I was a guest on NOW with Dave Brown and had a total blast!

This was so thrilling! Thanks again to AMI and Dave Brown for having me on the show!

I was so excited to be on NOW with Dave Brown on Accessible Media Inc.’s televised show on November 7. It was my second time being interviewed on an AMI program, the first being when Talia and I spoke about Nothing Without Us in 2019 on Live from Studio 5.

This time, I would be interviewed on my own and about the first book of my latest disability hopepunk series: Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space! Not gonna lie, I was a little nervous, but everyone I interacted with on AMI was so amazing. And Dave Brown himself put me right at ease immediately. I had so much fun!

The segment of my interview is available on many podcast platorms, such as Google Play, Apple podcasts, and Spotify. You can click below to listen. I have also included a transcript of the interview. Thanks muchly to AMI for providing me right away with the live transcript.

I was also told that my segment might appear on their YouTube Channel, and that will have a video with closed captions. But if you’re like to listen or read right now, here’s the podcast version on Spotify followed by the transcript!

Dave Brown: Welcome back! It’s NOW with Dave Brown on AMI TV. Author Cait Gordon is back with a new novel. It’s called Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space! As an author, Cait writes through the lens of disability, mental health, and neurodiversity. And Cait can give you some insight into this brand-new book. 

Hey, Cait, great to chat with you once again. Thank you for making the time this morning.

Cait Gordon: Again, thank you so much for having me. I’m absolutely thrilled to be here today!

Dave Brown: I always have so much admiration for authors because of the dedication and work that it takes to create a universe and then actually write a story inside that universe.

What was the inspiration behind this new novel?

Cait Gordon: Well, you know, it’s interesting. I get asked that quite a bit. I think that because of when I wrote the novel, the inspiration was to kind of soothe my little fretting heart during the pandemic.

As a disabled person, accessibility is something that I find lacking at the best of times.

And in the climate of the environment [that is, the pandemic], there were a lot of messages like: only disabled people will be affected, only chronically ill people will be affected.

And I was kinda was tired of being an only. So, I wanted to go somewhere.

I escaped into a world where there was a galactic network where accessibility and accommodations were the norm.

They weren’t an afterthought.

I had been familiar with the concepts of universal design and the social model of disability where all bodyminds are thought of right at the beginning.

Not, “Oh, I guess we better figure out how to accommodate this person.”

So, I love the space opera genre. What if i merged those concepts of inclusion in a space adventure? What would that be like?

And, I just had so much fun writing this book.

Dave Brown: How did you build that universe? How did you build that galaxy? What was in your mind as you were putting together this universally designed sort of science fiction, hopepunk genre?

Cait Gordon: You know, I think I just I put pedal to the metal. [Dave laughs]

I just thought, Okay, now, if we have people who are Blind, Deaf, neurodivergent. Who are selectively speaking. Who are non-vocally speaking. And they’re all on the same ship. And: Oh wait a minute, there’s a galaxy! There has to be at least one universal signing language that people know.

And I thought, Okay but, what if they’re in the middle of going somewhere, and they need a mobility device? What do they do then?

And I thought, Okay, we’re going to have an accessible tech stripe all down every corridor that you can sign at, text at, talk to. 

And POOF, materialized in front of you could be a power chair, a hover chair, hearing aids…

I just thought of as many things as I could in this galactic network where accessibility and accommodation were the norm.

And was fun!

Even the accessible tech, a lot of it is sentient, because you get to play when you write science fiction. And all the sentient tech have their own little social culture, as well.

I have a whole episode dedicated to Iris’s guidebot, Clarence, called “Clarence Has a POV.”

And it’s really fun to see how Clarence views the world as an artificial sentient. [Cait laughs]

Dave Brown: Go deeper into the characters because now that you’ve created this universe, and it’s a really neat universe, how did you go about briining characters into the mix?

What’s your approach for developing great characters?

Cait Gordon: You know, I think I was inspired by the many wonderful people in my own life who kind of saved me.

Years ago, I was #DisabledAndAlone.

And then I came into community over the last few years with people with all kinds of wonderful body-mind diversity.

So, it wasn’t really hard for me to imagine: Okay, we have the captain. The captain is going to be Deaf. Oh, the navigation team. How about it’s a duo? One person is Blind, one person’s Deaf. Iris herself is visually impaired. I have a character who doesn’t have vocal cords like you and I do.* They have a different kind of way of communicating. They can hear, but they’ll sign. (* Davan has a trunk he uses for a trumpeting language.)

Then the notion of well, everybody is going to know how to sign.

I just – I think i just wanted what I experience here on Earth at this time to be reflected in this book. You know, I’ve been in such healthy community with different folks from all around the world who have all different kinds of diversity within disability, and I think that was probably one of the biggest inspirations.

How we work together.

How we have these unbreakable friendships.

How we nurture each other.

How we don’t judge each other.

And that’s where the hopepunk comes in.

Dave Brown: So now you’ve got a universe, you’ve got characters, you’ve got intention.

What kind of story did you want to tell?

Cait Gordon: Well, you know, there’s a joke that ever since I wrote my first book, I accidentally put too much dessert in it. [Laughter]

So, I thought, if it’s gonna be an authentic Cait Gordon novel, we have to talk about food somewhere! So, food accessibility and just food enjoyment is one of those things.

You know, I’m kind of a pantser. So, that means I like to write from the seat of my pants.

It was a little different with Iris because I had to do a lot of research, as well. I am disabled but I don’t have every type of body-mind that exists in the world. So, I had to do a lot of research.

But I also thought I wanted this to feel like a streaming series. So,  it’s written as 13 episodes and not chapters.

And I put a title, because I love titles and a one-sentence writing prompt.

So it was, “Okay, this is your writing prompt. Go.”

It was like that.

I didn’t know [laughs]what the book was going to be at all.

I just knew that I wanted to write it and have fun writing it.

Dave Brown: Along those lines, what did you—I’m trying to find the right way to phrase this question.

But now that you have your plot in place. Your characters. You even have a structure.

Do you have an anticipation or a thought about maybe making a season two on here?

Cait Gordon: Absolutely.

In fact, I’ve already started drawing the—I have— in every episode I have sketches, I have episode sketches. Because, I don’t know, I just like I like pictures. [laughter]

But I created a 13 episode outline for season two, which I’m calling Iris and the Crew Verb the Noun because I’m not giving away the title just yet.

[laughter]

Dave Brown: On the way out of here, I want to ask you two questions.

You talked about genre a little bit.

Whether it’s space opera or whether it’s hopepunk. Maybe I in error used the word science fiction before.

But what’s the freedom that that genre offers you as a writer?

Cait Gordon: You know, first of all, space opera is part of science fiction.

So, you’re good. You did fine there.

The freedom for me is… within the space opera sub-genre of science fiction, is it gets to be more relational.

It’s about the characters, the friendships, the relationships.

Yeah, sure, it’s set in a setting and there’s PEW-PEW-PEW! There’s adversaries and those adventure elements. But I like space opera because often it comes with characters that people can identify with.

Whether they’re fighting ableist space pirates or living their life on earth, a lot of feelings are very real.

The friendships are very real. The love interests. You know, what you experience when you’re falling in love.

It was really important for me to write something where readers could not only identify with the characters because they might share the same types of disabilities and such, but they might just have the same kinds of feelings when put in different situations.

So that—space opera offers me that.

Dave Brown: You mentioned before you’re a bit of a seat of your pants style of writer.

What is your sort of day-to-day as you’re going through the creative process?

Do you designate a couple of hours a day of strictly in front of the computer time or is it a little bit more hodgepodge as you’re doing the active writing?

Cait Gordon: Well, that’s a very good question. I have a—I have a chronic pain disability. So that means that every day is not going to happen for me.

So, I write when I can write.

And even when I do write, I say, “Okay, you know what? The pain is getting too much. You have to stop.”

I’m someone who is—I have spoken actually quite a bit about the “you must write every day” concept. I don’t believe in that at all. Write when you’re able, write when you have the energy to do it.

The books will still get done.

Yeah, so I write when the inspiration comes. When I feel like, “Yeah, I can write right now.” And I always kind of take care to self-check: how’s my body doing?

That’s very important, I think.

Dave Brown: This is why I could never do what you do because i am extremely deadline driven.

Without deadlines nothing will get done.

I am the king of procrastination.

Hey Cait, what are the relevant points of contact for someone if they want to get their hands, eyes or ears on Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space?

Cait Gordon: Okay! Well, it could be ordered nationwide through many independent bookstores. It also can be ordered through Indigo-Chapters.

So, you can try those places. I always say, “Hey, support local.” So,  if you can, order it through your local indie book store.

For folks interested in following me and finding out what I’m working on, my website is caitgordon.com.

Those are ways that you can find out more about me and where to purchase the book.

Dave Brown: Cait, congratulations on another successful book launch.

Delightful to talk to you again.

Keep up the really creative, amazing work.

And don’t be a stranger.

Let’s catch up down the road.

Cait Gordon: I’d love to. Thank you so much, Dave.

Dave Brown: That is Cait Gordon, the writer of recently published novel, Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space.

Throw that in your Google machine. Throw Cait Gordon in your Google machine. Go to Cait’s website. Keep that handy. And go order and read that book.

(Thanks a million again, Dave and the AMI team!)

Cait Gordon is an autistic, disabled, and queer Canadian writer of speculative fiction that celebrates diversity. She is the author of Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space! Cait also founded the Spoonie Authors Network and joined Talia C. Johnson to co-edit the multi-genre, disability fiction anthologies Nothing Without Us (a 2020 Prix Aurora Award finalist) and Nothing Without Us Too (a 2023 Prix Aurora Award winner).