I’m expanding my series featuring fantastic authors to include fantastically creative people across the different mediums, which is why I’ve invited the talented Queenie Chan to drop by.
There are links to give-aways sprinkled throughout the interview.
Q: In the Eighties I lived in Melbourne and knew a bunch of comic artists. One of the things I noticed was that they would be obsessed with art work, the look, the over-all layout of the page, but story would fall by the wayside. On your website you say: ‘After all, the essence of manga is not so much the art, but the story-telling, themes and pacing. These three are what you should concentrate on when trying to tell a story — any story, not just manga.’ Have you always been fascinated by story? Did your parents read to you? When you saw a movie, did you imagine what happened to the characters afterwards?
Oh, that sounds real interesting! You sound like you met a lot of interesting people when you lived in Melbourne (I must say, I did too when I lived there for a year). Anyway, you’re right about the many different camps of people who read graphic novels – some are all about the art, others are all about the story, while yet more believe in a combination of both. Personally, I’ve always felt that story is more important than art – a story can’t be expressed properly if the art is inadequate, but I also have seen a lot of well-drawn manga/comics that are dull and boring despite beautiful, realistic renderings. I still feel that to work in any storytelling medium (which comics is), your first duty is to engage the reader’s attention in whatever the purpose of the medium is for, so if it’s comics, it should be story.
So yes, I’ve always been more fascinated by story, and as you said, I like to imagine the continuation of stories after they’ve “officially” finished. My parents encouraged me to read as a child, but they never read to me much (neither read fiction, to be honest), and so I got my fix from a variety of different sources – books, movies, TV series, cartoons, manga and video games. Even as a child, I was always writing fan-fiction in my head based on my favourite TV shows.
Q: You say you plot the story, concentrating on the beginning and end and often let the middle take care of itself. And that: ‘In longer stories … there is time to set the characters free in the world you’ve created, and watching them interact with each other and with the environment. If your characters are well-constructed, then they would behave accordingly, and sometimes in ways completely unexpected to you.’ At this stage are you still brainstorming the story flow in a sentence or two, or do you actually start to draw and find the characters doing unexpected things?
Since I’m a comic book writer/artist, the way I work is quite different to prose authors. I’m not saying I’m representative of comic book writers or artists in general, but most people who work in the comic medium are often constrained by the number of pages available. So in my case, the first thing I do when brainstorming is to figure out how many pages a story can be, because if a story becomes too long, it may be impossible to draw (since it will be impossible to finish).
With prose, you can always add paragraphs or sentences and rewrite things if you want, but unfortunately with comics, once you’ve set something down on paper, it can be very hard to change. You can’t add an extra two panels to page 26 of your page 170 book (so far) if you want to – it will mess up the panel flows for the rest of the book. Because of this, my brainstorming usually involves writing down what happens on page 1, then what happens on page 2, and continuing by making a page-by-page summary of what happens on each page.
This part isn’t hard, but sticking to it isn’t always easy. Things always change when you go from prose to images, so you have to accommodate having to insert extra pages in when you start drawing the comic. Other times you’ll have to shorten scenes or extend them, so these days, I always make sure I have a good “feel” of the story in my head before I draw anything. As I said, the longer your story, the more freedom you have in letting your characters have their character moments. You may find a scene play out different as you draw it than you originally imagined, but the overall arc of the story shouldn’t deviate from the plan too much.
Q: You say you consider yourself: ‘… a Citizen of The World.’ You were born in Hong Kong and came to Australia when you were six. Did you live in a multicultural suburb where you mixed with people from a lot of different backgrounds or was this interest in other societies just something that you uncovered as you came across books and movies from other cultures?
I grew up in a very multi-cultural suburb alright – I went to school with all sorts of interesting people and it was always lovely to learn about other cultures! I was always very interested in travelling, and not necessarily to other Anglophone cultures. As a child, I wanted to go to Africa, to the Middle East and to India, because I thought of these places as exotic, and with a long history.
I think being a history buff helps a lot too. I read a fair amount about Ancient History, and it’s always been a kind of dream for me to visit those historic places that I’ve read so much about.
Q: You say: ‘The reason why I’m so interested in interlocking story threads has a lot to do with my interest in human nature, sociology and anthropology. One of the things I find infinitely fascinating about genre-based story-telling in general is the environment the story is set in, and how that influences the character’s morals, values and actions.’ This is where I come from when writing my own books. I like to put my characters in situations that make them confront what they believe. You’ve made me want to run out and buy some of your books now. Was there a particular writer/movie director/artist whose mastery of character and setting made you think, Wow, that is what I’d like to do, but in my own way?
Ah, nice to know we share that point-of-view in common! I think fantasy can get a bad rep amongst some circles, because people tend to think they know what fantasy is without having read any of it (D&D, girls in metal bikinis swinging swords at orcs). The truth is, fantasy is just anything that isn’t set in this world, but set in a different world; a world which has social conventions similar to our own. What better way is there to explore human nature, without all the political, racial, cultural and historical baggage that each one of us accumulates in this world, just by virtue of living in it? As you said, putting your characters in situations that make them confront their beliefs is what people in this world do every day, just as they do in the worlds you create in your novels.
As for people who have inspired me… there’s been far too many to list. I can point out one man in particular who set me on my path – Tezuka Osamu, the creator of Astro Boy. He was a thoroughly-entertaining manga artist, but also a great humanist, and I encountered his series Black Jack at a particular time in my life (I was 15) which left a deep impression on me. Black Jack is about a rogue doctor who charges exorbitant fees for his services, but he’s also a very good doctor who understands that some people have illnesses that have nothing to do with the physical. The ethical questions that crop up in that manga is quite interesting.
Q: From reading the blurb about The Dreaming it seems to have the feel of the movie Picnic at Hanging Rock, which had a lyrical dreamlike quality about it, and to also be a modern take on the Gothic Romance Literature. Are these two sources which might have influenced you subconsciously as you were creating this story?
Picnic at Hanging Rock was definitely the biggest inspiration for The Dreaming, and you’re right about the gothic literature influences. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier was the other big influence, as were movies like Rosemary’s Baby. The visual aspect was quite important for me (namely the way the school looked), but I think I wanted to create a more modern, “haunted-school” take on the whole Picnic at Hanging Rock mythos, so the story ended up bearing hardly any resemblance to any of these three books/movies. Which is a good thing. Even if you can name all your influences, it’s a pleasure to know that what you created is unique in its own way.
By the way, I have the first 2 volumes (of 3) of The Dreaming online as a free webcomic.
Q: Your chapter dividers in The Dreaming remind me a little of the black & white work of Arthur Rackham and perhaps Art Nouveau (Mucha). Do you have heaps of books on art?
Actually, I don’t have many artbooks, especially compared to other comic book artists. I’m not really big on art at all. As I mentioned before, I’m more interested in story-telling than I am in art, so people are often aghast when it turns out that I haven’t heard of [insert name of famous illustrator here]. It’s assumed that all people who draw must be big fans of the art world, but unfortunately… I’m not.
I really do like Mucha’s art style, though it wasn’t something I’ve discovered until recently. And while I love what I’ve seen of Arthur Rackham’s artwork (google images, yay!), I actually think that the chapter divider art for “The Dreaming” looks more like some of Gustav Klimt’s line artwork (that I randomly saw in a book somewhere). I must say that I wasn’t influenced by any particular artist when I drew those chapter dividers – Klimt’s work was something I encountered afterwards.
Q: With the Odd Thomas Series (stories originally by Dean Koontz), did Koontz see your work and ask you to illustrate his stories, or were the pair of you matched up by his/your publisher? (Reading your blog post about it, I see it was a little bit of both). So I’ll come up with another question. How is the movie project going?
I believe we were matched up by our publisher Del Rey, though ofcourse, Dean has to like my work to begin with. I’m not sure what work he has seen of mine before we started working together, but we’ve had a good working relationship thus far, and it would be an honour if we did more books together. As of now, there’s three Odd Thomas books (In Odd We Trust, Odd Is On Our Side, and House of Odd), and I’m happy with how things are.
I believe the movie for Odd Thomas has been completed, and is looking for distribution. I don’t really know much about it, I’m afraid, since this is a project that is driven mostly by Dean. When it comes out, I’m sure all the Odd Thomas fans will run out to see it!
Q: A while ago at Supanova Kylie Chan pulled out some of your artwork and showed me. She’s so proud of the work you’re doing on Small Shen. Were you already one of Kylie’s readers? How did the two of you connect?
(Update Small Shen isi finished!)
Kylie approached me at GenCon a few years ago, and introduced herself and her novels. I didn’t really know of her or her work beforehand, but it was rare to see Chinese Fantasy be so successful, so I took an interest in her work. When I contacted Kylie, it turns out that she had a prequel to her series called Small Shen, and wanted to do something “graphic-novelly” with it. Since I relish the chance to draw some Chinese-style fantasy artwork, I decided to take on the project. That was how it all got off the ground!
It’s been fun working on this project, and I’m nearing the end. This has been a special book, because this is a book that mixes prose with comics, and is not a straight-forward graphic novel. It’s experimental, but so far it’s working out quite well, so I look forward to it coming out in Xmas 2012 from Harper Collins.
Here’s an interview Oz Comic Con did with Queenie about her Small Shen project with fantasy author, Kylie Chan (no relation), among other things.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x7qNQ2ryrds]
Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy (in books) is a bit of a boy’s club. I’ve come across quite a bit of talk on the blogs recently about female comic artists and writers, and their lack of representation in large companies like DC. Have you come across this in your professional life?
I think this perception exists throughout a lot of pop culture. Even when talking about books, there’s a perception that sci-fi, horror, crime, thriller, literary, etc are all male-dominated. The only thing that is seen as exclusively female is probably chic-lit or romance – but even then, these books are packaged in such a female-oriented way that any chance of them appealing to a male audience is pretty much dead due to the deluge of pink covers. Meanwhile, there are a large number of successful female authors working across the genres, and there always has been.
Things are pretty much the same in the comics industry. While it’s true that companies like DC and Marvel dominate (and they are largely male-oriented), there are many female comic book artists out there who don’t work in superheroes, and are just doing their own thing. I’m one of them.
It’s true that there are a lot of assumptions being made by people outside the industry, though, and even inside the industry. Many comics industry blogs tend to cover only superheroes, and hardly any other kind of comic. If you’re going to focus on one small part of the comics industry, then yes, you’re going to get a skewed perception of gender.
Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer/artist change your expectations when you approach their work?
No, it doesn’t. I think a good writer is a good writer, and I don’t think the gender of the writer has any effect on the final work. Male and female writers may be interested in different things, or approach things from other angles, but a good story told well is exactly that, and all that’s left is accounting for differing tastes.
I think things are a little different for artists though. If you’re talking about artists who are paired up with writers, then it rests on the skill of the artist to tell the writer’s story effectively, and sometimes they don’t do that. However, that’s got nothing to do with gender though – it’s more to do with what genre that artist is used to working in. If an artist is flexible, they ought to know how to adapt themselves to different genres. If they don’t, and they believe that one-art-style-fits-all… then it can get a little awkward.
Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?
Ah, that’s a hard question. My answer can change each time someone asks me that question, depending on what I’m into at that particular point in time. Previously I said just after the meteor that destroyed the dinosaurs hit, so I can see the terrible global destruction that it must have caused (but I would probably die very quickly from it). But as of now, I may just take the easy route and travel to Ancient Egypt to watch them build the Pyramids and raise the Obelisk. I have a theory as to how they raised the Obelisk, and am wondering whether it checks out with history.
Catch up with Queenie on Facebook
Meet Nalini Haynes, Editor of Dark Matter ‘Zine…
I have been featuring fantastic female fantasy authors (see disclaimer) but this has morphed into interesting people in the speculative fiction world. Today I’ve invited the talented Nalini Haynes editor of Dark Matter E-zine to drop by.
The production of fanzines and magazines by dedicated fans of the speculative fiction genre is an old and proud tradition. Back when the ‘zines were produced on paper smelling of spirits and printed in faded purple ink from the roneo machine, editors compiled articles, interviews, reviews and stories which examined and celebrated the genre. And they are still doing this today, only now they don’t have to worry about squeezing their ‘zine into X number of pages and they can include wonderful colour covers. We’ve come a long way from the roneo machine.
Q: You started school at the age of three at the Bruce Hamilton Sight Saving School for the Visually Handicapped. In an article in issue 9 of dark Matter you say: ‘I lost all disability access and support aged 5 and did not receive any more support until I was in high school, when I was given a telescope to read the blackboard and a magnifying glass to read small print. It’s hardly surprising that I lean towards advocacy and over-achievement.’ Are you planning on doing your doctorate in disability in SFF literature?
I would love to do a PhD in disability in SFF literature, but I haven’t been able to gain entry to a university to do a Masters as a lead in to this program or any other. I was effectively expelled by the University of South Australia because of being disabled after the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission made a finding of disability discrimination against UniSA. In 2007 UniSA offered me $4000 as compensation for being permanently barred from further education and being gagged. This offer was made through HREOC. I was accepted back into UniSA after threatening to expose them on radio, then I was effectively expelled in 2008 after which their lawyer offered me $3086 with the same conditions. Disability access would have cost far less than the compensation I was offered, let alone the lawyer’s fees. I believe this has influenced universities’ handling of my applications for degrees since moving to Melbourne. I would love to undertake a PhD in disability in SFF literature – I’m collecting a list of books to reference – but I don’t hold out much hope of being accepted into a program.
Q: Since 2010 you have produced nine issues of the Dark Matter E-zine. (Issue one is 53 pages long and issue 9 is 245 pages). This amounts to a lot of work, interviewing, writing articles, collating and editing. What prompted you to start Dark Matter and what do you hope to achieve with it?
My first memory of science fiction was watching Dr Who from behind my uncle’s chair when I was about 3 years old; it was a UNIT episode in black and white. I’ve loved science fiction and fantasy ever since. I started reading adult SF when I was 10 years old because Mum lent me her SF books when I was bored.
I worked on my high school newspaper. It wasn’t much fun because we had no autonomy, it was more like being given assignments, but I was interested in doing a newsletter.
In 2008 I was selected for the upstART program in the Adelaide Fringe Festival. I supervised my exhibition in the Fringe Factory for a few shifts, during one of which there was an exhibition/activity with zines in the next room. This reminded me of the school newspaper and showed me that zines were around, with a vibrant community.
A few months later we moved to Melbourne. I searched for some kind of connection to science fiction in Melbourne and found the Melbourne Science Fiction Club. I was appointed as editor of Ethel, the club’s zine, for one issue, during which time I discovered the amazing resources and potential of zines. After this, I decided that I didn’t need anyone’s permission to create a zine. I came up with a name then I contacted publishers telling them I was now independent and asking them if they’d continue to support me. I was off and running!
My goals for Dark Matter are many layered. I’m learning about fandom, never before having participated in fandom due to growing up in Tasmania then living for 8 years in Adelaide where everything is a well-kept secret. I believe that you get out of something what you put into it, so putting time and effort into Dark Matter – and fandom – rewards me in learning, building bridges and networks. I am sharing my journey with everyone by writing about it in Dark Matter. By interviewing a range of people I’m learning and sharing these discoveries with others while promoting good work. I’ve met some amazing people and I’ve interviewed them *pointed look at Rowena*
I’m pleased and surprised to have an international following. I try to have a balance between interviewing international and local authors. By promoting the local authors, I hope to share the bounty we have with our sibling geeks across the water, enriching our shared culture.
I’ve agonised over whether to keep DMF entirely positive – like SF Squeecast – or to balance the positive with the negative. Various people have argued from different positions, helping me shape DMF with some balance, including some negative reviews. I have been strongly encouraged to be more negative with a view to helping raise the bar or to ‘really rip into things’. I’m reserved with this because authors spend a huge amount of time writing their books, often while holding down a day job. If I feel the need to write a negative review, I spell out clearly and respectfully the reasons why I don’t like the book. If I feel that the target market will like the book but I’m not the target market, I’ll try to find a reviewer who is the target market. In the meantime, I write a review bearing this in mind.
On a more personal level, I hope to prove to myself and the world that ‘I’m a real boy’, with skills that are viable in the workplace (computer skills, reading, writing, editing etc). People tend to believe if you’re vision impaired then you’re incapable and incompetent. I’m trying to prove that’s not the case. I’m also hoping for an alternate career path to open up. Failing that, I’m keeping myself busy focusing on an area that I enjoy. I’ve never been the stay-at-home type although I did the full-time mum thing for a few years before studying counselling between child-raising, my son’s many operations etc.
Dark Matter is a positive focus for my time and energy, opening up a wonderful world of creativity and opportunity. One day I hope to make this a real (read: paying) job, or get a similar job elsewhere (that pays).
Q: You have a Master in Social Science from the University of South Australia. With a background like that you must be very tempted to write social commentary either in article format, or by using fiction to examine possible futures. What kind of stories do you write?
I have lots of ideas, which I tend not to put to paper or even to electrons, however I have written some down. I find it easier to write non-fiction, which is probably due to my academic background.
Recently I wrote a story about the thin veneer of civilisation, the inhumanity of man to man, called ‘Lighting the Way’. This story still needs more work; I was in Kelly Link’s writing class at Continuum (this year’s state and national SF convention) and received great feedback and lots of encouragement from Kelly and the other participants. I haven’t finished the story yet.
Jim Vinton asked me if I’d replace my eyes with cyber implants if it would give me 20/20 vision. My response: if it was proven to work, I would not have a choice because of the nature of definitions of disability; disability access would be closed to me unless I had that surgery. This got me thinking… what if I had that surgery imposed upon me? People don’t understand how I see: I perceive the world and cope better than I should be able to with my level of vision due to this being a life-long condition. No-one would have any understanding of the changes that this surgery could cause. I have studied psychology: when a limb is amputated, the brain structure changes, the area of the brain dedicated to that limb can be reassigned. What if I had this surgery and the reverse happened? What possibilities would open up to me? What are the potential ramifications? I have the entire story mapped out in my head in the style of ‘He says, She says’ the awesome ABC drama, I just haven’t put it to paper.
Back when the French were testing nuclear devices in the Pacific I wrote a short story about a woman who was eating fish regularly to ensure her baby would be healthy but…
I entered a public speaking competition where speakers were supposed to argue intelligently and emotionally about any topic of their choice. I talked passionately about genocide and prejudice, relating the Hutus and Tutsis to my Irish grandmother’s hatred of Catholics…
So yes, you’re spot on. I’m passionate about people and the human condition. I think good storytelling relates to us here and now in some way, whether it’s as role models, teaching, challenging ideas, exploring ethics and philosophy. Science fiction and fantasy is about people.
Q: In Dark Matter #9 you dedicated 25 pages to Gender in Publishing. You say: ‘If Jonathan Franzen writes a book about family it’s described as ‘a book about America’, whereas if a woman writes a book about family, it’s described as ‘chic lit’.’ You’ve promoted the Australian Women Writers’ 2012 Challenge. You’ve included interviews from male and female writers on the topic. The whole reason I started interviewing female fantasy writers was because US and UK interviewers seemed surprised to discover that I wrote fantasy. Have you had many responses to Dark Matter #9 yet, or is it too soon?
I haven’t had many responses to DMF9. This is the only letter that addresses gender parity or the AWW in any way, from a guy who isn’t really a fan of parity but is a fan of Sean McMullen. Between the lack of articles and the lack of letters, I am sad to say that issue 9 may stand alone in DMF’s attempt to tackle this issue.
Q: On the Dark Matter site there is a page dedicated to audio interviews. When you interviewed me at Sisters in Crime, you recorded us chatting, and later transcribed the interview and printed. Now this interview and others are up on the audio interview page. As an interviewer, what’s the difference between doing an interview that will be listened to as opposed to an interview that is transcribed and read?
HUGE. ENORMOUS. TERRIFYING.
Oh, you want specifics? 😉
An interview that will be transcribed and read can be much more casual. There doesn’t need to be a formal introduction at the beginning, so we can meet or chat on the phone and just casually get into the interview. An interview that is recorded for podcasting needs a formal beginning, an introduction to the author. I’m still getting my head around this. Recently I started interviews by just saying hello and thanks to the author I’m speaking to, but I think this needs to be expanded to a brief toast-master-style introduction. I’m also thinking theme music to lead in to the interview and close would be good, as well as audible credits like with other podcasts.
Sound quality is an issue when putting interviews up as a podcast. I was fairly casual when I interviewed you, putting my Dictaphone on the table so we could both be heard. This is detrimental to audio-pickup, so I’ve started using the Dictaphone microphone. This gives far superior sound for the interviewee but means anyone else is too quiet. Mikey, the amazing audio guy at NatCon2012, suggested I record my questions separately and edit them in so there isn’t a problem with interview questions being too quiet in contrast. This will take longer and require more editing, but it’s do-able, it’s much cheaper than buying good recording equipment and it’s easier than lugging good recording equipment around. The downside is that joint interviews won’t work – unless I get 2 dictaphones and do more editing…
More on sound quality: I’ve interviewed people in some interesting places like coffee shops and outside the Spiegel tent. Background noise can be a problem as well as interruptions. Some interviews’ sound quality is so poor they cannot be put online, I’ve struggled to interpret what was said when transcribing them. The other day I interviewed Yunyu for the second time over Skype and someone was talking in the background. Background noise issues are simply unavoidable unless I get access to a professional recording studio, which is not in the foreseeable future. I do the best I can with what I have and hope for the best.
In a transcribed interview it’s ok to go off-track, lose focus, or for people to say things that need to be edited out, like the classic, ‘Oh, wait, my publicist wants to release that information later, can we edit that out?’ In a recorded interview it’s important to stay on topic, to try not to ‘um’ and ‘ah’, and to keep things moving. Also to turn off mobile phones…
From all the above, you probably think writing up interviews is easier, but really it’s not. An hour interview can take 6 hours to write up effectively, more if the sound quality is poor or the person talks really quickly. That’s before editing, proof reading, sending it to the interviewee for proofing, checking and making changes when it comes back… It’s a huge amount of work. I love the actual interviewing part, it’s fascinating listening to people’s stories, but I am over some of the other aspects of the work. Seriously.
Q: Your cover Girl Torque (Dark Matter 3) was nominated for the Chronos Award. Do you also have a background in illustrating and which artists have inspired you?
I am a visually impaired person who is visually oriented. Yes, I know that makes no sense, but it also helps explain why I’m such a photographer: auto-focus win!
Mum studied at the Tasmanian School of Art when I was a young adult. I fell in love with art school then, but the pragmatic side of me – the part that never wanted to go hungry again – wanted a real, paying job. That coupled with a desire to save the world resulted in me qualifying as a counsellor. As I finished counselling studies I rewarded myself by beginning a Bachelor of Visual Arts degree as a counterpoint to counselling people and then as a substitute for working after losing my job. I completed over a third of this degree at the University of South Australia with a distinction average due to working my butt off, but was effectively expelled for being disabled, unable to study theory or complete computer-oriented classes like Digital Art without disability access.
I’ve been in a few art exhibitions – selected and otherwise – and I was selected for the Adelaide Fringe Festival’s upstART program, an arts mentoring program for emerging artists. I won the Dawn Slade-Faull Award in 2008.
Girl Torque and the cover for Dark Matter issue 1 are about the only artworks I’ve completed since moving to Melbourne, apart from photographical works.
Artists who have influenced me would largely be friends of the family as I grew up, friends while Mum was at art school and lecturers at art school like Mark Kimber, Deborah Pauwee and Aurelia Carbone to name but three [I did mention I love photography J]. Andrew Hall was my painting mentor for the upstART program but I was using acrylics. I think I need to return to gouache, I find acrylics too heavy and I’m allergic to oils. Trina was my lecturer for drawing. I loved life drawing and Trina said that perhaps my poor vision was a blessing in disguise as I couldn’t see the finer detail that distracted others. I have contrast vision ‘within normal parameters’ as well, so that helps with shading and tonal qualities. I haven’t explored the world of SFF art much as I wasn’t really aware of fandom until after I moved to Melbourne, by which time I’d had the stuffing kicked out of me. Also there is a bias against SFF art as ‘illustration’ (read: not real art) in art circles.
Being nominated for the Chronos Award for my painting was a huge honour and complete surprise. I did my impersonation of a fish, opening and closing my mouth, while I read the announcement page about three times, checked the url and so forth, until gradually it sank in that yes, I’d really been nominated for my artwork. I feel really self-conscious but also really encouraged by this nomination; I feel it’s a vote of confidence from others, encouraging me to take up paintbrush, charcoal and pastels once more. I should probably also put some of my fan art on the webz, like my charcoal drawing of Chianna that is sticky-taped to a wardrobe door in the [laughingly titled] studio [aka third bedroom with an east-facing window L]. Friends came over not so long ago and were given a tour of our bookshelves. I think they were more interested in the artwork in that room than the books on those particular shelves. 😉
Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?
Perceptions are that there is a difference between the way males and females write fantasy, but I grew up thinking Ursula le Guin was a guy. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I discovered Andre Norton’s Witchworld was written by a woman. I wish someone told me these authors were women when I first read their novels in primary school and high school respectively; I thought being published was effectively barred to women.
I think the stereotypical difference is that men write ‘hard fantasy’ (think A Song of Ice and Fire) while women write about relationships, often with a focus on romance, which has traditionally been looked down upon as soft fantasy.
Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?
Yes, it still does. When a man is writing I still expect more action, less focus on women and possibly less focus on relationships. For example, the Science and the Capitol trilogy has a lot of discussion about a non-traditional lifestyle and a huge focus on the main protagonist’s sex drive, but not a lot of focus on women as point of view characters. No matter how well-equipped the protagonist was, the gender of the protagonist needed to be male. The vulnerability of a homeless woman, the likelihood of being stalked and raped, would have made this a very different story with a gender change. I wonder how conscious KSR was of this issue?
In contrast, the Wall of Night series by Helen Lowe has a variety of point of view characters, regardless of gender they come alive on the page. Relationships are important, sex is more than just scratching an itch and yet the act of sex does not make a couple. The first novel in this trilogy, Heir of Night, just won the Morningstar award, so instead of me spoiling the story read it yourself 😛
I’m reading a lot these days, so these differences are good. I try to vary my reading diet: Australian, overseas, serious, comedy, SF and fantasy… A change is as good as a holiday they say, and it certainly helps to re-energise me when I’m feeling a little burnt out.
Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?
This is the wrong question. The question should be: what is your preferred time machine and with whom would you travel? The answer: a blue police box. Christopher Eccelston.
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