BEHIND THE ZINES with Joyce Chng, articles editor at STRANGE HORIZONS

For this month's Behind the Zines interview, I'm happy and excited to be talking to Joyce Chng, an amazing writer who is also the articles editor at Strange Horizons.

 

More about Joyce Chng:

Born in Singapore but a global citizen, Joyce Chng writes mainly science fiction and YA. They like steampunk and tales of transformation/transfiguration. Their fiction has appeared in Crossed Genres, The Apex Book of World SF II, We See A Different Frontier, Cranky Ladies of History, and Accessing The Future. They can be found at A Wolf’s Tale (awolfstale.wordpress.com) and at @jolantru on Twitter.

Joyce Chng's pronouns are she/her or they/their.

More about Strange Horizons:

Strange Horizons is a weekly magazine of and about speculative fiction. We publish fiction, poetry, reviews, essays, interviews, roundtable discussions, and art.

Our definition of speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, and all other flavors of fantastika. Work published in Strange Horizons has been shortlisted for or won Hugo, Nebula, Rhysling, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards.

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Q. Tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your background, where did you grow up, and what do you do outside the world of speculative fiction?

I am Joyce Chng/Ch’ng. I was born in and am currently based in Singapore. I am second/third-generation Chinese. Outside the world of speculative fiction, I am a parent and an ex-teacher. I am a History major (specifically late medieval) – you can say I am a medievalist.

Q. If you think back on your life, what was the first thing that got you hooked on the speculative fiction genre? Was it a book or a movie, or something else?

I think it would be a confluence of many things. First, children’s books with shapeshifting and fairies, then Star Blazers (Spaceship Yamato) my gateway to military science fiction and space opera… and Pern.

Q. You are one of the people behind Strange Horizons, a zine I write for, and one of the oldest and I would argue most interesting speculative fiction zines around. Can you talk a bit about Strange Horizons, and how you got involved at SH, and what you see as Strange Horizons mission, or what sets it apart in the field of spec fic?

Strange Horizons is one of the speculative fiction zines that is doing what no other zines have promised to do this, and I say this because I am biased: spec fic has always been diverse and international, focusing not only just North American (United States of America) but many other centres of speculative fiction around the world. That is one of Strange Horizons’ mission: spec fic is global.

How I got involved? Around 2016, Vanessa Phin (Ness) asked me if I would like to join as an articles editor. The zine was then helmed by Niall Harrison. We set up a tele-conference and talked. Then here I am.

Q. What does your work involve behind the zines? How does a usual “workday” for you at the zine look like?

As we are volunteers, time is indeed very precious and we do have other things in life. There is no “workday”, just a couple of hours we allocate. So, a “workweek” would look like – for me – 48 hours (2 or 3 hours).

My role as articles editor is to solicit and commission nonfiction pieces from writers. We do have a slush pile for pitches and submissions. Besides soliciting and commissioning, I edit (copy and development), give feedback to writers, and then when the final drafts are OKed, uploaded them on the SH portal (thanks for Wordpress skills!).

Q. What are some things you have learned since you started at Strange Horizons, and what are some of the most enjoyable things vs. the hardest things about your work?

Editing is hard. Managing people is hard. Managing myself is hard. Publishing is hard. But I also have learned that working with like-minded people in a diverse anarchist setting is amazing. That I actually enjoy “working” as a nonfiction editor and that speculative nonfiction/creative writing is such an underrated but much needed genre. We need more critical analyses of our field and we definitely need more from marginalised and non-US regions.

Hardest thing(s): I hate to reject people. There are many pitches and submissions that are good which we have to say no to. It’s not the quality we are against, but sometimes, yes, they just don’t fit and normally the calendar has already been filled up with submissions we have accepted prior. As I have said, publishing is hard. Another “hardest thing”: dealing with difficult writers. We all have different personalities and characters, different backgrounds and belief systems. Sometimes, they just clash.

Q. The world of speculative fiction zines and speculative fiction writing has undoubtedly changed over time. What are some trends you pay attention to, whether they are good or bad?

I am not sure if I pay attention to trends. But there are now more daring approaches and focuses which I like. Solarpunk, for example. Also zines inspired by and found on all the ‘punks. Not sure if they are good or bad though. It is only bad if it’s just a buzzword or the zine is a product because the creators have believed striking the iron where it is hot. The hardest part is to persist on the values they have based their zines on and promised to deliver.

Trends come and go. They seem to ebb away, until they surface once more (if the pendulum swings the other way).

Q. You’re based in Singapore and the main focus of the speculative fiction world seems to still be North America when it comes to cons, events, zines, and so on. What are your thoughts on that phenomenon and what it means for speculative fiction – what and who gets published, what and who wins awards and gets attention? And do you have any thoughts on how this situation can be improved?

My thoughts? The focus on North America (specifically, again, the United States of America) is a double-edged sword. The US of A has always presented itself as a beacon for speculative fiction and writers from places where they don’t even give any consideration for speculative fiction will try to get published in America. What it ultimately means for speculative fiction… SFF might end up becoming parochial, advocating narratives and beliefs the dominant culture wants to read/watch.

I am often leery about tokenisation and even though I am happy for the BIPOC and nonwhite folk who get awards and recognition, I am afraid that they are held up as tokens by the dominant white cis-gendered Americans: see, we are not racists! Walking the talk is hard, but this is just the bare minimum, the lowest bar.

Tokenisation has the unfortunate effect of splitting the community apart, another “us versus them” thing I hope will go but not in my lifetime. I am not sure how the situation can be improved without a total sea change/complete overhaul of publishing itself. As long as the dominant white (racist) voices have power, the dynamics will still be unfair and unequal. I am not sure who will have the courage to tackle the privilege(s) head-on.

Q. How has your involvement behind the scenes affected your view of the business of genre fiction publishing, compared to your perspective before? Have you gained any insights you didn’t previously have?

Genre fiction publishing is hard. Genre fiction publishing has unequal and unfair power dynamics. However, we have talent. BIPOC and marginalised people have talent. I see them in the pitches and submissions.

Q. If people want to support Strange Horizons, what can they do?

They can support Strange Horizons in the annual fund-drive: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strangehorizons2019/strange-horizons-2024.

Or become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/strangehorizons

The staff are all volunteers. But we want to pay our artists, writers and columnists!

Q. For writers and readers out there who might be thinking about getting involved with a zine in any capacity, what would you say to them? Do you have any advice, and/or warnings?

Most zines are volunteer-run, so be mindful of your own expectations and theirs. Go in with an open mind but draw your boundaries, know your strengths (what you are able to/capable of) and your weaknesses. Don’t be afraid to seek help or assistance (if your zine has a Slack, discuss and talk it out).

Q. You’re also a wonderful writer of speculative fiction. How did you get started as a writer? Is it something you always did or wanted to do, or something that you came to later in life?

Thank you! J

How I got started? I started writing fiction in my teens, pretty much inspired by the stuff I read (McCaffrey). I always wanted to be a writer, even though I was told not to because “writing doesn’t earn you money”. I dabbled in short stories and got things published in uni Pride zines. Also, fanzines.

I stopped for a short while after I got married and started work. I only started writing for real around the late 2000s and I debuted when I was 35. In between, I taught as an adjunct teacher and this went on for quite some time.

Q. Speaking as a writer, what do you have on the go right now, and what’s up next for you as a writer?

I am working on a couple of contracted work (games-related), a pitch for a collaboration with an illustrator, and dipping into an Orlando Furioso- inspired story I have wanted to write for a long time. Because it’s Singapore, I am planning on school visits for Fire Heart, my YA fantasy (Scholastic Asia) and Oyster Girl, a picture book supported by the Heritage Board.

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• Find out more about Joyce Chng and her work at https://awolfstale.wordpress.com/
• Read Strange Horizons
• Support Strange Horizons current Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strangehorizons2019/strange-horizons-2024

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About Behind the Zines:

In this interview series, I talk to people working behind the scenes at various speculative fiction publications. My goal is to highlight the work that goes into keeping these publications alive, and to share insights from the people doing that work. Each interview is available exclusively on my Patreon for one week, and is then posted here at Maria's Reading.

If you want to support my work, check out my Patreon or Ko-Fi.

 

BEHIND THE ZINES with Stephen Hunt, editor and publisher at INKLINGS PRESS

For this month’s Behind the Zines interview I am thrilled to be talking to the fabulous Stephen Hunt from Inklings Press. 

 

More about Stephen Hunt:

Stephen Hunt is a journalist, author, and editor, having worked in the newspaper industry for nearly 20 years. He is presently working in The Bahamas at The Tribune national newspaper. He is also one of the people behind Inklings Press.

More about Inklings Press:

Inklings Press is an indie publisher of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and other fiction by new writers. Their purpose is to provide new fantasy, science fiction, mystery and alternative history tales.

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Q. Tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your background, where did you grow up, where are you now, and what do you do outside the world of speculative fiction?

Hi Maria, thanks for inviting me to take part! I’m a bit of driftwood. I was born in Northern Ireland, but we left there when I was a kid, right in the heart of The Troubles. So I grew up as a bit of an outsider in North-East England, a boy with a funny accent and a funny hair colour. Then a little over a decade ago, I drifted across the Atlantic to where I live and work in The Bahamas. I edit a newspaper here, and the rest of my time is spent chasing round two kids and wondering with my wife where all the time in the day went.

Q. Most people who are into speculative fiction seem to have caught that bug early in their lives. What got you hooked on the speculative fiction genre? What stories, books, movies, TV-shows, or something else, lured you into that world?

I blame my mum! Or maybe my grandmother. My granny used to take my mum with her to the cinema when she was a kid to go see horror movies – which got my mum hooked. I grew up in a house full of books by James Herbert, Stephen King, Alan Garner and more. And my mum did the same to me, but with the small screen – keeping me up at night to watch Hammer Horror movies or Salem’s Lot so she wasn’t left to watch them on her own. A nice line of maternal terror passed along!

But the house was also filled with fantasy and sci-fi books – I’m the youngest of five kids, so my eldest brother had lots of Anne McCaffrey and Katherine Kurtz books, another brother got into D&D and Runequest and brought me along for the ride, there were shelves with Asimov and Clarke, Tolkien and Le Guin, and TV screens with Kirk and Spock, The Doctor and Quatermass, Space 1999 and Buck Rogers.

I fell in, and I fell hard. I remember making my parents walk me back out of the cinema backwards so I could see as many of the credits as possible for the first Star Wars movie. I was that kind of nerdy fan. These days, of course, the movie companies stick a scene at the end to get you to stay…

Q. You’re one of the people behind Inklings Press, an indie publisher that has published several anthologies (I’ve had stories in two of them!). How did Inklings Press get started and what’s your goal or mission statement?

We gotta get you back for a third! Submissions open now, y’know…

Inklings started out as a bunch of friends on the internet chatting about books. No, wait, let’s go a step further back. Back in the day in the UK, there was a competitive gaming scene for a tabletop collectible figures game called Heroclix. We’re talking little figures of Wolverine and Batman, Superman and Thor, and the mightiest hero of all, Hawkeye. Over the years, a bunch of us met up at tournaments, battled it out over the table, did the whole “hey, let me add you on Facebook” thing, and had beers after the gaming sessions.

Fast forward a few years and a whole lot of us have moved on to different parts of the world – but still kept in touch on Facebook, and chatted about various things, including for a few of us a mutual love of writing. That became an encouragement to one another to do something with that – and so we cheered each other on as we set about writing stories, shared critiques and so on. Somewhere along the way we thought we should do something with that – and so we decided to try self-publishing a book featuring the work of some of the members of that group, which had extended to friends of friends too. And that’s how the first book, Tales From The Tavern, a short, five-story anthology of fantasy fiction, came about. We just figured, let’s try it and see. And then we went back again for more. And more.

As time went on, we broadened out to accept submissions from people who weren’t part of that group to the point where it’s now open to all.

As to our goal? Well, we just want to find good stories and share them with readers who might enjoy them. We’ve done far better than we might have expected at the start – we’ve published Sidewise Award winners twice over for alternate history! And we’ve had authors want to join us in our anthologies who we would never have thought would have been interested in little old us when we started out.

It’s also been a genuine pleasure to offer a stepping stone for new voices, including from some diverse backgrounds. It’s a real joy to see how people have gone on to other things and we love to shout about others’ successes. Back when we first started, we kind of felt that there was no place for us so we would make our own. We hope we have given a place for others along the way.

Q. If you look back on your hopes and dreams when you started out and compare it to where you’re at today… what are your thoughts on that journey? What are some of the big, and maybe small, things you’ve learned? What are some of your proudest accomplishments?

I think for me the biggest part of the journey has been seeing fellow authors who didn’t feel they might ever get anything published now be in a place where they have one, two, three, more books out there and plans for further to come. It’s seeing that transition from asking “Could I do this?” to “I am doing this.”

That’s been remarkable to see. I’m lagging behind compared to others in that regard, but I absolutely cheer them on in everything they do.

I think we’ve learned to try and simplify the process over time, because there’s only so much time in our days. We switched to payment on publication, for example, so that’s resolved and done at the outset, and then there’s deciding not to constantly chase down rabbit holes for the many, many ways of promotion that are constantly pushed at you, many of which are not terribly effective. That learning process of what does and what does not work takes a bit of time when you’re new to it all. I think the biggest thing to learn is just to be genuine. It’s easy to get swallowed up in the marketing push all the time, but the biggest benefits come from genuine interactions with people. And it’s nicer too.

As for accomplishments, I should absolutely hail the Sidewise Awards. And I do. And I should absolutely sing out about getting reviewed in Amazing Science Fiction. And I do. But my proudest accomplishment is honestly any time we publish an author’s debut. That’s where I see the heart of Inklings, particularly when it’s people from different countries or backgrounds, saying hey, we hear your voice and we’d love to help it be heard elsewhere.

Q. What are some of the best and some of the hardest things about your work in publishing for Inklings Press? How does your team work together? I think you’re all spread out all over the world, do you find that to be a challenge or is the Internet enough to keep it all together?

The main crew consists of four of us – an Englishman in Finland, an American in Japan, an Irishman (me) in The Bahamas and a Mexican who is the only one in his home country these days. We’ve certainly shifted around a lot. The internet has kept us together though my word it would be nice for us to have a meet-up in person at some point. Last year we took the year off as we had various life events happening, but now we’re stepping back into the ring.

In terms of how it works, we chat on an almost daily basis about all kinds of things – and then when we decide to go with a project, we come up with a theme, set a deadline, and divide up tasks. Ricardo is our graphic artist and cover designer, Brent and Rob tend to handle submissions and first passes at edits. Then I hop in at the end and do final edits plus compiling the book itself before hitting the big ol’ publish button. We also divide up social media promotion. The biggest task though is mutual encouragement, lifting one another up on hard days in life and in publishing, and cheering on our successes.

Q. I know there’s a recurring discussion in the field about the viability of speculative fiction zines and publishing houses, with a lot of great venues disappearing and new ones starting up. What are your thoughts on the viability of this as a business.

If your game plan is to make money, then there’s certainly easier ways to make it! People will go buy a cup of coffee every day but ask them to pay the same for a book and some will recoil at the idea.

We are lucky enough that we have between us the skills to put together what we do, and don’t have to take on particularly large costs to do so. That’s very much a privileged position to be in, and I’m very conscious that not all people are as fortunate to be in that situation.

It’s hard to keep a venue running long-term. It’s a big-time commitment from anyone in the process – from reading through the slush pile to editing to marketing to publishing to to to… you know, it just keeps going. And the price of the product at the end of that often is not enough to sustain everyone through that process. So I completely understand the burnout that comes with that, and the challenge to keep things afloat year on year, sometimes with the marketplace doing the most unhelpful of things along the way, such as Amazon recently changing the way it deals with subscriptions for some long-running magazines, or concerns over Kickstarter as a platform for fundraising, or Twitter becoming a place that I for one have stepped away from as much as possible after its ownership change.

Of course, the ones most affected by this are the ones who aren’t in a privileged position to begin with – and so that continues to count against marginalised voices.

I will say there is a greater opportunity these days for those voices to be initially heard thanks to the breadth of self-publishing and small presses now – but sustaining those platforms I think is as difficult as ever. Perhaps even more difficult. I salute those who keep a solid schedule of publications coming month after month, year after year.

Q. You also run Altered Instinct, publishing a newsletter / zine. The first issue came out late last year, featuring interviews and fiction. What has that experience been like for you and can we expect more issues in the future?

That’s… a work in progress. Yes. More in the future. But a job change kind of put things on hold while I work out where my free time fits in around the new role. But yes. Yes yes yes.

Q. You’re also a fiction writer in your own right, and you’re a journalist, working as managing editor of The Tribune in Nassau. Do you feel like your various writing endeavors clash or do they inspire each other? Is there something the fiction writer can learn from the journalist, and vice versa?

I like to think that in the day job I tell truth to expose lies, and in the night job I tell lies to expose truth. People can probably make their own mind up which is which. I think there is a lot each side can learn from the other. As a writer, I’m so used to having stories changed around and edited in the news business that I’ve long lost my brittle edges about being too precious perhaps about my words. I know things need to change around to work better sometimes, and it’s not a slight upon my earlier drafts to do so. As a journalist, you can get caught up in the rush to deadline sometimes – and I can learn from the writing side to sometimes just take a step back and let a story breathe so you know what to do with it better. In general, though, I write about different things. My day job is full of horrible stories sometimes, and so my writing lets my mind take flight to other places.

Q. How has your views of the business side of the speculative fiction publishing industry changed since you’ve become more involved behind the scenes vs. when you were “just” a writer? Have you gained any insights you didn’t previously have?

I’ll steer clear of talking about traditional publishing as I don’t really have any expertise there but when it comes to self-publishing and small presses, I think I’d say always remember that one size never fits all, and there are different ways of marketing that suit different styles of publication. What works to market an eight-book series produced at speed may not work at all for a single 120,000-word fantasy epic. There are many services – and some publishers – who look to get money out of the hands of authors, so being cautious and figuring out what works for you is always wise.

Q. For others who might be thinking about getting involved with speculative fiction publishing in any capacity, what would you say to them? Do you have any tips, advice, and/or warnings for new publishers?

I think I’d say do what you can and don’t overreach. Be aware that things crop up in life and you need to have the room to deal with those things – so if you stretch yourself to capacity, those life issues will push you over the top. So pace yourself. Enjoy it. Love it. Adore the words you work with. Immerse yourself in those dreams. But always have time to pack them away and live.

In more practical terms, spend your money where it gets you the best results. Avoid scammers – and keep an eye on outlets such as Author Beware so you’re know what to watch out for. Make sure your covers look professional. Make sure you know what looking professional means. Don’t be afraid of criticism, it helps sharpen your focus. In the same vein, don’t publicly criticise reviewers – it’s not a good look. Show respect and a professional manner, and people will react to you accordingly. Show your whole ass in public, however, and don’t be surprised if people point at it. There are frustrating days, and that’s what your closest friends’ DMs are for.

But to backtrack to what I said earlier, just be genuine. Do it because you love it, and love it because you do it.

Q. Like me, you’re one of those people who have moved across the world, living quite far away from where you were born and grew up. How has that experience influenced you as a writer, and as a publisher?

Honestly, it can be hard. I was three when I first moved to a country that wasn’t my own – England is close to Ireland, but I was reminded every day that it was not. Particularly in the 70s, when I would be called Paddy rather than my real name, or have people shout “IRA” at me, call me stupid because of being Irish, or be punched or kicked for where I came from. So I’ve been an outsider since I can remember existing.

On occasions we’d go back to Ireland, it wasn’t home either by then – I was the boy coming back from England. So uprooting from the UK and coming to The Bahamas a dozen years ago now was not the major upheaval it might have been – but only because I was often left to feel as if I didn’t belong in the first place. Like I say, I’m driftwood, and I’ve washed up on these shores now.

How that affects me as a writer? Well, it’s hard to say what culture is my own. I’m not Irish enough to be an Irish writer. I’m not Bahamian so I can’t claim that either. Regularly being told I didn’t belong as I grew up suggests that for many I can’t count on being an English writer. So where am I? What are the stories that belong to me? So I gather the driftwood around me and tell the tales that find their way to me.

As a publisher, I’m very conscious there are large sections of the world whose tales are not given a chance to be told. I love when those tales come our way. I would love that to be more the case. But I’m also conscious that for some of those I shouldn’t be involved in the process of the telling.

Q. As I mentioned before, you’re also a writer. What’s up next for you as a fiction writer? And what’s up next for Inklings Press?

I’ll start with Inklings Press as that’s more imminent – we have submissions open right now for an anthology of mystery stories, but in other genres. Only Murders in the Genre as we’ve nicknamed it, but think sleuths in spacesuits, wizards and wiseguys, whatdunnits instead of whodunnits and more. That’s our comeback anthology after our year off. We’re also talking other plans, including maybe novellas. Maybe.

As for me, I so very much need to catch up with Inklings writers who have gone before me and get a novel out there. But will start with my own collection of short stories gathering up tales that have landed here, there and elsewhere over the years. The very first thing I published was a collection called Quartet to test out the publishing process on Amazon, and this feels like a return to that moment to draw a line over what I’ve done so far, ready to make the leap to the next part of the journey.

Just, y’know, give me some of that elusive time in the day…

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Huge thanks to Stephen for this interview! 

• Stephen Hunt at Altered Instinct 
• Inklings Press 

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About Behind the Zines:

In this interview series, I talk to people working behind the scenes at various speculative fiction publications. My goal is to highlight the work that goes into keeping these publications alive, and to share insights from the people doing that work. Each interview is available exclusively on my Patreon for one week, and is then posted here at Maria's Reading.

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If you want to support my work, check out my Patreon or Ko-Fi.

BEHIND THE ZINES with Jennifer R. Donohue, author of speculative short fiction, novellas, and a new novel

At Behind the Zines this month, I'm talking to Jennifer R. Donohue and going behind the zines completely to talk about self-publishing. Donohue's short fiction has been published in magazines like Apex and Fantasy Magazine. She has also self-published several novellas and her self-published debut novel, Exit Ghost, is out March 7. I'm thrilled to be able to talk to her about her experience with self-publishing and the joys and challenges of getting your work out into the world without a publisher as intermediary.

 

More about Jennifer R. Donohue:

Jennifer  R. Donohue grew up at the Jersey Shore and now lives in central New  York with her husband and her Doberman. She is a Codexian and an  Associate member of the SFWA, and short fiction has appeared in Daily  Science Fiction, Apex, Syntax & Salt, Escape Pod, and elsewhere. Her  cyberpunk novella series Run With the Hunted is available on most  digital platforms. She tweets @AuthorizedMusin.

More about Exit Ghost:

After her father is murdered and an attempt is made on her  life, New Jersey heiress and witch Juliet Duncan is supposed to be  concentrating on getting better and moving forward. Instead, Jules  summons her father's ghost using her blood and tears and his old rotary  phone to answer the question: who did it? He reveals it was Hector, her  dad’s best friend and her mom’s new fiancé.

Certain  her life is still in danger, Jules flees the family estate to the Asbury  Park apartment she shares with her best friend and fellow witch, Ashes.  When another friend joins them, all three women get caught up with a  secret boyfriend who’s also big into magic, but in all the wrong ways,  all while Jules wrestles with whether her father’s ghost was telling the  truth. But what Jules does know is that power has its cost, and she is  more than willing to pay the price in order to get her revenge.

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Q. First up: what’s your background, and what do you do outside the world of speculative fiction writing?

JD: I was born in New Jersey and went to college for psychology in a small town in central New York, where I ended up staying after graduation. My husband and I went to college together, and staying in town afterwards just made sense to us. What I do for my day job (my non writing career?) is I work at my local public library; I was on the circulation desk and then in charge of interlibrary loan for my first years there, and now I do what the library world calls “tech services,” I do the book ordering, and then receive and process them. There’s also the joke in libraryland (probably other fields as well) that our job descriptions all contain “other duties as required.” In addition to ordering materials, I’ve helped with our local history materials, I’ve researched the building’s construction projects, helped coordinate room remodels and asbestos abatement projects, and I’ve run a writing workshop there since 2014. The writing workshop feels a little bit like cheating; what a dream it is, to be able to write at work!

Since getting dogs (we’ve had them one at a time, but it’s been two now,) my ambient interest in animal behavior and dog training expanded, and I’ve said that I have to use my psychology degree for something, and so dogs it is. I was even a dog blogger for a little while, before the whole ‘fiction career’ thing got traction.

Q. What attracted you to the speculative fiction genre when you were a child or young adult (or adult)? What was your gateway into the world of speculative fiction?

JD: I was born in the 80s, and a lot of the media then (that I remember) was very fantasy/scifi/genre mashup, and I think that’s really influenced me my whole life. I read far more “literary” fiction than genre for a really long time, which might be what landed me in that “too speculative to be literary and too literary to be speculative” niche at times. The very first scifi book that I ever remember reading is The Magic Meadow by Alexander Key, though one of my aunts also lent me The Earthsea trilogy and The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings once I was old enough for those. I did used to try to write more literary fiction, especially in college when I was taking writing classes, but also in high school I hand wrote (but never finished) 1000 pages of an epic fantasy novel with many dragons and characters but no real plot.

Q. I always love reading your work and you have had many short stories published in various speculative fiction zines over the years, including "Into the Dark" in Fantasy Magazine and "A Country of Eternal Light" in Apex Magazine. Your novella The Drowned Heir was published last year, and you have a novel called Exit Ghost coming out in March. Both the novel and the novella are fabulous reads, and both are self-published. Can you talk a bit about why you decided to go the self-publishing route for these stories?

JD: Thank you so much!

I actually did try to go a more traditional route with both The Drowned Heir and also Exit Ghost. With The Drowned Heir, I submitted it to both magazines and small presses that accepted those lengths (20k words.) After a few years of that, though, and after putting out several books in my Run With the Hunted series, I thought “well fine, I’ll just do it myself,” and put it out in ebook and hardcover.

Similarly, with Exit Ghost, I queried agents with it……….starting in 2020. Querying agents is difficult in the best of times, but the pandemic really made things that much harder on all levels. I did get several full requests, and continued querying for perhaps longer than I otherwise would have while waiting on a very exciting, high profile agent to decide, and when that rejection finally came, I thought “well fine, I’ll just do it myself.”

Q. Can you describe the work involved in getting your work ready for publication when you self-publish. How do you go about the process of editing, getting a cover, and then publishing and distributing your work?

JD: Most of my covers come from screwing around with things on Canva until I arrive at something that I don’t hate. I’m actually personally a minimalist when it comes to book covers; as a reader, I’ve been frustrated with movie tie in covers, or covers that have people on them that don’t end up representing the characters as they are on the page, and I would just as soon have a black book with the title and author name on it, and maybe some cool embossed designs, like those leatherbound-with-a-ribbon-bookmark editions of things that get put out.

I benefit greatly from having very good friends (some of whom are also writers) who are willing to read my stuff for me, ranging from short stories on up to novels. My ultimate proofreader has been my friend since high school, and I’m super grateful for his keen eye.

I use Draft2Digital for my formatting, and for distributing my non-Amazon ebooks. I’ve done paperback on Amazon, and the hardcovers through IngramSpark (who then will distribute to Amazon and everywhere.) I find it very frustrating that Amazon will only do preorders for digital items, and that is one reason I have not tried out their (new) hardcover options. In general, I like the Amazon book building tools better than Ingram’s, but that ability to run preorders is just too compelling.

Q. What are some of the things you’ve learned about the self-publishing process? Any insights, tips and tricks, or bloopers you’d like to share? What are some of the biggest joys and some of the hardest challenges?

JD: The very first time I formatted a book for self publishing (Run With the Hunted, back in 2018), I came to the belated realization that everything that is in the book has to be in the file when I upload it, which is VERY obvious but I wasn’t thinking about, say, an author bio, when I was in the homestretch of getting that ready. Since then, Draft2Digital has really expanded their tools, and you can add things like the dedication, copyright page, author bio, etc. in their interface (they don’t pay me for being happy with them, I’ve just found them crucial to my process!)

It’s truly a joy to see people engage with my work, be it discussion with a podcast or even just somebody responding to a meme that I put on twitter. These are characters and events that only existed in my head for however long, so seeing how they exist in the world is delightful. It’s also really exciting if somebody picks up on a reference that I’m making, or even mentions liking something that I am particularly pleased with or proud of.

Q. For writers who might be interested in doing this for themselves, what advice would you give?

JD: It’s important to be pragmatic, and behave professionally. Did I think I would be rich and famous by now, perhaps even discovered by a big publisher who wanted to do a run of my books, and then movie producers who want to bring my work to the screen? Maybe! We hear those self-publishing success stories, like with Hugh Howey, and E. L. James, and many others. I guess it could still happen at any moment, given my ever-growing back catalog, but it hasn’t yet. Does that mean I’m going to stop? Absolutely not. I write first and foremost for myself, and then also because I want to be read.

And I am read! People, not just my family or friends, but strangers have bought my books, and even rated or reviewed them, and that’s a really gratifying experience. People who I don’t have social currency with are still interested in my work, and I hope that they continue to be.

When I say behave professionally, that includes treating your fellow writer and other peers with respect, and also never going after reviewers, which is something that happens with alarming frequency, and is wildly inappropriate. Not everybody is going to love your book and give the ratings that you hope for, and that is just part of the territory. You can complain to your friends if you need to, or your group chat, venting can be really important, but that’s for private.

Q. What are your thoughts on the business of speculative fiction publishing and the challenges and joys of taking control of that process yourself? And also any thoughts you have on the challenge of getting self-published work reviewed and noticed for awards season?

JD: It’s really very freeing to be beholden only to myself. I push preorders because that is a thing that is “done,” but having a shortfall in expected preorders isn’t going to get anything canceled, if that make sense. I’ll continue to put out Run With the Hunted as long as I’m having fun with it. I’m publishing Exit Ghost as my debut because it is my most personal novel. When I publish my trilogy of werewolf books, I won’t have to worry about an editor rejecting my books 2 and 3 and sending me back to a blank page.

Admittedly, it is difficult being my own marketing department. I don’t have a background in it, and my self-promotion has largely been on Twitter, which is the social media site that’s meshed best with my own habits and how my brain works. And it is very hard getting self-published work reviewed and noticed for awards season; indeed, and I might be wrong, but self-published novellas (and probably novels, but I didn’t have a novel out when I looked this up) didn’t used to be eligible for the Nebula Award, but are now eligible for the Nebula and Hugo. But even my non-self-published short stories haven’t gotten awards nomination levels of attention, so it’s difficult to know what will hit the cultural consciousness just right and then sustain that attention right up until awards nominations. So many writers are producing work at such amazing levels, it’s really a privilege to have these stellar peers.

Q. Talk a bit about your new book, Exit Ghost. It’s a witchy story that might have some connections to a certain work by Shakespeare, with dead father, witches, and a Yorick (even though your Yorick is a dog). How did this story come to you and what kind of journey has it been to get it to publication?

JD: I’ve loved Shakespeare from my first contact, which I think was Romeo and Juliet during my freshman year of high school. That teacher taught two half-year Shakespeare electives, so my sophomore year of high school, I just spend the whole year immersed in Shakespeare, which he taught by actually just having us watch the plays, as is kind of the whole point of plays. There were a lot of BBC productions (The Taming of the Shrewwas the notable one I remember of those) and then a lot of Hollywood Shakespeare around that time, so we watched Romeo + Juliet, and Kenneth Branaugh’s Hamlet, and Laurence Fishburn’s Othello. I don’t remember which Macbeth we saw, maybe that was BBC as well, though when we did Macbethin junior year English, we watched the 1971 film that was produced by Playboy, and we as a class were very mature about that. Since then, I’ve happily watched a number of Macbeths (Patrick Stewart’s is particularly good) and King Lears (no surprise that Anthony Hopkins’ is very good) and other Hamlets.

There is an unfortunate category of my writing that is “my dad died and I’m sad about it,” and this novel falls under that heading.

My original idea for this novel was actually two separate ideas for two separate novels, one a thriller-y sort of thing that was a modern girl Hamlet but not speculative, and one that had nothing to do with Hamlet and was two friends who were witches in 1970’s Asbury Park, NJ. Both of those drafts petered out, as things sometimes will, and then I got the notion to combine them, so I essentially shuffled them like a deck of cards, picking the elements that I liked from both, and then wrote to The End. Then came my own rewrites and edits and adjustments, and then my trusted first readers got it, and then the dreaded query letter and synopsis, and Exit Ghost started hitting agent inboxes in January of 2020.

In the course of querying, I did get several full requests, some of which took longer for that rejection than others, and I waited an entire year to the day for a particularly high-profile agent’s full rejection. Had that agent not requested the full, I might not have queried for more than two years, but in November of 2022, when all was said and done, I’d written four more novels while waiting (they always say “write something else,” right?) in addition to three Run With the Hunted novellas, and I decided that I didn’t want to wait for rounds of small press slush pile submissions. I was seeing witch novels getting published, I was tired of waiting, and that was that.

Q. As a fellow dog lover, I approve very much of Yorick in this story. I know you are a Doberman lover in real life too, so I’m guessing it was important for you to include not just any dog, but this particular dog. What’s so great about Dobermans? 😊

JD: It’s funny, first draft Yorick was actually a mastiff, due to their occasional historic estate guardian roles, and then I thought it would be very funny if he was a Great Dane, giving the certain work by Shakespeare that Exit Ghost is inspired by/in dialogue with, but really, he always needed to be a Doberman. The Doberman Party Line is that they are the first/only breed that was created with personal protection in mind, and while I have never protection trained a dog, I can absolutely testify to the breed’s need to be with their people at all times. Our first Doberman, Elka, was eerily intelligent, and our current Doberman, Ulrike, is one of the sweetest dogs that I have ever known, and both of them performed the important role of “rest for my left elbow” as I’ve sat on the couch with a laptop in addition to their other duties of alerting us to neighborhood goings-on an getting me out of the house for constitutionals. Dobermans want to be with their people, and also would love to share whatever it is that you’re eating. I’m absolutely heart and soul sold on them as the breed for me.

Q. I loved your novella, The Drowned Heir, and found its description of magic and the society it takes place in to be fascinating and uniquely imagined. It’s a place where people are literally magicked into being possessed by the deceased. Tell us a bit about the inspiration for that story the world you created.

JD: I literally dreamed the first line of The Drowned Heir: “They drown me when my uncle dies.” I woke up and immediately wrote that down, so I wouldn’t lose it, and then texted it to one of my aforementioned writer friends who was like “well that’s a lot.” I went about my morning, but the sentence stuck with me, and the general textural feeling of that scene, the place in the rocks where the water comes up, the salt, the strangeness of it all. I very rarely plan when I write, and it was no different when I wrote The Drowned Heir; I started at the start, and wrote to the end. The first draft was about half the length but contained essentially the entire plot arc, and then I went back and expanded it because it just didn’t seem like enough.

Q. Is there anything in particular you want to promote here, some exciting projects coming up for you in the near future?

JD: With all of my Exit Ghost promotion, I don’t yet have any sense of what comes next. There will be another Run With the Hunted in October (book 6! Title as yet undecided!) so that gives people who are new to the series plenty of time to catch up with the first five novellas. I’ll release a Run With the Hunted short story collection eventually, but need a few more to make it a reasonable length. It’s such a fun project, and I love playing with those characters and their points of view.

I do have a short story forthcoming in Interzone, and another that’s a secret right now, because the anthology hasn’t yet done the Table of Contents reveal but that I’m very excited for.

***

Thanks so much to Jennifer R. Donohue for talking to me!

• Jennifer R. Donohue's website.
• Get Exit Ghost.

***

About Behind the Zines:

In this interview series, I talk to people working behind the scenes at various speculative fiction publications. My goal is to highlight the work that goes into keeping these publications alive, and to share insights from the people doing that work. Each interview is available exclusively on my Patreon for one week, and is then posted here at Maria's Reading.

***

If you want to support my work, check out my Patreon or Ko-Fi.

BEHIND THE ZINES with Suzan Palumbo, co-administrator of the IGNYTE AWARDS and a member of the FIYAHCON team

 

This month's Behind the Zines interview features the amazing Suzan Palumbo. I am so honoured and grateful that she took the time to answer some of my questions about her work in the speculative fiction community.

More about Suzan Palumbo:

Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, Suzan Palumbo is a writer, active member of the HWA, co administrator of the Ignyte Awards and a member of the Hugo nominated FIYAHCON team. She is also a former associate editor of Shimmer. Her work has been published in The Deadlands, The Dark Magazine, PseudoPod, Fireside Fiction Quarterly, PodCastle, Anathema: Spec Fic from the Margins and other venues. She is officially represented by Michael Curry of the Donald Maass Literary Agency and tweets at @sillysyntax. When she isn’t writing, she can be found sketching, listening to new wave or wandering her local misty forests.

Q. What’s your background?
Suzan Palumbo: I was born in Trinidad and Tobago and immigrated with my mother to Toronto Canada when I was a preschooler. I grew up in a Toronto neighbourhood that was primarily made up of Caribbean and South Asian immigrants. I was immersed in Caribbean culture, and we maintained ties with my mother’s family in Trinidad. I had a rough childhood generally. My family was quite poor, and we lived in government subsidized housing my entire childhood.

I have B.A. in English Language and Literature. After University, I went to college to learn how to teach ESL. I taught ESL for many years, eventually becoming the director of the private school in downtown Toronto where I worked. In that position, I designed curriculum, interviewed and hired people and planned school events. I enjoyed teaching quite a bit. I might even have been good at it!

Q. Were there any particular books, movies, or shows, or something else that first attracted you to speculative fiction?
SP: I didn’t have access to many books as a very young child and I think that is partially why I was a “later” reader. I had trouble reading until something clicked for me in grade three. But, I grew up hearing bits of Caribbean folktales from my mother and her family. Those oral folktales have been a major pillar of my interest in speculative fiction. I’ve written several stories with Trinidadian folkloric characters: Soucouyants, Douens, La Diablesse and other jumbies. When I was little, I was scared of these characters. But, jumbies aren’t simply malevolent monsters or ghosts. They are spirits with tragic histories. They are often marginalized people who were forced to barter their humanity to survive or who died tragically. I think that backstory element is what sparked my love of gothic fiction.

In terms of actual media, I watched a lot of Scooby Doo, He-Man and She-ra, Thunder Cats, Gargoyles and X-Men. I adored the Addams Family film and The Last Unicorn movie. I had an obsession with Batman the Animated Series. When I was in my early teens I read a lot of the classics such as: Frankenstein, The Monk, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Phantom of the Opera and Rebecca etc.. When I was a bit older, I got into the dystopian classics like 1984 and A Brave New World. I’m intrigued with speculative fiction’s ability to reflect our world and relationships and its function as a tool that helps us examine our global, political, social, emotional and personal flaws.

Q. You are one of the co-founders of the Ignyte Awards, In the description of the awards it says, “The Awards seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.” Can you tell us a bit about how the Ignyte Awards were conceived and born. What was happening behind the scenes (and on the scene!) at that time?

SP: Yes! I cofounded the Ignyte Awards along with the incomparable L.D. Lewis. I’m going to speak about my part in the award’s conception but want to highlight foremost that I am only part of the story. The Ignyte Awards would not exist with out FIYAHCON which was born in the Summer of 2020 in the aftermath of the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Tayler. FIYAHCON was conceived by L.D. Lewis and members of the FIYAH Literary Magazine team. It “is a virtual convention centering the perspectives and celebrating the contributions of BIPOC in speculative fiction.”

That same summer I had publicly questioned the Sunburst Awards, which are a Canadian Speculative Awards series, as to why their finalist list had “absolutely” no BIPOC representation. I was very wrong in that assumption. The list did have quite a few BIPOC in many of the categories and I was rightly and publicly corrected for the inaccurate statement and the erasure of those writers. That said, I still felt that the award could do better in terms of representation. I don’t think I was wrong for pushing for more diversity. You can’t have too much diversity in my opinion. I offered to help the organization and wrote a multi page proposal outlining how I would increase BIPOC engagement and participation with the awards and bring in more community support. I submitted that document to the contact I had. I haven’t received a response to that proposal at present. The following year, the Sunburst Awards announced that they would be going on hiatus for understandable reasons that were pandemic and workload related.

It was with that mindset that I watched the live stream of the 2020 Hugo Awards where the host, George R.R. Martin, mispronounced several of the nominees’ names, made a transphobic joke and centered the achievements of white male authors of the past. I’m not going into specifics of exactly what he said here. Those events are easily searchable on Google. He did offer a partial apology for some of his remarks afterwards. But by that point I felt I couldn’t keep quiet any longer about wanting SFFH awards to do better. If no one was going to let me help or volunteer with the established awards to make them more inclusive, respectful and diverse, then I was going to make my own awards and try my best to treat everyone it served with respect.

I’d been aware that FIYAH was planning a convention but did not know L.D. Lewis or any of the con committee personally. I messaged L.D. and asked if FIYAHCON was interested in running an SFFH awards and suggested that we could call it the Ignyte Awards. L.D. and the FIYAHCON team had already been thinking of including an award ceremony as part of the convention, so she invited me to join FIYAHCON.

We put on those awards together in just over two months. We collected the pronunciation of every nominees’ name and practiced them with our host. We wrote the script and remarks together to ensure the ceremony was inclusive and fostered the joy and sense of community we wanted people to feel while watching. Speaking for myself, the Ignyte Awards is probably one of the most important projects I’ve been apart of. BIPOC and other marginalized creators are doing great work and I’m not sorry to say that I think they deserve to be proud of themselves and come together and celebrate how wonderful they are.

I’m not perfect and can’t guarantee that we will never have a situation where a name is mispronounced but I care deeply about being respectful and am open to constructive criticism and feed back. I’m not certain that some of the legacy awards are open to receiving and acting on constructive criticism from the general SFFH community in the same way.

Q. Two of the Ignyte Awards I particularly love are: “The Ember Award for Unsung Contributions to Genre” and the “Community Award for Outstanding Efforts in Service of Inclusion and Equitable Practice in Genre”. What were your thoughts when you decided to include these Award categories? Because they seem specifically designed to award people for work in the spec fic community that isn’t always recognized.

SP: They are very much designed to award people for work in the spec fic community that isn’t always recognized. Short fiction magazines, professional organizations, conventions, forums, critique groups and so many other facets of this industry rely heavily on volunteer labour. They depend on other people’s kindness and willingness to help. I don’t see how SFFH, particularly the short fiction ecosystem would function without people volunteering their time.  We wanted to draw attention to this work because it has value. No one gets to where they are alone and for underrepresented groups, a lot of us wouldn’t be published at all without others advocating for us. I am nothing without community.

Creating an award for a specific person was L.D.’s idea. I came up with the name Ember. For me the name represents someone who kept working to help and inspire others even when they themselves didn’t have that same encouragement and support. It's important to thank people in the present while we can and not put that off until they get to some lifetime of service achievement age. Why not celebrate them now? Why not say thank you now?

Q. I know from following you on social media that you have some strong opinions about how cons should be run, and the problems with how many of them are run. What are some things you’ve learned from FIYAHCON, and what are some things you’d like others to learn from your experience?

SP: I am going to focus my attention on one specific point because I could write a book on this topic. I think virtual tracks for cons are vital and essential for accessibility. Any con that does not include some type of thought-out virtual component is silently saying we only care about parts of the community that are physically and financially able to attend our event. It may actually be the case that some cons only want certain people to be present at their events. If that is so, they shouldn’t be offended when they are told they are inaccessible or upholding exclusivity or gatekeeping, as the case may be.

FIYAHCON, under L.D. Lewis’ direction, proved that a virtual con could be engaging, educational, entertaining, and accessible. Flights of Foundry also runs a multi day, completely virtual convention that is time zone accessible to participants all over the world. Over the past couple of years, I’ve listened to many seasoned in person convention attendees bemoan the fact that virtual conventions don’t have the same atmosphere or dynamic as their beloved in-person events. There has also been a lot of talk around making virtual conventions feel like in-person ones.

My question in response is: Why should a virtual convention feel like an in-person convention? It is not an in-person convention. With FIYAHCON being the first event I was able to attend because of accessibility, like many of the attendees, I had no idea what an in-person convention felt like. Further, many in-person convention spaces are not physically or financially accessible for people in North America and around the world. Many are not welcoming to BIPOC. I understand wanting to get together with old friends in real life but then perhaps you should call the event: “Old friend get together” instead of “convention”. Shrugging off virtual components shuts out so many people from participating in community.

If conventions care about diversity and inclusion, they should bring in people who know how to plan and run virtual events and listen to their advice and opinions. I am baffled at how backwards looking and resistant to incorporating technology SFFH convention culture is, especially since the community it serves is interested in speculating about the future.

Please keep supporting and having virtual programming alongside in person events so that people who have been historically excluded can participate! You can do it, if you try! *steps off soapbox*

Q. You’ve been involved in a lot of different work behind the zines, for example as a slush reader at Shimmer. What advice would you give to someone else who might be interested in getting involved with a zine, or a writer’s organization, or breaking new ground like you’ve done with Ignyte?

SP: I think doing community work in any capacity is rewarding and educational. It’s important to consider how much time you have to devote to whatever project or organization you want to join and what your goals are regarding the experience. You have to be honest with yourself about how much work you can balance.

I learned a lot from reading slush. As a person who’s never had a regular critique group and had never been part of a writing workshop, being a first reader helped me learn to identify the strengths and weaknesses in other people’s fiction and articulate those in a concise way. When I first started reading slush, it required a lot of my time. That time commitment lessened as I learned to recognize which stories fit Shimmer’s aesthetic.  That said, while I was reading slush, I didn’t get a lot of my own writing done. I was okay with that back then because I was absorbing so much. Having that bit of a fallow period helped me be a better self editor.

Regarding running larger projects such as the Ignyte Awards: We need people who are willing and able to do ground-breaking work. It’s one of the ways change happens and the industry evolves. That said, when you run an event like this, the time commitment is significant, and you have to have a handle planning out your schedule months in advance. You have to be creative and good at thinking on your feet and problem solving because nothing ever goes according to plan when you’re trying to organize an event. You have to be patient and respectful when dealing with people and be prepared to work in a team. You have to be prepared for individuals to not take you seriously at first because you are not a traditionally lauded or respected event with a venerated history. The best way to stay on course with all these considerations swirling around, I find, is to make sure you believe deeply in the goal you are working toward. Knowing that the Ignyte ceremony will be a moment of joy for everyone is what gets me through all of the other hard work.

With that in mind, I want to emphasize that you don’t have to do something ground-breaking by yourself to have a positive impact in the community. Everything counts. I tend to have big ideas that I want to implement and announce them loudly but helping out with smaller things that take less of your time is valuable and appreciated. We have a small team with the Ignyte Awards that helps with emailing and vetting nominations. This doesn’t require a large time commitment and is crucial to putting together our ballot. I have to thank Eboni Dunbar and Leah Weyland for their assistance with this because I couldn’t do that by myself.

Finally, I’ll say if someone wants to be involved in a zine or a project or organization that they care about and isn’t sure how they can join in, you can always just ask. Contact them and ask respectfully if there is anything that you can do to help. Whenever I’ve asked if I could join or help out people have always responded enthusiastically. A lot of the time I put out a question on twitter and get several responses as to how I can get involved.

Q. How has your view of the speculative fiction community, such as it is, changed since you decided to get more involved in the “business” side of things? There are a lot of barriers, and lot of built-in biases, on every level in this business. What are your thoughts on that?

SP: My thoughts are: Yes there are a lot of built-in biases everywhere on many intersectional axes and barriers. I’d like to see more representation. I’d like to see editors, magazines and publishers move towards embracing Non-Western Story telling modes. I’d like for them to go beyond repeating: “I want an active protagonist” because their definition of active is very narrow and limiting. I’d like to see more diverse acquiring editors at magazines and publishing houses. It’s not enough to have diverse slush readers when the person who has the power to buy the stories has a very narrow view of what constitutes a good story. I’d like to see more diverse con chairs so that diversity is baked into every con space.

That said, I think change is happening and I am hopeful. I’m seeing so much great work being published. I’m going to point to F&SF. Before, as a writer, I had zero hope of ever being published in F&SFbecause the editorial vision was extremely biased towards white western story telling. Yes, BIPOC were published by that magazine, but those numbers were low.  Under Sheree Renee Thomas, the representation in the magazine has increased. People who never wanted to submit to F&SF because they had no hope, some people who are fantastic writers and who had been submitting for twenty years are finally being published. Everyone is benefiting from this change in editorial vision.

Workshops are becoming more diverse. They are offering online options. There are more grassroots groups getting together to help each other. Some conventions are moving past basic diversity panels. The community is trying and I give them credit for that. I have a lot of opinions on what can be improved but as I said earlier in my answer about the Ember Award, it’s important to acknowledge the work people are doing now. There is much good in the SFFH community. I am grateful for it.

Q. Is there any advice or insight you’d give to your younger self after all the experience you’ve gained?

SP: Honestly, I’d just hug my younger self. I think to give myself advice would imply that I could have saved time or done something differently and I don’t think I would have done anything differently. I’m happy with where I am with my writing work and my other community projects. But sometimes even when you are working towards a worthy goal, you can become tired or discouraged and feel lonely. I wish I could have kept myself company during those times.

Q. What is something about your job with Ignyte you think most people DON’T know, but which is a major part of it when you’re active behind the scenes?

SP: I deal with most of the people/public facing work with the Ignyte Awards. That means I supervise the inbox, draft a lot of the communication emails, organize and communicate with the jury members, and answer questions or pass questions that I can’t answer on to L.D. Lewis. I also write the first draft of the script and go over it with the host and practice pronunciation with them.

Perhaps it would be surprising for people to know that I spend time assuring nominees that they are in fact eligible for the award and deserve to be nominated. I also help them with nerves or anxieties related to writing a speech and the possibility of having to deliver that speech. For the record, no one is required to give a speech. We would never force anyone to do something they weren’t comfortable with but sometimes people need to hear: The viewers will love whatever you have to say, as a form of encouragement and reassurance. Sometimes they need a mental hug!

Q. To turn toward the writerly side. You write horror and dark fantasy, and one of your stories, “Laughter Among the Trees” was just included in a Best of Dark Fantasy and Horror anthology. You have a short story collection coming out, and your book “Countess” is coming in 2024. Tell us a bit about these upcoming projects.

SP: Yes! My short story collection “Skin Thief” will be published in the fall of 2023 by Neon Hemlock Press. It includes a lot of my previously published work such as “Laughter Among the Trees” along with a 10K word unpublished novelette called “Kill Jar”. “Kill Jar” is a queer gothic tale set on an isolated estate in rural Ontario. It has green houses, snakes and a girl uncovering a dark family secret! The collection is very representative of the short work I’ve been producing over the past five years and has an arc and theme. Here is my pitch for the entire collection for those interested:

“Skin Thief” is a dark fantasy/horror short story collection. The book is named for a group of characters that appear in the collection’s first story, “The Pull of the Herd”. The stories feature queer women of color grappling with the complexities of identity, racism, immigration, oppression and patriarchy. Themes such as nature, gothic hauntings, Trinidadian folklore and shape shifting are interwoven throughout and are used to explore these struggles. The order of the stories in the collection mimics the peeling away of an assimilated Western identity or skin. Stories at the beginning of the book are set in Canada and are written in Canadian English. As the reader moves through the collection, the Canadian voice and settings gradually fade. The middle of the collection is composed of diaspora stories such as "Laughter Among the Trees" which contain some Trinidadian English. The last section of the collection features stories set in Trinidad with larger portions of dialect. Samantha, the narrator of the final story, entitled “Douen”, narrates in full Trinidadian dialect. Thus metaphorically, the collection reenacts the process of shedding a stolen or assumed identity, mirroring the themes of the individual stories themselves.

“Countess” my novella, will be published by ECW press in spring 2024. It is a queer, Caribbean, Count of Monte Cristo retelling, space opera. I love this little book very much and feel it is the story I’ve lived my whole life to write. I have never read or watched a space opera with an indo-caribbean woman as the protagonist so in many ways, this may be me breaking new ground on the publishing front. Even if it isn’t, I put my entire heart into it. Here is my elevator pitch for it!

Virika Sameroo lives in colonized space under the Acerbot Empire, much like her ancestors before her in the British West Indies. Working hard to rise up the ranks of the empire's merchant marine, she's finally become the first lieutenant of an interstellar cargo ship. But her captain falls ill under suspicious circumstances and Virika must salvage the mission and the shipment of iridium that is integral to the functioning of the Empire's military fleet. When she returns to the capital, Virka is arrested and charged with treason despite her lifelong loyalty to the empire. This sets her on a path of revenge where she will confront personal trauma, intimate betrayal and prejudice as the fate of her people hangs in the balance.

Can’t wait to read that collection and that novella. Huge thanks to Suzan Palumbo for doing this interview!

• Suzan Palumbo’s website 

 

About Behind the Zines:

In this interview series, I talk to people working behind the scenes at various speculative fiction publications. My goal is to highlight the work that goes into keeping these publications alive, and to share insights from the people doing that work. Each interview is available exclusively on my Patreon for one week, and is then posted here at Maria's Reading. 

If you want to support my work, check out my Patreon or Ko-Fi.

 

BEHIND THE ZINES with Rachel Cordasco, translator of speculative fiction

 

This month's Behind the Zines interview features Rachel Cordasco, translator of speculative fiction. I've followed Rachel on social media for years, and I've read so many fantastic stories translated by her. She is an untiring voice for translated speculative fiction, and her website, SF In Translation, is an amazing resource.

More about Rachel and her work:

Rachel Cordasco has a PhD in literary studies and used to work as a developmental editor. She’s written for Strange Horizons, World Literature Today, the SFRA Review, Foundation, Locus, Tor.com, Skiffy and Fanty, and other publications. In 2016, Rachel started SFinTranslation.com, which tracks all speculative fiction available in English. Her translations of Italian speculative fiction have appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Samovar Magazine, Future Science Fiction Digest, World Literature Today, and The Silent Garden Volume 1. Rachel’s book, Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation from the Cold War to the New Millennium, is out from the University of Illinois Press. You can follow her on twitter @Rcordas.

Q. First of all: what's your background?

RC: I grew up middle-class in Baltimore, Maryland in the 80s and 90s, the youngest of three. Reading was always my passion, partly because I loved learning about new places and people, and partly because my family didn’t travel very often and books allowed me to journey through space and time. My parents always supported my love of reading and were proud when I earned my degrees in literary studies. Now I live in Wisconsin and try to encourage my kids to read SF in translation, though I haven’t succeeded yet. I’m also still waiting for them to fall in love with Star Trek: The Next Generation!

Q. How did you end up "falling into" speculative fiction? Were there any particular books, movies, or shows, or something else that first attracted you to the genre?

RC: My older brothers were always into Star Trek: TNG and Star Wars, but it was an episode of the former, which included Mark Twain’s character, that made me fall in love with the show and the genre as a whole. I started reading H. G. Wells, Michael Crichton, and Arthur C. Clarke, and the rest is history. After not reading much science fiction for several years, I returned to it with a vengeance and have never looked back.

Q. You are a translator and writer. What languages do you translate between? How did you first get started translating speculative fiction?

RC: I’ve loved learning languages since I started watching Pepe le Pew on tv as a kid. My mom remembers that I declared my undying love of French because of that show. Since then, I’ve studied French, Hebrew, Russian, and Italian (hopefully more in the future!). When I realized that Italian sf was underrepresented in Anglophone publishing, I started finding very short stories that I could try my hand at. Then Italian author and editor Francesco Verso connected with me and introduced me to sf authors Nicoletta Vallorani and Clelia Farris, whom I’ve thoroughly enjoyed translating. I’ve also translated several other authors, including Raul Ciannella, Serena Fiandro, and Emanuela Valentini.

Q. What are your thoughts on the role of translated fiction in the speculative fiction field? There are occasional books and stories that make a splash, but it also seems like fiction that is not originally written in English can get a very raw deal. What are your thoughts on the state of speculative fiction in translation and the problems, and the good things, you see happening in the business right now?

RC: Translated fiction in general is rarely promoted in America, for many potential reasons. Translated speculative fiction is even more niche, so even fewer of those texts are known to American audiences. As I’ve argued in the past, major sf awards (like the Hugos and Nebulas) could do much to give sf in translation (SFT) a higher profile if they included a Best Translation category. I’ve been heartened to see the marked increase in SFT (both short- and long-form) from a wide variety of publishers since 2000, though these books still need to be reviewed by more outlets and promoted by publishers. Perhaps this increase is due to American readers wanting more variety in their fiction and their impatience with the US media’s focus on only domestic issues. I hope my website, sfintranslation.com, helps introduce more readers to the pleasures of SFT and other cultures.

Q. If you have a magic wand to wave, what would you do to make the SFF field a better and more welcoming place for translated fiction? Should there be an awards category for this, or maybe an entirely new award for translated fiction, perhaps?

RC: You read my mind! A few years ago, I wrote a (perhaps overly long) essay on my site arguing for the establishment of a Best Translation category in sf awards. Many big names in the field disagree with me on this, claiming that such a category would ghettoize SFT rather than promote it. I argue, though, that many readers of sf don’t even know that these books and stories exist, and a translation category would encourage readers to go beyond their comfort zone and read SFT translated from Polish, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Hebrew, and many other languages. I suspect that, like the culture in general, American sf doesn’t want to open itself up to the literatures of other countries because it would threaten entrenched interests. Nonetheless, magazines like Locus and Clarkesworld have made a wonderful effort to promote and discuss more SFT, while Future Science Fiction Digest and Samovar regularly bring new SFT to readers looking for fantastic world literature.

Q. Translating fiction always requires creativity. What are some translation conundrums, fun and otherwise!, that you've encountered as a translator, whether it's translating specific terms or words or other translation challenges.

RC:  I love asking other translators this question, because figuring out a particularly tricky translation is like solving a puzzle—it’s so satisfying! One of my favorites from translating Clelia Farris is the word “nonnixedda.” Farris (a native of Sardinia) sometimes sprinkles her stories with Sardinian slang, which is similar to Italian. I encountered this particular word in her story “Gabola,” and was thus sent down a rabbit hole of online dictionaries and discussions of Italian-Sardinian similarities and differences. Eventually, I figured out that the “nonna” in “nonnixedda” was indeed the “nonna” from Italian (“grandmother”) and the “xedda” was the Sardinian diminutive that turned the word into “Granny.” When Clelia was pleasantly surprised that I had figured this out (since I don’t know Sardinian), I was quite proud of myself.

Q. Is there any advice or insight you'd give to your younger self about getting involved in the speculative fiction world? What advice would you give to other people who might be interested in translating speculative fiction?

RC: I wish I had started reading SFT at a younger age and learning more about it, despite being distracted by grad school. In fact, I wish I had done my dissertation on SFT, though that likely wouldn’t have been acceptable in the academy. Indeed, I left academia and never looked back, so I guess it all makes sense! In terms of people wanting to get started translation sf, I would tell them to just find stories they love, do the translations, and send them everywhere until they get acceptances. Only when you’ve got your foot in the door will editors notice you and start wanting more of your work. This does mean that you’ll be doing a lot of work in the beginning on spec, but it might lead you to some bigger opportunities down the road. I know that a lot of translators do what they do mostly for the love of language, but of course getting paid is a necessary part of doing this job. That’s why publishers need to make sure that they’re treating translators fairly when writing up contracts for translated work.

Q. Can you share some of your current favourites in translated SFF, whether it is translations you've done, or something translated by others? What are some writers we should be keeping an eye on that are not writing in English?

RC: Of course, I’m going to mention Clelia Farris first! But so many great non-Anglophone writers are coming into English these days, that it’s hard to narrow down my list. I’ll say here that people need to read more Stanislaw Lem and Jacek Dukaj (Poland), Yuya Sato and Dempow Torishima (Japan), Keren Landsman and Dror Burstein (Israel), Pedro Cabiya (Dominican Republic), Yoss (Cuba), Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang (China), Elisabeth Vonarburg (Quebec), Marina and Sergey Dyachenko (Ukraine), the Strugatsky brothers (Russia), Francesco Verso (Italy), and so many others!

Q. Where can we find your work? Do you have some recent translations or works you would like to share?

RC: Clelia’s latest story in English is “The Words” in the November 2022 issue of Apex Magazine (exciting!), about time travel and Anne Frank. Her collection Creative Surgery (translated by myself and Jennifer Delare) is out from Rosarium Publishing. Readers can find many of her stories online, as well. My reference book, Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation from the Cold War to the New Millennium, is out from the University of Illinois Press. My site, sfintranslation.com, keeps readers updated about the latest SFT and reviews. I also regularly review SFT for Strange Horizons and World Literature Today.

Huge thanks to Rachel for doing this interview!

 

• Find out more about her work on her website: https://www.sfintranslation.com/ 
• Read her book, Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation from the Cold War to the New Millennium. (I wrote one of the chapter intros for this book, talking about Swedish speculative fiction.)

 About Behind the Zines:

In this interview series, I talk to people working behind the scenes at various speculative fiction publications. My goal is to highlight the work that goes into keeping these publications alive, and to share insights from the people doing that work. Each interview is available exclusively on my Patreon for one week, and is then posted here at Maria's Reading. 

If you want to support my work, check out my Patreon or Ko-Fi.