We welcome Rachel Rodman, author of the poem “Two Hybrids” in The Future Fire #71, for a brief chat in the microinterview series.
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| Art © 2024 Fluffgar |
TFF: What does “Two Hybrids” mean to you?
Rachel Rodman: I love hybridization.
The most exciting kind of creativity combines elements that are infrequently combined. I also love the stylistic challenge of merging objects and identities from different sources: Froggie’s sword + the runcible spoon; a winged creature + a half-amphibian who hunts dragonflies, pooling their talents to survive a long journey through the sky. (Many more examples can be found in my recent book, Mutants and Hybrids, which was published by Underland Press.)
“Two Hybrids” is also exciting to me because it feels like a breakthrough. It is one of several projects that began as a short story. For a very long time, I worked and reworked these pieces, getting nowhere. Eventually, however, it occurred to me to convert these failed stories to poems.
After that, things went quickly.
TFF: What are you working on now?
RR: More poetry. More short fiction.
I am also working on a long-form, “quantum fiction” project. In quantum fiction, events are both happening and not happening. When one outcome occurs, so does its opposite. (An early example of quantum fiction is a story called “Schrödinger's Fever,” which was published in Why Vandalism?) Quantum fiction is non-linear. It is internally contradictory. Within this genre, the usual stylistic divisions don’t make sense.
Poetry? Prose?
When my writing feels most authentic, these categories stop mattering.
Extract:
When her parents die,
she converts
the pea-green boat
to
a pair of prosthetics—
wooden extensions of her own wings
(which are only half sized).
Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2024/10/new-issue-202471.html.
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