One thing I dislike, no surprise with the way I write, is the way the average published fantasy has been dumbed down over the last decade or so. Once upon a time SF readers, and fantasy readers, I presume, would figure in academic articles as readers who wanted odd words and strange new customs and unfamiliar acronyms. Now it seems anything outside a basic English vocabulary is eyed askance because “readers mightn’t understand.”
For SF I know less on the publishing side, though its death has just been announced in academic circles for the first time this century (usually it’s heralded about once a decade.) So probably more of the same, though I think shrinking readerships might have a bigger impact there than on fantasy.
You’re a professor. What do you teach and what are your working habits?
A professor in the Australian academic hierarchy is as high as you can get. Our equivalent to your professor is a lecturer, and in fact, I’m currently an adjunct lecturer, that is, unpaid but with some staff privileges, so I teach casually or by contract. And since my University school is currently fund-starved (our system has no privately funded Universities) I’m not teaching anything at the moment. I’m supervising (acting as adviser) to three PhD students, and doing a bunch of guest-editing for an academic journal. When I do teach, it’s usually in straight English subjects, or Creative writing, or, once, when we had it, in a subject on SF, fantasy, and popular culture. This dept.. is a long way behind the US in terms of admitting either speculative or popular fiction.
Back in my college days, my professors always listed their books on the class reading lists. Do you do that?
Heavens, no! It would be off topic in most of my classes. In Creative Writing I did a couple of times use correspondence with an editor as an example of how to negotiate over revisions.
How long did it take you to finish this book? Did you travel any emotional journeys in order to finish it?
The first draft was very fast, being short, and also straight from the well, to use a metaphor for the ones that get on the page with hardly any checks. About 2 or 3 months. The revising and dinking afterwards, though, took years. And yes, it was an emotional journey, though not as big as some have been. Though this one was a theoretical journey as well, and that was very near unique for me.
What would you tell other writers or artists out there?
As an epigraph said in a Barbara Michaels’ novel, taken from a feminist story or essay -- I can’t place which novel now -- Keep on Talking. That is, Don’t Shut Up.
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