by Nina Allan
I’m also working on my next novel, (tentatively titled Wonders of the Invisible World), which will be finished any year now! Also, my first novel, One for Sorrow, is being made into a movie under the title Jamie Marks is Dead by director Carter Smith (The Ruins) and producer Alex Orlovosky (Blue Valentine), with plans to release in 2014.
Robyn Lupo has been known to frequent southwestern Ontario with her graduate student husband and elderly dog. She writes, reads, and plays video games. She is personal assistant to three cats.
Author Spotlight: Kathleen Ann Goonan
Robyn Lupo
Can you tell us how “A Love Supreme” happened for you? How did the inclusion of a major disability fit in with what you want to say in this work?
Ellen Datlow, a well-known editor in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, contacted me and asked if I was interested in writing a story related to overpopulation for Discover Magazine. I responded with three short proposals, and this is the idea that worked.
Ellie’s father chose not to have Ellie’s traumatic memories erased, and it appears Ellie appreciated this choice. What’s your position on memory erasure as a treatment for conditions like PTSD, since it is looking like procedures like this will be live options for us in a few years?
Because PTSD following combat, a violent crime, an automobile accident, or other life-shattering events can powerfully and negatively impact relationships and reactions to daily life, the ability to mitigate the intensity of certain memories will become an increasingly-used and very helpful option. I think that the key to responsible use of such medications or procedures will be individual choice.
Can you tell us more about the Coltrane connection in this story? Jazz appears to inform much of your work—can you tell us a bit more about that?
When I write, I usually proceed with a general plan and let the scenes play out in rough draft as I become involved with the process. “A Love Supreme,” one of Coltrane’s most famous pieces, surfaced in the first draft when I wrote the scene in which Ellie’s mother died, and as the story unfolded it assumed more power. In the end, it seems an apt description of how Ellie finds the grace and courage to deal with her father’s choice.
Jazz was my soundtrack since birth. In the late thirties, forties, and early fifties, my father saw most of the well-known Jazz luminaries, in person, and passed on to me his passion for Jazz. Like everyone else in the sixties, I became involved with the music of the day, but eventually my musical compass returned to Jazz. Music is become the deep ground of most of my novels. Queen City Jazz, a New York Times Notable Book, is infused with the music, the rhythms, of Scott Joplin. Mississippi Blues, which examines the bizarre history of our country (institutionalized slavery in the country that celebrates “Liberty and Justice for All”) has twelve sections to echo a 12-bar blues. Crescent City Rhapsody, a Nebula Award finalist, references Duke Ellington’s Rhapsodies in structure and in theme. In the afterword of my Campbell Award-winning In War Times I write: “I have likened the evolution of Modern Jazz, later dubbed Bebop, to the creative ferment in science which has led to our ever-growing understanding of the world, nature, and ourselves. Like the development of the atomic bomb, it remained a well-kept secret until after the war. Unlike the development of the bomb, which can now be known, we can never revisit the original luminous thoughts of Charlie Parker as he and Dizzy Gillespie birthed a new art form. In reality, the physicists, chemists, and biologists of the 19th and 20th Centuries birthed Modernity and its reflection and interpretation in literature, art, and music. Our art and our science are inextricably linked.”
What do you think allowed Ellie to see her father appropriately [during] their last meeting?
That’s a very good question. She attributes it to her infusion, but I think that although the infusion perhaps laid the groundwork for her acceptance of his choice, this acceptance could only have come about from the deepest and most vital part of her being, a part that has been clouded by fear and the memory of her trauma.
What’s next for you?
I’m finishing up “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?”, a novelette or novella, depending on how long it gets, for Tor.com. “Bootstrap” will appear in Tech Review Science Fiction, MIT Technology Review’s annual science fiction issue, and “Sport” will be published in the forthcoming issue of Arc Magazine. I’m beginning work on two new novels. I am a Professor of the Practice at Georgia Institute of Technology, where I teach Creative Writing and other classes every fall, so I am happily engaged in all the things I love to do.
Robyn Lupo has been known to frequent southwestern Ontario with her graduate student husband and elderly dog. She writes, reads, and plays video games. She is personal assistant to three cats.
Author Spotlight: Robert Silverberg
Kevin McNeil
It’s been almost forty years since this story’s publication. With the rise of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, the world has never felt closer. Your story poses the question: Will globalization result in a homogenization of human culture? I know how Schwartz would feel about it, but do you think this is a negative thing? Are the gains we make worth the cultural diversity we give up?
I don’t think having a Starbucks on every corner would be a big step forward for humanity. On the other hand, modern sanitation in what are now third-world countries would be a boon. Call it a draw.
Ultimately, Schwartz chooses to remain in his fantasy world and exits the starship. Is mortality a theme you explore often in your work? Are there certain themes you find you return to?
There certainly are, and mortality is one of them. Didn’t someone say that love and death are the only important themes for fiction?
You’ve published more than eighty novels and hundreds of shorts stories. Do you have a preference for working with novels or short fiction? Outside of the fact that novels require more time, do you take a different approach to writing novels as opposed to short stories?
Short stories don’t give you any room for making errors. A novel can go off the tracks for three or four chapters in a row and a lot of people won’t notice. When I’m writing a short story, I feel uneasy about the need to make every word count. Writing novels makes big demands on the stamina. And so throughout my career I’ve switched from one to the other for a change of pace.
Your career has been so impressive and your writing has been incredibly prolific. What’s a typical writing day like for you? How have you maintained the discipline to remain so consistent for so long?
I don’t know any other way to do things. I go to the office, boot up, start writing, keep going until I’m too tired to continue, and stop. Been that way for almost sixty years.
You’ve written in a variety of genres, are an SFWA Grand Master, and a multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner. What’s the best advice you have for aspiring speculative fiction writers?
Read a lot. Think about what you’ve read. And write a lot. Also travel to far-off places, try new things.
What’s next for you? Any upcoming projects?
Not at the moment. I’m giving myself an extended sabbatical after what has been a very long and busy career.
Kevin McNeil reads slush at Lightspeed Magazine and is an editorial assistant at Nightmare Magazine. He is a physical therapist, sports fanatic, and volunteer coach for the Special Olympics. He graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2012 and The Center for the Study of Science Fiction’s Intensive Novel Workshop, led by Kij Johnson, in 2011. Kevin is a New Englander currently living in California. Find him on Twitter @kevinmcneil.
Author Spotlight: Bruce Sterling
Earnie Sotirokos
“Dinner in Audoghast” takes a look at an almost forgotten oasis city in Africa. Why did you choose to explore this speck of history?
I found Audoghast while reading a book about Moslem travellers and explorers. By the way, Audoghast really is “forgotten”—Audoghast was a wealthy, good-sized metropolis once, b
ut nobody’s ever yet found any trace of its ruins. In these days of GPS and aerial photography, that’s pretty odd.
What effect did the few sentences of source material have on shaping your narrative?
I threw that quote in there so that the reader would realize that the city was historically existent—it’s not an Edgar Rice Burroughs fantastic lost city of Africa; Audoghast was a real place with real inhabitants. I also decided early on that the story wouldn’t have any Tarzan figures in it—no Europeans, no Christians, no lost English noblemen raised by apes. These remote strangers never had any role in the urban life of Audoghast.
Do you think fiction can serve a role in preserving cultures that are nearly lost to time?
Well, yeah, certainly, if that fiction was actually written by people from the lost culture, as with the Iliad or the Epic of Gilgamesh. In those cases, fiction truly is a precious relic, it’s of huge cultural value. If somebody from the actual Audoghast read this modern story of mine, they’d consider it a distorted fairy-tale, more like weird satire than an act of “preservation.”
On the other hand, they might like the story better than I think. Literate people in early Islam were rather keen on melancholy stories of fatalistic ruin. When you grow up in the ruins of the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile, there are plenty of dead civilizations underfoot.
Is there a piece of advice you would like to share with new writers who are thinking about tackling a secret history story?
Yeah. Try not to be a self-important hick. Above all, don’t write any secret histories where the subtext is all about how smart you are, and how dumb they were.
What can we expect from you in the future?
How much future do you want? In a thousand years we will all be creatures of fantastic obscurity.
Earnie Sotirokos grew up in a household where Star Trek: The Next Generation marathons were only interrupted for baseball and football games. When he’s not writing copy for radio or reading slush, he enjoys penning fiction based on those influences. Follow him on Twitter @sotirokos.
Coming Attractions
Coming up in May, in Lightspeed …
We’ll have original science fiction by Maria Dahvana Headley (“The Traditional”) and M. Bennardo (“Water Finds Its Level”), along with SF reprints by Maureen F. McHugh (“Interview: On Any Given Day”) and Sean Williams (“The Missing Metatarsals”).
Plus, we’ll have original fantasy by Damien Walters Grintalis (“Always, They Whisper”) and Dennis Danvers (“Leaving the Dead”), and fantasy reprints by Holly Black (“The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue”) and Richard Parks (“The Man Who Carved Skulls”).
For our ebook readers, our ebook-exclusive novella will be “The Garden” by Eleanor Arnason, and of course we’ll have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with feature interviews with Gregory Maguire and Karen Russell.
It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed. Thanks for reading!