Some authors (like me) strike out at the plate for years before achieving their first sale. Others hit it out of the park on their first time at bat. Today you’ll meet one of the latter types, and a story by this author appears in the anthology The Science Fiction Tarot.
Marco Cultrera writes science fiction and is enjoying a fine start to his writing career. He sold his first story to The Arcanist magazine at pro rates, a rare accomplishment. He’s had other works published by Hybrid Fiction magazine, Polaris Borealis magazine, Total Quality Reading magazine, and The Science Fiction Tarot anthology. Another story is set to appear in the anthology Novus Monstrum. Since 2018, he’s served on the staff of Can*Con, the SFF convention in Ottawa.
Born and raised in Italy, he now lives in Ottawa where he’s found his theoretical physics degree to be more useful in his writing than in his day job.
Next up, the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Marco Cultrera: I’ve always been a voracious reader, from a very early age. I always thought that one day I may write, but I wasn’t in a hurry to start. There were so many wonderful books to read, I didn’t have the time to write my own. Eventually, in high school, I got into RPG games and that medium gave me the impetus to start creating adventures for my friends to play. From there, the switch to speculative writing was only natural. In my mid-twenties, I began writing in Italian a bit, just to test the water. But then life got in the way, I got married, moved to Canada, began working in videogames, where I started writing exclusively in English, and then kids began to pop-up. It was then, in the early two thousands, during the long nights half-awake between one feeding and another, that the plot of my first book coalesced in my mind, inspired by… Oh wait, I was getting ahead of myself, on to the next question.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
M.C.: The author I almost mentioned above was Steven Erikson. I got sucked in into his Malazan Cycle, to this day the best fantasy I’ve ever read, and probably ever will, and it got my creativity going. I wanted to create something similar, but also give it my own personal stamp. And so my first novel was born, a 200K-word mammoth that will probably never be published, but helped me immensely in improving my craft. I also rediscovered Science Fiction in that period, after having read all the classics in my youth (Asimov and Clarke above all, but also Jack Vance and Philip Jose’ Farmer), and I was blown away by the way the genre had evolved. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie blew me away, also I love how Andy Weir is able to insert rigorous science in all his books while keeping them extremely entertaining. I found his Project Hail Mary unputdownable. So naturally, my second novel – the one I’m sending to agents now – is a near future sci-fi story with technological and environmental themes. In general, I try to read broadly, including Literary fiction (The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell remains one of my all-time favorite), crime novels (I love all Harry Hole books by Jo Nesbo) and I also go back the classics (reread recently The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse, what a fantastic book).
P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?
M.C.: I would say no, I’ve written any kind of speculative fiction, from introspective reflections of the human condition and how it constantly changes confronted by technology, to action packed sword and sorcery. I really enjoy jumping from one genre to another, and the opportunity to explore the very different characters that creative freedom allows. At the end of the day, I live and die by the ideas I can come up. If one takes root in my brain, I just need to write it, no matter how wacky or out there it is.
P.S.: Tell us about “Malapropic Rhapsody.” Is it true you sold your first story at pro rates, and the editor accepted as is, with no revisions?
M.C.: Yes, it was quite shocking, to be honest, and it may have set some unrealistic expectation of the rate of publication of my short stories after that. I wrote that story on a whim, as part of a monthly competition in a private forum I was part of. Surprisingly, it won. Riding that enthusiasm, I looked up what were the best Flash Fiction magazines on the net, and I found The Arcanist. I submitted it, and I was delighted to hear a few weeks later that they loved it and wanted to publish it, with no editorial changes whatsoever. Payment was $50, which divided for the number of words, it came to about 8¢ a word, that at the time was considered pro payment. So I started writing more stories and submitting them everywhere, and naturally, shortly after, an endless train of rejections began to appear in my inbox…
P.S.: What is the premise for your novella, “Do Neanderthals Go to Heaven?” How did you come up with the idea?
M.C.: I have always been fascinated by how human consciousness may have arisen, and what evolutionary advantages have brought the Homo sapiens sapiens to become the dominant species on Earth. One day I was driving home, and passed by a church while ruminating on that, and I thought, “What if we knew that there was an afterlife? How would that have affected our evolution?” I decided that it would have hindered it, as surviving at all costs wouldn’t be as imperative if our ancestors knew that there was a new life after death. The next thing I knew, I had written 10K words about an evil corporation trying to find out if there was any truth about that.
P.S.: You’re a big part of the Ottawa-based SF&F writing convention Can*Con. Tell us about Can*Con, your role in that annual event, and how you started doing that.
M.C.: I discovered Can*Con in 2017, when I found out that my favorite fantasy author, the Steven Erikson mentioned above, was going to be the Writer Guest of Honor. I bought a full ticket and was blown away. In just a few days, I had met and talked with Steven and a ton of more established authors. I also got to pitch my novel to the editor of Daw and talked to a New York based agent! I learned more in that weekend at the con, than in the previous ten years trying to figure out the industry by myself. It was clear in my mind that I needed to be part of Can*Con moving forward, so I approached Derek Kunsken, one of the two co-chairs, and told him straight out that I wanted to help. He referred me to the other co-chair, the excellent Marie Bilodeau, and it turned out they needed someone to take over their website. I had all the knowledge necessary from my day job, so I accepted. Since then, I’ve made a ton of writer friends and become part of Ottawa’s writing community, that include some legends in the field, like Julie Czerneda, and Kate Heartfield, who is rapidly raising to a well-deserved stardom (her latest novel, The Embroidered Book, is just phenomenal. But don’t take my word for it. Come to Ottawa on the third weekend of October, you won’t regret it.
P.S.: Your story in The Science Fiction Tarot, “Support Group: Apocalypse,” earned a tarot card labeled ‘Apocalypse.” What is the premise of this story?
M.C.: Parallel Earths have become all the rage recently, but I swear I wrote this story before a certain entertainment corporation had to come up with something else after having dispatched a certain blue titan. What if victims of different apocalypses in parallel but equally doomed Earths could come together every week to a support group run by a licensed therapist? Would they be there for each other? Argue about who has it worst? Go read the story to find out…
P.S.: What are the hardest and easiest aspects of writing for you?
M.C.: Hardest one is finding the time to do it. I have a full-time job that keeps me quite occupied and a very busy household, with three daughters and four cats, so stealing time to write is a challenge. The easiest thing is coming up with ideas. I have always more concepts in my head than I will ever be able to actually write, so whenever I sit, I have no problem putting words on the page.
P.S.: In what way is your fiction different from that of other science fiction authors?
M.C.: I guess what I really like to do is come up with new ideas, or at least a new take on old ones so out there that they are hardly recognizable. Yes, characters are very important, and I work hard to make mine likeable or whatever shade of humanity they are meant to be, but my stories are invariably plot driven. Don’t get me wrong, I read a lot of character-centric fiction, and enjoy it a lot, but when it comes to my own writing I always start from an idea (or a set of ideas) that I have not seen anywhere before, and build a cast of characters around it to support it.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
M.C.: I always have at least a short story and a longer project in various states of completion. The story right now is about how something like ChatGPT can be turned on its head in the right dystopian society. The novel is about an asteroid about to hit Earth. Wait a minute? I can hear you thinking. What happened to an original idea? I can’t think of a more used trope in the history of Science Fiction. Yes, but what if the impact is 18 years away, and the first ever woman to have become Secretary General of the United Nations is determined to save every single human and not just a small colony? And what if the progress of the salvation effort is monitored through a webspace in the holoweb, created and updated in real time by a group of people scattered all over the world that share visions of Earth’s last moments? Not enough? What if the first trillionaire private citizen is building a lunar base to become the only savior of humanity? Not enough? Well, then I can’t do anything for you. Just go back to watch Armageddon or Deep Impact again, patting yourself on the back that you were right all along…
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Marco Cultrera: This question made me chuckle a bit, as I still consider myself an aspiring writer. I would say my advice is to find like-minded individuals. Writing seems like a solitary endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be. Join a writing group, online or in person, look for writing events in your city, go to book launches and talk to the authors. In my experience, the writing community is wonderfully inclusive, and everybody is always ready to cheer you on in your journey. Since I joined the Can*Con team, I made a ton of friends, and my enjoyment in the slow process of becoming an established writer has multiplied tenfold.
Poseidon’s Scribe: Thanks, Marco. My readers and I will watch your career with interest. Your early success seems well deserved.
Readers interested in following Marco Cultrera will have to do occasional internet searches for now. He’s spending his sparse free time writing fiction, not posting on social media or updating an author website.