Interviews – Page 3 – Diabolical Plots

Interview: Robert Gleason

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

Tor executive editor and nuclear terrorism expert Robert Gleason answers questions about his novels The Wrath of God and End of Days.

CARL SLAUGHTER: Is End of Days a prequel to The Wrath of God? A direct prequel or an indirect prequel?

ROBERT GLEASON: WRATH OF GOD takes place 50 years after END OF DAYS. Kate Magruder, the heroine in END OF DAYS, is an 80+ old woman, and the Citadel is the only bastion of technology left in the world. A modern incarnation of Tamerlane the Earthshaker is coming down the rubble of the Alaskan Highway leaving mountains and towers of human skulls in his wake. As his consort, the Lady Legion, once tells Tamerlane: “We have made a skull of the earth, around whose throat we string not gems but dead worlds.” The Citadel is ill-equipped to confront such a warlord, so Katherine Magruder’s son, Richard,who was trained by Los Alamos scientists and an Apache shaman,opens a hole in Time. Together, they bring back George S. Patton, Stonewall Jackson, Amelia Earhart and a triceratops to combat Tamerlane in the Southwestern desert in the Battle of the Apocalypse. When Rosie O’Donnell heard that plot description, she said: “Smoke a lotta crack, don’t you, Bob?”

One of the main characters has apocalyptic visions. What’s the premise for this? Genetic? Paranormal? Pharmaceutical?

Kate Magruder’s grandmother was a legendary real-life female Apache war shaman named Lozen. Kate inherits Lozen’s visionary abilities.

Why Russia as a setup rather than India, Pakistan, or Iran? Why Islamic extremists rather than extremist religionists in Israel or America or secular nationalists in China. Or Britain, which has both nuclear weapons and a growing population of Muslims, as well as a recent history of terrorist attacks?

Russia has the most fissile explosive of any foreign power, and it’s easier to steal. If you run a nuclear forensics test on the fallout after the nuclear attacks, it will come back as Russian-made nuclear bomb-fuel. Also my rogue state wants to destroy the developed world, and Russia has enough arms to do it. So does the US. No other nations capable of hitting the world with thousands of nukes, except the US and Russia. If my rogue state wants to get the developed world to wipe itself out, it needs both Russia and US fully on board. Why did I choose Muslim terrorists? Well, actually I chose a Middle Eastern nuclear rogue state, which employs real soldiers and sailors. I fictionalized the name of the state but was thinking of a combination of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which are close, almost inseparable allies in reality. The Saudis leadership is extremely wealthy and has a long history of funding terrorism. They even funded Pakistan’s nuclear program, still fund it, and Pakistan,among the world’s rogue states–has the most ambitious nuclear weapons program. To make END OF DAYS nuclear scenario work, you’d need a rogue state with those kinds of capabilities. (I took my scenario from Herman Kahn’s THINKING ABOUT THE UNTHINKABLE. It’s called “Catalytic Nuclear War.”)

Do weapons like Black Stealth Crow – “a creature of inconceivable cunning, elusive as smoke, invisible as night,” designed to evade infrared detectors, change shade in a flash, and hide in plain sight” – already exist?

The Crow exists and is called the B-2 Bomber. It was designed to assassinate the Soviet leadership during the Cold War and destroy their Control-and-Command Centers by delivering multi-megaton strikes in sequential laydown patterns. I got most of my information from some books by Bill Sweetman. Here’s a wiki-link for it.

Explain and describe “the no-man’s-land between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.”

The Oak Ridge and Sandia Nuclear Weapons Labs have done studies arguing that nuclear bomb-fuel reprocessors can be built with equipment from old wineries or old dairies by as few as a half-dozen technicians. Oak Ridge claimed terrorist groups could do it. It is certainly within the capabilities of a rogue state. The two labs in separate studies said building it could take less than six months. If you have the spent fuel rods from a nuclear power reactor, Oak Ridge said you could reprocess enough bomb-grade plutonium to fuel the Nagasaki bomb. This can be a clandestine program capable of eluding weapons inspectors. (The UN’s IAEA nuclear inspectors are notoriously inept.) With such low-tech nuclear explosive reprocessors, a nuclear power reactor can become a nuclear bomb-fuel factory. Former Japanese prime ministers and defense ministers have said they opted for nuclear power primarily because it allows them to stockpile dozens of tons of plutonium explosive and has allowed them to develop technology with which they can rapidly assemble nuclear weapons if the need for them arises. That is a major secret reason why so many nations love nuclear power. Nuclear power is also said to be the nuclear terrorist’s training wheels.

If the material for nuclear weapons is so easy to obtain and if building and detonating the bomb is so simple, why haven’t terrorists already used nuclear weapons?

The two nuclear terrorist groups that have the greatest access to nuclear explosive,the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Taiba,are both in Pakistan and, as they are currently constituted, are only about seven years old. The TTP has been blowing up Pakistani nuclear installations since 2006, and in 2012 announced it wants to launch attacks on the US. These organizations were created, trained and funded by the Pakistan military and intelligence services and are far more sophisticated and better funded than any other global terrorist groups. They are really military organizations and states within the Pakistani state. Also it’s not that hard to acquire Pakistani nuclear explosive. Obama’s first Pakistani ambassador said in a Wikileaked memo that she didn’t fear terrorists stealing Pakistani nuclear explosive. She feared the Pakistani officials and the people guarding it would steal it and give it to terrorists. A significant amount of it is continuously transported in truck and van convoys to elude detection by the US and India. Terrorists could hijack the convoys. The groups aren’t very old though. Also if those groups were to do it right, they’d want to stockpile enough nuclear explosive to take out a half-dozen US cities. That would take time and planning.

You’ve been researching nuclear weapons for 30 years. What has that research involved?

I’ve talked to a lot of military experts, former defense secretaries, physicists, scientists, politicians, Special Forces generals and other officers. I read a million studies. I never found a definitive book on the subject though, because the so-called experts are afraid to trace the funding for nuclear proliferation/terrorism and to expose key individuals. They were also afraid of “the no-man’s-land between nuclear power and the nuclear bomb.” The experts spend part of their time working for the government and are loath to antagonize government officials. I only broke down and wrote the non-fiction book because I couldn’t commission one for the experts I pitched.

Have other nuclear experts corroborated your research and agreed with your conclusions?

Lots of top military officers and top government officials, including a former defense secretary and chairman of the energy committee read, vetted the book and you can see their endorsements. I sent my nonfiction book, THE NUCLEAR TERRORIST, out to a lot of experts, met and corresponded with a number of them, and no one disproved or seriously attacked anything in it. What amazed me, however, was how little the experts knew about actual nuclear terrorism activities including those groups in Pakistan we just discussed. (One of the very top guys said he know “nothing about nuclear terrorism.) They also weren’t familiar with those Oak Ridge and Sandia studies I described above. Most of the so-called experts focus on nuclear arms control among nations not terrorist groups, and the odds of terrorists stealing nuclear weapons and using them are remote. Terrorists could however steal nuclear explosive and cobble together crude but powerful terrorist nukes. Most of the experts I know don’t want to get into the no-man’s-land between nuclear power and the nuclear bomb. They work with governments and even the nuclear industry.

Is End of Days a warning or a prediction? Is there still hope? What can be done to avert nuclear terrorism?

END OF DAYS is a warning. If terrorists nuke us, they would very likely try to frame an innocent third party for the attack. How do you prove the innocent party didn’t do it? Terrorist nukes leave no terrorist fingerprints, and the nuclear bomb-fuel could have been stolen from an innocent country. We might well retaliate against the innocent. Also we seldom focus on nuclear theft prevention. We always focus on illicit nuclear bomb-fuel programs. Terrorist would be more likely to steal their bomb-fuel, then build crude but powerful terrorist nukes and use them. It’s easier and safer for them.

Bestselling authors and high ranking military and political officials have called your book prophetic and plausible and have compared it to On the Beach, The Road, The Stand, Swan Song, Left Behind, Fail Safe, Sum of All Fears, Dr. Strangelove, and even the Book of Revelation. A few have compared you to Dante, Milton, and even Nostradamus. By contrast, readers on Good Reads said it’s too long and too descriptive and has too many characters and anthropomorphic animals and weapons. How do you reconcile such drastically different perspectives on the same book?

Booklist and PW gave it starred reviews. Booklist said it was better than THE STAND and that it was “in a class by itself.” PW said it made “THE ROAD look like a stroll through the park.” LJ gave it a rave review. I received no negative print reviews. All the experts and professional writers liked it. In fact, l got lots of great fan mail and it was a national bestseller. It is, however, a long complex novel. I never have fewer than ten intertwining viewpoint chapters in the book at any time. I’ve never seen that done before in any book. I did this in part because I wanted to dramatize Armageddon,something no novelist has ever done, all the other end-of-the-world novels being post-apocalyptic, not apocalyptic. I devote 150 very dense pages,almost a third of the book,to the apocalypse and I do it through that multitude of viewpoint characters and viewpoint chapters. I needed all those viewpoint characters to fully dramatize the apocalypse. I thought that was important when I wrote the book. It may be, Carl, that I wrote a serious novel and the publisher packaged it as a thriller. Hence, some readers thought they were getting THE STAND and were surprised to get something much more complex than THE STAND. I also packed the scenes with immense amounts of scientific, geographic, political, historical, architectural, anthropological, mythological and religious detail. The serious reviews and professional authors love and admire that sort of stuff. I do make the reader work, and I guess some people couldn’t handle it. The book was a national bestseller, got the best print reviews I ever saw, so I’m not too perturbed.

You were prominently featured in a History Channel documentary entitled “Prophets of Doom.” Is that documentary available online?

My website has a seven-minute clip from that documentary. If the readers want, they can click onto it and see if they like it. I’m sure the History Channel website would sell them a DVD. Or they can see if HC is rerunning it. They rerun it with fair regularity. It had high ratings, and now some filmmakers are doing a documentary on me and THE NUCLEAR TERRORIST. They have excellent commercial and critical credentials, and we start shooting next month. It’s not in the can though. Hollywood is weird. Who knows what will happen?

Do you have any tips for speculative fiction authors who want to use nuclear weapons as a premise?

The Pentagon refuses to seriously study nuclear terrorism. Among other things, it’s complex, requires some knowledge of science, and the consequences of nuclear attacks are largely unpredictable. All you can do is develop possible scenarios. Therefore, I would try to absorb as much hard information on the subject as I could. To that end I’d read THE NUCLEAR TERRORIST: His Financial Backers and Political Patrons in the US and Abroad. I wouldn’t recommend writing anything like END OF DAYS. It was too hard, too time-consuming and too exhausting. Write something easier.

Carl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

Interview: Vixy and Tony

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

Filk music. Never heard of it. Neither had I until I listened the Vixy and Tony‘s mesmerizing song “My Heart Was Like the Moon.” They have won 2 Pegasus awards, one for songwriting, one for performing. Tony gives us the inside story on the Filk genre and the band.

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHAT EXACTLY IS FILK?

VIXY AND TONY: Filk is a type of folk music associated with sci-fi and fantasy fandom. It’s something that’s been a tradition at SF conventions for several decades. Late at night, after the rest of the convention has wound down, some hardy folks with guitars get together and play songs until the wee hours. The name “filk” started off as a typo, which stuck. The name is appropriate because it’s a slightly tweaked version of folk music. For more detail on the topic of filk music, you can look up the Wikipedia article on filk music. Some of that Wikipedia entry was written by me as a matter of fact. (Where by “me”, I mean, Tony, the one being interviewed.)

IS THERE A FILK ASSOCIATION WITH MEMBERSHIP, CONVENTIONS, AN AWARD, MUSEUM, HALL OF FAME, BOOKING SERVICE, ETC?

There is no single membership or association for filking. Filk is a community, rather than a club. Filkers are just people who like SF and like to write songs about their favorite books, shows, or movies. They like to gather together at SF cons and share songs. Anyone who wants to, can show up at a filk circle and participate. Filkers are very accepting and welcoming.

You can sometimes find online mailing lists or other social groupings of filkers. For instance, where we live, in the Pacific Northwest, there is a regional filk mailing list and web site called the Emerald Forest Filk Society. There is also a filk mailing list for the United Kingdom, there was an IRC channel at one point, that sort of thing.

Over time, the filking at SF conventions got to be a large enough thing, with enough people participating, that they started to become entire convention “tracks” of their own, and eventually, spun off into their own separate conventions. There are now several regional filk conventions held annually, in various places around the world. Our Pacific Northwest convention is held in late January/early February, and it’s called Conflikt.

Some of the filk conventions give awards. For example, the OVFF convention, held yearly in Ohio, gives the Pegasus awards for various songwriting and performing categories, and the FilKONtario convention, held yearly in a suburb of Toronto, has a yearly Hall of Fame awards ceremony.

IS FILK ON THE ITINERARY OF GENRE/INDUSTRY CONVENTIONS, FAN CLUB MEETINGS, WRITER WORKSHOPS, ETC, OR IS IT MORE INFORMAL?

Filk can be very informal, springing up organically at SF cons. That’s how it started in the first place, of course, and it still happens that way much of the time. However most SF conventions will reserve one or more rooms for filk circles late at night, and some of the more interesting conventions will have concert performances of some of the more well-known filk musicians. Our local Pacific Northwest regional convention, Norwescon, has a very active music track that encompasses filk, nerdcore and general geek music. Coincidentally, at the time of this writing, the person running the filk track at Norwescon, Dara, is also the one running the Emerald Forest Filk web site and mailing list that I mentioned earlier.

At SF conventions which host filk tracks, you will sometimes find that the panel schedule will include filk-related panels, such as songwriting workshops, harmony workshops, guitar workshops, that sort of thing. If you attend one of the actual dedicated filk conventions, then the entire convention is devoted to those things, and the entire weekend will be filled with panels, concerts and filk circles.

WHAT’S A TYPICAL SUBJECT OF A FILK SONG? AUTHOR, STORY, CHARACTER, THEME, SUBGENRE?

Filk songs are about a wide variety of topics which either directly or tangentially touch upon SF fandom. You can get songs which are very specific retellings of a particular book or movie, or maybe they are like fan fiction, imagining other stories in those same universes. The Vixy & Tony song “Apprentice” is one example of such a song, where we imagined a backstory for a character in the Firefly television series, and told the story through the eyes of an entirely new character.

Geek and fandom topics are also a big subject for filkers. Songs about computers are a large part of filk, as are songs about going to SF conventions, songs about being a geek (or a fan) in general, songs about mythology, or literature, or math… the list goes on. Let’s just say that filkers can write about anything they want, it’s just that we tend to write about the things we love the most: SF and geekdom.

Filk songs can be serious or funny, originals or parodies, and can encompass many different styles. Mostly filk songs are in the style of folk music, but can also range to celtic, to rock, to rap, and other styles. Although there is usually a certain specific flavor to filk that is hard to describe, anything can be a filk song if you have written the song with the intention of it being a filk song. Anyone who actively participates in filk circles and is a part of the community, anyone who self-identifies as a filker, and who intends for their songs to be enjoyed by the filk community, is a filker, and by definition, the songs they write are filk songs.

There are other genres which are very similar to filk. What separates those genres from filk is simply the association and self-identification. For instance, if you write geeky songs in other genres but you don’t attend filk circles and aren’t a part of the filk community, then they’re not technically filk songs. Nerdcore, for example, is specifically geeky hip-hop music, and you don’t usually see a lot of crossover between filkers and nerdcore artists, although some crossover does indeed occur. There is a lot of comedy music out there, very hilarious songs which can also be very geeky. But if the artist writing and performing those songs aren’t also filkers, you can’t really call them filk songs. I enjoy all of those kinds of music very much, of course, I’m a consumer of just about any type of geeky music I can get my hands on. Most filkers I know are the same way. For example, I’m a huge fan of Jonathan Coulton, whose songs are frequently enjoyed very much by filkers, so JC has a lot of fans in the filk community. But he’s not really a member of the filk community himself, and so his songs aren’t filk songs.

Parody is a very common theme in filk music, some of the most brilliant song parodies I’ve ever heard are filk songs. Some people in the filk community specialize in parody, and that’s all they do. Filkers often use the word ‘filk’ as a verb to mean that they have written a parody of another song and that their parody is intended to be a filk song, as in, “I filked ‘Horse Tamer’s Daughter'”. Sometimes people get this confused, and think that the words “filk” and “parody” are synonymous when they’re not. Though filkers do tend to write a lot of parodies, not all parodies are filks and not all filks are parodies.

HOW DID YOU TWO TEAM UP?

I met Vixy at Orycon in Portland, where she was performing with her husband Fishy under the band name “Escape Key”. We became good friends, and when Fishy got bored of playing the guitar, I started playing guitar for her when I could. Eventually we formed an official duo, “Vixy & Tony”, which was what other filkers had already come to know us as by that time. Vixy and Fishy aren’t their real names, by the way, they’re just Internet handles that stuck, and now all their friends know them by those names. We all live together in a big house in Seattle, where Fishy makes art for Burning Man in the garage, and I’ve set up a little home recording studio upstairs, next to Vixy’s crafting space. I’m working on our second album now, in fact.

WHO DOES THE SONGWRITING, WHO PLAYS WHICH INSTRUMENT, AND WHO SINGS?

For the older songs, before we teamed up, Vixy wrote everything: Music, lyrics, arrangement, all of it. But that was very hard for her, doing it all by herself, so after we teamed up, now we have a pretty good collaboration system: Vixy writes the lyrics, and then we collaborate on the music. Usually we start with a first draft of the lyrics, sometimes just a verse and a chorus, then decide upon an overall style for the song. Then I start coming up with chord progressions on the guitar, based on the desired style. She gives me feedback on the way the chords fit the lyrics, and we make changes to the chords to fit the lyrics or vice versa. She will either come up with a melody based on the chord progression, or, sometimes she will already have parts of a melody in her head, and I will write chords which fit that melody, and fill in the gaps. Sometimes I will make a suggestion to change the melody to fit the chord progression I wrote. Occasionally I’ll write sections of words or melodies myself, or provide suggestions for the lyrics in spots. Frequently we will collaborate on the verses and choruses but she will leave the bridge up to me (she calls me her Civil Engineer because I make her bridges for her).

Instrumentally, I play the guitar, Vixy plays the djembe (it’s a kind of standing drum), and we have friends who help us on other instruments. On the albums, we’ll get a wide variety of musicians to play the parts using instruments that we could never bring to a filk circle. I do all the album production, selecting and hiring other musicians where needed, in order to get the exact sound we want. Live, we’re quite different than on the albums. In live concert performances and sometimes in filk circles, our best buddies are Betsy Tinney on cello and Sunnie Larsen on fiddle. Vixy is our lead vocalist, but I will occasionally sing a little bit, and Sunnie also sings on a few songs. We try to play with other musicians wherever possible, so you’ll frequently see us collaborating with other people, mashing up our band with theirs. At Betsy’s recent party for her solo album “Release the Cello”, at one point we managed to get something like ten musicians on stage at once, all playing on the same song, all of us friends who had played together before in other combinations. Betsy’s a bit of a musical nexus, you see.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU PERFORM?

We try to go to at least a few conventions per year, where we can play a concert and/or participate in filk circles. Sometimes after we do a concert we are too tired to go to the filk circle that night, but we try to get to the ones that we can. In between conventions, we occasionally play at Wayward Coffeehouse in Seattle, which is SF-themed and owned by a wonderful loud Browncoat from Australia. So we probably only do about 5-10 shows a year… it’s just a hobby you see, we’ve got day jobs.

MY FAVORITE OF YOUR SONGS HAS MESMERIZING LYRICS, BUT I’M NOT SURE I UNDERSTAND THEM. CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT ALL THIS MEANS?

The song “My Love Was Like the Moon” is one of our cover tunes, it’s written by our good friend Blake Hodgetts, another filker from Oregon. Blake wrote it with female pronouns, and when Vixy sings it she usually changes them to male pronouns. It’s a fairly straightforward relationship song, much like many pop songs about relationships that have gone before it. But we cover this one because it’s particularly beautiful and expresses its sentiment in a special way. It contains extremely geeky references and metaphors about math and science (it’s the only song I’ve heard that mentions phi, the mathematical “golden ratio”), yet it’s gorgeously poetic and painfully poignant. It’s about the experience that many of us has had: being in love with someone and depending on that person, but discovering that you aren’t able to be everything that they need you to be. In the end, because you love them, you have to let them move on, and continue to grow, which they will do better without you. In our lives, as we move through different relationships, many of us have been on either side, or both sides, of that particular equation. So the song is one that usually resonates quite strongly with many listeners.

Interview: Anatoly Belivosky

Anatoly Belilovsky is a rising star in the steampunk subgenre. He was born in a city that went through six or seven owners in the last century, all of whom used it to do a lot more than drive to church on Sundays; he is old enough to remember tanks rolling through it on their way to Czechoslovakia in 1968. After being traded to the US for a shipload of grain and a defector to be named later (see wikipedia, Jackson-Vanik amendment), he learned English from Star Trek reruns and went on to become a pediatrician in an area of New York where English is only the 4^th most commonly used language. He has neither cats nor dogs, but was admitted into SFWA in spite of this deficiency, having published stories in NATURE, Ideomancer, Immersion Book of Steampunk, Daily SF, Kasma, UFO, Stupefying Stories, Cast of Wonders, and other markets.

CARL SLAUGHTER: MOST WRITERS STRUGGLE TO BREAK INTO DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. YOU’VE SOLD STORIES TO THEM. WHAT APPEAL DO YOUR STORIES HAVE?

ANATOLY BELILOVSKY: A story unlocks its market the same way a key opens a door, by lining up its bits with lock pins. Some bits must match the publication’s needs , length, style, subject matter; some must, in some ineffable way, tickle the editor’s fancy. I’ve had excellent experience with DSF; they tend to publish what I like to read more often than not, and also more often than not they like what I send them. In fact, if you look at my bibliography, NATURE, Kasma, Stupefying Stories, Toasted Cake, and DSF bought 3 or more of my stories, each. That’s half of my entire output in only five markets. Granted, these are the five most flash-friendly publications, but there is also undoubtedly an excellent match between my sensibilities, and their editors’.

WHY STEAMPUNK? WHAT OTHER SUBGENRES DO YOU SPECIALIZE IN?

Steampunk is basically 19th century fanfic, and my homage to authors of that era who shaped my own writing: Poe, Verne, Pushkin, Gogol, Chekhov, Conan Doyle. And I’m a history buff, too, so it’s a natural fit. Other subgenres , alternate history, magic realism, humor. Or combos thereof. One of my own favorite stories will be reprinted soon by Fantasy Scroll magazine: “Hither and Yon,” wherein a nexus of alternate realities converges on… but why spoil it?

“KULTURKAMPF” HAS BEEN SELECTED BY THE IMMERSION BOOK OF STEAMPUNK. WHAT IS IT ABOUT “KULTURKAMPF” COMPARED TO YOUR OTHER STORIES THAT BROKE THE ANTHOLOGY BARRIER?

Must have been that immortal phrase I had my fictional Richard Wagner utter: “Fools! They seek to defeat me with Bizet!” Although at least one editor fell in love with the military rank I invented for the story, “Timpanenfuhrer.”

WASN’T “KULTURKAMPF” YOUR FIRST STORY? OR AT LEAST ONE OF YOUR EARLIEST STORIES? AGAIN, VERY FEW WRITERS SELL ANY OF THEIR EARLY WORK. HOW MUCH PREP WORK WENT INTO YOUR FICTION CAREER BEFORE YOU HIT THE PRINT BUTTON FOR THE FIRST TIME?

Not quite the first, but yes, very early. The editor of IMMERSION BOOK OF STEAMPUNK was actually one of its critiquers on the Critters workshop and asked for it specifically. “Prep work” — this reminds me of a literary agent I met once at a con almost 30 years ago. I told her I wanted to write, and about what was going on in med school – I had just started clinical rotations then. She nodded and said, “It’s all copy.” So here we are, 30 years’ worth of family, career, and other experiences later. Yes, from the viewpoint of my writer side, it’s prep work. From every other viewpoint, it’s life. A bit farther down I mention my favorite line from a Chekhov story – but it didn’t hit me how brilliant that line is, until I actually saw enough undemonstrative people under overwhelming pressure, and saw how small and subtle and poignant are the ways of their display of these pressures.

MOST OF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN FLASH PIECES. ANY PLANS TO INVADE THE NOVEL MARKET?

Yes! Of this I dream: to crank out my novels, see them sold before me, and hear the lamentations of their copyeditors. One of my literary heroes is Georges Simenon, he of the novel-a-week school of writing. I can pretty much manage a thousand words a week, two thousand if inspiration strikes. Now if only there were a niche for flash novels…

YOUR PROFESSION IS IN THE MEDICAL FIELD. ANY OF YOUR STORIES INSPIRED BY YOUR MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE/EXPERIENCE?

Inspired, yes: in the footsteps of Chekhov, Bulgakov, Conan Doyle (the usual physician writer suspects) in drawing upon that experience for knowledge of how people act under pressure. But I rarely write medical fiction: too many biomedical ideas get discarded because I know they wouldn’t work in real life, and can’t get past the shame of perpetrating a palpable falsehood in the one subject about which I may never be intentionally misleading , “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.” (As you can see from QUANTUM MECHANICS, I have no such trouble with other sciences.) Two exceptions – NOR CUSTOM STALE, in NATURE, and DON’T LOOK DOWN, in Daily SF and Toasted Cake, both touch upon medical aspects of aging. A lot of what happens in medicine is a lot less exciting than it sounds. As a resident, I oversaw a voodoo exorcism of a dying boy in an intensive care unit. It was a last-ditch measure that the parents asked to try, and they brought their own practitioner, and everyone agreed that it could do no harm but no one wanted to be there when it happened, so I volunteered. So this quiet, unassuming gentleman in a business suit came to the ICU, whispered a prayer, sprinkled something on the child’s forehead, thanked me and left. That was that. Total anticlimax.

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ ANATOLY BELIVOSKY’S LATEST DAILY SCIENCE FICTION STORY, SPOILERS IN THIS QUESTION AND ANSWER. In “Quantum Mechanics,” a man’s life is rewritten by, guess what, quantum physics. Was it the Mexican restaurant cook or the mechanic across the street who rewrote the main character’s life? Based on the implications of the next question, I’m guessing the cook. Why is the cook’s girlfriend alarmed when the customer asks about the shark bite that took the cook’s hand, and later, sad when she manned the cash register to take the customer’s money? Did the cook lose his hand saving his girlfriend’s life? Does he practice quantum mechanics on people who ask about the shark bite and the lost hand to prove to them that their life isn’t as bad as they think, ie, he lost his hand but it was worth losing and his life is still good because he has his girlfriend?

No, I was actually thinking of the mechanic: the unseen offstage presence, the actual hand that closes the lid on Schroedinger’s box, then opens it again to reveal the new reality – or at least “good as new.” Then again, once the story is out it belongs to the reader: one interpretation is as good as any other. Subject to the same caveat, this is my interpretation , and, again, not speaking ex cathedra: Here is the cook who, yes, lost his arm saving a woman from a shark. He lives across the street from “quantum mechanics” who, for a very modest fee, can rebranch the reality to where he got to keep his arm , good as new , and the shark got to keep its breakfast. Her anxiety, in part, is from her triggered recollections, and in part perhaps from a sense of insecurity , will he, or won’t he, reconsider his decision? He knows that will never happen; the answer to: “Did that hurt?” , is for the woman’s ears: “Not that much. Not really” , meaning: I’ve no regrets about the bargain I’ve made. And maybe for them, this is the second branch? Perhaps the cook first watched her die, then, with the mechanic’s help, went back to save her, and both of them remember both realities? And, knowing this, both look upon the story’s narrator with “countenance more in sorrow than in anger?” If you will allow a small digression, let me mention what I believe to be one of the most brilliant sentences ever written. It’s from Chekhov’s “A Lady with a Dog,” from the scene where the narrator sees the eponymous, and quite attractive, lady, with the eponymous dog, and approaches, ostensibly, to look at the dog. At which point: “He does not bite,” she said and blushed. I may be reading too much into it, and be wrong, but it’s my prerogative as a reader: I think this gives a wide-open view of her state of mind, of her desire to get the narrator to come closer, of her longing for, imagining, and blushing at the thought of the touch of the narrator’s hand. Analyzing my own line in retrospect: “Not that much. Not really.” It feels like it’s treading the middle ground, between: “Not in the least!” – which would have been a palpable lie, and: “Hurt like hell!” – which would have given the woman grounds for feelings of guilt on her part, or for thinking he might trade her back at some point when the sacrifice might seem not worth the outcome. Here he is both acknowledging her feelings, and tries to assuage her. This is all in retrospect, of course. Ultimately, it seemed the right thing to say at the moment and so I wrote it.

YOU’VE HAD A LOT OF YOUR STORIES PUBLISHED BY PODCAST SITES. THREE QUESTIONS ABOUT PODCASTING: WERE THESE ORIGINALS OR REPRINTS? DID YOU SUBMIT STORIES TO PODCAST SITES OR DID THEY TAP YOU ON THE SHOULDER? DO PODCASTS PAY MORE, LESS, OR THE SAME AS ZINES?

One original (NIGHT WITCH to Tales of Old,) the rest reprints. I love podcasting; my writing runs to storytelling, I have to hear the story in my head before I can write it, and the podcasts I’ve been on so far have done magnificent jobs with narration and sound engineering, and given both the higher expense of audio production, and the lack of revenue stream endemic to all Creative Commons endeavors, payments have ranged from token to low-semipro. But to hear the perfectly timed musical punchline to KULTURKAMPF as produced by Cast of Wonders, or Tina Connolly’s sublime Toasted Cake interpretation of LAST MAN STANDING, a zombie story that quotes Sartre and Camus, is a pleasure that overrides all other considerations. All stories audio produced so far have been submissions; the one “shoulder tap” was for a sequel to a story previously podcast. The sequel is written and first rights sold to its original market, but the publication of that anthology is woefully delayed, and so the podcast waits for its availability.

ENGLISH IS NOT YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE. I have a degree in journalism and 25% of my freshmen class failed their first English department writing course. So I know from experience that even most native speakers don’t have good writing skills. I teach English as a Second Language and I’ve taught several writing classes to ESL students. So I also know from experience that most ESL students, even most of the English majors, can’t write a complex sentence completely and correctly, much less a polished, understandable, interesting manuscript. Even the English majors who specialize in translation make a lot of minor mistakes. You were not raised in America and it’s much harder to learn a second language as an adult than as child. How then did you not only master English but also master fiction?

Nabokov may have been too modest (or falsely so) when he wrote, in the preface to LOLITA: “My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody’s concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian language for a second-rate brand of English.” Nabokov, of course, gets the medal for best literary command of English as a second language, with oak leaf clusters for French and German in which he had also wrote published stories while living in Europe. Starting in another language can make one more acutely aware of the fine structure of English, of how English sentences work, of how it compensates for lost declensions and abandoned conjugations; of how our first language’s classics had been translated (or mistranslated) into English, and vice versa. It certainly has not deterred the many amazing multilingual writers working now , I know for certain that Ken Liu and Alex Shvartsman both acquired English far later than they did their respective first languages, but the same is probably true of a number of others. Ken Liu, Alex Shvartsman, and James Beamon belong at the top of another relevant list – writers whose advice, encouragement and critique, all dispensed with unstinting generosity, brought me much farther than I ever would have gotten without them. To quote your question — “How then did you not only master English but also master fiction?” If “master” even remotely applies, as a verb, a noun, or an adjective, to any of my writing, it is to them that the credit is due. And then there is the subject of literary translation which a whole Ã¢â‚¬Ëœnother bag of skills altogether, which I am trying to break into with variable success – the “uptick” of “variable” being my translation of WHITE CURTAIN by Pavel Amnuel, out in the May-June 2014 issue of F&SF to very encouraging reviews (all of which say nothing about the translation, a fact I find most flattering as it means I succeeded in making the translation seamless and invisible.)

IF ENGLISH IS THE 4^TH MOST OFTEN SPOKEN LANGUAGE IN YOUR AREA OF NEW YORK, WHAT ARE THE FIRST THREE?

In my neighborhood, Russian, Spanish, and Urdu. In which I say, respectively, Spasibo, Gracias, and Shukriya.

Note: One of Anatoly Belilovsky’s Daily Science Fiction stories is a collaboration and was published under the pen name A.J. Barr.

Interview: Joanna Volpe

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

Joanna Volpe is the founder of New Leaf literary agency. New Leaf represents Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series, now a hit movie. They also represent Leigh Bardugo, author of the New York Times best seller Shadow and Bone, which is scheduled to hit the screen in 2015. Joanna has build a stable of talented authors who share her passion for storytelling. She also hired a screen agent with an impressive resume. She has business savvy and keen editorial instinct. She has succeeded at every stage in her career. She is an agent to watch, an agent to work with.

CARL SLAUGHTER: MOST LITERARY AGENTS TRANSITION FROM BOOK EDITOR. YOU LEAPFROGGED THAT STAGE. HOW DID YOU ACHIEVE SUCCESS WITHOUT EDITORIAL BACKGROUND?

Joanna Volpe: Really? Many agents I know were never an editor. In fact, they come from all walks of life: lawyers, film industry, teaching, social work, etc. I do have some editorial background; I worked for a small press called Blue Marlin Publications my first year in the business. Outside of that, I’m a self-taught editor and a lot of that came from reading and writing myself. I’m a terrible writer though. But I should also note that editing my clients work is a small portion of my job, and in fact my job is to find them the right editor! So I think it’s definitely OK not to be an editor first.

YOU WERE COMPARATIVELY YOUNG WHEN YOU MADE THE MOVE FROM AGENT TO ENTREPRENEUR. WHY LAUNCH YOUR OWN BUSINESS SO EARLY IN YOUR CAREER? WASN’T THAT A BIG RISK?
Agents are entrepreneurs, even when they’re working for someone else. Running your own client list might as well be running a mini-business. So the leap wasn’t that difficult to make. Of course there is risk involved whenever you’re laying your own money on the line, but I knew it was a risk worth taking. I wasn’t planning on doing it so soon, but it was the right time for Nancy to take a step back, and that helped me to make the decision.

NOW THAT YOU OWN YOUR OWN AGENCY, DO YOU STILL HAVE TIME FOR AGENTING OR DO YOU SPEND MOST OF YOUR TIME MANAGING THE BUSINESS AND MANAGING THE STAFF?

At first it was a big (and rather difficult) adjustment, and we’re still trying to perfect the system. I hired a CFO and business manager about a year ago and it was the best decision I ever made. He is brilliant and handles most of the management so I can focus on my clients.

OPERATING A SUCCESSFUL AGENCY REQUIRES PLAYING AND WINNING THE NUMBERS GAME, NOT JUST BEING ABLE TO RECOGNIZE GOOD LITERARY QUALITY. HOW DID YOU MASTER THE BUSINESS SIDE OF THE EQUATION? MENTOR? NIGHT CLASSES? FINANCE MANAGER? JUST GOOD WITH NUMBERS?

How about all of the above? My parents have owned and operated their own businesses my whole life, so I grew up in an environment where work was home and home was work. My father always says that “you have to be creative to stay in the game,” and he’s absolutely right. He is the guy on-the-ground, and my mom is the bookkeeper. I helped her in the office when I was a kid, and she had me balancing my own checkbook by the time I hit 6th grade. That’s just how my childhood was. But even beyond that, I’ve had a number of mentors over the years that continue to inspire me. I also took some night classes in the NYU publishing program in 2006 and 2007, and they were really helpful. And of course, there’s my CFO. He changed the way I was looking at the Big Picture, and I’m so grateful to him for his expertise! And finally, I have a fantastic financial adviser. As you can see, success is rarely won alone.

QUERIES, PARTIALS, SUBMISSIONS, MANUSCRIPTS, CLIENT MANUSCRIPTS, CONTRACTS, EMAILS, PHONE CALLS, MEETINGS. HOW DO YOU JUGGLE ALL THE LOGISTICS? DO PERFORM TRIAGE OR DO YOU ALLOT CERTAIN TIMES AND A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF TIME FOR EACH TASK?

Ha! I wish I had a good answer for this one. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to juggle it, especially when you throw a lot of traveling into the mix, which is what my 2014 has been looking like. (It’s only May, and I’ve been to 7 different states and 2 countries this year!) All I can say is that I have an incredible team, and I wouldn’t be able to juggle any of it without them.

DO YOU STILL READ ALL YOUR SLUSH? DO YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO READ BOOKS THAT ARE NOT IN THE SLUSH PILE?

I read some slush, and I also have an assistant who reads a lot of things first. It just depends–we actually discuss it first and split it up each week. I’m desperately trying to make more time for published books that aren’t client books. It’s important for agents to read a lot and read widely so we can keep our fingers on the pulse! But it’s sometimes tough to squeeze it in.

DO YOU STILL HAVE TIME FOR WRITERS CONFERENCES, WRITERS WORKSHOPS, AND GUEST ADVICE COLUMNS?

I’ll do 1-2 a year of these things, but not as much as I used to. I also contribute to an awesome and informative publishing blog called Publishing Crawl.

“LUNCH WITH THE EDITOR.” IS THIS LEGENDARY RITUAL UNDERRATED OR OVERRATED?

Both. It’s not nearly as fancy as someone might think (though it can be, sometimes). But it’s also underrated in the fact that too many people rely on social media to interact these days! A lunch can be so much fun, and it’s still the best way to really get to know an editor.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU DECIDE TO REPRESENT A BOOK BUT CAN’T FIND A PUBLISHER FOR IT? HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU SUBMIT A MANUSCRIPT BEFORE FINDING A BUYER?

This truly is on a case-by-case basis, and also dependent on where I am in my career and what kind of talent is seeking me out. As for how many rounds of submissions I’ll do–usually just two, though it also depends on whether or not we’ve revised significantly again.

HOW MANY COPIES OF A DEBUT SPECULATIVE FICTION NOVEL COME OFF SHELF BEFORE AN AGENT SMILES? HOW MANY COPIES OF A NOVEL SELL BEFORE YOU HEAR PEOPLE SAY, “OH, SO YOU REPRESENT SUCH-N-SUCH BOOK” OR “OH, SO YOU REPRESENT SUCH-N-SUCH AUTHOR”?

This also depends! It’s not so much about the amount of copies as it is about the entire package and publication roll out. It also depends on how much a publisher paid for the book in the first place. Different things make me smile, not just sales numbers. But as for when I start to REGULARLY get praise for a book or author–that’s usually after it’s hit 50,000 copies if I had to guess. There are exceptions to this though, and I do get praise for clients who don’t hit that number as well.

DO REVIEWS HAVE AN IMPACT ON SALES? DO THEY IMPACT MANUSCRIPT BUYING POLICIES AND HABITS? DO YOU CULTIVATE RELATIONSHIPS WITH REVIEWERS?

They can have an impact on sales, but not always. Reviews don’t impact my manuscript representation policies or habits though. Just to clarify–agents don’t buy manuscripts. We represent the authors and the work. As far as relationships with reviewers go, I value the relationships I do have with them very much.

DIVERGENT RECENTLY HIT THE BIG SCREEN AND HAD A SMASHING OPENING WEEKEND. “DIVERGENT BREAKS THE YA CURSE” READ THE HEADLINE IN THE WIRE. SHADOW AND BONE IS SCHEDULED TO HIT THE BIG SCREEEN NEXT YEAR. YOU’VE GOT A SCREEN AGENT WITH SOME IMPRESSIVE CREDENTIALS. ARE YOU PLANNING TO EXPAND SIGNIFICANTLY INTO SCREEN?

Divergent opening in theaters was a thrilling experience. Shadow and Bone is still in the very early stages of development, but we’ve placed it in good hands at Dreamworks. I do have another project that starts filming next month called The DUFF by Kody Keplinger. I would love to see more of our projects break into this arena, but I also know it’s a very long and arduous journey, each and every time.

WHEN YOU DECIDE WHETHER TO REPRESENT A MANUSCRIPT, IS SCREEN ADAPTABILITY PART OF THE FORMULA? ARE YOU MORE INCLINED TO REPRESENT IF IT’S SCREEN ADAPTABLE? ARE YOU LESS INCLINED TO REPRESENT IF IT’S NOT SCREEN ADAPTABLE?

I got into this business because I love books, first and always. Whether or not something is more inclined to be screen adaptable is not something I take into account when considering if I should represent the author for the long haul.

MORE AND MORE, AGENTS ARE PLAYING THE ROLE OF EDITOR AND PUBLICIST. PUBLISHERS HAVE EDITORS AND PUBLICISTS. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT THEY AREN’T DOING? HOW DID YOU ASSUME THOSE ROLES? AREN’T PUBLISHERS GOING TO START CUTTING EDITORIAL AND PUBLICITY BUDGETS WHEN THEY REALIZE AGENCIES ARE TAKING ON THESE ROLES? ARE YOU GETTING A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF SALES FOR ALL THIS WORK?

They’ve already been cutting budgets across the board, even before agents stepped up their game in these areas. If I want my clients to succeed, I need to go to sleep every night and know that I did everything I reasonably could to help them do so.

I’VE NOTICED IN YOUR AUTHOR’S BLOGS THAT THEY SPONSOR AN AWFUL LOT OF CONTESTS AND GIVEAWAYS AND MAKE AN AWFUL LOT OF VISITS TO SCHOOLS, CLUB MEETINGS, AND CONVENTIONS. IS ALL THIS ACTIVITY AUTHOR BRANDING, STORY EXPOSURE, FAN BASE BUILDING, OR SUPPLEMENTAL SALES? ISN’T THE POWER OF THE STORY ITSELF THE PRIMARY FACTOR IN SALES?

Depending on the author and the project and the event, it could be any one of those reasons you list, but I do think it all comes down to story exposure and fanbase building. All of the bells and whistles in the world aren’t going to make up for a bad book. So yes, I agree that the power of the story itself is essential, but unfortunately not the primary factor in sales. I’ve seen many a brilliant book go on to sell very little. I hate when I see that.

WHY IS IT AUTHORS -MUST- HAVE AN ONLINE PRESENCE? AREN’T THE BRICK AND MORTAR STORES STILL IN BUSINESS? DON’T READERS STILL BROWSE THE SHELVES? WHAT CAN A BLOG OR SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE DO THAT GOOD READS AND AMAZON CAN’T DO?

These questions don’t act against one another–they are all part of the whole. Are brick and mortar stores still in business? Yes–and thank goodness for them! Do readers still browse the shelves? Some do. What can a blog or social networking site do that Good Reads and Amazon can’t? Well, social media gives readers a direct connection to content creators. That’s something that would have been very difficult to do before social media existed. Why must authors have an online presence? Because of consumer expectation. But I don’t think authors need to do everything (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc). They should find the one thing they feel comfortable doing and do it well.

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO SUMMARIZE A 100,000 WORD NOVEL IN A 2 PARAGRAPH QUERY THOROUGHLY ENOUGH AND CONVINCINGLY ENOUGH TO GET OUT OF THE SLUSH PILE?

It’s possible. Every client I’ve signed has done it. It just takes practice.

Interview: Nathaniel Lee

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

Nathaniel Lee puts words in various orders. Periodically people give him money for this. The correlation is weak at best, but present. He lives somewhat unwillingly in North Carolina with his wife, son, and obligatory cats, where he maintains a vague sort of career that provides sufficient money to continue his writing and board game habits. Coincidentally, he is the Assistant Editor of both Escape Pod and the Drabblecast (the posts were each offered independently and without knowledge of the other). As a result, he has read enough stories about penises, serial killers, and time travel. He is also an assistant editor for the humorous anthology series Unidentified Funny Objects. Check out his blog at Mirrorshards where he does Very Short Stories. Exactly 100 words. No more. No fewer. Every day.

CARL SLAUGHTER: HOW EXACTLY DOES ONE WRITE STORIES EXACTLY 100 WORDS?

NATHANIEL LEE: Start writing and stop when you hit a hundred.

No, okay, seriously, flash fiction is a tricky row to hoe because here’s so little space. Microfiction almost always has to sacrifice some of the key “pieces” of a story: plot, setting, character, theme. Sometimes you shade them out in proportion, sometimes you just do away with one altogether (resulting in “character study” or “world fragment” type stories). If you can use tropes and narrative conventions to make your audience fill in the blanks for you, so much the better.

One thing that it will train you to do is absolutely and brutally trim all ornamentation. If there’s a bit of description that’s just pretty words but that doesn’t advance the core concept of the story, you’re going to feel it bulking against you like a two-liter soda in a snow jacket pocket. You’ll learn very quickly what is absolutely necessary to a story. (And sometimes you’ll find that you need those extra words; I’ve had several full short stories that grew from the fact that the 100-word story they started out as was just too cramped a space to explore them or generate their full effect.

HOW EXACTLY DOES ONE ACCOMPLISH THIS FEAT EVERY DAY?

Don’t ask me. I’ve lapsed. 😛 I’m down to one a week at best, now that we have a toddler, and when I do have energy to write, I’m usually working on salable short fiction. So I guess the answer is: free time.

When I’m alert and rested and ready to be creative, it takes as little as ten minutes for me to polish up a new flitterfic. It’s taken up to and over an hour, though.

WHAT EXACTLY IS YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION AT ESCAPE POD?
WHAT EXACTLY IS YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION AT DRABBLECAST?

At this point, they’re nearly identical. I manage our teams of slushers, making sure they get the stories and give the basic thumbs-up/thumbs-down in a reasonable timeframe, and then I filter the thumbs-up pile down to the 1-5% that make it to the editor’s desk. Other duties include whatever Norm needs me to do at the time, including emergency audio recordings, working with authors on rewrites, pestering people to send me stories I’ve read elsewhere, etc.

WHAT EXACTLY ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THESE PODCAST SITES?

Uh, legion? Escape Pod plays it straight; we do science fiction of a fairly middle-of-the-road style, presented as stories read to you by a narrator, with brief intros and editorial comments. Drabblecast is a Weird market, liable to come at you with body horror or high-brow lit-fic or poetry or goofy cartoons, anything and everything that generates that frisson of “wait, what?” that makes a story Drabblecastian. It’s also much more of a show, if you catch my meaning, with Norm’s big personality rampaging all over every segment and putting a personal stamp on everything that happens, a bit like the old late-night movie shows with the colorful hosts. (Yes, Norm, I am explicitly comparing you to Elvira.) I feel like people listen to the Drabblecast specifically because it is Norm’s show. (Basically, Escape Pod has had four editors and at least as many hosts in its run, and they’ve all done a good job and maintained a recognizable show, but if the Drabblecast ever lost Norm, it wouldn’t be the Drabblecast anymore.)

HOW EXACTLY DOES ONE GET CASTED BY THESE PODS?

What, like get your stories on? Uh, well, write a really good story and then send it to us. submissions@drabblecast.org. Advanced players can sell it elsewhere first, since we do a lot of reprints, and thus get paid twice on the same piece.

The other route is to write a story so amazing that when we read it after you have (of course) published it elsewhere, we then hunt you down and demand to give you additional money for it. If you want to make sure we see it, though, best to send it in to the submissions address.

Once we’ve bought a story, we line up a narrator from our stable of volunteers and get an audio file, and then Norm does whatever he does into a microphone and he and Tom chop it up real fine and bring it to a simmer, after which it gets spewed all over the Internet.

WHAT EXACTLY IS YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION AT UNIDENTIFIED FUNNY STORIES?

Unidentified Funny *Objects*, please. (U.F.O. – geddit!?) [ Just testing you. ]

Anyway, for Alex I just do volunteer slushing. He has about a dozen people he uses to help filter and sort stories every year. Also sometimes he buys stories off me. (I assume he doesn’t take my slush feedback on them into account. :-D)

HOW EXACTLY DOES ONE GET PUBLISHED BY THIS ANTHOLOGY?

Twenty dollars, same as in town. (You send it to the submissions address: ufoeditors@gmail.com. Preferably while submissions are open, which they are not. If the money continues to roll in accordingly, I’m sure there will be a fourth installment next year. Try ’em then. :-P)

WHAT EXACTLY GOES ON OVER THERE AT MIRROR SHARDS?

One word, plz. Mirrorshards. [ I knew that. ] And what goes on there is I write flash fiction and post it. Also when a new story of mine comes out elsewhere, I link to it there and update my bibliography, which is a sub-page on the Blogger interface. Real authors maintain actual sites with blogs about their lives and writing habits. I periodically post bizarre surreal snippets and the occasional hyperlink. This is how you can tell I am quality.

WHAT EXACTLY IS/WAS YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE CRITTERS WORKSHOP?

Uh, not much? When I was a wee young author, back in 2008, I joined a bunch of writing workshop groups and found out that most of them are terrible and are full of amazingly bad advice. Critters is a decent site if you need a feedback forum (and I think some fairly major names still use it), but the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty bad because your story is literally sent out to a random subset of the membership, of whom a further subset will decide to read it and critique it. I received some comically bad critiques there and at one point had someone threatening me with physical harm because I did not like his (terrible) story. It’s also very slow; you’re waiting a month or two for a critique unless you have the free time to earn the jump-the-line passes by critiquing a dozen stories a week (which I used to have but no longer do). I eventually found myself treating Critters critiques as an aggregate, where if *everyone* was saying the same thing, I’d look into it as an apparent problem with the story, but on the whole, it’s very hit-or-miss. I did meet some very nice and competent writers there as well, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that once you find a smaller group of folks whose taste you know and trust, I’d rather use that group of reliable beta-readers than trust to the whims of fate and the general Internet population. Additionally, since I now read slush for two magazines, I have a lot less energy and interest to devote to detailed critiques of random strangers’ fiction. (As King of the Slush Monkeys, I can read a terrible story and just go “No, this is crap, get out of my inbox” and I don’t have to be nice or friendly or find constructive things to say, just formal and polite “no.”)

EXACTLY WHAT WISDOM DO YOU HAVE TO OFFER ASPIRING WRITERS BASED ON YOUR EXACT EXPERIENCE?

Get used to disappointment? No, seriously. There are multiple orders of magnitude more hopeful authors than there are open and available slots in all paying markets combined. While it’s theoretically possible for a wunderkind to immediately flare into Guest of Honor status at all local conventions and instantly quit their day job to write fiction full-time, it is not going to happen to you, dear newbie author (statistically speaking). You’re going to have to keep head down and butt in chair, cranking out stories and improving your skills, and you’re going to have to send your stories out and get them back with form-letter rejections, a LOT, and it’s not much fun and doesn’t really pay much of anything. It’s a lot of hard work and a long, slow process, and for most people it never will become a career in the sense that it can pay the bills.

(Yes, yes, self-publishing revolution and etc. Me, I just don’t have the energy to promote myself quite that frenetically, and frankly the folks that have the skills to hack it as a salesperson and maximize their profits are often not the same folks who have the ability to make me tear up with the beauty of their prose. And even there the success stories are egregiously outweighed by the people who took a shot at it and failed so badly that no one even noticed they were trying. Browse the free and 99-cent books on the Kindle store sometime if you want to feel depressed. About yourself, about humanity, your choice.) (The self-published erotica is particularly good for the latter. My wife reads me excerpts sometimes. She likes them, but then, she is a demonic entity who feeds on human misery and draws strength from the pain and humiliation of others.)

As for actual writing advice, well, honestly, almost all of it is useless because almost all of it has at least one amazingly good counterexample, and more pertinently, what really works for one person (as writer or as reader) sounds dumb to another. I avoid statements about the nuts and bolts of writing because if you’re good enough, you can make anything sing. My advice is to read a lot, and not just idly, but actively teasing apart how and why a story was written the way it was. A good author is thinking about (or better still, has ingrained instincts about) everything down to the specific order in which the adjectives describing a character are placed in a sentence; the better you understand why each word ended up in the place it did, the better you’ll do when trying to sort different words into order yourself.

Read a lot, read actively, and keep butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. The more you write, the more you assess and revise and read and incorporate and revise and write some more, the better you will get. It’s boring, but it’s the only advice I’m willing to guarantee.

Note: Diabolical Plots reviewer Frank Dutkiewicz is also associate editor of the above mentioned Unidentified Funny Stories, I mean Unidentified Funny Objects, I mean, well, you know what I meanÃ¢â‚¬ �

Interview: Tina Connolly

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

Flash podcast site Toasted Cake was launched in 2012 by speculative fiction author, theater buff, and painting hobbyist Tina Connolly. Toasted Cake recently posted its 100th podcast. Connolly’s first novel, Ironskin, published by Tor, is a fantasy retelling of Jane Eyre and was nominated for the Nebula award. Ironskin was followed by Copperhead. The third in the series, Silverblind, is due in the fall of 2014. Seriously Wicked, a YA novel, is due in the spring of 2015. Connolly’s short stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and many other magazines. She is a graduate of the 2006 Clarion West workshop.

CARL SLAUGHTER: Why did you decide to launch a podcast?

TINA CONNOLLY: Because once upon a time in 2008 or so, Rachel Swirsky asked me to narrate a story for Podcastle. Podcastle led to Escape Pod led to Drabblecast led to Pseudopod led to Beneath Ceaseless Skies led to Three-Lobed Burning Eye led to Cast of Wonders led to Strange Horizons led to Far-Fetched Fables led to John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey’s anthology, The End Is Nigh. And so on. Basically, I got hooked.

So there I was in 2012 with a book coming out (Ironskin) and another book under contract (Copperhead) and a one-year-old boy and a new-to-us fixer house, and I said, Self, you know what would make this year even better? Podcasting a new story every single week, that’s what.

TL;DR: I be crazy overscheduled, yo.

CARL SLAUGHTER; How did you choose the name Toasted Cake?

TINA CONNOLLY: I knew I wanted it to be a flash fiction podcast, so I was batting around ideas that would play off of the bite-sized idea. Things like Snackcast. They were all taken. I kept brainstorming tasty -pod and -cast names, but still, all taken. Eventually I just got to things I like, like Pie for Breakfast (taken.) And eventually, Toasted Cake. (Listen to episode 32, “The Hungry Child” by Romie Stott, to hear an outro about why you should totally toast your cake.)

It has been since pointed out to me by more than one person that Toasted Cake and Tina Connolly share a set of initials. I did not do this intentionally, but I suppose my subconscious may have gotten the best of me….

CARL SLAUGHTER: Why restrict the podcast to flash fiction?

TINA CONNOLLY: One, because I wanted to podcast an episode every week, and that wasn’t going to be feasible with full-length fiction (not doing it all myself, anyway.)

But two, because I LOVE flash fiction, and I think it gets a bit overlooked. A really good piece of flash fiction is just a different creature than a full-length story, or a poem. (Listen to episode #13, Helena Bell’s “Please Return My Son Who Is In Your Custody”, for an outro with some of my Brilliantly Insightful Theories (TM) on what makes flash fiction work.)

The fact that I DO love flash fiction has made Toasted Cake work out really well, I think. I mean, in that you should probably only start a magazine if a) it’s filling a niche, and b) if it’s something you’re passionate about. I never wanted to become a magazine editor in particular, but boy howdy, I do love reading a piece of flash fiction each week.

CARL SLAUGHTER: How often do you post readings?

TINA CONNOLLY: Once a week. (With occasional misses for laryngitis.)

CARL SLAUGHTER: What type of stories do you feature?

TINA CONNOLLY: A few descriptors I like are weird, quirky, dark, twisted, funny, fun, literary, puzzling, bizarre, tongue-twistable, singable, patter-friendly, elocutionary, experimental, witty, and wistful.

A few of our amazing authors: Camille Alexa, Vylar Kaftan, Ken Liu, Cat Rambo, Rachel Swirsky, Caroline M. Yoachim, and I have to stop there or I never will. Most of the stories are reprints, and since they’re flash they tend to come from a few markets in particular,I notice a number of stories from Nature and Daily SF (and in the first year there were still a number from the late lamented Brain Harvest.) But I’ve also run original stories (“Zing Zou Zou” by C. S. E. Cooney, is a particularly awesome example), and stories from folks who’ve told me this is their first podcast appearance.

CARL SLAUGHTER: Who does the reading?

TINA CONNOLLY: Me! But while I was off on maternity leave, I had a few fantastic guest-narrators read for me: Dave Thompson, Graeme Dunlop, David Levine, and Matt Haynes. It ended up being all male voices, actually, because with three of the four of them I sent them something that I had wanted to run on the podcast but thought I wasn’t quite the right narrator for it.

CARL SLAUGHTER: You read for a variety of other podcasts. What type of stories do you like to read?

TINA CONNOLLY: Here’s where I post the list of descriptors I like again! 🙂 Seriously, though, what’s different about Toasted Cake is that everything I purchase has to be a) be podcastable and b) by ME. I sadly have to turn down stories that I personally like but I think I’m not a good fit for. So the stories on Toasted Cake are definitely the sort of stories that I think I will enjoy reading, and that will suit me. (But I also sometimes stretch a point and make my listeners listen to me sing, for example. 🙂

When an editor asks me what I feel comfortable with, my list usually goes something like: younger voices, alien/fey/otherworldly creatures, snarky, wistful. I’m planning to join Audible as a narrator one of these days,once the baby’s older, anyway! I would love to sink my teeth into a full-length book.

CARL SLAUGHTER: A number of your stories have been podcasted. Who chooses the reader for your stories, you or the podcast editor?

TINA CONNOLLY: The podcast editor does. I’ve had a lot of great podcasts run! Actually, my first exposure to Drabblecast was via hearing Norm Sherman read my On the Eyeball Floor for Escape Pod in a killer reading.

CARL SLAUGHTER: Toasted Cake recently reached a milestone. 100 podcasts. Can we expect any major changes or is it ‘steady as she goes’?

TINA CONNOLLY: Thank you! Yes, we did reach 100 , I’m thrilled to make it this far. (I was originally just planning to do one year, but then it picked up the Parsec award for Best New Podcast, so I thought, hmm, maybe there’s some people out there who’d enjoy hearing a little more of it… 🙂 No major changes,I plan to at least make it to 200, so there’s a good bit of Toasted Cake in store yet!

CARL SLAUGHTER: How does an author submit their story to be podcasted on Toasted Cake? How does someone volunteer to read for Toasted Cake? Do you accept prepackaged podcasts from the author or reader’s publicist or agent or fan?

TINA CONNOLLY: Right now I am the only narrator, although I wouldn’t rule out having another guest voice from time to time. Prepackaged podcasts is an interesting idea! I’m not sure if anyone’s doing that,at least, they haven’t contacted me with it. AFAIK, all the main podcasts, including mine, just accept submissions of stories. In text form.

I currently am doing two open submissions windows, one in February, and one in August (but not this year). Here’s the info, and I’m looking forward to the August submission period! Toasted Cake is a boutique market, which is a nice way of saying I can only pay $5. (You can also choose the option of me buying you a drink at a con, which I love as it means we get to sit down and chat a bit.) However, it is primarily a reprint market, which means you could have sold that story ten times already before sending it to me, and another ten times after. . . . Or, just come listen to the show!

Thanks for the interview, Carl, and for having me here on Diabolical Plots!

Connie Willis Interview

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

CONNIE WILLIS TALKS ABOUT THE EXTENSIVE RESEARCH SHE DOES FOR HER WRITING, HER INTEREST IN HENRY MENCKEN, HER OPPOSITION FAKE CHANNELERS, HER DISINTEREST IN BECOMING TELEPATHIC, WHAT AUTHORS SHOULD DO AND NOT DO AT CONVENTIONS, AND HER LONGSTANDING, FRIENDLY RIVALRY WITH MIKE RESNICK FOR THE MOST HUGO NOMINATIONS.

CARL SLAUGHTER: I can’t say I’ve ever read a short piece of speculative fiction more consistently sophisticated than Inside Job. How long did it take you to write? How many revisions?

CONNIE WILLIS: I rewrite constantly (which is why my novels are always late), and I put in loads of work on every single piece I do. My two-volume novel BLACKOUT/ALL CLEAR took eight years to write, DOOMSDAY BOOK took five, TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG four. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Every story basically takes your whole career to write, both in the skills you acquire and where the stuff comes from that the stories are about. “Inside Job” took a year or so to write, but acquiring the stuff that went into it (including my fascination with Mencken and admiration of him, my hatred of fake psychics and mediums who prey on people to get their money, and my decision to have the heroine be an actress who’s too smart to be in Hollywood) all took years longer.
If you really want to know how long the story took, you’d have to include my reading Postcards from the Edge and all Carrie Fisher’s other books (that’s where I got my too-smart actress from), my reading Inherit the Wind and The Great Scopes Monkey Trial and lots of other books about the Scopes evolution trial which Mencken covered, all of my reading of Mencken’s stuff and biographies about him before I ever decided to write the story, and the original story (about a fundamentalist group who were trying to raise their dead evangelist from the grave in Baltimore and accidentally got Mencken), which led me to go visit Mencken’s grave way back in 1982. That original story never got written, but it’s what led to my writing “Inside Job.” Some famous writer said, when asked how long it took him to write a story, “My entire life,” and that’s pretty much true.

As to revising, I can’t answer the question, “How many revisions?” because I rewrite as I go, rewriting lines and then scenes and then, once the story’s done, the whole thing till it does what I want. I love the scene in Stranger than Fiction where the professor tells Emma Thompson, “You realize that now your ending doesn’t match the rest of the story?” and Emma says, “Yes, so now all I have to do is rewrite the book to match the ending.” That’s pretty much how it is with me. After I write the ending, I have to go back and make the whole thing match.

CARL: One of your trademarks is integrating extensive research into your stories. Which topics had you already researched before deciding to write a story about it and which ones did you research specifically for a story?

CONNIE: I think using the world “research” gives a false impression. I do do research, where I check facts and make sure I’ve got names and dates and locations and details right (what would a little girl in 1348 wear for warmth when she went outside in winter? mittens? a hat? a scarf? and where would a psychic hold an event in Hollywood, stuff like that. But most of the so-called “research” I do is really just the reading and watching of stuff I’m interested in (and/or obsessed with.) I loved H.L. Mencken the moment I laid eyes on him, which was when I read The Great Scopes Monkey Trial and have been reading all his stuff and all about him ever since. I’m also a huge Carrie Fisher fan, and a gigantic skeptic. I read The Skeptical Inquirer for fun (and to get incensed by all the frauds there are out there), not because I needed it for a story.

That’s how most of my stories originate, from the stuff I’m fascinated with–Satchel Paige, Lewis Carroll, the Titanic, the London Blitz. My research doesn’t grow out of my stories, my stories come from them. I was a Fred Astaire fan and had seen all his movies long before I decided to write Remake. People always assume I was also a fan of the Middle Ages, and that that’s why I wrote Doomsday Book, but actually I was a fan of the bubonic plague. I live in the Southwest, where the plague is still around–we get several cases a year, mostly from prairie dogs–and that got me interested in the Black Death and in other pandemics, like the Spanish flu.

I am also a huge fan of Dorothy Sayers, who wrote a classic novel, Nine Tailors, about bell ringers, and I sang in a church choir for years and had to put up with some pretty awful handbell ringers, so I knew all about bellringers, too. But I didn’t know anything about the Middle Ages, except for Chaucer, so I had to do tons of actual research. (And by the way, when researching something you know nothing about, I really recommend children’s books for starters. They give you nice, quick overviews and have lots of pictures, so you can figure out from there what other books you need to read.)

CS: If you’re not already an expert on a topic, how much research time do you typically invest in a story?

CW: “Invest” is the wrong word. I know writers who treat it like an investment–someone kindly did an analysis of how much time my stories took and how much I got paid for them, and informed me I should “invest” far less time in them, which is ridiculous. A story should be as good as you can possibly make it, which means it should take as much time as you need to make it that good. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote to Hemingway, “I want to be the best writer in the world, don’t you?”

When I wrote Blackout/All Clear, my two-volume novel about time travelers going back to World War II, I read every book I could read about the London Blitz and the Intelligence War and ambulance squads and the evacuated children and the evacuation of Dunkirk. I learned way more stuff than I could put in the book, but in a way it’s all there. Your research should be like an iceberg, with only a small portion showing above the surface and the rest underwater, because if you only research what goes in the book: 1) you don’t know enough to have a feel for the subject, and 2) you’ll never find those telling details that make all the difference to a story. You have to wade through volumes and volumes of stuff to find that one anecdote, that one line, that totally makes your story. Like the fact that H.L. Mencken had an aphasic stroke. Or the story about the bombing raid on Fleet Street during the London Blitz. Fleet Street was home to the newspaper industry, and the raid destroyed pretty much everything. Only one paper managed to get its presses back up and running in time for the morning paper, and its headline read, “Bomb Injured in Fall on Fleet Street.” That story perfectly captures the essence of the British spirit during the Blitz, but I would never have found it if I hadn’t read hundreds of books.

CS: You work the convention circuit a lot. What exactly does an established writer do at conventions? What’s a typical itinerary, what has priority, and what do you hope to accomplish?

CW: It’s true, I’ve been to lots of conventions over my career. I wouldn’t call it exactly working, though. It’s lots of things–a chance to connect with friends, to catch up on what’s going on in the field, a chance to meet your readers and talk to them, as well as the more formal things like doing readings and panels and interviews.

Although it’s certainly true that going to conventions can raise your profile and give you publicity, that’s a long-term goal and it happens in an oblique way, by fans getting to know you and thinking you might be worth reading.

I think it’s a horrible mistake to see it as just an opportunity to try to sell your book. Some writers approach it like that–when they’re on a panel about ANY topic at all, they do an infomercial for their book; they stick all their books in front of them at every opportunity, pass out bookmarks, pencils, etc. and are generally as popular as a salesman buttonholing everyone he meets and trying to get them buy their widget. The panels are the worst: I was actually on one with a bunch of hard-sellers about “How Do You Kill Your Characters?” After a very frustrating half hour trying to get them to talk about anything else besides how wonderful their books were, I said, “Okay, let’s all name our favorite death of a character in literature. I’ll start,” and I talked about King Lear’s death and then handed off the microphone to the first hard-seller, who said (I am not kidding!) “Well, everyone says my killing of my character in my book is the best one ever!” “Better than Shakespeare?” I sputtered. “Yes,” she said. OH, MY GOD!

People go to science fiction conventions to hear great conversations by writers they may or may not have read on interesting topics. They don’t want infomercials! My advice to writers going to cons: be interesting or funny or flamboyant or knowledgeable, and people may very well say, “Wow! They were cool. I think I’ll try one of his or her books!” DO NOT DO INFOMERCIALS.
And also, KNOW something. I’ve been on panels like, “What are your top ten favorite SF short stories?” or “time travel books” or whatever, and once the hard-sellers have listed their story (of course), they’re completely stumped to come up with anything else. Do your research.

And be nice to the other writers on the panel. This is not a “winner takes all” game. People who try to undermine their fellow panel members and make them look bad don’t last long in the field.

And sometimes, if they get on a panel with the wrong person, get a very public comeuppance.

CS: Do you still get rejection letters? Do you still have editors try to tinker with your story? Or is there a stage where an author becomes immune to all that?

CW: The only reason I don’t get rejection letters is because I don’t write all that many stories, but of course, I still get edited. I would be very unhappy if I didn’t. Writers CANNOT see their own blind spots–that’s why they’re called blind spots. You’re much too close to your own story, and you were so focused on getting this particular thing to work that you completely forgot some other thing–until an editor says, “But why didn’t they just call the police?”

I work with Sheila Williams at Asimov’s, and she goes over my stories with a fine tooth comb and gives me lots of great suggestions. Ditto my editor at Bantam–I always get pages and pages of notes. My gripe is that lots of editors don’t have much time to give you lots of help–the business is just not structured that way anymore. So most writers end up using their writer’s workshop (which I really recommend) or close friends (not your mother) to do what editors don’t have time to.

My advice for writers: when working with an editor on a book, tell yourself you have fifty points to use when objecting to criticisms and/or refusing to change stuff. Do you really want to waste those points on whether to put a semicolon or a period in a sentence? Or keep a long (and probably boring) passage the editor wants you to cut? Or would you rather save it for the sentence or paragraph that you’re passionately committed to and that you think makes or breaks your story.

I always use the fifty-point thing (it’s less for stories). First I see what all the things I’m willing to do without question are (usually most of the stuff), then move on to the ones I think where I don’t agree with what the editor suggests but think I can do something that will make both of us happy, and finally move on to the non-negotiables. I also try to remember that there are many ways to say the same thing, and that my words are not, in fact, golden. And if that fails, I look at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s manuscripts. He changed everything, all the time. Because he wanted to be the best writer in the world. And came darned close.

CS: You and Mike Resnick have this longstanding, friendly rivalry going over the number of Hugo nominations/wins. Where does the count stand? Who has more nominations? Who has more wins? How often are you nominated the same year? How often have you won when you were both nominated and vice versa?

CW: You’ll have to ask Mike about that. He’s the only one keeping track. But you’re right. It is both a longstanding and friendly rivalry. I’ve seen people who thought we weren’t kidding and that we were enemies who might actually, I don’t know, bludgeon each other to death over a Hugo Award (or with a Hugo Award–they’re pretty heavy), and once, after doing a comic schtick routine with him on a panel, someone came up to me, very worried, and said, “I thought you guys were friends.” We are friends, and our so-called “rivalry” is just something fun that evolved over years of being up against each other on various ballots. But just like using irony, which can be dangerous in the wrong hands, there’s the danger that someone might take you seriously. But it should be obvious from the number of introductions and blurbs and bios I’ve done for Mike just how much I admire him and his work.
I didn’t get to know Mike well, even though we’d been on several panels together, till I was asked to edit a Hugo Awards volume. One of Mike’s Kirinyaga stories was in it, and we talked together quite a bit while the book was being put together. I hadn’t read Mike’s work before (shameful secret–writers don’t read nearly enough of their fellow writers’ stuff), and I was just blown away by how wonderful a piece of writing it was–nuanced, ironic, multi-layered, and beautifully constructed and written. I immediately went and read all his other Kirinyaga stories and then a lot more of his work, and my admiration of him just kept growing. So did our friendship, and one of the most fun parts of it is that he perpetually refers to me as “The Lady Writer from Colorado” and keeps track of our comparative stats.

CS: Last heard you were working on a telepathy novel. How is that going? One of your niches has been time travel. Is telepathy your next niche?

CW: You heard right. In fact, I am still working on my telepathy novel, though I’m very close to being done. It’s a light take on telepathy, partly because there are so many great classics out there, like Robert Silverberg’s Dying Inside and John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, and partly because I love writing romantic comedy and think telepathy would be absolutely terrible–do we really want to hear what people think? It’s bad enough having to listen to them at Starbucks. People are boring, self-involved, stupid, and apt to obsess over things no one else cares about. Why would we want to listen to them? But if there was a way to connect to your true love and be sure he or she really loved you, you might opt for that. And then, what if you found yourself not connected to your true love, but to someone else entirely, someone you didn’t even like?

I have written lots of time travel stories and novels. I love time travel. I’ve also written about dreams, near-death experiences, signing apes, clones, fads, the movies, Christmas spirits, nuclear war, ghosts, and lots of other stuff. Time travel is my favorite, though, partly because we all wish we could go back in time and see history first-hand and partly because we know it’s the true forbidden country, the one we can never return to. And we all have regrets.

CS: Most memorable convention moments.

CW: Um, let’s see, there are so many. There was the time Sheila Williams and James Patrick Kelly and I nearly got thrown out of the Tupperware Museum in Orlando, and the time we almost got thrown out of the Grand Ole Opry (the new one, not the old one), and the time we got to tour the old Grand Ole Opry, where Hank Williams actually sang. (I’m a huge Hank Williams fan.) And there was a great morning when a bunch of us at a Nebula Awards weekend in New York (Sheila Williams, James Patrick Kelly, Michael Cassutt, and my daughter and I, as I recall) went to the Algonquin Hotel to have breakfast (we couldn’t afford dinner–or lunch) and wish we were as smart and funny and charming as the members of the Algonquin Round Table (Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx, Alexander Woolcott, etc.) were in the 1930s. We weren’t, of course, but there was a huge long line for breakfast, which we stood in for nearly an hour, chattering and having a wonderful time, and we were smart and funny and charming enough that when we finally got seated, they gave us complimentary orange juice for keeping the line so entertained. It wasn’t martinis, but still.

CS: For those who haven’t read it, “Inside Story” is about channeling. If you could channel from the other side, who would be your vessel and what would you say and to whom?

CW: This is the wrong question to ask me. I hate the whole idea of people trying to prey on our wishing they could talk to their dead loved ones or to dead famous people and have written not only “Inside Job” about it, but “Substitution Trick,” “Service for the Burial of the Dead,” and a whole novel, Passage, and I would never inflict being channeled on anyone, even if it were possible, which it’s not.

If, however, I could speak from beyond the grave, I’d say something more than “We are happy here.” Honestly, that’s one way you know it’s all a fake. They always speak in these appalling generalities and platitudes. I would hope I would say something which would be actually useful, like, “The key you’re looking for is in the top right-hand drawer in the kitchen. Next to the sink. No, under the tea towels.”

The other reason it’s the wrong question is because I’m busily writing my messages from the dead right now–in books. Which is what all writers do, isn’t it? Speak to you from other places and other times. And from beyond the grave. I don’t need channelers. I can already hear from Shakespeare and Dickens and Robert A. Heinlein and Dorothy Sayers and Jerome K. Jerome directly.

CS: Advice to aspiring writers.

CW: Read. It’s the single thing that will make your writing better. And read widely–biographies, travel books, history (especially history, which is the raw material of human behavior), humor, the classics, chick lit, Westerns, mysteries, everything. Plus magazines and newspapers and blogs and the backs of cereal boxes and billboards alongside the road.

Also watch stuff. Watch movies and TV series (we’re going through a sort of amazing Renaissance of television shows right now) and soap operas (there are still some) and the news and C-Span and Jon Stewart and old movies. It all adds to the mix in your head that is where your work comes from.

My favorites of the last couple of years: Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader, Joan Didion’s The Year of Living Dangerously, a book (I can’t remember the name) about Mary Anning, who discovered the first ichthyosaur skeleton when she was ten, Alan LeMay’s The Searchers, E.F. Benton’s Mapp and Lucia books, Samuel Delaney’s “The Star Pit,”LouisMcNiece’s “Bagpipe Music,” Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the TV series Castle, the movies The King’s Speech, Kinky Boots, The Shop Around the Corner, Father Goose, Grabbers, Leap Year, Joss Whedon’s Much Ado about Nothing, and Buster Keaton’s The General.

And of course, my all-time favorites, the British TV series Primeval, the British TV series, Doc Martin, the Syfy miniseries Alice and Tin Man, Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess, Peter Beagle’s A Fine and Private Place, Anthony Trollope’s The Warden, Charles Williams’ All Hallows Eve, and anything with Fred Astaire in it or by Dorothy Sayers, P.G. Wodehouse, Lewis Carroll, Philip K. Dick, Kit Reed, Mark Twain, Nora Ephron, or Shakespeare.

Interview: Michael Swanwick

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

CARL SLAUGHTER: Common misconceptions aspiring writers have about crafting a marketable story and how to deliver ourselves from those misconceptions?

MICHAEL SWANWICK: The idea that there’s some kind of secret handshake involved in getting published. The idea that you have to trick an editor into buying your story. The idea that if you write in imitation of some successful writer’s work, his or her fans will flock to you. The idea that there’s a new movement or school you can hop aboard like a train that will take you straight to the top.

You deliver yourself from these by writing something good enough that an editor buys it and publishes it. When the book or magazine finally comes out and you hold that glorious, professionally edited and printed item in your hands, you will realize that you earned this moments. No tricks, no stunts, no politics. Just good writing. By you. That’s a terrific feeling.

Common manuscript mistakes aspiring writers make and how to recognize and correct these mistakes?

The very commonest is to open a story by “setting the scene” or “establishing mood” or giving background information that the reader is expected to memorize in order to understand the story to come. On those rare occasions I teach writing, I begin by going over the student submission stories and crossing out everything that should be cut before the story actually begins. Finally, on page two or five or eight, I’ll draw a line and write: START HERE.

This can be prevented by making sure you start at the beginning of the action. Or, better yet, in media res.

The least obvious common mistake, however, is not making sure your first and last pages are compelling and crisply written. I’ve watched editors reading slush back in the days when the slush pile was a physical heap of paper, and they would read the first page of a typescript and then flip to the last page. On the basis of that cursory glimpse, they would then put almost every submission in the reject pile and one or two stories aside to be read all the way through. “When I was starting out, I thought that was terrible and swore I’d read every story from beginning to end,” an editor told me once. “But I found out fast that you only need to read the opening and closing to know if there’s any chance the story will be good.”

Is there such a thing as style rules (see below) or is that conventional wisdom / dogmatism? Shouldn’t the story determine the style rather than vice versa? “Yeah, but famous author X breaks the rules all the time and the editors don’t challenge him on it.”

(Is show inherently better than tell, is activity inherently better than dialog? Are activity and dialog inherently better than narrative, are first, second, or third person inherently better than the other two? Is changing the POV in the middle of the sentence inherently confusing? Do you have to open with the most dramatic scene and then rewind? Do you have to list the contents of a room or describe a character’s physique or clothing? Does the story have to be organized like a 3 act play? Are dream sequences and info dumps inherently weak tools?)

Write as best you can and as simply as you can. That is the whole of the law. Sometimes a story can only be told in an extremely ornate or flashy manner. In those cases, it should be told in as simple an extremely ornate or flashy manner as possible.

Editors will let you get away with anything you can make work. When they challenge you on matters of style, they’re saying that you haven’t made it work and that the style is getting in the way of the reader’s comprehension.

Addressing your examples: Showing is usually better than telling, but not always. Action is usually better but dialog reads faster, so you can use the distinction to speed up or slow down the story as needed. Narrative can work brilliantly but if it’s just synoptic, it’s going to be boring. Third person past tense is what readers are most comfortable with, so you should only move away from it when you have a compelling reason to do so. In short fiction, you should have only one point of view, unless you have a compelling reason for more. The only POV shifts within a single sentence I can recall reading were in Finnegan’s Wake, which is not an easy book to read but one that rewards the extraordinary investment it asks of the reader. Flashbacks, particularly flashbacks occurring immediately after the opening of a story, are almost always a bad idea. A room or scene can be described in two perfectly-chosen details (in John Cheever’s notebooks, he recounted sitting in a friend’s living room while the man chained smoked and talked about his impending divorce, trying to think of the two details that would pin the scene; he kept looking down at the ashtray, overflowing with cigarette butts, and out the picture window at an achingly blue sky, back and forth from one to the other). Unless the story is about a character’s appearance or clothing, they can be dealt with in three or four details, tops (Marilyn Monroe: blonde, zaftig, a birthmark to one side of her lipsticked mouth). I’ve never used the three act play as a model for any of my fiction. Dreams are only rarely used well in fiction. Info dumps are to be avoided if it can be done efficiently, but sometimes a well-placed info dump saves you three or four pages of dancing about the subject and in those cases it should be embraced.

There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all pantyhose. Almost every rule of thumb has exceptions. But as a rule of thumb, the exceptions are harder to write well.

Use an outline and character profiles or wing it?

Whichever works for you. There are many kinds of writers, some of whom cannot begin writing until they know every twist and turn of the plot and others whose creative processes shut down the instant they know how a story ends, with the vast majority of us existing somewhere in between. The thing is that there is not one single skill which we can call “writing”; there’s a large family of related skills which result in superficially similar end-products. What works for one writer will stop another one dead.

Strategies for plotting and developing characters and reinforcing themes?

I can honestly say that I’ve never given a moment’s thought to themes, much less reinforcing them. Here’s an insight into plotting, though: As a general rule, a story requires at least three characters. With only two, the conflict ends with the protagonist either winning or losing. As fiction, this is about as interesting as tug-of-war. With two other characters pulling her in different directions, however, she ends up being pulled in a new and, one hopes, interesting direction.

Some writers base characters on real people and those times I’ve done this, it worked well. Mostly, I hold up my characters against real people to see if they’re complex enough. When I was writing The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, I taped a picture of the Sex Pistols to my monitor as a reminder that the monsters in my book should be at least as scary as them.

To revise or not to revise, that is the question.

There comes a moment when putting more work into the story just makes it worse. Stop just before you reach that point.

To workshop or not to workshop, that is the question.

Pretty much all unpublished writers workshop their fiction, so there’s no point to arguing against it. At the very least, it provides reassurance that you really are a writer and that you really are doing something to make progress at a time in your career when you need those reassurances most.

Keep in mind, though, that a workshop is only as good as its component members. That not all advice is good. That over time workshops tend to impose a house style on their participants. That they favor those who write quickly and in a conventional voice over those who are painstaking and quirkily original. That if their advice doesn’t make your story any better, the problem may not necessarily lie in you.

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To agent or not to agent, that is the question.

When you have a completed novel that has a chance of being published, you need a good agent. For some reason, publishing houses keep putting unreasonable clauses in their contracts which an agent knows how to remove. (But don’t count on your agent to have read the contract. Educate yourself, read before signing, and if anything looks puzzling get on the phone right away. Your agent should know if a clause is standard or not.) Also, unagented writers almost invariably get paid less for their work. The exceptions are those who know the industry so well they can do the negotiations on their own.

Notice, however, that I specified that the agent be good. Anyone can be an agent; there is no accrediting agency. And a bad agent can do horrible things to your career. Luckily, agents aren’t interested in taking you on before you’ve got a finished book to offer, so you have time to do research. Use this time wisely.

To self publish or not to self publish, that is the question.

Are you good at marketing? Do you have a business plan? Do you have a clear idea of how you’re going to let people know your work exists? Have you worked out how many units you have to move to move to cover your costs? Are your numbers realistic or just wishful thinking?

Everything depends on your situation. A conventionally published writer with a decent following and enough free time to do it right can put his or her out of print back list to work and earnÃ¢â‚¬ � well, not enough to live on, but a pleasant little supplemental income. Somebody who’s really good at the business end, is willing to work hard, and can write at least three novels a year can make a career of it. Somebody who’s been published conventionally and experienced push-back (you only get so many chances before the publishing world gives up on you) can make a comeback attempt by self publishing and sometimes it will work.

Writing is a tough business. Publishing is a tough business. Self publishing is a combination of the two. If you’re going to do it, put in the research before you spend a penny. Writer Beware is a good place to begin.

10170242 To ebook or not to ebook, that is the question.

If you’re self publishing, you pretty much have to go with ebooks. If you’re not, go with whatever deal is best , but make sure the contract includes a clause reverting e-rights when payments to you go below a clearly defined level.

To write fan fiction or not to write fan fiction, that is the question.

When my son was a teenager, he and a friend spent a summer writing a fanfic mashup of two incompatible gaming worlds, and for a year they received more fan letters than I did. So far as I can tell, there was no downside. Except for the part about not getting any money for it and not having a physical book to put on the shelf.

To join the SFWA or not to join, that is the question.

I’ve been a member for over thirty years, so obviously I believe in the value of the organization for the community of genre writers. If you’re expecting individual career benefits rather than the satisfaction of promoting the common good, it’s probably not going to do much for you. The social element, the sense of community, and the SFWA Directory full of addresses for writers you may have cause to contact are all nice. But SFWA’s chief function is to encourage a set of conditions within publishing such that someday you won’t ever need to call upon their help.

Writer Beware is a SFWA site, incidentally, and it’s available free to everyone.

243855 True or false: The system is rigged against the rookie and in favor of the veteran.

Not true, and in the case of short fiction extremely false. Most successful writers abandon short fiction after they make a name for themselves and so the magazines are always on the lookout for new writers. Also, editors take pride in the talents they’ve discovered.

Publishers will always prefer a new Stephen King novel over something by a complete unknown. But they also like being able to snap up The Next Stephen King at bargain rates.

True or false: An editor should have enough editorial instinct to recognize an awesome premise based on a synopsis and commission a novel rather than defer judgment until reading the entire manuscript.

Times are changing. For most of my career, I was an oddity because I finished my novels before trying to sell them. Everybody else sold by fragment-and-outline. (The sample chapters were required so the editor could get a sense as to whether you could write commercially viable prose.) More and more now, I hear, editors are willing to look at the fragment-and-outline but requiring a full novel before making a final decision. This has nothing to do with their editorial instincts, and everything to do with in-house policies set by their corporate masters.

An editor asks for a change in the story. It’s a seemingly small change, but it fundamentally alters the story. Stand your ground? Explain your vision for the story and ask the editor to yield? Politely withdraw the manuscript?

Polite is always good. Whether you politely stand your ground, politely ask the editor to yield, or politely withdraw the story depends on your honest opinion of what’s at stake.

First, however, take a deep breath and try to be objective. It’s hard to be reasonable about your own work and God knows, every time I go over a copy-edited novel, I find myself defending every quirk of phrasing and oddly-placed comma with all the emotion of a mother bear defending her cubs. But it’s important to think of the proposed change not as a moral challenge but as a well-intended suggestion that might conceivably improve the story.

Whatever you choose to do, remember that the editor hasn’t requested the change out of malice but from the simple (possibly misplaced) belief that it will improve the story. So play nice. Remember that you may find yourself working with this human being again.

I’ve interviewed more than one author who sold their first novel without getting even one short fiction byline in the magazines. Are they the exception or is this the new order of things?

It’s always been possible, and reasonably common as well, to sell a novel without selling short fiction first. The advantage of making a name in short fiction first is that it creates a following for your fiction and some name recognition for you. But not all writers are good at both lengths. Go with your strength.

Michael_Swanwick 6 You described Gardner Dozois as a manuscript doctor genius. What exactly did he do to fix a manuscript?

One very small example: When he read the typescript for “The Feast of Saint Janis,” he said to me, “Congratulations, Michael. You’re the first person ever to write a story about rock and roll without once using the word Ã¢â‚¬Ëœfuck.'” I immediately thought: Oh drat, and rewrote the dialogue.

Gardner has an uncanny ability to spot whatever it is that makes a story not work , whether it’s too wordy, or needs expansion, or requires a new character or rethinking an existing one. What makes him a great story doctor is that in doing so he doesn’t impose his own style or preferences upon the work. He looks at what the story itself wants to be and what you want to accomplish with it, and advises accordingly.

Most importantly, he’s a minimalist. He restricts his advice to those parts of the story that aren’t working. He doesn’t try to improve what’s already functioning.

Early in my career, I wrote the first chapter of a novel that was going to be about a parallel-worlds traveling con man, most of which was taken up by a clever con game I’d invented. Two pages into the second chapter, I decided that I didn’t like the protagonist or the premise and gave up on it, but not before leaving a chapter with Gardner. One day I dropped in on him and said, “What’s new?”

“Wait a second,” he said, and finished typing a page. Then he trued up a typescript, handed it to me, and said, “You’ve just finished a story.” And I had! He’d removed the first and last pages, made the story about time-traveling drug dealers, and changed it from the non-functioning opening of an abandoned novel into a witty and entertaining novelette. All the stuff in the middle was unchanged. “Snow Job” sold to High Times, was reprinted in Asimov’s, and taught me a lot about the extreme malleability of fiction.

Interview: Jennifer Rush

Jennifer Rush does YA and MG, sci fi and horror, prequels and sequels, male and female POVs, romance and action. Let’s just say she’s versatile.

CARL SLAUGHTER: When your agency decided to represent Altered and when your publisher decided to buy it, what type of feedback did you get from the agent and editor? What aspects of the story appealed to them?

JENNIFER RUSH: I think it was a few different elements. Thrillers, and characters that have been genetically altered, weren’t huge at the time, so I think it helped that the idea was fresh. I also focused a lot on keeping up the action, and the plot twists, so I think that helped too!

CARL: Your third Altered book is going to be a prequel. Why delve into Nick’s past?

JENNIFER: It’s technically a companion novel to Altered and Erased, since it takes place shortly after Erased ended. A lot of readers expressed interest in Nick after reading Altered and Erased, and I really loved him as a character, so when it came time to deciding what my third book would be, it really was a no-brainer! Nick is an interesting guy, with a dark, complicated past. I knew he’d be fun to write, and I knew there was a lot of potential for plot lines with his past involvement with the Branch. I’m hoping readers will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

CS: Why do you use a dual POV in the third book, one boy, one girl, as opposed to one POV in the first two books, namely the female character?

JR: It was my editor that suggested I try writing the book in a dual POV, and using Nick as one of the POV characters in order to get inside his head. I was afraid of trying it at first. I didn’t think I’d be able to do him justice. And Nick is a mysterious character, and I wasn’t sure if readers would really want to see inside his head. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to peel back that layer. But, it turned out, writing Nick was one of the best experiences I’ve had yet! You’re never really sure what he’s going to do, or what he’s going to say. I loved that aspect.

CS: One of the main characters in Altered 3 is male, broken, and a badass. You’re none of the above. So how do you take the reader into this character’s head?

JR: Good question! This was something I definitely worried about when setting out to write Altered 3. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to write from a male POV. I have in the past, with Bot Wars, for instance, but Trout is a twelve-year-old boy, which isn’t quite the same as writing an older teenage assassin. I definitely used my husband for some of the writing. I would ask him what a boy would do in a certain scenario, or what he would say. As far as the broken aspect, I just tried to imagine what it would be like to have lived through the things Nick has lived through, and what it would do to a person. For Nick, that means a lot of destructive behavior. The only thing keeping him together are the people surrounding him — Anna, Sam, Cas, and in some regards, Trev. Nick really is a better man with his “family” around.

CS: The male characters in the Altered series are described as hot. But at the same time, there is plenty of danger for the main characters. How do you blend the sex appeal and the danger into the relationships and the plot? Do the protagonists make decisions based on their survival instinct, their moral compass, their desire for human fulfillment, or their romantic and sexual attraction to each other?

JR: I think it’s all of those elements. Their decisions do have a lot to do with surviving. They’re running for their lives on a daily basis. But they are also good people, or want to be. They don’t want to kill people just to kill, but sometimes its necessary in order to survive. And I think romance, or perhaps love is a better way of describing it, factors into their decisions too. They all love each other, especially Sam and Anna, so when they make a move, they want to be sure the risk is worth it.

CS: Are there steamy scenes? How steamy can you get with a YA novel?

JR: There aren’t many steamy scenes in Altered. There’s some kissing and some sexual tension, but I’m a writer that fades to black. I’m a bit conservative when it comes to writing sexy scenes! But that’s just a personal preference. I feel like YA now is a lot more open to a lot more subject matter, and there are fewer lines drawn in the sand. You have to write what you’re comfortable writing, and what feels right for your book and your characters.

CS: Your first series, Bot Wars, is MG. Your second series, Altered, is YA. What are the distinctive storytelling challenges between these two age groups?

JR: With YA, the story is much more personal. Teens (usually) are getting their first taste of freedom, and exploring what’s important to them, and how they relate to the world. Romance is also a huge part of YA. As a reader, I expect there to be romance! As a writer, I try to strike a balance between story and romance, so that neither element overshadows the other. With MG, families still play a huge part in a tween’s life, so I like to incorporate parents and siblings as much as I can into the storylines. I also think humor is important in MG, at least from my standpoint, and being funny is hard work!

CS: You’re working on a horror story. Is this an experiment or is this your next targeted genre?

JR: At this point, it’s still an experiment! I have the entire story mapped out, and quite a bit of it written, but it’s still in its early stages, and I’m not sure its quite right for my “brand” at this point. But I’m not giving up on it entirely! I’m just putting it on the back burner for now.

CS: The cover art for Altered has tree branches covering a boy’s body. What do these branches represent?

JR: One of the boys — Sam — has that tattooed on his back. The tattoo factors into the plot quite heavily. But I don’t want to dig further, because I don’t want to spoil anything!

CS: What does a typical month look like for an author promoting their books?

JR: For me, it’s a lot of social media work — tweeting regularly, whether it’s book stuff, or just personal stuff, to engage with readers and potential readers. There’s usually a blog tour as well, and we always try to keep it fun and unique! I also like to send out bookmarks, and books, through giveaways, or fun Twitter games. I really like playing trivia games on Twitter! I try to keep the month before a book releases as laid back as possible, because it can become stressful!

CS: Did you start with short fiction or delve directly into novels? How many novels did you write before you sold your first?

JR: I never really experimented with short stories in the beginning. I read primarily novels, so it’s what I knew and it’s where I started. Now with the digital market expanding, and with readers hungry for more content, I’ve started writing novellas to fill in characters’ backstories, and give readers extra content between novels. Before I signed with my agent, I wrote somewhere around 12-14 novels. I’m an impatient writer, and there’s always a book waiting in the wings! I tend to write fast, and then move right on to the next project.

CS: Any advice to aspiring novelists?

JR: Read! Read lots, and read widely. Read books you love, and read books you hate. Take note of what you liked about a book, and what you didn’t like, and how you might have done it differently. And then write the book that you want to read. If you don’t enjoy what you’re writing, then the reader won’t enjoy it either. Don’t write to trends. And, most importantly, keep going. Don’t give up. Perseverance is more than half the battle. It takes a long time to learn the craft, and perfect it, and it takes even longer to find the right fit with an agent or publisher. Try to be patient. It’s easier said than done, though, I know!

Books by Jennifer Rush
“Altered” – out now
“Erased” – Altered #2 – out now
“Forged” – Altered prequel – out now
“Untitled” – Altered #3 – January 2015
“Bot Wars” – out now
“The Meta-Rise” – Bot Wars #2 – July 10th 2014

Interview: Richard Zwicker

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

Prolific Science Fiction-Detective-Humor writer Richard Zwicker has sold thirty stories to twenty-two markets in five and a half years. That’s a sale about every two months. How does he do it?

Zwicker has sold stories to Fantasy Scroll, Penumbra, Mad Scientist Journal, Perihelion Science Fiction, Kzine, Plasma Frequency Magazine, On the Premises, Eric’s Hysterics, Tales of Old, Stupefying Stories, LocoThology, Strange Mysteries, The Rejected Quarterly, Mindflights, Poe Little Thing, FlagShip, Labyrinth Inhabitant, Writing Shift, New Myths, Golden Visions, Speculative Mystery Iconoclast, and Ray Gun Revival.

Many writers with less than 5 years of experience would commit a felony to achieve such a record. Indeed, most writers are still unpublished after 5 years on the keyboard.

So how does he crank out the volume and juggle so much marketing at the same time? Besides submitting all his drafts to the Critters online workshop, well, let’s see, oh yes, he uses Diabolical Plots‘s Submissions GrinderÃ¢â‚¬ �

CARL SLAUGHTER: You’ve sold to many different markets. How do you handle all the logistics involved in marketing a story? Finding and studying the markets, studying the submissions guidelines, customizing stories to particular markets.

RICHARD ZWICKER: I take advantage of just about everything The Submission Grinder provides. I often check their “recently added markets” and I also like their “My Market Response List,” which shows recent response activity from the ezines I have stories submitted to. Though I usually tinker with a story after it gets rejected, I try to have a ready list of potential markets to resubmit to. I don’t usually do a lot of customizing my stories to particular markets. Instead, I write the story, then look for a suitable market. I’ve sold stories to themed anthologies, but so far, those stories have all existed in some form before the call came out. It takes me a while to get a story into saleable shape, almost always longer than an anthology’s submission window.

CARL: You’ve been a prolific writer. How do you manage to do all that marketing and crank out the volume of stories at the same time?

RICHARD: Marketing doesn’t take that long, and it doesn’t take the kind of energy that writing demands. I’m an English teacher though, and that takes a lot of time and energy. So I have to prioritize. I think being middle-aged, I’m less susceptible to certain time-eating activities than younger people. To date, I don’t have a blog, a Twitter account, nor do I text. I don’t spend chunks of time chatting about trends in genre fiction. I’m sure these things help some writers, but for me it would cut directly into my short story writing time. During the school year I put in a few hours each weekend morning and try to steal the occasional hour during the week. I have much more time during the summer, and that’s when I write most of my new material. I also try not to submit to publications notorious for long response times, though there is not always a choice.

CARL: Once you’ve sold a story to an editor, is it easier to get to the top of that editor’s slushpile? Is it easier to sell to that editor again?

RICHARD: It might be easier to get a second reading, but I don’t think it makes that much of a difference in sales, unless you’re a household name, which I’m not. Not being an editor of a publication, I can only speculate about the process. I think a lot of it is the right story at the right time to the right publication. If those things aren’t aligned, with all the submissions editors get, I doubt my having previously sold them a story will put me over the edge.

CARL: One of your specialties is humor. What kind of market is there for humor science fiction?

RICHARD: A funny thing happens when you add “humorous” as a story style requirement to a science fiction market search on The Submission Grinder. Your list of potential markets drops to about a tenth of what it was. That said, there are soft SF, space opera-type publications that are open to light, humorous short stories. I do write some serious science fiction, and I believe it is easier to sell, but humor is my comfort zone. A big change in the genre from the 1950’s and 60’s is rigor in scientific details. It’s difficult to write something funny if you load up the story with hard science, however. I enjoy reading hard SF, but as I say in my Critters bio, “I like to write character-driven stories. If the science is driving, I usually hit a tree.” Ultimately, if I can, I’d prefer to add to the world’s supply of laughs rather than increase its angst.

CARL: What explanations do editors give you when they accept humor stories?

RICHARD: It varies. Some praise the humor, some don’t even mention it. It’s not uncommon for me to receive something as bland as, “Thank you for submitting such and such. We’d like to accept it.” Fortunately, my joy at being accepted overcomes blandness every time.

CARL: What explanations do editors give you when they reject humor stories?

RICHARD: I like to have fun with the classics. Being a teacher trying to get students to read anything written over twenty years ago, it’s essential to have fun. One editor who has bought two of my serious stories rejected out of hand a humorous take I wrote on a Greek myth. I understand it’s a balancing act. On the one hand you need a certain amount of period realism; on the other you have to accept that a certain amount of modern sensibility is going to creep in. One editor could say, “This is funny!” while another will think, “This is stupid!” As I’m often told in Critters critiques, humor is personal. So I try not to take my rejections personally.

CARL: Another of your specialties is detective. What kind of market is there for detective science fiction?

RICHARD: I believe cross-genre is in right now. I’ve never sold a story to a straight mystery magazine, but putting a murder mystery into a SF story makes them interested. Being an English teacher, I grew up reading a lot of The New Yorker-type literary fiction where a character remains lost until the end of the story, at which time he or she has some kind of understated realization. I still read that kind of stuff on occasion, but I now prefer a more active story. Mystery and science fiction stories provide more opportunities for that, and together, even more.

CARL: How much competition is there in the detective science fiction subgenre?

RICHARD: I don’t know. No detective science fiction writers have challenged me to a duel lately. My competition, and it’s stiff, is with the good science fiction and short story fantasy writers.

CARL: A lot of your detective stories are also humor stories. Surely someone who can blend 3 subgenres has few rivals.

RICHARD: Few readers either, but maybe this will help.