Imaginarium Author Profile: Helen Marshall

CZP asked Imaginarium authors a few questions. See how they handle being on the spot, and how they handle The Hulk invading their stories! Between now and January 4th, 2013, CZP is running this special feature, and today’s author is Helen Marshall, who appeared in Imaginarium 2012: The Best of Canadian Speculative Fiction with the poems “One Quarter Gorgon” and “Beautiful Monster”.

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When did you start writing creatively, and what was the first piece you remember working on?

I remember sitting in the garden when I was about five, trying to write a sonnet about flowers. I don’t recall much from that particular poem, except that one of the rhyming words was "flair" (which I believe might have rhymed with "air"?). I would like to say this startling piece of childhood genius was published in The New Yorker. Alas, it was not. I believe it made it onto the fridge though.

What is the best advice you have ever been given from a publisher/fellow author/opinionated reader? 

“Write your weird.” That's it. That’s the piece of advice that has stuck in my mind most over the last six months: whatever obsessions, kinks, and strangenesses you’ve been storing away, the things that you ought to never bring up at the dinner table, those are the things that people want to read. That’s the authentic you. That’s the thing that only you can write.

What is it about speculative fiction that appeals to you, as a reader and/or an author?

 I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently: what I love in speculative fiction is the possibility of surprise. I get bored very easily, and I read enough that I can often map out a story from it’s premise. I love the moments when you’re following a plot and there’s that beautiful left turn that seems to come out of nowhere, but that also seems so entirely natural. I love not knowing. I love the mystery of it, the way in which the playing field is opened up. I love seeing strangeness turned human, and humanity turned strange. 

What do you do when you’re not writing? 

When I’m not writing, I spend my time studying medieval manuscripts in order to finish off my Ph.D in medieval studies, not the beautiful illuminated, gold-leaf ones but the scrappy bits of parchment that most people ignore: measuring punctuation marks, comparing fourteenth-century handwriting, studying dialect change. That either sounds incredibly banal or incredibly exciting, and, honestly, it’s a little bit of both. But I love books — old and new — and my obsession with them has been a huge part of my writing. There’s something glorious about the idea that a guy with quill and ink and a bit of paper could make something that would last six hundred years. There’s a sense of perspective it gives you. History is the great leveler and we never know what’s going to make it through. What’s going to matter. But we do it anyway. I like that.

Is there a book that you think would change the world (for better or worse) if every person was to read it?

I think every book that we read with an open mind changes us: when I was in England two years ago, my sister gave me a copy of Scarlett Thomas' Popco, which, nestled amidst an excellent discussion of code-breaking, number puzzles and family secrets, argues persuasively in favour of vegetarianism. It argued so persuasively that it worked for about two months: after which I came home, and my sister declared that she wouldn’t cook for me if I didn’t eat bacon. Well. I confess I was weak. But what was interesting about the whole experience was my own resistance to the book. I didn’t want to change. Change is scary. Even change in favour of a good that is well-articulated. But that being said, I’m the sum of all the books I’ve ever read. Books shape the discussion. They give us something to react against, and they can speak for a helluva long time. 

The Hulk is now a character in your Imaginarium poem “One Quarter Gorgon”: how would it change?

     When we make love, it is in darkness 

     or in the aftermath of an experimental detonation of a gamma bomb.

But I’m not sure I can honestly say that it makes better poetry: but, hey, I think you’re more likely to find me writing The Love Song of Robert Downey, Jr:

LET us fly then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like Loki laid out by the avenging fists of Thor;

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Aurora-winning poet Helen Marshall  is an author, editor, and self-proclaimed bibliophile.

Her poetry and fiction have been published in ChiZine, Paper Crow, Abyss & Apex and the long-running Tesseracts anthology series among others. She released a collection of poems entitled Skeleton Leaves from Kelp Queen Press in 2011 and her collection of short stories Hair Side, Flesh Side was released from ChiZine Publications in 2012.

Currently, she is pursuing a Ph. D in medieval studies at the University of Toronto, for which she spends a great deal of her time staring at fourteenth-century manuscripts. Unwisely. When you look into a book, who knows what might be looking back.

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Can’t find Imaginarium 2012 in your book store? Order it directly from CZP. 

Imaginarium Author Profile: Ada Hoffmann

CZP asked Imaginarium authors a few questions. See how they handle being on the spot, and how they handle The Hulk invading their stories! Between now and January 4th, 2013, CZP is running this special feature, and today’s author is Ada Hoffmann, who appeared in Imaginarium 2012: The Best of Canadian Speculative Fiction with the story “Centipede Girl”.

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When did you start writing creatively, and what was the first piece you remember working on?

I pretty much wrote creatively as soon as I could write at all. I remember being in grade one and writing all sorts of little things on the computer at school, blithely indifferent to spelling, grammar, or anything else but the fun I was having. Oddly, I didn’t realize I wanted to do it professionally until partway through college — before that, it was just a thing I did in the background because I felt like it.

When I was seven I wrote “Samuel and Alice,” which was my first “novel”. It somehow had four chapters but was only two pages long, plus a title page. It had two children disguised as knights, plus a dragon who spoke in a weird font. My younger brother was so impressed that he wrote his own, “Rachel and Jonathan,” which was really just mine with the names changed.

What is the best advice you have ever been given from a publisher/fellow author/opinionated reader? 

The first real author I ever met told me I needed to join a writing group. Now, not every writer believes in writing groups, and not all of the advice you’ll find in them is helpful. But personally, that was exactly what I needed. I had to develop my skills, but even more than that, I had to learn to deal with showing strangers my stories — and knowing they might not enjoy them very much. Writing groups throw you right into that.

The first time, even in a cushy newbie part of the group, it was TERRIFYING. I actually couldn’t do it on my own, and had to enlist friends to badger me into it. But I gradually learned to thicken my skin, and nowadays I’m hard to faze. I have trusted betas who can rant about how my characters are too stupid to live and I’ll just laugh and work out how to fix it. But every once in a while, I still do something new that brings the nervousness back, and I have to deal with it again. It’s a process.

What is it about speculative fiction that appeals to you, as a reader and/or an author?

I think in some respects our culture is very blinkered. We’re taught to think of our bills, our waistlines, and whatever’s in front of our faces. Spec fic reminds us that there are whole UNIVERSES of other things to think about, and some of them have never been thought before. That can be a comforting thing or it can be deeply unsettling, but either way I love it.

What do you do when you’re not writing? 

I go to school. I’m studying up for a M.Sc. and researching things only data miners and social psychologists will care about. I sing soprano and help out with church music. I navigate a set of strange and unusual personal relationships. I read, needless to say. I worry about every topic it is humanly possible to worry about. And I run an online freeform RPG where the players are fantasy steampunk police. (Before that, it was D&D with a sentient planet.)

Is there a book that you think would change the world (for better or worse) if every person was to read it?

I kind of think every grownup should read Jung. And every five-year-old should read The Sneetches. But I also think that there are way too many different kinds of people and not all of them will benefit in the same way from the same books, so when I take over the world, I will not impose such rules! The best change would be if everyone just read, full stop.

The Hulk is now a character in your Imaginarium story: how would it change?

Centipede Girl and Centipede woman are suddenly interrupted in their hunting by a large green angry man! (How did he get into the sewer? By smashing, of course.) Hulk tries to smash Centipede Woman, but finds that Hulk fists are strangely ineffective against nebulous clouds of centipedes. Centipede Girl runs away. Centipede Woman is not afraid of Hulk; she turns him into Centipede Hulk. Centipede Hulk crawls on and/or eats the entire world. Then eventually he stops freaking out and turns back into Centipede Bruce Banner, and Centipede Girl finally has someone to hug. Happy ending!

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Ada Hoffmann is not Ada's real name. She's also not really an elf, kitten, robot, Burgess Shale type fauna, snow leopard, space pod, or disembodied intelligence drifting through the Internet at any given time.

She's not sure what she actually is, but it involves being autistic, going to a Canadian university, messing with computers, tabletop roleplaying, singing soprano, petting cats, and having uncannily low self-esteem. Oh, and writing speculative fiction.

Ada's writing has appeared in Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. Ada thinks this is probably a good sign!

Ada's most recent published story was "Mama's Sword" in the Blood Iris 2012 anthology by Red Iris Books. Her most recent poem was "Finding Shadow" in Eye to the Telescope, Issue #5: LGBTQ. Others are upcoming.

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Can’t find Imaginarium 2012 in your book store? Order it directly from CZP. 

Imaginarium Author Profile: Peter Chiykowski

CZP asked Imaginarium authors a few questions. See how they handle being on the spot, and how they handle The Hulk invading their stories! Between now and January 4th, 2013, CZP is running this special feature, and today’s author is Peter Chiykowski, who appeared in Imaginarium 2012: The Best of Canadian Speculative Fiction with the poems “The Cinder Girl” and “Breathing Bones”.

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When did you start writing creatively, and what was the first piece you remember working on?

The first piece I remember writing was a comic called Sea Wars. I was like, seven, and I thought: you know what’s easy to draw/no one has written about? OCTOPUSES AND EELS PLAYING UNDERWATER BASKETBALL FOR DOMINANCE OF THE OCEAN. I think I got through six very lazily drawn issues before I realized the idea, for all its merits, offered limited plot possibilities.

What is the best advice you have ever been given from a publisher/fellow author/opinionated reader? 

I quite like some of the very demystifying things that Neil Gaiman and Kurt Vonnegut have said about writing. I mean, this isn’t advice they’ve give me, exactly, but then they also didn’t specifically say I couldn’t have it, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s an invitation to try on their words when they aren’t using them. So here’s one of Kurt’s rules of the short story “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.”

Hard to be blunter and fairer than that.

What is it about speculative fiction that appeals to you, as a reader and/or an author?

I think it’s more that I’m drawn to good writing in general and I can’t, for the life of me, think of any good reason why that should stop at the boundary of things that happen to exist.

Aside from writing, what else are you passionate about?

I’m intensely passionate about reading good books, watching bad television, and taking casual strolls with whomever is available of my girlfriend and basset hound.

Is there a book that you think would change the world (for better or worse) if every person was to read it?

Pretty much any Calvin and Hobbes collection would contribute to making the world a happier, more imaginative place.

The Hulk is now a character in your Imaginarium poem “The Cinder Girl”: how would it change?

In my Hulkified version of Imaginarium, Cinderella and the Hulk join forces to manually demolish the wicked stepsisters and their homestead, while the Prince, seeing the well-muscled green Goliath at her side, decides he’d better find himself a meeker, less proto-feministic maiden to rescue from poverty

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Peter Chiykowski lives and schemes in Toronto. He writes Rock, Paper, Cynic, an online comic that's been shared by George Takei, tweeted by Nathan Fillion, and featured on Tor.com, as well as Little Worlds, an online urban fantasy graphic novel that benefits charity.

His poems n' short stories have been published in Imaginarium 2012: Best Canadian Speculative Writing, Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011, The New Quarterly, On Spec, PRISM International, Grain, and a bunch of other magazines and anthologies across North America. He also briefly held the world record for being the youngest living person.

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Can’t find Imaginarium 2012 in your book store? Order it directly from CZP. 

Imaginarium Author Profile: Ian Rogers

CZP asked Imaginarium authors a few questions. See how they handle being on the spot, and how they handle The Hulk invading their stories! Between now and January 4th, 2013, CZP is running this special feature, and today’s author is Ian Rogers, who appeared in Imaginarium 2012: The Best of Canadian Speculative Fiction with the story “The Candle”.

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When did you start writing creatively, and what was the first piece you remember working on?

I’ve been writing all my life, but I started writing seriously when I was around 18 years old or so. The first major story I remember working on was a Lovecraft pastiche called "Black Iron Shadows." It was published in a small-press magazine called imelod.

What is the best advice you have ever been given from a publisher/fellow author/opinionated reader? 

The best thing I was ever told is that all writing advice is relative. Different things work for different people. But it always pays to listen. Also: if you don’t have time to read, then you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. That last one is from Stephen King’s On Writing, and for me it’s one of the best pieces of writing advice ever.

What is it about speculative fiction that appeals to you, as a reader and/or an author?

The thing that appeals to me about speculative fiction as both an author and a reader is the boundless opportunity of it all. With other genres you usually know what you’re going to get, but spec fic by its very nature is completely unpredictable. Sure, there are some well-known and well-loved tropes, but the potential for a completely unknown concept or idea is right there waiting to be read — or written. 

What do you do when you’re not writing? 

I’m a photographer and an artist, although I don’t have much time for either with the time I spend focusing on my writing. I try to get out every fall to take pictures, because those are my favourite kind to take, and I usually complete one or two art projects every year. It’s nice to have other outlets.

Is there a book that you think would change the world (for better or worse) if every person was to read it?

Hard to say. People are different. It’s one of the things we supposedly pride ourselves on. The idea of one book speaking to everyone, and with the power to change the world, is an enticing one. But I can’t think of a specific book that would do that. Maybe that’s your answer right there.

The Hulk is now a character in your Imaginarium story: how would it change?

Well, my story is about a candle. I’m not sure if the Hulk would blow it out. He’d probably just smash it. But I guess that would do the job, too.

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Ian Rogers is a writer, artist, and photographer. His short fiction has appeared in several publications, including Cemetery Dance,Supernatural Tales, and Shadows & Tall Trees. He is the author of the Felix Renn series of supernatural-noirs ("superNOIRturals"), including "Temporary Monsters," "The Ash Angels," and "Black-Eyed Kids" from Burning Effigy Press. Ian lives with his wife in Peterborough, Ontario.

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Can’t find Imaginarium 2012 in your book store? Order it directly from CZP.