Read Online The Science of Herself by Karen Joy Fowler - Free Book Online
Authors: Karen Joy Fowler
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would sail around the world. I would be such a valuable member of society that you would hardly recognize me.
Is it true that
Sarah Canary
was originally titled
Sister from Another Planet
?
Something
should be titled
Sister from Another Planet
. It would be nice if I didnât have to write it myself, but I am here, waiting and eager to read it. Doesnât this seem like a job for Eleanor Arnason? I think she might be just the woman for it. I would read
Sister from Another Planet
by Eleanor Arnason in a heartbeat.
What do you think California will look like in 150 years?
More salt water, less fresh. Water wars all up and down the state. Itâs Chinatown, Jake.
One of your favorite plot devices is ânice girl gets falling-down drunk.â Did you steal that or make it up?
Itâs a standard romcom trope. See
The Philadelphia Story
,
The Sure Thing
,
The Cutting Edge
, countless others. The woman cannot admit her true feelings until she gets drunk. Because these are movies and not life, the man refuses to take advantage of the situation. Sometimes the woman is angry about this refusal and true love is delayed yet again as a result.
So Iâve just taken this same trope and am using it in non-romcoms. No one is in love. No one is learning anything about their true feelings through the magic of alcohol. In my books, people are simply getting drunk. I am subverting the genre. Itâs possible Iâm drinking heavily as I do so.
Have you ever been arrested? Were you eventually released?
By the time I joined the revolution, the police had stopped arresting us. It was seen as pointless since the courts just released us again back into the wild first chance they got. So the police were beating us up instead and skipping the arresting part. Iâve never been arrested, but Iâve been beaten up.
Iâve also been rescued by the police in other contexts. Itâs all been very confusing.
But I
am
clear now that my constitutional rights are not meant to be actually, you know, exercised.
What are you reading this week?
Snapper
by Brian Kimberling. So recommended!
Your thoughts on each in one sentence please: John Crowley, Agnes Smedley, David Sedaris, Molly Gloss, Evelyn Waugh.
I can name that tune in one word. Brilliant, inspiring, hilarious, impeccable, eternal. You can pretty much rotate the adjectives, give them a spin, as they apply equally to all of the above.
Do you have a regular drill as a writer? Ever work in longhand?
I canât work in longhand. I get too involved with penmanship. I become a monk with an illuminated manuscript.
My regular drill is to intend to write and then spend the day sitting at my computer doing my e-mail and browsing my favorite sites instead. Watching some TED talks. I love TED talks. They are the only place where I find hope for the future. But then I spoil the mood by scoping out the political scene. All the whilefilled with a faint but ineffective self-loathing because Iâm not writing.
Why do drivers wait so long to start moving when the light changes?
Theyâre on the phone.
You have a solid reputation in genre (SF) and in mainstream as well. Does that ever make for a conflict?
Do I? A
solid
reputation? Are you sure? It seems to me that the question of whether I write genre fiction at all has dogged me my whole career. I was very pleased when
Locus
publisher Charles Brown told me years ago that of course I was a science fiction writer. It didnât matter
what
I wrote, he said, because I
thought
like a science fiction writer.
I do love genre fiction. I also love mainstream literary fiction. As a reader sometimes I want one and sometimes I want the other. There is no reason not to read both.
As a writer, sometimes I want to write one and sometimes the other, but this has been trickier. When I began publishing, NY believed that either people read science fiction and nothing else, or they never read science fiction. Scrupulous attention was
Is it true that
Sarah Canary
was originally titled
Sister from Another Planet
?
Something
should be titled
Sister from Another Planet
. It would be nice if I didnât have to write it myself, but I am here, waiting and eager to read it. Doesnât this seem like a job for Eleanor Arnason? I think she might be just the woman for it. I would read
Sister from Another Planet
by Eleanor Arnason in a heartbeat.
What do you think California will look like in 150 years?
More salt water, less fresh. Water wars all up and down the state. Itâs Chinatown, Jake.
One of your favorite plot devices is ânice girl gets falling-down drunk.â Did you steal that or make it up?
Itâs a standard romcom trope. See
The Philadelphia Story
,
The Sure Thing
,
The Cutting Edge
, countless others. The woman cannot admit her true feelings until she gets drunk. Because these are movies and not life, the man refuses to take advantage of the situation. Sometimes the woman is angry about this refusal and true love is delayed yet again as a result.
So Iâve just taken this same trope and am using it in non-romcoms. No one is in love. No one is learning anything about their true feelings through the magic of alcohol. In my books, people are simply getting drunk. I am subverting the genre. Itâs possible Iâm drinking heavily as I do so.
Have you ever been arrested? Were you eventually released?
By the time I joined the revolution, the police had stopped arresting us. It was seen as pointless since the courts just released us again back into the wild first chance they got. So the police were beating us up instead and skipping the arresting part. Iâve never been arrested, but Iâve been beaten up.
Iâve also been rescued by the police in other contexts. Itâs all been very confusing.
But I
am
clear now that my constitutional rights are not meant to be actually, you know, exercised.
What are you reading this week?
Snapper
by Brian Kimberling. So recommended!
Your thoughts on each in one sentence please: John Crowley, Agnes Smedley, David Sedaris, Molly Gloss, Evelyn Waugh.
I can name that tune in one word. Brilliant, inspiring, hilarious, impeccable, eternal. You can pretty much rotate the adjectives, give them a spin, as they apply equally to all of the above.
Do you have a regular drill as a writer? Ever work in longhand?
I canât work in longhand. I get too involved with penmanship. I become a monk with an illuminated manuscript.
My regular drill is to intend to write and then spend the day sitting at my computer doing my e-mail and browsing my favorite sites instead. Watching some TED talks. I love TED talks. They are the only place where I find hope for the future. But then I spoil the mood by scoping out the political scene. All the whilefilled with a faint but ineffective self-loathing because Iâm not writing.
Why do drivers wait so long to start moving when the light changes?
Theyâre on the phone.
You have a solid reputation in genre (SF) and in mainstream as well. Does that ever make for a conflict?
Do I? A
solid
reputation? Are you sure? It seems to me that the question of whether I write genre fiction at all has dogged me my whole career. I was very pleased when
Locus
publisher Charles Brown told me years ago that of course I was a science fiction writer. It didnât matter
what
I wrote, he said, because I
thought
like a science fiction writer.
I do love genre fiction. I also love mainstream literary fiction. As a reader sometimes I want one and sometimes I want the other. There is no reason not to read both.
As a writer, sometimes I want to write one and sometimes the other, but this has been trickier. When I began publishing, NY believed that either people read science fiction and nothing else, or they never read science fiction. Scrupulous attention was
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