by IGMS
SCHWEITZER: Most of your fantasies have been ones in which you immerse the story in another world, as Tolkien does. But there's another approach, in whichthe fantasy intrudes into our world. Have you felt any inclination to do this sort of fantasy?
McKILLIP: Only in the sense that I'd like to write more about the real world because had lots of words that I don't get to use in fantasy. I don't know, like coffee urn and deodorant and stuff like that. You can't say those things in an epic fantasy. Yeah, I would like to put fantasy in the real world. I just don't quite know in what fashion yet. I would love it to somehow . . . I don't know. That's tough for me. I'm still thinking about it. I haven't thought of it before.
SCHWEITZER: You could write a fantasy in which you mention coffee urns and deodorant. It would be a very different kind of fantasy.
McKILLIP: You can mention things like that in The War for the Oaks or something like that.
SCHWEITZER: We have a standard post-Tolkien fantasy now, in which the setting is pre-industrial and rural, and that's why they don't have coffee urns in them. But why does this have to be so? Is there something inherent in a pre-industrial setting that makes epic fantasy happen? Why couldn't they have a steam engine in there?
McKILLIP: They do these days. They have steampunk all over the place. To me that's fantasy too, and it's wonderful. [We are in the green room at the World Fantasy Convention. Voice from behind us: "Coffee to your left and teapot to your right."] That's something you can't hear in one of my fantasies, isn't it? I've forgotten the question . . .
SCHWEITZER: Can we break out of the rules? Is our idea of what a fantasy is itself restrictive?
McKILLIP: It is for me a little bit, because I have been writing this way for years and years, but not for other people. Charles de Lint has his modern cities, and Nalo Hopkinson's The Salt Roads was an incredible fantasy. I am not sure what exactly it was, but it was amazing, and she ranged from Caribbean history to French history to modern times. People do anything they want in fantasy nowadays. They can use any language they want.
SCHWEITZER: Presumably you could do anything you wanted.
McKILLIP: Presumably. One would hope that I could change at my age.
SCHWEITZER: Why not? I am reminded of something Picasso said when he was about 80. He was asked by an interviewer, "What are you doing now?" and he said, "I'm looking for a new style."
McKILLIP: So am I.
SCHWEITZER: Thank you, Patricia McKillip.
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