Meet the creators of the stories, art, and non-fiction in our Summer 2006 issue.

Writers

Through the Obsidian Gates—Aliette de Bodard studies in Paris to become an engineer in Data and Image Processing. French-born, she decided to write in English after a two-year stay in London. Her fantasies have an emphasis on Aztec, Chinese, and Indian cultures. Her short stories will appear in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Fantastical Visions IV, and Deep Magic. Visit perso.wanadoo.fr/aliettedb.

Halloween Night—John Parke Davis is a speculative fiction writer/soulless attorney who recently graduated from law school and realized he better get writing to keep his creativity afloat in a sea of legal briefs. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his lawyer/romance writer girlfriend, two cats, and a dog to be named later. This is his first fiction sale.

Voices of the Gods—Monica Eiland has a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA, where she studied brain mechanisms of sleep. Presently she’s a medical writer in the Boston area, where she lives with her husband and a positive dearth of pets and children. She has written and published in small press publications including Forbidden Lines, the Finnish magazine Spin, The Daily Tar Heel, and The Sleep Research Society Bulletin. She has several unpublished novels lying dormant, or not-so-dormant, in her computer.

Pray for Us, St. Dymphna—Bryan Lindsey spends his days teaching high school students how to appreciate serious literature, and his nights writing his own stories about monsters and crazy people. When he’s not doing either of these things he can be found climbing a rock or riding a bicycle down a steep, bumpy hill. He lives in Dallas with his dog (or possibly coyote), which he found in a swamp, and his wife, who he didn’t find in a swamp. This is his first publication.

King of Sand and Stormy Seas—Silvia Moreno-Garcia grew up in Mexico wishing to become a writer. She studied Communications in the United States and eventually moved to Canada where she now lives with her husband, son, and two cats. She works for a post production company and writes fantasy fiction in her spare time.

Angel Wood—Angela Slatter is a Brisbane writer. Her Masters (Research) in Creative Writing is under examination. She doesn’t know where The Angel Wood came from—possibly the result of too many late night cheese binges and watching programs on the ABC at 2 in the morning. Her fiction has appeared in Shimmer and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Skeletonbaby Magic—Kathy Watts lives in northern California, loves the Pacific Northwest, but is beginning to think seriously about Mars. She has short fiction and poetry scattered through time and space, and her column “Heads Up!” (The Writer’s Astrological Almanac) appears in a couple of places on the Web. Her novel Cemetery Boy is facing rewrite number eight, but her agent is optimistic. Email Kathy anytime at direwolf@stratlabs.com. (Photo by Harvey Morrison)

A Wizard on the Road—Nir Yaniv is an Israeli writer, editor, and musician. His stories were published in several Israeli printed and online magazines, he is the chief editor for the online magazine of the Israeli Society for SF&F, and his story collection One Hell of a Writer was recently published by Odyssey Press. As a musician he has performed in several jazz festivals, was the lead singer and/or bassist of several rock and funk groups, and is an a capella machine on acid. He lives in Tel Aviv. His home site (including stories, articles, and free music): www.nyfiction.org

Artists

David Ho started working digitally over 10 years ago. His works appear in Spectrum Annuals, EFX Art and Design, Digital Photo User (UK), Tear Magazine, PEI, Digital Fantasy Painting, and Heavy Metal. He works in northern California as an illustrator and designer.

Stephen Stanley draws, writes, and creates graphic design projects for clients. He lives on five forested acres outside of Eugene, Oregon. He workshops with Wordos. Visit www.courtjesterpress.com to find out more about him.

Cybele Collins was born at the foot of the Rocky Mountains and lives in Providence, RI, near the mouth of a bay. She works as an illustrator, teacher, and artists’ model, and plays fast violin in Blue Shift and Bone Rattle.

Sandro Castelli was born and lives in São Paulo, Brazil. Working as a free-lance illustrator, he collaborates with several national and international magazines and companies. The obscure and the fantastic are his subjects of choice, coupled with a deep obsession for human anatomy.

Joseph Remy has taken refuge from the Silicon Valley on the North Shore of Massachusetts. To blend with the locals he developed a love for bipolar weather, limp produce, and the Red Sox. Read Joseph’s weekly comic strip, a sociological analysis of nerd culture, at: www.podmonkeys.com.

J. Myztico Campo is a self-taught Visionary Surrealist, born in Cuba, raised in NYC, and now residing in England. He is a musician, painter, filmmaker, and writer. To see and hear his work, please visit his website: myztico.mosaicglobe.com.

Michael Livingston’s short story, Catch of the Day, appears in the Winter 2007 issue of Shimmer. To learn more about Michael, visit his website.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STORY:

Where did the idea come from?
One afternoon, a few years ago, I wrote a vignette in which I tried to convey the thrill of fly-fishing. It was just a little thing — still visible if you look just at the experiential parts of the final narrative. I more or less forgot about it until recently, when I found myself stuck on another writing project. Wanting to work on something fresh to recharge my batteries, I pulled The Fishing Trip(as it was then titled) out of the archives and decided to give it a make-over.

How did the story change as you developed it?
The obvious change was to work my vignette into a “first contact” story. After that, I started submitting it.

You know the advice “Sometimes you have to kill your darlings.” Was there a scene or line that it really hurt to cut, but cutting it made the story stronger?
It’s rare that I end up cutting things — contrary to that old writing proverb. Some folks work on the -10% rule, cutting 10% out of a work once it’s finished to make it tight and neat. I’m more likely to work on the +10% rule, writing too subtle in my first pass.

In this case, Shimmer’s loving editors felt my first contact tale lacked conflict. So I sat down to put it through a third rewriting (rare for me) in an effort to add a bit more bing-bang-boom to it. It was my intention, first and foremost, to add the framing narrative of the interrogation. This was a vital alteration, I felt, as it allowed much more characterization of the narrator. Once that was established, I set about rewriting the conclusion of the piece, going for a bit more punch, a bit more payoff. My plan was to have the alien heal our dear Doctor Harris of his infertility — even if it meant the inclusion of some sort of joke about erectile dysfunction, though I hoped it would never come to such lengths. (bada-bing!)

Anyway, I found that this original plan of de-infertilization still lacked the ooomph I was looking for. It was okay, but something about it was a bit too happy la-la-land for me. I wanted more complication. Thankfully, I found that with a pinch and a tweak I could take the de-infertilization in a slightly different direction: the hydran impregnates the narrator.

It was at this point that I went back through the whole story, changing the narrator to a woman in order to make this impregnation gambit seem a bit more real. But, alas, the change in gender seemed to cause more problems than it solved since I had to grapple with too many other questions at that point — e.g., why is she the fisherperson, and not her husband? So back to a man, with his wife on the shore.

The end result? An additional 2000 words, if I recall rightly.

One other point in this regard is that in my resubmit I *did* try to kill a darling — the final 700 words of the tale. What I sent back to the editors ended at the man in black’s pronouncement to Doctor Harris that they would “both” be okay — and Harris’ wife, too. It seemed to me that everything after that (the extended ending) was just beating the reader down. Shimmer’s editors, however, disagreed. Finding out about the longer ending (and reading it) finally convinced them to buy the piece.

How is this story like your other work? How is it different?
Fewer gnomes, more fishes. (Duh.)
Seriously, if you want to get a feel for my work, check out my website.

QUESTIONS ABOUT WRITING:

How long had you been submitting before you made your first sale?
A year maybe. Probably less. I’m not sure, exactly.

Do you work with a critique or writers group?
I critiqued a few things with a writers’ group, but that was very much the exception rather than the rule. And I don’t really do it anymore.

What authors, if any, have had the most influence on your work?
Among current writers, Dan Simmons, Umberto Eco, and Parke Godwin come to mind.

Favorite short story you’ve read recently?
Hmmm… a toss-up: The Ninth of Av, by Dan Simmons (in the collection WORLDS ENOUGH AND TIME), or Blackberry Witch, by Scott Roberts (in WRITERS OF THE FUTURE XXI).

RANDOM QUESTIONS:

Do you believe in ghosts or the supernatural? Why?
I almost wrote “Yes, I believe in God,” but then I realized that nothing could be more natural than God. So … “No.”

Fast food: Yea or Nay?
Yea. With a guilt-driven jog later that night.

Name one place in your hometown that you love to go to and would recommend to others to visit.
It ain’t my hometown, but here in Charleston I’d recommend visiting The Battery. The depth of the history is astonishing, and it also happens to be extraordinarily beautiful.

Is there anything that you would “sell your soul” for?
Not to be boring, but hell no.

Do you have a secret skill that you never get to show off? (i.e. ambidextrous writing, blood-curdling screams, double-jointed, badminton champion…)
Not that I can tell anyone about, no.

Quiz: How many writers does it take to change a lightbulb? Please explain your answer:
As a writer, I refuse to rewrite my previous answer to this question. I was clear before, damnit. I owe the reader nothing! Nothing!

Kathy Watts’s short story, Skeleton Baby Magic, appears in the Autumn 2006 issue of Shimmer.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STORY:

Where did the idea come from?
A few years ago the Natural History Museum in Victoria had a great exhibit of family treasures owned by the various native peoples of Vancouver Island. In the gift shop, afterwards, was a book of contemporary art by present day artists. There was a sculpture of a young mother kneeling on her husband’s grave. I never heard the whole legend related to that artwork, which allowed me to “hear” a story that brought it to life for me.

How did the story change as you developed it?
I wrote what I wanted, then the story forced me to make it way shorter and, basically, be a totally different story. Sometimes a writer has to remember to be god and make the story do what god wants; sometimes a writer has to shut up and listen to the story. This was definitely the second case.

You know the advice “Sometimes you have to kill your darlings.” Was there a scene or line that it really hurt to cut, but cutting it made the story stronger?
I don’t pretend to have had that much control. Actually, my “darling” was the setting, the environment, the culture, and the longer I worked on the story, the longer I got to live in that world.

How is this story like your other work? How is it different?
No two stories of mine are anything alike. However I do enjoy exploring how weird everyday life is, and fantasy lets me explore some fantastic everyday lives. Even my current craze for “science fantasy” stories are explorations into the weirdness of what’s natural.

QUESTIONS ABOUT WRITING:

How long had you been submitting before you made your first sale?
My first rejection letter came from Ben Bova, in the mid 1970’s.

Do you work with a critique or writers group?
I have a choice few writer friends but no regularly meeting group.

What authors, if any, have had the most influence on your work?
This changes with time. Right now, my favorites are Martin Cruz Smith and Carl Hiaasen.

Favorite short story you’ve read recently?
Believe it or not, The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway. It’s basically a death experiece. The end alone qualifies as a superb post-death sequence.

RANDOM QUESTIONS:

Do you believe in ghosts or the supernatural? Why?
I should be honest. I’ve seen ghosts. That won’t help people who haven’t but, so it goes. As for the supernatural, I believe most of modern America is so out of touch that a lot of what is natural looks supernatural. Really, how do we know what’s supernatural?

Fast food: Yea or Nay?
Rarely, but yes.

Name one place in your hometown that you love to go to and would recommend to others to visit.
My hometown is Baltimore. Forget sightseeing (well, the Inner Harbor is cool). Go the Wharf Rat in East Baltimore and have a beer.

Is there anything that you would “sell your soul” for?
Probably, but it will no doubt surprise me.

Do you have a secret skill that you never get to show off?
It wouldn’t be a secret then, would it?

Issue #5: Autumn 2006

Eight stories, including Angela Slatter’s Aurealis-award nominated story “The Angel Wood,” and our interview with John Scalzi.

Two stories received an honorable mention in the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Aliette de Bodard’s “Through the Obsidian Gates” and “A Wizard on the Road,” by Nir Yaniv (trans. Lavie Tidhar).

It was a totally enjoyable experience … Shimmer is one of the best small press magazines out there and you should all be subscribing to it! — SF Revu

Buy your copy today!

Table of Contents

Voices of the Gods, by Monica Eiland

“They say that when your wings are almost finished, the voices of the gods call you into the sky, and you become powerless to resist,” Kirsi said at the year’s festival. Her eager face shone across the fire where we sat with the other girls.

“I can scarce believe you could ever be absolutely powerless to resist,” I said. It was only Kirsi, our little cousin from a village over, telling the tale. She had no wings herself, nor the thought of any.

“Oh, Aire, when your wings are finished, you want to fly, and never come to earth again,” she told us, her eyes gleaming. “The gods tell you what they will, and when their seductive song is
over, you come down to the family and friends you hardly remember, to tell them those secrets.”

Halloween Night, by John Parke Davis

Halloween day is the best day of the year, because everyone you ever lost comes back again to see you. First thing in the morning, you come tumbling down the stairs following the scent of pumpkin bread baking and stumble into a sea of your favorite cats and dogs, who are barking and meowing and so full of love to see their people again. Mowgli, who ran too close to the road, is tumbling with Peter Spaniel, who had a weak heart, and they’re yipping and playing like they used to when they were old friends.

Skeletonbaby Magic, by Kathy Watts

Hope knelt on the cobblestone beach and hugged the tiny bones in her lap. She stroked the fur trim on the cedar strip baby blanket that sheltered the skull from the mist and surf spray.

“It’s been a long time,” she told the infant, “since you looked at me with your no-eyes, or ate at my breast with your no-mouth. You used to do these things.”

Hope gently prodded inside the blanket with her little finger and tapped at
the middle of the tiny jaw bones, where a baby’s mouth would be. Skeletonbaby did
nothing.

Pray For Us, St. Dymphna, by Bryan Lindsey

“Jacob Banes please,” chattered the friendly voice on the other end of the receiver.

“This is Jacob.”

“Hello, Mr. Banes. This is Cynthia from Civicbank. Our records indicate that your account is over 90 days past due. Your current balance is twelve-hundred forty-eight dollars. Is there anything we can do about that today?”

Jacob closed his eyes and focused on the sound of her voice. After a moment her thoughts became clear to him.

“Well, Cynthia, my records indicate that you asked your father for three hundred dollars last month. You told him you needed it for textbooks, but you used the money to pay for an
abortion.”

Cynthia faltered—then hung up.

The Angel Wood, by Angela Slatter

We wake only when a sudden stop almost jerks us from the seat. Now, with the plague-ridden city just a memory, the air is so sweet it creeps up our nostrils and makes us sneeze at its strangeness.

Jeremy-Charles lies quiet in my arms while Milly and Tildy snuggle, one either side of me. Outside, Mother’s voice is tense as she says she carries only plague victims from the city. A man answers that she lies—who would bother to transport the dying so far away? I bid
my siblings be silent and peek through the gap between the door frame and the curtains that cover the windows.

Interview with John Scalzi

Melancholix, by Joseph Remy

Through the Obsidian Gates, by Aliette de Bodard

I came into the palace of the lords One Death and Seven Death through the great gates of obsidian, on foot, armed with nothing but a desperate resolve. There, in the depths of the underworld, I asked for my husband’s life.

The lords’ thrones were huge, and made of human bones pieced together: skulls and finger bones, ribs poking out at odd angles. Everything stank of death. I stood, unmoving, awaiting their response.

The lords’ faces lay in shadow, and I could not see their expressions. “Few mortals dare ask for a dead man’s life.”

A Wizard on the Road, by Nir Yaniv, translated by Lavie Tidhar

The wizard materialized, to his regret, in the passenger seat of a small, creaking Fiat. The car’s owner did not appear to be of the quality-human material he had hoped for, but such trifles were never a problem in the place from which he came. It was late at night.

“Ah,” said the Fiat’s driver and continued to drive. He was a practical sort.

King of Sand and Stormy Seas, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

He stood at the edge of the beach and leaned forward trying to spy a kraken or a two-tailed mermaid beneath the water. Only there were no mermaids today, no terrible krakens or glimmering serpents. Just Lysander, alone, under a light drizzle.

He swung his arm in a mighty arc, ready to throw the sword into the water, ready to say goodbye. And then he couldn’t. Instead, the sword landed against a rock, fell with a loud clank while the seagulls watched. Lysander sat down. Small crabs scuttled by.

“If you don’t want it, you can give it to me,” someone said behind him. “It’s a waste of a
good sword.”

n. a. bourke’s story “Juana and the Dancing Bear” appears in the Winter 2007 issue of Shimmer. You can reach her at alicebabette@hotmail.com.

Questions About The Story:

Where did the idea come from?
It’s really a combination of ideas. One of my favorite nursery rhymes as a child was “The Little Nut Tree.” One version, which you might know, is:

I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear
But a silver nutmeg and a golden pear.
The King of Spain’s daughter came to visit me
And all for the sake of my little nut tree
I skipped over water, I danced over sea,
And all the birds in the air couldn’t catch me.

According to some sources, this was based on the visit of Jauana, the Princess of Castile, to King Henry’s court in 1507. Other sources credit the rhyme as being linked to the wedding gift given to her by her husband, Philip “the Handsome.” According to historical records, her journey to the Low Countries to meet her husband was a monumental caravan including an entourage of 22,000 people. Juana has become known as Juana la Loca (Juana the Mad). Rumours that her passion for Philip led to madness swirled around her both during and after her lifetime–it is said, for example (very untruly), that after he died she had his coffin opened every night so that she could embrace him.

I wanted to write a story that brought these elements together with a pair of characters I was developing for a novel–Just-Simon and the Bear. I also wanted to change Juana’s fate–releasing her from the rumours of madness and an unhappy marriage.

The other seed of the story was a visit to my home by a very wonderful young girl–Georgia Duncan. Georgia has cerebral palsy and she’s one of the most wonderful young girls you could ever hope to meet. She came to visit us with her mum, dad, and sister, and I was just so impressed by her strength of spirit, her charm and smile and beauty, that I wanted to write a story for her –a story where someone truly magical recognized the power and potential of a girl with a body that isn’t like everyone else’s.

How did the story change as you wrote it?
The earliest notes I have on the story in my writing journal say:
Handless maiden + little nut tree: handless maiden as metonymic myth for cerebral palsy? Juvenile arthritis; her hands cursed by a rival for her lover’s affection–slowly turning to silver. OR the prince (Philip and Juana?) is deathly ill. He dreams that the only thing that will cure him is a compote made from an apple and a pear from the same trea. Juana journeys with Bear to Estubal in Portugal to find the “little nut tree”–in order to buy the fruit she gives up her sanit (?) or her hands/–they stiffen and curve and die as she journeys back to him.

You know the advice “Sometimes you have to kill your darlings”? Was there a scene or a line that it really hurt to cut, but cutting it made the story stronger?
Ack! A whole old version (I burn those with much glee). The story was written while I was at Clarion South (in Australia)–and the tutor that week (Michael Swanwick) gave me some great ideas about the ending, which was quite unresolved in that early draft.

How is the story like your other work? How is it different?
I guess I write a lot of pseudo fairy tales, because I loved reading them as a child. Bear and Just-Simon are characters I’ve been hanging out with for a while, so in that sense they’re similar. The books I’ve had published have been contemporary realist (non-speculative) fiction so far, but the novel I’m working on now–the two novels–are both riddled with magic and wild science.

Questions About Writing:

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I guess I knew when I was very young, though not in a concrete sense. Even as a young child I wrote lots of poems and stories and such for my sisters. I told stories in the dark while we went off to sleep and acted them out in the bush with my best friend in the whole world–Cavell Altman. As I got older I think I lost the sense that it was something I had any talent for–it took a long time to regain confidence enough to write and submit work for publication.

Who do you write for? Yourself or someone else?
Someone else–always, though rarely the same person or group of people twice. I have this feeling that, for me at least, the best work comes of writing as a gift–writing when I’m conscious that the pleasure is less for me than for the reader.

Who’s your favorite living author?
Just one? I’ve been reading Aimee Bender’s collection, Wilfull Creatures, which I just adore–and Hanna Tinit’s Animal Crackers. Also piled up on my bedside table, spine cracked and well thumbed, are Barbara Kingsolver, Anne Carson, and Margo Lanagan.

Favorite book read when you were a child?
Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are and Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham.

Random Questions:

Do you believe in ghosts or the supernatural? Why?
Sure–my partner is a ghost.

Favorite restaurant?
Hmmm, have to be Mondo Organics in West End.

Do you have a secret skill that you never get to show off?
I like to draw and paint a little–but showing it off would require there being some redeeming features in the end results.

Do you check your horoscope?
Nope. Though I did once date someone who checked it for me on a regular basis so they could stay in tune with me. Didn’t work so great.

Mike Driver’s short story, Night Milling, appears in the Winter 2007 issue of Shimmer. Check out his website.

Questions About The Story

Where did the idea come from?

I visited the mill in the story through my work; a modern flour mill.
There was no one there I saw one guy all the time I went on a tour of
this huge building filled with equipment. I asked the site manager who
worked there at night. “no one,” he said. It seemed the perfect setting
for the story I wanted to tell.

How did the story change?

The original draft was nothing like the first one. Originally it was
about something evil in the wheat and this recurring theme of
seasonality and rebirth/reoccurance. It was only when I got to the end
of the second draft that I realised what my real ending was.

How is this story like your work?

I like short stories that have a rythym to them. This is the most
rhythmic and lyrical story I’ve written for a while, partly inspired by
Bob Dylan’s “The Hurricane,” to which it owes is pacing and the idea of
the twin villains. I’m not sure where the oblique sense of time came
from it just sort of developed but it works fro the story.

You know the advice “Sometimes you have to kill your darlings.” Was there a scene or line that it really hurt to cut, but cutting it made the story stronger?

I cut two scenes I really liked, one was in the original draft of the
creature emerging from the wheat store (It was a creature back then and
there was only one at this point) which was pretty creepy but belonged
to a different story. The second was a greater explanation of the theme
and the significance of the grain and harvest time – but i left it out
beacuse it got in the way of the pacing and didn’t add to the enjoyment
of the tale.

Questions About Writing

What writing projects are you working on?

I have two novels in varying states of completion, about a dozen stories
out there with different titles under consideration and about another
dozen stories that need polishing before submission.

How long had you been submitting before you made my first sale?

I made my first submissions to a magazine in the UK called FEAR back in
the late 80’s and the third one was accepted but then the magazine
disappeared, folded I think. I then sent some stories to a couple of
publishers in the early 90’s which got some interest and a few nice
replies but no one really knew what to do with them. After these
experiences I just figured it was never going to happen for me so I went
and had a career. Then when I finally got my courage up to start
submitting again about 18 months ago I had an acceptance with 12 days.
So its either 12 days or 20 years depending on your point of view.

How did you celebrate my first sale?

With a beer ( and a small victory dance)

Random Questions

If you had a working time machine what advice would you give a younger self?

Don’t give up.

Question: How many writers does it change to take a light bulb?

None. We like the dark

Aliette de Bodard’s short story, Through the Obsidian Gates, appears in the Autumn 2006 issue of Shimmer. Read her web site or send her an e-mail

Questions About The Story

Where did the idea come from?
This is a very old story of mine, so I’m not quite sure where the idea came from. I think I’d been reading on Aztec customs at the time, and I remembered the ritualized ball game that they played, which gave me this idea of a supernatural ball game with a ball of fire, and I took it from here.

How did the story change as you developed it?
This went through more rewrites than I’d care to mention. It was one of the first stories I wrote, which means it wasn’t very good. It had lots of potential, but I wasn’t capable yet of seeing where it lost its way. It did the rounds of quite a few magazines, always ending with a very polite rejection: “good, but not quite enough”. I was ready to give up, but I thought I’d try Shimmer first (it was over their word count and I wasn’t sure they wanted a long story like that). I did, and promptly got rejected again. However, this time, it came with a detailed rewrite request that highlighted most of the problems people had been having with it. I took it in stride, rewrote the entire middle section, tightened up a few nagging problems, and Shimmer bought it.

You know the advice “Sometimes you have to kill your darlings.” Was there a scene or line that it really hurt to cut, but cutting it made the story stronger?
Most of it got expanded rather than cut…I didn’t really have a darling scene. I suppose I was wary of touching the story because I could see it was good already, and didn’t want to make it worse by tinkering with it (I’ve made that kind of mistake before). Notably, the second quetzal bird showed up out of nowhere, and this made it weaker because it just didn’t have any motivation.

How is this story like your other work? How is it different?
This has the classic themes of my writing: a mythological arc borrowed from a non-Western culture, writing that I tried my best to make sing, and a comment on heroes who go down on impossible quests but really do it for themselves rather than for others. Different…well, it’s pretty much real-word: for once, the names of the gods and the features of the underworld are taken straight from Mayan mythology, although of course I did put a different spin on it…Normally I make names up because I’m too lazy to do my research. Also, I don’t normally do lovers because I find it hard to make them realistic, but in this case I had to.

Questions About Writing

Who do you write for? Yourself or someone else?
Myself, definitely. Not writing would be like not breathing. I’m always finding new story ideas, spinning them around… But of course I have to write for others too or I won’t have any readers *grin*.

What writing projects are you presently working on?
I’m working on several new short stories, and I’m hoping to get around one day to a novel, my third one. It would be set in a Hinduesque world, but I don’t feel comfortable enough to attempt it now.

What time of day do you prefer to do your writing?
Well, I’ve started working recently, so I don’t have much free time. I manage to do my revisions in the evening, but full stories tend to get written on weekends (hopefully I’ll find a better arrangement soon).

Favorite book read when you were a child?
Hum. The Chronicles of Narnia, I think. A very close second would be The Chronicles of Prydain, the ending of which always leaves me in tears.

Random Questions

If you could trade places with anyone, who would it be?
I’m fine where I am, I think. I don’t see the point of roaming further.

Watch much TV? If so, what shows do you watch? Which shows are guilty pleasures?
Uh, no. I don’t have TV at home, and I don’t usually much care for it. I’ve recently started watching Stargate, starting from Season 1, and I’m having tremendous fun at the expense of the screenwriters (mostly because of the science, but sometimes because of plot holes so big you could run a tank through them). Oh, and enjoying it, sometimes 😉

Favourite restaurant?
“La Matta”, an Italian restaurant close to my parents’ home that does tremendous pizzas.

Cat or dog person? (or something else, like birds, iguanas, or even evil robot monkeys?)
Definitely evil robot monkeys. Where would the world be without them (ok, a lot safer, but think of all the excitement the evil robot monkey invasion has brought us… 🙂 )

If you had a working time machine what advice would you give a younger self?
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that writing is something you will grow out of.

For special payments! Please let me know ASAP if you have any problems.

Thanks,
Beth