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I think that, if an episodic narrative could be deemed experimental, then I’m a sucker for the episodic, even in miniature with the short story form. Many of my short stories, too, aren’t roughed out from an outline other than the barest of notes, and I approach the storytelling intuitively. If that makes it seem experimental, hey, that’s great.
I think that “seeking our final destination within,” obtaining an accurate image of our potential, is the human Odyssey, not solely a female one. However, Anna finds this only through interaction with others. I believe deeply that humans are social animals and that we can work out our best selves only through contact with others.
But if someone wants to write a character which is “other” I wouldn’t stop them. Instead, I would encourage them to stretch themselves. I certainly don’t immediately identify with, or always find accurate to my experiences, the white, rural, college-educated, religious gay male characters I find. And I don’t always want to write that character. I would hate to stop someone else from writing them though.
Stephanie Burgis (stephanieburgis.com) is an American writer who lives in England with her husband, Patrick Samphire, their baby, and their crazy-sweet border collie mix. Her short fiction has appeared in several magazines including Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Black Static. Her Regency fantasy trilogy for ages 10 and up, The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, will be published in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Her story, “Offerings,” runs this week at Fantasy Magazine.
Dirk Strasser has written over thirty books for major publishers in Australia. He won the Ditmar for Best Professional Achievement in 2002 and has been short-listed for the Aurealis and Ditmar Awards a number of times. His Ascension trilogy of novels – Zenith, Equinox and Eclipse – were published by Pan Macmillan in Australia and by Heyne Verlag in Germany.
If you were a mother and didn’t bind your daughter’s feet, then you were being unkind, for she would be unattractive, and thus unable to find herself a suitable husband. That was the scariest realisation I’d come to in a while, and I decided to write a story about it: a girl without bound feet, who would crave them as her only assurance of a future as a married woman.
Mari Ness worships chocolate, words and music, in no particular order, and has a second career as cat furniture for two adorably cute cats. Her work has previously appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Aberrant Dreams, Coyote Wild, and several other print and online places. She keeps a blog at mariness.livejournal.com. Her short story, “Playing with Spades” is featured this week at Fantasy Magazine.
I suppose part of my awareness of culture, as such, is about how similar in many ways people are. What seems exotic to one person is commonplace to another. The question is who do you write for? How much do you explain, how much do you let the reader infer from the text? It’s a balancing act.
Usually, I have to find the ending through draft after draft, but not this time. I was driving through South Alabama (on the way to Disney World) with my family a few summers ago and saw an ancient looking water tower. Immediately, I thought: What if some kids find something in the water tower?
Camille Alexa likes “her humor dark and her horror funny.” A short fiction writer and poet, she writes for The Green Man Review, serves as Flash Fiction Editor for Abyss & Apex, and Poetry Editor for Diet Soap. Her short story “Shades of White and Road” appears this week in Fantasy Magazine.
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