mean losing more and more of the people I love. I think of those afflictions and losses to come, and it makes me frantic with terror. I’m trying to remember that there will also be lots to gain in those years: new friends, new experiences, new competencies, new joys.
When you teach writing, what do you teach? What do you un-teach?
Nowadays, I’m all about architecture and integrity. A story has to be given a deliberate shape that hopefully has some structural integrity and architectural wonder, and it has to be in dynamic movement along a trajectory. Is “dynamic movement” a tautology? I mean there should be pacing. I’m also all about allowing the reader to inhabit the body of a point-of-view character and experience the physicality of her or his world. I try to un-teach the notion that a story is something told to a passive listener. I try to get my students out of the point-of-view character’s head and more into that character’s physical sensations. I try to model my love of words and meaning. I try to show them that editing is the fun part. It’s the part where your word baby develops fingers and toes and eyes and starts looking back at you and reaching for things.
And being me, I’m now thinking about just how ableist a metaphor that is.
Did you initially see SF and Fantasy as a gateway, or as a castle to be stormed? How has that perception changed?
That’s a fascinating question. As neither. I think. You can breach gateways and storm castles, or enter gateways and inhabit castles. Maybe this is trite, but science fiction is a universe.
You totally work magic with titles: “Greedy Choke Puppy,”
“Ours Is the Prettiest,“ etc. At what point in the creative process does the title come to you?
Thank you! Often before the rest of the story. The title’s sort of the distilled version of what the story wants to be. Before I quite know what the story is, the title whispers hints to me.
I like that. Now here’s my Jeopardy item. I provide the answer, and you provide the question. The answer is: Because they can.
Why do cops routinely brutalise people? Why do bumblebees fly? Why do humans make art?
In the postscript to your ICFA speech, you took someone to task for separating Art and Labour. True, both are work. But isn’t there an important difference or two?
Both are work, and both can be art. Hopefully, you’re being paid for both. (And thanks for granting me that “u” in “Labour.”)
Are you a Marxist?
No.
Three favorite movies?
Quilombo,
by Carlos Diegues
Pumzi,
by Wanuri Kahiu
Lilies,
by John Greyson
You seem to have stolen from Shakespeare (literature’s master thief) in “Shift.” What does a reader who hasn’t read
The Tempest
need to know?
Let’s see … in the play, Prospero is a rich white duke who’s been exiled to a small island with his beautiful daughter Miranda. There he finds an ethereal fairy named Ariel who’s been trapped inside a split tree by a white Algerian (African) witch named Sycorax. Sycorax had been exiled to the island earlier, while pregnant with her son Caliban. Sycorax has died, leaving Ariel imprisoned and Caliban abandoned. Prospero frees Ariel and requires her servitude in return, but promises to release her eventually. Prospero takes Caliban in and teaches him to read, but when Caliban attempts to rape Miranda, Prospero makes him a slave (as in, no promise of release). Ariel gets all the flitting-about jobs and Caliban gets all the hard labour. Prospero repeatedly ridicules Caliban. Ariel helps Prospero and Miranda get off the island, and thus wins freedom. I think we’re supposed to identify with Prospero and Miranda, but I was disturbed by Ariel’s servitude and Caliban’s slavery, and even though Prospero eventually pardons Caliban, I had trouble with the play’s relentless mockery of Caliban as a “savage.”
A few years ago I was visiting Kamau Brathwaite’s literature class at NYU, and they were discussing Caliban. I had the
When you teach writing, what do you teach? What do you un-teach?
Nowadays, I’m all about architecture and integrity. A story has to be given a deliberate shape that hopefully has some structural integrity and architectural wonder, and it has to be in dynamic movement along a trajectory. Is “dynamic movement” a tautology? I mean there should be pacing. I’m also all about allowing the reader to inhabit the body of a point-of-view character and experience the physicality of her or his world. I try to un-teach the notion that a story is something told to a passive listener. I try to get my students out of the point-of-view character’s head and more into that character’s physical sensations. I try to model my love of words and meaning. I try to show them that editing is the fun part. It’s the part where your word baby develops fingers and toes and eyes and starts looking back at you and reaching for things.
And being me, I’m now thinking about just how ableist a metaphor that is.
Did you initially see SF and Fantasy as a gateway, or as a castle to be stormed? How has that perception changed?
That’s a fascinating question. As neither. I think. You can breach gateways and storm castles, or enter gateways and inhabit castles. Maybe this is trite, but science fiction is a universe.
You totally work magic with titles: “Greedy Choke Puppy,”
“Ours Is the Prettiest,“ etc. At what point in the creative process does the title come to you?
Thank you! Often before the rest of the story. The title’s sort of the distilled version of what the story wants to be. Before I quite know what the story is, the title whispers hints to me.
I like that. Now here’s my Jeopardy item. I provide the answer, and you provide the question. The answer is: Because they can.
Why do cops routinely brutalise people? Why do bumblebees fly? Why do humans make art?
In the postscript to your ICFA speech, you took someone to task for separating Art and Labour. True, both are work. But isn’t there an important difference or two?
Both are work, and both can be art. Hopefully, you’re being paid for both. (And thanks for granting me that “u” in “Labour.”)
Are you a Marxist?
No.
Three favorite movies?
Quilombo,
by Carlos Diegues
Pumzi,
by Wanuri Kahiu
Lilies,
by John Greyson
You seem to have stolen from Shakespeare (literature’s master thief) in “Shift.” What does a reader who hasn’t read
The Tempest
need to know?
Let’s see … in the play, Prospero is a rich white duke who’s been exiled to a small island with his beautiful daughter Miranda. There he finds an ethereal fairy named Ariel who’s been trapped inside a split tree by a white Algerian (African) witch named Sycorax. Sycorax had been exiled to the island earlier, while pregnant with her son Caliban. Sycorax has died, leaving Ariel imprisoned and Caliban abandoned. Prospero frees Ariel and requires her servitude in return, but promises to release her eventually. Prospero takes Caliban in and teaches him to read, but when Caliban attempts to rape Miranda, Prospero makes him a slave (as in, no promise of release). Ariel gets all the flitting-about jobs and Caliban gets all the hard labour. Prospero repeatedly ridicules Caliban. Ariel helps Prospero and Miranda get off the island, and thus wins freedom. I think we’re supposed to identify with Prospero and Miranda, but I was disturbed by Ariel’s servitude and Caliban’s slavery, and even though Prospero eventually pardons Caliban, I had trouble with the play’s relentless mockery of Caliban as a “savage.”
A few years ago I was visiting Kamau Brathwaite’s literature class at NYU, and they were discussing Caliban. I had the
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