those first stories did (a Nebula Award for ‘Tower of Babylon’ in 1990, and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in ‘92). There seems to have been an almost as large space between your late 90s / early 00s writing and your current fiction - I wondered why that was?
The process of publishing my short story collection was a very painful experience for me; I was hurt by someone I thought I could trust, and it made me bitter about the business of publishing. I gave up writing altogether for a number of years, and looked for different ways to apply my creative energy. At one point I wound up staying in a house with two guys I barely knew, collaborating with them on a screenplay for a low-budget horror movie. Nothing ever came of it, but I have no regrets about the experience; my expectations were set appropriately, so I wasn’t disappointed.
Eventually I decided to write fiction again, but it’s been a gradual process. I’m still trying to balance my attachment to and detachment from the field.
Writing for film can be very different from writing prose fiction; did you learn anything in particular from shifting into a different medium? And did working in the (as I’d interpret it) new-to-you horror genre throw any particular new light on your understanding of science fiction and fantasy?
I learned almost nothing about either writing for film or writing horror; for me the most educational thing about the experience was just hanging out with a guy who had driven in an international road rally and a guy who had directed episodes of a reality series for MTV. Although I suppose I did come away with a sense of just how often, when given the choice between something that makes sense and something that looks good, people who write for film will choose the latter. This is something I’d known intellectually, but it was interesting to see it in practice, extending to even the most mundane scenes. I realize this isn’t true for all films, but after my experience I became more conscious of how pervasive this tendency is, even in good films.
Ted Chiang was born in Port Jefferson, New York and graduated from Brown University with a degree in Computer Science. He attended the Clarion Writers’ Workshop in 1989. He currently works as a technical writer in the software industry and resides in Bellevue, Washington. His short fiction has received the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus awards, and can be found in the collection Stories of Your Life and Others
Al Robertson is a writer and musician who lives in London. He graduated from St Andrews University with a degree in English Literature and Art History, and has since worked in marketing, feature film development and cabaret management. He’s published fiction in The Third Alternative and Midnight Street, and online at Infinity Plus and Anthology Builder, with upcoming stories in Postscripts, Black Static and Interzone. He’s also an occasional performer of his own poetry, and a freeform drone bassist.
Adam Rex Interview
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to conduct the interview. Let’s start with your recent books. What can you tell us about them? Will there be other Frankenstein books in the future?
Well, my most recent is Frankenstein Takes the Cake
I think this will be my last Frankenstein book. I don’t want to start repeating myself.
And I should mention my nominated book, of course, The True Meaning of Smekday
I love the Smekday video on your website. What made you decide to use a puppet show to promote the book? Do you get lots of feedback about it?
Lots of good feedback, especially from kids. And I show during school visits as well, when possible. I guess the puppet show worked as a concept for a couple reasons–first, I already had the puppets, sort of. I make Sculpey models of characters I intend to draw and paint repeatedly, so I had a Boov (alien) model that lacked only arms to become a puppet. The boy puppet from that video was another model I made for a different book. And an educational puppet show, ostensibly made by the aliens for our enlightenment, seemed like just the sort of condescending format that might be chosen by a conquering culture who assumes itself to be inherently more sophisticated than the natives.
How did you get your start as an illustrator? What were some of the difficulties did you run into?
I started out illustrating for companies that published role-playing games and collectible card games. I connected with the people at these companies by attending Comic-Con International in San Diego every year and showing work. It was only after a number of years of doing this sort of work that I got my break into kids’ books. I had to flesh out my portfolio with a lot of unpaid spec work to land my first kids’ book, as Magic Card art doesn’t cut a lot of ice with children’s publishers.
When did you know you wanted to be an illustrator? Similarly, did you always imagine you’d one day be a writer?
I didn’t know I wanted to be an illustrator until college, because I didn’t really know what one was. I’d have to say I wanted to be an author before I wanted to be an illustrator for that reason. I always wanted to be a visual artist of some kind, but like most people I’d never really thought about the fact that illustrators exist, and are needed, despite seeing hundreds of examples of illustration on a day-to-day basis. Anyway, I was drawn to both writing and illustrating for the same reason–I like telling stories.
Why did you pick illustrated books as your medium? Have you thought of trying your hand at other stuff that combines text and art such as comics?
Sure, I love comics, which is why I slipped about ten pages of comics into Smekday
Otherwise, I consider there to be a pretty razor-thin distinction between the picture book format and the comics format, anyway. It’s really just a question of layout. I have a picture book called Pssst!
After illustrating various books, at what point did you think that it’s time for you to write your own book as well or was that always the plan?
It was always the plan. But the plan unfortunately required the logistical and financial backing of one or more large New York publishing concerns, and these tended to be a little more certain of my illustrations than my prose in the early days.
What are some of the difficulties in illustrating someone else’s book? The best perks?
Well, a lot of authors hate their illustrators, though I think for the most part I’ve avoided that conflict. I think the best example I can give of the potential benefit of illustrating someone else’s text is, unfortunately, a book that I’ve finished but which hasn’t been released yet. It has a lot of clever wordplay that required some equally clever visual tricks to go along with it, and I know I couldn’t have made it all myself. If I’d written it, I imagine I’d have tailored the text to make my job as an illustrator easier, so I wouldn’t have had to push myself as hard. And the book would not have been greater than the sum of its parts, as I believe it is. But you’ll just have to take my word for it until next fall.
How about the advantage of illustrating your own book? Any downsides?
I can’t imagine having had anyone else illustrate my novel, The True Meaning of Smekday
I can imagine doing it with a picture book manuscript, however. I’d like to write something I don’t illustrate, if it means getting to work with an artist I admire.
What’s your art/writing process like? How long does it take you to work on a book?
I don’t know how to answer that. I tell people who want to write that they need to find time to do it every day, but the truth is that I often don’t write for weeks at a time because of illustration obligations. And vice versa.
Some picture book texts come like lightning, and you have a first draft in a day. You’re still in for possibly weeks of revisions, especially if you have a good editor, but some of my books have come very quickly. I have one I’ll be working on soon that I’ve been writing and rewriting for years. And Smekday
Have you ever considered writing a book that’s solely prose?
I’m probably working on one right now. It’ll be my second novel, and aimed more at teens and adults. I expect it’ll be largely, if not entirely, illustration-free, if only to discourage younger readers from picking up a book that has more explicitly mature themes.
In your opinion, what is it about your books that draws the attention of kids?
I wish I knew. Frankly, I try to make books that will appeal to me, and which I think will appeal to kids, and just assume that an audience will follow. In Smekday
What are some of the challenges in writing/illustrating books for children specifically?
Mostly just the language. I love a good ten-dollar word, but I know I’ll lose some of them if they have to reach too often for a dictionary. But then, that’s generally true of adults as well.
Who are some of your favorite artists/writers?
In no real order: John Singer Sargent, James Jean, Maurice Sendak, Douglas Adams, Michael Chabon, George Saunders. I’ve been digging Kelly Link lately.
What projects are you currently working on?
A second novel (this one for teens and adults), and illustrations for a couple picture books which will be out next year.
Adam Rex grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, the middle of three children. He was neither the smart one (older brother) or the cute one (younger sister), but he was the one who could draw. He took a lot of art classes as a kid, trying to learn to draw better, and started painting when he was 11. And later in life he was drawn down to Tucson in order to hone his skills, get a BFA from the University of Arizona, and meet his physicist wife Marie (who is both the smart and cute one).
Adam and Marie have lived in Philadelphia since 2001, where Adam draws, paints, writes, spends too much time on the internet, and listens to public radio. They have two cats, Little Nemo and Dr. Simon Dicker. Adam is nearsighted, bad at all sports, learning to play the theremin, and usually in need of a shave. He can carry a tune, if you don’t mind the tune getting dropped and stepped on occasionally. He never remembers anyone’s name until he’s heard it at least three times. He likes animals, spacemen, Mexican food, Ethiopian food, monsters, puppets, comic books, 19th century art, skeletons, bugs, and robots.
His first picture book, THE DIRTY COWBOY by Amy Timberlake, was published by FSG in 2003. His picture book FRANKENSTEIN MAKES A SANDWICH, a collection of stories about monsters and their problems, was a New York Times Bestseller. 2007 saw the release of his latest picture book, PSSST!, a story about learning to say no when zoo animals ask too many favors, and of his first novel, THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY. His newest is FRANKENSTEIN TAKES THE CAKE.
Garlic and crosses are useless against Adam. Sunlight has been shown to be at least moderately effective. A silver bullet does the trick. Pretty much any bullet, really.
Charles Tan is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu Interview
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to conduct an interview. First off, this is embarrassing for me but how do you pronounce your name?
No worries. I keep the phonetic spelling of my name on file in my computer for just this question (which I get all the time J): Neh-dee (Nnedi) Oh-core-ra-for (Okorafor) Mm-bah-chew (Mbachu).
Is there a story behind the name Nnedi?
My full name is Nnedimma Nkemdili Okorafor-Mbachu. Imagine if I put that on my books. Talk about scaring people away. Ha ha. “Nnedimma” means “Mother is good.” Nnedi means “Mother is”. Apparently when I was born I came out looking exactly like my grandmother.
What kind of research did you have to do for The Shadow Speaker
Plenty. But for different things. I did a lot of research on the Sahara Desert, the Wodaabe people of Niger, the Hausa people of Nigeria and Niger, various forms of Islam, the Aïr Mountains, the country of Niger, a lot of scientific stuff (especially for the capture station), etc. I did a lot of scientific research, mainly involving creatures. The many creatures of my stories are usually based on creatures that I’ve personally encountered or that I have read about.
Can you share with us your experience with paralysis?
I’ve always been very athletic. I was always the kid who was chosen first during playground games. Both my parents were athletes, my three siblings were all athletes.
From the age of nine I focused on the sport of tennis. All through grade school and high school, I played semi-pro tennis. I also was exceptionally good in track and field. Up to the age of 19, my life revolved around two things- sports and books (reading them).
Starting at the age of 12, I developed scoliosis that progressively grew worse as I grew up. When I was 19, after my first year of college (I was on the tennis team), I learned I had to have spinal surgery or I’d definitely be severally crippled by the age of 25. There was a one percent chance of paralysis. Which gamble would you make? Yeah, even today, I’d still choose the surgery option.
May 18th. I went into the hospital walking and woke up a day later paralyzed from the waist down. I spent the rest of that summer learning to walk. I returned to school using a cane. It was awful.
However, this incident also made me turn inward for a while. It also forced me to give up sports. Though all my strength remained, I’d lost my agility and my balance was terrible. You can still knock me down pretty easily.
So, I had a tragic sense of loss, hints of rage, a creative mind, and a lot of unspent energy. The conditions were right for the discovery of fiction writing. I discovered it that very semester when, upon a friend’s advice, I took a creative writing class. The rest is history.
Did it have any impact on your writing?
My experience with paralysis IS why I started writing.
One thing I took from the experience was a sense of urgency. I basically had one great talent snatched from me and then another took its place. I remain plagued by a need to write as much as I can before this gift gets snatched from me, too. It’s part of why I write so much and so fast.
Secondly, what I learned from sports, what is a large part of why I was able to walk again, was a very strong sense of discipline. I use that same discipline when I write novels. It’s another reason why I write so fast.
Lastly, being paralyzed forced me to disregard the physical for a while and travel inward. That’s where I found much of the weird stuff you find in my work. That’s where I discovered the storyteller within. Friends of mine say that the whole paralysis thing was fate. Maybe, but it still sucked.
When did you decide to pursue writing seriously?
It was more of a gradual thing. After my first creative writing class, I didn’t stop writing. I just fell in love with it. I started knitting novel and I didn’t even know it. I had no intention of getting published. It was purely for the love of story. I did this type of continual writing for about five years. I wrote three novels. Then somewhere along the line I started getting short stories published. When I wrote my fourth novel, I started thinking about getting it published. I think when I got my first agent, I realized that I was writing seriously.
What is it about fantasy or science fiction that attracted you as a reader? As a writer?
I see the world as a magical place. I believe that was why I was attracted to fantasy and science fiction as both a reader and a writer. This kind of literature also seemed to address issues of otherness in ways that really resonated with me.
You’ve mentioned in an interview that among many things, you’re a horrible speller and didn’t do so well in English. How has this affected your writing or what steps did you take to overcome them?
In high school, my best subjects were math and the sciences, especially geometry, calculus, and biology. I excelled in grammar, too. Plus I had always read voraciously. However, when it came to the subjects of literature and writing, I was pretty bad. Maybe I didn’t have the best teachers or maybe it was all just a matter of time or maybe the books we focused on didn’t spark my interests. I think it was a combination of all these things. Eventually, I got it together by college.
As far as spelling, there’s no hope there. Ha ha. I think it’s genetic. My mom, who has a PhD in health administration and was at the top of her college class, is also a terrible speller. My mom and I also both have weird issues with knowing our left from our right. I have to really think about it. Thank goodness for spell-check.
Can you elaborate on the importance of formal education in your development as a writer?
I learned about structure during my masters and PhD (English with an emphasis on creative writing). Point of view, character development, theme, form, these are what I took from academia when it comes to my writing. Fiction writing requires creativity and no university can teach that. However, it also requires craft, and that a university can teach very very well.
Is incorporating Nigerian elements into your stories a conscious decision on your part or does it fall more along the lines of “write what you know”?
Nigeria and the greater Africa are where my muse resides right now. Maybe someday that will change. I don’t see that being soon. It’s not a conscious choice, it just is what it is.
It’s not always writing what I know. I’ve never been to Niger (where The Shadow Speaker
If I’m doing anything conscious it’s that I’m filling in blanks. I’ve always wanted to read fantasy set in Africa that is about Africa and Africans, that’s set in the now or the future.
Do you foresee yourself as the “next Octavia Butler”?
There will never be another Octavia Butler. 
. But she is a great influence on my own work. She showed me that what I was doing was possible and publishable. I just want to be “Nnedi the Tall Nigerian American Woman who Writes that Weird Stuff”.
Is there a shift for you when writing adult fiction vs. young adult fiction?
I write YA and adult fiction in the same way. I don’t figure out what it is until it’s done.
How about your short fiction vs. your longer fiction?
Usually my short fiction is just the start of my longer fiction. Only once in a while do I really write a short story that is a short story. I have a story in a science fiction anthology called Seeds of Change
What in your opinion are the elements of your writing that distinguishes your young adult from your adult fiction, if any?
When it’s all said and done and I look at my YA and adult work, I see that my adult fiction is significantly darker and far more graphic.
You’ve mentioned that you’re both a feminist and a womanist. Could you define for us what each of them means for you and how they sometimes clash with each other?
To me, to be a feminist is to believe in the equality of men and women, despite differences. It also means that you acknowledge that there is inequality and seek to right that wrong in your own way. So I’m a feminist. Womanism is feminism for people of color, feminism that actively incorporates the complexity of race into the equation. Yeah, I’m that, too.
What was the biggest hurdle you had to overcome in becoming a writer?
My family and, I guess, culture. In my family, and amongst Igbos as a whole, the most respected careers are in medicine and engineering. Writing is a hobby.
I remember my father scoffing at the idea (he was a cardiovascular surgeon and a Chief of Surgery in Chicago). I definitely had to prove myself. So when I decided I was serious, I knew I had to do more than just get published. I had to get a PhD in writing (Nigerians love degrees) and get published by a top publisher, amongst other things.
What projects are you currently working on?
I just sold a YA fantasy novel to Penguin Books titled Sunny and the Leopard People. It’s about a Nigerian albino girl who discovers some serious strangeness in her neighborhood and eventually becomes a part of it. I’ll be editing that soon. And this summer I wrote a sort of part two to the Shadow Speaker tentatively titled Stormbringer. Then there’s also my adult novel, Who Fears Death, that is currently being shopped around.
Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu is the author of The Shadow Speaker
Charles Tan is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Ysabeau Wilce Interview
Ysabeau Wilce landed a nomination on the Nebula ballot for the Andre Norton Award with her first novel, Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books)
What was the original inspiration for Flora Segunda
I didn’t have any particular inspiration in mind. I just sat down one day and started to write, and Flora Segunda
That title is quite a mouthful. Why such a long title?
Back in the nineteenth century it was common for books to have long sub-titles. Since books back then didn’t have dust jackets, the only way for a reader to get an idea of what the book was about was via a sub-title. I liked the idea — so baroque — and luckily, my editor was willing to indulge me! Plus, it fits with Flora’s long-winded style.
All your fiction to date is set in a city called Califa. Would you describe briefly what Califa looks like? And is it based on any one place we could find in our world?
The Republic of Califa is on the west coast of a very large continent. Within the republic’s boundaries can be found craggy mountains, large tracks of deep forest, a verdant stretch of farmland, several small towns, and one major city: the City of Califa. Califa is based somewhat on a location on our planet, and I think canny readers will find it easy, both via name and description, to figure out where that place is!
Do the characters living in Califa ever bump into other characters from different stories?
All my characters are very intertwined — Califa is not that big a place after all. Pretty much everyone knows everyone else, so the odds of one of character popping up in another story are pretty strong! I also like to drop little connections in all my work, so that if you’ve read one story you might recognize a person or a place from another story. It’s an easy way to give a story some extra depth, helps develop Califa’s history, and it’s also fun for the readers to be able to connect the dots if they so choose. I consider all my stories to be small parts of a greater historical whole.
The first “character” we get to meet is Flora’s house, Crackpot Hall, an enormous (eleven thousand rooms!) magical house with lots of hidden spaces.
What was the inspiration for this unique house?
When I was a kid we lived overseas and I had the opportunity to visit many, many castles and palaces. The scale and size of these magnificent buildings made a great impression upon me, and I always wondered what it would be like to actually live in an enormous house that had a long and storied history. Of course, none of these castles or palaces had praterhuman butlers — I’m not actually sure where that particular bit of inspiration came from!
How would you describe Flora, and do you see much of yourself in this character when you were 14 years old?
Flora is both obnoxious and courageous, smart and hare-brained, impetuous and good-hearted, and for someone so thought-less, she thinks a bit too much! Whether or not those qualities could have been applied to me at the same age — you’d have to ask my parents! Clearly I didn’t have the opportunities she has had to get into quite the same type of troubles that she does, which was probably quite a good thing!
How does it feel to be a first-time author and to have your first novel earn such high acclaim?
I feel lucky and grateful, and a bit bemused by at all. When it’s your imagination, it is easy to feel that everything you come up with is old hat. Thus, it’s very gratifying to have other people think your ideas are quite clever. And it’s even more gratifying to have other people enjoy playing in your world as much as you do!
How did it feel to be on the ballot as a first-time novelist with authors such as J. K. Rowling?
Lucky and grateful — and I knew I had no chance of winning against her, so I also felt relief. With no hope comes no pressure, as Nini Mo once said.
What kind of feedback have you received from the young readers who’ve read your book?
I’ve had very good feedback — most readers who take the time to write me do so because they enjoyed the book. I always enjoy hearing from young readers because they are uncensored in their enthusiasm. My favorite feedback, tho’ came from a young reader who reviewed Flora Segunda
Have you always wanted to write? What made you decide to write a novel?
I have always liked to write. I love telling stories, and I love playing with words, and I love language, and I love making things up, so what else could I do? As far as novel writing goes — I don’t set out to write novels, I set out to tell a story and most of the time it takes so many words to tell the story that I end up with a novel!
What draws you to writing for young readers?
I don’t write specifically to young readers — I just try to tell a good story. In Flora Segunda’s case, when I realized that the novel would probably be published as young adult, I did slant some of my writing in a YA direction — I tried not to be too preachy, tried to remain true to the rebellious spirit of youth, and tried to keep the pace up. But otherwise, I just try to tell a good story and I am delighted when people of all ages enjoy reading it.
What is it about 19th century military culture in particular that appeals to you?
There was a huge dichotomy in the 19th century Army. The gallantry and the mud. Heroes and cads. Officers were supposed to be gentlemen, and The Articles of War demanded that they behaved as gentlemen, but they often didn’t. On the frontier, Army life was so closed and constrained that Army women, tho’ not soldiers, had a great influence on military culture. Plus, I am really fond of frockcoats.
I read that you have a speakeasy in your house. How did you come to have a speakeasy in your house and would you describe it?
Alas, I can take no credit for the speakeasy in our flat — it came with the flat and we just enjoy it. In our main hallway there is a mysterious door; open it, and you go down a very narrow set of stairs, through the main part of the basement, and into a little corridor that has a bar in it. Beyond that is a small dark room with a pool table and many trophy cases. The whole set-up is very creepy — I never go down there without expecting to see a body sprawled on the floor! The flat was built in 1912, and I think the speakeasy must go back to Prohibition, when people found it more convivial to drink illegally in their own homes.
Who were the literary influences for you as a kid? And now that you’re an adult?
My biggest influences were, and remain, William Shakespeare, T.H. White (The Once and Future King
The sequel to Flora Segunda
Flora’s Fury, Or How A Girl of Sand Does a Bunch of Really Cool Things that I Am Still Making Up Right Now should be out sometime in 2010!
Ysabeau S. Wilce was born in California and has followed the drum throughout Alaska, Spain, Mexico, Arizona, and Elsewhere. After training as a military historian, Ysabeau turned to fiction when the truth no longer compared favorably to the shining lies of her imagination. Her stories have been published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and various anthologies. Her work has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, the Andre Norton Award, and been short-listed for the Tiptree Award.
When Ysabeau is not writing, she drinks cappuccinos and reads trashy nineteenth century novels, waiting for inspiration to strike again. She currently resides in the Midwest, with her husband, a cheese-swilling financier, and a border collie named Bothwell. They do not have a Butler. You may also find her at her blog.
By day, Jen West runs the corporate rat race working in women’s wear design and merchandising for an upscale clothing manufacturer. By night she’s a mild-mannered freelance writer in constant search for the next interesting character or story.
Her interviews have appeared in such venues as Shimmer and Fairwood Press’s interview collection, Human Visions. She has degrees in Journalism and French from the University of Oregon, and remembers fondly the pressure of meeting deadlines at the Oregon Daily Emerald as a staff writer. She currently resides with her writer husband, Ken Scholes, two pudgy cats and a box garden in St. Helens, OR. Drop her a note at .
Kij Johnson Interview
Thanks for giving us this opportunity to interview you. For unfamiliar readers, can you tell us about your Heian trilogy?
The Heian books are loosely connected novels set in Japan during the Heian period, between about 800 and 1200ad. Each uses the Japanese monogatari literary tradition to explore human/animal shapeshifting, both as a real and a metaphorical element.
The Fox Woman
Fudoki
I plan to write a third which for the moment I’m calling, cunningly enough, “the monkey book.”
What kind of research did you have to do?
I did a lot of research for these books – about seven years for the first book, and an additional three for the second. I have about 600 reference works for the Heian books, many of them primary sources, especially diaries and poetry collections. I don’t read Japanese, so the research has all been in translation, though several scholars and academics have assisted me with obscurer details.
What initially sparked your interest in the genre?
If you mean fantasy, I have always read it, though never exclusively, or even mostly. It surprises me that I write fantasy when most of my reading is nonfiction (especially historical journals and memoirs) and classic science fiction – Hal Clement and his ilk.
Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?
I didn’t start writing until I was 25, when I took a extension creative writing class. I did come from a family that wrote – my grandfather wrote a number of books about agriculture; my parents wrote two about antique radios, and my dad had several collections of articles he had written for magazines – so it was not totally unfamiliar to me.
In addition to your novels, you’ve also written several short stories. What are your personal challenges in writing each one? Which are you more comfortable with?
I’ve written what seem like a lot of short stories, thirty or so, so it’s hard to generalize. There are different challenges for each story. About half of my stories are what I think of as the “hard” ones – usually stories with complex, personal or difficult themes.
I also usually set myself some sort of technical challenge, for the first draft anyway: write a story without adverbs; write a story using only words with Anglo-Saxon (or Danish) roots; write a story in the voice of Laurence Sterne; write a story in second-person that can be told in no other way. It’s much too easy to write lyrically: assignments like this force me to stay rigorous as a storyteller.
What’s your writing process like?
Lately, I write every day, rain or shine. I wrote most of Fudoki
I whine and moan quite a lot, but that's not a process so much as a mode.
What was the inspiration behind The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change?
Coyote and other animal trickster stories are tools for humans to explore the human experience, and probably not the stories that coyote or spiders or rabbits would tell for themselves. I talk about dogs a lot in my fiction, because they are the animals we as humans are closest to understanding, so it made sense for me to explore the two things together.
How did you end up becoming an editor for various publishers?
Just lucky. I was fortunate enough to be in New York when Tor needed an assistant managing editor. I had some small-press publishing experience at that point, with the magazine Tales of the Unanticipated. I had been at Tor for two weeks when the managing editor and then the associate managing editor left. I ended up holding the bag, which I held with great pleasure for a couple of years. Dark Horse Comics proceeded naturally from Tor, and Wizards of the Coast/TSR from my time at Dark Horse and an unhealthy addiction to Magic: The Gathering.
Was there anything you carried with you as an editor into your writing?
I was largely a production editor, so I didn’t read manuscripts a lot. The main thing I gleaned was the difference between good writing and good storytelling. In literary fiction and memoir, good writing is seen as more important than good storytelling. In all other genres, good storytelling is more important. In an ideal work, the two combine.
What’s it like teaching writing and creativity? Has it helped you with your own writing?
I love teaching the intensive workshops. I learn something new every day I teach, often something directly applicable to my own work. Being surrounded by enthused new writers usually gets me excited by my own work.
What advice do you usually give to your students?
It depends on the student.
Remove all adverbs, or replace them with stronger verb. Take out ninety percent of your “to be” and “to have” verbs. Tighter prose in one not-so-easy lesson. I run a series of searches for all these things every time I write, and it’s pretty depressing.
On your blog, it’s apparent that one of your passions is mountain climbing. How did you get introduced into that particular activity?
I have no idea. I walked by the climbing gym for several months, and then one day I decided I needed a hobby. I walked in, took a class, and fell in love.
What’s the biggest thrill about mountain climbing?
It’s so damn hard. It requires strength and power, technical expertise and knowledge, patience, guts, and grace. I have never done anything so challenging in my life.
Did you ever write a story inspired by one of your treks?
No, though I suspect some of what I have learned will go into the monkey book. I am writing nonfiction essays exploring aspects of climbing.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m working on a children’s chapbook at the moment, and then I’ll return to Kylen: The Moveable City, a fantasy novel I started several years, set in London and Tashkent in 1876-7. I am also working on the climbing essays, but I’m not sure what I’ll do with them.
Since her first sale in 1987, Kij Johnson has sold dozens of short stories to markets including Amazing Stories, Analog, Asimov’s, Duelist Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Realms of Fantasy. She won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short story of 1994 for her novelette in Asimov’s, “Fox Magic.” In 2001, she won the International Association for the Fantastic in the Art’s Crawford Award for best new fantasy novelist of the year. Full text of several of her stories and poems is available on her website. Her short story The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change was placed on the final ballot for the 2007 Nebula award and the 2007 World Fantasy award, and it was a nominee for the Sturgeon and Hugo awards.
Her novels include two volumes of the Heian trilogy Love/War/Death: The Fox Woman
She taught writing and science fiction writing at Louisiana State University and at the University of Kansas, and she has lectured on creativity and writing at bookstores and businesses across the country. Since 1994, she has assisted at James Gunn’s Science Fiction Writer’s Workshop, hosted by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. Starting in 2003, Kij also teaches the Center’s Science Fiction & Fantasy Novel Writing Workshop. From 1999 - 2004, she taught a series of writing classes at the GenCon Game Fair.
In the past ten years, she has worked as managing editor at Tor Books; collections and special editions editor for Dark Horse Comics; editor, continuity manager, and creative director for Wizards of the Coast; program manager on Microsoft Reader; and is currently managing editor of user communications at Real Networks. She has also run chain and independent bookstores, worked as a radio announcer and engineer, edited cryptic crosswords, and waitressed in a strip bar.
She divides her time between the Midwest and the West Coast.
Charles Tan is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Steve Berman Interview
In 2007, Steve Berman’s novel Vintage: A Ghost Story
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, let’s start with your novel Vintage. What was the inspiration for the book?
Honest answer? I was in Los Angeles doing a bit of travel writing (yes, they do have an award show for gay porn performers) and I met this goth boy. I was instantly smitten and we spent an amazing night together. When I came back to NJ, I started writing a book to win his heart. The first scene of Vintage
Can you tell us the story of how Vintage finally got published? What were some of the difficulties you ran into?
It was a 10 year journey. In the early years there was some interest in the manuscript by a large NY publisher—and the editor offered me terrific advice that I am forever grateful for. But then came rejection and rejection and I eventually stopped shopping the book around. No luck with agents either (a pattern that repeats to this day).
Then, at a BEA, Lawrence Schimel introduced me to Greg Herren, who was acquiring titles for Haworth Press’ new line of queer speculative fiction. Greg enjoyed the book and made an offer. Two years later, it’s 2007 and Vintage
I’ve owned a small press since 2001 when I released my first short story collection. Lethe Press began reprinting a fair number of orphaned authors, including award-winning gay titles. So, just prior to the selection of the finalists for the Norton, I brought back Vintage
At what point did you consider yourself a professional writer?
There were two points that are really memorable for me. In 1994, I had two Lovecraftian articles published in gaming magazines (Dragon and White Wolf). They pay was great and both issues released in October. I was so proud and had the covers and interior pages framed.
The other would be when I had sold the third short story needed to obtain active membership in SFWA. I think that would be in 2005 with “Wagers of Gold Mountain” to Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s Coyote Road
What was the worst writing advice you received? The best?
Okay, this may seem odd but I have one answer for both:
In maybe 1997 or ‘98, I telephoned one of my more favorite authors in the world, a woman who wrote what I consider the most perfectly constructed novel. Ellen Kushner. The book: Swordspoint
Seems simple, right? And it is good advice because, as she went on to say, “People will judge you by that book.” And really I know now you should always strive to make your books, first to current, be the best they can possibly be.
But it was the word ‘perfect’ that came to haunt me. Trying to write perfection paralyzed me. I obsessed over passages, over individual words, to the point where I became despondent that this book would never be perfect and should never be written. And for several years after hearing this advice I stopped writing Vintage
Years later when I met Ellen in person, she laughed when I reminded her of this advice. And she sympathized with what had happened afterward.
Which are you more comfortable writing: short stories or novels? Why?
Short stories. Even though I’ve finished two novels (Vintage
Short stories seem playful and entertaining. At least, at first. As I’ve tried to become a better writer I have also become a far slower writer. The last story I sold to Ellen & Terry was agonizing.
Do you ever get tired of the question “is this autobiographical”? Similarly, do you get tired of people (like me) asking you questions about homosexuality? To put it another way, do you prefer people to talk more about your writing in general as opposed to your sexuality and how it affects your writing?
Believe it or not, I rarely get asked if my work is autobiographical. Maybe people assume it without asking. I don’t know. Certainly several of my characters are facets of myself or people that I know. But I think the real me would be a very dull character to read.
The other question relates to whether or not I see myself as a gay writer or a writer who happens to be gay. I know many authors who dislike the former label. Most days I actually prefer it, but there are times when I realize that what I write is not embraced by the vast majority of gay male readers. So I become frustrated and wish I could abandon homosexuality altogether. But I can’t. It’s not a matter of identity—of me referring to myself as a ‘gay man.’ It’s because my personal orientation affects not only who I am attracted to but also who captivates my imagination. And my imagination prefers to tell stories that involve same-gender pairings.
When you write, do you ever feel guilt for tackling or not tackling homosexual characters/ interests?
Never guilt. I am aware that my readers may well be struggling with the same emotional issues that plague me (including moments when you feel almost disgust at being the Other). So I have to walk a careful path sometimes. For instance, in the story “Thimbleriggery and Fledglings” that will be in The Beastly Bride coming out from Viking Children’s Press in 2010, I retell Swan Lake from Odile’s perspective if she were a lesbian teen. And while I was writing the story, I was not in the best emotional place and so the original ending was Odile committing suicide. And minutes after I finished I realized what a horrible thing I had done--especially when Vintage
Currently, one movement when it comes to spec fic magazines and anthologies is gender equality or giving more opportunities for female writers in what seems to be a male-dominated field. Do you feel it would benefit the industry should a similar provision be given for homosexual writers or at least spec fic stories that deal with homosexual issues?
Well, I think the gender-issue is more important because of the numbers (% of women reading spec fic) and GLBT individuals might make up, say 10-12% of readers. I think the number of queer-themed stories (as well as tales that feature incidental queer characters) is on the rise. I’m happy for that, of course. What I have noticed is that the field remains ethnically-dominated by white writers and characters. I would love to see more support for the Carl Brandon Society.
Did you ever feel ghettoed for being either a spec fic author or a gay author (or both)?
Oh, yes. This has been a sore topic of mine for ages. There is no easy answer. The spec fic world and the gay literature world are two very different dimensions with little crossover (Jim Grimsley and Samuel Delany may be the sole travelers between realms). Of the two, the spec fic is greatly more embracing: I know more gay readers who are closeted that they enjoy fantasy and science-fiction than the reverse. That’s because gay culture is very strict - the idolized are the young, beautiful, straight-acting and cool. Liking rocketships and giant monsters is not cool.
So when I attend a gay literary conference like Saints & Sinners in New Orleans, I’m an oddity. And when I go to gay bookstores, the spec fic shelf is the smallest one (if they even have one). And the gay media isn’t really interested in spec fic unless it’s vampire-related paranormal romance. I’m more likely to draw a bigger crowd at a reading held at a genre bookstore like Borderlands than at a gay bookstore.
But then, if I continue writing spec fic stories featuring gay characters and themes, am I limiting my sales to the spec fic readership? And the answer, of course, is yes.
How did you get your start editing anthologies?
One of the writers I’ve published through Lethe is Toby Johnson, who is very well-known in the gay spirituality field. We were chatting on the phone one afternoon and I mentioned how so many short stories with gay characters were depressing. I wanted to read a book just filled with inspirational fiction. He loved the idea and quickly we realized this was something we could edit ourselves. A year or so later we released Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling
After that, I approached Greg Herren at Haworth and sold him on the idea of GLBT-themed fantasy stories involving fairy lore. That turned into So Fey
Since then I’ve done a young-adult anthology for Hasbro, Inc.’s children’s fiction line, Mirrorstone Books (Magic in the Mirrorstone: Tales of Fantasy
Is it difficult for you to switch between your “writer hat” and your “editor hat”?
Not really. They really are such different creatures. I regret that I do not have enough time in the day to write my own fiction, edit other people’s work, run the small press, and work the 9 to 5 job that pays the bills.
Author Holly Black is a big factor in your life. Can you share with us how you originally met?
I’ve been close friends with Holly since ‘94. A gaming buddy of mine started a magazine, d8. Holly sent in her resume for editor and I bullied my friend into hiring me not her. So I stole her first job in publishing. Then I resigned before the first issue released--at 25, I wanted to be a writer not an editor. So Holly was brought on as an assistant editor and we met for the very first time at a gaming convention. I remember she was so cute with her earrings fashioned from 8-sided dice.
Maybe a week or two later I was hired by a medical publishing company in New York City, and the human resources drone was introducing me to the office staff and there, in production, was Holly. We shouted and hugged. The surprised HR drone remarked that we must be old friends and, laughing, we told her No, we’d only met once before. And for the months that followed at the office, Holly and I would talk about writing incessantly. And thus began the best of friendships.
How did RPGs impact your life?
Heh, obviously some of my answer has been given throughout the interview. I still game, still find the act of Game Mastering a wonderful exercise in storytelling. It does remind me how I’m very much a geek at heart. I recommend you and your readers look at a recent article I did for Strange Horizons: Lingua Rpga and the Writer.
What elements in being part of an RPG do you carry with you as a writer (if applicable)?
Again, I think the SH article covers that best.
What’s your favorite plush toy? Which is your favorite Cthulhu plush?
Hah! Now these are the toughest of questions. For sentimental reasons, I would say that a large plush owl my parents bought me as a child would be the answer. However, I’m quite fond of a recent zombie cat with a zipper on its head so you can unzip and feel its plush brain. Or maybe it’s my Teddy Scare with the broken heart. As for the Lovecraftian one, I’d have to choose the Gug which is just bizarre. I keep hoping they’ll make a Glaaki plush.
What projects are you currently working on?
Holly has given me the sage advice that the best thing an author can do to support and promote his first book is to write another. So, despite a very slow start I am working on another young adult novel, this one involving a gay couple that is dealing with some relationship issues when their involvement in a French MMORPG turns the book into a horrorific bit of magical realism.
But I can’t resist the lure of short fiction. In August, I released a new collection, Second Thoughts
Steve Berman sold his first spec fic story when he was a teenager. Of course, when he received his contributor copy of the Midwestern magazine, he discovered the editor had removed all fantastical elements. He survived this disappointment to go on and publish a novel, over 80 articles, essays, and short stories, and edit five anthologies. He has been a finalist for the Andre Norton, Gaylactic Spectrum, Golden Crown Literary, and Lambda Literary Awards. At one time he bought books professionally. Now it’s only a hobby. He lives in southern New Jersey with a cat umimpressed by words.
Charles Tan is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Delia Sherman Interview
Can you tell us how you got your start in the industry?
I started going to cons when I was in graduate school, long before I ever thought of being a writer. Mostly, I bought books and went to panels and was shy over in a corner, watching all these interesting people who knew each other talking about books I mostly hadn’t read. I’m a fantasy reader, not so much an SF reader, and there wasn’t a lot of talk about fantasy in the early 70’s.
Then I started to write.
I wrote for myself, and I wrote one story over and over again until I got it more or less right. At some point, I sent one of them out to W. Paul Ganley’s Weirdbook (I knew him from cons), and he printed it. With the encouragement of Jane Yolen, from whom I took a one-week course in Fantasy Writing at Mt. Holyoke College, I sent another one to Ed Ferman at S&SF, and he bought that. Eventually, I got a little more professional about the market and the world and much braver about talking to people. It really is a lot about people, in this business—not so much “contacts” as friendships. Unlike in most businesses, professional relationships in the SF field seem to me to be based on a shared love of a particular kind of writing, a particular aesthetic, a particular way of looking at the world. It’s why the field spawns so many movements, I think.
But that’s another topic.
What is it about speculative fiction that appeals to you?
The fact that it’s simultaneously (and unapologetically) mimetic and non-mimetic. The trick in successful speculative fiction (both fantasy and science fiction) is to make the invented world seem as real as the world in which we shop for our groceries. When it’s really done right, it allows us to come back to our quotidian world and see it with new eyes.
I also like the narrative patterns of speculative fiction. I like the fact that it deals with Myth and the Big Questions mainstream domestic realism finds embarrassing. You can’t really write about Faith and Beauty and Wonder and Fear and like that outside of genre fiction, not without sounding prissy or naïve or ironic. What spec fic has going for it is metaphor--not just at a sentence level, but at a structural, almost cellular level. And the cool thing about it is, you don’t even have to be conscious of it to take advantage of it. Although I’d argue you write better books if you are a little conscious of what you’re doing.
For you, how different (or similar) is it writing for teenagers as opposed to adults? Should there be a distinction?
When I began writing for a teen audience, I read a lot of YA and middle-grade books, and concluded that the main (and often the only) difference between YA and adult fiction is the age of the protagonist. The concerns of middle age aren’t particularly interesting to the young, and why should they be? They’re still working out how to be responsible for themselves and fit into a community of their peers without losing track of their individuality. Kids? Jobs? Losing faith in your ideals and having to go on anyway? Yeah, they may have to deal with these things, but keep them to the subtext, please. Otherwise, you’re writing a Problem Novel, and everyone knows only parents and teachers really like those.
I also think the pacing of a novel for younger readers is different. Description is okay if it enhances wonder or helps move the story forward. Philosophical asides slow things down and will probably get skipped anyway.
Conversations have to be lively and to the point. There’s not a lot a lot of room to be discursive or self-indulgent. Which means that things like theme and meaning have to grow out of the action, the characters, and the way the story is structured even more than they do in an adult novel.
I think the distinction between children’s and adult fiction is no more or less useful than the distinction between SF and westerns, fantasy and mystery, mainstream and romance. They’re all signposts that help readers find their way through the bewildering wilderness of things available to read. Sometimes a kid wants to stretch his imagination to being an adult with a family to provide for and sometimes he’s happier with a kid learning to sail or fly a spaceship—or Captain Underpants, who is ageless. It can be useful, though to know roughly what you’re getting.
What was the inspiration behind “The Fiddler of Bayou Teche”?
Cajun dancing, spending time in the Bayou country, and the traditional English ballad called The Bonnie Lass of Anglesey. I’ve been wanting to do something based on that ballad for ages. It’s so mysterious and unlikely and magical and narratively simple, yet evocative.
There’s this king, see, and he’s frightened because fifteen of his lords want to dance his gold and his lands away. So he sends riders looking for the Bonny Lass, who is obviously a hell of a dancer, and offers her a house, some land, and the husband of her choice if she’ll help him out. Which she does. But when it comes time for the payment, she refuses house, land, and husband, and makes the king dance with her instead. She wins, of course, which I guess means she becomes queen over his land, although the ballad doesn’t say so.
I tried doing it straight, and that was boring, so I set it aside. And then I went back to Louisiana to do research on a YA. I have kin in Louisiana, so I’d spent a lot of time there when I was a kid, but not since I was in college. It just hit me, as we drove the back roads of the bayou country and talked to people who still believed in loups-garoux and went dancing of a Friday night, that this was a milieu in which the ballad would make perfect emotional sense. It sure made it a fun story to write.
What’s your writing process like?
Building a coral reef. For me, thinking and writing are virtually the same thing. I can make lots of plans for a story before I start writing it, but mostly they don’t work. Usually what I do is throw myself into writing, follow my nose though some kind of narrative, then go back and figure out what works and what doesn’t and why. Then I re-write and re-write and re-write until it feels right to me. And then I give it to my trusted readers, listen to their comments, and re-write some more. Eventually, I get to the point where nobody can think of anything more I can do to it, and then I send it in.
This is not an efficient way to write. It is, however, the way I do it, and all my attempts to do it some other way have been extremely frustrating, not to say discouraging.
Which are you more comfortable or interested in currently: writing short stories or novels?
I am a natural novelist. My ideas ramify, my characters multiply and talk a lot, my plots pick up incident as black sweaters pick up white cat hairs. 
Many short stories have been abandoned when, after a certain amount of struggling, I am forced to conclude that yes, I’ve tried to jam yet another novel idea into 10,000 words or less.
However, short stories are, well, short. And after writing a certain number of them, I’m beginning to get the hang of it. Plus, if I’m writing something that needs research, I don’t need to do as much. Besides, when I’m stuck in the middle of a novel, and it’s been months, it’s nice to be able to turn to a short story and clear my mind.
So the short answer to your question is: it depends.
As a writer, what’s one of the biggest hurdles you’ve had to overcome?
Taking my work seriously as work.
For many years, I was a teacher of Freshman Comp, an aspiring scholar, a gardener, a home-maker, a cook, a daughter, a supportive partner to a law student, a quilter, an editor (non-professional) of my friends’ scholarly writing and fiction. Oh, and I wrote too. The writing was never more important than anything else, including the laundry. While I was learning, this was appropriate, I think. But as I began to sell, first short stories and then novels, my habit of writing whenever I had 15 minutes and dropping everything as soon as I was needed elsewhere got in my way.
Gradually, I began to move the writing closer to the top of my List of Things To Do. I try to write every day. I let dishes pile up and laundry compost. Ellen is an excellent cook, and if we’re both in mid-project, there’s always take-out. I don’t quilt, I quit academia, and I only teach workshops. I try to keep my editing down to what I can handle easily. Because I’m a writer who has a life. And writing is a big part of it.
Living with Ellen Kushner, what influence does she have on your writing and vice versa? When collaborating with her, either as a writer or as an editor, is it easier for you?
We are each other’s first readers. We discuss ideas, characters, plots, backstory, cool notions, and things we’re having difficulty with. This is bound to have an influence on what and how each one of us writes, although we’re both fairly independently-minded cusses, and are perfectly capable of ignoring each other’s advice when so moved.
Collaborating, as we did in The Fall of The Kings
In your opinion, what are the strengths of interstitial fiction?
Interstitial art, art that draws from a number of established genres to create its effects, is how art grows. To stick to literary examples, where would SF be without the hybrid of the gothic and the scientific paper that is Frankenstein? Where would contemporary fantasy be without the self-conscious melding of myth and epic poetry and modern adventure novel that is The Lord of the Rings? These things are genres now, but they weren’t when they were written. The interstitial works that are too odd, too out there (Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy is a good example), tend to stand alone, the end as they are the beginnings of their literary lines. Others spawn genres of their own. It’s happening all the time, at every level of culture. Remember when mysteries with vampires and werewolves plus romance was something only Laurel K. Hamilton wrote?
How did you get involved with the Interstitial Arts Foundation and Endicott Studio?
Well, a bunch of us were sitting around our living room in Somerville one Saturday afternoon, talking about books we liked that hadn’t done all that well commercially, and artists who were having a hard time selling their art either to fine art galleries or genre venues and musicians who were performing stuff that people liked but couldn’t get booked because it was hard to describe. And somebody (probably Ellen) turned to somebody else (possibly Terri Windling) and said, “You know, we should start a foundation or something.”
And (fools that we were), we not only agreed, we actually called friends and wrote letters and organized a symposium, chaired by Heinz Insu Fenkel and sponsored by SUNY New Paltz, where we decided to design a website and edit an anthology to start with. And then we did those things, and got non-profit status. I was president for a while, and then I was treasurer and secretary, and now I’m just treasurer. New people are getting on the board, with new ideas of what Intersitital means and new ideas about how to talk about it. And this makes me very happy. When we started all this, historical fantasy was interstitial. Can you imagine?
The Endicott Studio for Mythic Arts was started by Terri Windling long before the IAF was thought of. We’re part of it because we often write fairy and folktale-based fiction and Ellen is an old friend of Terri’s and we support her work and her goals.
Do you find it easy switching between your writer hat and editor hat?
They’re very different. Writing is, if you’ll excuse my taking over your metaphor, hat-making, starting with catching the beaver and felting the fur. Editing is more like shopping. Basically, all I have to do is decide if I like a story and whether it fits well with other stories I like. This is fun (except for the businessy bits, described below). Editing in the sense of taking a story that’s almost there and suggesting ways of making it better is more like teaching, which I love. Critiquing, editing, teaching are all, for me, like doing five-finger exercises, scales, arpeggios, and school pieces for a pianist. They’re a way of thinking about pure craft without having to worry about content. And then when I get to the writing part, I’m all warmed up.
What are some of the challenges you’ve encountered as an editor?
I guess the business end of the process is the hardest for me: coming up with an acceptable template for the contract, making sure the authors get everything to me in a timely fashion (I have too much sympathy with their busy lives), going over layouts and galleys and proofs. Writing rejection letters. I hate writing rejection letters. And there are always so many more of them to write than acceptances.
Having taught in various workshops, what advice do you have for writers who are starting out?
Read, Write, and Live.
No, really. The best way to learn to write is to read consciously. Once you’ve devoured a story or a novel because you love it and want to know what happens next, read it again with a critical eye and figure out what made you love it. How are the scenes structured? What do you learn in each one? How did the author plant information about the world, the backstory, the characters? Compare beginnings. Compare endings. Look at how the sentences go together. Do this a lot. There will be a point where you find yourself doing it whether you want to or not, but that’s fine. You’ll get over it. And you’ll have learned a lot about the craft of writing.
Write a lot. Give yourself exercises. Write descriptions of people you see every day, trying to convey who they are and not just what they look like. Write short narratives that aren’t really stories. Write stuff from odd points of view: a doorknob, a dog, a kitchen spoon, a woman (if you’re a man), a man (if you’re a woman). Read your writing aloud—to yourself if you’re shy, to your pet if you have one, to your best friend if you trust them. It’ll train your ear and let you know when your prose is clunky and when it flows.
Live. Since you’ll probably have to get a day job, remember that work-place politics, however unpleasant, have a lot to teach you about group dynamics, not to mention dramatic tension. Travel whenever you can. I’m not talking Paris or Peru here (although that’s nice, too). I’m talking a part of town you haven’t visited before. Without a map, preferably. Talk to people on public transportation and listen to what they have to say. This is often easier if you pretend to be someone you’re not. Go see live theatre, even if it’s your little brother’s high school production of Oklahoma. Community theatre, even when bad, can teach you something about characters and pacing. Sit in a park or café or diner or public square and people watch. Take notes. Fiction, no matter where or when it’s set, is finally about human beings interacting in the face of fear, danger, boredom, grief, persecution, or an invasion of giant ants. Technology is grand, but it’s human beings, fallible, often weak, noble, base, interesting human beings, who invent and build it.
Then go read some more. Non-fiction, too. Biography, history, books about sushi and embroidery and biotechnology and the movie industry and what ever else catches your fancy. It’ll all come in handy sooner or later, and it’ll give you something to read on the plane or the bus while you’re traveling. If you’re not taking notes. Or starting a story.
Any other projects you’re currently working on?
I just handed in the sequel to my children’s book Changeling
Delia Sherman’s most recent short stories have appeared in the Viking young adult anthologies The Green Man : Tales from the Mythic Forest
Charles Tan is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Lucius Shepard Interview
A prolific writer of speculative fiction, Lucius Shepard has been entertaining readers with novels, short stories and novellas since the early 1980s. Many of his stories have gone on to win awards such as the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon awards. His novella, Stars Seen Through Stone, received a nomination for a 2007 Nebula Award.
Shepard often draws from his own life of extensive travels on five continents and several career and scholastic pursuits. For Stars Seen Through Stone, he drew from his past experiences performing in rock bands. In the story, Vernon, an ex-rocker who has an ear for discovering new music talents, brings home his latest “project”—a slovenly, yet gifted, singer/guitar player with a penchant for debauchery –- and attempts to turn the annoying slug into a bankable musician. After some strange sightings, several of the town residents begin to manifest their own unique talents. But talent comes with a price.
What was the original spark or idea for this story?
I was in a number of rock bands in the 70s, early 80s, and therein lies the inspiration. I’ve always wanted to write about rock and roll, but my early attempts…I was too close to the subject and included all sorts of minutiae in my stories that made a reader’s eyes glaze over. Now I have a proper distance from the material, and I’m able to focus on what’s important to the story. There was a guy in one of those bands who became the model for Stanky in Stars Seen Through Stone, so specifically I guess I always wanted to write something around him and my relationship to him as the band’s leader/dictator. I didn’t have to make much up in either regard.
Except for a small hint at the beginning of the story, we don’t really see any science fiction or fantasy elements until halfway into the story. Is this slow build deliberate? Why did you choose to write the story this way?
I didn’t really make a choice. I simply told the story the way it came out. Since the story was mainly a character study, I let the characters do the work, and they weren’t persuaded that anything science fictional was happening to them, so… But I reject the notion that there was nothing science fictional or with fantasy content until the halfway mark—there were tiny bits, hints, etc., which lent the climax weight when it came.
I see no reason why the plot must be set in the foreground of a genre story, unless the story absolutely demands it. This story did not demand it. We’re not in the 1950s anymore and the Golden Age is long since over. There’s no point in writing old-fashioned cardboard character, Johnny-Has-A-Problem science fiction unless, like the Republicans, you’re pandering to the base.
I was struck by the feeling of authenticity that you give the setting and characters in this story. How do you make fictional people and places feel so real?
Well, a good many of the people aren’t fictional, so that helps, and I’ve spent time in Western Pennsylvania. But how you make real people feel real is as problematic as it is to make fictive people feel real. You have to ground your characters in the familiar so as to make people believe they know them. All writing is sleight of hand, making the reader believe he’s seen something or knows something about the story that he truly does not. You can’t put a person down on a sheet of paper; you have to evoke them. A crucial part of that evocation comes from knowing how your characters speak, the rhythms of their speech, their use of colloquialisms, profanity, etc, and being able to reduce that to a credible shorthand. Settings are easier. The first paragraph of Stars Seen Through Stone is a writerly trick in which I attempted to focus the reader’s attention on a minor event, a strange gust of wind witnessed by someone who’s smoking a joint; by doing that, I hoped to make them comfortable with the narrator, to rely on his witness and believe he was showing them the town of Black William, even though he’s only giving them tiny pieces of a reality.
Throughout your career, you’ve won or been nominated for several awards. Does the experience change after winning or being nominated so many times?
The first time I was nominated for the Nebula, I was pleased—I was up for three awards and lost them all, but it was a cool weekend. I met Harlan and Mike Swanwick and a bunch of other writers for the first time. My girlfriend at the time was more excited than I was and that made it fun. But I haven’t put too much stock in awards or the awards process since I won the American History award in the eighth grade over better students because the teacher was the JV football coach and thought I was a prospect. The first convention I attended was a Worldcon, and I was in the convention center parking lot after the Hugos and saw this famous writer at his car—he was hopping mad, cursing out another writer in absentia for winning the Hugo he wanted to win. It’s nice when people think something you’ve written may be worthy of an award, but I don’t enjoy competing with other writers. The concept of Best This, Best That seems a little iffy to me—there are so many different types of stories and so many variables. I think it would be more reasonable to cite a certain number of people for having done good work and do away with awards. The moment of winning is nice, but it loses its savor quickly and doesn’t mean much in the long run. That said, it’s merely an opinion, certainly nothing I feel all that strongly about.
What kind of mark do you hope to leave on the genre?
Truthfully I have no ambitions or expectations as regards a potential legacy. I can detect a little bit of a me-influence in certain writers’ work and that’s gratification enough.
Who or what were the biggest influences for you in developing your craft – both in literature and in life?
My father, who educated me to become a writer, and Avram Davidson, one of the best fantasists ever, who made me believe I was a writer at Clarion.
How does your writing process work?
I get up early and try to start before I’m fully awake, because that way I don’t think about what a nice day it is and all I might do otherwise. I work on one project in the morning, another in the afternoon, and if I feel frisky I’ll work on a third at night. I write very tight first drafts, lots of rewriting as I go, which isn’t the most efficient way, but it suffices for me. I have a heavy bag in my apartment, and whenever I’m stuck I go over and punch it for a while. That usually shakes something loose. I try to do about six or seven pages a day in total.
How much research do you usually have to do for a story?
I avoid stories that require any kind of research other than travel. I abhor doing traditional research—libraries make me sleepy, and I don’t like reading non-fiction, although there have been exceptions. On occasion I look up something on the Internet and sometimes I’ll call up a friend who’s a science geek and ask him a couple of questions. That’s about it.
What drew you to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre?
It was accidental. My band broke up, and I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself. I had written half a story, a piece with a light fantasy element set in Chiapas, but really more of a character piece, and my wife sent it in to the Clarion workshop, mostly to get me out of the house. I was accepted and as a result I became a genre writer. I’d read only lightly in the genre before Clarion and had no idea that I’d ever be any kind of success at it.
How much of your stories are taken from your own personal autobiography?
Quite a bit. Some more than others. Larissa Miusov, a story I had in Eclipse
Do you travel to find stories, or do stories find you when you travel?
I travel to travel. Stories are a natural by-product of the kind of traveling I do, which is cheap hotels in out of the way places that don’t get too many of my fellow countrymen. I like desolate places, unbeautiful islands, unpopular tropics. In such places, the processes of life seem very clear. Staying in Hiltons and Westins and what have you tends to cut you off from the people who might be prone to tell you stories… the best stories, at any rate.
In your travels, you must have been exposed to stories from dozens of cultures. Have you noticed any common thread through these stories from culture to culture? Or are we all different and distinctly unique?
Oh, I don’t know. There’s a common thread that runs through folktales, but then I had to go to Azherbaijan to find out that there were sturgeon poachers who harvested caviar from fish in the Caspian Sea and carried automatic weapons and used submarines to transport their contraband. I suppose you could say that we’re all the same but different.
If you could give new writers one piece of advice, what would it be?
Writerly advice? Well, this is personal, but in workshops and so on over the years I’ve read an awful lot of stories by people who either are not using their life experience in their work or else have very little experience to draw from. I believe you can tell the difference between stories that arise from experience and those that do not. So I might suggest that novice writers try and live a few stories before they essay to write one. Career advice? Take the cash and flush the credit cards.
What do you have in the hopper for your next project?
I’m working on a long novel about a peculiar South Carolina family and a batch of shorter pieces, one entitled, “I Got Those Way-Down-Below-The-Himalayas-In-A-Secret-Cavern-Burns-A-Flame-Brighter-Than-The-Sun Tibetan Blues.” The title’s a short story; I have little hope that the novelette will be as good.
Lucius Shepard was born in Lynchburg, Virgina and raised in Daytona Beach Florida. His fiction has won the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo, the Nebula, the Sturgeon, the Locus, and others. His latest book is The Best Of Lucius Shepard, a career retrospective. He currently lives in Neuchatel, Switzerland. His blog, a group effort he shares with Paul di Fillipo, Liz Hand, and Paul Witcover, can be found here. He is the author of Softspoken
By day, JEN WEST runs the corporate rat race working in women’s wear design and merchandising for an upscale clothing manufacturer. By night she’s a mild-mannered freelance writer in constant search for the next interesting character or story.
Her interviews have appeared in such venues as Shimmer and Fairwood Press’s interview collection, Human Visions. She has degrees in Journalism and French from the University of Oregon, and remembers fondly the pressure of meeting deadlines at the Oregon Daily Emerald as a staff writer. She currently resides with her writer husband, Ken Scholes, two pudgy cats and a box garden in St. Helens, OR. Drop her a note at .
Geoff Ryman Interview
How did you get your start with science fiction and fantasy?
Hmm. By reading a Little Golden Book called ‘Mickey Goes to the Moon’ which I loved and lost during a hospital visit. Also Space Cat
What is it about the genre that appeals to you?
Cats. No, floating intelligent globes. Well, you know. At first SF was an extension of Oz, that extended into Edgar Rice Burroughs, and then a book with dinosaurs in it by Brian Aldiss… only it turns out in that book that human sensibility reverses cause and effect. From our point of view time ‘really’ flows backwards. Which means corpses are born out of the earth into human beings. At that point I realized that SF was fairy tales made plausible by science that could give readers a lot to think about as well as wonder at.
What’s your writing process like? Are you the type that comes up with an idea/agenda first or one that just writes and lets the story flow from there?
Sadly, I work by inspiration. Something just seems so good for its own sake. The trigger could be something very small, but I realize that this is an idea for something big, and if it really is going to work, the ideas just keep flowing, and I write them all down very quickly at least at first draft… then comes far too much work revising the ideas, changing the plot, and polishing the words. It can take years.
253, or Tube Theatre is hypertext fiction. What were some of the challenges in writing such a piece? Did you have all sorts of flowcharts and notes?
The main challenge was to come up with 253 characters, each of whom has enough of a story to be worth telling. By about car 4 I was getting a bit worried, but I just kept digging deeper and deeper into my memory. I started taking a lot of notes about the tube as I traveled… that provided some stories, like the guy whose watch gets caught in a woman’s hair. The structure of each person on the tube train was so clear that keeping track who linked to whom was pretty easy to keep straight. Just occasionally finding everyone who worked at a particular place might be tough. By car 5, the previous characters were generating characters a few cars on, so that was fine. I don’t need flowcharts or anything… I have all those navigation seat maps. The print version has a list of characters by what links them.
I just listened to your Adventures in Sci Fi Publlishing interview. How has Clarion affected you, either as a writer or as a teacher? How did mundane science fiction get its start there?
Clarion has given me confidence that writing is a skill that can be taught. It won’t turn someone of talent into someone of genius, but it will give them practice digging deep for stories, and insight into how prose works so that revision is faster and more effective. It taught me just how difficult giving a critique is, how much work it takes, especially if you have to have something to say after 16 really smart people have already given their critique. A good critique of a 5000 word story takes at the very least two hours… probably three hours if there a lot of nits in the prose. I am now at least in part a professional reader of other people’s fiction… which means I am just in the habit of reading very slowly and spotting problems. It can reduce your enjoyment if you’re re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness
This year’s Clarion were a particularly cohesive and very talented group. I saw a lot of stories that I think will be published and that’s very rewarding if you’re a teacher.
Clarion means you spot where the zeitgeist is going. I think this year I gained a fresh respect for how integrated information-seeking skills and imagination are getting as we all get used to the Internet. In 2002 Clarion I saw that a whole kind of SF writer, those whose work was based on science, were increasingly outside the SF and fantasy culture. I wanted to help get them published and I very suddenly found myself writing The Mundane Manifesto, based on some of the things the guys (and they were guys) had said. Both about old tropes driving out the new, and also an avoidance of the coming crunch in terms of oil, global warming, overpopulation, and development economics. Julian Todd and Trent Walters were particular inspirations. For example, I believe it was Julian that said that FTL gave the impression it would be easy to find and settle beautiful new Earths… which encouraged us to think we could burn through this planet and be immortal. So Mundanity partly came out of impatience with bad science, or with tropes that gave us the SF dream for free. Also it was impatience with the moral role SF was starting to play… as an irrelevant dream of a future that was unlikely to happen. The worry is that SF now sometimes actively prevents us imagining the future.
My idea was that we’d do something like Dogme film-making. Promise not to include certain tropes in our stories. The list keeps shifting, partly because we don’t agree. But included
• No FTL, no wormholes, warps etc as magic wands around that
• No Very Fast travel without time dilation
• No time travel
• No parallel universes based on quantum uncertainty
• No telepathy
• No aliens.
More discussion resulted in outright artificial intelligence being excluded.
The name Mundane came partly because I didn’t like the way fandom called non-fans mundanes. People who criticize you may have a point; maybe people didn’t like SF or fantasy for interesting reasons, that didn’t just mean they were dull and unimaginative. Partly it was the focus on Earth… mundane means of this world. The future for most of us is here on Earth. What’s so unwonderful about the revolutions in science and IT that are coming here?
Anyway, I wrote the Manifesto, and the guys liked it.
I’d been going to Landmark at the time, and one of their things is that you take responsibility, you get stuff going, but then you step back and let other people take over. That way you know that the project is valid and not an extension of your own ego. Julian, Trent, the guys really made it their movement, they set up the website, posted the scientific articles, and kept the discussion going. So it’s their project but I’m a sinful fellow and feel pride that I started it.
When did you know you wanted to write mundane science fiction?
It had always bothered me that there was bad science in SF. Way back when The Child Garden
I was hoping that Mundanity would be the meeting ground for hard SF and humanist SF. I now think I was the wrong guy to be identified with it. I’m not a science-based SF writer, which I think has foxed a few people. One blog actually did this whole number on us for being a bunch of literary Clarion types… completely the view of that particular blogger who didn’t know the people, and couldn’t have read much of the site, but assumed that Mundanity was like me.
What does it feel like to be one of the founders of a sub-genre? In your opinion, how is mundane SF different today compared to a few years ago? (Is it gaining more traction these days?)
Well we’ve just had the Mundane special issue of Interzone come out. Thank you, Interzone. Some triff stories from name writers, and two from Clarion West writers who got caught up in the mundane thing. In France, GalaxiesSF wants to do something around Mundane SF, with some of the stories from the Interzone issue. Charles Stross has declared one of his novels Mundane. I like that. A writer cannot be mundane. Only a story can. A writer should never surrender his or her autonomy to any movement. Only the author of a story knows if s/he played the mundane game when they wrote it. Only the author can call that story mundane.
I’m getting more and more worried about the creative and commercial health of science fiction. In the 2004 Clarion West not much SF was being written. Lots and lots of vampires and zombies in post-genre fiction –- fiction in which the weird happens but actually is not the whole focus of the story. We didn’t get many SF stories. This year’s Clarion even more so. Another strong year of fine writers entering their mature style. We got horror and supernatural; we got stories that were almost mimetic because the fantasy elements were so subtle; we got dark-future action stories. But in my two weeks we had say five SF stories. One was a very interesting story about how science can be financed in an energy conscious world. It’s harder for writers to believe in exciting futures. Good speculation has got harder and harder to do. You almost need the equations to work through what will happen in your world. Someone once said that you could write SF with the scientific knowledge of a smart twelve year old. I’m not sure that’s true any longer.
In the meantime so many of the things that used to be SF are mainstream, turning up in the work of mainstream writers: genetics, nanotech, cloning, IT, VR. Something has happened to both our reading and writing habits. Go the SF shelves in Barnes and Noble and you will find mostly fantasy or horror. No bad thing, nothing against either, in fact I intend to write horror and fantasy, but SF does something different that’s very valuable. In Britain, there has not been an SF (as opposed to fantasy) novel in the 100 fast sellers for the year in as long as I can remember.
Finally, our relationship to the future has been disrupted. The future is not a place we want to live in. We’ve got a bad few years ahead of us, and at the end of it our lives may involve less travel, less energy use, fewer toys, more work. Maybe we just can’t face, as Elisabeth Vonarburg once said, ‘writing over that pile of corpses.’ Maybe we just no longer believe the SF dream. I sometimes think steampunk may be anticipating our future—in a retro kind of way.
For you as a writer, which is more challenging: writing a mundane SF story or writing one that’s not?
Overwhelmingly, beyond what you’d first think, writing mundane SF is harder. To do it in good faith, you have multiple changes in your world, and they interact. You ideally have a good fresh idea in there growing out of real science. You always think if you’ve declared a story mundane, that people will be picking over the science so you check everything. My last mundane story, a novelette called Days of Wonder is due in F&SF soon. Its magic wand is inherited, coherent memory sticks in people’s heads. They’re born knowing about electricity. I couldn’t say how it was done. All I could do was say, OK, but it’s a relatively NEW magic wand that isn’t on the list of tropes to avoid.
In your opinion, why do you think some people oppose the concept of mundane SF?
Because it denies aspects of the SF dream such as immortality among the stars. Mundanity is about self-discipline; we’re not about stopping anybody writing anything, but that’s how it lands for some people. People charge us with not liking HG Wells or M John Harrison’s Light
Any particular reason as to the (Fantasy) appendage to “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)”?
Yeah. Saloth Sith is a real person. She’s (I’m told) nice, sophisticated, and not an emblem for Cambodian youth, as she was in my story. So the Fantasy was there to keep reminding the readers that it wasn’t true, that this is not the real Saloth Sith. The one thing that was carried over from reality is the difficulty of being the child of such a figure of hatred. I think people are smart and forgive the children, particularly if the inheritors show remorse. I’m reminded of the forgiveness accorded to Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva. One blogger got upset and asked what Simon Wiesenthal would have made of Hilter’s daughter. Personally I think he’d probably wait to see who Hitler’s daughter was and what she said. All it takes to blame children for their parents’ misdeeds is a lack of imagination.
What was the inspiration for the novelette?
Visiting Soriya market on the day after high school exams and picking up on the incredible desire for modernity, luxury, freedom from the past and a space of their own that is part of being young in Cambodia.
Your short story “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)” and your novel are influenced by events in Cambodia.
They’re not influenced by them, they are about them. My first Cambodia-ish novelette, now that WAS only influenced by Cambodia… Unconquered Country
Pol Pot’s Daughter came about because of all the stuff I’d done for The King’s Last Song
Cambodia for me has had to stand in for all the small countries of the world that we bomb, manipulate, exploit, forget, don’t translate, or assume will be assimilated into us. I can’t cover all of them or know more than one of them to any extent, but that one country I can get to know. I’ve got one more longish story coming out about Cambodia called Blocked also mundane, also from F&SF, and we’ll see if there’s more there. The country is peaceful, getting more prosperous, perhaps we’ll get more of their own stories in translation. Anyway, I’ve been advised by one intelligent, hard-headed, practical publisher to stop writing about Asia and write about Americans. And I’m sure that’s very good advice.
Could you talk more about cultural diversity (or lack of it) in fiction?
People always like to hear about themselves and be told their culture is special. America and the West are no different from anybody else in that regard. We all want to see ourselves in the future. There have been Indian SF novels for ages; there’s a tradition of Brazilian SF, and the Turks made their own version of Star Trek with different actors. I suppose they boldly go promulgating the Turkish hegemony through space and meeting aliens who speak Turkish. The trouble with cultural diversity in a lot of SF, is that it ends up with 1940s bomber crew of isolated examples of different peoples, all cut off from their own culture. One black person there; one Arab there, over there an Asian with little cultural difference between them. That’s diversity at the EXPENSE of culture.
A much preferable solution would be if we had translations of literature from those countries. Maybe the literary equivalent of the BBC news site, fiction from all the regions and countries, covered in a system that sets in context, tracks publications, archives fiction, encourages discussion – and hopefully gets some money to the writers. Maybe in the near future we will. In the future, Westerners maybe will have read Tum Teav, the great Cambodian verse novel. Right now most of us don’t read the English-language Cambodian memoirs of the Pol Pot era.
Can you tell us more about your upcoming anthology?
Yeah thanks. I’m editing an anthology for a British publisher due out next year. The mundane gets rid of stuff you want to avoid. This anthology turns that around. You want good science in fiction? OK, you commission fiction writers and marry them up with a scientist of their choosing. We’ve commissioned the 14 writers and they’ve almost all been introduced to their scientist to work with. There have been some predictable problems in getting the scientists and writers to understand each other. We lost our biggest name author to a scientist who just didn’t respond to questions. The anthology is called When it Changed (yes in honor of the Joanna Russ story) and the scientists all come from the University of Manchester and its research institutes like Jodrell Bank. Stories are due this November… We’re hoping it will be out spring next year.
Any other projects you’re working on?
Yes. A cookbook in honour of Tom Disch. My own short story for the anthology. A new course in SF that I start teaching this fall at UC San Diego, I’m very excited about that. While I’m at UCSD, I’ll be a small part of the Speculative Communities initiative at the UCSD Calit Centre that’s the brainchild of Sheldon Brown. There will be a gathering with people like Bruce Sterling, David Brin and others on the heuristics of speculation and the building of speculative communities. That will just be great. Anyway thanks for the opportunity to talk… over and out.
Geoff Ryman is a Canadian citizen living in the UK. He divides his time between writing and teaching at the Centre for New Writing, University of Manchester. His colleagues include Martin Amis and Patricia Duncker. His books and stories have won 14 awards. He first came to attention with the publication in 1985 of the novelette The Unconquered Country
The gender bending sword and sorcery novel The Warrior Who Carried Life
In 1991, the mainstream novel Was
253 started life in 1996 as a hypertext novel online followed by a print version in 1998. It won the Philip K Dick Memorial Award. Air in 2004 won the Arthur C Clarke Award, the James Tiptree Jr Award, the Sunburst Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel. This year sees the US publication of The King’s Last Song
His ambition when he grows up is to be Iain Banks or Jonathan Lethem.
CHARLES TAN is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Elizabeth Wein Interview
Elizabeth Wein’s The Lion Hunter
For unfamiliar readers, could you tell us more about your The Mark of Solomon sequence?
The Mark of Solomon is in two parts, The Lion Hunter
and The Empty Kingdom
Telemakos considers himself a tracker; others consider him a spy. In The Lion Hunter
I like to keep the tension cranked up even when there’s nothing going on. None of my characters are ever safe. Part of what I consider The Mark of Solomon to be about is how to live with fear.
What fascinates you about Arthurian myth? How about Ethiopia? What sparked the idea to combine the two together?
If I had to sum up what I write about in a single word, the answer would have to be “FAMILIES.” And that is without a doubt what drew me to Arthurian legend. I suppose I could have gone for Greek gods and found just as much melodrama, but it was the heroism and pettiness, intelligence and goofiness of Arthur’s extended family that pulled me in. My own family, in many ways, is just as tragic and loving. This was a way to sublimate it.
My interest in Ethiopia was originally more academic. I wanted Medraut/Mordred to have a girlfriend from Africa or the Middle East. An uncle suggested that she come from the kingdom of Aksum, which was considered by some ancient writers to be one of the four great civilizations of the early centuries AD (the other three were, I believe, China, Persia, and Rome). The bonus of my choosing Aksum was that it was Christian, which to my mind made British Arthur more likely to have an interest in it.
Can you tell us about the kind of research you had to do for the books? What made you decide to visit Ethiopia?
The original research for The Winter Prince, my first Arthurian novel about Medraut, involved reading a lot of Rosemary Sutcliff, British ordnance survey maps and plant guides, and scrambling around Alderley Edge in Cheshire. It was pretty haphazard. The research for the following books, set in Ethiopia and Yemen, was more methodical. The main library I used was the Bodleian in Oxford, but I also read a lot of guide books. I had been to Kenya (visiting a friend who was doing fieldwork there for a degree in anthropology), but due to a particularly nasty border war I was not able to visit Ethiopia until AFTER the first two of my Ethiopian books were published. My uncle (the same one who put me onto Aksum in the first place) called this “Retro Research.” I was in the real city of Aksum on the day The Sunbird
Visiting Ethiopia for the first time I didn’t feel like I’d got things wrong; I didn’t find stuff I wanted to change in my portrayal of Ethiopia. But I did feel like I’d left things out. Possibly it’s the added detail in The Lion Hunter that makes it so successful.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer? Did you immediately aim for the young adult market or was it more of you writing and your fiction happened to be appropriate for that market?
I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 7 and started reading chapter books, and those are the kind of books I always wanted to write. I suppose I ooched my way up into the young adult age range unconsciously; originally I’d imagined my books would be aimed at a slightly younger audience. But I very much admired Alan Garner, Madeleine L’Engle, C.S. Lewis, Andre Norton (!), Ursula LeGuin, Diana Wynne Jones, and others of that ilk, and wanted to write books “like theirs.”
What are some of the challenges you faced writing for the young adult market?
Hmm, do you really want to open the door to this… I’m still facing challenges in the young adult market. It’s always been a weird market, with midlist sales chiefly going to schools and libraries rather than in retail channels. And there’s just SO MUCH out there now: the more esoteric stuff (like, say, mine) gets lost in the deluge. If my books had been published 30 years ago they’d have had a much longer shelf-life than they do in today’s high-turnaround market; it was only with a great deal of whining and battling that we managed to keep The Sunbird
What’s your writing process like?
In general, I make up the story in my head while I’m driving, walking, cycling, swimming, shopping, ironing: that’s when I meet the characters and work out the plot. Then I write it all down, longhand, in spiral bound notebooks. Then I type it up on the computer as I finish each chapter.
I find I have to vary my hangouts a lot. I am not very good at writing at my desk. If I get stumped I have to go sit in a coffee shop.
Who are some of your favorite authors or what are some of your favorite books?
My all-time favorite book is James Thurber’s The Thirteen Clocks
My favorite book of the past ten years is easily Atonement
I also read that you’re part of a book group. Could you tell us more about the book group you’re participating in and how this aids you as a reader/writer?
Well, actually, it was my book group that put me onto Atonement.
My book group grew out of a “new moms” baby group. We were just so sick of talking about diapers, Fisher Price, real estate, etc. that we decided to reconstruct our meetings as a Book Group. We now call ourselves The Chocolate Club, having realized that our secret ulterior motive is actually to consume chocolate while we talk.
For a while my book group was my lifeline to sanity because I had so little contact with other readers and writers while my kids were toddlers. I did my work in a vacuum; I lived for the moment it would become 2.00 p.m., which meant it was 9.00 a.m. in New York and I could start to e-mail people. My book group only met once every eight weeks or so at that time, and I looked forward to the meetings with something like desperation.
Most of what we read is fluff, but every now and then something wonderful comes up which does aid me as a writer. We read Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns
You’ve had some short stories published. Which medium are you more comfortable writing: novels or short stories?
I’d say novels, as I tend to be very long-winded. My short stories all feel to me like they’re trying to “grow the claws and fangs of a novel,” as Nabokov wrote of the story that became Lolita. But I like short stories because they’re such instant gratification. Most of mine have been written on request, and I’ve been pretty lucky with my acceptance record. What happens is: someone else gives you a prefabricated idea, you write the thing to a specified deadline, send it in and get the cash. It’s so FAST compared to the process of writing and getting the contract for a novel.
But I like writing short stories because they give me the chance to go off in very different directions. I’ve written three stories about airplanes. And one about church bell ringing. And one about a circus train.
What got you started when it comes to poetry?
I’ve always written poetry, but in the last decade years my output has been ridiculously lame… one every two or three years. I tend to write them as presents. I really love reading and reciting poetry, and I like to show off my versifying skills every now and then (for example, I wrote the verses to the Rhymers’ Pageant in my novel The Winter Prince).
If there’s anything about the industry that you’d like to change, what would it be?
I’d socialize it. No more “front list.” No more mid-list ghettoizing. I can’t tell you how deeply I deplore the hierarchy of publicity.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m working on The Sword Dance, a sequel to The Mark of Solomon, and the book that will complete the cycle begun in The Winter Prince. (It has a couple of goofy working titles in my head, including “The Return of the King” and “Telemakos in Love.”) But I’d really like to try something a bit different for my next project, and plan to novelize the story of my family’s three years in Jamaica in the early 1970s.
ELIZABETH WEIN was born in New York City. She grew up in England, Jamaica and Pennsylvania, and graduated cum laude with Distinction in English from Yale University. She learned to ring tower bells in the English style known as “change ringing” while working on her PhD in Folklore at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, which is where she met her husband, at a bell ringers’ dinner dance. They and their two children have lived in Scotland since 2000. They are both recreational pilots. Elizabeth’s blog can be found here.
CHARLES TAN is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Mary Turzillo Interview
Mary Turzillo received the Nebula for her novelette, Mars is No Place for Children, in 1999. In 2007, she was a nominee in the short fiction category for her story, Pride.
First, congratulations on your Nebula nomination. Could you tell us about when you got that news?
Geoff was sitting across the room with a cat and a laptop, and he said, “The final Nebula ballot is out.” And my story was there. I felt very proud. There’s a lot of me in that story, and a lot of Trumbull County, where I taught for years.
My real surprises came when Lou Anders started e-mailing his authors links to our reviews. I got my first Publisher’s Weekly review, and a positive one. And others followed.
Writers seldom know they’ve written something good until they hear public reaction. At the 2000 Nebs, the applause as they announced each story was polite and enthusiastic, but the people at my table realized something different was about to happen when the applause for Mars is No Place for Children was appreciably louder and more enthusiastic.
Anyway, with Pride after getting a lot of good reviews, I started to really believe in the story, and reading it at cons. I used to be part of an amateur Shakespeare company and I loved reading Pride, which starts out quirky and funny and ends with blood. People said “You have to kill the tiger,” and I said, no, this is about two colliding value systems: human justice versus nature. Human life was already lost but that sacrifice could have transcendent meaning. Audiences really responded. People came back to hear it for a second and third time.
There’s a podcast of Pride, read by the amazing Paul Cole of WRFR of Rockland Maine.
It was a great year for science fiction, and a strong field. Lots of good stuff didn’t make the final ballot.
What were the most memorable moments for you during the Nebula Award weekend?
You mean aside from that heart-stopping moment when the name “Karen Joy Fowler” rang out instead of mine?
Uh. Well, meeting Michael Chabon. I always act like an idiot when I meet a celebrity, so I stupidly blathered how much I love his books (which was true), but then discovered I’d blocked on the titles of all of them, including The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
The Dell magazine breakfast. Brilliant people all holding forth, both editors and writers.
Having a cool dress.
Walks Geoff and I took. Salt Lick Barbecue with Scott Edelman and Connie Willis. Austin is a great city.
This is your second nomination (and we wish second win). Any difference how you took the nomination news between the two?
I was more nervous this time. The first time it never occurred to me that I had a chance. This time I panicked. Lost five pounds between the final ballot announcement and the evening of the ceremony. Gained it all back, alas.
This was an “always the bridesmaid” year for me. I made the preliminary Stoker ballot with Your Cat & Other Space Aliens
I did win a competition called “Moving Minds” to have one of my poems illustrated and posted on Cleveland RTA busses. Pretty cool.
My year of near-misses: fun, but nerve-jangling.
If you could give new writers one piece of advice, what would it be?
Figure out what you want: money or the applause of connoisseurs. Maybe you can’t have either, but at least you won’t be straddling the fence.
Try not to bore yourself. Make it fresh.
Write every, every day. Accept criticism and rejection without killing yourself. Crying and screaming are okay, killing yourself is going too far.
Read, read, read. Read quality, read stuff you enjoy, but stretch your tastes. Join a good book club. Keep a journal of techniques used by writers you admire. Read age-old classics; they are around for a reason, and it isn’t to keep English profs in their underpaid and overworked jobs.
Whose books do you look for when shopping for reading material?
Oh, wow. Cuyahoga County Public Library system is ranked tops in the US, and I have 50 books out now—their limit.
As well as print, I read audio books while cooking, exercising, or running errands. I belong to a book club started by Maureen McHugh. We started by reading only non-genre. Since Maureen moved to Austin, we cheat and do some SF.
My favorites include James Morrow, Michael Chabon, Joyce Carol Oates, Joe Hill, Toni Morrison, Annie Proulx, Junot D’az, Michael Bishop, Jonathan Lethem, Haruki Murakami, George Saunders, Connie Willis, Gene Wolfe, Joe Haldeman, Nancy Kress, James Patrick Kelly, Kelly Link, Rick Bowes, and yes, Stephen King. I ration my King because his voice creeps into whatever I’m working on. I’m trying to learn to like Roberto Bola–o. I try to stretch my tastes, look for something new.
Some newcomers I watch: William Shunn, Toby Buckell, Ellen Klages (she’s won all sorts of prizes, but she’s only started to take the literary scene by storm), S. Andrew Swann (also not yet broken out—yet), Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Erin O’Brien, Paul Melko, Gavin Grant, Resa Nelson (her The Dragonslayer’s Sword
just came out). I loved the bits I’ve heard of Charles Oberndorf’s next novel. John Straley is not a newcomer, but he’s under exposed. Try The Woman Who Married a Bear
.
Authors I read for pure enjoyment, like feeding a sugar high: James Grippando, PT Deutermann, Harlan Coben, Sara Paretsky, James Lee Burke, Michael Crichton. Though I learn craft from these writers, they also entertain me while I load the dishwasher or pay bills. (Ever listen to fiction while paying bills?)
I read the New Yorker, Science News, the Tuesday New York Times science section. I buy Poetry magazine and other lit zines sporadically. Right now I’m reading the Rhysling Anthology, Vera Nazarian’s The Duke In His Castle
Our house is a book-and-magazine mess. We have thirty magazine subscriptions. If I can’t find a book under the magazines and fruit bowls, I start another. I don’t finish a book if I suddenly hate it. I once stopped reading a bestseller forty pages from the end.
Where can the readers snag a copy of your work?
It’s on Fictionwise.
Not only your Nebula-nominated story, Pride but where are others available in Internetland?
Also on Fictionwise. Three books are available from Sam’s Dot Publishing and VanZeno Press. Or email me. My address is on my website.
Do you have a full bibliography of your work?
Um, yeah. I should really put that on my website.
A couple months ago my husband decided it would be good for my character to maintain my own website. Unfortunately, my character is crappy. So, yeah, some evening when I have a lot of time and haven’t spent the day battling robots on the net (the modern version of purgatory), I’ll update that.
Mary, you’ve already had a successful career in science fiction/fantasy. What works-in-progress can we scoop?
I have a cats-on-Mars story coming out in Analog: “Steak Tartare and the Cats of Gari Babakin Station.” I’m working on a story about the god of Pachinko. And I’m working on my Mars colonization novel, Heart’s Journey, Mars Quest.
I’ve heard tell that you spent your academic time on Science Fiction pursuits. Could you tell us about that?
I used science fiction to teach writing and critical thinking. Alas, some girlie girl in the class (sorry to stereotype) would always raise her hand and say “Eeuw. I hate science fiction.” So I gave students a choice between science fiction and something else.
Interviewing for my first job, I told one hiring committee that I’d love to teach Milton as a fantasy writer. The chairman of the department got up and walked out of the room.
But interviewing at Kent State, I noticed a copy of Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny on Professor Carl Yoke’s office bookshelf. I asked to see it; it was autographed, and it turned out Carl was Zelazny’s high school best friend and had collaborated with him on some juvenalia. That was why I took that job.
Though I loved teaching, it wore me out. One time some research group sent us each a 20-page questionnaire with obscure questions, such as detailing all the courses we had ever taken. It would have taken entire day to complete. We were giving exams, so we wrote back as a group and refused. The researchers actually telephoned and tried to bully us into doing it.
(Later I wondered if those researchers actually published the results they got from the few under-worked profs they had managed to strong-arm into responding.)
My students were original, bright, innovative, idiosyncratic—several have become college professors and/or nationally recognized authors. A few were a pain in the neck. Some were all of the above.
I wrote, delivered, and published papers on SF and fantasy. I wrote critical biographies of Anne McCaffrey and Philip Josė Farmer. Both geniuses were so kind. How did I deserve such generosity from those giants of the field?
Prizes and prestige aside, what is the work that you’re most proud of and what makes it stand out for you?
I have some dark fantasy I’m really happy about: “Bottle Babies,” because Maureen McHugh liked it. “Eat or Be Eaten: A Love Story” because it’s over the top.
But mainly the Mars stories. I’m inspired by my husband’s research into Mars atmosphere and the feasibility of human Mars exploration. I’m a member of the Mars Society. “Steak Tartare” is my current favorite. I like annoying, edgy women characters, and Lucile infuriates many people.
What are you trying to accomplish in your writing? What are you trying to say?
Last month, I went to a wedding at Lily Dale, the spiritualist community, and standing at Inspiration Stump, I realized we’re all looking for meaning. My search is toward the stars. We’ll find out our place in the universe as we push outward.
I think people should look carefully at the mass hallucinations of our society, such as the necessity of debt and the almost totalitarian medical establishment. I think people should listen to children more, not because they are right, but because when they hurt, somebody should do something about it. I believe that the great standardization of our educational system will not necessarily lead to smarter grownups. I think most women should be more self-confident, and some women should be less so. I think when we are confronted with a great religious leader with a universal message, we should ask what’s in it for him.
I think we are “ridden by things” as Thoreau had it, things being pieces of paper and internet forms we have to fill out. I think it’s sick that we have to pay to watch ads on TV. I think insurance companies and banks are taking the place of government. I think sugar is a drug. I think Asimov’s laws of robotics were ignored when the Press-One-to-Hear-More-Options machine was invented.
I think if you ask the right question just about anybody will tell you an interesting story. I think civilization without art is impossible. I think music and fiction are spiritual nutrition. I think movies are getting better and better every year. I think we are living in the greatest age of storytelling the world has ever known.
I think we are supposed to go to the stars. (Who decided this? I don’t know, but I’m all for it.)
I think fiction exists to give delight. It’s like food and sex, and just as dangerous.
I think I am an opinionated bitch. I don’t know why my husband puts up with me; it must have something to do with cats.
These are the ideas you will find in my fiction.
After a career as a professor of English at Kent State University, Dr. MARY A. TURZILLO is now a full-time writer. In 2000, her story “Mars Is No Place for Children” won SFWA’s Nebula award for best novelette. Her novel An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl was serialized in Analog in July-Nov 2004.
Mary’s Pushcart-nominated collection of poetry, Your Cat & Other Space Aliens
Marva Dasef was born in Eugene, Oregon. She graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Technical Communications. She spent the next umpteen years working as a technical writer and programmer/analyst. In 2005, she gave up all that glamour for the solitary life of a fiction writer.
She has a series of chapbooks being published by Sam’s Dot Publishing. The first of the Cadida’s Adventures, Cadida and the Djinn, was released in December 2006. The second chapbook, Cadida and the Cave Demon, came out in June 2007. In 2008, all seven of the Cadida tales will be published together in one volume titled “The Seven Adventures of Cadida.” Also in 2008, her science fiction novella, First Duty will be published by by Sam’s Dot Publishing.
Her big project is putting together twenty-some stories based on her father’s boyhood growing up in West Texas, Tales of a Texas Boy
Bruce Sterling Interview
First, tell me a little in brief about Kiosk your Nebula nominated work - the why and what. Why did you write it and what do you hope readers will take from it?
I wrote that story in Belgrade after I’d become aware of how Belgrade people behave. When I write stories set in other cultures, as I often do, I try to set myself a challenge—not to write the kind of story that Bruce Sterling would write about that locale, but to write the kind of story some local science fiction writer might write.
I’m trying to break up my own parochiality, and work myself into a different imaginative space. I rather hope readers will be carried along into the same position.
The Commercial vs the Artistic in writing - is there a genuine difference between these two philosophies or are they artifical attributes? Are they in opposition, and if so, can they meet?
Well, I hang out a lot in countries where the creatives write in minority languages, and really, that’s just not an issue for them. They know what American commercial writing looks like, but they themselves don’t HAVE any “commerce.” There aren’t enough potential readers to establish a market.
What they DO commonly have is “political writing,” the kind of stuff that gets your fingertips broken by the secret police. So: take a guy like recent Nobel-Prize winner Orhan Pamuk -- super-popular worldwide, a real old-school deep-thinking artsy literatus, and the crazy-fascist wing of the Turkish secret police are trying hard to kill him. Now that guy is a writer’s writer. He’s got all those supposed oppositions stuffed into one refugee valise. You know, fretting about a commercial sell-out is the least of Orhan’s problems.
Furthermore, it’s dead obvious that the writing problems that matter in America now are political rather than “commercial” or “artistic”. America’s suffering a Civil Cold War. Or at least, they were until the Right’s culture-warriors started losing it.
Which themes and ideas dominate the writing of Bruce Sterling? What do you think readers take from your work they get nowhere else?
I’d say my major theme is the passage of time. I’m keenly interested in the future, and the past, and futurism, and historicity, and foresight and prediction, and hindsight and retro diction, and change-drivers, and interpretations of events, and forgotten byways of history, and radically differing future scenarios seen from minor demographic points-of-view, and ironic and sardonic unexpected developments, and planning and design versus accidents and the arbitrary . . . I dunno, my readers sure take a lot of punishment.
Will you still be read in a 100 years? Does it matter? Should writers write for the present or the future?
Well, I’ve done so much occasional journalism in so many different niches and fields that my writing will likely pop up by accident every once in a while. It probably depends on how writers “get read” in a hundred years. If it’s all about search engines for specialized weird topics like computer crime and Balkan warlords, hey, I’m in like Flint.
If it’s about literary values, well, most literature read a hundred years from now will be the classics people were reading a hundred years ago. Some of that stuff was quite topical—like Dickens, because he was just superbly talented—but the classics, writing worth reading for decades on end, they’re cram-full of passionate virtuosity.
Compared to those, the planet’s established classic writers, I’m like some kind of off-the-wall stand-up comedian. I tend to have a good time at the microphone with my firecrackers and my rubber chicken, but I’m not there to carry the weight of the civilized world on my shoulders.
Then again, some of us go out of our way to dig up work like that, after a hundred years or two hundred. My favorite writers, they’re all freaks. I read stuff no sane man would touch with a barge-pole.
How (if at all) has science fiction evolved/ changed in the time that you’ve been working in the field? Does it still have value in the present milieu? Relevance to the future?
I could go on about that interesting subject for several pages, but it would all be about publishing technology, distribution methods, and changes in the media landscape.
Writers think highly of “value” and “relevance,” but the factors that really make science fiction evolve are phenomena like the death of the pulps and Hollywood’s special FX technology; also the dominance of big-box stores, the death of distribution chains, globalization, media conglomerates and publisher buy-outs.
They’re much the same driving forces that have changed politics, the military, commerce, theater, cinema, graphic design, pretty much everything else.
What is the story you’ve written you’re proudest of, and why?
Oh well, the stories of my own that I like best are good in different ways. There’s stuff I wrote that was meant to split the reader’s head wide open with the Stanislaw Lem “spearhead of cognition,” and then there’s also a lot of weird frothy gibberish that’s probably best suited for an audience of one: me.
I rather imagine that my unpublished notebooks and letters have my best writing. Where I’m not trying to please the reader or do any literary push-ups—there, I’m just trying to get something into words.
I feel most proud of my abilities when I’m able to make something verbally clear that is truly obscure, far-fetched and peculiar. I’m not a writer who dabbles in science fiction, but a science-fictional personality who happens to write.
The short story vs the novella vs the novel - what makes you decide to write an idea in one form over the other?
There are a lot of situations and conceits that make fine short stories, yet just don’t have the heft and gravity to occupy a reader for the length of a novel. Short stories tend to pack a single emotional punch. Novellas wobble up and down two or three times, see-saw style. Novels need to go for that immersive, multiplex, rich-tapestry-of-life effect.
You’re credited with having coined the term slipstream - expound on that: how did it come to be and what is it?
Oh, I’m quite the coiner of neologisms. That one came up in a conversation with a book-collector pal of mine named Richard Dorsett. Richard was and is a devotee of non-realist works that were wonky. Not “science fiction,” not “fantasy,” not even “mainstream.” I agreed with Richard that there seemed to be a hell of a lot of books of this kind, and since I was a literary critic and he wasn’t, I made it my business to hunt down a bunch of these and to try to publicly describe what they were like.
There are rather a lot of “slipstream” books around now, but the meltdown of genres and categories is common across all the arts. It’s in painting, cinema, music—I could probably name thirty different current subgenres of “science fiction and fantasy,” New Weird, Interstitial, New British Space Opera, urban fantasy, dark fantasy, New Wave Fabulism… and that coterie sounds entirely sober and sensible compared to the radical fractionation in pop music, where within techno alone you’ve got darkstep, gabba, jungle, breakcore, drum and bass, dancehall, garage, house, garage house, intelligent dance music, speed garage, doomcore… And those aren’t minor differences.
To the cognoscenti they’re quite obvious.
If you look at the way a contemporary slipstream writer like Jonathan Lethem or Kelly Link handles genre conventions, they have much the attitude of DJs using loops, breakbeats and samplers. They’re simply not composing for an earlier orchestral medium where the brass was separated from the woodwinds. There’s very little good reason for that to matter to them nowadays.
Inevitably, people link you to cyberpunk. And cyberpunk is often seen as being all about the cool gizmos and neat bodily gadgets, but there’s also a large socio-political aspect involved there, isn’t it? It’s not just about the amount technology impacts on and changes the individual human, but the amount of change it causes/ can cause in human to human behavior. What’s curious is how human social behavior adapts to new advancements in technology, and even how much tension develops between the desire for personal change/ modification with the inherent human social instinct. Would you say this is true? Does it play on your mind at all when you write? Is there a price we pay with technological advancements, something lost for something gained?
Well, people link me to cyberpunk with perfect justice because I was the loudest cyberpunk ideologue.
I’ve read a lot of earnest paragraphs like this one you just handed me, and although you’re not exactly missing the point or anything, it’s gotten hard for me to keep a straight face. It’s as if you were asking Allen Ginsberg about beatniks in 1975. “Allen, wasn’t beat about bongos, and not getting a job, and having facial hair—and forgive me for asking this, but didn’t marijuana, heroin and gay sex have a lot to do with it?” You know what was really cool about cyberpunks? We didn’t blow anybody’s head off and no teenagers were knifed in Tangiers.
You want to talk seriously about technological impact? Climate change. You can put all the rest of that baloney in your back pocket, that was all the 20th century’s idea of a techno-threat. You wanna ask if climate change plays on my mind when I write? ‘Write,’ hell! Texas is swarming with West Nile mosquitos and the price of food is skyrocketing. That plays on my mind when I walk, breathe and eat!
Is cyberpunk dead?
It might well be, depending on how you define “cyberpunk” and “dead,” but that’s not gonna make any practical difference. Me, Gibson, Rucker, Shiner, Shirley, Cadigan, Di Filippo, I doubt any of us give that issue a minute’s thought now. Bear, Laidlaw, they’ve also got other things on their minds. Kelly still seems kind of interested. He edited a pretty good book on the subject lately.
Electronic vs Print publishing - any thoughts on the matter?
You should talk to my colleagues in newspapers. If you can find any newspapers left.
I have to ask, the Turkey City Lexicon: how did it come about, does it still get revised and added to and do you think it accomplished its purpose?
I should do something with that. People do find it useful. There aren’t enough hours in the day.
What does the future hold for Bruce Sterling, the writer?
Got a new novel coming out this summer. It’s a departure, it’ll be interesting to see if people think it’s any good.
The future looks seriously turbulent to me. These are worrisome times, and yet, not worrisome enough. I don’t feel that I need or ought to waste a lot of time fine-tuning my literary career under circumstances like today’s—and tomorrow’s.
Instead, I plan to multiply my options and see if I can find some coherent group of people, anybody, anywhere, who looks like they might be up to meeting the major challenges ahead.
If I can understand what they’re doing, or better yet befriend them, I rather imagine the writing will take care of itself.
* Read Sterling’s essay on Slipstream here.
BRUCE STERLING is the author of The Hacker Crackdown
DAVID DE BEER‘s short fiction has been published in or is forthcoming from venues such as Chizine, Alienskin and Courting Morpheus. He currently resides in Johannesburg, South Africa.
David Levine Interview
David D. Levine received his first Nebula nomination for his short story, Titanium Mike Saves the Day, published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction April 2007.
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. For unfamiliar readers, can you tell us about some of the stories included in your latest collection, Space Magic
My goal for this collection was to show that I can write everything from hard SF to medieval fantasy. That’s why it’s called Space Magic
How did the book end up getting published with Wheatland Press?
I was thinking that I wouldn’t have a collection of my own stories until some publisher asked me for one. But then fellow Portlander M. K. Hobson (who just sold her brilliant first novel The Native Star, by the way) told me I shouldn’t just wait by the phone. So I talked with Deborah Layne of Wheatland Press, also in Portland, who asked me to put together a proposal. I did, and she bought it.
What made you decide to write short stories?
I’ve been an SF reader since the 1960s, and my dad was a reader starting in the 1930s, so I’ve read a lot of SF short stories and I know that the traditional career path in this field has always been to make a name in short stories before tackling a novel. Now, when I started getting serious about writing, in the late 1990s, this concept was already obsolete, but I didn’t know that then. So I started by writing short stories, and I went to Clarion West which focuses on short stories, and then I started selling them. And it turns out I’m pretty good at short stories. I find them enjoyable to write because I can put the whole thing together in as little as a few days, and then get immediate feedback from my critique group, and sometimes sell it in a matter of weeks.
Is Remembrance Day your first attempt at a novel? What’s its current status?
Yes, Remembrance Day was my very first attempt at a novel, unless you count a two-volume epic I wrote in fourth grade (well, it filled two spiral notebooks, anyway… probably a novelette by word count). It got very good reactions from people who saw it in development, and it got me an agent (Jack Byrne of the Sternig & Byrne agency), but it’s been on the market for about three years now and I’m trying to reconcile myself to the idea that it might not sell in its current form. I put what I learned from writing it into my second novel, The Dark Behind the Stars, which is complete but still needs one more editing pass before I begin submitting it.
What does it feel like to have your stories nominated for various awards?
I’m constantly amazed when I see my own name on the same ballot as people I idolized in my youth, and realize that even being nominated means that my story will always be listed with classics like Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat” and George R. R. Martin’s “The Way of Cross and Dragon.” It’s one of the best possible validations that I actually know what I’m doing in this crazy business.
What was the inspiration behind Titanium Mike Saves the Day?
At the time I wrote it, I believed that Paul Bunyan was originally an advertisement for wood products, but he grew up to be something more. I wanted to explore the idea that some ideas are bigger than the people who come up with them, and that some stories are more valuable than the impulses that produce them. (Later I learned that Paul Bunyan may actually have been invented by real lumberjacks, but he was definitely popularized by advertisers.)
Did you always know you wanted to be a science fiction/fantasy writer? At what point did you start taking it seriously?
I guess I always wanted to be an SF writer, because I remember my teachers in grade school asking me to write something else for a change. I took an SF writing class in college and was encouraged to submit my work for publication. But when I graduated from college I found work as a technical writer, and I didn’t write a lick of fiction for 15 years because it was too much like the day job. It was only after I changed careers, to software engineering, that I got my writing brain back. But I didn’t really start getting serious about writing until 1998, when I knew I would have a sabbatical in 2000 and decided I wanted to spend it at Clarion. I wrote short stories for a couple of years with the goal of becoming good enough to get into Clarion. It worked. I made my first sale the year after Clarion and have been selling about 4-5 stories per year since, plus numerous reprints.
Your writing style tends to be short and accessible. Was this a conscious choice on your part?
I wouldn’t exactly say that, but my writing definitely reflects the kind of stories I like to read. I hate stories where nothing happens or it’s not clear what has happened. I like stories with clear plots, where a person has a problem and overcomes it, or fails to overcome it in a surprising and entertaining way. I don’t insist on a happy ending but I do insist that there be some kind of action, some kind of change. I know that some writers start with a character, and refer to their stories as “Jackie’s story” or what have you, and may not know what happens to that character until the story’s gone through several drafts. As for me, I generally start with a plot, and I always have an ending in mind (although I don’t always stick with it), which I think does tend to make my stories clear and accessible.
What’s the appeal of the genre for you?
As far as I’m concerned, a story in which you know from the beginning that only ordinary, mundane things can happen is inherently boring. When I read a story I want to know that the possibilities are limited only by the author’s imagination.
Who are some of your favorite authors or what are some of your favorite books?
My favorite authors include Iain M. Banks, Cordwainer Smith, and Larry Niven. China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station
How has the various workshops you’ve attended affected your writing?
There are really only about a dozen things you need to do to write a great story: create believable, sympathetic characters; create an intriguing setting; put the characters in trouble; that sort of thing. But there are dozens and dozens of tricks, or tools, you can use to perform these tasks. I’ve learned plenty of these tricks at workshops (one example: give characters something to do with their hands, which can be used to reveal their inner emotional state), but even more important is simply to be reminded of the basics. Sometimes you have to hear a basic idea like “you need to put your characters in trouble” dozens of times before it sticks—until it’s said in just the right way at just the moment you’re ready to receive it, you hear it but you don’t really get it. Even once you’ve gotten it, you may gain a new insight if you hear it again in a different way. Workshops give the opportunity to hear these eternal truths and the time to really think about them, away from your daily life. I’ve also met people at workshops who are among my best friends today.
What’s the greatest hurdle/challenge you’ve had to face so far?
Because my writing process starts with the plot, one of my biggest challenges is creating characters who act according to their own history and motivations rather than doing what the plot requires of them. (Here’s a confession: my characters still do what the plot requires, but I’ve gotten better at knitting the plot and the characters together so that the plot appears to be character-driven… it’s one of those tricks I mentioned above.) Another challenge is making the time to write. Even though I retired from the day job last year, I still have to struggle to make myself write every day. I know that I am not alone in this, though.
Your website has some interesting photos of various costumes, props, and artwork. Do you still work on them these days? What conventions/events did you bring them to?
I do artwork for the fanzine, Bento, that my wife and I publish (we do one issue a year, usually for the Worldcon), and I do still occasionally make and wear costumes to conventions such as OryCon and at Halloween. But I’m putting most of my creative energy into writing these days, and attending conventions like Potlatch and World Fantasy that don’t emphasize costumes.
What are some of the projects you’re currently working on?
I recently completed the second draft of my second novel, and now it needs one more editing pass (I want to cut it down to 100,000 words to make it more salable). I wrote two short stories at the Taos Toolbox workshop, which need to be brushed up and sent out. And I just this week received an anthology invitation and a rewrite request. Plenty of stuff on my plate for the foreseeable future. And, although I do love short stories, If I know me, I’ll want to start in on another novel before the end of this year. I have several possible ideas but they all require some research and planning.
DAVID D. LEVINE is a lifelong SF reader whose midlife crisis was to take a sabbatical from his high-tech job to attend Clarion West in 2000. It seems to have worked. He made his first professional sale in 2001, won the Writers of the Future Contest in 2002, was nominated for the John W. Campbell award in 2003, was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Campbell again in 2004, and won a Hugo in 2006 (Best Short Story, for “Tk’Tk’Tk"). His “Titanium Mike Saves the Day” was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2008, and a collection of his short stories, Space Magic
Apart from his website, David can be found online at his blog.
CHARLES TAN is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Judith Berman Interview
For those who aren’t familiar with your fiction, how would you best describe them?
All over the maps far as genre is concerned. My novel Bear Daughter is mythic fantasy, Awakening is high fantasy, but I’ve also written near future sf--e.g., The Fear Gun--and my most recent sale, Pelago (forthcoming in Asimov’s) is far future space-opera-ish sf.
I’m interested in character, but I like stories where things happen, and I’m always interested in ideas, especially about how human beings relate to nature--one part of nature being their own bodies. I’m often surprised when reviewers and critics find a strong political bent. It’s not that I don’t have political opinions; it’s just that I don’t usually think I’m writing about them.
What’s the appeal of speculative fiction (whether fantasy or science fiction) for you? How did you get your start (whether as a reader or as a writer) in the genre?
I started when I was young enough that I can’t now remember it. I think I probably first read the sf and fantasy that my older brother and sister were reading, but I also worked my way through the library independently of them. I also gravitated as a kid to fairy tales and myth.
Our local arts-and-culture radio host once made the comment, famous in our household, that she couldn’t get into a book in which things happened that couldn’t happen in real life. I think there is a kind of person at the opposite end of the spectrum that delights in contemplating things that couldn’t happen in real life. My 8-year old son is certainly one and so am I. I also value the forms of speculative fiction for the ways in which they lend themselves to exploring various social and intellectual issues. But the immediate appeal is that enjoyment.
Who are some of the writers or what are some of the books that have influenced you?
Russian fantastic writers, like Bulgakov and Sinyavsky. Le Guin, Crowley and Delany, definitely. But also “deeper” genre writers including early (Andre) Norton and Simak, and as a kid I read a large chunk of the Golden Age canon, which still lurks in my backbrain.
Having written both novels and short fiction, which are you more comfortable with? What in your opinion are your strengths in each format?
I just got back from the Sycamore Hill workshop, where I preserved my perfect record of never having workshopped a piece of short fiction about which some person in the circle didn’t say, “This really should be a novel.” Short fiction is not my forte. I persist because I have ideas that I don’t want to commit to at novel length, and it is also good discipline to be forced to say less than I want to.
What’s your writing process like? What are the elements that you prioritize?
At the beginning I make outlines, block out scenes, map conflicts, investigate characters’ backgrounds and motivations, but in the end there’s always a fair amount of groping blindly until I find the path through the woods to a working story.
One thing experience has taught me is not to fuss too much over the writing at the sentence level until the scenes and the character-action spine of the story are in place.
Is there a conscious distinction that you make when choosing whether to write fantasy or science fiction? For you, is there a big difference between the two genres?
Ideas come to me as one or the other. For me, the two genres have different conventions and somewhat different goals. Sf does feel more constrained by what we think we know about the “real world.” Those constraints can make it harder to write if the science is outside an area I know much about.
What was the biggest hurdle you had to overcome as a professional author?
I’m really slow. I can write lots of words fairly fast, but I have to go through many drafts before the story starts to work. This is not a hurdle I have actually overcome.
How did the story of “Awakening” come about? Did you initially plot out the events before you started to write?
I had a dream in which I walled into a crypt without knowing who I was or why I had been entombed. On waking, I wrote down the dream and then set it aside for years. I have a hard time starting a story until I know the dramatic crux and its resolution, and in this case all I had was an intriguing initial scene. When I finally picked it up again, I again found myself in the protagonist’s situation--I had to escape from the tomb and set out into the world to discover what story she was part of. Eventually I realized that Aleya’s story was linked indirectly, via some pieces of a novel plotted but not written, to a story I had previously published in Black Gate, The Poison Well (issue #7). The two stories are entirely independent of each other, however.
Does your anthropology background have any impact on your writing? Will we be seeing more fiction along the lines of your novel, Bear Daughter, in the future?
At the moment I have no plans to write a sequel to Bear Daughter, and no story in the works set in that universe, though that could change.
An anthropological perspective does infuse everything I write, though, in one way or another. The far-future universe of my forthcoming novella, Pelago (and of what I hope will be my second novel) first germinated in a graduate school course on social organization that didn’t fully hold my attention. I would drift away into speculations about the application of various theories to the social and economic structures of space-faring societies.
I’d like to explore your synesthesia. Did it have any bearing on your interest in reading/writing literature? How has it aided you in your writing?
I’m curious about the neurophysiological basis of synaesthesia, but there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of research so far. Almost everyone in my family has some form of it. My mother’s is more like Baudelaire’s and takes the form of letters and numbers having colors. My own, which I share with my sister, is experiencing sound, and to a lesser extent other kinds of formal patterns, as tactile and topological.
Until recently it’s had little impact on my writing, more on my experience of music and on linguistic work I’ve done with Native American languages, some of which encode topological notions as grammatical categories. But I’ve been figuring out how to write about it since giving my form of synaesthesia to the protagonist of Pelago, who is a kind of math genius. I am not one, but topology is, perhaps not surprisingly, the area of math where I was the happiest.
“Awakening" and “The Fear Gun” are works of yours that have been nominated as finalists for awards. What does it feel like to have your stories acknowledged as such?
Very cool.
What other projects are you working on right now?
I mentioned a novel in progress, called Invisible House, of which Pelago is a sizable chunk. A couple of short fiction pieces. I’ve been reading a ton of middle-reader books with my son and have been considering something in that direction. I’ve also been working on a long-range nonfiction project, a narrative history about the very early contact period on the northwest coast. It will be based on Native oral histories and on the journals and logs kept by the early maritime fur traders.
JUDITH BERMAN’s latest story, “Pelago,” a far-future sf novella, is forthcoming in Asimov’s in 2009. Her short fiction has also appeared in Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, Black Gate, Best Short Novels 2005, and her chapbook Lord Stink and Other Stories (Small Beer Press, 2002). Her first novel, Bear Daughter (Ace, September 2005), was praised as “utterly absorbing, unforgettable...truly original and unique” (Booklist, Starred Review), “brilliant” (VOYA), and “a richly imaginative tour de force” (Locus). Her fiction has been short-listed for the Nebula, the Sturgeon, and the Crawford Awards, and her often-cited essay on current trends in the field, “Science Fiction Without the Future,” received the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pioneer Award in 2001. She is based in Philadelphia but at this moment is living in Dubai.
CHARLES TAN is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Tobias Buckell Interview
Ragamuffin
You’re one of the harder working spec-fic writers arund. Can you talk about your work ethic—where does it come from?
It’s partially that hard working immigrant mentality thing, you know, coming to the land of opportunity? I had lunch with my best friend from the Caribbean not too long ago, and he and I both talked about how even people traditionally considered disadvantaged in the US still had more access to resources than he did growing up. He counseled disadvantaged kids for a while, and was just amazed. I think coming from the outside sometimes gives you this realization at how much opportunity there is for the hustle. Like libraries. Libraries in the US are these huge things with all these books. Growing up my access to libraries was not as universal, and they were stocked as best a small developing island could, but that could vary a great deal.
But that’s not all there is to it. There are plenty of people, I think, who work at it harder than me. Part of it is that I made some tough choices as to where I invested my time. Most teenagers and people in their early twenties partied and watched lots of TV, played video games. Until a couple years ago I had no cable in the house, much to people’s astonishment. No TV. No videogames. I didn’t club, or party, or do any of that stuff. From 15 to 25 I wrote during the time that everyone else played games or watched TV. The average American watches 20-30 hours of TV a week. That’s almost watching TV like a full time job. By swapping out writing, I worked at writing.
Of course, one can question the sanity of working a part time or near full time job for 10 years that hardly started paying anything until recently. I could have started a business on the side. But that’s where my hard work comes from, choosing to make a hard choice about how I spent my time. As a result, I never felt like I worked hard, just that I missed a lot of the stuff people around me seemed to be spending *their* time on. Do I regret not seeing 10 year old TV shows (what’s a ‘Buffy?’) and spending a lot of money on alcohol? In the big picture, not a bit.
The funny part is now that I write and freelance full time the shoe is on the other foot. I have my evenings free. I have an XBox 360 and a Nintendo Wii and play a lot. I watch cable and lots of movies now. Because I can. But during deadlines and crunch time, they get turned off (Mass Effect
How does it feel to have made the Nebula ballot?
I was pretty stunned, actually. Ragamuffin
What is space opera to you, and what do you find appealing about the genre?
Space Opera is bombastic, which I love. Big sets, big ideas, big characters. It has this sweep that thinks big that just plugs in and turns all the right switches on me as a reader. I love all genre, but Space Opera is what I usually turn to when I need a cracking good read. There’s a sense of playfulness and fun that also seems to bleed through a lot of Space Opera, and that’s certainly something I look for as a reader. As a writer, taking Space Opera with a Caribbean twist was a lot of fun and something I’d always dreamed of doing.
You’ve mentioned that one of your upcoming projects is a novel set on the ocean. Can you talk a little about the ocean and you and your family?
I grew up in the Caribbean aboard a boat. My mother’s side of the family took the ocean when my grandfather, her father, purchased a large motor-sailer, headed off down the Thames, and off into the Mediterranean. My mother was born in Middlesex, but the rest of the family was born in various Mediterranean places like Malta.
So I’ve lived aboard boats in Grenada and the British and US Virgin Islands. It’s interesting because it’s an off-the-grid sort of lifestyle. You’re responsible for your own electricity and water, and although boats aren’t self sustaining, they’re a hell of a lot more so than a house. On a boat when you visit a house you just gape at all the wasted space, lighting, use of water, and so on. I remember us all reading about the California water shortages where they encouraged drastic, but necessary five minute showers, which left us stunned. Five minutes of continuous water running? That’s crazy. I think we had two fifty gallon water tanks, if I remember right. I’ve seen people in a house use up a week’s worth of water on a boat with a single shower.
So with wind generators and solar panels, using a diesel engine and sails, catching water off your bimini, and being your own little system, I got a taste of what life might have to resemble in the future if we’re to better conserve our resources.
Of course, I live in a house in Ohio now and live a life nothing at all like that.
What’s your daily writing process like? Do you write while you’re at conventions?
I suck at writing while traveling to cons. So many people to meet! I basically stay up all night talking, then get up early to meet even more people and talk. I’ve written at cons, but only when under the most strenuous of deadlines! Most cons are on weekends, though, and for me, weekend writing is optional.
My schedule is tilted towards my being a night owl. I’ve learned through habit and insomnia that no one bugs you after midnight. No phone calls, hardly any emails. I usually start writing around 11pm, depending on the day. And I just write until I get tired. That means anywhere from 3am to 7am, depending on how frenetic things get. In college I wrote until my head literally hit the keyboard. Now I’m a little easier on myself, I keep at it until I feel I’ve gotten a solid night’s worth of writing and then turn in. I also find that at night, I’m a little less critical of the words, a little bit more prone toward the fantastic, my imagination is a little bit more free. I can edit in the day, but I create at night. Remember how in college your craziest ideas came at late night bull sessions, when that little barrier in your mind wasn’t there to say ‘don’t say that, that’s crazy!’ I totally riff off that.
I usually sleep for an appropriate length of time no matter what time I turned in, but I do like to be up an hour or two before lunch so I can work out and shower and then have lunch with someone just to get out of the house.
Every once a year or so I try a different schedule for 3-4 weeks, just to double check and make sure my creative hours haven’t changed. For 15 years I’ve been told I’d grow up, my body would change, I would mature, or whatever, and this would stop. So far everyone has been wrong.
You’ve said of your collection of short stories that you particularly like the stories The Fish Merchant, Anakoinosis, and Toy Planes. Why those stories - what is it about them that particularly expresses your writing style or philosophy?
These stories are the ones that really combine my Caribbean background and elements of genre stories. Fish Merchant was a mix of cyberpunk with a dreadlocked hero, and Toy Planes is about a Caribbean space program. Anakoinosis is probably my most ‘political’ SF story. I’d just finished reading Frederick Douglas’s autobiography and was struck at the amazement he had at the North’s use of technology in lieu of slaves in many places in society, something he focused on a bit. Being an SF writer I found it interesting that Douglas’s comment (and it’s repeated and argued over by many scholars) was that manpower retards technological and social development. The Black Death’s reduction of cheap manpower is often said to be the reason for increased invention afterwards, as well as social change (rich people tilling their own land, peasants with more power). Slavery doesn’t corrode just the slaves. Anakoinosis is the snapshot of humans finding servile aliens, and pointing out how it will destroy them because they cease innovating and come to rely on calorie power.
What writing teachers have had the strongest influence on you?
Tim Powers and Karen Joy Fowler were instructors at Clarion, the SF/F writers workshop, in 1999 when I attended. They had the greatest affect on my craft. Tim kept pointing out places where I left out chances to describe the physical setting and its impact on my characters. Both pointed out unbalanced areas of my writing and had tips on how to beef those up. Mike Resnick had the biggest impact on my career in terms of explaining how everything in the business worked, steering me toward my agent, and also helping me get stories into some of my first anthologies (including the above mentioned Anakoinosis, a story he commissioned from me). So many writers just don’t treat writing like a business, Mike showed me that once you’re written the story, you need to turn into an entrepreneur and put on a different hat.
What’s coming up in the next year for you?
My third novel Sly Mongoose
If you were writing fanfic in someone else’s universe, whose would you want it to be?
I plead the fifth.
What’s your favorite scotch?
I like the smoky Lagavulin, or a Laphroaig, but my favorite right now is a bottle of Glenrothes 1991 that I found at a local liquor store, of all places. It’s got a hint of berries, vanilla, and goes down very smooth. A dangerous scotch. But I have to be in the right mood to sit and savor it. The Laphroaig, which is strong for some people with the leathery and peaty taste, is a scotch I can grab anytime because it’s hard to miss, which is why I suspect my palette is a bit immature.
TOBIAS BUCKELL is a Caribbean born SF/F author. He spent his youth in Grenada, and the British and US Virgin Islands. His first two books, Crystal Rain
John Barth described CAT RAMBO’s writings as “works of urban mythopoeia”—her stories take place in a universe where chickens aid the lovelorn, Death is just another face on the train, and Bigfoot gives interviews to the media on a daily basis. She has worked as a programmer-writer for Microsoft and a Tarot card reader, professions which, she claims, both involve a certain combination of technical knowledge and willingness to go with the flow. In 2005 she attended the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop and is a member of the Codex Writers’ Group. Among the places in which her stories have appeared are ASIMOV’S, WEIRD TALES, CLARKESWORLD, and STRANGE HORIZONS, and her work has consistently garnered mentions and appearances in year’s best of anthologies.
She is the co-editor of critically-acclaimed Fantasy Magazine.
Michael Chabon Interview
In 2008, Michael Chabon was awarded the Nebula, the Hugo, the Locus magazine and the Sidewise Awards for Best Novel, for his book The Yiddish Policemans Union
Can you talk about the challenges of creating worlds that might, if not fully realized and artfully rendered, perhaps sound ridiculous or offensive?
I guess I don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about whether the worlds I try to create might offend or invite ridicule. Not, at least, while I’m actually engaged in creating them. The “world-building” is not an orderly and logical process where I, say, begin with research, then extrapolate and propose general principles from the research, then apply those principles, then test the results against my research and my proposals, or against my anxieties about being offensive or ridiculous. For YPU I did a fair amount of research, and prepared all kinds of charts, diagrams, chronologies and maps. But most of that was done, like the writing itself, on an ad hoc basis, as the need arose at the site of writing. Mostly it’s a process of sitting down and just imagining, seeing, hearing, smelling, etc., my characters and the world they’re moving through; and then kind of allowing the result of that act of imagining to flow into the shapely vessels known as “sentences” that mysteriously appear, preconfigured and shaped by some unknown potter, right when I need them. Often if I get something wrong, a balloon of dread inflates in my belly, to let me know I’ve gone astray.
I hate to have it sound so nebulous and intuitive. Of course I do a lot of thinking and reflection, revision and correction, and I often break my brain. And when I’m not writing, I devote more than adequate time to worrying about the reception that might greet the work. But ultimately the writing itself, while hardly “automatic,” exceeds the power of anxiety and doubt to hold it back.
You said in another interview your were moved by the spirit of Ahf zu lochis (Yiddish for an impulse to make others angry.) Is The Yiddish Policemans Union
Go to hell!
Just kidding.
Uh, no, I don’t actually think I’m really all that filled with anger. But I can imagine being filled with anger, and if there’s a little gap implied by that act of imagination, maybe humor is what fills it.
What issues do you consciously explore in your work, and is everything fair game?
In all honesty I am not conscious of exploring any issues when I’m writing, only of exploring the world of my story and the language I have for telling it.
What would not be fair game? Stuff that embarrasses others or myself? Family secrets? Pathologies, neuroses, dirty linen, shame, weakness, unspeakable crimes, antisocial feelings? Losing all that doesn’t leave you a whole lot to work with.
One surprise of the novel is the way the shadow of the Holocaust remains in the background instead of the forefront the characters’ lives. How do you find hope in the stories of Jewish history and do you worry about honoring the past through your invention of alternate history?
I don’t actually find hope in the stories of Jewish history, particularly. Only comfort. I take a lot of comfort in human history, generally, because reading it reminds me of how lousy things have always been.
Your writing frequently explores the gulf between father and son as well as man and woman. What do you hope the reader understands about the world through these relationships?
I guess the whole business of reading and writing boils down, for me, to this gulf that separates each of us and the irrepressible desire we all have to bridge it. To this extent (and it’s a great extent) all literature is speculative fiction, because it obliges both the reader and the writer to pose the question, What if? What if I were someone else, living someone else’s life? Or: what if my own life, or that of another, were explicable, narratable, a story? What if I could bridge the gulf by telling a story? What kind of story would I tell? What if reading this novel could help me, for an hour or two, to slip the confines of this prison cell called myself?
Would you talk about the reactions you’ve gotten from Survivors? From religious believers, Jew and Christian? From Science Fiction fans? From Native Americans? From Alaskans?
No, not really. It would either sound like whining or like boasting.
Who were some of the greatest influences on your work, and would that list of writers differ from the authors of your favorite books?
Conan Doyle, Poe, Le Guin, Susan Cooper, Bradbury, Crichton, L. Niven, Moorcock, Leiber, Chandler, Henry Miller, Perelman, Nabokov, Cheever, Fitzgerald, P. Roth, Proust, Hawthorne, Ballard, Calvino, Borges, Welty, Melville, Garcia-Marquez…
What’s your favorite piece of writing and is it different than what you think of as your strongest?
My favorite among my books, largely for sentimental reasons, is Wonder Boys
Why is it important for genre writing to be accepted into the canon of literature? Do genre readers accord appropriate respect to the literary canon?
So-called genre writing is, in fact, the foundation of the canon. Most of the great works of Western literature up to about 1875 or so can be read profitably as works of genre fiction (adventure, mystery, romance, supernatural, horror, sf, fantasy). If we label the kind of fiction that arose toward the end of the nineteenth century, with its overwhelming emphasis on “realism” (and I think Modernism in literature is only a form of realism), a genre, and why shouldn’t we, it’s as rife with conventions and marketplace strategies as any other, then we don’t have to worry so much about this question.
I think “genre readers” (your term) are in the aggregate probably no more or less guilty of maintaining poor reading habits than any other group of representative humans.
What are you working on now and what can we expect to see soon?
A novel. And what, three books in a year isn’t good enough for you?
MICHAEL CHABON is the bestselling author The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
LESLIE WHAT’s new collection, Crazy Love
Matthew Hughes Interview
Matt Hughes writes fantasy under the name Matthew Hughes and suspense fiction under the name Matt Hughes.
After living in Canada for fifty-three years, Matthew Hughes relocated to Britain where he has taken up the occupation of housesitter, so that he can afford to keep on writing fiction yet still eat every day.
Mr. Hughes received a nomination in the Best Novella Category for his story The Helper and His Hero, published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
First off, for unfamiliar readers, can you tell us about your Archonate universe? How did you come up with this milieu?
It’s an entirely improbable far, far future, the Aeon just before Jack Vance’s Dying Earth
Everything that can be done has been done—then redone, forgotten, rediscovered, and done all over again in every possible combination and permutation. There is nothing new under the aging orange sun of Old Earth. People there devote themselves to pursuing odd fancies and fixations. Forms tend to be more important than their contents. To render the mood of the times, I write my Archonate tales in a light Victorian/Edwardian style, which I think expresses the antithesis of enthusiasm, It’s also handy for conveying dry humor and irony.
I came up with it entirely on the spur of the moment. In 1982, I heard about a novel-in-a-weekend contest run in Vancouver over the Labor Day weekend. I had just got myself a brand new IBM Selectric correctable and I thought, “What the hell, I’ll write a novel.” With not much forethought (I only heard about the contest on the Thursday afternooon before the weekend), I set out to write a text that was something like a collaboration between Jack Vance and P.G. Wodehouse producing an update of Gulliver’s Travels
I didn’t win the contest, but I later expanded the original 27,000 words that I banged out that weekend and eventually sold it to Jaime Levine at (then) Warner Aspect, who commissioned a sequel, Fool Me Twice
The funny thing is, I set out to be a crime writer. The flukey sale to Jaime Levine has set me on a course that has led to my becoming a midlist science-fantasy author. But I’m not complaining.
Your Nebula-nominated novella, The Helper and His Hero, takes place in your setting. What made you decide to tackle the themes you did in the novella and why Guth Bandar?
Guth Bandar appeared as a minor character as I was writing the draft of Black Brillion
The Commons struck me as a useful idea, something that later generations of Earthlings might have made out of an exploration of Robert Holdstock’s brilliant Mythago Wood
For me, The Helper and His Hero blends science fiction, fantasy, and metafiction together. Do you make a distinction between what is fantasy and what is science fiction?
Only if I am forced to. I like to think of myself as occupying the gray area where the two genres bleed into each other. I’m by no means a hard scientist, but I know enough rule-of-thumb sociology, and enough Jungian psychology as interpreted by Joseph Campbell, to be dangerous when unsupervised.
One of your stories has recently been accepted into the Jack Vance tribute anthology by Gardner Dozois and George R. R. Martin. Were you a big Jack Vance fan?
Still am. Huge. Vance is the only author I knowingly reread (I’m at that age when I can pick up a book and not realize I’ve already read it until I’m two or three chapters in). I get just as much enjoyment and sense of wonder from his work today as I did when I first encountered him as a thirteen-year-old more than four decades ago. I think it is a testament to his singular talent that he is the only author whose aging fans have made a mass effort, through the Vance Integral Edition, to ensure that his works endure past the fans’ own lifetimes.
Who are some of the other authors or your favorite books that have influenced you?
Wodehouse and Holdstock, as mentioned above. Gene Wolfe inspires me, though I don’t aspire to do what he does. In my younger years I read Zelazny and Dick and Vonnegut, and the latter may be to blame for my inability to take the phenomenal world all that seriously. A special mention goes to Cecelia Holland, before she got into fantasy, because I think she is the most accomplished historical novelist writing today.
Based from your bio on your web page, you seem to have had an interesting life before becoming a writer. What made you decide to pursue fiction writing?
It was what I always wanted to do. I started my first novel the summer I turned sixteen, a historical novel set in the waning days of Alexander the Great. I may yet write it. I fell into speechwriting from journalism and found myself a confidant of political leaders and CEOs of billion-dollar corporations (which, given that I am from a working-poor background and lacked any noticeable ambition) was a curious turn of events. I found, though, that while I was writing PR bumpf for a living I couldn’t do fiction; it was as if the factory had to shut down and retool. Once my kids were grown and it didn’t matter if I plunged into midlist poverty, I set to and began churning out crime fiction and then made the segue into science-fantasy.
How has your previous careers helped shaped your fiction? Is there a huge gap between journalism, speech writing, and fiction?
I’ve had the useful experience of being behind closed doors when powerful persons are doing what they do. I’ve been involved in major political decisions (gun control and ending capital punishment in Canada), corporate takeovers, fending off disastrous economic circumstances involving writing down hundreds of millions of dollars in failed investments, political leadership campaigns in which the convention speech was crucial to success. So I don’t have to imagine what happens in the boardroom or the smoke-filled back rooms. I’ve also been dirt poor and stranded on some lonely highway five hundred miles from home, so I don’t have to imagine what that feels like either.
Speechwriting is writing for the voice, and also in the particular voice of the person who will give the speech. A good speechwriter absorbs the worldview of the speaker, which is analogous to writing from within the character in fiction.
What’s the appeal of science fiction for you? How about suspense fiction?
I like to have room to breathe, and sf gives you much more of that than any post-modern “realist” fiction about people trapped in ordinary little lives. I like writing suspense fiction—that’s what I set out to do—and have now managed to blend the two together by writing about my Sherlock Holmesean character, Henghis Hapthorn, the “foremost freelance discriminator of Old Earth,” and about Luff Imbry, master criminal and forger who inhabits the same milieu. Someday I must bring these two together.
What’s it like writing for two different genres/markets? Do they have any similarities? What’s the biggest difference between the two?
The similarity is that the work is based on story, with a beginning, middle and end, an arc of character development, the kind of stuff that’s been top of the market since Gilgamesh. The difference is in setting. In sf, you have to create, from imagination coupled to logical extrapolation, a reasonably cohesive environment that does not (yet) exist. For crime fiction, you don’t have to stretch quite so far.
What for you was the greatest challenge in becoming a professional author?
Overcoming my innate shyness and learning how to schmooze editors and agents at cons, since I’ve sold all of my books without having an agent pitch them. The writing came naturally.
Night Shade Books has published your short story collection and some of your novels. How did they end up as your publisher?
Jeremy Lassen met me at World Fantasy Convention in Phoenix. He asked me if I had enough stories for a collection. I did, and we made a deal. Later, when my numbers were not strong enough for larger publishers to be interested in me, Jason Williams thought Henghis Hapthorn would be the perfect point of view character for bringing the Archonate milieu to a wider world.
Do you have any anecdotes you’d like to share regarding your name and how you share it with other prominent personalities?
I know I get visits to my web page from fans of Matt Hughes, the mixed-martial-arts fighter whose ghosted autobiog made the New York Times bestseller list in January, days after it was released. Sometimes they send me e-mails deriding or praising my pugilistic prowess. There’s also a Matthew Hughes who writes military history; Amazon conflates our books, which must make me seem a hell of a prolific author.
What are the other projects you’re currently working on?
I’m just reviewing Marty Halpern’s copyedit of Hespira, the third Hapthorn novel, coming out from Night Shade in the fall. I’m also researching a historical novel. And I’m writing stories about Luff Imbry, when he was still a master criminal (before he was conscripted into the Archonate Bureau of Scrutiny in Black Brillion
Matthew Hughes writes science-fantasy and crime fiction.
His novels are Downshift (Doubleday Canada, 1997), Fools Errant
His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s, Asimov’s, Blue Murder, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Postscripts, Storyteller, Interzone and a number of “Year’s Best” anthologies. Night Shade Books published his short story collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, in 2005.
He has won the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, and has been short-listed for the Aurora, Nebula and Derringer Awards. His novels and stories regularly make Locus Magazine’s annual recommended reading list.
Formerly a journalist, he became staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment in the Pierre Trudeau government of 1974-79, then spent more than twenty-five years as a freelance speechwriter for Canadian corporate executives and political leaders. At present, he is augmenting a fiction writer’s uncertain income by housesitting.
For more information, see his webpage.
Click here, for his complete bibliography.
CHARLES TAN is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Vera Nazarian Interview
Vera Nazarian is a 2007 nominee in the Nebula Short Story category for her story, The Story of Love. This is Ms. Nazarian’s first Nebula nomination.
Thanks for doing the interview. For those unfamiliar with your work, how did you get your start in the fantasy/science fiction genre? What’s changed since then?
I’ve been “writing in my head” for as long as I can remember, so this question, although valid, is a bit difficult to answer in a normal fashion. So forgive me if I blather on a bit…
I grew up with stories, and fairytales told to me and read to me, and long “epic” children’s books in verse in Russian that I’d memorized and went around quoting—Kradenoye Sontse (The Stolen Sun) comes to mind as one such favorite. It helped that my mother was a high school literature teacher back in Moscow, so books were valued above all things in my home. I learned to read around the time kids here in the West go to kindergarten but I know it was before first grade which I started a year early anyway (Mom had no babysitting options and basically petitioned to have me allowed to go to school when I was six instead of the usual seven, the age at which all Russian children started school in those days).
One of the earliest things I was given to read were ancient Greek myths and the Illiad
The way I started writing was somewhat convoluted. I’ve always said I’d be an artist, ("always" being 5 years and onward) and I drew and painted with the single-minded seriousness of a Parisian Academy Art student—minus Paris and the Academy… and okay, minus pretty much anything but an overpowering drive and desire to do art the classical proper way, acquiring painstaking skill. At the same time I’ve became a young person (six or seven year-young person) with opinions on everything, and so of course I had to express it. If anyone ever asked me why or how or what something was, I always had an answer, you see. An answer to everything, even if I had no idea really, but could make it up and improvise on the fly, and then embellish it with baroque imagination and pretty poetic metaphors, if applicable. And goodness, was it ever applicable! Seriously, Russians really love poetic metaphor, to the point that some westerners think they talk funny in the sense of how they turn a phrase and seem to pay exorbitant compliments to each other for very little apparent reason.
When my family and I came as refugees to the United States in the mid 70s, and I enrolled in the 5th grade, picking up the rest of my English skills, and going from ESL rudimentary to exuberant fluency in about two years, essay questions were my favorite things in the world. Whereas for most other kids in my class an assigned essay was a 5-paragraph act of torture, for me it was an official excuse to sound off—how could you not love that? After some efforts at shorter things (five paragraph essays that somehow acquired plot, especially the kind you wrote for detention to explain tardiness), I started to write a monumental epic fantasy novel, in a sort of friendly challenge with a friend, just as I entered junior high. No short stories for me, only the longest most arduous thing I knew of at that point, a real honest to goodness Tolkien-by-poundage trilogy. And no, I was not a writer, I was simply writing this one monumentally long epic fantasy.
I’ve always been a very businesslike kid. Since I’d had to do translation for my parents and fill out immigration and other official forms on their behalf, I’d learned to do things the “proper” way where it came to the business of writing. All this time of course I was reading ravenously in English and discovering the books of Andre Norton, Piers Anthony, Terry Brooks, J.R. R. Tolkien, Tanith Lee, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and the genre magazines. I begged my parents (who had very little money to spare) to subscribe to Writer’s Digest, and when that was unfeasible, copied market information by hand while sitting on the floor of a bookstore. Equipped with the arcane knowledge of how it’s done, I started submitting crappy things to different markets such as Asimov’s, F&SF, Fantasy Book, etc., using proper manuscript format. And if you’d asked me then, no, I was not a writer, I was simply submitting things I wrote so that they could get published.
And when I was a senior in high school, came my golden opportunity (also discovered in Writer’s Digest), to submit to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress #2
Can you talk about your Compass Rose milieu? How did you envision such a setting?
In the beginning was the word… “Amarantea.”
Back in the mid 90s I’d written a couple of stories in an ancient middle-eastern flavored milieu, heavily influenced by the work of my favorite author Tanith Lee and all the huge background clutter of ancient epics and mythology. It never occurred to me to connect the stories into the same milieu. But once as I was in bed falling asleep, in that hazy lunatic state between sleep and wakefulness, when suddenly there was this word, in large deep red letters, standing up before my shut eyes like the name of a great deity, and then an image of a mysterious island surrounded by a distant ocean, an island between worlds. I knew nothing about it yet, but that somehow my gut was telling me this was all very IMPORTANT.
So at around 3:00 AM I bounded out of bed, grabbed a pen and jotted the word down on a scrap of an envelope, and then, because I was crazed, turned on the computer and typed the opening scene to the first story chapter of the future novel Dreams of the Compass Rose
Amarantea is too many things to mention, and in some ways impossible to explain; a mystery in many layers. And the novel works sort of backwards and in circular fashion—the first story is the end, and you have to read all the rest in order to discover the beginning. And then it all comes full circle, things suddenly snap into place, and the meta-story shape begins to flow like a self-contained ecosystem, a fountain of story stretching out and circulating itself across time and space. And the movement of this story fountain can be said to resemble a great shining compass rose.
Incidentally each chapter is a standalone story, but unlike The One Thousand and One Nights
I coined a term to call this structure—a “collage novel.”
Dreams
At some point Dreams
But earlier this year I’ve received good news. My novel will be reissued after all, by John Colby of Brick Tower Press, who bought out what was left of iBooks—to my understanding—and my title is apparently scheduled for a March 2009 release. More on that as it develops.
In the meantime I am working on another Compass Rose milieu book. Not a direct sequel (because there can be none, it’s a standalone mind puzzle-book, and the puzzle is resolved), but another, different puzzle-book novel, to be called GODS OF THE COMPASS ROSE. Once again it will be a collage of completely standalone stories that tie together into a greater meta-story, and this time I am exploring the notion of gods. Gods of all things, and mostly human properties of the mind such as love, loyalty, fear, wonder, despair, patience, deception, memory, courage, wisdom, illusion. And there is One Hidden God who rules them all. His story—the opening story of the new book, is in fact already written, and it is Three Names of the Hidden God published in the recent DAW anthology Heroes In Training
There are also two more story chapters completed, and one of them happens to be this year’s Nebula Award Nominee in the short story category, The Story of Love which explores the mystery of the god of love. Originally published in my collection Salt of the Air
Because of the structural and semantic complexity of these connected stories, I don’t envision the second novel to be completed for a few years at least. But I adore working in this mythic milieu, creating my own mythologies not based on any other culture, really, but based on my philosophy. Culture in this case is a veneer, while the true underlying mindset is ancient, timeless, and classic. It’s the whole ancient world at my metaphoric disposal!
How does it feel to have The Story of Love as a finalist for the Nebula? What was the inspiration for the story?
It felt wonderful and scary at the same time. In some ways I am glad it did not win because I got stage fright and didn’t have a speech, and might have been a complete mess if I had to go up there, and indeed it was an honor to lose to Karen Joy Fowler. Incidentally, I have Ellen Kushner, Connie Willis, Cynthia Felice, and a number of other kind people at my Nebula banquet table to thank, for not allowing me to pass out from sheer terror. My Nebula Weekend Trip is chronicled in detail here.
The inspiration for the story? Basically it was my need to explain the great mystery that is Love—that love is not what we think it is. That before love can be fully experienced, a person must allow themselves to love even those that he or she hates most. And that you cannot love half-way, but with the utmost fullness of your being, because you cannot do it until you open yourself completely to all manifestations of love, make yourself vulnerable and receptive. And… and… read the story.
Some of your stories tend to focus on language and evoking either a mythic or fable-like style. Why do you focus on those aspects of writing?
Easy answer—I tend to prefer delicate sharp beauty, elegance, and fine style. I think they lend weight to meaning. Just as a fancy dress can make a person look their best, so can words dress up a story.
Longer answer—each word in each human language is a glowing talisman empowered with meaning. When writing we can choose words at random, just enough to barely tell our tale. Or we can choose wisely and with subtlety—the ones that shine, sparkle and glitter best together, making up the most harmonious and balanced bouquet of verbal delight. A writer who places importance on style is like a person who is a sharp dresser—it’s not necessary but it makes a more powerful and memorable statement. In real life I am a bum who wears the same three t-shirts and pull-on pants, but in my writerly avatar I am a high courtier dressed at the height of fashion—or so I hope. Oscar Wilde is my paragon here.
What does it feel like to be the only Armenian-Russian speculative fiction writer (in English)?
A little weird, to be honest. I am not sure why more Armenian-Russian writers haven’t popped up out of the woodwork (just watch, tomorrow someone will show up to prove me Capitally Wrong). There are many Russian SF and fantasy writers writing in their native language back in Russia, and some in English here in the US (Ekaterina Sedia comes to mind) but I can’t think of any recent or contemporary Armenians who write, short of William Saroyan, and not any who write speculative fiction. I may be wrong: I hope I am wrong. Armenians are an imaginative, clever, adaptable, quick and joyful people, and the literature of imagination seems to be just the kind of thing they would embrace. Give it time, I say, and we’ll have an Armenian Tolkien. His last name will be “Tolkienian,” of course (inside joke, all Armenian last names end in “-ian” and occasionally “-yan").
On the other hand, I feel like a Middle Eastern leather merchant (don’t laugh, my great-grandfather was one) with a private key to a cultural treasure chest—I can dip into the rich ethnic tradition of Ancient Armenia and the great Kingdom of Urartu (which used to span most of Persia and Assyria in the old days, and some say Phoenicia too) whenever I please, and no one would know I am borrowing terms and words and notions. It’s all exclusively mine, I say. At least for the next five minutes. And if anyone wants their turn with it, “hametsek,” I say ("you’re welcome to it,” in Armenian).
Considering your familiarity with various languages, have you ever thought of writing speculative fiction stories in other languages?
I had considered it, but blessedly the madness came and left. I started to write something in Spanish once, and it was a bit like Don Quixote
What is it about fantasy and science fiction that you want to write in this genre?
I want to write the meaning of life into fiction.
Sounds grand and pretentious but in fact it’s kind of what every writer wants to do but not always dares admit it, even to themselves. And because it drives us crazy not to do it, or at least to try.
Think about it: many people claim they are simply telling stories, or practicing a craft. After all, professional writing is a job, isn’t it? And just as many other people are on the opposite end, claiming they are engaging in High Art, which is the reason their fiction is often clad in an iridescent scale-coat of literary imagery and sophistication, beautiful words scattered in barely-connected collages of meandering verbosity with just glimmers of an end-point. Sometimes these same people can be found writing in coffeeshops and attending high-end workshops. Nothing against coffeeshops or workshops in general, but sometimes—and let me emphasize sometimes, before half the coffeshop-frequenting, workshopping blogosphere jumps on my back in an orgy of righteous outrage—they really act as vehicles of superficiality and veneer for people who are deluding themselves about why or what writing really is. Writing is neither a grand art nor a skilled craft, but a vehicle for psychological exposition. It’s a human voice frozen forever in a meaningful mosaic of words—yours and mine—for future generations, or simply for anyone else to experience.
Now, getting back to the idea of “writing meaning into fiction.” Why, you might ask, not choose a different genre, or mainstream, or even expository non-fiction? If I so terribly want to “preach,” why not just be a loud-mouthed prophet on a streetcorner or an information superhighway modern version of such, a blog? Because, meaning is best presented as an entertaining, emotionally involving human story with an arc or progression spanning a beginning, middle and end, clad in bright metaphor of the imagination—the more wondrous, the better the “lesson” of the story “sticks.”
Some claim that there are no lessons to be taught or learned. That life is just a conglomeration of random patterns and we as proper Qool Kidz must merely laugh ruefully and make witty sarcastic observations on this pit of wretched despair called existence that surrounds us.
Regardless of whether or not it is, I choose to think that lessons are fun! They serve us much better than pointless barbs of despair disguised in nihilistic wit. And cause and effect rule, not just in the short-term sense, but they stretch out all the way into the infinity of the past and the future, making lovely ordered patterns despite the clamor of human suffering and the rise and fall of bloody civilizations. And furthermore, patterns per se cannot exist at all in a random universe because the repetition of even a single detail is impossible on a sub-atomic level without a blueprint, probability and statistics be damned. Statistics itself makes no sense until we can assign true limits, measure the full scope of the universal subject pool which happens to be the whole universe, and we cannot ever measure that, no matter how much we estimate and estimate… And yeah, in case you wonder, I studied stats, and this is what I came away with.
Furthermore, just the fact that we have DNA, the blueprint for living organisms, is enough to prove to me that the universe is an ordered entity. And even if I’m wrong, it’s the more optimistic thing to do, and I am as optimistic as the sun in zenith over the Equator. As far as I’m concerned, pessimism is a copout, a way of throwing up one’s hands and just becoming one with entropy; a dull boring clod, even if one is dressed in dark saturnine elegance.
Thus speaks the jolly Armenian in me.
Supposedly Armenians are a funny combination of pragmatic common sense and wild optimism (while Russians are melancholy dreamers), and it certainly trumps the Dostoyevsky-somber Russian half of my own genes. Or maybe it just tempers me in a humorous way. Just think of me as Dostoyevsky in an Elton John bling outfit running the casino instead of passionately gambling away his hard-earned soul money while dressed in pre-revolutionary workman rags.
Who are some of the people that have been influential to you and your writing career?
My mother started me reading, but then the rest can be said of every single author whose work I’ve read in any language. Seriously, this is an impossible question. But I would like to highlight George Sand, Stendhal, Charlotte Bronte, Oscar Wilde, and the Russian classics, in addition to the ancient Greek myths that still run in my blood together with Russian black tea.
As far as modern writers, I bow in humble awe to the mistress of dark beauty, Tanith Lee, kiss the hem of Gene Wolfe’s jacket, raise my voice in song to the faerie master himself, Charles de Lint, and owe an impossible debt of love and gratitude to Marion Zimmer Bradley who “discovered” and nurtured me as she did dozens of other writers of my generation.
What was the biggest challenge you needed to overcome in order to become a “professional” author?
Well, learning to speak and read English was a nice first hurdle. Never learning to type properly and getting by with four fingers (and only being given a typewriter by a nice Armenian businessman who liked a silly poem I wrote) was not a small thing at all. Having no money sucked; try submitting stories and buying paper and postal supplies when your family cannot afford food or clothing, much less a typewriter or money for summer school to take typing.
What helped with these obstacles? Discovering the fact that I have an opinion on everything was like installing a turbo-charged rocket in my ambition. Persevering because I was an insanely confident thinker was the clincher.
And then…
Making the first sale is always a huge hurdle. Making the second is another hurdle. Making the third is yet another, making the fourth… Seriously, it never ends. It only gets more routine and sometimes just plain sad when opportunities or markets slip away or rejections come in to smack you on the nose.
These days when I get a rejection, I am more likely to say “meh” and move on without feeling my blood pressure go up. Though, there are always exceptions. The one difference is, I know this is not just all one big accident (again, probability be damned and that—being that this is an ordered universe—I am in the middle of a repeating pattern. The pattern is in my favor because I chose to make myself a part of it—by trying damn hard and by working with it as opposed to against it).
Aside from writing fiction, you’ve also branched out into other areas such as art, music, and publishing! Which one are you currently prioritizing and how do you juggle your diverse skill set? How does one profession affect the others?
These days I am definitely a freelance jill-of-all-trades in publishing. Publishing other people’s books through my own independent press is what I am doing now to pay the bills, and writing has been temporarily put on hold.
The way it happened is, I’ve been doing freelance publishing work for other people for several years, starting in the late nineties, in additional to my high tech day jobs, and to the writing. And after the last round of layoffs in 2002 it occurred to me that I might as well try to work for myself, and the fact that there was a housing market boom helped me get a start by refinancing my mortgage. In 2006, seeing how well my friend and fellow writer and publisher Alan Rodgers was doing with his own POD publishing company Aegypan, I started Norilana Books, publishing mostly public domain classics, using a POD model through Ingram’s Lighting Source. Norilana Books currently has over 170 books in print, and specializes in beautifully packaged hardcover and trade paperback classics of world literature, quality fantasy, science fiction, romance and women’s fiction, and young adult titles.
The business is growing steadily but it is a whole lot of unimaginable work, and I seriously need to be cloned.
Meanwhile, I am very lucky to count among “my” authors such wonderful writers and editors as Sherwood Smith, Modean Moon, William Sanders, Catherynne M. Valente, Ken Rand, John Grant, Mike Allen, Roby James, Eugie Foster, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Lee Martindale, David Dvorkin, Leonore Dvorkin, Rochelle Uhlenkott, Deborah J. Ross, Rosemary Hawley Jarman, Elisabeth Waters, the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, and last but not least, my muse and inspiration, Tanith Lee. Oh, and if I forgot anyone, please slap me hard.
And luckily, art, my early career aspiration, now has an outlet—in cover design. Yes, these days I still design 99.9% of the covers for Norilana Books, and must secretly admit it’s one of my favorite parts of the book packaging process.
And music? Well, not much has been happening recently on that front, but just out of the blue here is a song recorded a couple of years ago, a Celtic-style acapella piece—I wrote the music and lyrics, performed and recorded it myself; listen and enjoy, my friends. http://www.redroom.com/audio/a-bonnie-witch-named-gwen
What other projects are you currently working on?
I have several novels in various stages of completion. My most recent and vital project is a period-flavored fantasy novel COBWEB BRIDE, which, even as we speak, is threatening to turn into a trilogy. By golly, yes, it just did! Turned before your very eyes—share my moment. So, voila! A trilogy in the making, with book one being COBWEB BRIDE, book two COBWEB LOVERS and book tree, COBWEB FOREST.
The premise is that in an alternate sixteenth-seventeenth century Europe, in an imaginary Realm (which partakes of French, Italian and Spanish cultures), Death’s avatar comes into the world in the form of a mysterious man and all dying stops suddenly; he is asking for his Cobweb Bride to be brought to him, and until then, no one will find relief in oblivion. The repercussions, as you can imagine, are horrifying because death is a necessary part of the lifecycle. This novel is a romantic fantasy in the vein of Anne Bishop meets Patrica McKillip meets Jacqueline Carey, with battling armies of the undead, mysterious black knights hunting for all trespassers in a frozen waste, glittering imperial courts, star-crossed lovers, traitors and spies and courtly intrigue, and Percy, my ungainly ordinary peasant girl heroine who sets out on a quest to bring relief to her painfully dying old grandmother by traveling to the farthest northern Forest in search of Death’s Keep.
Book one is about two-thirds done, but in the meantime I’m getting very sick of working like a whole platoon of people doing book packaging, promo and marketing, editing, copyediting, data entry, shipping, bookkeeping and accounting, website work, programming, cover design, blogging, and everything else imaginable—when I should be writing too, but I can’t, not until I have something concrete paid to me upfront… Like a real advance, folks.
And so I’d love to sell these books, on partial, to a major publisher—any takers?
VERA NAZARIAN immigrated to the USA from the former USSR as a kid, sold her first story at the age of 17, and since then has published numerous works in anthologies and magazines, and has seen her fiction translated into eight languages. She made her novelist debut with the critically acclaimed Dreams of the Compass Rose
CHARLES TAN is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Jack McDevitt Interview
Since 1996, Jack McDevitt has been an almost annual presence on the Nebula finalist ballots, receiving 12 nominations in various categories and finally winning in 2006 with his novel, Seeker
In 2007, Mr. McDevitt received a nomination for his novel, Odyssey
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Your novels pretty much stand well on their own but for unfamiliar readers, which of your novels would you recommend they start with?
Priscilla Hutchins’s career begins with The Engines of God
When you start working on a novel, do you know the outcome right from the very start or does it change during your writing process? Similarly, how do you determine whether it’ll include Priscilla Hutchins, Alex Benedict, or someone entirely new?
Alex operates in the far future, where he solves mysteries. How did a half-dozen people, sixty years ago, disappear out of the starship Polaris? No evidence of aliens. No place they could go. Priscilla Hutchins, on the other hand, lives at a time when interstellar travel is just getting started. We have some people stuck on a world that’s about to be swallowed by a gas giant? Call Hutch. And obviously if the plot idea doesn’t fit into either universe, it goes elsewhere.
Do I know the outcome from the start? I usually think I do, but I’m not always right. Sometimes I get a better idea, sometimes I discover my solution, for one reason or another, is dumb. Sometimes the book just goes in a different direction.
What was the inspiration for Odyssey
Walt Cuirle, a physicist who writes occasional science fiction, was talking to me one day about colliders. So what might the ultimate collider be? Walt described what it might look like, what it might be able to do, and the narrative took hold. The subplot in the novel, the hellfire trial, features MacAllister, who is based on H.L. Mencken. Mencken, of course, was a major force when Darwin and Scopes went to court in Tennessee. MacAllister’s been a recurring character in the Hutch novels and I thought it was time to give him his own version of the Monkey Trial.
Do I sympathize with his views? Sometimes. Probably more often not. But I love writing the character.
What kind of research do you do for your stories?
I don’t have any formal scientific training. I don’t trust myself to read about, say, aspects of particle physics, and then get it right in a novel. So I do it the easy—and reliable—way. When I’ve a question I call a physicist or a specialist. They seem always happy to help, especially since the questions tend to be off the wall. ‘Tell me, Doctor, how can i blow up a star?’
What’s the appeal of science fiction for you? How about first contact stories? Mysteries?
It’s all sense of wonder. Science fiction caught me when I was about four. Inspired me to look above the South Philadelphia rooftops. I can remember a time, during the 50’s, when UFO’s were hot, when the kids in my neighborhood hoped a UFO would land on the vacant lot at the north end of the street. The UFO never came. But if it does show up, I hope to be there. Sure, what could be more compelling than seeing real alien lights in the sky, than sitting down with someone from Procyon over a pizza?
I also have a passion for mysteries. I think it took hold from the old radio show I Love a Mystery. I know of no better way to draw a reader into a novel. What did the Tenandrome see out there that they came back and refused to talk about? What happened to the Seeker, which carried hundreds of malcontents away from Earth 7,000 years ago, and was never heard from again? We all love mysteries. What happened to the Mary Celeste? Was there really an Atlantis?
On your website, you make a distinction between your “ten best” and “ten favorite"* science fiction novels. Since you’ve already given us a list of your favorite books, what are some of the novels that you consider “the best”? How about favorite books outside of the genre?
(*To view Jack McDevitt’s Ten Favorite SF novels: click on Author Comments, in the left hand sidebar of his website. Click, Ten Favorite Novels).
SF:
1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
2. The Demolished Man
3. Kindred
4. Childhood’s End
5. The Man in the High Castle
6. Brave New World
7. The Left Hand of Darkness
8. Solaris
9. 1984
10. Gravity’s Rainbow
Among my favorite books (in no particular order):
The Brothers Karamazov
The Sherlock Holmes Canon
The Poems of A. E. Housman
Any collection of Mark Twain’s essays
David Copperfield
Any James Thurber collection
War and Peace
War and Remembrance
Mencken Chrestomathy
Any collection of Irwin Shaw’s short stories
Lately, you’ve made a name for yourself with your novels but you’ve written a couple of short stories as well. How important was the latter to your career? Which format are you more comfortable writing?
Actually, I’ve written more than 70 stories. Without the short fiction, I doubt I’d ever have written a novel. My first was The Hercules Text, which I wrote because Terry Carr wanted a contribution for the Ace Specials. I wasn’t inclined to try it on my own. Life was busy, and I didn’t want to spend a year on a project that I thought would have little chance of selling. I was happy doing short fiction.
How do you feel getting nominated for all these awards?
I’ve never gotten used to it. Probably never will. I was old enough when I started—in my 40’s—to realize how fortunate I’d been. You start when you’re 22, I think you take everything for granted. But I have no preference. I’m happy writing either short or long fiction. As long as I have a good idea.
At what point did you consider yourself a professional author? What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome?
I never thought of it that way. To me, it was simply a matter of seeing my byline on a piece of fiction. I was driving through Mexico in the summer of 1965, while Harlan Ellison was being interviewed on a Texas radio station. I recall his saying that, once he’d sold his first story, he knew he could do it, could do anything, and there’d be no stopping him. That’s pretty much the way I’ve thought of my own career. T.E.D. Klein bought “The Emerson Effect” for the Twilight Zone Magazine, and I was on my way. I never quite reached Harlan’s stage where I concluded anything was possible, but I’d discovered miracles do happen. So I kept writing stories. My second big moment came about two years later when Cryptic made the final Nebula ballot. I suppose if you want to decide on a ‘professional’ moment, that was it.
The biggest challenge was simply that I never believed I could write at a competitive level. You read Clarke and Benford and Bova and the rest and it simply seems so far out of reach that you don’t even want to try it. The only reason I wrote “The Emerson Effect” was to mollify my wife. She talked me into it. The story, by the way, was about a guy who’d fallen in love but couldn’t bring himself to go after the woman because he was convinced she wouldn’t take him seriously.
What in your opinion are the biggest changes that have occurred (either in the industry or otherwise) since your first published novel?
I started with an electric typewriter. People writing with word processing software have no idea how much easier it is. I can’t help wondering what we’d have from Dickens if he could have traded in that quill. The internet, of course, is bringing a lot of changes. And maybe we’re going to lose paper books. I don’t know. We live in an era with a lot of flux. I’ll be interested in seeing how it turns out.
What projects are you currently working on?
Next novel is a fourth Alex Benedict mystery: The Devil’s Eye
When he looks into it, he sees that nobody in her life is dead, or, as far as anyone can tell, in danger. She’s just back from a vacation on one of the rim worlds. And everything’s quiet there. So Alex is off once again. It’s due in November.
I’m currently working on Time Travelers Never Die. Several years ago, I wrote a novella of that name. It ended on the final ballot for both the Hugo and the Nebula. I’d always felt there was a lot more I could have done with it. So a novel version will be out next year. It provides the reader with a chance to talk about the Inquisition with Galileo, enjoy a few drinks in a restaurant in 1937 Durham NC where the piano is played by Dick Nixon, watch opening night for Hamlet. and shake hands with Molly Pitcher. He will also spend an evening with the unsinkable Molly Brown, paddle the Yukon with Bob Service, visit the Alexandrian Library, watch Babe Ruth call his shot, and buy a round of whiskey for Calamity Jane.
JACK MCDEVITT is a former naval officer, English teacher, and customs officer. He was for ten years stationed at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center , where he conducted management and leadership seminars for the US Customs Service.
He has been a Nebula finalist for several years and finally won for his novel Seeker
McDevitt is probably best known for his Academy novels, featuring Priscilla Hutchins providing transportation and occasional rescues for teams of interstellar archeologists on the hunt for traces of aliens; and the Alex Benedict series, with a futuristic antiquarian who consistently finds himself confronted with historical mysteries.
A Philadelphia native, McDevitt lives in Georgia with his wife Maureen.
CHARLES TAN is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Sarah Beth Durst Interview
Once upon a time, or 1986, there was a little girl named Sarah Beth Durst who dreamed of princesses and fairy tale kingdoms. She also dreamed of becoming a writer. Many years later, she picked up widespread acclaim and was nominated for the 2007 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy for her first novel, a modern-day, fairy tale adventure called Into the Wild
How does it feel to have your first novel earn such high acclaim?
Really, being an author at all is such a dream come true for me. I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. It’s honestly the only thing that I’ve ever wanted to be, and it was a long road from aspiring to published. So I am grateful to be here and beyond thrilled to have been nominated for the Andre Norton Award.
What were your first thoughts when you found out you were nominated for the Andre Norton award?
Eeeeeeeee!!!
And then I danced around the house for a while.
One of the very first things that I did when I signed my contract with Penguin was join SFWA. I’d wanted to be a member for years and years. (In fact, I’d been crashing their parties for years and years.) So to be a nominee for a SFWA award really meant a great deal to me.
How did it feel to be on the ballot as a first-time novelist with authors such as J. K. Rowling?
Surreal. I mean, me on the same ballot as J. K. Rowling? She’s going to have a theme park based on her books!! Really, I felt honored to be on the ballot with all the fabulous finalists. I especially loved when they read all our names Oscar-style at the Nebula Awards Banquet. I felt like my insides were cart wheeling. That was such a great experience.
What was the original inspiration for Into the Wild
Back in high school, I had this idea to write a musical about fairy tale characters in the real world. I called it “Rapunzel’s Hair Salon” (because if she lived in the real world, Rapunzel would clearly own a hair salon). It was dreadful. Singing pigs everywhere. But I liked the core idea of fairy tale characters in the real world, so years later, I came back to the idea and I started to think about why they left their fairy tale, how they got here, what their day-to-day lives would be like, and most importantly, what would happen if the fairy tale decided it wanted its characters back.
What made you choose Rapunzel for the main character’s mother?
At their heart (underneath all the beanstalks and gingerbread houses), the Wild books are about free will. Into the Wild
Is there any kind of moral or lesson that you try to impart in the book?
See above answer re: free will. But I think of that as more of a theme than a moral. I actually think it’s important to not try to impart a moral or lesson. I think it’s a mistake for a writer to try to teach as opposed to tell a story. Okay, yes, some stories are supposed to be moral lessons first and stories second, and there’s a place in the world for those kinds of books, yada yada. But the kinds of books that I like to read and that I try to write are first about cool characters having fantastic adventures. Themes are important for tying the story together and adding depth and resonance, but story and characters come first for me, both as a reader and as a writer.
What kind of feedback have you received from the young readers who’ve read your book?
I have loved, loved, loved receiving emails from readers, especially young readers. One of the youngest posted a customer review on Amazon: “Me and my dad had a great time reading this book. Although I’m only eight, my dad is REALLY old, so he qualifies to help me with this review!” She goes on to say, “My dad and I read this over a couple of weeks, a little bit every night.” I love the image of a girl and her father reading my story together. How great is that?
Many of the places described in Into the Wild
One of the coolest things that I’ve done this past year is visit schools in Northboro, the town in central Massachusetts that serves as the primary setting for Into the Wild
I actually had one kid come up to me and say, “Thank you for making something cool happen in Northboro.” I knew exactly how he felt—growing up, I always wished for something magical in my backyard (you know, a spare dragon, a herd of unicorns, even an infestation of goblins...). Setting Into the Wild
As both a kid and an adult, which cadre of fairy tales were you most drawn to? Brothers Grimm? Hans Christian Andersen? Disney?
I never liked Hans Christian Andersen. Little Matchgirl… I never saw that as uplifting. The girl dies. Little Mermaid… she suffers and then dies. (Yes, it’s all poetic with the dissolving-into-foam and whatever, but really, she just dies.) I have always loved the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault and Andrew Lang and others. I also love Disney. Yes, early Disney movies feature some of the most horribly passive versions of fairy tale heroines out there, but Disney has played a vital role in ensuring that fairy tales are an enduring and vibrant part of American culture. Disney kept them from disappearing. And really, Little Mermaid is vastly better with the addition of singing fish.
Which fairy tale character did you most identify with as a child?
I don’t think I identified with any one character in particular. But I wanted to look like a princess (preferably with long straight hair—mine was short and very curly) and have the magic powers of a fairy godmother and the magic props (wand/ring/sword/etc.) of the heroes. I also wanted a talking animal for a sidekick.
Which of the Seven Dwarves do you most identify with?
Sleepy. I miss sleep. I don’t get nearly enough of it these days. That’s one of the side effects of publication that no one ever tells you about.
Why do you think readers are drawn to well-known fairy tales that have been updated or re-imagined? Why not just create completely new fairy tales?
The short answer is because fairy tales are awesome. The longer answer is because fairy tales have power. They have this tremendous cultural resonance. Even the single phrase “once upon a time” carries with it a whole slew of memories and expectations. You can tell some really interesting stories by using and subverting and playing off of this common cultural language. I also think we’re drawn to retold fairy tales because fairy tales address really basic human fears and desires in an archetypal way—they’re a really powerful storytelling tool.
How do you think fairy tales hold up to today’s values?
If you’re asking me do I think that it’s a good idea to tell young girls that in order to be happy they have to wait patiently in (a) a tower, (b) a glass coffin, (c) weed-choked castle, or (d) a hearth infested with lisping mice, then the answer is no. But I do think fairy tales can and should be retold and reinterpreted. In fact, I think that’s one of the coolest things about fairy tales: they’re made to be retold. With the exception of literary fairy tales that can be traced to a single author (like Hans Christian Andersen), most of what we consider “original fairy tales” are already retellings—most of them are actually folktales that changed from storyteller to storyteller to suit the values or merely the whims of the teller and the audience. I see them more as blueprints for new stories.
What draws you to writing for young readers?
My husband says it’s because I have the emotional maturity of a four-year-old. (He claims that’s a compliment.) Really, though, I try to write the kind of stories that I want to read—and those kinds of stories are mainly found on the YA shelves. I love the worldview in many kids’ and YA novels. I love the sense of wonder and the optimism. I love the emphasis on adventure and on characters who rise up against insurmountable odds… I don’t consciously write for young readers; I just try to tell good stories that happen to feature young characters.
Do you have a particular writing routine?
I write every day. I think that’s very important—for me, writing works best when it’s as much of a daily habit as brushing my teeth. It also works best if I have a stash of chocolate somewhere nearby.
What do you do when you aren’t writing?
I have a day job—I’m Director of Marketing for a company that works with nonprofit fundraising (which basically means I play with spreadsheets and send a lot of emails). My day job actually complements my writing well. It uses different parts of my brain.
The sequel, Out of the Wild
Next is another YA fantasy. I can’t tell you much about it—it’s still in that “top sekrit” stage—but I’m really excited about it! When I do have news that I can report, I’ll post it on my website.
SARAH BETH DURST is a writer of children’s and young adult fantasy novels. She started writing fantasy stories at age 10, got an English degree from Princeton University, and then began actively “aspiring”. Her debut novel,Into the Wild
Sarah lives in Stony Brook, NY with her husband, her daughter, and her ill-mannered cat. She also has a miniature pet griffin named Alfred. Okay, okay, that’s not quite true. His name is really Montgomery. You can visit Sarah online at her website, or her blog.
By day, JEN WEST runs the corporate rat race working in women’s wear design and merchandising for an upscale clothing manufacturer. By night she’s a mild-mannered freelance writer in constant search for the next interesting character or story.
Her interviews have appeared in such venues as Shimmer and Fairwood Press’s interview collection, Human Visions. She has degrees in Journalism and French from the University of Oregon, and remembers fondly the pressure of meeting deadlines at the Oregon Daily Emerald as a staff writer. She currently resides with her writer husband, Ken Scholes, two pudgy cats and a box garden in St. Helens, OR. Drop her a note at .
Joe Haldeman Interview
Joe Haldeman has been nominated for and received the Nebula, Hugo, Ditmar, World Fantasy, Galaxy, Rhysling and James Tipree Awards. The Accidental Time Machine
Tell us about The Accidental Time Machine
It’s the first humorous novel I’ve written in years, so the main thing I “hope readers will take from it” is amusement. I had fun playing with aspects of MIT, where I’ve taught for 24 years, and a certain kind of MIT student, the semi-genius slacker.
I’ve always wanted to write a time-travel novel, one that had a certain degree of mathematical sophistication without being unreadable. I loved doing the research about my institution in the nineteenth century.
Finally, I like love stories, but usually when I write about love it’s pretty complicated. It was fun to write a story about two likable characters who really fall for each other.
Which themes and ideas dominate the writing of Joe Haldeman? What do you think readers take from your work they get nowhere else?
Others have pointed out that my stories tend to be about the nature of identity and about the necessity for moral behavior in a godless universe. I wouldn’t disagree, but I don’t know many writers who start a novel from such an abstract notion.
What a reader gets from a particular writer is that writer’s perceptions and a slice of the writer’s personality—“style,” which is what the writer gets for free.
What is the story you’ve written you’re proudest of, and why?
If I were to pick up one of my books to read, it would probably be either The Hemingway Hoax
My current novel, Marsbound
Tell us a little about Marsbound
This is the Earth-girl-goes-to-Mars bildungsroman with a few differences. Like skinny-dipping and xeno-ontology gone mad and a Mr. Potato Head (TM) you can really identify with
The short story vs the novella vs the novel—what makes you decide to write an idea in one form over the other?
Sometimes I don’t decide—The Forever War
You do have to sell a novel before you write it, so of course most of my books start out as a deliberate outline or prospectus.
The Forever War
It’s not difficult to live up to its expectations, though I do get tired of “Why doesn’t he write another “Forever War”? I’m not 26 years old anymore.
The Forever War
I don’t believe it ever “hovered” over subsequent books. I’ve written other books about war, but that’s because I was a soldier, and nothing that dramatic ever happened to me again.
You sold your first novel, and had a dream start to your career. So, getting started was easy for you, but what about after? What about now? Any setbacks along the way, and how did you deal with them?
It’s not an easy way to make a living, but I knew that when I chose it. I deal with setbacks the way anybody else does—amplifying them way out of perspective, worrying more than I should, and so forth. Sooner or later I just sit down and write another book. Good advice that sometimes is hard to take.
How (if at all) has science fiction evolved/ changed in the time that you’ve been working in the field? Does it still have value in the present milieu? Relevance to the future?
The big change, mostly commercial but also critical, is that the influence of Tolkien and George Lucas have reduced actual science fiction to a small subgenre of the glut of titles under that aegis in the bookstore. It’s ironic in various ways, mainly because we do live in a science-fictional world; a world that’s not reluctant to acknowledge the importance of science fiction in its past. They just don’t buy the books.
Are the books therefore less relevant, now and in the future? I really don’t think that’s answerable. Almost no one would have foreseen that garish pulp sf would change the world, but it did.
As to whether science fiction has literary value nowadays, the answer is a shrug. The difference between mainstream writers who use science fiction tropes and plebeian science fiction writers is not as large as the mainstream writers and critics think.
The Commercial vs the Artistic in writing—is there a genuine difference between these two philosophies or are they artifical attributes? Are they in opposition, and if so, can they meet?
There’s nothing artificial about writing a book on assignment, purely for money. I’ve done that five times in my life, and don’t apologize for it, but don’t think any of them was a good idea. I needed money, but as it turned out, I would’ve made more money doing my own thing.
But if you were a serious painter and the rent was due, and someone wanted to hire you to paint a sign, would you say it was beneath you? It’s still pigments and brush strokes, and there’s a difference between a good sign and an indifferent one. You pay the rent and go back to the canvas.
Will you still be read in a 100 years? Does it matter? Should writers write for the present or the future?
I think most non-commercial writers write for themselves; commercial writers write more for a perceived “typical reader.” Of course there are states in between.
I hope that in a hundred years I will be such a hot-shot that whatever replaces PBS will do a series of my works and the New Yorker (nothing will replace it) will run a tired and supercilious article about why people still like me.
You were a soldier in Vietnam, a controversial war the American government got its people involved in. Today, the USA is involved in another controversial war, the Iraqi war. Do you think there are parallels here and would you like to share some thoughts on the matter?
In both cases the American government betrayed the American people in favor of people with lots of money. In both cases we were sent into war because of deliberate lies that should have resulted in impeachment and imprisonment.
The differences are as important to me as the similarities. This war is being fought by volunteers, much better trained and motivated than we draftees were. They’re getting screwed even worse.
I never would have thought that I would be glad for having fought in the jungle. But compared to fighting people who look just like civilians in a city environment, it was pretty easy. Always something to get under or hide behind.
What does the future hold for Joe Haldeman, the writer?
I was born a little too early to have an alternative to death, which makes me unhappy. Otherwise the future looks like more, and I hope better, books. Maybe a movie and a kidney-shaped swimming pool. Or a new kidney.
JOE HALDEMAN was born in Oklahoma 9 June 1943. Grew up in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D. C., and Alaska. Currently lives in Gainesville, Florida and Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Gay Haldeman. As of August, 2008, they will have been married 43 years. He teaches a science fiction writing workshop at MIT and (in alternate years) Reading and Writing Longer Fiction and Reading and Writing Genre Fiction. He likes to travel, cooks for daily relaxation and has won a poker tournament, in Nassau 1989. Pastimes include: Amateur astronomy, drawing and painting, guitar playing; a lot of bicycling and a little fishing, canoeing, swimming, and snorkeling.
His new novel, Marsbound
DAVID DE BEER was born in South Africa and mostly raised in Johannesburg, where he daily strives to perfect the art of dodging lions, zebras, tigers, bears and crazed taxi drivers. His short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in markets such as Chizine, Alienskin and Courting Morpheus.
Robin Wayne Bailey Interview
Robin Wayne Bailey is a nominee in the Best Novellete Category for 2007 with his story, The Children’s Crusade, published in the Heroes In Training
In the pie chart that is your life, with generous slices carved out for fandom, reading, writing, service to SFWA and the SF Hall of Fame, music, activism, family, and martial arts, which slices claim the biggest holds on your life, and how do you manage to keep your life and writing in perspective?
That’s kind of like asking which of your children is most important to you! Writing and family are, of course, paramount. Writing keeps me sane. It’s a cheap form of therapy, and almost anyone will tell you that I need lots of therapy. My family says they keep me sane, too, but mostly I suspect they’re the reason I need lots of cheap therapy, particularly the members of my extended family, who drive me crazy.
Bodybuilding and martial arts are my passion. I’ve earned black belts in karate and judo, and studied Yoshinkan Aikido, along with various forms of kobudo. I currently study Shindo Jinen Ryu. But bodybuilding is my true passion these days, and the gym is my second home. My therapist said I needed to get off the couch.
Why do you write? What was your path to becoming a writer, and what are some of the challenges you’ve faced?
Does any artist really know why they do what they do? I write for lots of reasons, and probably none of them are right. I write to discover myself and to come to some sort of peace with who I am. At its core, isn’t all art – writing, painting, music – a form of therapy for the artist? We struggle, not just to express ourselves, but to make someone listen. And I write to clarify the world around me, to come to some sort of understanding of the angels and monsters inside all of us. And I write for money – that’s important, too. Art’s important, but sometimes you have to pay the rent.
I sold my first short story when I was eighteen and a freshman in a college creative writing course. I’ve been writing more or less full time for twenty-five years. I’ve had some great mentors along the way – Wilson Tucker, Carolyn Cherryh, Frank Robinson, to name the important ones. I’ve had a few bestsellers and a few books that solidly tanked, but mostly been happy in the midlist twilight zone of the “working writer.” They don’t tell you in classes and workshops, but writing is one gigantic gamble. You roll the dice, and sometimes you win the big money, sometimes you crap out. Some of us wake up one day and kind of realize we’ve been suckered, that we’ve won just enough over and over again to keep us playing and hoping. I’m addicted to the gambling.
What themes tend to recur in your work? How are ways the world might be healed besides magically? And how do writers influence the everyday world through their work?
It’s a bit of a start to read this question, and my answer might be too strong for this forum. But what the hell. This past year brought me to the proverbial “dark place” where you either put the noose around your neck or seek professional help. A lot of forces coalesced to bring me to that point, among them, post-traumatic stress from my adventure seven years ago with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I’m cancer-free right now, but you don’t quite get beyond the fear of recurrence. Every time you catch a cold the first thought is “it’s back.” There were other issues, too. Childhood sexual abuse issues that resurged with a vengeance.
With the help of people close to me I got help, and during the course of beginning therapy, I reread almost my entire body of work. I discovered that from story to story and book to book, I was having the same dialog with myself. Themes of child abuse, broken families, distant parents, children essentially on their own emerged over and over again. Even in the comedies. Even in the serious works, novels or stories. No matter how fantastic the story or otherworldly the setting. Sometimes it was overt, as in the Frost novels. Sometimes it was more subtle, even encoded, as in my novella, Toy Soldiers. It was as if I was leaving messages to myself.
Sometimes, readers also pick up on these messages. After Shadowdance
Still, I don’t know how to heal the world. I’m not certain the world wants to be healed. Right now, I’m working on healing myself.
What are the risks you take personally or professionally when exploring religion and politics in your writing?
Any writer that worries about risk-taking is in the wrong line of work.
If you’ve got something to say and it’s worth saying, then you risk pissing someone off - a reader, an editor, a buyer, whoever. And if you don’t have anything to say, why are you writing?
Who were some of the greatest influences on your writing, and would that list of writers differ from the authors of your favorite books?
I mentioned Tucker, Cherryh and Robinson earlier. I’ve learned invaluable lessons from all three, and all three have influenced, not just my writing, but my career choices at some point. In the sf/f arena, there are almost too many influences to list - C. L. Moore, Philip Jose Farmer, Joe Haldeman, Harlan Ellison -- these are all writers whose work admire and who I’ve sometimes tried to emulate.
In the broader literary sphere, I love the great Greek playwrights and the Romantic poets. Steinbeck is a favorite. So is Flannery O’Connor and lots of others. I’ve got a master’s degree in literature, and I think the diploma says that entitles me to lots of pretensions.
What might Fritz Leiber think about your novel Swords Against the Shadowland
Fritz Leiber was unique. I met him on several occasions. Call it charisma or personal magnetism - he cast an aura of magic. To say I was stunned would be an understatement when I was invited to collaborate on a new Lankhmar
Contrary to the promotional material, I wrote Swords Against the Shadowland
Science Fiction or Fantasy? Where’s the place for realistic writing?
Why choose? Both have strengths and advantages, and in terms of techniques, they have more in common than not. Most of my novels have been fantasies, but lots of my shorter works have been science fiction. My collection, Turn Left to Tomorrow
The place for realistic writing is in the characters. No matter how fantastic the setting or the situation, if the characters aren’t real then everything falls apart. And that’s true no matter the genre.
Your novelette, The Children’s Crusade was a Nebula nominee. What’s your favorite piece and is it different than what you think of as your strongest piece and why? What one piece would you want a reader unfamiliar with your work to read as an introduction to your work?
Ah, back to the “choose your favorite child” tactic! Okay, I’m extremely proud of The Children’s Crusade but I’m also very proud of Keepers of Earth which was selected for Silverberg’s first Best SF of the Year anthology. Also of The Terminal Solution an alternate-history story about the emergence of AIDS into Victorian England with David Livingstone as Patient Zero, Drs. Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell as medical investigators, and Jack the Ripper thrown in for good measure. I did more research on that story than I’ve done on some of my books. I’d throw in Toy Soldiers as a very favorite child, too. These are all available in my collection
For novels, Shadowdance
What are you working on now and what can we expect to see soon?
I just set aside the Big Honking Fantasy novel I’ve been working on for the past year. Too dark and lacked humor, my agent said. I’ll rework it later. Meanwhile, I’ve been playing in other genres. I’ve done a western story and a fantasy romance, and I’m umpty-chapters into a mystery novel that’s proving great fun. Particularly in the current market climate, I’m a big believer in not putting all your eggs in one genre basket. As Heinlein said, “Specialization is for insects.”
ROBIN WAYNE BAILEY is the best-selling author of the Dragonkin
LESLIE WHAT’s new collection, Crazy Love
Jennifer Pelland Interview
Jennifer Pelland’s short story Captive Girl is the only story from an online magazine in the final ballot for the 2007 Nebula Short Stories. Additionally, it is the first Nebula nomination received by its publisher, Helix. Last and certainly not least, it’s also Ms Pelland’s first Nebula nomination.
For those who haven’t read your work, how would you best describe your writing?
I suppose the easiest way to describe my writing is to say that it uses science fiction or horror settings to play “what if” games that explore darker human emotions, often tossing body issues into the mix. Except for my funny stories, which are often about sex. Because when you stop to think about it—I mean really think about it—sex is hysterically funny. Again, I suspect that has to do with my fascination with the human body. This meat suit that houses our consciousness is a strange contraption. There are so many ways for it to deviate from the mythical norm, and so many ways for it to break. Today’s surgery is already making our form malleable. What will we be doing to ourselves in the near future? In the far future? And in what ways will that go wrong? I can’t help but play with these ideas.
What inspired you to write Captive Girl?
This story began to germinate at the art show at the Boskone science fiction convention. There was a painting in the art show of a woman with the top half of her head completely covered in a metal helmet. Wires trailed from it, and there was a wire-covered glove on her outstretched hand. Later, I went to a writing panel where one of the panelists asserted that you should try to write about things that fascinate you to the point of scaring you. So I started musing in my composition notebook about how terrified I was of the thought of total captivity, which lead me back to the painting, which eventually turned into a tentative idea for a story about a girl strapped into a chair with all her senses (but touch) hijacked for a greater cause.
And then I realized it was a love story.
This raised all sorts of interesting questions in my head about what it must be like to look for companionship when you have some sort of disability or disfigurement. What do you do when your choices are limited by your physical condition? Is it wrong to be with someone just because they’re turned on by your disability? And what if that person is your caretaker? Is it ethical for them to get into a romantic relationship with you? It was a scary story to write, and even scarier to show to other people, but in the end, it was worth it.
When you write a story, do you have a theme or thesis in mind or is it during the process of your writing that you realize what subjects you really want to tackle. Was this the case for Captive Girl?
Whenever I try to write to a theme or thesis, it turns into a preachy disaster. I do best when I come up with a story idea, write it out, and then discover that I appear to have inadvertently tackled an issue or two. Captive Girl was no exception.
How did you get your start in science fiction? What’s the appeal of the genre for you?
I got into science fiction through my father. We’d stay up watching late-night creature features together, or classic Star Trek repeats, and I still vividly remember him taking me to the expensive theater to see Star Wars. Normally, we waited for movies to come to the dollar theater at the end of our block, but Star Wars wasn’t budging from the multiplex, and he realized it was important that we see it. I got into written SF by reading his book collection. I suspect that most child psychologists wouldn’t recommend letting 10-year-olds read Harlan Ellison, but I seem to have turned out reasonably okay (although it might explain a few things).
I could say that the appeal is that you can write grander, more imaginative stories when you write in a speculative genre, or I could say that you can play more “what if?” games if you get to invent your own worlds. But honestly, I write science fiction because it’s the language I was raised in.
Who were some of the writers that influenced you and whose works do you anticipate reading these days?
Growing up, I was a voracious reader of Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut, and Douglas Adams, all of whom taught me radically different lessons. In my 20s, I latched onto the works of Octavia Butler, who was a genius at writing emotionally difficult work in a sparse style. I certainly hope she’s been a major influence on my work. Nowadays, the novel-length writers I leap at are Lyda Morehouse, Christopher Moore, and Neil Gaiman -- again, three very different writers. I’d mention who I like to read in short fiction, but I have a lot of friends writing and publishing that length nowadays, and I don’t want anyone to feel slighted. Instead, I’ll just mention that I look forward to reading each issue of Helix and Apex Digest.
At what point did you decide to move on from writing fan fiction to writing original fiction? Do you still write fan fiction these days?
My 30th birthday was a real kick in the pants in so many ways. I’d always said that I wanted to write original fiction, but could never come up with decent story ideas. But when I turned 30, I decided that I was done playing in other people’s playgrounds and was going to start creating my own. So I stopped writing fan fiction, and lo and behold, my brain started coming up with viable original ideas. Apparently, I couldn’t do both. So no, I don’t write fan fiction anymore. I have nothing against it, but it’s not where I want to put my creativity at this point.
Are there any aspects of your experience in fan fiction writing that you carry to your current fiction?
It’s all about the characters. That’s why people read fan fiction—to read more stories about the characters that they love. And it’s just as true in original fiction. Only you have to convince the readers to love your characters first. That’s the tricky part.
How has the various workshops you’ve participated in helped you in your craft? How about conventions?
Viable Paradise was crucial to my development as a writer. When I applied, I’d only been trying to write my own stories for about a year, and didn’t have the best grounding in either the craft or business ends of the genre. VP definitely helped me out with that. Plus, there’s nothing like a one-on-one with Jim Kelly where he tells you not to cut the vomit from your story, no matter what any of the other critiquers say to you over the course of the week. It was incredibly validating to have someone like Jim Kelly give me permission to write ugly.
As for conventions, early in my career, it was incredibly helpful for me to attend every writing panel I could find. I’d nearly always come away with wonderful craft lessons and story ideas. Now, conventions are more useful for me for keeping in touch with writing friends and for making new ones. Plus, they can be a nice battery recharge. There’s nothing like being trapped in a hotel with hundreds of creative people! (It’s less fun when you’re trapped in a hotel with hundreds of creative people and a norovirus outbreak, which was my WisCon this year, alas.)
What’s the most challenging part of your career so far? The most rewarding?
The most challenging has probably been learning to cope with the slow pace of my career. I really thought I’d be further along by now. The most rewarding is probably that I’m in a place now where I can help other beginning writers. I’ve been a workshop pro at WisCon for a couple of years, and was an online mentor for the Speculative Literature Foundation for their pilot program. And I sometimes get questions emailed to me or posted to my LiveJournal that I’m happy to answer. This is how I’m paying back my writing mentors--by passing along their lessons.
You have various stories available online. What’s your opinion about online publishing and the various online ‘zines out there?
As wonderful as it is to hold a published work in your hands, it’s just so easy to point people to web-published stories. I haven’t reached a stage in my career where I’m making significant piles of money from my short fiction, so I judge markets by the amount of exposure they’ll give me. Online markets without toll gates are excellent for that. I wouldn’t have gotten onto the Nebula ballot if it weren’t for Helix and the easy publicity it afforded my work. Do I still submit stories to Asimov’s and F&SF? You bet. But when they send their inevitable rejections, I look to web markets next.
Considering your experience in radio theater, have you considered podcasting your own stories?
Honestly? No. I don’t want to buy the equipment and learn the software, and I don’t want to take creative time away from my writing and belly dancing. Plus, I’m just not a podcast person. If I had a long driving commute, then I could see myself getting into them. As it is, I either drive 10 minutes or walk 30 to get to work. 10 minutes of city driving doesn’t seem like sufficient podcast-listening time, and I don’t listen to anything when I walk other than the world around me. Walking is great thinking time. I work out a lot of story issues when I walk. I couldn’t do that if I was listening to someone else’s words.
What can you tell us about your short story collection, Unwelcome Bodies
I was stunned when Jason Sizemore from Apex asked me if I’d like to put out a collection. I didn’t think I was nearly far along enough in my career to merit one. Selecting the stories for it was an interesting process. I decided early on to stick with my serious stories, and I also decided to only include one of my Apex Digest stories because I figured the audience for the collection would be mostly Apex readers who would already have read them all. Jason also wanted some previously-unpublished work, so I included two stories that I’d tried on the big magazines, and one that I hadn’t submitted to anyone.
I’ve been pleased with the response. The collection seems to have attracted a wider audience than I’d anticipated, plus I’ve sold enough copies to put the publisher in the black, which is a nice feeling. I’ve had some successful readings and signings, gotten a little local press attention, and the book has been chosen for an online book club discussion in July. Not bad for a small press collection from a relatively unknown author whose biggest accomplishment to date is losing a Nebula!
What are you working on right now?
I’m currently working on completing a novel draft over the summer (this will be my third), and once that’s over, going back to writing a short story a month until the end of the year. The short story a month plan is new for 2008. Now that I’ve learned to write publishable stories slowly, I’m trying to see if I can’t teach myself to write them quickly instead.
JENNIFER PELLAND lives just outside Boston with an Andy and three cats. Her stories have appeared in publications such as Helix, Apex Digest, Strange Horizons, and Electric Velocipede, among others. Her short story Captive Girl was not only a 2007 Nebula nominee, but was on the 2007 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards short list. Unwelcome Bodies
For more info, see her website or read her blog.
CHARLES TAN is a speculative fiction fan from the Philippines. He has lots of online doppelgangers, including a Singaporean politician and a Filipino basketball player, but people should be warned that the “real” Charles Tan is a bibliophile who stalks his favorite authors. His blog, Bibliophile Stalker is updated with daily content including book reviews, interviews, and essays. He is also a contributor for SFF Audio.
Nancy Kress Interview
Nancy Kress has been nominated for the Nebula Award 11 times in various categories and won 4 times. She is the 2007 winner for her novella, Fountain of Age, published in Asimov's Magazine, July 2007. In 2007, Ms Kress was the only writer to receive nominations in two separate categories.
Tell us a little bit about Fountain of Age.
Fountain of Age is about human connection. Max Feder, in his late eighties and living in a nursing home in a future Brooklyn, decides that his last act will be to see once again the woman he has loved obsessively and unhappily for his entire life. She, Daria Cleary, has had as unexpected a life as he has. Max was a major cyber-criminal; Daria's brain grew a mutant tumor that medical science has developed into an "immortality drug." She is still 18. The story is Max's convoluted, quixotic, insane quest to see her one more time.
What was the original spark or idea for this story?
I always find this a hard question to answer. I wrote the first scene two years before I wrote the story; after that first scene, I ran out of invention. But Max stayed in my mind. Then, later, I had a lot of unused research on the Romani people that I'd intended to use in a novel that never got off the ground. So that research became the second spark.
Was there an underlying message or point you were trying to get across in the story?
I don't write stories to make a "point," but I guess you could say that this one centers on what matters in life: not so much getting something as wanting something. Without desire or hope, you're already dead.
Are there certain themes that tend to crop up in your writing? Or is every story completely different?
There probably are themes, yes, but they're very broad: the search for something to give meaning to life. The frustrations and rewards of love. How far people do, or do not, extend themselves for others.
Many of your stories have an element of genetic engineering. What draws you to this particular branch of science?
This IS the future, and not the distant future, either. When we think of "genetic engineering," we tend to think of "designer babies," and that's probably not going to happen in my lifetime. But gene therapy and crop engineering both have tremendous potential to change the human world for the better, and I believe they will.
Are there other types of stories that you are also drawn to?
I like any story, in any genre, that makes me think and feel, that offers interesting characters faced with human wants, especially if written in graceful prose. But I'll forego the prose if I can have the characters.
How much research do you usually have to do for a story?
It varies widely. If it's a hard science story, then quite a lot, because I have no real science background. If a story will contain some other element with which I'm also unfamiliar -- say, the Rom -- I also read books and/or download Internet articles. But for a story like Safeguard, in which the science is in the background and is mentioned only in very general terms, no research is necessary.
You began writing fantasy and then switched to science fiction. What inspired the change?
I don't know. I just felt I had written all the fantasy I wanted to, and that SF was next.
How does your writing process work?
I'm a morning person, and so a morning writer. When I'm working on something, I write from about 8:30 to noon or 1:00 every morning. Afternoons are for student manuscripts (I teach a lot), research, reading, and business stuff.
Who were the biggest influences for you in developing your craft?
Probably the stories of Ursula LeGuin. I read them over and over, trying to see how she DID that. I would still like to know.
You mention in your biography that you started writing while you were pregnant with your second son. What turned you on to writing? Did your children influence your desire to write?
My children are the reason I started to write. I was pregnant with Brian, Kevin was a toddler, I lived way out in the country and had no car -- I was going crazy. I wrote when Kevin napped just to have something creative to do. I never envisioned writing as a career. It's odd the places that life can take you.
Before you became a full-time writer, how were you able to balance your writing career, working a “day job” and raising a family?
I was fortunate in that my "day jobs" were never of the eight-hours-at-the-office variety. I taught college, which involves a varied schedule, and then I wrote PR for an ad agency, working half-time and often from home. That gave me flexibility to put the writing first, the bill-paying tasks second.
What were your first thoughts when you found out two of your stories were nominated for Nebulas?
I was surprised. This was especially true since I had four different stories selected for Best-of-the-Year anthologies last year -- and none of them was either Fountain of Age or my other nominee, Safeguard.
Did you have any idea which of the two stories might win?
No. I never can call what will win awards, mine or anyone else's.
What were the most memorable moments for you during the Nebula Award weekend?
On Friday night, I was in a dinner group that included Connie Willis, Joe and Gay Haldeman, Jack Skillingstead, Mike and Margie Flynn, Cynthia Felice, Sheila Williams, and Russell Davis. We were in a restaurant in the Omni hotel, which was built around a fifteen-story-high atrium with room blocks on three sides and a wall of glass on the fourth. During dinner, Austin had a huge storm: lightning, crashing thunder, rain beating against all that towering glass. It was impressive and exciting. And then silhouettes of cars on the street became reflected, ghostly, in the wet glass, gliding silently past four stories above the ground. That and winning, of course.
This is your fourth Nebula Award, and you’ve been nominated several times. Does the experience change after winning or being nominated so many times?
Yes, I have to say it does. Although of course I'm glad to win, each award means a little less than the ones before. I think this is partly a matter of age. As one gets older, the outside accolades matter less and the internal quality of the stories themselves matters more.
What kind of mark do you hope to leave on the genre?
That's not for me to decide. And any guess I made would probably be wrong, anyway. In my experience, writers are seldom accurate judges of their own work.
If you could give new writers one piece of advice, what would it be?
Write. A lot. And then write some more. So often I see talented students who simply do not put in enough time at the keyboard to turn that talent into stories.
What do you have in the hopper for your next project?
I'm currently writing another novella. Novellas are my favorite form. But this one is as yet only five or six thousand words along, so I don't know yet how it will turn out. Or if it will. Since I don't plot stories ahead of time, their progress is a matter of great suspense -- especially to me. I write to find out what I'm going to say.
For more than three decades, NANCY KRESS has entertained readers with science fiction/fantasy stories that balance vivid characters, complex relationships and imaginative worlds with cutting edge science and technology. She is the author of two books on writing, was the "Fiction" columnist for Writer’s Digest for 16 years and teaches at writing workshops and conferences. Kress's short story collection, Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories (Golden Gryphon Press) released in May. Her bio-thriller novel, Dog (Tachyon) is due to hit bookstores in July followed by her SF novel Steal Across the Sky in December.
She is the 2007 winner of the Nebula for Best Novella, with her story Fountain of Age. (Asimov’s, July 2007).
For more information, see her website or read her blog.
By day, JEN WEST runs the corporate rat race working in women’s wear design and merchandising for an upscale clothing manufacturer. By night she's a mild-mannered freelance writer in constant search for the next interesting character or story.
Her interviews have appeared in such venues as Shimmer and Fairwood Press's interview collection, Human Visions. She has degrees in Journalism and French from the University of Oregon, and remembers fondly the pressure of meeting deadlines at the Oregon Daily Emerald as a staff writer. She currently resides with her writer husband, Ken Scholes, two pudgy cats and a box garden in St. Helens, OR. Drop her a note at .
