If you write short stories, consider writing for anthologies. I know a great how-to book to get you started.
Perhaps you’d like to write fiction, but don’t know where to start or what to write about. Or maybe you’ve been writing what you want and can’t sell it, and now you’re wondering what you could write and sell.
Anthologies might be your answer. That market puts out numerous and constant calls for submissions. Anthology editors beg for your short stories and give you a prompt—a subject to write about. No wonder so many authors get their start writing for anthologies. It worked for me.
But the antho market offers no guarantees. After writing and getting rejected, you might become discouraged.
Kelly and Vonnie take you through all the steps including finding anthology markets, coming up with story ideas, submitting your story, dealing with rejections, understanding contracts, dealing with editors, and more. They also include appendices with helpful sample query letters and cover letters.
You may undergo an interesting transformation as you read the book. Bit by bit, you’ll find yourself thinking less like a part-time scribbler or writing hobbyist, and more like a professional author. That attitude shift will serve you well.
Even if you’re more experienced, with several stories already published in anthologies, this book will help you, too. It provides guidance on how to gather all your stories and publish them as collections. In addition, you’ll learn about opportunities to move beyond writing into editing the works of others.
I’m honored to have contributed the foreword for this book. It’s a valuable resource written by experts in every facet of anthologies. As I mentioned in the foreword, ‘This book does about everything except write and submit your story for you.’ But you’ll find those two tasks much easier after you’ve read How to Write for Anthologies.
If only the book had existed early in the story-writing career of—
Janice Rider (she/her) has always loved the natural world and resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, close to the Rocky Mountains. She has a BSc in Zoology with a minor in English Literature and a BEd degree. Springs and summers following university course work were spent at the Calgary Zoo where she helped look after many different animals. A trip to Africa was a highlight for Janice; there, she was able to observe wild animals hunt and play. Janice directs The Chameleon Drama Club for children and youth. Three of her plays for youth were published through Eldridge Plays and Musicals. As well, a nonfiction piece of hers on snakes was published in Honeyguide Literary Magazine. Three of Janice’s short stories are published in anthologies – Beware the Bugs! by Word Balloon Books; the North American Jules Verne Society’s Extraordinary Visions; and Speculation Publications’ Beach Shorts. Currently, Janice is involved in a two-year international mindfulness meditation program for teachers. She sees mindfulness as a way of coming into harmony with the natural world.
Let’s get to the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Janice Rider: I started writing when I was about fourteen years old. I loved to read and writing seemed a natural outlet for my love of words. As well, my dad liked to journal and wrote poetry and short stories for fun. He and my mom encouraged my interest in writing. When I was in grade eight, I received the gift of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings for my creative writing, which was an added incentive to keep doing what I loved.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
J.R.: I have enjoyed so many different authors, but when I was in elementary school any books to do with horses interested me, books like Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty and Glenn Balch’s Tiger Roan. As well, I appreciated the playfulness of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, as well as A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. In my teens I particularly loved the books written by Charles Dickens, Richard Adams’ Watership Down, Jane Austen’s novels and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.
Currently, some of my favorite books are TJ Klune’s Under the Whispering Door, Thomas King’s short stories, Alexander McCall Smith’s The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency series, Neil Gaiman’s short stories, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens, Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code and Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. One book I found horrifying but utterly impossible to put down was Grady Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I like novelty in short stories and novels and admire authors whose characters are unexpected. When reading I also look for the ability of an author to touch the heart and bring compassionate characters to life without slipping into sentimentality. Clever humor is always welcome.
P.S.: How do animals figure into the stories you write?
J.R.: My stories almost always relate to the natural world and animals in some way or other. My background is in zoology, conservation and education, so I have a strong desire to pass on my fascination with the living world around us. Animals may be central to a story’s outcome, as in a story I am working on about a young girl and her sister who learn that bulls can be dangerous. They may be part of a human character’s make-up, as in a short story I’m hoping to get published about Medusa. In some cases, the animals in my stories form close bonds with humans, even if they are creatures like hornets as is the case in another story I’m in the process of writing.
P.S.: What are the easiest and most difficult aspects of writing for you?
J.R.: That’s a tricky question. Sometimes, my stories seem to write themselves; at other times, I have to keep revisiting them while working on other things. I feel that the best way to progress is to make time for writing on a regular basis, which can be challenging for me as I am juggling a number of interests in my life. When stuck, I will turn to a few pages of a well-loved author just for inspiration. I also notice that, for me, it is easy to begin a story, and I have lots of ideas; however, unraveling the ideas into full stories is a process and often requires rewriting.
P.S.: Your short story, “Shark Out of Water,” appears in the anthology Beach Shorts. Tell us about that story.
“Shark Out of Water” was originally written for the drama club I direct for children and youth. The young people involved in the production had such a lot of fun with it! When Speculation Publications advertised for submissions on the theme of romance reading for the beach, it seemed like a great fit. The story is based on the Hawaiian myth, “The King of Sharks.” A young woman, Fabia, becomes smitten with a new face on the beach. This man is so very different from anyone she has ever known, but is he all he seems or will he take an unexpected bite out of her life? You’ll have to read the story to find out!
P.S.: I understand that you’ve been practicing Spring Forest Qigong for over a decade. What is that, and how has it helped you?
J.R.: Spring Forest Qigong, like Tai Chi, is one form of qigong. There are literally thousands of different forms of qigong practice. Qigong can be practiced as a martial art form, as an academic discipline, or as a way of maintaining or improving health. Spring Forest Qigong is aimed at bettering health. I find it meditative and calming. I have been leading this practice for a long time and feel that it helps me to be more focused and centered.
P.S.: The anthology Beware the Bugs!includes your story “Marvin’s Millipede.” What is the problem or conflict to be faced by the protagonist of this tale?
J.R.: Oh, I had such a lot of fun writing this story! It just flowed and gave me such pleasure! The story is about a boy, Marvin, who has a love of arthropods – the creatures with jointed legs, segmented bodies, and an exoskeleton. His favorite arthropod is the millipede, you know, the critter with the multitude of legs for walking on, the one you see cartoon pictures of with piles of shoes on its many feet. When he and his two friends, Lucy and Sophia, find an American giant millipede a little over three inches long, they decide to conduct an experiment to see if they can make the millipede, dubbed Maverick Miles Maddox or MMM, bigger. Does their experiment work? Yes, it does! MMM becomes very large indeed, gigantic in fact! Marvin and his friends must now decide what to do about MMM.
P.S.: You’ve written three plays that were published. Each appears to take inspiration from earlier works, but gives these works a twist. Please tell us a little about all three and tell us the twist in one of them.
J.R.: I’ve written far more plays than I’ve published, and it was satisfying to have a few published.
“Aladdin and His Sister,” is about a spoiled Aladdin who is fortunate enough to have a resourceful, courageous, and compassionate sister, Maliha, to help him manage his affairs. Two genies feature in the play.
“Cyrano and Roxanne” is based on Edmond Rostand’s play, “Cyrano de Bergerac.” In my take on the story, I provide Roxanne with three bosom friends, Chrystele, Danielle and Brigitte, who help to see that this time round there will be a happy ending for Cyrano and the woman he loves.
“When Science Bites Back” is really two plays that are part of one production. Both plays are science fiction, which is not an easy sell for the stage, and based on stories by H.G. Wells works with a touch of Alexandre Dumas’ novel, The Black Tulip, worked into the second story. In “Bacterial Broadside,” villains steal an experimental sample from the famous bacteriologist, Professor Parvulus. Will the world ever be the same again? In “Orchid Obsession,” rival botanists compete for first prize at the Exotic Blooms From Bulbs Competition. When one of the botanists receives a bulb under unusual circumstances, will the bulb bloom into something bloodthirsty?
P.S.: The Extraordinary Visions anthology includes “Want of Air,” a story of yours with no animals. What inspired you to write it?
J.R.: “Want of Air” does not have animals in it, but in the story, Jordan’s mother, Karen, is working to protect a marine offshore area, and his father was an oceanographer. Jordan is clearly fond of living creatures as his bedroom is hung with photographs and illustrations of numerous sea creatures.
The inspiration for the story was my oldest son, Nathan, who began reading a shortened version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas in grade four. Like Jordan, he became so involved in the book that he was identifying with the characters and their distress. He became anxious about the amount of air in our home. It was a cold winter day, and Nathan wanted the window open. For the story, I imagined what might have happened had Nathan opened the window on that bitter day. Thankfully, Nathan still has his dad in his life as my husband is very much alive.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress?
J.R.: I am currently working on more than one story. One of them is a science fiction tale about an elderly patient who has a robotic lion to help him manage his senior years. The patient’s son has tampered with the inner workings of his robotic pet who begins to engage in decidedly realistic lion behavior. The story is inspired by my dad’s current struggles and my work at the Calgary Zoo with lions.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What is your advice for aspiring fiction writers?
Janice Rider: Enjoy the writing process, connect with other writers, and carve out time to write, preferably each day. If I am writing something, and it ceases to be enjoyable, I step into another story and come back to the one I am struggling with later. I have a friend, Heather MacIntosh, who has also published short stories. Talking together and sharing our thoughts and tales has really inspired me to keep writing. When I write regularly, I feel content at the end of the day. It seems to me that writing, like qigong, is therapeutic.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you, Janice. It’s good that you enjoy writing. I fear if I wrote about snakes, millipedes, and sharks, I’d be creeped out, not calm.
Readers can find out more about Janice on LinkedIn.
Some authors (like me) strike out at the plate for years before achieving their first sale. Others hit it out of the park on their first time at bat. Today you’ll meet one of the latter types, and a story by this author appears in the anthology The Science Fiction Tarot.
Marco Cultrera writes science fiction and is enjoying a fine start to his writing career. He sold his first story to The Arcanist magazine at pro rates, a rare accomplishment. He’s had other works published by Hybrid Fiction magazine, Polaris Borealis magazine, Total Quality Reading magazine, and The Science Fiction Tarot anthology. Another story is set to appear in the anthology Novus Monstrum. Since 2018, he’s served on the staff of Can*Con, the SFF convention in Ottawa.
Born and raised in Italy, he now lives in Ottawa where he’s found his theoretical physics degree to be more useful in his writing than in his day job.
Next up, the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Marco Cultrera: I’ve always been a voracious reader, from a very early age. I always thought that one day I may write, but I wasn’t in a hurry to start. There were so many wonderful books to read, I didn’t have the time to write my own. Eventually, in high school, I got into RPG games and that medium gave me the impetus to start creating adventures for my friends to play. From there, the switch to speculative writing was only natural. In my mid-twenties, I began writing in Italian a bit, just to test the water. But then life got in the way, I got married, moved to Canada, began working in videogames, where I started writing exclusively in English, and then kids began to pop-up. It was then, in the early two thousands, during the long nights half-awake between one feeding and another, that the plot of my first book coalesced in my mind, inspired by… Oh wait, I was getting ahead of myself, on to the next question.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
M.C.: The author I almost mentioned above was Steven Erikson. I got sucked in into his Malazan Cycle, to this day the best fantasy I’ve ever read, and probably ever will, and it got my creativity going. I wanted to create something similar, but also give it my own personal stamp. And so my first novel was born, a 200K-word mammoth that will probably never be published, but helped me immensely in improving my craft. I also rediscovered Science Fiction in that period, after having read all the classics in my youth (Asimov and Clarke above all, but also Jack Vance and Philip Jose’ Farmer), and I was blown away by the way the genre had evolved. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie blew me away, also I love how Andy Weir is able to insert rigorous science in all his books while keeping them extremely entertaining. I found his Project Hail Mary unputdownable. So naturally, my second novel – the one I’m sending to agents now – is a near future sci-fi story with technological and environmental themes. In general, I try to read broadly, including Literary fiction (The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell remains one of my all-time favorite), crime novels (I love all Harry Hole books by Jo Nesbo) and I also go back the classics (reread recently The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse, what a fantastic book).
P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?
M.C.: I would say no, I’ve written any kind of speculative fiction, from introspective reflections of the human condition and how it constantly changes confronted by technology, to action packed sword and sorcery. I really enjoy jumping from one genre to another, and the opportunity to explore the very different characters that creative freedom allows. At the end of the day, I live and die by the ideas I can come up. If one takes root in my brain, I just need to write it, no matter how wacky or out there it is.
P.S.: Tell us about “Malapropic Rhapsody.” Is it true you sold your first story at pro rates, and the editor accepted as is, with no revisions?
M.C.: Yes, it was quite shocking, to be honest, and it may have set some unrealistic expectation of the rate of publication of my short stories after that. I wrote that story on a whim, as part of a monthly competition in a private forum I was part of. Surprisingly, it won. Riding that enthusiasm, I looked up what were the best Flash Fiction magazines on the net, and I found The Arcanist. I submitted it, and I was delighted to hear a few weeks later that they loved it and wanted to publish it, with no editorial changes whatsoever. Payment was $50, which divided for the number of words, it came to about 8¢ a word, that at the time was considered pro payment. So I started writing more stories and submitting them everywhere, and naturally, shortly after, an endless train of rejections began to appear in my inbox…
M.C.: I have always been fascinated by how human consciousness may have arisen, and what evolutionary advantages have brought the Homo sapiens sapiens to become the dominant species on Earth. One day I was driving home, and passed by a church while ruminating on that, and I thought, “What if we knew that there was an afterlife? How would that have affected our evolution?” I decided that it would have hindered it, as surviving at all costs wouldn’t be as imperative if our ancestors knew that there was a new life after death. The next thing I knew, I had written 10K words about an evil corporation trying to find out if there was any truth about that.
P.S.: You’re a big part of the Ottawa-based SF&F writing convention Can*Con. Tell us about Can*Con, your role in that annual event, and how you started doing that.
M.C.: I discovered Can*Con in 2017, when I found out that my favorite fantasy author, the Steven Erikson mentioned above, was going to be the Writer Guest of Honor. I bought a full ticket and was blown away. In just a few days, I had met and talked with Steven and a ton of more established authors. I also got to pitch my novel to the editor of Daw and talked to a New York based agent! I learned more in that weekend at the con, than in the previous ten years trying to figure out the industry by myself. It was clear in my mind that I needed to be part of Can*Con moving forward, so I approached Derek Kunsken, one of the two co-chairs, and told him straight out that I wanted to help. He referred me to the other co-chair, the excellent Marie Bilodeau, and it turned out they needed someone to take over their website. I had all the knowledge necessary from my day job, so I accepted. Since then, I’ve made a ton of writer friends and become part of Ottawa’s writing community, that include some legends in the field, like Julie Czerneda, and Kate Heartfield, who is rapidly raising to a well-deserved stardom (her latest novel, The Embroidered Book, is just phenomenal. But don’t take my word for it. Come to Ottawa on the third weekend of October, you won’t regret it.
P.S.: Your story in The Science Fiction Tarot, “Support Group: Apocalypse,” earned a tarot card labeled ‘Apocalypse.” What is the premise of this story?
M.C.: Parallel Earths have become all the rage recently, but I swear I wrote this story before a certain entertainment corporation had to come up with something else after having dispatched a certain blue titan. What if victims of different apocalypses in parallel but equally doomed Earths could come together every week to a support group run by a licensed therapist? Would they be there for each other? Argue about who has it worst? Go read the story to find out…
P.S.: What are the hardest and easiest aspects of writing for you?
M.C.: Hardest one is finding the time to do it. I have a full-time job that keeps me quite occupied and a very busy household, with three daughters and four cats, so stealing time to write is a challenge. The easiest thing is coming up with ideas. I have always more concepts in my head than I will ever be able to actually write, so whenever I sit, I have no problem putting words on the page.
P.S.: In what way is your fiction different from that of other science fiction authors?
M.C.: I guess what I really like to do is come up with new ideas, or at least a new take on old ones so out there that they are hardly recognizable. Yes, characters are very important, and I work hard to make mine likeable or whatever shade of humanity they are meant to be, but my stories are invariably plot driven. Don’t get me wrong, I read a lot of character-centric fiction, and enjoy it a lot, but when it comes to my own writing I always start from an idea (or a set of ideas) that I have not seen anywhere before, and build a cast of characters around it to support it.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
M.C.: I always have at least a short story and a longer project in various states of completion. The story right now is about how something like ChatGPT can be turned on its head in the right dystopian society. The novel is about an asteroid about to hit Earth. Wait a minute? I can hear you thinking. What happened to an original idea? I can’t think of a more used trope in the history of Science Fiction. Yes, but what if the impact is 18 years away, and the first ever woman to have become Secretary General of the United Nations is determined to save every single human and not just a small colony? And what if the progress of the salvation effort is monitored through a webspace in the holoweb, created and updated in real time by a group of people scattered all over the world that share visions of Earth’s last moments? Not enough? What if the first trillionaire private citizen is building a lunar base to become the only savior of humanity? Not enough? Well, then I can’t do anything for you. Just go back to watch Armageddon or Deep Impact again, patting yourself on the back that you were right all along…
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Marco Cultrera: This question made me chuckle a bit, as I still consider myself an aspiring writer. I would say my advice is to find like-minded individuals. Writing seems like a solitary endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be. Join a writing group, online or in person, look for writing events in your city, go to book launches and talk to the authors. In my experience, the writing community is wonderfully inclusive, and everybody is always ready to cheer you on in your journey. Since I joined the Can*Con team, I made a ton of friends, and my enjoyment in the slow process of becoming an established writer has multiplied tenfold.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, Marco. My readers and I will watch your career with interest. Your early success seems well deserved.
Readers interested in following Marco Cultrera will have to do occasional internet searches for now. He’s spending his sparse free time writing fiction, not posting on social media or updating an author website.
For today’s author interview, I flew to Australia and sat down with… No, actually, I did this one all by email. Mike Adamson has separate stories in both 20,000 Leagues Remembered and in Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne.
Mike Adamson holds a Doctoral degree from Flinders University of South Australia. After early aspirations in art and writing, Mike secured qualifications in both marine biology and archaeology. Mike was a university educator from 2006 to 2018, has worked in the replication of convincing ancient fossils, is a passionate photographer, master-level hobbyist, and journalist for international magazines. Short fiction sales include to Metastellar, Strand Magazine, Little Blue Marble, Abyss and Apex, Daily Science Fiction, Compelling Science Fiction and Nature Futures. Mike has placed stories on well over two hundred occasions to date, totaling some 1.1 million words. Mike has completed his first Sherlock Holmes novel with Belanger Books, and has appeared in translation in European magazines. You can catch up with his journey at his blog ‘The View From the Keyboard.’
Here’s the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Mike Adamson: I think I must have been a latent storyteller from a very young age. I would cite exposure to classic Star Trek and of course the many worlds of British TV producer Gerry Anderson as strong inspirations, as was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, my favorite story at age 5. It was also the classic Space Race era, those of my age grew up with the fact that space had become accessible, and this spurred many a reverie for inquiring minds. I remember being in school around age 5 or 6 and being given the exercise of drawing a picture and writing a caption, and what I produced was two pages of writing with a small drawing at the bottom of each—about a voyage to the Moon as I recall. I remember my teachers being in deep discussion over it! Then, not many years later, I would look at a blank writing pad and experience an almost indescribable urge to fill those lines with text, to create something wonderful, to tell a great story but also invent something, a world, a time that doesn’t exist, in the process. I must have been born for speculative writing!
As a kid I worked on a series of adventures about space travelers who fell through a time warp into an age of cavemen and dinosaurs, then tried a couple of more ambitious projects about space exploration and the colonization of the Moon. Around age twelve I learned to type and hammered away at an epic, if somewhat naive, science fiction novel, without actually completing it. I finished my first original science fiction novel at age sixteen: having digested the works of E E Smith and reveled in the early Star Wars and Galactica era, there was no surprise in it being space opera on a grand scale. In my teens I wrote rafts of fan fiction, which was a good exercise in learning to produce feature-length texts.
P.S.: Very exciting that your novel, Sherlock Holmes: A Tradition of Evil, will be coming out later this year. The video trailer is captivating. Tell us about the novel.
M.A.: I’ve been writing Sherlock Holmes short stories since 2019 and have had excellent success in placing them, so for my debut novel I wanted to do something on a big scale—real stakes for the characters and for society in general. I also wanted to explore Holmes earlier in his career than we usually encounter him, allowing the story to be foundational to the awe in which he is held in later years. I set the piece in the December of 1885, early enough for many Police to still regard him as a meddling amateur, which provides for some interesting frictions.
The story concerns government and law enforcement itself, and I needed the character of Mycroft to make the logic work. The story introducing Mycroft, “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter,” is one of those which contains no date reference, but, luckily, some scholars place the story as early as 1885, and I chose to run with this. I have the full line-up of supporting characters—Inspectors Lestrade, Gregson and Bradtsreet, Mrs Hudson, Wiggins and the Irregulars, plus genuine historic figures, such as the Home Secretary, and the Commissioners of the City and Metropolitan Police Forces.
I wanted to draw the reader into the case at a very visceral level, so after gathering the threads together in the traditional way, I opted for a blow-by-blow account of the closing drama, a night of tension and action as Holmes and Watson pursue their man across the city. I’m hoping readers appreciate this approach and find the finale to be real edge-of-the-seat stuff.
Recently I was invited to work up a second novel, and am perusing my notes for the best storyline for a further outing.
P.S.: Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, that novel’s not your only story involving the iconic sleuth. What others have you had published, and how does your Holmes deviate, if at all, from Doyle’s original characterization?
M.A.: As I mentioned above, I’ve been writing Sherlock Holmes for the last four years, and currently have some twenty-two stories complete, around 220,000 words worth (with notes for a great many more). I began with a cross-over between Holmes and my own Victorian detective character, Inspector George Trevelyan (created in collaboration with my sister, Jen Downes, a very fine writer who has twice appeared in Analog, and with whom I’ll be sharing a table of contents next year in Sunshine Superhighway: Solar Sailings, from Jay Henge Publishing).
The Trevelyan stories are classic mystery with a supernatural edge, which contrasts with the Holmesian canon in which the supernatural is more or less “handled with tongs.” Having already completed a couple of Trevelyan adventures, I eased into Holmes by presenting him with a case that would not resolve without acknowledging a supernatural element, which he of course cannot do. He consults with Trevelyan to get to the bottom of it.
This piece, “The Misadventure of the Perspicacious Waif,” was accepted for Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine by the late Marvin Nathan Kaye in 2019, then switched to Weird Tales, from the same publishing stable, as he felt the readers of SHMM would not appreciate a piece which deviated from canon in recognizing a supernatural reality. That was fine with me, as it got me a berth in that grand old magazine of the strange! Unfortunately, after Marvin passed away, I’ve not been able to establish contact with the new editor, and the piece is in limbo—recorded by me as a pro-level placement but out there in some realm between the worlds. The stated theme for the next issue of Weird Tales is occult detectives, so I should have a fair shot, given that the story both fits the theme and has already been tacitly picked up. All I can do is watch like a hawk for the magazine reopening to submissions (which, on their random schedule, could be anytime) and re-pitch the piece to the new editor. Fingers crossed…
Since then I’ve written new adventures for the great detective across the period 1881 to (so far) 1916, with only a handful of unpublished pieces in hand at any one time. They’ve appeared in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine (two acceptances, neither of which has appeared in print yet), Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (Sherlock Holmes tribute issue Jan/Feb 2021), Strand Magazine (two placements, both now published, the second of which was actually solicited) and a total to date of eleven anthologies from Belanger Books. I’m enjoying being a Holmesian very much, am continuing to write and to expand my publishing venues.
My Holmes is essentially canonical, though some might say they find him less caustic than the original. However, I group my material in ways that agree or disagree with Doyle’s approach—for instance, I probably have an anthology coming along in the next year or two, which will consist of purely canonical tales, but a later volume might collect those with supernatural or otherwise strange themes, under the title “The Dark Holmes.”
All my stories follow a chronology which compliments the original canon, filling in the spaces between the classic stories (an approach I’m sure many have followed previously), so, regardless of the nature or classification of the tales, they can be read in order from the earliest to the last, with the novel(s) forming part of that collective arc.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
M.A.: It’s difficult to say! My early influences included Clarke, Asimov, E E Smith and Heinlein, and in the fantasy vein Robert E Howard was the fascination of my youth, plus of course Burroughs. Later on I discovered Clarke Ashton Smith’s classic tales of cosmic horror, and finally devoured H P Lovecraft’s complete works. I read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon several years ago, of course, and have long enjoyed Jules Verne and H G Wells. Being a classics fan is an obvious benefit for writing in the public domain franchises, but leaves one rather out of touch with where the fields are at this point. (This also goes for writing “voice,” as there are times I find myself automatically composing in 19th Century expression, and have to wrench narratives back into contemporary “sound!”)
Among moderns, I would say Greg Bear has been a distinct influence—Eon in particular, whose imagery and concepts remain vivid to me. I would also cite the great Australian science fiction author Terry Dowling, whose saga of future Australia, the massive “Rhynosseros” arc, made a huge and lasting impression on me when I read the stories in paperback many years ago. His world-building still leaves me breathless, and the range and depth of his stories is epic. The late Jack Vance, a personal friend of Terry Dowling, is another whose world-building is legendary, and (as with Clarke Ashton Smith’s writing) lets one submerge in a cocoon of sensory stimulus that, I feel, modern stripped-to-the-bone writing hands away in the name of pace. Frankly, to me this is an unfortunate bargain in the name of attention-spans truncated by the speed of modern information access. No wonder I’m often accused of being heavy on the exposition…
From an early age I also considered myself an artist, so it’s natural that artistic influences should have impressed themselves strongly. Some artists shaped my view of both science fiction and fantasy from a young age: Chris Foss, the “Dean of Science Fiction Illustration” as he has been called, whose signature airbrush art remains the gold standard, tops the list for me, plus others from the British industry from the ’70s onward—the late Peter Elson, Angus McKie, Tim White and more. The great Bruce Pennington, whose distinctive non-airbrush style was like a signature for the New English Library range of the ’70s—I find his work strongly evocative and suggestive of story elements to this day. In the fantasy field, the late, great Frank Frazetta is the leading influence, along with Boris & Bell. Also past comics greats have played their part in shaping the color, texture and scope of my visualizations—Mike Noble, John Buscema, Don Lawrence, and so many others.
M.A.: Deakin Valley is a railway ghost story set in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. Railways have an undying appeal all their own, but in the country where they were invented they also have the longest history. Britain’s rail map has changed often, with many old lines disappearing. Much of Britain’s railway engineering and architecture, its bridges and stations, is of Victorian vintage and it can be rather creepy when you encounter infrastructure long out of use. On the domestic rail network in my home town of Adelaide, South Australia, there are such features—disused stations, boarded-up tunnels, dismantled bridges—and observing those from passing trains got me thinking. A torn-up spur-line might once have led somewhere important, perhaps with a secret, something dark… And the story flowed from there.
I matched up a commercial photojournalist with a disaster a hundred years ago and gave him a mystery to chase, then threw in magic and a deep sense of existential dread that might reasonably dwell in a land so ancient, redolent with the fury and suffering of battles long gone by. I focused it all in a fatal attraction to solve the mystery—learn the truth, but die in the attempt? It was a lot of fun to write, and I have a second outing for the same characters in notes.
P.S.: Is it true you’ve made over 3000 story submissions in 88 months? On average, that’s more than a submission each day. Tell us about the importance of such persistence in the journey to publication, and about how you manage to write and submit so much.
M.A.: Persistence is everything! Well, not everything of course, it assumes you’ve mastered your craft and are submitting good ideas, well-written and edited. But when it comes to marketing, persistence, and a sense of self worth, are paramount. In the early days I took feedback from editors as an important guideline, but it occurred to me that it would be impossible to accommodate every opinion received in terms of reworking. When the same story was rejected by two different markets for precisely opposite reasons it became clear that editorial opinion is entirely flexible and random, and that rewriting to accommodate any one opinion may in fact be installing the very reason for the next rejection. This is not an easy situation, and now I look for commonality of reaction. If I get the same reaction from more than one market then it carries weight and is worth a rewrite. Otherwise, I simply persist in submission in the belief that sooner or later any particular story will cross the desks of first readers and editors who see my point and appreciate my telling, and this seems to hold true quite often. An early story one market considered unpublishable was later picked up by an another and printed with bare-minimum edits, which rather makes my case.
Yes, I recently passed three thousand submissions since I began to keep records at the beginning of 2016. I had four placements in the previous few years which convinced me that I could do this, and a few test submissions late in 2015 to get the hang of online engines like Moksha, but they don’t feature in my official list. My record for submissions is ten in one day, and for rejections, six. It’s a high-volume situation and is essentially a seven-day-a-week job, in which I check emails four times a day, and do most of my redirection of rejections each morning. Writing falls usually in the afternoon, though if I have the bit in my teeth on a new project I may do some composition at any available time.
Ideas flow at different rates, and my total number of new stories per year has been falling. In 2017 I churned out 62 pieces, a figure I have never approached since. I tend to write to prompts now, and could as easily be working on a flash as a novelette. I have sometimes written two flash pieces in one day. I have files of story ideas going back years and when I’m at a loss for an inspiration I look back over notes to see if anything grabs me. It’s a little mechanistic in that sense, but one must treat writing as a job, and producing new material is very important, given the generally low pay rates for reprints. That said, I have had a reprint or two which actually earned more than the original placement, so go figure!
P.S.: You’ve written a number of stories in a series you call Tales of the Middle Stars. What ties that series together? Which stories are published, and what are your plans for the series?
M.A.: Tales of the Middle Stars is an arc against a common background of the exploration and settlement of the stellar neighborhood in the centuries ahead. It describes a period of human colonial expansion and peaceful coexistence with several alien races. The basic idea postulates that current work on FTL flight by spacial warping pays off and that by the early 23rd Century our first vessels of exploration are examining the nearby stars. The discovery of planets requiring only minimal terraforming spurs a wave of colonization that extends into the 26th Century and beyond. The “Near Heavens” was the navigator’s name for the region closest to Earth, settled first, and the “Middle Stars” is the next region, beyond which of course lies the “Deep Sky.” I got the nomenclature from a starmap used as an on-set prop for the original Alien movie in the late Seventies, which was titled “The Middle Heavens.” That always stuck in my mind, and adapted easily.
The first story I placed, back in 2016, “Lo, These Many Gods,” in SQ Mag #28, was a Middle Stars piece, and since then I have completed fifty-five more, with thirty-nine published to date. My chapbook The Salamandrion, in the “Short Reads” series from Black Hare Press, is also a Middle Stars outing—actually the third story I wrote. Others have appeared in venues as varied as Andromeda Spaceways (twice), Stupefying Stories (forthcoming), Spring Into SciFi, Shelter of Daylight, Etherea, Phantaxis, and a host of anthologies.
The series begins early in the 23rd Century, when, in my timeline, Earth has turned the corner from absolute climate catastrophe and has been resettled from a chain of space cities. Most of the 22nd Century was occupied with global terraforming measures to turn back from that nadir, but during this time the FTL project matured on drawing boards out at the cities. The era of stellar exploration ushered in a whole new identity for humankind as not simply spacefarers, but members of a community of races, and all that that implies.
I have, or will have, stories ranging from those early voyages over a period of some three hundred years, with the densest accumulation to date ranging between AD 2480 or so to 2510. Between 2496 and 2501 humanity is embroiled in its first alien war, whose effects are felt over the following generations. And in the decade after that, a new and terrifying presence begins to be sensed among the worlds of the Middle Stars…
I would estimate there are a couple of dozen stories to go to fill in the chronology, sometimes revisiting characters, often moving among familiar worlds, and there will always be the opportunity for new outings in future. My hope is to collect the stories into anthologies with a publisher at some point, but what form that would take is as yet an open question. There are likely enough stories for four or five volumes, and the intention is to move into novels in due course, beginning with an epic answering the question of that “terrifying presence.” It’s a matter of finding the right publisher to take on such a project, and do it justice—this might be a project to undertake in cooperation with an agent. Until then, I’ll continue to produce the material for the short story market.
P.S.: A few of your stories involve climate change and take place in a post-habitable Earth. Tell us about these stories, and do you plan to write more in that vein?
M.A.: The climate crisis has been at the back of the scientific mind since I was a child—acid rain had already signaled that industry could affect nature, for instance. I remember a story in Science Fiction Monthly, in 1974, “Dancing in the Hour of Not-Quite-Rain,” in which people sheltered from acid rain in bunkers, and, finding they were over the maximum safe occupancy, threw out an old man, to burn, because it was his generation that allowed industry to break the world… Fifty years later, the problems are more fundamental, and industrial bloody-mindedness and a lack of political will smacking of universal corruption continue to drive us toward catastrophe.
This came to shape my thinking about the next centuries, and what unfolded was a narrative line which always featured the climate crisis in the background, regardless of the foreground characters or events. The remainder of the 21st Century, in this timeline, features worsening climate effects until, about 80 years from now, the planet becomes untenable for higher life forms. I pray this will never happen—but it makes for a good story! The “Post-Habitable Earth” tales occupy the 22nd Century and follow a number of scientists in their efforts to address the crisis, working from a chain of space cities at the L5 position, built in the later part of the current century by industrialists seeking a lifeboat from their own mess.
A number of stories look at what life has become for those left behind in underground redoubts and habitat cities (for instance “Rats,” which appeared in Andromeda Spaceways #76, October, 2019), how some genetically engineered themselves to live in the new environment, while other pieces look at the great project to restore the old climate, to cool the planet and reseed life, rebuilding the ecosystem from the ground up. “Flight of the Storm God” looks at that reseeding enterprise, and appeared in the Flame Tree collection Endless Apocalypse (March, 2018), then subsequently on the Little Blue Marble website, and was featured in their 2021 annual print collection.
The initiative turns the clock back to a planet cool enough and with enough oxygen to support higher life by the last decades of the 22nd Century—maybe too compressed a timeline, I admit, but I didn’t want to be unpalatably pessimistic in how long I extended the planet’s agony. And, with resettlement and recreation of the world from its own ashes, as it were, the stage is set for the Middle Stars stories to follow on.
Stories in this arc have appeared in Ecotastrophe II, Little Blue Marble, Compelling Science Fiction, Andromeda Spaceways and others; one was a finalist in the 2021 Gravity Awards. I have several more to write, bringing the “Post-Habitable Earth” arc up to book length, which obviously invites a collection under one cover at some point.
In this way, viewed at a global level, a great many of my science fiction stories form a contiguous series from the present day to some five centuries in the future. Many years ago I had a vision of an artbook chronicling the history of the next thousand years, and while that project never developed, thematic material of the sort it might have contained certainly has evolved in literary form.
P.S.: Your story, “The Silent Agenda,” appears in the 20,000 Leagues Remembered anthology. To most people, a contract discussion about translating novels wouldn’t seem interesting enough to write about, yet you turned that into a dramatic story. What prompted that story?
M.A.: Back in the 1980s I came cross Walter James Miller’s 1976 fresh translation of 20,000 Leagues, but the volume was packed away and forgotten until comparatively recently. I studied with interest his extensive introductory essay, both on Verne’s life and his treatment at the hands of translators. In the jacket blurb he described Lewis Page Mercier’s 1871 translation as a “literary hatchet job.” The revelation that as much as 23% of the original French novel had been excised I found both outrageous (for obvious reasons) and intriguing, as it meant there was actually much more to be enjoyed than I’d ever read before!
Mercier removed maritime and scientific material, references to French scientists, and indeed scrambled some of Verne’s technical material, so that Verne was dismissed by later English-speaking critics as not in fact knowing his own subject, when the errors were entirely in translation. In 1874 the American translator Edward Roth made the same observations (while unfortunately also perpetuating the problem by taking the extreme liberty of adding scenes in his own versions of some works!) This is blatant enough, but given Mercier’s other cuts I found myself wondering, as Roth had, if Mercier was not deliberately undermining Verne’s credibility. Indeed, it’s contrary to the translator’s role as the invisible intermediary (Mercier is not usually even given a credit in standard English editions), and of a scope which to me suggests a specific policy direction which could only have come from the publisher.
The political motivations behind these cuts run rather deep—specific mention of Nemo’s revolutionary inclinations, for instance. We knew he supported anti-establishmental activities, even the Ward Lock 1964 illustrated children’s edition features Nemo delivering gold to fund such groups. I found it highly significant that Verne’s intentions were interfered with. The cuts largely muzzled his political statement, shifting emphasis firmly onto adventure at the expense of anything critical of the establishments of his day. This enabled the English-speaking world to assign Verne the status of a children’s writer, and thus more easily dismiss him, while in the Francophone world Verne was a respected literary giant taken seriously by all ages. This smacks of a very British kind of sour grapes, and that deserved to be explored in detail.
Drama proceeded from the very outrage of the notion that a best-seller could be eviscerated, turned into something quite different as it crossed the language barrier, to serve the political and social interests of another part of the world, while cashing in royally on its established success. Before reading Miller’s work I had no idea there was such a story behind the novel but when 20,000 Leagues Remembered came along it presented itself to me four-square and clamored to be written.
M.A.: “The Highest Loyalty” was a most interesting exercise as it explored a diversion from Nemo’s scientific cruising for reasons very much to do with the outside world. Verne tells us he supported those who fought to make a difference against corrupt establishments, and it struck me that a submarine would have made the perfect “underground railroad” for snatching souls from jeopardy during the American Civil War.
Given the chronology of events—that Nemo, Prince Dakkar of Bundelkund, was set upon his life’s course by the events of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and that he escaped with his followers to build the Nautilus in the years after, it follows that Nemo was free and at liberty beneath the sea during the war. Given his conflict with the Western colonial powers, and his commitment to taking no sides, it seems clear he would be a wholehearted supporter of the Abolitionist cause. If this was the case, the Nautilus probably carried many a party of escapees from the South to safety in Union territory, and I revisit this situation at a later date as Nemo comes to the rescue of an Abolitionist agent in jeopardy from the spate of reprisals following the conflict.
Nemo is a fabulously complex character, a man of admirable qualities yet who stands apart from civilization as we know it and will wage war if need be. This makes him eternally attractive to explore, and pastiches provide the opportunity to do so, remaining within Verne’s own timeline (troubled is it is with the Mysterious Island contradictions). Here I had the opportunity to demonstrate the strength of his convictions, that he would place his life on the line to serve a fellow freedom fighter. I have always believed that Nemo was more hero than villain, and exploring this in new prose is a delight.
I have other tales of Nemo and the Nautilus on paper and many more I would like to pursue, so am watching with keen interest for appropriate future calls for submission as might eventuate!
P.S.: What are your current works in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about them?
M.A.: I have a number of projects in hand at this point, each with an eye on a wider marketplace. Hiraeth Books have commissioned two, possibly three anthologies from me. One is a collection of my vampire short stories, the saga of changeling Lucinda Crane, a vampire whose allegiances still lie with the humans among whom she was born and on whose behalf she battles all manner of supernatural foes. I’ve written eight stories to date, the first of which appeared in an anthology from Spectral Visions Press (University of Sunderland) way back in 2014, one of those pioneering pieces that got me started on this course. Hiraeth have picked up others, as did Bards & Sages, for various volumes, and are collecting them all under one cover. This calls for a fresh polish of the whole saga.
Also forthcoming from Hiraeth will be one or possibly two fantasy volumes. “A Triptych of Swords” is my working title, being novella-length pieces in the historical fantasy vein, though with a venture into a full fantasy world as well. I have one piece left to finish for this one, and we’ll see how the project shakes down in the next year or so.
Also on the table is an urban fantasy novel, Venatrix, which mixes a climate-ravaged near future with an enclave of witches who fight catastrophe with chaos magic. Set in Venice and many other Italian beauty spots such as Tuscany, Genoa and Verona, it combines hard-hitting action with modern neopaganism in a blend which I’m hoping will be fresh and engaging. I have a few chapters to go, then will be looking for a small press to take it on.
Also on the horizon for this year will be to assemble that Sherlock Holmes anthology from my previously published material, which will be a most vicarious pleasure!
And lastly, I’m working on the textual material for a dedicated author website, which will feature essays, chronologies and purchase links for all my areas of creative work, with Sherlock Holmes and “Tales of the Middle Stars” in a fairly advanced state of writing.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Mike Adamson: The best advice I can offer to a writer hoping to break into the modern short story market, let alone novels, besides the persistence discussed above, is patience. Understandably, every writer hopes that things will gel in a year or two and he or she will start making some useful income from pro market: that a dozen placements, or two dozen, at the low end will bring you to the attention of the top. This might be the case if the writer is well-connected, schmoozes the book fairs, left university with a first class arts degree in writing, is a graduate of Clarion West or another recognized academy, but for most of us the reality will be a long, slow burn.
Assuming that the writer has wrestled down the particulars of the craft—can use the language effectively, distinguish between forms and styles and know which is appropriate for what market, has the services of a good beta reader or editor to provide a mirror to the writer’s own point of view—then patience is the best tool in the kit, along with self-confidence. Rejection is part of the landscape and learning to not take it personally is a major hurdle. Comparatively few rejections are a measure of the worth of the material: many are based on length or how closely your piece matches a theme, or even—and this is a bitter pill—how well a story a magazine is happy to take “fits” with all the other stories they would like to include in a particular issue. Or they might have accepted something similar recently, or it’s on a theme they’ve visited frequently before…
Taking all figures collectively, since the beginning of 2016 I’ve received over 2700 rejections, most of them of the form type. At all costs, one cannot afford to take it as rejection of oneself. The golden truth is that the very next editor might think differently, so rejection becomes acceptance. That’s the vindication of your work in every sense, and it does happen. Yes, the wider marketplace really is this subjective! Editors are human and they are independent of each other, running their own enterprises, each with his own her own literary agenda, which makes for the wide variety of styles and tastes of magazine out there. This also ties in with learning which markets are a match for the kind of thing you produce, and which never will be. Magazines have target audiences who expect a particular kind of material, and many markets may be plugged into particular niches, not genres per se, but orientations and outlooks, specific even to kinds of narratives or levels of surreality, and you need to be well clued-in to join those clubs. That comes under research your markets, of course, which is imperative.
Then there’s read till your cup runneth over. One should not write in a vacuum, one should know what one’s peers are writing, as well as have a good knowledge of the history of one’s field. And I’ve found, the more you pour in, the more likely it is to run out again, through a keyboard as fresh work—your own. This is not thieving ideas or narrative lines: I liken it more to putting fuel in your literary tank to run the engine of inspiration.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, Mike. I think your answers revved up my engine of inspiration, and those of others as well.
Readers seeking more information about Mike Adamson can visit his website or follow him on Facebook, Amazon, and Goodreads. He’s been interviewed before, and you can read those here and here.
The anthology Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne brought together authors of varied backgrounds and interests. Today I present an interview with Joel Allegretti, but—as you’ll find out—he writes in many formats beyond the short story form.
Joel Allegretti is the author of, most recently, Platypus (NYQ Books, 2017), a collection of poems, prose, and performance texts, and Our Dolphin (Thrice Publishing, 2016), a novella. His second book of poems, Father Silicon (The Poet’s Press, 2006), was selected by The Kansas City Star as one of 100 Noteworthy Books of 2006.
He is the editor of Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (NYQ Books, 2015). The Boston Globe called Rabbit Ears “cleverly edited” and “a smart exploration of the many, many meanings of TV.” Rain Taxi said, “With its diversity of content and poetic form, Rabbit Ears feels more rich and eclectic than any other poetry anthology on the market.”
Allegretti has published his poems in The New York Quarterly, Barrow Street, Smartish Pace, PANK, and many other national journals, as well as in journals published in Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and India.
His short stories have appeared in The MacGuffin, The Adroit Journal, and Pennsylvania Literary Journal, among others. His musical compositions have appeared in Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing & Art and in anthologies from great weather for MEDIA and Thrice Publishing. His performance texts and theater pieces have been staged at La MaMa, Medicine Show Theatre, the Cornelia Street Café, and the Sidewalk Café, all in New York.
Allegretti is represented in more than thirty anthologies. He supplied the texts for three song cycles by the late Frank Ezra Levy, whose recorded work is available in the Naxos American Classics series.
Allegretti is a member of the Academy of American Poets and ASCAP.
Let’s get to the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Joel Allegretti: When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I said to my father one day, “I want to write a book.” He thought it was a good idea.
I was a fan of Greek and Roman mythology in my younger years. I wrote a little story called “The Flaming Sword.” I think it took place in Roman times. It was about a soldier who had a sword encased in fire, but that’s all I remember. I cut up pieces of paper, stapled them into a booklet, and wrote and illustrated my story.
I wonder if I created an ancient-world prototype of the Jedi lightsaber.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
J.A.: My earliest influences were Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe. Then came Ray Bradbury, Leonard Cohen, Gabriel García Márquez, and Jorge Luis Borges. A big influence on my short stories isn’t a literary figure, though, but a TV series: The Twilight Zone, the original series hosted by Rod Serling, whom I still admire. I like to conclude a short story with a surprise ending. The Twilight Zone is all about surprise endings.
A few favorite books are Selected Poems: 1956 – 1968 by Leonard Cohen; One Hundred Years of Solitude by García Márquez; The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux; Immortal Poems of the English Language, edited by Oscar Williams; The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century, edited by Hayden Curruth;and Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet, translated by Bernard Frechtman. I find myself re-reading The Time Machine by H.G. Wells every few years. Ditto Jean Genet in Tangier by Mohamed Choukri, translated by Paul Bowles.
One Hundred Years of Solitude had a monumental impact on my reading tastes for a few years. It opened me up not only to the author’s others works, but to the rich world of Latin American literature as a whole. Unfortunately, I don’t know Spanish or, in the case of Brazilian writers, Portuguese, so I had to read the books in English translation.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac affected me when I read it at nineteen. The closing paragraph influenced the last stanza of a poem I published five years ago, “The Day after the Night John Lennon Died.”
I was captivated by Jack London’s Martin Eden when I read it in the ‘80s and dove into other London works, both famous ones, like The Call of the Wild, and lesser-known ones, like Before Adam. In 1990 I traveled to San Francisco for work and made a special trip to Jack London’s Wolf House in Glen Ellen.
It was also in the ‘80s that I discovered Graham Greene and W. Somerset Maugham and read book after book after book by both writers. I go back to Maugham’s short story “Faith” from time to time.
P.S.: You’ve written poems, short stories, a novella, theater works, and musical compositions. Is there anything you can’t write?
J.A.: I think the full-length novel is beyond my natural abilities. My novella, Our Dolphin(Thrice Publishing, 2016), runs 19,000 words. It ran 46,000 words before I took an editorial flail to it. “This can go. This can go. This adds nothing.” Now, 46,000 words is a substantial word count for me, but it’s too short for the novel market, which generally requires a minimum word count of 65,000.
I remember talking on the phone with a late poet friend over a dozen years ago. She told me she was writing a prose book and had written 800 pages. I said, “I wouldn’t know how to fill 800 pages.”
P.S.: You’ve stated that your novella, Our Dolphin, is an example of magic realism. What drew you to that style, and in what ways does your novella exemplify it?
J.A.: Magic realism influenced Our Dolphin. I wouldn’t have conceived it had I not read Latin American writers, but I can’t say it is magic realism.
The first part of the book takes place in a little Italian fishing village. The main character, Emilio Giovanni Canto, is the deformed adolescent son of a fisherman. One night he hears commotion coming from the beach and goes out to investigate. He discovers a small dolphin stranded on the shore. Emilio helps the creature back in the water. Emilio later meets it again and discovers it has the power of human speech, but only he can hear it.
Certain phrases in that part of the book, like “a gull of mythological proportions” and “the face that brought her infinite despair,” show the influence of García Márquez, or of García Márquez as translated into English by Gregory Rabassa (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, et al.) and Edith Grossman (Love in the Time of Cholera).
Other literary influences are at play in Our Dolphin. The main character, Emilio, was inspired by my favorite literary character, Erik, whom everybody knows as the Phantom of the Opera.
The second part of the book takes place in Tangier. The scenes were influenced by the writings of Paul Bowles and William S. Burroughs, who’s my favorite Beat writer. In fact, one of the characters in Our Dolphin, a man known only as Moore (not his real name), is based on Burroughs. I took a day trip to the city in 1990 and drew on my memories when I was writing that section of the novella, but ultimately, the Tangier of Our Dolphin is a Tangier of my imagination.
P.S.: Though you’ve written many forms of poetry and prose, is there one or more common attributes that tie your written works together (genre, character types, settings, themes)?
J.A.: I like to investigate the ordinary in the out of the ordinary and the out of the ordinary in the ordinary.
P.S.: Your book Platypus (NYQ Books, 2017) contains poems, short stories, Fluxus-inspired instruction pieces, and text art. Does it defy categorization as much as a platypus does, or is there some common theme tying the parts together?
J.A.: Platypus has thematic sections, but as you point out, the book contains a little bit of everything, so I named it after an animal that has a little bit of everything.
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
J.A.: The easiest aspect? Coming up with an idea. Ideas pop into my head all the time. though I don’t follow through on all of them. I’m always jotting down ideas and potential titles, as I guess most writers do. This goes for both prose and poetry, my primary genre.
The most difficult aspects? Bringing an idea to fruition and getting the work right. Here’s an example. I spent several hours a day for six days in a row revising a 5,200-word short story that had gone through multiple iterations and larger word counts. I wound up cutting it down to 4,700-plus words. Every time I thought I was done, I found something else I wanted to change. My instincts with respect to this particular story worked out in my favor. I submitted it to a magazine one morning and received an acceptance that evening. How often does that happen?
P.S.: The anthology you edited, Rabbit Ears: TV Poems(NYQ Books. 2015), includes a large number of poetic tributes to television. What or who inspired this idea, and would the book induce a reader to watch more TV, or turn it off forever?
J.A.: This is where my professional background comes in. I spent my career in the business world, specifically, in public relations. My last position before retirement was Director – Media Relations for a national not-for-profit financial-services organization. I prepared the CEO, the vice presidents, and other spokespeople for press interviews. I dealt with 60 Minutes, Nightly Business Report, and producers at local TV stations around the country. I was inside TV studios. I was well aware of television’s power.
Without that experience, I doubt an anthology of TV poetry would have occurred to me.
In 2012 I was reading Dear Prudence, the selected poems of David Trinidad. One of the poems is “The Ten Best Episodes of The Patty Duke Show.” My favorite sit-com from that time period is The Dick Van Dyke Show. I wrote a poem called “The Dick Van Dyke Show: The Unaired Episodes.” Here’s an excerpt: “1966. Sally’s boyfriend, Herman Glimscher, confesses to everyone that he and his mother are really husband and wife.”
A couple of months later I wrote a poem about Bob Crane, he of Hogan’s Heroes and seedy extracurricular activities. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t seen an anthology of poetry about a medium that had influenced our language, politics, and lifestyles.
Rabbit Ears is a celebration of TV. The 130 contributors reveal an abiding interest in and affection for the subjects they cover, from Rod Serling to Gilligan’s Island to the Emergency Broadcast System to the Miss America pageant to American Idol to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc., etc., etc.
Incidentally, Rabbit Ears serves a charitable function. All contributor royalties earned on sales go to City Harvest, a New York food-rescue organization.
P.S.: In what way is your fiction distinctive, different from that of other authors?
J.A.: I have to be careful how I answer this question lest I come across as unconvincingly humble or as somebody with an ego the size of Brooklyn. I’ll say my fiction is different from other authors’ fiction because I’m the one who writes it.
P.S.: I think every Jules Verne fan would love to attend the carnival you describe in “Gabriel at the Jules Verne Traveling Adventure Show,” your story in Extraordinary Visions. Where did you get the idea for that story?
J.A.: I certainly would enjoy a night at the Jules Verne Traveling Adventure Show.
When I saw the call for submissions on the North American Jules Verne Society website, I got excited, since I grew up reading Verne and watching films like Journey to the Center of the Earth, with James Mason and Pat Boone, on TV. I made it my personal mission to write a short story to submit.
The inspiration for “Gabriel at the Jules Verne Traveling Adventure Show” was Ray Bradbury’s novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I read when I was thirteen and again maybe fifteen years later. It’s about a demonic carnival that sets up shop in a small Illinois town. It gave me the idea for a World’s Fair-type of show featuring amazing Verne vehicles like the Nautilus, Robur the Conqueror’s Albatross, and the mechanical elephant in The Steam House.
I consider my status as a contributor to Extraordinary Visions to be an important accomplishment. I see myself as having come full circle.
P.S.: Since both the “Gabriel” story and Our Dolphin feature young boys, could you compare and contrast Gabriel Henderson and Emilio Canto, the respective protagonists?
J.A.: There’s some of me in Gabriel Henderson. I drew on my boyhood memories of reading Verne to create him. There’s a scene in which Gabriel goes to his local library to find books by Verne. Whenever I went to a library, I walked straight to the V section in Fiction. Gabriel, by the way, is my Confirmation name. It was also Verne’s middle name, but I didn’t know that when I chose it. I took the name of an Italian saint, St. Gabriel Possenti.
Emilio Canto, a deformed boy, is another matter entirely. The inspiration for him was purely literary: the Phantom of the Opera.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
J.A.: I’m working on placing a short (41,100+ words) novel, Vera Peru, Euro-Siren of the ‘60s, a blend of pulp fiction and imaginary music biography. The inspiration for the title character was the Velvet Underground’s Nico, who has fascinated me for decades.
The novel opens in 1984 in New York’s East Village. A dissipated wreck of a middle-aged junkie from Alphabet City is arrested for shooting up her grandson with heroin. She gives Detective Dominic Andante her vital information: name, age, address, nationality (French). She says at one point, “It’s obvious you don’t know who I am. I’m Vera Peru. I’m an international celebrity.” She mentions being late for a recording session and having to face her producer’s wrath. Andante thinks she’s drug-crazy. He starts investigating and discovers she was telling the truth; she was an important person in France and England in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
For Detective Andante, Vera Peru’s offense isn’t just another heinous crime. It has a parallel to a decade-old tragedy in his personal life. As a result, he becomes obsessed with Peru and determined to learn what could have motivated this once-glamorous woman, who had achieved European stardom, to descend into narcotic degradation and commit such an unspeakable act on her own blood. But there’s more at play than even he, an experienced New York police detective, expected. As I write in the final chapter, “He hadn’t seen this.”
Vera Peru, Euro-Siren of the ‘60s comprises alternating chapters that cover Andante’s investigation and the title character’s life and career, from modeling in Paris to stardom in French cinema to hit singles in England to a disappointing entry into the American market and, finally, to her fall. There are cameo appearances by George Harrison, Allen Ginsberg, David Bowie, the Ramones, and Jean Genet.
As coincidence would have it, Jules Verne makes an appearance. During her acting career, Vera Peru works with a Greek-French director, who considers making a film of Verne’s novel about the Greek War of Independence, The Archipelago on Fire.
In addition, I completed a new poetry manuscript, Concrete Gehenna. The 60 poems cover a wide range of subjects, including classical, rock, and avant-garde music; film; the visual arts; New York City; members of the Warhol Factory; mortality; and religion.
The influences, likewise, are varied. Individual poems were inspired by, among others, Asian and Native-American forms, Edgar Allan Poe, Wallace Stevens, Weldon Kees, Frank O’Hara, Anne Carson, and Yoko Ono’s Fluxus-era instruction pieces.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Joel Allegretti: Regard yourself as your primary competition. Look at what you’re writing now and compare it to what you’ve written. Are you writing the same work over and over? Are you absorbing new influences? Are you stretching yourself?
Moreover, I advise that you put effort into developing your own voice.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, Joel. You caused me to look up ‘Fluxus.’ Best of luck with the novel!
The Extraordinary Visionsanthology included stories by many fascinating authors. Today I had the opportunity to interview another one. Gustavo Bondoni is one of the most prolific writers I’ve ever interviewed, and you’re about to find out the secret of his story-writing success.
Gustavo Bondoni is a novelist and short story writer with over four hundred stories published in fifteen countries, in seven languages. He is a member of Codex and an Active Member of SFWA. He has published six science fiction novels including one trilogy, four monster books, a dark military fantasy and a thriller. His short fiction is collected in Pale Reflection (2020), Off the Beaten Path (2019), Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011).
In 2019, Gustavo was awarded second place in the Jim Baen Memorial Contest and in 2018 he received a Judges Commendation (and second place) in The James White Award. He was also a 2019 finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest.
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Gustavo Bondoni: I think I was always a storyteller. I remember telling my poor younger brother space adventure stories when we were four and two respectively (he was still too small to defend himself… now, he’s six-nine and difficult to corner). Writing was a natural offshoot of that aspect of my personality.
P.S.: With over 400 stories published, in 15 countries, in 7 languages, you’re not only multilingual, but prolific. What’s your secret?
G.B.: I believe that there are two secrets to writing: reading a lot and writing a lot. The first is self-explanatory, but the second seems to be the one writers are always having trouble with. My secret is not to accept any excuses from myself. I have a word count that I aim for every weekday, and that wordcount is obligatory, rain shine or anything in between. No excuses. The secret there is that the wordcount doesn’t need to be massive. It needs to be something you can hit, day in and day out.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
G.B.: I love the optimistic feel of Golden Age SF in which one of the basic tenets seemed to be that humans could overcome pretty much anything. Writing and characterization have evolved since then, but the attitude and the positivity are still wondrous today. My favorites from that era have to be Asimov’s Robot Novels as well as Foundation.
A completely different set of influences are humorous tales. I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books in the genre (and I know large swathes of them by heart), but I also enjoy things like Wodehouse.
P.S.: Your novel Siege is getting favorable reviews. The last remnants of humanity huddle in a remote sector of the galaxy, hiding from powerful and malevolent aliens. Tell us about the protagonist of this book.
G.B.: Kan Tau Osella is, in certain ways, a typical science fiction protagonist in the sense that she is thrown into an extraordinary situation. But, though she isn’t a senior member of her society, she is anything but ordinary and her talent allows her to grow into her new responsibilities fast enough to make a huge difference. Whether that will be enough—she is in extremely deep, after all—is what the novel is all about.
P.S.: How did you become interested in writing science fiction in particular? Aside from SF, in what other genres have you written?
G.B.: I’ve loved SF since childhood. I’m a kid from the era of the original trilogy of Star Wars, and my parents’ house is still full of old Star Wars men. In books, I was more of a mystery reader until I fell into Asimov’s arms at the age of ten and was hooked forever.
I write across genres. I do fantasy and horror—people seem to enjoy my monster books—and even go way outside the lines occasionally. I’ve got a couple of literary books composed of linked short stories, and even a thriller called Timeless.
P.S.: Though much of your writing is futuristic science fiction, your novel The Swords of Rasna seems more like alternate history. Is that true? Give us a brief description.
G.B.: It is! This one was inspired by the fact that so little is known about the Etruscan people (their language still stands undeciphered). I love the idea of Romans fighting against the civilization that inspired so much of their culture.
P.S.: You write a lot, but the racecar paintings on your website also drew my eye. Each painting uses vivid colors and seems to evoke high speed. In what way, if any, does your interest in painting intersect with your writing?
G.B.: Those are colored-pencil drawings! The cars are kind of a last resort… when I’m too tired to write or even read, and I’m not in the mood to watch TV, I draw a little, and find that it helps!
P.S.: You’ve recently published the novel Amalgam, the third book of a trilogy. Tell us about it.
G.B.: This trilogy takes the current trends of technical advance in media and entertainment, and drops the endgame of that progress into a universe in which Earth has established colonies in several star systems. The tension between two very different forms of existence makes life extremely difficult for the characters. And the fact that you’ve got virtual and physical members of the same society a lot more complicated.
P.S.: In what way is your fiction different from that of other authors in your genre?
G.B.: I think a lot of current SF is doom and gloom. While I know that science fiction is supposed to be a way to comment on the present by writing about the future, I prefer to comment on the hopeful parts of the present as opposed to the bad stuff. Yes, humanity is facing challenges, but I sincerely don’t believe they are anywhere near terminal or even particularly bad compared to some of the things we’ve already survived.
P.S.: Did you really sell a story to the upcoming anthology Real Stories of the United States Space Force? Are the rumors true that there are stories by some other big-name authors there?
G.B.: Yes. And yes, there are some writers in there that I love, and that I was reading before I ever sold a story. It’s going to be a good volume, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of them thought up. And the lineup includes Larry Niven and Harry Turtledove among others… it’s going to be epic!
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
G.B.: Easy: thinking up ideas that sound great in the middle of the night.
Difficult: turning those ideas into something that reads well when I’m editing the stupid thing!
P.S.: For the Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne anthology, you chose a little-known pair of Verne novels as the inspiration for “Old Soldiers.” Tell us about the Verne backstory for your tale and its two main characters.
G.B.:The Steam House was a two-part Verne novel about an English soldier who builds a mechanical elephant to drag a house (mounted on wheels) around all over India, along with his Indian companion (a man who is technically a servant but is much more than that in reality). They (men and house) have some extraordinary adventures before the soldier decides to retire in his beloved India. However, the advent of the First World War rekindles the fire of obligation in the breast of the British officer, and he decides to serve in the only way he can.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers who hope to get as much published as you have?
Gustavo Bondoni: My main piece of advice is always the same: read, read, read. If you’ve watched every Netflix series produced since the platform pivoted to a streaming model, you might have a good sense of dialogue and dramatic timing, but if you want to write books as opposed to scripts, you’ll need to have an instinctive grasp of how things should sit on a page. The only way to do that is to read everything you can get your hands on. And then, see above: give yourself a word count objective and stick to it.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, Gustavo. Looks like I need to quit making excuses for missing my wordcount goal.
It may seem like I conduct these author interviews within a plush studio high atop Poseidon’s Scribe Tower at Poseidon’s Scribe Enterprises. In truth, for most of them, I only communicate with these writers by email and have never encountered them in person.
But I’ve actually met today’s featured author. We served as panelists together at PenguiCon 2023, where Eric Choi was a guest of honor. A story of his appears in both anthologies I’ve edited—20,000 Leagues Remembered and Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne.
Eric Choi is an award-winning writer, editor, and aerospace engineer in Toronto, Canada. He was the first recipient of the Isaac Asimov Award (now the Dell Magazines Award) and he has twice won the Aurora Award for his story “Crimson Sky” and for the Chinese-themed speculative fiction anthology The Dragon and the Stars (DAW) co-edited with Derwin Mak. With the late Ben Bova, he co-edited the hard SF anthology Carbide Tipped Pens (Tor). His short story collection Just Like Being There (Springer Nature) was released last year. Visit his website or follow him on social @AerospaceWriter.
Next, the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing fiction?
Eric Choi: My start in fiction writing is owed to the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy (formerly the Isaac Asimov Award). I was the very first recipient of the Dell/Asimov Award for a story called “Dedication”, which was about a team of astronauts on Mars struggling to survive after their rover is damaged in a meteorite shower. The story was published in Asimov’s Science Fiction and years later it was reprinted in Japanese translation in the anthology The Astronaut from Wyoming and Other Stories. I am forever grateful to Rick Wilber, Sheila Williams, and the late Gardner Dozois for starting my fiction writing career.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences?
E.C.: My background is in aerospace engineering, and many of my greatest influences have been other engineers and scientists. The British website SF2 Concatenation has an excellent series of articles by science fiction writers with a degree in science, engineering, mathematics, or medicine about the top ten scientists and engineers who have most inspired or influenced them. Those who influenced me were profiled in an article in the Summer 2019 edition and include aeronautical engineer James Floyd, astronomer Carl Sagan, my undergraduate thesis supervisor James Drummond, atmospheric scientist Diane Michelangeli, Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman, and astronaut Sally Ride.
P.S.: What are a few of your favorite books?
E.C.: My leisure reading tends to include a lot of non-fiction. I am currently reading Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara about the appalling conditions in which the cobalt for lithium-ion batteries is mined, and The New Guys by Meredith Bagby about the historic NASA astronaut class of 1978 that recruited the first Black, Asian, and female American astronauts. Some of my favorite non-fiction books include The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre about the KGB double agent Oleg Gordievsky who changed the course of the Cold War, Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly about Katherine Johnson and the other Black female mathematicians and engineers who played crucial roles in the early U.S. space program (the movie doesn’t do the story justice), 747 the memoir of aeronautical engineer Joe Sutter, Thread of the Silkworm by Iris Chang about the Chinese rocket scientist Qián Xuésen (the subject of my alternate history story “The Son of Heaven”), A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin which is my favorite history of the Apollo program, and Bush Pilot with a Briefcase by Ronald Keith about the Canadian aviation pioneer Grant McConachie (a fictionalized version of whom appeared in my alternate history story “The Coming Age of the Jet”).
P.S.: Does your day job as an aerospace engineer help you with your fiction writing, or interfere with it?
E.C.: Science fiction inspired me to pursue a career as an aerospace engineer. Over the course of my day job I’ve had the privilege of working on a number of space projects including the QEYSSat satellite, the Phoenix Mars Lander, the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station, the RADARSAT-1 satellite, and the MOPITT instrument on the Terra satellite. I guess you could say that some parts of my day job are a bit like a science fiction, so the fiction writing is really coming full circle. There have always been important linkages between science fiction and the real-life space program. Our knowledge of the Universe, our attitudes towards science, and our understanding of science and technology are some of the key influences on science fiction. In turn, science fiction has helped shape perceptions of the space program, in some cases influencing the politics and funding of space projects and even the design of the missions themselves, as well as inspiring people like me to pursue careers in engineering and science. So if there is interference, it is most certainly a constructive interference.
P.S.: In addition to your fiction, you’ve written a number of technical papers associated with your aerospace job. Since fiction is so different from professional, scientific nonfiction, how difficult is it for you to transition between the two types of writing?
E.C.: There are actually a lot of similarities between writing fiction and writing technical papers. A work of fiction has a narrative arc with a beginning, a middle, and an end. But a technical paper has an arc as well – an introduction, a description of methodology, a presentation of data, and a discussion of results. And if you think about it, both are telling a story in their own way that is most compelling and convincing to their respective audiences.
P.S.: You got to co-edit an anthology with Ben Bova! What was that experience like?
E.C.: I first met Ben Bova at the 2011 Ad Astra science fiction convention in Toronto, where I found myself sharing an author signing table with him (presumably because of the alphabetical order of our surnames). There was a huge queue of fans for Ben and almost none for me (which meant that everything was right in the Universe), but I managed to make some small talk in the rare moments when he wasn’t giving his time to his readers. What I really wanted to talk to him about was an idea I had for a hard SF anthology, but I couldn’t quite get the nerve. Finally, like an awkward teenager asking for a date, I managed to blurt out my idea and asked if he might be interested in working with me.
He said yes.
Our hard SF anthology Carbide Tipped Pens was published by Tor three years later, and I had found a mentor and a friend. Ben’s name rightfully came first on the cover, but he would often say to people “it’s really Eric’s book”, an act of genuine kindness that would leave me in a state of Heisenbergian uncertainty somewhere between impostor syndrome and bemused pride. I only knew Ben for a few years, just a short moment in the grand tour of his remarkable life, but that’s all friends need.
I was deeply saddened by Ben’s passing in November 2020. His death was due in part to the consequences of a pandemic whose effects had been made far worse by selfishness, science denialism, and outright lies – all things antithetical to Ben’s generosity, wisdom, and honesty. As writers and readers of science fiction, I hope we can honor Ben Bova’s memory by paying it forward and being voices for fact-based reason and science in the service of humanity.
P.S.: Many of your short stories, including “Raise the Nautilus,” involve elements of alternate history. What draws you to exploring science-themed alternate histories? What are some of the challenges?
E.C.: If science fiction is the literature of scientific and technological possibility, then the appeal of science-themed alternate history is in exploring how scientific and technological possibility influences the relationship between chance and determinism in shaping historical events. It is, however, a challenging genre to write. Not only do authors need to get the science right, but they must also recognize the sensitivity of putting real people into fictional situations. Authors of alternate history have an obligation to be careful in their portrayals of real people and ensure that the words and actions of historical figures are consistent with what is known about them from the historical record. For example, my Aurora Award nominated novelette “A Sky and a Heaven” is an alternate history about the Space Shuttle Columbia accident. I changed the name of the commander of Columbia because in an early draft of the story this person did something that I felt was inconsistent with the personality of the real commander Rick Husband.
P.S.: A story of yours appears in the new anthology Life Beyond Us. Tell us about that one.
E.C.:Life Beyond Us is a new astrobiology-themed science fiction anthology from the European Astrobiology Institute and Laksa Media Groups edited by Julie Nováková, Lucas K. Law, and Susan Forest. The book features twenty-seven stories, each accompanied by an essay written by a scientist in a relevant field. My story “Hemlock on Mars” opens the collection with the accompanying science essay “Planetary Protection: Best Practices for the Safety of Humankind (And All Those Aliens Out There)” by Giovanni Poggiali of Observatoire de Paris. Planetary protection is the practice of safeguarding Solar System bodies from contamination by Earth life as well as protecting Earth from possible lifeforms that might be brought back from other Solar System bodies. In “Hemlock on Mars”, a hardy microbe is found in the clean room where a mission to search for life on Mars was assembled. It may have hitched a ride on the spacecraft. It might survive on Mars. It might compromise the primary life detection science investigation. Worse, if there is any indigenous Martian life, it might harm it. But it might not be present on the spacecraft at all. If it is, it might not survive the journey. It might well not survive on Mars. And Mars today is probably lifeless, but we’re not entirely sure. Do they pull the plug on a very expensive mission that promises to answer one of humanity’s most profound scientific questions? Or do you let it land and risk contaminating Mars with a potentially harmful terrestrial organism?
E.C.: In “Raise the Nautilus”, the British Royal Navy attempts to salvage Captain Nemo’s submarine and retrieve an artifact that could turn the tide of the First World War. The title and theme of the story were influenced by the 1976 Clive Cussler novel Raise the Titanic in which a team attempts to salvage the ocean liner and recover a substance that could tip the balance of power during the Cold War. The fictional operation to recover the Nautilus was based on the real-life salvage of the USS Squalus, a U.S. Navy diesel-electric submarine that sank during a test dive off the coast of New Hampshire in May 1939. 26 sailors were killed, but the lives of the remaining 32 crewmembers and one civilian were saved over the course of a 13-hour rescue operation using a diving bell called a McCann Rescue Chamber. The Navy then undertook a long and difficult salvage operation over the course of the next four months in which the Squalus was eventually raised and towed to the Portsmouth Naval Yard. Following extensive repairs, the submarine was recommissioned as the USS Sailfish and went on to serve in the Pacific theatre during the Second World War.
P.S.: Your recently published collection Just Like Being There contains a novelette and several short stories, including “Raise the Nautilus.” What would you like readers to know about this collection?
E.C.:Just Like Being There is my first collection of short fiction and features fifteen of my hard SF and alternate history stories including the Aurora Award short story winning “Crimson Sky” and the Aurora Award nominated novelette “A Sky and a Heaven”. Story topics include space exploration, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cryptography, quantum computing, online privacy, mathematics, neuroscience, psychology, space medicine, extraterrestrial intelligence, undersea exploration, commercial aviation, and the history of science. Each story is followed by an afterword that explains the underlying engineering or science.
Putting the collection together was tremendous fun but also a lot of work. The novelette “A Sky and a Heaven” was a new story and the longest piece I have ever written. For the other fourteen previously published stories, I went back to the manuscripts as I had originally written them and in some cases made minor revisions. As an example, I moved out the dates in a near-future space exploration story called “From a Stone” because as of the publication of the collection humans have not yet resumed crewed voyages beyond low Earth orbit. In general, however, I was pleasantly surprised at how well my stories have held up over time. What took the most time and effort was writing those afterwords that discuss the engineering and science behind the stories. I was fortunate to still have much of the original research material for the stories, but I also did new research to make sure the information was as up-to-date as possible.
P.S.: What tales can we expect from you in the near future?
E.C.: My new story “Random Access Memory” about people who experience an unusual phenomenon while playing a certain slot machine at a casino will be appearing in the upcoming anthology Game On! edited by Stephen Kotowych and Tony Pi. Another new story called “Beware the Glob!” about a dangerous extraterrestrial creature that is unleashed from its frozen Arctic slumber by climate change will appear in the September/October 2023 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Eric Choi: Robert A. Heinlein’s first enunciated his famous rules for writers in 1947 and they are still applicable today. To paraphrase: You have to write, you have to finish what you write, you must not allow yourself to get stuck in an endless cycle of rewrites, you have to put what you write on the market, and you have to keep putting your work out there until it’s published. That last part is particularly important. Rejection is an inherent part of writing and you must never let it discourage you. To this day, my own rejection to acceptance ratio averages about 7 to 1. The important thing to remember is that rejection often has nothing to do with the quality of your work or your skill as a writer but rather the fit of the story with a particular market or publication. If you are fortunate to receive constructive feedback, revise your work as you see fit (it’s always a writer’s prerogative to incorporate or ignore external comments) and then send it back out there until it’s published.
Readers will recall that the anthology Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne came out in December. I’ve offered to interview authors of stories in that volume, and some have accepted. Today I bring you the first of those.
Joseph S. Walker’s short fiction has been published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, Tough, and many other magazines and anthologies. His story “Crime Scene” is included in the 2023 editions of both The Best American Mystery and Suspense and The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year (marking his third consecutive appearance in this collection). He has been nominated for the Edgar Award and the Derringer Award and has won the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction. He also won the Al Blanchard Award in 2019 and 2021.
Here’s the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing fiction? What prompted you?
Joseph S. Walker: I wanted to write fiction from a very young age. It was in large part because of that desire that I majored in English, eventually getting a PhD in American Literature. In retrospect, though, this may have been a mistake, at least for me. Studying literature in such a rigorous way made actually writing fiction seem like an overwhelming prospect. Then, too, it has a tendency to make you feel like you should be aiming at mainstream or literary fiction, or whatever label you want to put on it. There’s been progress on that front, but genre writing is still treated as something of a second-tier arena in much of the academy. So for years I told myself I was a writer, but my time was mostly spent on academic articles, and a few rather dour, realistic stories I labored over for years.
It wasn’t until my 40s that I decided that if I wanted to be a writer, at some point I had to actually write something. I also decided that it didn’t have to be agonizing. It could be fun. It should be fun. I started writing things that I enjoyed writing, in the fields (mostly mystery and crime) that I enjoyed reading. One of the first stories I wrote with this mindset was accepted to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and from that point on all I wanted to do was write. I’m published more than eighty short stories now, and I just want to keep going.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
J.S.W.: In terms of the actual style of my writing, I think the biggest influence would be Robert B. Parker, who created the private eye Spenser. I look at some of my earlier stories now, and it’s almost like I’m writing a pastiche of one of his Spenser novels. I think I’ve come a way in developing my own voice, but the echoes are still there. That said, the writer who made me want to be a writer was Harlan Ellison. He’s usually classified as a science fiction writer, though he also wrote a large number of crime stories. I loved his writing, and his essays especially have stayed with me. He made being a writer seem like a privilege, an honor, an obligation, and a lot of fun.
A few favorite books off the top of my head: Strange Wine (Harlan Ellison); When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (Lawrence Block); Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders); Possession (A. S. Byatt); A Catskill Eagle (Robert B. Parker); Last Chance to See (Douglas Adams); I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (Michelle McNamera); Devil in a Blue Dress (Walter Mosley)
P.S.: Your short stories tend to be about crime and mystery. What attracted you to these genres?
J.S.W.: Partly, it’s just the fact that it’s the genre I’ve always loved reading. I think my early reading history is shared with many of my fellow mystery writers: the Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators, then on to Doyle and Christie, then Hammett and Chandler, and so on up to Gillian Flynn and S. A. Cosby. And then, writing stories like this is fun for me. Starting a new story is always hard, but if you’re lucky there comes a moment when something clicks and the words seem to tumble onto the page. For me, that happens most often when I’m writing crime.
P.S.: You’ve got a story appearing in The Best American Mystery and Suspense, coming out in October. Please give us a hint about what to expect in this story.
J.S.W.: The story is question is “Crime Scene,” which originally appeared in Malice in Dallas, an anthology from the North Dallas chapter of Sisters in Crime. In my story, a semi-retired assassin takes an assignment to kill a prominent businessman, but the job has to be done in Dealey Plaza, on November 22, at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. The story was my response to seeing Dealey Plaza in person for the first time, and being struck by how different it seemed from every picture of the area I’d ever seen.
Having the story selected for The Best American Mystery and Suspense (by series editor Steph Cha and guest editor Lisa Unger) is a true honor, especially since I’ve been faithfully buying every volume of this series since it was launched, as Best American Mystery Stories, back in the 1980s. As it happens, “Crime Scene” was also selected for the upcoming volume of the other annual best-of anthology in my field, The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year (series editor Otto Penzler, guest editor Amor Towles). To the best of my knowledge, it’s the first story to be selected for both series!
P.S.: In what ways are your stories different from those of other crime and mystery fiction authors?
J.S.W.: This is probably a question which others are better suited to answer. I don’t know that writers are necessarily the best judges of their own work. That said, I think if there’s anything that distinguishes many of my stories, it would be an underlying concern with isolation and loneliness. My characters tend to be desperate people who can perhaps be saved if they can forge one genuine relationship with another person.
P.S.: Congratulations on winning the newly-instituted Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction. Tell us about your story “The Last Man in Lafarge,” and about the experience of winning the award.
J.S.W.: The Bill Crider Prize was given for the first time at the 2019 Bouchercon, held in Dallas. I was very proud to win the award, especially since the contest was judged by Linda Landrigan and Janet Hutchings, the editors of, respectively, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. At the time, there very much seemed to be a plan that the award would be given every year in honor of Mr. Crider, a prolific and skilled mystery writer. Unfortunately, in subsequent years this plan seems to have fallen by the wayside, perhaps in part because of the pandemic, which caused the 2020 and 2021 Bouchercons to be held in reduced form online. It’s possible I will go down as the only winner of the Crider Prize, but I very much hope the award does return.
Winning the award meant I got to attend my first Bouchercon, where I got to rub elbows with many of my favorite writers, meet some heroes, and make a lot of new friends. I left feeling determined to attend every year, not knowing that the next in-person convention wouldn’t be until three years later in Minneapolis.
As for “The Last Man in Lafarge,” it remains one of my favorites among my stories. It’s about a sheriff in a dying Texas town, a bartender with a mysterious past, and a prodigal son with the kind of secret that can get a person killed.
P.S.: You’ve won the Al Blanchard award for best New England-based crime stories twice! Once for your story, “Haven,” and later for your story “Herb Ecks Goes Underground.” What were those experiences like?
J.S.W.: Deeply gratifying! In 2021, a week after going to Dallas for Bouchercon, I got to go to Boston to attend the New England Crime Bake, a much smaller and more intimate mystery convention, to collect this award. Once again I had a fantastic time, and the experience only deepened my sense of having found my community among my fellow mystery writers. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend when I won the prize again in 2023, but it’s a wonderful contest, and I intend to keep entering every year.
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
J.S.W.: The most difficult part, for me, is always actually starting. That applies to both starting a completely new story, and simply sitting down to start a writing session. Sitting at a computer with internet access, I can find 5000 ways to procrastinate before I actually manage to force myself to put something on the page. Once over that initial hump, things get—well, I won’t say easy, because it’s never easy. But easier.
As I say, no part of the process is easy. If there’s an area where I feel least like I’m fighting my way uphill, it’s probably writing dialogue. I just find that to be enjoyable, though I often get carried away and have to cut back on it in revision.
P.S.: Tell us a little about your story, “The Dominion of All the Earth,” in the Extraordinary Visions anthology. Do you consider it a departure from your usual story type, or a typical representative of it?
J.S.W.: “The Dominion of All the Earth” is very much a departure from my usual writing, which is a big part of the reason I was interested when I saw the call for stories. I like to occasionally challenge myself to do something that isn’t a crime story set in the present day. Seeing the call also gave me a strong sense of nostalgia, because I read and greatly enjoyed many of Verne’s novels in my youth. I figured there was a good chance that many, if not most, of the submitted stories would take 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as their starting point, since Nemo is such a fascinating figure. That meant it would probably be a good idea to use a different Verne work, and I remembered that my other favorite was A Journey to the Center of the Earth. I reread the book, for the first time in decades, and thought there was a story to be told about how the subterranean world would absorb, and ultimately respond to, the damage done by the explorers from the surface world. In my story, it’s been fifty years since the excursion underground, and the response is finally coming.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
J.S.W.: I write exclusively short stories (at least so far!), so what I’m working on changes very often. This is actually a big part of what I like about writing short stories. Instead of spending months, if not years, on a single narrative—and then waiting more years for publication—I can be working on something new virtually every week. If I write a story that’s too dark, I can follow it up with one that’s mostly humorous. Right at this moment, for example, I’m working on a story for a hardboiled anthology of 20s private eye stories, but I’m already sketching out an idea for a farcical heist story with a holiday theme.
I can say that I have some stories coming this year that I’m very proud of!
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Joseph S. Walker: It may sound simplistic, but the best advice is the simplest: write. I started being a productive writer the moment I stopped thinking about how great it would be to be a writer, and started actually writing. Put your ass in the chair and your fingers on the keys. Keep in mind that the real writing happens in the process of revision. I find this realization tremendously liberating. It means that I can throw virtually anything down on the page, knowing I’ll have the chance to come back later and work on it more. It gives me the freedom to be terrible, which liberates me from the burden of aiming for great.
Thanks, Joe.
Readers wanting more information about Joseph S. Walker can visit his website and follow him on Twitter and Amazon.
Every time I turn around, more fascinating authors consent to be interviewed. Today I’m featuring another author from the anthology The Science Fiction Tarot.
Jacob Pérez was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, but spent most of his young adult life in Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up reading books and gaining an unhealthy knowledge of comics and movies. After graduating from college in 2008, he dedicated his continued education to caring for people. If he couldn’t have superpowers, nursing was the next best alternative.
He spends his time off writing about monsters, spaceships, robots, and the most bizarre creatures. He loves crossing genre boundaries and exploring the complexity of human nature. He now lives in Loomis, California, with his wife, three beautiful kids, and an indifferent cat named Zelda. He’s currently working on expanding his writing portfolio.
Let’s get to the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Jacob Pérez: I started my writing career back in 2009. I’d just graduated from college and was working through my nursing degree. My job, then, was an office assistant position that allowed for a lot of downtime. Around this time, I read Eric Van Lustbader’s The Ninja. It sparked something in me. After reading it, I discovered I wanted to write a novel I would enjoy throughout, as so many of my favorite books had done for me.
I’d always been an avid reader. For as long as I can remember, I would carry around a novel to read during my free time. So, writing was always in the back of my mind. But the reason I waited so long to write was due to a lack of confidence. Growing up in a predominately Spanish-speaking household, the idea of learning to write at a professional level felt like a daunting aspiration. But there I was, with the perfect job and that spark of inspiration to give me the push I needed to start writing.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
J.P.: I grew up on The Berenstain Bears and R.L. Stine as a child. They were my gateway into my obsession with reading. Unlike many classmates, I enjoyed our assigned book reading list. But my early influences were an eclectic group of writers: Mary Shelley, Victor Hugo, Eric Van Lustbader, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, Frank Herbert, and Orson Scott Card, to name a few. I devoured their books and their series. Some of my favorites include The Last Stand, Hyperion, Dune, Frankenstein, and Ender’s Game. I didn’t gravitate toward one genre. I loved them all.
Since then, my taste in writing has expanded. I’ve found authors like Neil Gaiman, Kazuro Ishiguro, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, M. John Harrison, and Jennifer Egan, whose mastery of the English language is awe-inspiring. Picking my favorite story is hard, but if you twist my arm and force me to answer, M. John Harrison’s The Pastel City and Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone’s This is How You Lose the Time War (which I read before the recent tweet) are at the top of my all-time favorite novels.
P.S.: If you won a trip to the fictional world of another author, where would you go and what would you do there?
J.P.: I’ve always been fascinated by space exploration and the many forms executed in science fiction. That being said, I would love to be a crew member of the Wayfarer from Becky Chamber’s The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. Who doesn’t want to travel on a spaceship with a multi-species crew while creating wormholes to connect distant trade routes?
P.S.: I understand your day job is a nurse. It seems you drew inspiration from that in your short stories “Coterie” and “Code Gray.” Do you plan to continue with medical-related stories, or go in different directions?
J.P.: My two short stories, “Coterie” and “Code Gray,” are a couple of the very first I ever wrote while under a mentorship about four years ago. As a new writer, it was only natural for me to draw inspiration from my day job. Key elements were already there. But as I develop as a writer, I want to step out of my comfort zone. I want to explore the potential that speculative fiction has to offer without overly relying on my day job. I’m sure another medical-related story will eventually want to be told. It’s been a lot of fun writing other stories for now.
P.S.: I gather from your Facebook page that you are (or were) a runner. Do you find yourself thinking about fiction story ideas as you run? If not, when do you get your best ideas?
J.P.: I used to run until I tore my meniscus a few years back. Until that happened, running was a great time for me to develop my stories. Now, I’m juggling toddlers, work, and friends. And while I try to think about my writing constantly, my best ideas appear at night. My phone’s notes are riddled with ideas, phrases, and concepts that pop into my head late at night. It would seem my muse likes to come knocking in that period of half-sleep while I’m trying to turn in.
P.S.: Your bio mentions monsters, spaceships, robots, and bizarre creatures. How did you become interested in writing science fiction?
J.P.: As mentioned above, I became interested in science fiction from my insatiable love of reading. It also stems from my obsession with movies and comic books. My father exposed me to movies like Star Wars, Robocop, Aliens, and Terminator when I was very young. He also introduced me to comic books and their fantastical stories that spanned from Earth to the far-reaching edges of space. I’d like to believe that movie ratings were lost in translation at my household. But in reality, I believe my father just wanted to share his love of science fiction, and ratings be damned.
P.S.: In The Science Fiction Tarotanthology, your story “The Bridge” earns a tarot card labeled “Virtual Reality.” Can you tell us the premise for the settings in the story?
J.P.: My story, “The Bridge,” is set hundreds of years in the future, after humanity flees a dying Earth. An immersive virtual reality program has been developed to alleviate the physiological stressors of prolonged space travel. My main character is a companionship entity within this virtual reality program whose human girlfriend is on the verge of ending their relationship. When I wrote this story, I wanted to explore what would happen if such a character developed real human emotions, but those feelings contradicted its core programming. It also delves into the creator’s motive in creating the program, her legacy, and how it affects the story’s characters. As our technology increases and the debates on AI intensify, the idea that a programmable entity could have feelings is not far-fetched.
P.S.: It appears some of your Puerto Rican background worked its way into your story “The Bridge.” Did your memories of PR make the story easier to write?
J.P.: Yes, this is a perfect example of writing what I know. I love Puerto Rico. I love the rich culture of my people, our traditions, and the way we place a high level of importance on family and family honor. While I’ve never been to that particular observatory in Puerto Rico, I drew sensory descriptions and settings from personal experience. It’s definitely a setting I will use again in future stories.
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
J.P.: There’s an easy aspect to writing? Tell me, please! All kidding aside, the easiest part for me is creating wonderful stories using my words. I love coming up with exciting plots and memorable characters. It’s very rewarding. What I’ve found the hardest is balancing my other obligations in life and finding time to write. Like many writers, I don’t have the luxury of making a living from writing. At least not yet. So family and work come first in my life.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
J.P.: My current work in progress is a Writers of the Future entry. My main character travels via quantum teleportation for the first time and discovers the multiverse. Suddenly, he has the opportunity to find a universe where his wife doesn’t die in a car accident. But chaos ensues when his jumps have unforeseen consequences. It’s a fun story and a little different from the emotionally complex stories I’ve written in the past. The balance in humor, plot, and character development has been a challenge, but it has a lot of potential to make for a great story.
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Jacob Pérez: Now, that’s a loaded question. There is so much great advice out there, made by people far more talented and experienced than me. But the one that I live by is one a mentor gave me. Writing is a marathon, not a sprint. We all want to be great writers and publish our stories for the world to read. In our enthusiasm, we forget that it takes time to master any craft. Everyone’s writing experience is different. I’m guilty of comparing myself to others. But it does you a disservice to rush the process. So many factors affect a writer’s journey, and every journey is unique. So, keep your head down, read, write, learn, and figure out what you want to say with your voice. Let that unquenchable need to write and tell stories fill you with perseverance. Because writing is hard, but if that’s what you love and want to do it right, the journey is worth it.
After interviewing several authors whose stories appear in The Science Fiction Tarot, it’s time I interviewed the anthology’s editor. As is the case with many editors, Brandon Butler is also an author.
Brandon Butler is a Canadian and a Maritimer, not always in that order, born and raised in Halifax Nova Scotia. He studied English and Computer Science at Dalhousie University before becoming a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest made profound effects on his early writing. Relocating to Toronto in 2008, he now works in the tech industry while writing and publishing short stories, novels, anthologies and film scripts.
Next, the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How and when did you get started writing fiction?
Brandon Butler: I really think it began by reading ‘clicking’ for me at a young age and going from there. I wanted to be a writer for a long time before discovering how hard it really was! A big step along the way was fanfiction. I wrote a good amount of Star Wars and Star Trek stuff in the early days of the internet to entertain myself and people I met online until one day I thought ‘why not just create my own stuff?’. For me, in a way, it was my first moment of ‘going pro’. And so, it all began.
P.S.: You’ve cited Harlan Ellison and Roger Zelazny as inspirations for your writing. What about those two authors, in particular, do you find compelling?
B.B.: I continue to be in awe in how Roger Zelazny was able to create such unique, epic tales such as the Amber series in so few words. There are other writing styles, but I think it speaks to the power of brevity and how the most important thing is to convey ideas and concepts that will engage the reader.
Although Harlan Ellison was also known for shorter works and even shorter temper, what I find compelling is his sheer power of emotion, and the willingness to pull from the negative side of the spectrum. I sometimes wonder if writers might be a little less willing to engage with anger and hatred than he was. If so, maybe we ought to think about that because as human beings there’s a time for rage just as there’s a time for joy and affection. It must be managed, but it’s all a part of who we are. And the more often you explore an emotion, the better you’ll understand it – or at least that’s what I believe.
P.S.: Do any facets of your ‘day job’ as a computer programmer find their way into your stories?
B.B.: When writing science fiction, it certainly helps! Knowing a little about how computers work and think can be useful when machines become characters in your stories. Once in a while you might run across a new idea to explore in fiction, but I also find it helps a lot in making your technology sound authentic. There’s nothing a little memory deallocation can’t hurt.
B.B.: Unreal. I received word a little over a year before and went to the event in Los Angeles only a couple months after I graduated from Computer Science. It was my first time leaving the Maritimes since I was very small. Getting to meet and learn from authors who I had read, spend time on the other side of the continent from where I’d grown up, and meet so many other writers beginning their careers was a formative experience to say the least. It was like the world I inhabited grew tenfold in a few short weeks.
P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?
B.B.: The latter, really. I try to be as eclectic as possible. Writing chiefly short stories means that you can get more separate stories done in a shorter time, and once I’m done one piece, I usually want to go in an entirely different direction for the next one. That said, I do notice certain themes cropping up in my work more than others. Relations between men and women is a large one (platonic, romantic, antagonistic, and all types in between). Another one is the broader reasons as to why we find ourselves in conflict with one another, and to what degree humans, as a species, may seek instability when things seem peaceful. Religion and the power of mythology also seems to pop up from time to time, although as a second-generation atheist, I’m not a religious person.
B.B.: It’s a story about a Fireman and captive Demon set in a world that’s post-rapture, where hellfire slowly consumes the planet over an extended period of time. Imps, Demons and Wraiths often enter the real world, and gunfire only stings them while water is deadly. That fact raises the importance of the Fire Department in the society that’s been left behind. The pair then work both with and against each other as they try to find the cause of a recent flare of fires that have broken out in the surrounding city.
It’s a story I wrote over fifteen years ago, and for a long time was probably the strongest story I’d written. It’s still one of my absolute best and I was overjoyed to finally sell it.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
B.B.: Work on the anthology caused me to redirect some of my focus, but in about another month I’ll be going back to handful of short stories and a couple screenplays. Two short stories I’m working on right now involve a protagonist unable to leave a semi-sentient tower that no longer wants him, and look at a world after a synthetic takeover where the machines have turned out to be rather less than infallible. And my screenplay is a non-speculative historical biopic set in the French Revolution.
There’s also a novel series about a pair of immortals I need to get back to – I completed the first one after the pandemic but there’s a significant amount of work that needs to be done from the midpoint onwards, as well as starting up the second book once the first is finished to a level at which I’m satisfied.
P.S.: How did you first get involved in editing fiction?
B.B.: The first editing work I did was back in High School for a non-speculative anthology concentrating on the pressures and ramification of war. I and a few other students had an opportunity to work on a ‘real-world’ project, so I’d say that counts as my first experience as an editor. I also worked here and there as both a contributor and editor to my High School and University newspapers, and I served as one of the staff for T.Spec’s Imps and Minions anthology a few years back, helping to select and offer feedback on submissions.
Mainly though, my editorial experience comes from reading my own work, and viewing it with a critical eye that’s as fair as possible. Seeing and correcting issues with what I’ve written has become an experience that’s both time consuming and enjoyable, to the point that it’s one of my favorite things to do. And after I’ve been away from writing for a while, I’ll usually start by editing one of my existing stories to get me back in the authorial headspace.
B.B.: On a Zoom call during the pandemic. It began with a conversation where someone mentioned she had learned how to read tarot, or wanted to. I believe either she or many others in the group tended to be into YA, Harry Potter and that sort of material (I personally tend towards what I personally term as the previous hot trend of late 70s-early 90s horror and dark SF: Stephen King/Dean Koontz or, more lately, Black Mirror), and I jotted down the idea of a tarot card deck for a new generation. As in, one with different cards. Zelazny’s Amber series was probably showing its influence again there with its use of trumps.
Originally it was a story idea and I spent a few months trying to get it to work, but it wasn’t coming together. Finally, I began to conceive of it as an anthology, since it seemed to me the card concept could function exceptionally as a list of contrasting topics – not unlike how the album Dark Side of the Moon tackles its concept of the pressures of modern life.
The last wrinkle was the involvement of Managing Editor Andy Dibble, who was a big part of the early work on the book. We had a conversation while I was still putting the idea together, and he suggested a focus on Science Fiction. Until then I’d been thinking of a speculative anthology with contemporary card themes. His suggestion seemed simpler and straightforward, so naturally I jumped on it. And so, The Science Fiction Tarot was born!
P.S.: People use conventional tarot cards for prediction, self-exploration, or care therapy. Will readers of this anthology know the future, know themselves, feel better, or enjoy some other benefit?
B.B.: Perhaps all four! In knowing yourself you probably know at least some of your future, so doesn’t that make you feel better? And it certainly comes with other benefits! Kidding aside though, I think it’s great that tarot is used in so many multifaceted ways. We created actual decks for our kickstarter backers of just our major arcana and a handful of other cards. Anyone who would want to use our cards to help in anything they do would be fantastic. And some of our cards take direct inspiration from the original tarot, so I can imagine there’s plenty of room to explore tons of possibilities.
P.S.: What plans do you have, if any, to edit future anthologies?
B.B.: Like with my short stories, I tend to want to do something else after finishing a large project. So, no particular plans for more editing in my near future, although I rule nothing out. If something comes along that I want to do, then something comes along. There’s been talk about us doing another project, but it’s just conversation so far.
Ultimately though, I didn’t commit to this project because I wanted to do an anthology – I had an idea that I wanted to do that became The Science Fiction Tarot, which happened to be an anthology. If that distinction makes sense.
P.S.: What advice can you offer aspiring writers or editors?
B.B.: Let your ideas own themselves. Although I find it’s essential to form pictures in your head of what happens in your story or what form your editing project will take, try to sense the natural boundaries of what you have. Instinct and experience help with that, although they take time to develop.
It’s maybe a commentary on that old Andy Warhol quote of getting your 15 minutes of fame: I prefer to think of it as waiting until you have something to say, then saying it and taking as long as you need until you’re done. And then leaving the stage for the next person and giving yourself a break until there’s something else to say. Which there often is. There’s time enough for everything in life, and a big help in working on any project is knowing where you are during its beginning, middle and end.
Thank you, Brandon.
Readers can learn more about Brandon Butler at his website, on Twitter, on Goodreads, and on Amazon. Also check out a previous interview of Brandon by Angelique Fawns of Horror Tree here.
