Microinterview with Vanessa Fogg

We’re delighted to chat today with Vanessa Fogg, author of “That Small, Hard Thing on the Back of Your Neck” in The Future Fire #71.

---

Art © 2024 Ellis Bray

TFF: What does “That Small, Hard Thing on the Back of Your Neck” mean to you?

Vanessa Fogg: To me, this story is about the masks/skins that we all wear. The ways we pretend to better fit in, to get along, for status and popularity and ease of living and maybe even (for some people) sheer survival. And it’s also about the psychic costs of living that way.

TFF: What are you working on next?

VF: I admit that I’ve been blocked for a few months now. But I’m trying to write a short (and maybe satirical?) horror piece now, and I’m excited about some earlier stories I wrote that should be coming out in 2025 or so—including a tale about a Faerie prince touring our modern world and going viral on social media, a story about the search for immortality (based on Chinese myths and legends), and what I think of as a little weird horror piece where a Eurydice-figure talks her lover into the Land of the Dead.

---

Extract:

You are thirteen and in the shower when you find it. A hard, dangly little thing, like a tag, stuck to the back of your neck. It’s stuck just where your neck bones merge into your back, between your shoulders. Reflexively, you try to brush it away, swat it off, as you would to a bug. It stays stuck. Hot water sluices over you, and the thing is slick and hard to grasp, but you manage. The thing feels like metal. It’s small and rectangular, and there’s a little round opening at the top, where the tip of your finger fits.

---

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.

New issue: 2024.71

“Europeans brought with them the view that men were the absolute head of households, and women were to be submissive to them. It was then that the role of women in Cherokee society began to decline. One of the new values Europeans brought to the Cherokees was a lack of balance and harmony between men and women. It was what we today call sexism. This was not a Cherokee concept. Sexism was borrowed from Europeans.”

—Maria Mankiller

Issue 2024.71

Short stories

• ‘Whiskey Mud’, Jonathan Olfert - art by Cécile Matthey
• ‘Deep Sea Baby’, Faith Allington - art by Sebastian Timpe
• ‘That Small, Hard Thing on the Back of Your Neck’, Vanessa Fogg - art by Ellis Bray
• ‘In the Field’, Shelly Jones - art by L.E. Badillo
• ‘Deirdre’s Skin’, Amalie N. Ingham - art by Sarah Salcedo

Poetry

• ‘A Moon Witch Seeks a Shell’, Devan Barlow - art by Melkorka
• ‘Two Hybrids’, Rachel Rodman - art by Fluffgar

Download e-book version: PDF | EPUB

Full issue and editorial

Micro-interview with Vanessa Fogg

Welcome, Vanessa Fogg, author of “Microseasons of the Dead” in The Future Fire #67 (and many previous stories), to the micro-interview series, where today we focus a lot on seasons…

---

Art © 2023, Cécile Matthey

TFF: What does “Microseasons of the Dead” mean to you?

Vanessa Fogg: For me, “Microseasons of the Dead” is about using a calendar year format to work out some existential thoughts on life and death. It was inspired by the microseasons of the traditional Japanese calendar, which consist of 72 “microseasons” with beautiful names such as “East Melts the Ice” and “Evening Cicadas Sing” (translations taken from this article).

 

TFF: What is your favorite day or season of the year?

VF: Autumn, hands down. As Keats put it, Oh “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”! I love everything about fall: the mists, the rain, the brilliant colors, the clear light of fall. Cozy sweaters, fuzzy pajamas, soups and stews, everything pumpkin spice. If I could live in just one season, it would be fall.

---

Extract:

Crack and splinter of heavy ice. Cold sunk deep in your bones. (How is it that you can still feel your bones?) A mountain of snow. White sky.

---

Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2023/10/new-issue-202367.html.

New Issue 2023.67

“To invent stories about a world other than this one has no meaning at all, unless an instinct of slander, belittling, and suspicion against life is strong in us: in that case, we avenge ourselves against life with a phantasmagoria of another, a better life.”

—F. Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung

Issue 2023.67

Flash fiction

• ‘Collective Bargaining’, Jonathan Olfert - art by Carmen Moran

Short stories

• ‘Just as You Are’, Juliet Kemp
• ‘Microseasons of the Dead’, Vanessa Fogg - art by Cécile Matthey
• ‘Woman, Soldier, Girl’, Priya Chand - art by Katharine A. Viola
• ‘Crumb Cutie Exodus’, Bernie Jean Schiebeling - art by L.E. Badillo

Poetry

• ‘How to Plant an Olive Tree on the Moon When All Is Lost’, Elena S. Kotsile - art by Fluffgar
• ‘How Magic Will Help You Take the Bastards Down’, Beth Cato - art by Melkorka

Download e-book version: PDF | EPUB

Micro-interview with Vanessa Fogg

Interview with Vanessa Fogg, author of “Before We Drown” in The Future Fire #60.

TFF: What does “Before We Drown” mean to you?

VF: To me, “Before We Drown” is about memory—specifically about the memories of those seemingly small moments that would seem of no importance at all to any outsider, to any transcriber of history or biography. But as I say in the story, those little moments can be searing; they can “flash within us like lightning, lighting up the inner landscapes of our lives.” This story was also inspired by real life, by a small vacation getaway my family and I took to Chicago in August 2021. It was a time after COVID-19 vaccines had rolled out in the United States, and before the spread of the delta variant had yet caused new restrictions and fear. It felt like a moment of freedom. It felt, in retrospect, like a breath between storms.

Illustration © 2022, Katharine A. Viola

TFF: What are you working on next?

VF: I’m trying to write a story about human tourists in Faerieland. It started as a satire on modern-day adventure travel and tourism, but other themes have gotten mixed in now. Hopefully I can pull this off!

Extract:

Yes, I know, we have to go. You’re packing our things, and still trying to get a cell phone signal. We have to evacuate. Again.

But first, my love: listen to me. Do you remember that moment between storms? Between the plagues and floods and flame? That moment when we were free?

You can comment on any of the stories or illustrations in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2022/01/new-issue-202260.html.

New Issue: 2022.60

“I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place. I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level.”

—His Grace, Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu

Issue 2022.60

Flash fiction

• ‘Before We Drown’, Vanessa Fogg, art by Katharine A. Viola

Short stories

• ‘Ten Degrees of Freedom’, Sean Chua, art by Fluffgar
• ‘Mrs. Daedalus’, Marianne Connolly, art by Joyce Chng
  
• ‘I’m Fine’, P.L. Salerno, art by Sarah Salcedo
  
• ‘Every Quivering Fold of Flesh’, Jennifer R. Donohue, art by L.E. Badillo
  
• ‘Make of Me a Comet’, Kit Harding, art by Cécile Matthey
  

Poetry

• ‘Return to the Cities’, Marie Vibbert, art by Eric Asaris
  
• ‘Degenerate’, Avra Margariti, art by Josep Lledó
  

Full issue and editorial

Download e-book version: PDF | EPUB | Mobi

New issue: 2020.54

“It hurts me that, if global warming still continues, if global warming continues on a large scale, it’s going to affect our future only; we the children and the coming future generation is going to suffer. So I wanted to do something about that, and that’s why I sued my government.”

—Ridhima Pandey

Issue 2020.54

Flash fiction

• ‘Dragon Years’, Juliet Kemp (illustrated by Martin Hanford)

Short stories

• ‘A Stereoscopic Landscape View of Torino with Damsels and Distress’, Celia Neri (illustrated by Josep Lledó)
• ‘The Foraging’, Shelly Jones (illustrated by Joyce Chng)
• ‘Strange Engines’, Jordan Taylor (illustrated by Eric Asaris)
• ‘The Facts Are These’, M. Bennardo (illustrated by Cécile Matthey)
• ‘The Shadow Catchers’, Vanessa Fogg (illustrated by Katharine A. Viola)
• ‘Cascade’, A.J. Fitzwater (illustrated by Fluffgar)

Poetry

• ‘Demon Summoning for the Modern Femme’, Avra Margariti (illustrated by L.E. Badillo)
• ‘This Soundless Murk’, Hester J. Rook (illustrated by Miguel Santos)

Download e-book version: PDF | EPUB | Mobi

Full issue and editorial.

Review this issue on Goodreads.

New Issue 2019.48

« Il y a un côté effrayant quand on regarde un ciel totalement ­dégagé la nuit. Alors que là, l’image qu’on regarde nous ramène vers nous, c’est une image très rassurante, un peu comme si on regardait le ventre de notre mère. En fait, Blueturn, c’est un selfie de la Terre. »

—Jean-Pierre Goux

Issue 2019.48

Flash fiction

• ‘The Carminokite’, Kimberly Kaufman (illustrated by Martin Hanford)

Short stories

• ‘I Thought of You’, Juliet Kemp (illustrated by Jason Baltazar)
• ‘Silver Wings’, Joyce Chng (illustrated by Rachel Linn)
• ‘The Message’, Vanessa Fogg (illustrated by Pear Nuallak)

Novelettes

• ‘The Boy from the War’, Perrin Lu (illustrated by Cécile Matthey)

Poetry

• ‘Sunset on Kepler-22b’, Christina Sng (illustrated by Toeken)
• ‘Liquid Water Lake Revealed on Mars’, Paige Elizabeth Smith (illustrated by TFF and NASA)

Download e-book version: PDF | EPUB | Mobi

Recommend: literary places

In many stories, place is so important that it is almost a character: think of the number of science fiction or fantasy novels where the name of the city is in the title of the book itself (even leaving aside City of Illusions, The City and the City, City of Brass…). In this month’s installment of our recommendation post series, we’re asking readers to tell us about their favorite literary place—fictional, fantastic, or a real place given new life in literature, what place do you wish existed (or are you glad doesn’t); what place feels more real than home? To prime the pump, we’ve asked a few authors, editors and other friends the same question, and their suggestions are below. If any of these inspire you—or you’re disappointed your favorite isn’t mentioned—please leave a comment telling us about a literary place you think is worth visiting.

---

Vanessa Fogg (blog, twitter)

Sofia Samatar’s debut novel, A Stranger in Olondria, was a revelation to me. This rich, strange, gorgeously written book introduces readers to a secondary fantasy world which is not based on medieval Europe, but which draws, instead, from Africa and the Middle East. The main character, Jevick, is a naïve young man who falls in love from afar with the Empire of Olondria and then journeys through it, getting into plenty of trouble along the way.

Yet despite the wonders of Olondria, it’s Jevick’s homeland of the Tea Islands which affects me most deeply. The Tea Islands, a tropical land of heavy rains and blue hills, of rivers and jungles and “shimmering deltas, the dank-smelling lagoons, a landscape flat and liquid and loved by birds.” A world rendered with such naturalistic detail that it feels utterly real. The Tea islands was my first encounter with a fantasy world set in the tropics. And that has a special resonance for me because my parents came from a tropical country, although in Southeast Asia (Thailand), not Africa. Samatar’s book made me think, “I want to do this, too. I also want to create secondary world fantasy set in a non-European world.” Her book is one of the few that has truly changed my approach to writing.

---

Subodhana Wijeyeratne (Hulks; Stone Lotus)

Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracks. So goes Mervyn Peake's description of one of the most fascinating and compelling creations in modern fantasy: the endless and darkened reaches of the city-castle of Gormenghast. The story of his trilogy's protagonist, Titus Groan, unfolds amidst its ancient and dreary halls. Teeming with a sort of madness that seems to inhabit the walls of the place, as well as the characters themselves, it is a creation that for sheer aesthetic power should, in my opinion, be up there with Middle Earth.

Peake was raised in China for a while, and was heavily influenced by the monuments erected by an ancient kingdom in the vicinity of his childhood home. The central conceit of Gormenghast derives from the feelings these buildings evoked. Timeless, ancient, and melancholy, they were on one hand magnificent. Yet on the other they also seemed to chain the present to a lost past by their very presence, to crush the now with the knowledge of the vast reaches of the then. Deep in a fist of stone a doll's hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm, writes Peake, of Titus Groan's birth—but it could be of anyone's.

---

Urša Vidic (Dalmatian elves)

The city of Armilla is composed entirely of water pipes. Young people might think of a computer game or an old screensaver, but the town itself is much more emotional than that, it has all the colours of metal and a fresh wind whistling and piping on the pipes that are filled with very tangible water. It is not clear if the city is something that remained from the past or a place that was built for the future, but now it is inhabited by water creatures, by nymphs and naiads. They always knew very well how to travel along underground veins and so they feel quite at home in these pipelines that are so full of living water and surprising inventions. Before they moved here, they might have been offended, since people misused water so terribly, so it is possible that the city was built for them as a sculpture to apologize and express a newly-found veneration for them, or they were the ones who have simply driven out all the people. We learn of this place from one of the stories that Marco Polo told Kublai Khan and of course he was lying, but you never know with Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.

---

Damien Krsteski (blog; Faster Tomorrow)

Aurora, a moon in the Tau Ceti planetary system, humanity's second attempt at a home from Kim Stanley Robinson’s brilliant novel, ended up being more than a science-fictional escape for me; when the book came out, I’d just moved to another country, and lying on the mattress in the middle of my empty, freshly-painted apartment—my suitcase in a corner, waiting to be unpacked—I had only Freya and her Ship for company.

And Aurora didn’t turn out to be their promised land. It bristled, and it made the humans sick, and ultimately it shook them off. Freya decided to return home. Because, she realized, there is no such thing as a home away from home: there is only home, and away from home.

When Freya ended her journey back on Earth, I closed the book and left my apartment to walk this foreign city, and I couldn’t help seeing daubs and smears of Aurora everywhere around me: the strange, the new, scaring me off. In time I began pining for Freya’s imagined Earth, too, safe and inviting, but as I adapted to my new surroundings, Aurora and Earth merged and winked out, and I started appreciating—liking, even—where I was, and soon I realized there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

---

Hella Grichi (blog; twitter)

A place which would be really cool to visit nowadays is Gilead. There would be something so fascinating and empowering to see the boatless rivers and the bloodstains on the walls being scrubbed by handmaids from yesterday’s executions, something so haunting about the dangling corpses and the limited stock at the supermarket. Maybe it would feel so good to know that, now, going home means facing the spouse you chose who will rock you softly to sleep to your favorite movie or curl up with you and two books that you recently bought at the bookshop with the octagonal window covered in evergreens. How enchanting to know you can visit a doctor that shakes your hand, wear the dress with the fox patterns and kiss the girl you like, sitting next to her at school and doing your homework together. Gilead is a dystopian world that is unfathomable for us but if we do not stay alert and raise our fists in anger, maybe we’ll soon enough don green, red and blue robes and remember days at the beach and trips to the doctor as a remote memory of days impossible to retrieve in a world as sterile as the uterus of a commander’s wife.

---

Valeria Vitale (TFF bio; City of a Thousand Names)

The city of Prague described by Czech writer Leo Perutz in By Night, under the Stone Bridge probably has a lot in common with the actual capital of Czechia, but they are not the same thing. Perutz’s Prague is a place where, especially at night, the boundaries between past and present, reality and dreams become softer, and as easy to cross as one of the city’s streets or bridges. The buildings are still impregnated with the memories of things that (may have) happened centuries ago, especially during the few years when the melancholic and bizarre Emperor Rudolph had moved the capital of the Holy Roman Empire to Prague. In this Prague it wouldn’t be strange to meet angels, golems, powerful rabbis, or dodgy astrologers, still roaming the streets of their city. Perutz’s book is a collection of interconnected stories, all revolving around a city that, in my imagination, is surrounded by an aura of mystery and magic. I have never been to Prague, the real one, but somehow I feel like I have already met the statues on the Carlo Bridge, and that I could navigate the narrow streets of the Jewish Quarter without getting lost. Sometimes I even think that I should never actually go to Prague, and keep enjoying only her ghostly and enchanted literary reflection.

---

Now we want to hear from you! Please tell us about your favorite literary place in the comments.

New Issue: 2017.42

“Toute ma vie, j’ai continué d’associer la musique avec l’émancipation des femmes.”

—Angélique Kidjo

Issue 2017.42

Flash fiction

• ‘Lady of the Court of Black Wings’, Richard R. Blake (illustrated by Laura-Anca Adascalitei)

Short stories

• ‘Building the Arcology’, Laura Gullveig (illustrated by Rachel Linn)
• ‘Taiya’, Vanessa Fogg (illustrated by Eric Asaris)
• ‘Tidal Waves’, Melanie Rees (illustrated by Martin Hanford)
• ‘There Are No Echoes’, Davian Aw (illustrated by Miranda Jean)

Poetry

• ‘How Will They Judge Us’, Lisa Timpf (illustrated by Cécile Matthey)
• ‘Witch Moon’, Colleen Anderson (illustrated by Cécile Matthey—cover art)

Full issue and editorial

Download e-book version: EPUB | Mobi

Recommend: Feminist SF with POC protagonists

For this month’s recommend feature we’d like to hear from all our readers your favorite examples of a perhaps rare beast, the feminist science fiction/fantasy story with protagonist or protagonists of color. We’ll be inclusive about all these terms, most of all we want to hear from you. Give us some titles to add to our reading lists! To prime the pump, as always, we’ve asked a handful of TFF authors, editors and other friends to give us a few suggestions on this theme.

---

Chinelo Onwualu (website, twitter)

One of my complaints with genre fiction is that simply having a protagonist of colour doesn't necessarily make a work anti-racist, nor does having a female main character mean the work is feminist. This is especially true if the character simply perpetuates the same sexist, racist and imperialist tropes as a white male would. A good example of this is Grace Jones’ warrior woman character in the film Conan the Destroyer.

So when I discovered feminist fiction that featured men and women who looked like me, I was thrilled. I think the first was Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness whose scientist protagonist, Genly Ai, is a black man. The book so thoroughly interrogates gender that it was the template of my own world building for a long time. Octavia Butler’s character of Anyawu in Wild Seed also questioned some of the underlying power imbalances of heterosexual relationships and may have fundamentally messed up my view of superpowers. It also helped that the character was from my ethnic group.

More recently, N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Kingdoms—the sequel to The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms—was one of the first books I'd ever read that depicted black feminine strength without ever having the central character, Oree Shoth, pick up a weapon. The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord is another nuanced feminist work, with its two characters of colour working to navigate identity, emotion and history to come together in the most satisfying way. And Betsy James’ Roadsouls has what I feel is one of the best rendered feminist romances I've ever come across.

Writing feminist fiction is tricky, and there's not as much out there with PoC as there should be. You can find more stories about goblins and vampires than black people! So I'd love to get more recommendations. What else is out there?

---

Joyce Chng (A Wolf’s Tale, twitter)

Ah, feminist SF story with POC protags.

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi!

This novel is underrated and deserves to be signal boosted to the max, because 1) it's good, 2) it has a kickass POC protag and 3) it’s space opera, one of my favorite things in the world. The main character is Alana Quick, a black lesbian who got stowed away on the cargo ship Tangled Axon. It is also LGBT! To me, it is excellent feminist SF, because it's so hard to see women with actual agency and feminism is intersectional.

So, there you go. My feminist SF story with POC protags. Go, run, read Ascension.

---

S.J. Sabri (story)

This is a novel that stays with you. Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven weaves the threads of its plot between our present day and the shattered ruin of civilization after the Georgia Flu has wiped out all but a remnant of the peoples of earth. A number of plot-lines slowly converge; all linked by the only two copies of a superb but unpublished graphic novel, also titled Station Eleven. There is Miranda, the creator of that graphic novel; Kirsten, probably the main character, (though this novel is really an ensemble piece) who is an actor in the Travelling Symphony; Jeevan Chaudhary, the paramedic who will have to become a doctor; not to mention the disturbing, deadly figure of the Prophet. The enslavement of the Prophet’s followers and his reduction of women to property force the Symphony to intervene, whatever the consequences.

The Symphony’s motto, ‘Survival is insufficient’, comes from Star Trek: Voyager. This touring troupe of musicians and Shakespearian actors is all that connects a few tiny surviving communities with each other and with the lost past. This is art as a heroic act, the candle in the dark. Mandel lets us feel the precarious, vivid enchantment of those theatrical performances:

‘Kirsten as Titania, a crown of flowers on her close-cropped hair, the jagged scar on cheekbone half-erased by candlelight. The audience is silent. Sayid, circling her in a tuxedo that Kirsten found in a dead man’s closet… ’

This novel takes the strength and capacity of women for granted just as it takes a multicultural future for granted, a future where Kirsten and others like her fight to preserve what is essential to civilization when the cities have all been snuffed out.

---

Vanessa Fogg (blog, twitter)

Ken Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty is a soaring and ambitious work, “epic” in every sense—portraying the rise and fall of empires, a dizzyingly large cast, plot turns and betrayals, astonishing battle scenes. The plot draws on history and legends surrounding the founding of China’s Han Dynasty, but Liu adds his own twists and ornamentations and sets the action in the imaginary archipelago world of Dara.

The story of a new empire’s rise is also the story of the rise of women. This isn’t clear at first; like the cunning strategists of his novels, Liu plays a long game. Some criticized The Grace of Kings for the fact that its strong, intelligent women characters are often sidelined in favor of the stories of male generals, kings, and fighters.

But toward the end of The Grace of Kings, Gin Mazoti, a brilliant woman general, makes her appearance to lead an emperor’s army. In the second novel, women begin to take center stage. The patriarchal world of Dara is under threat from forces both external and within, and needs people of all talent—male and female, rich and poor. Women scientists, engineers, strategists, soldiers, and queens work with each other as well as with men to save their world. One of the greatest treats of this novel is seeing that teamwork: women working together, supporting one another, and loving one another. The Dandelion Dynasty is about revolutions fought both on the battlefield and in the mind and heart. I’m very much looking forward to the next installment.

---

Over to you, dear readers! What are the best feminist SFF stories/novels with POC protag(s) that we should be reading?

New Issue 2016.37

“Oui dehors il pleut mais cette pluie est délicieuse.
Dehors la vie est belle, que diable est-elle dangereuse.”

—HK et les Saltimbanks

Issue 2016.37

• ‘The Wave’, Vanessa Fogg, illustrated by Toeken
• ‘A Distant Glimpse’, Simon Kewin, illustrated by Eric Asaris
• ‘Patchwork Girl’, Colleen Anderson (poem), illustrated by Dr. T. Eratopo
• ‘Porphyria: Dazzle Con Debut’, Priya Sridhar, illustrated by L.E. Badillo
• ‘Glow in the Dark’, Rachel Linn, illustrated by Cécile Matthey
• ‘Cinder-Elver’, Mary Alexandra Agner, illustrated by Laura-Anca Adascalitei

E-book versions coming soon

Review this issue on Goodreads

Interview with Vanessa Fogg

Our guest today for the blog carnival is Vanessa Fogg, author of the story “Disconnected” published in issue #32 of TFF. We asked her about her work as a writer of both fiction and science, and about the stories she likes the most.

Illustration for "Disconnecetd" by Miguel Santos

The Future Fire: Where did the idea of “Disconnected” come from? Was there an event, a word, an image that triggered the story?

Vanessa Fogg: Most of my stories do start out as images, or as a character voice. This one was different in that it started out as a vague collection of ideas. A sense of being fed up with our hyper-driven, hyper-speed, productivity-obsessed modern lifestyle. I think I read one too many of those “10 Things the Most Productive People Do Before Breakfast” click-bait listicles. This sense of frustration combined with some articles I’d been reading in neuroscience, and then I knew that I wanted to apply those ideas to a "have/have-not" type of critique of our own society, and where it may be going.

TFF: What is your favourite TFF story?

VF: So many good ones! I confess that I haven't read all the stories in the latest issue yet, but from the issue previous to that, I was very taken with Sean R. Robinson's “Rustsong.” Francesca Forrest’s “Seven Bridges” also sticks in my mind as a lovely, lyrical piece. I LOVED Victor Fernando R. Ocampo's “I m d 1 in 10”—I thought it was stunning. And I find stunning Benjanun Sriduangkaew's “Courtship in the Country of Machine-Gods.” She's published a lot since that story, of course, but her first publication in TFF remains one of my favorites.

TFF: There is quite a lot of science and technology in “Disconnected”. Do you have a background in STEM? If not, the knowledge of which branch of science would you like to have instantly implanted in your brain?

VF: I do actually have a STEM background. I have a Ph.D. in molecular cell biology, and I spent many years working as a research scientist in academic labs. I've also worked as a staff science writer at a cancer research institute, and I currently work as a freelance medical and science writer. I do mostly very technical writing for the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, so fiction writing is a nice creative release. Writing "Disconnected" was an utter blast for me—I loved researching the science and incorporating it into this story! Much of it is indeed based on real-world science. For readers who are interested, I wrote about that science (with links and references!) in a blog post on my personal blog here.

TFF: You write both gritty cyberpunk and magical fantasy stories. Do you see any commonalities between these apparently very different genres?

VF: That's a really good question and it's one that I've been wondering myself! I think I am drawn to very different things about these genres. In fantasy, I am currently most drawn to the mythic—to archetypes, fairy tales, stories of transformation, universal themes that transcend place and time. But what I love about cyberpunk and near-future science fiction is the way it can be used to critique specific social issues in our own contemporary world. And while I read all kinds of sci-fi, I have a particular fondness for the "hard" sci-fi that attempts to at least semi-plausibly ground the story in real science (and thus, the real world). So. . . yeah, I'm not sure what commonalities I find in these two genres! I think writing in them just fulfills two different needs in me.

TFF: What are you working on now?

VF: I haven't written as much fiction as I'd like this summer. I am just now finishing another cyberpunk-type story, and then I think I'll be taking some time to read furiously and refill the well.

You can read more about Vanessa and her work on her website.You can also support our authors and artists by pre-ordering our tenth anniversary anthology, or picking up other perks at our crowdfunding campaign at: igg.me/at/tffx.

New issue 2015.32

“It was not in my nature to be an assertive person. I was used to looking to others for guidance, for influence, sometimes for the most basic cues of life. And yet writing stories is one of the most assertive things a person can do. Fiction is an act of willfulness, a deliberate effort to reconceive, to rearrange, to reconstitute nothing short of reality itself. Even among the most reluctant and doubtful of writers, this willfulness must emerge. Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying, ‘Listen to me.’”

—Jhumpa Lahiri

Issue 2015.32

• ‘An Invisible Tide’, Jo Thomas, illustrated by Christina Cartwright
• ‘Disconnected’, Vanessa Fogg, illustrated by Miguel Santos
• ‘Tessa’, Edward Ashton, illustrated by Lisa Grabenstetter
• ‘Trigger Point’, C.A. Hawksmoor, illustrated by Martin Hanford
• ‘After the New Dawn’, Joseph Tomaras, illustrated by Eric Asaris
• ‘Rustsong’, Sean R. Robinson, illustrated by Cécile Matthey

Download e-book version: PDF | EPUB | Mobi

Rate and review TFF #32 at Goodreads