wisb-Guardian-Express

The NY Times ran a series of mini-debates about YA literature two days ago; one of those mini-debates has pissed some folks off -- me included.

Why?  Perhaps because Joel Stein opens his piece with this filthy gem:

The only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy on the plane looking at pornography on his computer is seeing a guy on the plane reading “The Hunger Games.” Or a Twilight book. Or Harry Potter. The only time I’m O.K. with an adult holding a children’s book is if he’s moving his mouth as he reads.

Stein, of course, isn't referring to intelligent people who happen to move their lips while they read.  He's talking about people with less-than-stellar mental faculties.  At least, that's how I take it,
because I know plenty of perfectly intelligent people who move their lips while reading everything from Austen to Dostoyevsky (fulfilling my pretentious quota here).
The rest of Stein's article reads with as much contempt as the introductory paragraph.  He compares YA/children's literature to video games, because playing games and reading books meant for young ones is exactly the same thing.  Never mind that playing video games can have a positive effect on the brain, though the picture is much more complicated than I have time to explore here.

By the end, you get a pretty clear sense about Stein as a critic -- his opinions about literature, his knowledge of literature, etc.  In other words:  this little rant reads more like a series of intentional bullshits than it does an attempt to relegate a genre to the place it deserves (the latter being an impossible task).  Stein doesn't actually know anything about YA or Children's literature; he openly admits to avoiding it: "I don’t know because it’s a book for kids. I’ll read The Hunger Games when I finish the previous 3,000 years of fiction written for adults."  And yet he feels he is qualified to piss on the genre, without any concept of what that genre entails.
If Stein is really as pretentious as he sounds, perhaps he would like The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation by M. T. Anderson.  Or perhaps he might consider reading canonical works of children's literature with history in mind.  But since the only YA/children's literature Stein seems familiar with are uber popular works which, even among many readers of the genre, are certainly more popcorn-and-movie than steak-and-fine-wine, it's difficult to take anything he says with any seriousness.  Name-checking The Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter, Horton Hatches the Egg, or Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing doesn't make you an expert.  This isn't a man who wants to be taken seriously by anyone outside of a select circle of narrow-minded readers.  And for that, he deserves a wall of ridicule.


Now to turn this into a positive-ish thing:

If you were to suggest a book for Mr. Stein to read in an attempt to prove him wrong, which would you suggest and why?

Before I talk about my brief, but wonderful experience at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (now almost a week since I was forced to leave by the whims of time), you should check out Jeff Vandermeer's excellent recap here.  It best sums up, I think, the general feeling one returns home with after being surrounded by so many friends and colleagues, particularly when one is a rather important writer (Vandermeer is such a writer).

Now for my thoughts...

Wandering the Halls (or, Meeting and Not Meeting) 
I think one missing component explains the impact ICFA had on me:  I completely forgot to take pictures of people, things, places, or even the alligator who made his presence known to everyone who hung out around the pool.  Not because I didn't have a camera, but because I simply forgot the darn thing was in my bag while at the actual conference.

Why?  Part of it could have to do with the fact that many of the people at ICFA are writers I greatly
respect (whether as people or writers).  I met Nalo Hopkinson (for the second time in my short life) and Karen Lord.  While my discussions with them were short, I still enjoyed meeting them both and hope to meet them again.  I also met up with Mari Ness, who I met with John Ottinger at MegaCon in Orlando last year.  Mari was as delightful as ever and introduced me to a number of people who I will remember by face, but will probably not remember by name (starstruck as I was).

Of the people I didn't get a chance to speak with were China Mieville (spoke with him at Eaton last year, and he is truly one of the brightest, friendliest people with which I've had the pleasure to speak), Nick Mamatas (who always seemed somewhere I wasn't), Jeff Vandermeer (who was either preoccupied with people or at one of his talks, which conflicted with my paper presentation), Ann Vandermeer (ditto), Sheila Williams, Delia Sherman, John Rieder (though I had lunch with him on Monday, and attended his talk later that evening), Jeffrey Cohen (the guest scholar who wrote about his experiences here), Christopher Barzak (who I never saw, but wish I had -- One For Sorrow is one of the best books I have ever read), and so many others.  I hope that I will have more courage at future ICFA conferences (I am so antisocial when it comes to such things).

But I did make a new friend at the conference.  Her name is Mandy Mahaffey, a teacher at Valencia Community College and a U of Florida PhD. in English hopeful.  She came to my panel (which I'll talk about below) and we really hit it off (her and my roomie/friend, Kayley).  And because of her, I got to meet Robert J. Sawyer, whose presence put me in a constant state of awe.  Mr. Sawyer, by the way, is one of the most gracious people I have ever met.  He gave me advice on writing, we talked about the good and the bad of Star Wars, other science fiction properties, movie making, and much more.  There was also a little of male bonding (of the "we're being silly" kind).  And he probably did a lot of work to make me feel at ease, because I can guarantee you that I looked like a complete fool while trying to hold a conversation with a man who, quite honestly, is one of the most important writers of our age (yes, I am willing to make that statement and stick to it).  And I'd never met him before.  Yet there I was with Robert J. Sawyer and Mandy and Carolyn Clink (a noted poet and Mr. Sawyer's partner in crime), having a conversation.  It was wonderful.  And I came out having learned so much.

That alone would make ICFA one of the best conferences an SF/F scholar and wannabe-writer could ever attend.

But then there's this...

The Presentation Experience (or, Holy Crap, This is Incredible) 
I'm going to shut up soon, but I did want to talk about how much fun I had presenting my paper at ICFA.  I've been to a lot of conferences since I started graduate school.  Some have been great.  Others have not.  Usually this is because the audience isn't receptive, there isn't an audience to speak of, or the audience responds in ways that aren't conducive for an exchange (one individual at a conference I attended spent the entire 15-20 minute Q&A session grilling one of the panelists on a single point -- and by "grill" I mean "talked for most of the 15-20 minutes and wouldn't let it go").

But that's not what happened at ICFA.  Most of the folks at my panel were from the U of Florida, which was great, but the few who weren't were enormously receptive.  One panelist challenged me on my inclusion of Kage Baker's The House of the Stag among works of postcolonial literature, but in a way that, I think, was helpful.  Another asked me some interesting questions related to her fields of interest (queer theory, etc.), which inevitably led to a great discussion afterwards (and there begins my friendship with Mandy).  And the other panelists (my friends Kendra and NaToya) got questions too.  It was, to put it bluntly, a fantastic experience. And Now to Shut Up All in all, ICFA turned out to be an amazing conference.  I will be back next year.  Period.  I have to be!  So expect me there... 

Anywho!

P.S.:  There was also a very interesting bit of male bonding with a friend from the U of Florida.  I will probably write about that later, because it's that special.

John Scalzi has a new friend.  His name is Papa Fuzzy, and he's taking questions from readers of Whatever.  Who is Papa Fuzzy?  A character from Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation.

Here's the answer to my question:

But there are a hell of a lot more answers here, here, and here.  Wicked awesome, no?

Nothing about the story I am about to relate has anything to do with genre fiction, unless you consider bizarre events related.  But it's a story I have to share anyway.

Last week, I returned from my trip to visit my girlfriend in England to find that the bus from the airport had stopped running minutes before my arrival.  This meant I had to get a cab.  The driver of said cab, however, forgot his credit card machine, and so we had to stop at a gas station so I could get cash from an ATM.  This left me with $15 in my pocket.

The morning after I got home, I went to collect my wallet and so on in order to buy milk and other essentials.  Upon removing the $10 and $5 bills from my trousers, the $5 decided it no longer wished to be in my possession and promptly disappeared.  I searched all over the place, figuring it landed in a pile of papers, or under my file cabinet.  In truth, it was not only in the last place I would have thought to look, but also the only place the darn thing shouldn't have been able to find its way into.

While cleaning out my large luggage roller thing, I discovered the $5 bill.  Why is this so strange?  In order for it to end up where I found it, it would have had to fly three feet, wiggle its way into the closed-but-unzipped luggage roller thing, around the compacted clothes, and then into the middle of the pile. 

As far as I know, this violates physics or some other natural law.  It's impossible.  How could it get into the luggage roller thing when it was closed, even if it wasn't zipped?  And then how did it get underneath the clothes?  I have no idea...

Sometimes I get incredibly bored when I'm at home. Usually this occurs when I'm between things I'm supposed to be doing. And when I'm like that, I tend to write nonsensical weirdness.  For example, I wrote this on Google+ yesterday:

Some day, there will be a giant robot in my sky. And his name shall be Morglefish the Destroyer. He will shoot bubbles. 

Or none of that will happen and I'm just being silly. Up to you how you interpret that.

Don't ask me what that's all about.  Adam Callaway tells me I'm just creative.  Really, this is what happens when I finish a 3-hour seminar on Jame Joyce's Ulysses and am supposed to be reading a novel for an interview today (Stina Leicht!) and scheduling interviews and discussions for later in the year.

What do you do when you're bored?

The best advert I have ever seen.  It's pure genius.

I need say nothing more.  Just watch:

We've changed DZDA to a weekly format.  The episodes will be shorter as a result.  We talk about the change in our 3rd episode.  Also on the agenda:  "Rush thinks you’re a slut and other GOP anti-women shenanigans, it’s time to bring our soldiers home, proof that white men should not have guns, plus a bunch of other random stuff we feel like talking about."

Give it a listen!  More to come from DZDA soon...

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And that's that.  What have you been up to lately?

Sam Sykes has a great post about how fantasy fans internalize the belief that the genre defaults to crap.  I implore you to read it.  It's good.  Really.

And it's because of Sam that I'm writing about the phrase in the title above.  Only, I'm coming at it from a different angle.  I'm not talking about the belief that good fantasy novels are exceptions, not the general rule (in part because I have no idea what "good" means in this context).  What I'm talking about is the feeling I get when people ask me what I write.

By "people" I typically mean "MFAs at my university."  Somehow the fact that I am a writer on the path towards publication has spread through rumor in my university.  I've probably mentioned my writer status somewhere before, and so people I'm friends with on Facebook simply know.  Regardless of why these folks know I am a genre writer, in conversation with them, the question that often springs up is "what do you write?".  From there, I tend to get sheepish about the whole genre thing.  If I bring it up -- "I write genre fiction" -- it is either said with a hint that I'm not terribly proud of it, or some vain attempt to qualify my statement with nonsense like "I write literary and adventure SF."  None of these presentations makes me particularly proud.

And now that I've read Sam Sykes' take on how readers adopt this attitude about their favorite genre, I think there needs to be a break in my own little world.  I'm done with being ashamed and afraid to say what I do.  No more.

Saying "I write genre fiction" isn't a bad thing.  And to anyone who thinks it is, well, fuck you.  I write genre fiction.  I'm proud of that fact.  I love genre fiction.  Most people love genre fiction, even if they won't admit it to themselves.  Those people should be ashamed of saying things like "I like Star Wars, but that's because I grew up on it; I'm not into that stuff anymore" or "well, that book isn't really genre; it's literary."  Fuck that.  It is genre fiction.  It's also literary.  So what?  It can be both.  It's also perfectly fine to like Star Wars AND the recently-released John Carter, or Star Trek (new and old) and Game of Thrones (the books and the show). Celebrate it.  Love it.

And if you write the stuff, don't do what I've done for far too long:  cower at the prospect of having to justify yourself to someone who "doesn't write that genre trash."  You should throw off the shackles of shame and flip your figurative middle finger off at anyone who scoffs at what you love to do.  Fuck'em.

This is genre.  Hear us roar.

Or something like that...

I will be presenting a paper on Kage Baker's The House of the Stag at this year's ICFA conference, which will be my first year of attendance to the SF/F-oriented conference.  A lot of big names will be at this conference, and I'm hoping to meet some of them.

So, here's the question:  Who will be there and who wants to meet up for dinner or something, where we can discuss all things genre as colleagues in the greatest field in the literary world?

We've just released our double-slam Torture Cinema feature, in which Jen and I reviewed New Moon and Eclipse one after another...while drinking.  The second piece of that, Torture Cinema Meets Eclipse, can be found here.  Lots to listen to, no?

I've had one more column over at Duke and Zink Do America entitled "LGBT Shuffle:  Kirk Cameron's Sad Little Feelings."  Feel free to head over and leave a comment of your own.

Anywho!

They're finally here.  Later than usual?  Yeah, but you'll all forgive me for that.  I started reading some awesome stuff from 2011 in January and I didn't want to post this before making a proper decision.

Without further delay, here are my selections for the 2011 WISB Awards (note:  all links in this post will go to my reviews or interviews):


Best Novel

Lavie Tidhar messed with my head.  Really.  Osama is one of the few novels I have had the pleasure to read that left me reeling at the end.  The book still haunts me, like a twisted ghost creature in literary form, banging on my walls, slamming my doors, and breaking my expensive Chinese teacups.  Osama is one of the most beautiful works of SF/F literature I've had the pleasure to read since I became an SF/F fan.  It's on my list of Masterworks, that's for sure.

Plus, I had the pleasure of interviewing him for The Skiffy and Fanty Show.  Love it.


Runner-ups:  Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht (Night Shade Books)(a stunning debut that hits all the right emotional buttons), and Low Town by Daniel Polansky (Doubleday)(a noir romp with a fantasy twist that is well worth reading).

Best Collection or Anthology
I called this collection "one of the best works of SF this decade" in my review.  Simply put:  the collection is gorgeous (read my review to find out why; there's also an interview here).


Runner-ups:  Kafkaesque edited by John Kessel and James Patrick Kelley (Tachyon Books)(a quirky collection of stories in celebration of one of the greats) and Gateways edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull (another celebratory collection, but with a markedly nostalgic feel -- Brin and Haldeman have some brilliant work in here).

Best Publisher
This year's award goes to a publisher who treated me rather kindly in 2011.  Ever since Jen and I put out the call to improve our coverage of women authors last year (on The Skiffy and Fanty Show, mind), Pyr has been pushing authors our way, which might explain why so many of our interviews were with Pyr writers!  It also helps that the books we read were, overall, quite good.  You can't go wrong with Pyr!

Runner-ups:  Small Beer Press (I need to read more of their books, but the one text I got to read, After the Apocalypse, was absolutely brilliant), Tor (2012 is their year, I think), Tachyon, and Angry Robot Books (a previous winner, and still one of the most innovative publishers out there).


Best Magazine
I have decided to temporarily leave this category blank.  Adam Callaway and I are planning to do some kind of Awards Season Mega-Reading Fest.  I will update this section then.


Best Cover
I love natural detail in artwork.  I think they take extraordinary skill to master, and Kekai Kotaki definitely has the skill.  A stunning work indeed!

(For interested parties, I have an interview w/ Peter Orullian here.)

Runner-ups:  Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht (Claudia Nobles does a brilliant job with her oil-style rendition of a detention camp in Ireland) and Low Town by Daniel Polansky (Ben Wiseman's design for the U.S. cover is gritty and perfectly placed).


Best Writer
You might not recognize that red-haired monstrosity of a human being (with a clock on his head, mind you), but you'll recognize his name:  Adam Callaway.  He and I have been friends for a while, so it goes without saying that I'm a little biased.  But I've never given this award to a friend before (at the time of the award); it's simply unavoidable this year.

I've known Adam for a while now, have read a lot of what he's written (though not all, because I'm a terrible writing buddy who deserves to be stabbed with metaphorical pens filled with snake venom), and have watched him rise to the throne of greatness (getting ahead of myself, I know).  The truth is this:  Adam's writing is fantastic.  If you haven't read anything by him, check out his bibliography page.  Trust me, you will not be disappointed (and if you are, then you are reading the wrong blog).


Best Film
Originally, I had chosen the last of the Harry Potter movies for this award, but then I saw Hugo and knew that no other film could top the utter mastery of Martin Scorsese.  Hugo is beautiful and charming all at once.  The sets.  The characters.  The actors.  The plot.  It's all so perfect.  True, it's an adaptation, but adaptations usually suck.  This one doesn't.  It's pure cinematic genius.

Runner-ups:  Cowboys & Aliens (good old satire), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two (see above), and Super 8 (until the last 10 minutes, when Abrams becomes Abrams).

Non-2011 Runner-up:  Never Let Me Go (by far the best film I happened to see last year)


Best Television Show
Nothing quite matches Game of Thrones in 2011.  I sat on the edge of my seat waiting for each new episode.  True, some episodes weren't as good as others, but I also couldn't help being hypercritical because I desperately wanted Game of Thrones to be good.  And you know what?  It was.  Damned good.

You can find my reviews episode-by-episode reviews starting here.


Runner-ups:  Doctor Who (not as good as the year before, but clever)


Best Non-Genre Film
As I mentioned too many times to count, I'm relatively poor (it's either the cinema every week, or a far-too-short vacation; you can figure out which one gets sacrificed).  Add to this the fact that my girlfriend lives in another country, and my distinct lack of a local movie buddy, and it's no small wonder why the selection for this category has gone to a movie that wasn't released last year.

Munich gets this award for two reasons:  first, it's a chilling look at what violent revenge can do to a human being, and second, I remember it.  When I thought back to all the movies I borrowed from the library or saw in theaters or rented with my sister, this film came up every single time.  That's what great films do, in my opinion.  They leave a lasting impression.  Something about Munich has imprinted itself upon me, just like Never Let Me Go.  Both will certainly be on my "best of the last 20 years" list in the future.


Runner-ups:  A History of Violence (Aragorn must continue being awesome, please)


Best Non-Genre Television Show
Maybe I picked Castle because of my love affair with Nathan Fillion.  Or maybe I picked it because it remains a witty police comedy that never ceases to surprise me.  The writers have owned up to the geeky side of Fillion and used that to fuel some pretty amazing crimes.  I keep coming back for more, even if I know they are dragging out the impending romantic plotline for as long as possible...


Runner-ups:  Law and Order:  Special Victims Unit (still one of the most chilling police procedurals out there) and Big Bang Theory (which remains hilarious as always).


Best Soundtrack
I'm sidelining this temporarily.  I've got a lot of listening to catch up on...


The 2011 Kudos Award
Jason Sanford.  And you know why?  Because he's an amazing supporter of aspiring writers, a delicious sport, and one of the nicest guys I've ever known.  With his Million Writers Award, he's provided a fantastic venue for literature published online.  With his blog, he's explored important topics in the SF/F field.  With his voice, he's amused us on The Skiffy and Fanty Show.  And he's a damned fine writer to boot.  Whatever you're doing to be so awesome, Jason, keep it up!


The 2011 Wappa Wappa Wa Award (i.e. the Worst Person Who Happens to be a Published Writer Award)
--"Hey!  I thought your blog wasn't going to be all political and whatever!"
--Sort of.  I said my political stuff would primarily live on Duke and Zink Do America.  Besides, politics is impossible to ignore, as everything is political in some way.  But maybe you'd like to hear my explanation before getting upset?
--"Alright..."
--The Great Salamander isn't on this list because he's a politician.  If that were so, I could hunt down any living politician who has written science fiction or fantasy and shove them on this list (I could even swing it to include Barack Obama, who is, at the very least, a character in a super hero comic).  There are two reasons Newt is on this list.
--"Oh, this should be good..."
--First, he is the most arrogant man to exist on the public stage since Kanye West (so arrogant, in fact, that he believes it's acceptable to talk about things he'd do in his second term before he's even been nominated for his party for his first).  I can't stand that kind of arrogance.  A little humility is necessary in life, after all.
--"Alright, we get it.  What about the second?"
--The second:  despite saying relatively moderate things about immigrants (he's not in favor of shipping off your Mexican grandma just because she's illegal, though he's perfectly happy to make Little Timmy a work slave), he's also said loads of total B.S. about Barack Obama.
--"You stupid liberal..."
--Now now.  Just hear me out.  I'm not saying this because I'm going to vote for Barack Obama (I am).  I'm saying it for two reasons:  creating mythical versions of opponents out of lies is unethical and plain bastardly, and I think there are so many legitimate reasons to criticize Barack Obama that it seems silly to have to make them up just to win votes.
--"That's rather reasonable..."
--Yes.  Which is why Newt Gingrich gets the 2011 Wappa Wappa Wa award.
--"But, wait, since when has he written science fiction?"
--Here.
--"That's alternate history."
--Stop nitpicking.
--"Sorry..."


So there you have it.  My selections for 2011.

Now for the big question:  What would you include in the above categories?

The folks behind this interesting SF/F comics project contacted me in hopes that I would post something about their Kickstarter campaign.  And so I shall!

Here's the blurb:

The independent graphic novel series Carpe Chaos has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a concept art book. The team of writers and artists behind the project have amassed thousands of concepts when fleshing out their huge universe, and they are hoping for the chance to share that artwork with fans. The book will include at least 150 pages of imaginative alien creatures along with their environments, technology, and spaceships, many of which haven't yet been shown to the public. Whether you're an artist looking for inspiration or simply a concept art aficionado, this book won't disappoint! Be sure to check out the Kickstarter video to see many of the concepts that will be included in the book.

If you're interested in supporting the project, you can do so here (there are lots of rewards for donating).  So far, they've collected $1,500 of their $7,500 goal, but there are still two weeks or so to go.  You can find out more about Carpe Chaos on the website.

Below are some images related to the project:

One of the things I've struggled with as someone who sees himself as a feminist is whether it is right to intentionally create diversity by targeting women (or another minority group).  One specific instance can be found here.  Jen and I do not get as many women authors on our show as we would like (let alone LGBT authors), which we are not comfortable with.  We're not sure why that is, except perhaps because there are simply many times more men publishing in SF/F.  Occasionally, we put out a call for female authors (and other minority groups) to fill the gap.

But every time I write up one of those posts, I wonder whether I'm crossing a line.  Is creating diversity artificially a good method?  Or does it make me complicit in the system?  And if I am committing a wrong of sorts, how do I get around it while also creating the diversity of content that I want?  Do I avoid the request system altogether and simply go directly to the authors Jen and I want to interview (a difficult process, actually, and one I'm not sure we would both enjoy, since we like the unexpectedness of our request system)?

What do you think?

The comments are wide open for opinions.  Have at it.

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P.S.:  I am a feminist.  The title of the post is directed towards other feminists in part because I don't think of myself as a particular good feminist in terms of being well read or fully understanding the experience of women in a patriarchal society.  I am a white male, after all.  I'm hoping the title will draw some folks with more experience or knowledge into the mix.

You can check out my review of After the Apocalypse here.

Now for the interview:

First things first:  What initially drew you to writing, and why genre fiction in particular? I was drawn to writing because I loved to read, and when I was reading a story I really really loved, I hated for it to end.  So to find the stuff I really really loved to read, I started thinking about writing it myself. 

It turned out that writing didn’t necessarily lead to making the stuff that I loved to read, because my best writing seems to be about the things I am most uncertain about.  I write to find out what I think.  It turns out that a lot of what I love to read and a lot of what I think about falls best into genre.

A question I often ask myself, and others, is what drives people towards post-apocalyptic (or apocalyptic) fiction.  Your collection is perhaps on the cusp between "a world crumbling" and "a world crumbled."  What do you think accounts for our fascination with catastrophe in its various forms?  What about your fascination?

I think there are a lot of reasons to be drawn to the apocalyptic. We are all headed towards a personal apocalypse in that we are all going to die.  That’s a terrible thing to truly comprehend, and apocalyptic fiction is a way to rehearse our existential dread, so to speak.

There’s the playground fun of destroying everything.  There’s also the idea that if all the clutter was swept away us (insert ideology here) could rebuild it right.  There is often something Utopian about the catastrophic.

For me, there were a couple of stories, particularly “Useless Things” that were ways to explore my own fears.  What if the infrastructure is buckling under the pressures of climate change?  What if the poor are getting poorer?  I have a strong sense that I may not behave well under that kind of stress.  I don’t think of myself as very noble.

Did you always have a sense that these stories, which were published in multiple magazines between 2007 and 2010, were going to revolve around the same theme, or did each story come into existence out of its own individual context?  In other words, were you thinking these stories would deal with a semi-shared world when you wrote them, or was it an accident?

No, not at all.  I realized at some point that there was this metaphorical connection, and then I wrote a story (the title story, “After the Apocalypse”) to reflect that.  But of course, many of the stories are not apocalyptic in the general sense at all.

I don’t really believe in the sudden end of things.  Not that it couldn’t happen.  One big asteroid and there we are.  But at an emotional level I am so much more familiar with the decline of things, the gradual slide into some different state.  So even though I know that the world could end with a bang, my feeling is that most endings are like old age, the gradual loss of options, abilities, and choices.

In an interview/conversation with David Moles at Small Beer Press, you said that "all of my apocalyptic stories are not of the people who become Mad Max, but they’re of the rest of us, you know."  It might be fair to say that the characters found in so much apocalyptic fiction are larger-than-life heroes, villains, or anti-heroes -- people who exceed the realities of their situation in ways that almost seem unrealistic or too-perfectly-designed-for-the-screen.  But you are, as you say, concerned with "the rest of us."  Who are "the rest of us?"  Why write about them and not, say, the other kinds (Mad Max, etc.)?  

I guess because I have never felt that I was going to be able to hold my own in a battle between heroes.  I have always been the person picked second-to-last for the team.  I’m near-sighted.  I like to read.  None of my salient characteristics exactly suggest that I will be great at converting cars into stripped down dune buggies, building stills, lethally defending myself.  I am really well adapted to be what I am—a middle class woman who sits at a desk.

So what happens to me when the apocalypse comes?  There’s a good chance, based on my life experience, that I’ll end up washing the dishes or something.  Right before something eats me.

Another aspect of that conversation I found illuminating was your acknowledgment of your weakness in the field of plot.  Particularly, you mention that many of your stories which have plots are about things getting worse, rather than better.  Do you think your admitted faults as a writer influenced how you approached the stories in this collection?  Or did it evolve organically as you developed your characters?

Most plots involve things getting worse, when you strip them to their barest essence.  Each solution to a problem leads to a worse problem.  I work best when I have a character and I think of an unstable situation—they react, I have a story.  There are writers who are better at situations and the intricate construction of a series of interlocking events that move the characters through ever more complex situations.

Me, I have to resist the impulse to have my characters just think about how bad things might get.

One of the compelling aspects of your collection is the honest exploration of the indifference human beings sometimes show to one another, or to the situations surrounding them.  In the case of After the Apocalypse, each story shows people surviving in a world where civilization has already unraveled, though without the absolute end-of-the-world-ness typified by the genre.  An example of this indifference would be the protagonist of "The Naturalist," who traps his fellow inmates in a kind of makeshift scientific experiment to do with the zombies who inhabit the city-prison.  Could you talk about why you decided to approach this theme, perhaps in particular to "The Naturalist"?

“The Naturalist” is pretty atypical for me.  My son (who is in his mid-twenties) had a vivid dream and told me about it and asked me to write a story based on it.  I don’t usually write about convicts or zombies.  But I grew up in a small blue collar town, and my family is a mix of middle class and working class.  I don’t have anyone like the protagonist in my family but I know a little about the world he comes from.

Zombies, like other predatory creatures, aren’t malicious.  If you take away the demonic aspect what you are left with is a creature trying to survive.  The question becomes, do they deserve to any more or less than we do.  I think my ethical calculus would be different than the main character of “The Naturalist,” but it’s an interesting question.

Incidentally, for whatever reason I really found writing the “The Naturalist” to be a lot of fun.  I don’t necessarily have fun writing a story (although usually at some point there is some fun and some flow if the story is going to work.)  But I could have written about Cahill, the main character, forever.  He was the one character I’ve ever written who it was easy to find in situations where stuff just happened.

Perhaps one of the most disturbing of your stories, however, isn't "The Naturalist," but "After the Apocalypse," which follows a mother and her daughter as they struggle their way to a safer haven through dangerous roads and crumbling cities.  Did you want to show how apocalypse might lead us to break ties between our loved ones?  What might it mean to sever those ties or to see family, in this new landscape, as a chaining mechanism?

Elie Wiesel said (and I’m paraphrasing) that suffering does not ennoble us, it debases us.  There is a persistent sense that if a person perpetrating a wrong is bad, the victim is somehow good.  We talk about how victims learn from their experience, but never how perpetrators learn from their experience.  I was raised Catholic and taught in catechism that suffering is good for the soul, but suffering makes us hurt, frightened, pained.

I’m not saying that we can’t rise above it.  But to expect terrible circumstances to make us better people is to not understand what it is like to be in terrible circumstances.  This is something that frightens me.  So I ended up writing about it.

One of my favorite stories from the collection, "Useless Things," seems to play in a different kind of wasteland:  the intersecting worlds of economic recessions and illegal immigration.  Both are obviously major issues politically, but you've taken us out of that context to put us on the front lines, which is hardly the black and white world our political universe wants us to think.  When you initially wrote "Useless Things" (originally published in 2009), were you trying to respond to that political situation, or was there another impetus behind it (the story clearly deals with many issues and is, in my opinion, one of the best in the collection)?

Although I am married and economically comfortable, and I don’t live in New Mexico, there are ways in which “Useless Things” is an autobiographical story.  Not in terms of the events.  Not one of the events in the story has ever happened to me.  But the feelings of helplessness, the fear of things slipping away, and the sense that fear makes me smaller and meaner, those are all real issues in my life.  I started that story because of a television show I watched about the lifelike dolls, called ‘reborns’, that the narrator of the story makes.  And from there I just explored slowly, finding out where she lived, what the stakes were, and how she felt.  I didn’t chose the political themes in any conscious way, they just arose out of the setting and the story.

Similarly, there are political themes -- dirty bombs and terrorism -- in "The Lost Boy:  A Reporter at Large," the only story that stands out because of its journalistic form.  What was the impetus behind this format and do you think there is something specific to journalism that opens up new ways of seeing things (in this case, questions of identity and terrorism/apocalypse) within fiction?

Actually, I always wanted to write for The New Yorker.  I don’t write the kind of journalism that this story pretends to be.  It’s difficult.  But I got interested in amnesia and did some research and then made up a story to go with it.  The rest—the journalistic form—is just a funny kind of self-indulgence.

There are funny ways that journalism can explain, and that it feels as if it is informing, that I like.

What should folks expect from you in the next year (convention appearances, new stories, etc.)?

I have a full time job writing for a transmedia studio in Los Angeles called Fourth Wall Studios.  It’s great, but it has cut into my writing time a lot.  Basically, after writing forty hours a week for someone else, it’s difficult to write more for myself.  So for now, I’m not working on much.  And I only get two weeks vacation, during which I really don’t want to think or talk about writing, so no conventions this year.  Although I doubt I’ll be able to stand it.

And now for a random, but slightly amusing question:  If the world economy crumbled and you ended up having to live precariously on the fringes of civilization, what would you like to do to make a living if you couldn't be a writer?

I think about this a lot, of course.  But I have no real idea.  Maybe open a boarding house?  Assuming that it’s more like a depression than a true apocalypse.  If the whole thing goes ka-plooey, all I can say is I’m not much of a farmer, or hunter.  My husband, however, is an engineer, so I’d hope that he could help us keep going by making things that did things.  Maybe we’d be scavengers, hunting through the ruined subdivisions for scraps to make machines.

But I’m hoping to never find out.


If you'd like to learn more about Maureen McHugh, you can check out her website.  After the Apocalypse is available from Small Beer Press or practically anywhere else that books are sold.

Over at Duke and Zink Do America I have a few articles up about various topics.  There won't be a third episode of the podcast until I return, but you should be able to enjoy the following:

• "The Right to Women:  Your Body Are Belong to Us"
• "Dear GOP:  Keep Your Hands Off My Penis (or, What Do You Think About All This Crap?)"
• "Feminist Corner:  Rush Limbaugh's Non-Apology"
• "Episode Delay:  #3 to Come Next Week Due to Vacation"

L. B. Gale has an interesting blog post entitled "Fantasy Writers:  What We're Up Against," in which s/he profiles George R. R. Martin to give fantasy writers an impression of the writing life of one of the greats.  We learn, for example, that he won his first award when he was 17 and was nominated for a Hugo at 25, with his first novel published when he was 29, and so on.  Martin isn't the only SF/F writer who started getting recognized when he was young, I'm sure, but there is something about looking at age as some kind of impressive element that bothers me.

This is making the rounds, so it must be posted here too in order to over-saturate the blogosphere with John Carter goodness.

(Note:  I have not watched the video below, and have no intention to do so.  I plan to see the movie and do not want that experience spoiled by the 10 minute clip.  But if you're not that type of person, then the following video is sure to be fascinating.)

1. I harbor no ill will towards Peter Watts, acrackedmoon, R. Scott Bakker, or any of the people involved in the comments.  I may not like some of the commentators, but that’s a separate issue.
2. I think Watts makes some valid points.  I think acrackedmoon makes some valid points.  I think they both occasionally put their feet in their mouths and say things that are counterproductive to discussion and debate.  They are both human beings.
3. I understand why acrackedmoon takes the approach that she does, and while I do not always agree with that approach (sometimes I think she shuts off debate by being overly aggressive when taking a step back might be more productive), I think many of the issues she attacks are ones we should be concerned about anyway.  I think it’s more pathetic that we don’t think about the problems she raises (such as the treatment of women in literature, racism, etc.) except when someone throws “a fit” and uses “bad words.”  For the record:  from what I know of Mr. Watts, he is concerned with many of the same issues and reflects that in his writing (this based on my friend’s obsession with him as a writer).
4. I do not agree that the “tone argument” is invalid in all instances, as I’ve said before.  But I do not agree that responding to another’s “tone” with a similar “tone” makes you look any more “civilized” than the person you’re attempting to delegitimize.

Who the hell do you think you are? Who the hell do _she_ think she is? What makes you think that she can arrogate herself any kind of representative role? Who the hell gave _you_ the right to decide who someone can or cannot represent? I’m _sure_ all those tormented people feel better now that someone finally can be obnoxious on the Internet in their place.
 Get down off your high horse, ACM is a privileged woman from a privileged background (a Thai Chinese!) who speaks a very good English and is completely steeped in North American culture in a country where only 10% of the population speaks any English at all, who has access to Internet in a country where only a quarter of the population has any kind of connection and apparently has a lot of free time she can spend reading fantasy books and maintaining a constant Internet presence.
 If _she_ can represent someone, I surely can decide that I’m the voice of billions of farmers and factory workers and as such I’m happy to tell her that she’s an obnoxious bourgeois and should start thinking about doing something productive and useful to make up for the history of prevarication and oppression who gave her her role in society.

There is something absolutely magical about visiting another country, especially a country like England.  At least, I think so.  But why?  On my descent into Gatwick, I thought about that question, and this is the best I could come up with:

This is what a picture taken from a plane looks like.  What is it, you might ask?  Well, it's the  clouds being murdered by the sunlight on the horizon.  Pretty?  I think so, even if my photography skills say otherwise...