This week we're joined by Frances Koziar, author of “One Day” in TFF #66, for a chat about day, night, and writing.
TFF: What does “One Day” mean to you?
Art @2023 Sebastian Timpe
Frances Koziar: For "One Day" I was thinking (a very condensed) Virginia Woolf meets high fantasy. 😋 Particularly Mrs. Dalloway, where the entire book happens over the course of one day. Representation is really important to me as a very multi-underprivileged author, and in this story I also wanted to lift up older women, because there are enough fantasy stories about 18-year-old boys saving the world to last a lifetime.
TFF: If you could shut down the power so we all just have to stare at the night, would you?
FK: Absolutely! (At least, sometimes. 😋) I think it's a collective loss how ignorant people have become about how the night sky actually looks without light pollution. I see it a lot in the writing of fantasy authors actually—they'll describe the moon as being the focus of the sky, when a partial moon is really not that remarkable when the sky is filled with a million stars and the Milky Way. They also tend to have no idea of when the moon rises and sets (it's not the same as the sun! It's out in the daytime just as much as the night).
TFF: What are you working on next?
FK: I'm always writing short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry while also working on a novel. "One Day" was my first foray into including poetry in my fiction, and I loved it so much that I decided to include some poetry in the novel I'm just finishing rewriting from scratch now—a literary high fantasy novel about trauma that I wrote ten years ago and haven't found an agent for yet. Wish me luck! ❤️
Extract:
In the still calm of the palace gardens I stand, watching the sky change from navy to a pale blue streaked with gold. I am as still as only an ageing soldier well used to waiting can be, my grey hair tied tightly at the nape of my neck.
Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2023/07/new-issue-202366.html.
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