A Year of Writing News, Part Two - An Interview or Two

A Year of Writing News, Part Two - An Interview or Two

I was interviewed a couple times last year, and for various reasons, both interviews were delayed until the last couple months. Now they're both up.

First, Larry Nolen interviewed me about the Nebula awards. We talked about my history as a writer, and about my two novelettes that were nominated for awards last year. I really liked his question about when I'd considered quitting writing rather than how I'd started. On reread, one piece that stuck out for me was our discussion of why "A Memory of Wind" was difficult for me to write:

one of my close friends from college developed disociative amnesia while I was working on the piece. I'd already drafted it by then, but it was strange to have someone close to me suddenly experience something similar to what I'd inflicted on Iphigenia. It hard to work on the story after that sharp, intense loss. I needed distance. I'm not sure how much my reaction to my friend's experiences inflected what I wrote.

The second interview is really sort of an interview and a half. A while ago, Jeff Vandermeer interviewed me for his blog as part of his series "conversations with the bookless." Now that I have a book published, Jeff Vandermeer interviewed me on what it was like to transition to being book-ful. He set up the interview in a fun way by asking me most of the same questions, and then putting my answers THEN next to my answers NOW.

For instance, on why I like short stories:

Now: I love the emotional intensity of short fiction. It can be a slash, a shock, a sprint. It's an impact of images and emotions and weirdness and someone else's head space, the powerful stuff of life boiled down to its essence. I love the ability to polish the prose until each word placed is the word you completely intend, not just the word that happened to be there. I love shearing prose down to exactly what needs to exist...

Then: As a writer, I like the intensity of short fiction. It enables one to concentrate on language in a way that is nearly impossible for longer projects. I like to rewrite things many times, and it's not always feasible to retype a 90,000 word novel twenty times so you can get the rhythm of the language right in your ear.

Sort of similar, but sort of not. It was interesting for me to see both how I'd changed and how I'd stayed the same.