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.
