Category Archives: Author Interview

Author Interview—David A. Natale

Many author interviews have appeared here, but until now I’ve never interviewed a playwright. Today’s interviewee writes both stories and plays. One of his stories appears in Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne.

David A. Natale has written since he was a kid in Cleveland.

He received his BA in Theatre Studies from Yale and an MFA in acting from the University of San Diego and the Old Globe Theatre. David then spent eight years in New York before moving west.

Most of Natale’s career has been as a performer and playwright. His one man show, “The Westerbork Serenade,” tells the true story of Jewish actors in a Nazi transit camp in Holland during WWII. It won a Seattle Times Footlight Award in 2007 and toured the Netherlands in 2010.

His latest play, “Around The World in Less than 80 Days,” which follows reporter Nellie Bly’s 1889 global race, was produced at Key City Public Theatre in 2022.

After years of struggle in performing arts, Natale makes the transition to the literary milieu. He has been published in Italian Americana, Cultural and Historical Review. And his short story, “Nellie and Jules Go Boating,” appeared this year in the North American Jules Verne Society’s latest anthology, Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne.

He also seeks a publisher for his supernatural mystery thriller about a pizza driver: Pizza Stories: Deliveries from Beyond.

David lives in Seattle with his wife, step-son and dog. He works as an actor, stage-hand and pizza man.

Now, on with the show…er, interview.

Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you? 

David A. Natale: There were a number of writers in my family: My dad was a newspaper reporter for more than 50 years. My mom also started out as a reporter before becoming a public defender. I had a great aunt who was an author and reporter with her husband in England. I remember looking at the row of their novels on a shelf.

But mostly, growing up I remember my dad telling us stories about his childhood in the Old Neighborhood, a working-class Italian enclave on the West Side of Cleveland. He had a whole colorful cast of characters.

My mom would read us things like Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Once, when I was scared of thunder, she said it was just the elves bowling in the clouds. I believed her. Telling stories was always a thing in my family.

P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books and plays? 

D.A.N.: The first books I read included, Wind in the Willows and Huckleberry Finn. I was also really into Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and that wave of fantasy writers along with classic Sci-fi masters like Asimov and Bradbury. I also read my mom’s old Fantasy and Science Fiction magazines from the 50’s and comics I found in my grandparent’s basement, like The Witching Hour and Dr. Graves.  More contemporary influences include Carlos Ruiz Zafòn, Leigh Bardugo, Helene Wecker and Emily St. John Mandel. I also like Michael Connelly and John Le Carré. And Dashiell Hammett is so great, though I fear for everyone’s liver. As for plays and playwrights, Anton Chekhov gets my thumbs up. His short stories are even better.  Right now I’m reading Salman Rushdie’s, Victory City. Three books that have had big influences on me are: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

P.S.: Your bio mentions living in Ohio, California, New York, Washington State, and travel to the Netherlands. Have the experiences of living in all these various places influenced your writing?

D.A.N.: Even if it’s in the future or some magical reality, I usually end up placing my stories in a place that is much like where I’ve been. The settings are a lot like Seattle or Cleveland, NYC or some lonely highway out West.

P.S.: You’ve written and performed a one-man show. What was that experience like? In writing the script and performing the play, how do you sustain audience interest with just one character?

D.A.N.: Well actually, in my one-man show, there are something like fifteen characters. That definitely keeps the audience engaged. In college, I saw the Italian playwright and performer, Dario Fo. He was a master at performing solo multi-character scenes. His lazzi, “The Raising of Lazarus,” includes half the city of Jerusalem! My director and mentor, Gin Hammond, is also amazing at this. Through simple shift of focus, body and voice, it is possible to create the impression of any size crowd and any situation as well as dialogue between two or more characters. Something about, “less is more,” allows the audience to fill in the gaps with their own imaginations which can be most effective and moving. If one person is playing the Jew and the Nazi, we are forced to see the full spectrum human behavior that is within us all.

P.S.: Your crime story, “How Marco Got the Business” got published in the journal Italian Americana, Cultural and Historical Review. Tell us about that story.

D.A.N.: It’s a story about a guy from a poor immigrant family trying to bust into bootlegging during the 20’s. I wanted to attempt a noir homage to the Old Neighborhood stories I heard from my dad and uncle.

P.S.: Congratulations on the performance of the play you wrote, “Around the World in Less Than Eighty Days.” You acted in the play as well. Please tell us about the play and what it felt like to have your script accepted and staged.

D.A.N.: Denise Winter, the artistic director at Key City Public Theatre, was going to do a production of Around the World in 80 Days. I told her I wasn’t thrilled with the script which seemed old-fashioned and not very PC.  Me and my big mouth! She challenged me to make a better script. Because of COVID, we had almost two years to develop it.

Around the World in Less than 80 Days ended up being a mash-up of Verne’s story and the true historical 1889 global race between reporters Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland. In addition to Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, there were the characters of Bly, Bisland, Joseph Pulitzer, Jules Verne himself and more than 30 others; all portrayed by 5 actors.

It was a real thrill to have my play performed. I will say, though, that even though I know what a good play looks like, I find it really hard to make one good. But having the chance to hear, and say the lines one writes is a great way to find out if they work.

P.S.: Your story, “Nellie and Jules Go Boating,” appears in Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. How would you compare and contrast that short story and your previously-written “Less Than Eighty Days” play?

D.A.N.: The story expands on one scene in the play where Nellie Bly meets Jules Verne. It has a shared dream sequence where Bly and Verne fight a giant cephalopod.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

D.A.N.: Often, the hardest thing for me is just starting. I get the most chores and errands done whenever I have writing to start. I guess the easiest is when I have a general idea where a story is heading and I can just step aside and let the characters do their thing. It is a real thrill when a character does something you didn’t expect them to do and the story goes a whole new direction.

P.S.: Much of your career consisted of playwriting and acting. Only recently have you turned to short stories and novels (though you’re still writing plays). What was the transition like for you?

D.A.N.: A play is a collaboration. It engages artistry from many fields. So, a playwright can, and should, leave a lot open for interpretation. All you have to do is set the scene and let the designer and director figure out how to make it happen. Say who the characters are and let the costumers dress them. Write a line of dialogue and let the actor figure out how to say it. In a short story or novel, the author has to do it all! And they are expected to do it with some style. I guess I’m more familiar with the theatrical medium, but like I said, it can still be a challenge. To bring up Chekhov again; it’s interesting to compare his short stories and plays. In his play, a character says, “I am the Seagull,” and it’s up to the poor actor to figure out what the heck they are talking about. While in his stories, Chekhov will use great care and detail to explain what a character thinks.

P.S.: Your plays and stories span a wide range of genres, character types, and settings. Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together in some way, or would you describe yourself as eclectic?

D.A.N.: As a reader and audience member, I enjoy a wide range of genres. So, I try to write the things I might like to read or see. I even considered taking a crack at a romance. I’m romantic but I’m not really a fan of the genre—unless there are ghosts or something. I’m for the underdog, so, in my stories, usually the protagonist is one.

P.S.: I understand you’ve been commissioned to write another play script, but it involves two subjects that seem completely disconnected. Tell us about this play and (if possible) explain how the topics are related.

D.A.N.: Key City Public Theatre is in Port Townsend Washington, a quaint Victorian sea town. They want a new holiday show that speaks to that audience’s interests. Hence, why not a story that combines a sailboat race with a gingerbread-house building contest? Well, it’s a commission, so I say—why not?

P.S.: Is it true you’re working on some fiction in the solar punk vein? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

D.A.N.: The story is for a contest that asks writers to imagine our world up to 180 years from now. It is supposed to explore a just and positive climate future. With all the climate doom and gloom, I wanted to face the challenge. It was a real mind opening experience. Once I started to think about what the world could be like if we just stopped being f#@k*ng stupid, I was amazed at how the ideas started to flow. That is the whole point of Solar Punk, as far as I understand it.  If we can imagine a just future, we can make it happen. I mean, we are already living in a dystopian future. Or are we?

In my tale it’s 180 years from now. Earth is one World Commonwealth. Technological discoveries of fusion as well as advancements in robotics and, of course, A.I. have allowed humanity to prosper. But in order to qualify for funds, one has to take The Treatment: a psychoactive trip that forces one to grapple with one’s personal and historic climate crimes. Heck, I even put romance in the story. Check my website for updates…

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers of plays, short stories, and novels?

David A. Natale: I would just say: Do it for yourself. If someone sees your work and is moved, that’s terrific. But if you enjoy writing, that is all that matters. Writing can be a real remedy for boredom, depression or despair and a real path to inspiration, happiness and hope—I mean for you personally.

Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, David. That’s great guidance for writers of both stories and plays.

Readers seeking more information about David A. Natale can visit his website. Information about his play “The Westerbork Serenade” appears here. An article about his play “Around the World in Less than 80 Days” appears here.

June 24, 2023Permalink

Author Interview—Gustavo Bondoni

The Extraordinary Visions anthology 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.

His website is at www.gustavobondoni.com

Let’s get to the interview:

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.

Readers can find out more about Gustavo Bondoni at his website, his blog, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Goodreads, and also at Fantastic Fiction. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database contains a list of his short fiction.

June 15, 2023Permalink

Author Interview—Eric Choi

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?

P.S.: Your story, “Raise the Nautilus” appears in two anthologies—20,000 Leagues Remembered and Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. Readers of this blog already know about the story, but may not know the real-life events you researched to write it. Please tell us about those.

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.

Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you, Eric.

Readers can find out more about Eric Choi at his website, on Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Read Eric’s interview by Analog editor Emily Hockaday, and Eric’s list of the best books on aviation and space history.

June 13, 2023Permalink

Author Interview—Joseph S. Walker

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.

June 7, 2023Permalink

Author Interview—Jacob Pérez

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 Tarot anthology, 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.

Thanks, Jacob.

Readers can find out more about Jacob Pérez at his website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and his Amazon author page.

June 4, 2023Permalink

Editor Interview—Brandon Butler

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.

Brandon’s story “A Few Days North of Vienna”

P.S.: Congratulations on winning the Writers of the Future contest. What was that experience like?

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.

Brandon’s story “The Fire, as it Eats Itself”

P.S.: Tell us about “The Fire, as it Eats Itself,” published in Helios Quarterly Magazine.

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.

P.S.: How did the idea of The Science Fiction Tarot come about?

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.

June 2, 2023Permalink

Author Interview—Iain Hannay Fraser

If you read The Science Fiction Tarot anthology, you’ll find great fiction, and some brief bios about the authors. But to know those authors better, well, you have to read these interviews. Iain Hannay Fraser proved to be somewhat mysterious. He values his privacy—I’m not even sure that’s his real name. Lucky for you, I managed to coax him into answering some questions.

Here’s the bio for Iain Hannay Fraser:

Born on the West Coast of Canada. Previously taught English but now working as a contract writer, with specialties in tech marketing, legal analysis, and medical research. Dedicated to privacy protection, devoted to family of wife and two daughters. Lives near the ocean, rides a bike with a basket. Studied overseas.

Next, the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?

Iain Hannay Fraser: For me, it was almost a straightforward process. I have been working toward clearer communications for years in life and at work. I even spent a period of time writing and editing tweets for a business-consulting firm: sometimes trimming even one or two characters is a win. Not that “shorter” always equals “clearer”, but learning that intense discipline changed my focus on what could be left out. After a certain time, I found myself believing that my writing was clear enough to be considered nearly professional. I kept using that stylistic rigour to write short fiction, then just started submitting the stories when I was done. Once I believed that I could, it seemed an inevitable next step.

P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?

I.H.F.: I was influenced growing up by the early science fiction writers, who literally wrote fiction about science. This was the “pulp” period of greats like Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. In my adolescence I thought the social-and-technological insights of William Gibson were just the most awesomest thing ever. As an adult I wrestled with the same ethical questions as Iain M. Banks. As a writer I have come to admire stylists like Raymond Chandler, and those who elevate genre fiction to something more, like John Le Carré. My favourite book is probably Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, because I think it accomplishes all these things.

P.S.: You claim to be a private person without much of an online presence. I know many writers can identify with that. If your writing career took off, with substantial sales and readers clamoring to know more about you, would you choose to open up more, or remain private?

I.H.F.: Absolutely I would still remain private. I treasure anonymity and even appreciate being ignored. I suppose fame might have some material benefits, like getting a better table at restaurants, sometimes? But I can’t really imagine enough value to overcome the substantial downside. I think I would feel an obligation to behave in a particular way, and I don’t particularly want to take on more obligations. I suppose privacy provides a lot of freedom.

P.S.: In today’s hyper-connected world where people expect others to share personal details with all humanity, you’ve chosen a private life of introspection and relative isolation. Do you believe that’s helped your fiction writing? If so, in what way?

I.H.F.: Well, I really do hope introspection improves my writing, because it’s the way I am! It’s like me writing in English—not really a choice.

I struggle continually with the way things are. I don’t just mean that the world seems a bit lost these days, though that’s also true—I mean I struggle to understand the nature of truth underlying things. This requires engagement with the world, but it is very easy to be overwhelmed by input. I withdraw after engagement, and spend a lot of time thinking about that input, and integrating it with my thoughts.

Of course, my preference to disconnect and think may also have disconnected me from what people are really like. I hope my preferences are a net positive, but it’s hard to be sure. I often feel my writing is too cerebral and not visceral enough.

P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?

I.H.F.: I care most about the intersection of genre fiction with substantial, quality writing. We have probably all run up against the assumption that worthwhile insight and admirable art come only from literary fiction, and that genre fiction is “just for fun”. I really dislike that assumption. I like the idea that there is substance in the books that everybody reads. So that aspect of respect for genre is always in my writing. I have a personal affinity for naval fiction, noir detectives, and the broad big tent of SF.

I also think I write more about people than about events. I’m not sure that’s wise, in the circumstances.

P.S.: The ‘day job’ mentioned in your bio sounds impressive and you specialize in several disparate fields. Does your knowledge in these fields help you in your fiction writing?

I.H.F.: Yes, but also no. There’s a truism in teaching writing: “write what you know”. This doesn’t mean just write about what happens in your family, your college classroom, your neighbourhood. I think it means, write about the human truths that your family embodies. It means write about the universal insights that are revealed by your classroom. Write about the realities of life that are played out in your neighbourhood.

So, by this same token, the work that I do has some occasionally interesting connections. But the details are the vehicle for thoughts about life. That’s what I want to write about. It doesn’t matter precisely who spilled coffee on their pants, or what stem-cell research project has just uncovered a new mechanism for treating cancers. What matters is what does either of those things mean, for people? For one person, or for all people, it doesn’t matter.

P.S.: Your short story, “Three Weeks Without Changing History,” appears in The Science Fiction Tarot. What prompted you to write this story?

I.H.F.: This story started from a sense of feeling like an outsider in my old neighbourhood. The initial scene is set in a place I used to live, and used to feel connected with. Driving through there years later, though, I felt disconnected and forgotten, as if I’d never lived there at all. It was like history had changed to write me out.

I started wondering, if I had done that—if I had written myself out of that history—what was my reason? Presumably I thought the new history would turn out better for me. That would be an interesting power, wouldn’t it?

But then I started thinking about this phenomenon I’d heard about, with regard to happiness: hedonistic adaptation. Even if things improve, you tend to wind up at the same level of happiness as before—or unhappiness. If you’re discontented, you stay discontented even if you improve your circumstances.

So, I realized, if you had the power to change history, you’d probably get addicted to using your power. That’s when the story connected to human truths, so that’s what I made it about.

P.S.: Please tell us some details about the protagonist of “Three Weeks” and his conflict.

I.H.F.: Alexei is a man out of place. Many of his memories are of worlds that no longer exist. Because he can change history, he struggles with an addiction to this power, which he has used too many times. He holds desperately onto a memory of his wife and children, who left as a consequence of his addiction. Alexei is half-committed to a twelve-step program for those who can change history, but also believes he can restore his family by changing history just one time.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

I.H.F.: The easiest part of writing is the mechanics. I believe I’ve served my ten-thousand-hour practice period, and sentences hold no fear for me any longer. I get to think about what I’m saying, instead of how to say it. To use a musical metaphor: I don’t have any more problems with my fingering.

But I don’t always know what music to play. It is often very hard, in my life circumstances, to find uninterrupted writing time to focus and achieve immersion in the free-flowing psychological state that I really need. Frustration is a daily enemy.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

I.H.F.: I’m working on a novel now, my third, which like the other two is a blending of genres. This one, which is called Married to the Dead, is a blending of high fantasy (meaning, literal swords and literal sorcery in a generally-medieval setting) with detective noir (a hard-boiled cynical private investigator with past trauma but unshakeable principles, taking on high-level corruption).

It starts, because I believe in conventions, when a gorgeous woman walks into the investigator’s office and hires him to track her cheating husband. Of course that’s not the whole truth.

P.S.: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

I.H.F.: This above all: to thine own self be true. Okay, that’s from a character by Shakespeare, and there’s good reason to doubt the quality of his fatherly advice. But I think this piece, at least, has value.

No matter how you write, or what you write, some people won’t like it. It’s important not to care about them. They want something else, and you’re not going to be any good at that something else. The only thing you can be good at, I think, is whatever thing you are. You’ll hear a lot about “finding your voice” which is a little bit mystical. What I think it means is, getting rid of all preconceptions about how your writing “should be”, and making it the best version of how it actually is.

It’s hard enough to learn the techniques of writing, and figure out the things you want to say. Nobody needs a third challenge of pretending to a different identity. You—as they say—do you.

P.S.: You’ve traveled through time and met yourself at a point when you were first thinking of being a writer. What one thing do you tell this younger version of you?

I.H.F.: I would say “don’t teach high-school English”. The teaching is fine, but the rest of the job will drain your life and screw up your self-image.

P.S.: You’ve won a trip to the fictional world of another author. Where will you go and what will you do there?

I.H.F.: I have no doubts about this at all. I would go to the Culture, the universe created by Iain M. Banks. It’s a post-scarcity society with (in effect) total freedom for all. If I went there, I would claim political asylum. If I got to live there I would do absolutely nothing at first, except live quietly in isolation with no demands on me. Ideally next to an ocean. (Some of his characters do just this in fact). The plan would be to purge the expectations of our society, so I could start from scratch and understand my own self.

It doesn’t hurt that people in the Culture are effectively immortal. 

Poseidon’s Scribe: You just met an interested reader in an elevator. The reader asks, “What sort of stories do you write?” The doors will open soon, so what short answer do you give this reader?

Iain Hannay Fraser: Stories about the human experience in settings that have never existed. We’re all heading into the unknown, so it’s a good idea to practice.

Thank you, Iain.

For readers interested in Iain and his writing, I can’t offer any social media links. You’ll just have to search for his name every now and then.

June 1, 2023Permalink

Author Interview—Kevin Binder

How can one anthology contain fiction by so many fascinating writers? Today I seized the chance to interview Kevin Binder, author of “Judicial Review” in The Science Fiction Tarot.

Kevin J. Binder’s fiction has been published in The Science Fiction Tarot, Liquid Imagination, Blue Lake Review, and beyond; his humor has been published in McSweeney’s, Slackjaw, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from George Mason University, where he was awarded the Shelley A. Marshall Fiction Award and the Alan Cheuse Nonfiction Award. He has previously served as fiction editor of phoebe literary journal.

Here’s the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Kevin Binder: I’ll admit I got started with pure fiction a bit later than some authors. In college, I wrote for my university’s version of The Onion and loved it. But then, as I approached the end of my undergrad years, I knew I couldn’t just keep writing for a college paper forever. I mean, they’d need to kick me out eventually, right? So, I needed to find another creative outlet, and that’s how I started writing fiction—novels at first. And a dozen years later, here I am, still at it.

P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books? 

K.B.: Based on my previous answer, it probably won’t surprise anyone to hear that my early influences were more satirical and/or humorous writers, though that ranged from the light satire of Douglas Adams and the witty introspection of Nick Hornby to the dark satire of Orwell, Bradbury, and Heller. From there, my tastes expanded as I found authors both in the realm of sci-fi and outside of it whom I truly loved, like Ted Chiang, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Lesley Nneka Arimah, so I tried to find ways of incorporating the great things they were doing into my own writing.

As I think about my favorite stories, they currently draw more from that latter list. Chiang’s “Story of Your Life”is probably my all-time favorite story, and others at the top of my list include Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go and, on the short story side, Arimah’s “What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky” and Caitlin Horrocks’s “Zolaria.”

P.S.: You’ve won a trip to the fictional world of another author. Where will you go and what will you do there?

K.B.: Given my inclination toward dystopian works, I don’t think many of my favorite authors’ stories would be that wise of a choice. Instead, I’ll harken back to my teen years and pick the world Douglas Adams built in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Give me a spaceship with an improbability drive, and I’d probably just keep pressing the drive’s button over and over. What an absolutely wild ride that would be.

P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?

K.B.: I’m a fairly eclectic author; I write everything from literary fiction to science fiction to humor shorts in the style of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. I think part of that is because I try not to be too prescriptive in forcing a particular genre or length on my writing. Instead, I’ve found that my ideas will usually tell me what they want to be after I let them marinate for a few days or weeks. Some concepts easily grow into novels, some need to take place in a universe that isn’t our own, while others quickly reveal themselves to be shorter in length, more literary in spirit, and so on.

The one throughline I can find in my writing is the themes I tend to work with. Guilt and culpability are recurring concepts in my work (for which you can probably thank my Catholic upbringing), and my writing tends to look askance at large, rigid systems, especially those that operate based on economic incentives. Thinking about it now, you can see both these themes peeking through in “Judicial Review,” the story I wrote for The Science Fiction Tarot.

P.S.: You’ve edited a literary journal—phoebe. What was that like? How did being an editor affect your writing?

K.B.: It was a lot of work. Each semester, we received about 400-500 pieces on the fiction side alone, and as one of the two fiction editors, I personally read about sixty percent of those. So, I honestly wondered at times if I’d made a mistake signing up for the role, on top of my MFA coursework and two other campus jobs.

But looking back, I’m glad I stuck with it because it ended up being an incredibly valuable learning experience. When you’re reading that many stories on a consistent basis, you’ll inevitably learn a lot about the craft of short story writing. For every story I read, I felt that I, as editor, owed each writer a certain level of justification, that I needed to tie my impression of their work to their craft mechanics and decisions rather than stopping at a gut impression, so I was constantly asking myself: “What’s working here?” “What’s not?” “For the stuff that I like, what makes me like it?” “And for the stuff I don’t like, what’s causing that reaction?”

Ultimately, that editing experience allowed me to become the type of short story writer I am now, because that in-depth reading and question-based process helped me better understand the shapes and forms of shorter fiction, as well as common pitfalls to avoid within it.

P.S.: What non-writing hobby or interest do you have? Does it complement your writing or is it a relief from writing?

K.B.: I’m an avid traveler when life allows, having spent a year teaching English in Turkey and some significant time in Morocco. Clearly, I haven’t gotten outside the United States much in the past few years, but I’ve been trying to find opportunities to scratch the travel itch. And I certainly think my love of travel has complemented my writing in that it’s helped me see outside the common narratives I find around me in the United States. Hearing other people’s stories is probably the most effective way I’ve found to check my current modes of thinking and generate new ones. And while I’m certainly conscious of which stories are mine to tell and which aren’t, I wholeheartedly believe that exposing yourself to a diversity of thought, especially in terms of cultures, is beneficial in the craft of writing. You never know what sorts of outputs you’ll produce if you let enough belief and value systems from across the world intermingle in the strange nexus that is the human mind.

P.S.: Congratulations on winning the Shelley A. Marshall Fiction Award. Please tell us about that experience.

K.B.: Many thanks! The prize was for a writing contest organized by George Mason University (they run a few such contests each year, open to the entire GMU student body), so I suppose it was fitting that my winning piece was one that I’d conceived during my years in GMU’s creative writing MFA program. And it wasn’t a sci-fi piece, more of a literary one: a darkly satirical story about how our capitalist systems respond to the threats of climate change. I’d banged out a first draft of the piece in response to a prompt one of my professors had assigned and then revised it a few times based on my peers’ feedback. Honestly, when I submitted it for the contest, I was just hoping for an honorable mention, so to win first prize was quite the pleasant surprise.

P.S.: Your short story, “Judicial Review,” appears in The Science Fiction Tarot. What will readers enjoy about that tale?

K.B.: “Judicial Review” is a near-future story, and since its world is very similar to our own, I’m hoping readers will enjoy it as an exploration of a single sci-fi concept. To give the TL;DR intro, it’s a story about a brain transplant. As a writer, I was trying to find a way to give one of my characters a brain transplant and still make the resulting person arguably “them”—in the philosophical and psychological sense. And from there, my writerly mind spun off into ten thousand different questions about what would happen next, even if we (humanity) did our best to make this brain transplant work. For example, who would get to decide whether the resulting person was the same as the one who went into the brain transplant? What would the arguments on both sides be? And so on.

So, all that is to say, I hope that readers enjoy the story as an exploration of human identity and how close we could someday get to “surviving” with a brain that’s not our original one. And beyond that, I think they’ll appreciate the layered nature of the story because, beyond that surface-level, philosophical layer, it contains several other layers that unspool and intersect as you journey deeper into the story.

P.S.: In what way is your fiction different from that of other science fiction authors? 

K.B.: My guess is that, if you read my work, you’ll see that my writing and interests are, as I mentioned, fairly eclectic. Though “Judicial Review” isn’t laugh-out-loud funny, I think readers will spot my satirical influences because I try to find opportunities for humor and lightness in the story, despite the heavy subject and themes. Beyond that, I think they’ll also notice some of my more literary tendencies. As I mentioned before, the story is a near-future one, so instead of the heavier world-building you see in some sci-fi, I wanted to spend that real estate getting into the head of the protagonist. In that way, I’m hoping readers will enjoy the mixture my work offers, in that it certainly explores the technology behind the story but is also very much a character- and voice-driven story.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

K.B.: I’m currently working on a futuristic dystopian novel in which we humans have the technology to connect our minds directly to an immersive and integrative virtual reality (a la The Matrix), but where this technology is only available to those who can afford it. What I’ve really enjoyed about the novel so far is that its world has allowed me to both build a compelling character- and mystery-driven story and comment on the massive technological and wealth disparities present in our current society. It’s taken a lot of work so far, but I’m excited about how it’s shaping up and where I feel it going.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Kevin Binder: Oh man, a lot of ideas come to mind here, but most of the things I would say have been mentioned before by people much smarter than me, like “It just takes time,” “Be persistent,” and “Read a lot.” So, I’ll instead focus my advice on the importance of knowing yourself as an artist. As important as it is to learn from other artists and take your peers’ feedback into account, it’s equally important to filter all that through your understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, what you’ll become successful for is your unique mixture of talents that no other writer can copy, so it’s important for each writer to approach projects (and revisions) in a way that aligns with their interests and talents instead of trying to shoehorn their work into someone else’s conception of what’s “good writing” or “marketable.” Because if you go down that second road, you’ll end up trying to be too many things to too many people, which can quickly destroy the originality of any work.

Thanks, Kevin.

To keep up with Kevin’s literary adventures, follow him on Twitter and Mastodon.

May 27, 2023Permalink

Author Interview—Ben Coppin

The new anthology, The Science Fiction Tarot, contains many fascinating stories by marvelous authors. Today I present another interview with one of these writers—Ben Coppin.

Ben Coppin lives in Ely in the UK with his wife and two teenage children. He works for one of the big tech companies. He’s had a textbook on artificial intelligence published, as well as a number of short stories, mostly science fiction, but also horror, fairy tales and other things. All his published stories can be found listed here.

On to the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you? 

Ben Coppin: Maybe the real question I should answer is what stopped me. As a kid, I loved writing — I still have some stories I wrote from when I was 7 years old — science fiction before I’d ever ready any real science fiction. But then when I did A-Levels, which is the final set of exams you do in the school system in the UK I had to choose between sciences and language-related subjects, and I chose the sciences. And from that moment on, writing became pretty irrelevant. I didn’t even write an essay until many years later when I did a Master’s degree in Linguistics. And then in 2002, 2003 I was figuring out what I wanted to do, and what I wanted to be, and I had this instinctive idea that writing was the right direction. So I wrote a textbook on AI which got published in the US and was used as a college text book. 

It was an amazing experience, but also very grueling. I was working full-time and writing this book at the same time, and I’d foolishly agreed with the publishers to write it in half the time I estimated it would take — I told them 18 months, they said it needs to be 9, and I agreed. And so when I finished it, I was pretty sick of writing, and certainly didn’t want to write any more text books.

Then fast forward to 2018. I had an idea for a novel but no idea how to go about writing one. So I took a load of online writing courses, and although I did start on the novel, I also realised that I needed to practise on something shorter. So I got into writing short stories. I completed a second draft of that novel, but have never got it to a state where I think of it as being finished.

P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books? 

B.C.: As a kid I read almost exclusively science fiction. Mostly Asimov, Heinlein, Harry Harrison, Arthur C. Clarke. I also loved (and still love) The Hobbit, which I think is my favourite book. I branched out a bit when I went to University, and now I read all kinds of things, but I do tend to gravitate back to science fiction. Iain M. Banks, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson are particular favourites. In the past few years I’ve also particularly loved some books that are perhaps on the border between science fiction and fantasy — the Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemison and the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer. Both feature incredible world building and mind-blowingly good writing that keeps you hooked. Oh, and I’m really liking the trend towards what to me seems like more positive, more human, perhaps a bit lighter science fiction from writers like Becky Chambers.

P.S.: You’ve had more fiction published in just the last four years than many writers do in over a decade. What’s your secret?

B.C.: Heh. I find competitions are a good forcing function. They provide a prompt and a deadline. Deadlines are so important for motivation, at least for me. If I start a story that is not for a competition, there’s a much higher chance that I’ll just never finish it. With a deadline I just have to get it done, even if it doesn’t feel perfect. I’m also lucky in that I am never short of ideas—it’s not always easy to turn them into stories, but at least I rarely find myself stuck for ideas.

P.S.: Has your expertise in AI helped you in your fiction writing? If so, how?

B.C.: Maybe. Or maybe it’s a hindrance. I know a lot of people like science fiction to be very grounded in science, full of scientifically accurate scientific detail. Personally, I prefer Star Wars, Iain M. Banks and Ada Palmer precisely because they’re not constrained by things we consider to be scientifically plausible today. Perhaps that’s part of the reason that I’ve tended to try to avoid AI in my science fiction writing. Having said that, it often creeps in because it feels like such an essential part of the future of our world.

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.C.: I guess I’ve tried lots of things. I wrote a romantic comedy a couple of years ago which is one of the stories I’m most proud of. Admittedly, it’s set on a dying earth, so it is also science fiction… So yeah, I guess I tend to write science fiction even when I try to write other genres. And I tend to like writing about protagonists who are a bit lost, not really sure what’s going on or what they need to do. Heroic heroes don’t really appeal to me so much, at least when I’m writing.

P.S.: In what way is your fiction different from that of other science fiction authors? 

B.C.: Hmmm… This is a good question, and a hard one to answer. I guess I like to think that I allow myself to draw on a broad range of genres and styles — I have written science fiction westerns, detective stories, comedies and adventures, all of which I’d consider science fiction, but all of which make use of the tropes of other genres. But that’s not unique, of course.

P.S.: Tell us about “The Time Lottery,” your story in The Science Fiction Tarot. Winners of this lottery don’t get money, do they?

B.C.: Hah! No, indeed. The idea came from two places: A friend of mine, Paul, messaged me out of the blue one day, saying, “I had an idea for a story: time lottery.” I asked him if I could use it, and he agreed. Around the same time, I’d also been reading Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones in which she mentioned the idea of a couple who lived in such a way that when one of them was awake, the other was asleep. And those two sparks gave me this idea of a society in which there wasn’t enough resource for everyone to be awake at the same time, and the idea that a lottery would be a fair way (perhaps) to decide who got to be awake, and for how long. So then the story was set in a utopia, but a utopia with a problem. And when the protagonist wins the lottery and is woken up, he has a goal in mind that is not easy to achieve.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

B.C.: Easiest: coming up with ideas. Hardest: actually sitting down and writing. Seriously, I find it so difficult sometimes just to get out my laptop and start typing. Once I’m typing, it’s not so bad, but getting going is always the hardest part.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

B.C.: I’m working on a second novel. It’s science fiction, obviously, and is about legacies and how we can focus too much on the legacy and not enough on what’s going on now. It’s actually based on an idea I had many years ago, and in fact wrote a very short story about it, which got published a few years ago. I won’t say which one…

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Ben Coppin: Just write. It’s the hardest thing. Reading books and taking courses are super helpful for the basics and for getting a sense of what the rules are: as people always say, if you want to break the rules, you need to know what they are first. But once you’ve done all that, just write, as much and as often as you can. The more you write, the easier it is to keep doing it. Even if you just write garbage, it is easier to then write something worthwhile than if you’ve written nothing. And if you don’t write anything, you’ll never get anything published. So if publication is what you’re aiming for, write, and submit. A lot.

Thank you, Ben.

Readers can find out more about Ben at his website.

May 23, 2023Permalink

Author Interview – Karl Dandenell

In my last post, I hinted I would interview authors whose stories also appear in The Science Fiction Tarot.

Today, I’m pleased to present the first of these interviews.

Karl Dandenell is a first-generation Swedish American, graduate of Viable Paradise XVI, and Full Member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association. He lives on an island near San Francisco famous for its Victorian architecture with his family and cat overlords. He is fond of strong tea and distilled spirits.

On with the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Karl Dandenell: I remember writing basic stories in grade school, and moved on to SF around middle school. (Yes, I did my own version of Star Trek fanfic.)

My school had several excellent reading programs that allowed you to get extra breaks from class if you committed to read (X) number of pages per month/semester. I might be conflating here, but I recall that in 6th grade the class (or at least the advanced readers) was put on a bus to a book fair in nearby Santa Barbara. One of the authors presenting was Beverly Cleary, and The Mouse and the Motorcycle was one of my favorites. Meeting her was a major event in my life.

As to why I began writing… I think I always wanted to be a storyteller. At least, I wanted people to pay attention to me. Writing seemed a better route than sports. (For the record, I also dabbled in theatre.)

P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books? 

K.D.: I read pretty much everything in the local library SF/F section, which didn’t take long. When I started using my Christmas money at the bookstore, I gravitated toward folks like Zelazny, Le Guin, Patricia McKillip, and Jack Vance (all exceptional prose stylists). For Big Idea stories, I’m a big fan of Greg Bear, Larry Niven, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Nancy Kress.

Favorite books: wow, another hard one. Like many writers, there are books that I go back to again and again, the ones that have survived multiple relationships and house moves. There are also books that come into your life at a critical moment and smack you upside the head. A short list would have to include Lord of Light, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, The Wine of Violence, Emerald Eyes, and In the Garden of Iden.

P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?

K.D.: I write a lot of small cast stories; sometimes it’s just two (main) characters dealing with story’s conflict. My narrators tend to be solitary, or perhaps quiet outsiders. It’s hard for me to write someone like Shakespeare’s John Falstaff. My settings are all over the place. They will, however, always feature food and drink as part of the action. I suspect that started because I would write early in the morning or late at night, especially in grad school, so when I was hungry, my characters tended to eat. So it became a habit.

P.S.: You seem to favor the short story form. Why?

K.D.: Ironically, I find it easier, even though every novelist I know says the short form is harder. For me, the creation of an entire novel is a huge commitment not only to the world but the people, the characters. You’ve got to hang out with these folks for at least a year, and that’s only the draft! With revisions, submissions, re-revisions, etc., you’re looking at multi-year project.

Don’t get me wrong. I love novels. I love a good series. If I ever find myself truly passionate about a theme and cast some engaging characters, I will wade right in. For now, I like to sprint, or at least jog, to the ending. Rejections come a lot faster too, although I’m not sure that’s better. Writers have to develop a thick skin.

P.S.: Your blog has an intriguing title: “Beware of Fire Wombats.” There’s got to be a story behind that. What is it?

K.D.: Oh, yes! You can blame Scott Lynch, an amazing fantasy writer and all-around clever fellow. He was a guest lecturer during my week at Viable Paradise. He was talking about worldbuilding and there was a little digression about the Epic Creation Myth that some writers permit themselves. He tossed out an example of some Ancient War Between Great Powers, like dragons versus fire wombats. Whatever. I loved the image and immediately grabbed that domain (firewombats.com) for my new blog. It’s sort of an unofficial mascot for the VP 16 class.

P.S.: For readers unfamiliar with Viable Paradise, please describe it, and let us know what it was like for you.

K.D.: Viable Paradise bills itself as “a science fiction and fantasy writer’s workshop.” On its most basic level, that’s true, though a better definition might be “genre writers’ grown-up summer camp.” Every year (except during the serious COVID lockdown), twenty-four students and a dozen instructors and “house elves” gather in a hotel on Martha’s Vineyard. In October. It’s off-season, and the hotel is pretty empty. The weather can be lovely, or cold and wet. Not that you see much of the outdoors (at least I didn’t). For five intense days (plus the arrival/departure day), you read, critique, attend lectures, and write. There are also other delightful and challenging diversions that I cannot describe because of the code of secrecy. 

What I got during that week was a huge reboot to my writing approach. While I’d had a few professional sales before VP, I lacked a clear understanding of the larger genre writing community and the potential pitfalls of the artistic life. Or the joys, to be honest. Writing is a solitary business, and attending VP introduced me to amazing people, both faculty and students. They were a new tribe, a found family, or perhaps an island of misfit toys. I made some very important friendships, and they have been maintained thanks to the internet and other writing events, like conventions. I honestly think if I hadn’t attended VP I would have struggled for a decade or two to figure out what I wanted.

P.S.: Tell us about your short story, “The Schadenfreuders,” which appears in The Science Fiction Tarot. Something about aliens with strange eating habits, I’ve heard.

K.D.: That was a tough story. I did the initial drafts at a weekend writing workshop in San Antonio but it changed a lot since then. (And was rejected by plenty of markets, honestly.) My idea was to play around with the “alien invasion” trope. I wanted to make it funny, in a dry manner, like classic British humor. What if the aliens came here not because they wanted to enslave us or steal our women, but to eat us? Specifically, they want to eat our suffering. It’s a treat for them. And what if the aliens were just as obnoxious about their gourmet experiences as humans? Well, they’d need someone to act as their intermediary, which gave me my narrator, a poor schmuck of an attorney just trying to make an honest buck. Things don’t go quite the way you’d think.

P.S.: Tell us about your short story, “Supply and Demand Among the Sidhe,” which appears in Strange Economics. Did I hear right? Leprechaun mafia?

K.D.: The title comes from one of my beta readers and her lecture on economic underpinnings in fiction. The working title was “Changeling” since the plot revolved how leprechauns made some extra coin by selling human babies and replacing them with changelings. Eventually, I abandoned that idea and kept the characters, whom I really loved. The story explores the underbelly of capitalism in the land of fae. Specifically, it’s an oligarchy, with all the money flowing upward to Queen Titania. To make any kind of a decent living, all the enchanted creatures had their side gigs. That evolved into organized crime and illicit trade with humans because why not? The main conflict involves a currency shortage, and the queen isn’t putting up with that. Our enterprising leprechaun MC has to ally himself with goblins and sabotage his political rivals (the dwarves) in order to come through the crisis with his skin and bank account intact. It’s very tongue-in-cheek.

P.S.: It seemed you waxed Shakespearean in your tale “Sullied Flesh,” which appears in Speculative North. Tell us about that one.

K.D.: Every writer with an English degree feels the need to do a riff on Shakespeare. The Bard stole from everyone, and I returned the favor. (Full disclosure: I acted a tiny bit in college.) I wanted to use my theatre experience to inform a near-future SF story that is going to be fact sooner rather than later. When I first conceived the plot, it leaned heavily into cyberpunk: what if we would only hire actors to be puppets for famous performances? And what if there were an actor who wanted to prove that he could do Hamlet just like Richard Burton without the brain hardware? That gave me my main character and my conflict.

Some trivia: Hamlet is the most off-quoted Shakespeare play. For my part, I have a wrought iron sculpture in my entryway that spells out, “To thine own self be true.”

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

K.D.: I have a lot of WIP stories. It’s a condition. My most recent draft was something I put together during the Nebula Awards conference. It’s a very short piece of secondary world fantasy. In broad strokes, it’s a slightly different POV on the traditional knight vs. dragon trope. Everyone wants to be a hero, but not everyone is cut out for the life.

P.S.: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

K.D.: Write. Read. Read widely and weirdly. Don’t feel boxed in by classic literature: Shakespeare and Milton and Chaucer are great but they may not call to you. Look to untraditional voices (i.e., woman and writers of color). Travel when you can afford it. Try to make friends with other writers so you can share each other’s pain and celebrate triumphs. Be wary of friends who give you feedback but don’t really say anything. (The same rule applies to family and partners.) Pace yourself: this is a marathon, not a sprint.

And never, ever ignore the Muse. She’s fickle, and appears at the oddest times. If you feel compelled to write something that wasn’t in your plans, then WRITE THE THING. You can always edit later.

P.S.: You’ve traveled through time and met yourself at a point when you were first thinking of being a writer. What one thing do you tell this younger version of you?

K.D.: Similar to what I mentioned above for aspiring writers. For me, I might add that attending an expensive MFA program is more beneficial to job hunting than actual writing. I’d also tell myself to swallow my discomfort, go to those early SF cons, and ask questions. Writers generally love to talk about their work. You can learn a lot more from them than you can from any course.

P.S.: Tell us a little bit about your most recently published story/book.

K.D.: The Science Fiction Tarot! This was my 4th publication associated with the lovely folks in Toronto. (I previously appeared in their “Strange” series: Strange Economics, Strange Wars, and Strange Religion.)

I was attracted to the project’s concept: creating a literary “tarot deck” anthology in which the Major Arcana of the Tarot would represent many of the classic SF tropes (e.g., time travel). As part of the project, the editor planned to commission new artwork for each story. That’s always fun (and pretty rare, unfortunately). It was also a Kickstarter project, which I love to support.

My story, “Schadenfreuders” had been rejected over 40 times before finding a home with TSFT. When the editor reached out, I knew that my story about weird gourmet aliens might be a good match. And it was! At the time I’m writing this, the anthology has only been out in the world a few weeks. I’ve read a few stories and look forward to the rest. And hey, you can get your very copy in gorgeous paper or e-format. Just saying.

P.S.: You’ve won a trip to the fictional world of another author. Where will you go and what will you do there?

K.D.: My first impulse is to name one of the big fantasy realms, but I don’t think that would be much of a vacation. I like indoor plumbing. If I were to stretch the definition of “fictional” to include “imagined future,” then I would love to go to the Mars created by Kim Stanley Robinson, specifically Blue Mars. There would be so much territory to explore.

P.S.: You just met an interested reader in an elevator. The reader asks, “What sort of stories do you write?” The doors will open soon, so what short answer do you give this reader?

K.D.: “I write short fiction, primarily fantasy and speculative fiction. My spec fiction doesn’t require math to appreciate it, and my characters are occasionally snarky.”

Poseidon’s Scribe.: What non-writing hobby or interest do you have? Does it complement your writing or is it a relief from writing?

Karl Dandenell: Does reading count as a hobby? If it does, then it’s both a relief and a complement.

Poseidon’s Scribe: Thank you very much, Karl.

Readers can follow Karl Dandenell on his website and blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, on Goodreads, and on his Amazon page.

May 19, 2023Permalink