Map of the Monsters of London (with giveaway!)

One not very well known fact about monsters is that they love cities. We tend to imagine them in caves and forests, but, really, when asked, most monsters confess that they quite enjoy the urban life. It maybe that they like window-shopping. Or it maybe because of their centuries-old fondness for buildings.

If you think about it, monsters really look at ease on top of grandiose monuments. Temples, churches, banks, bath houses. I guess they like to look down at us humans, walking on the streets. Some, you can tell, feel a sense of ownership of the building and look like they would do anything to protect it. Others know they were more of an aesthetic choice, so it’s another kind of vanity that you can read in their eyes. And there are some that look like they have been put there just to mock you. Or to make you smile.

There are very many of them, peacefully inhabiting our cities. You don’t believe me? If you live in London, just try looking around when you take a walk. I bet you will see at least two monsters that you never noticed before: on a big door knocker, on a statue in the park, to the sides of a gate. Unlike more rural kinds, city monsters really like to be seen. Actually, if you wave at them when you spot one, you’ll definitely make their day! We have decided to compile a map of the monsters of London, to see how many we can collect. At the moment, the map only shows the location of a tiny fragment of the very large family of London monsters, but we definitely hope to keep adding information. Feel free to browse it, to read the short news about our city monsters, to use it to organise monster-themed walks. Or, you could become a monster watcher yourself and help us spot city monsters in their natural  habitat (without disturbing them, of course!). You can join the Map of Monsters of London team by taking a picture of a monster anywhere in London and tweeting it with some geographical information (postcode or address) and the #MakingMonsters hashtag.

To the best picture of a London monster, the editors of the Making Monsters anthology will award an e-copy of their monstrously gorgeous book. Now, some simple rules to contribute to the map and participate to the give away

1. Don’t forget to use the #MakingMonsters hashtag otherwise we won’t see your tweet!
2. We only accept entries for monsters located in London. We will be delighted to see city monsters from other places, but they won’t be placed on the map (for obvious reasons) and won’t participate to the giveaway.
3. If you don’t live in London (or don’t have time for an excursion) you can always send us a pre-existing picture, as long as it has the appropriate copyright and credits.
4. What monsters do we want? All classical monsters like mermaids, sphinxes, dragons, chimeras, unicorns. But also green men, monstrous gargoyles, horned and goat-footed demons. And all hybrids. Yes, including angels.
5. If you could add a couple of lines of information about the monster you photographed that would be even more awesome.

So, let’s go out looking for monsters! I suspect they are all excited now! Check the dragons on old buildings, the mermaid on the local swimming pool logo, the gorgon painted on an old vase in a museum. We are especially interested in all ephemeral depictions of monsters that are doomed to disappear, like graffiti or advertising hoardings.

P:S: We didn’t manage to spot a Medusa yet. Can you?

Making Monsters: round-robin interview

The end of this week sees the release of our new publication Making Monsters: A Speculative and Classical Anthology, co-edited by Emma Bridges and containing a mix of fiction along with a few poems and essays. For the next few weeks we’ll be featuring posts from some of the authors, as well as appearing in interviews or guest appearances on other sites; we’ll share as many of these links here as we can. There will also be micro-interviews with almost all authors and editors on FB, games and giveaways on Twitter, and other fun to be had.

In the meantime, about half of the contributors have conducted a round-robin interview: each person asks a question of the next in the list, who replies and asks the next question. You’ll get the idea. If you want to hear more from any of these people, stay tuned!

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Djibril asks Emma Bridges:
In your introduction to Making Monsters you talk about how myths, and monster stories in particular, are and always have been mutable, flexible, ripe for retelling. Is there any limit to how far a story might have been recast, and still fit the mythic model?

Emma replies:
I’ve read and seen countless ‘receptions’ of ancient stories, and I’m always amazed by the ways in which writers and artists can bring something fresh to each new retelling. These myths never get tired, and I think that’s precisely because the possibilities for reinvention are almost limitless. I think a new story usually starts with a recognisable core at its heart, but after that the only limits are those imposed by the storyteller’s own imagination. Not every classical scholar or author of fiction would agree with me, I’m sure, but I’m of the opinion too that ultimately the reader or viewer doesn’t necessarily have to be familiar with the ancient tales, or to recognise what that core is, to take something meaningful from a new version of a story.

Emma asks George Lockett:
The Siren who tells her own story in ‘The Last Siren Sings’ says, “ours is not a song of pleasure. It is a song of power.” Do you think that, as a writer of fiction, you have a role to play in empowering those who have been marginalised or misunderstood?

George replies:
A key goal of fiction, particularly speculative fiction, is to ask interesting questions. Fiction that does not include or consider marginalised voices at this point in time is going to fail at asking those sorts of questions. I am a straight white man; if my writing does not make space for those who are ‘not like me,’ then it’s not fit for purpose, and only serves to centre a narrative perspective that’s been unjustly dominant for far too long. Marginalised and misunderstood voices need to be present in fiction, because to routinely omit them shows a huge lack of understanding of the world. More than that, omitting them harms the world.

’Empowering’ can be a tricksy term, though. It can imply an ‘uplifting,’ which still hinges on a certain power dynamic as being the ‘default,’ and puts undue burdens or limits on those characters that are part of marginalised groups or their fictional analogues. This is not the same as claiming their stories as my own, though. Not all stories are mine to tell.

I think writers of fiction have more than a role to play in amplifying these kinds of voices; they have a responsibility to do so.

George asks L. Chan:
I absolutely loved your story in the Making Monsters anthology, “Field Reports from the Department of Monster Resettlement.” It pulled me in quickly and then proceeded to tighten inexorably around me. You managed to skilfully incorporate details of the mythological background of the monsters from south-east Asian folklore without compromising on the pace of the story. Are there any other monsters you thought about including, or that were flitting around your brain while you were working on this story?

L. Chan replies:
The monsters for me had to reflect the different peoples in Singapore. And also had to be critically vulnerable in one way or another. Monsters living in fear of the vulnerabilities people give them was one of the themes I was playing with in the story. I had hoped to put in a monster from South Asia, perhaps a Naga or a Garuda, but they were more mythic than monstrous and didn’t really have Rosa’s fear of dying when she ventures out to feed. Five characters was plenty to write though!

L. Chan asks Hester J. Rook:
In “Aeaea By The Sea,” you chose to feature two classic Greek monsters—the witch Circe and the Gorgon Medusa, both famous for transforming men. How does the theme of transformation play into the story?

Hester replies:
I’ve always been fascinated by the theme of transformation, and find it plays out frequently in the stories and poems that I write. Greek mythology is full of examples of transformation used as punishment, or disguise, or protection—Actaeon’s transformation into a stag as punishment from Artemis, Zeus’s many transformations to seduce mortal women, and Daphne’s transformation into a laurel to escape a pursuer, for example. I find Circe and Medusa notable in that in certain ways they fall outside these categories. I find the Circe of book 10 of the Odyssey to be capricious and amoral, acting out the part of the evil witch with no real motive. Medusa’s transformative gaze is indiscriminate, and she does not choose who she transforms. In “Aeaea on the Seas” I wanted to show both characters’ motives and the way their transformative powers, and their own personal transformations, aid or disrupt their lives.

Hester asks Danie Ware:
For a myth that is often interpreted (rightly or wrongly) in a way that casts Persephone as a victim of circumstance and higher powers (Zeus, Demeter, Hades, etc), what was your intent in transforming the story so that Persephone is one of few characters with agency (albeit an agency that can only be displayed through subterfuge and trickery)?

Danie replies:
Persephone chooses to display her agency through trickery, a choice that reflects her intelligence and resourcefulness, and her complete understanding of her situation. I’ve always liked to think that the passion between Hades and Persephone was sincere—and that Demeter was the possessive and destructive influence, refusing to allow her daughter to associate with ‘the wrong type of man,’ no matter how much they may love each other. And if you’ve ever dealt with an overbearing parent, or someone who believes that they have the right/authority to direct you, confrontation is rarely the answer! In order to circumvent a bullying and didactic mother, she used her wits.

Danie asks Neil James Hudson:
Odysseus was said to be a very proud man. Was his desire to listen to the sirens made from pure vanity? Or was he a classical hero who loved daring and risk?

Neil replies:
It seems that the Homeric ideal of masculinity didn’t involve suppressing emotions. Odysseus is allowed to feel the excesses of fear, grief and love, and isn’t afraid to let the tears fall. In fact, as a hero, he seems to experience extremes of emotion not open to ordinary men; he’s an emotional, as well as physical, hero. And he seems capable of enduring extreme beauty as much as extreme hardship. I think Odysseus wants to experience beauty for its own sake; it’s as much a heroic goal as justice or duty.

My instinct is to analyse the Sirens in terms of gender, but I have to wonder if Odysseus (who seems to be as heterosexual as a Greek mythological figure ever gets) would have acted the same way if the Sirens had been male. I’m sure he would; beauty is beauty wherever it comes from.

I can’t imagine a modern-day action hero risking his life to experience the emotional extremes of perfect beauty; he’d be more likely to ignore or even destroy it to get on with the action. I think it makes our own myths seem a little thin in comparison.

So I don’t think Odysseus listens to the Sirens through either vanity or love of danger. I think his motives are pure, the same yearning for art and beauty we all have. And I think this is the point where I find him at his most heroic.

Neil asks Hûw Steer:
What monsters do you think we need protecting from today, and what have we got to protect us?

Hûw replies:
I think the most dangerous monsters we’ve got to deal with now are the ones in our own heads. Depression and anxiety are getting more and more common, and with all the awful stuff going on in the world it’s all too easy to let them sink their claws in. The best way to fight them is to not do it alone.

There’s also the Old Gods clawing at the edges of reality, but they’re always doing that. Best to just ignore them.

Hûw asks Valeria Vitale:
What’s the most disturbing thing you’ve created in Meshmixer?

Valeria replies:
This is an easy choice! In all my experience with 3D workshops, nothing compares to how creepy and unsettling was the creature that was born, in Meshmixer, during the “Why do we need Monsters?” event at the Institute of Classical Studies last October. I had prepared three menu-like lists of animal and human parts to mix and match, and the idea was to enable the audience to create their own digital 3D monster, in real time. I would manipulate the software, but the public would direct me, choosing the parts to be combined, but also dimensions, proportions and so on. I was expecting a funny hybrid at the end of the process, but what they made me do was absolutely disturbing. The creature had the body of a crocodile, a bald human head, and, on its forehead, a protruding cobra. Maybe it was the short crocodile legs that made it look like it was about to crawl on you, maybe it was the unnatural vacuum in the mannequin-like eyes. Or maybe it was just how darkly absurd was the snake on top of everything… but it was by far the most disturbing thing that ever came out of my computer. By the way, things got only worse when I 3D-printed it…

Valeria asks Tom Johnstone:
Your story reminds us that Medusa is, in the first place, a victim of an unjust punishment and, like Maddie—the protagonist of “Heart of Stone”—and many other women, she is blamed and shunned because of a man’s crime. How did you decide to focus on this aspect of Medusa’s myth?

Tom replies:
Funny you should ask this question, Valeria, because I think it was a conversation between us about this that sparked the idea for the story! We were discussing this anthology at the British Fantasy Society social, and I remembered I had a story that touched upon the Medusa myth, but was far too long for the guidelines. I also thought this version lacked clarity and focus. At some point during the conversation, Poseidon’s rape of Medusa in Athena’s temple and her subsequent transformation by the goddess as punishment came up. I think it was you who mentioned it in fact, so you can claim credit for the genesis of this story! It enabled me to sharpen up the story and get it down to the required length.

Tom asks Alexandra Grunberg:
The cup of tea in your piece gives a very personal, domestic feel to ‘The Banshee’. What drew you to that central image?

Alexandra replies:
To me, a cup of tea is a solitary image. It is a symbol of being alone, without necessarily the accompanying feelings of loneliness. In this manner, I felt like that image contrasted with the nature of the banshee, even if she can only see it as a reflection of her own loneliness. It also adds to the horror of the banshee, not just as a harbinger of doom, but as an invader of privacy. No one expects that they are being watched, about to be warned, when they are enjoying a late-night cup of tea.

Alexandra asks Barbara Davies:
Sirens have persisted as well-known monsters in the present day, with the “siren’s song” as a familiar warning. What do you think has caused the popularity of this musical monster, and what is it about the siren song that keeps it relevant to modern readers?

Barbara replies:
Lack of specifics about their appearance and the nature of their song, plus the way the epics never show us their point of view, mean the Sirens remain an irresistible mystery. And unlike some ‘monsters’, the beauty of their voices plus their female faces make them approachable. So there’s still plenty of scope for new stories, whether its redressing the lack of Sisterhood in the old tales or using siren song as a superpower.

Barbara asks Liz Gloyn:
Is there a ‘monster’ you feel has been overlooked/neglected and would like to see featured in a film or TV series?

Liz replies:
I’m always surprised that Echidna, Hesiod’s Mother of All Monsters, doesn’t get more airtime—Hercules: The Legendary Journeys makes her a recurring character, but other than that she’s pretty neglected. Maybe she’s just too monstrous a mother.

Liz asks Misha Penton:
How does “Eclipse,” your story in the anthology, fit into your larger interest in the monstrous feminine?

Misha replies:
I think of the monstrous feminine as superpowers or supernatural abilities—a woman physically hybrid or altered—from trauma? an innate difference? a cybernetic intervention?—something that is (at-first) perceived as weakness but is the source of her brilliant ferocity and wisdom. Relatedly, I’ve been reading a lot about Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending pottery with lacquer and gold: through the breakage something more magnificent than the original is revealed.

Misha asks Valentine Wheeler:
I love your image of wings hidden and pinned under a corset—what’s your favorite historical period to set your work within?

Valentine replies:
Most of what I’ve written has been near-contemporary or far-future, but I love the 1890s and would love to set something around then. There was so much change around the last few decades of the nineteenth century, especially in Boston, where I’ve lived for the last twelve years. I’m a big fan of subways and transit, and the construction of the Boston and New York subways systems was an incredibly ambitious undertaking that people ten years earlier had no inkling was coming.

A story needs infrastructure to feel real—transit, food, justice, politics, communication systems, et cetera—and without understanding how those things work, even if they don’t appear in the text, I don’t feel like the story has the meat it needs to land solidly with a reader. Subways changed so much of those basic processes in Boston so quickly, and I’m looking forward to exploring the changes in future works.

Valentine asks Djibril al-Ayad:
What defines a monster and what is the line separating monstrous from odd or unpleasant?

Djibril replies:
I’m not a big fan of definitions, preferring to be quite inclusive about genres and media and so forth… “I know it when I see it.” That said, when we talk about monsters I think we’re talking about things that transgress the boundaries—between human and animal, natural and unnatural, rational and inscrutable. Mythological monsters, unlike wild animals, have agency, have human or human-like or divine intelligence, but also have implacable violence and appetite. They’re terrifying because we recognize ourselves in them as well as seeing the alien elements that we can’t hope to reason with. The ineffably weird or mindless or hideous beast may be just as dangerous, just as unpleasant, but it isn’t as monstrous.

Of course, I’m sure there’s at least one exception to this definition in the anthology…

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All these authors and many more can be found in the pages of the Making Monsters anthology, available Sept 1 in print and e-book from most online booksellers.

Purchase links and reviews will be listed on the press page.

New Issue: 2018.46

“No eres ‘provida’ si permites que tus ideas morales y religiosas estén por encima de la seguridad de las mujeres.”

—Beatriz Serrano

Issue 2018.46

Short stories

• ‘A Whisper from the Waves’, Carrie Gessner (illustrated by Toeken)
• ‘Five Tales of the Rose Palace’, Ephiny Gale (illustrated by Martin Hanford)
• ‘Floaters’, Joe Baumann (illustrated by Jason Baltazar)
• ‘Requiem for Kingkillers and Queenmakers’, Andrea Tang (illustrated by Pear Nuallak)
• ‘Little Grey Weirdos’, Anna Ziegelhof (illustrated by Fluffgar)

Poetry

• ‘Echidna’, Stephen Whitehead (illustrated by Eric Asaris)
• ‘Daphne’s Grove’, Hayley Stone (illustrated by Joyce Chng)

Download e-book version: EPUB | Mobi

Full issue and editorial

Guest post: Write, then write, and write again.

Guest post by A. Poythress

Writing creatively for an assignment takes a certain sort of mindset. Assignments don’t care about whatever ideas are taking up your attention, or your hopes and dreams for what you write. Assignments exist to make you sit down and finish them, even if you despise them or think you don’t need them. And from what I’ve learned in my own MFA program experience, you will have more assignments than you will know what to do with, especially the ones you don’t want to do. I have deadlines and projects and tasks that hit me from every side and I don’t have time for anything else. I certainly don’t have time to think about what an assignment might become once I’ve finished it.

That’s where the title of this essay comes in. While I’m taking classes during the semester, I have no brain power for things like submissions or publishing. All I have the energy for is making sure I have the minimum page count met and my sources cited correctly in the bibliography. Getting the words out is what counts. My professors and classmates and cohort are all there to tell me what they think of them (and boy will they). Once a piece is out of me, to be perfectly honest, I don’t go back to it until the semester is over, unless it’s one of the very few “full movements” I write per semester. Not because I hate the piece or think it’s not worth my time, but because there is no time for it. Not with the next due dates looming over my head like some sort of academic guillotine.

That, I’ve found, is what summer breaks are for. Most MFA programs don’t seem to have summer classes, so you’ve got anywhere between two and four months (contingent on your program) to take all those assignments you sped through like your life depended on it and fix them up. To a lesser degree, you can do this during your winter breaks, but as you’ll probably only have a few weeks breathing room before the madness begins again, there might not be much you can get done. That’s okay. You should really take it. Burn out is a real thing and it’s really scary. Take breaks where you can, when you can. You won’t regret it. I certainly don’t.

When the summer after my first year as an MFA candidate started this past May, I had a list of twenty-two pieces from my two previous semesters that needed editing before they could be sent out for potential publication. That doesn’t count the three pieces I started but didn’t finish during that same time that I wanted to work on before the summer was up. They came from lists of assignments for my past classes. You might have that many, you might have more, or less. What matters is you have a pile of them, all sitting there waiting for you. But how do you take something that you had to hand in for credit and turn it into a piece someone might (potentially) pay you for?

For an assignment, I don’t look too closely at what I’m writing. I want to get the raw bones laid down. The structure. The foundation. I want to make sure my frame is there, so I can go back to it later and hang the details from the rafters (is that how you build a house? I’m a writer, not a carpenter, obviously. Carpenters are the ones who build houses, right?). I’m not worried about editing it more than to give a once-over to make sure there aren’t typos or glaring incongruities. It doesn’t matter that it’s not perfect-that’s not the point. What I care about is finishing it so that I can get feedback from my professors and fellow students that tells me if I’m heading in the right direction, or if I need to rethink things entirely.

Here are a bunch of quotes from much more famous and much better writers than I am:

• “The first draft is a skeleton…just bare bones. The rest of the story comes later with revising.” —Judy Blume
• “The first draft reveals the art; revision reveals the artist.” —Michael Lee
• “Don’t get it right—get it written.” —James Thurber
• “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” —Terry Pratchett

They’re all talking about first drafts of stories or novels, but it can be applied to school work as well! I think of all my assignments as my first draft-they don’t have to be anything other than my first go around. I don’t try to make them perfect. I don’t try to get them “just right.” I just finish them. Then I can come back and spiff them up later.

Once it’s time to sit with a piece and fix it so I can shop it out, I look at it with a very different eye. No longer am I looking at what my professor was expecting, or impressing one specific group with my wit and creativity. I want to make sure a broad audience can take it in and digest it and (hopefully) appreciate it. I can’t make it so esoteric that no one will understand it. I can’t think my “experimental” style that I played around with in the safety of the classroom will impress every magazine or publication. I have to take something rough and polish it to the point where other people will like it. We might say that we write for ourselves, first and foremost, but that’s cat dirt if you want to make a living with your craft.

"Friends" by Laura-Anca Adascalitei, © 2018.

Take “bite” for example. When I was initially writing it for my first workshop, I just wanted to make sure it fulfilled the requirement for a “full movement”: that there was a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that it met the ten-page minimum requirement. There were no other guidelines. I had the idea because I’d been working with my therapist a lot about my gender presentation and I’d bitten my lip in class on the day we first started working on the movement. That was it. I thought about a girl who couldn’t stop bleeding because she couldn’t be honest with herself, and then I wrote until I had a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s all I did with it, in that class. My professor had comments about it here and there that I noted, but didn’t have time to do anything about.

When I went back to it during my first winter break so I could potentially find it a home, I took those comments my professor gave me and I applied them. Could I heighten the isolation of Kat and the loneliness of her small town? Could I make her a more well-rounded character? Could I slow down in some places, speed up in others? Could I heighten the tension? These were all questions I had to ask and answer, because they were questions potential future readers would have. I wouldn’t be able to sit with them like I did my professor and fill in all the blanks for them. They had to be explicitly or implicitly stated in the piece, because it had to stand for itself, away from me and my explanations. While you can defend an assignment until you’re out of breath, once something is out for publication, there’s nothing more you can do for it.

For assignments, I am as wild and out there as I possibly can be, because I can justify myself there. That’s what that space is for. My professors have said flat out that they expect me to learn to see the box I feel most comfortable in and then kick down the walls. They don’t want me to simply produce the same piece again and again. We all have styles, no doubt, but you can always weave your style into something new and different. And maybe, when I’m being wild and crazy for my assignments, I can figure out something about myself and my writing I’ve never thought of before. That’s an amazing feeling. But when I’m trying to publish? I’ve had to learn to tailor my writing to the audience I want or the publication I’m vying for. That’s just how it goes, when you’re starting out. Maybe one day I’ll be famous enough that the New York Times will ask me for a short story, any story I’m willing to give them. Until then, I have to follow their guidelines and show them there’s a reason to give me a chance.

That doesn’t mean I’ve changed who I am or what I’ve written. A no doesn’t mean no forever in the literary world. It just means another potential for a yes somewhere else down the line. Having a strong sense of who you are as a writer is hard to find, I get that. It took until I started my MFA program to really understand who I was. Other people find it outside of academia. You have to let yourself be open to the process, whether that’s by going to school or through just putting yourself out there and learning on your own.

But I’ve also had to put in more work than I ever thought I could, since I decided I wanted to “make it” as a writer. I’ve had to work pieces until I never wanted to see them again in my life. I’ve had to swallow my pride and ask for help. I had to be willing to hear no a hundred times before I heard my first yes. And then the process repeats.

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A. Poythress is in their second year working towards an MFA in creative writing. They primarily write horror and fantasy stories about queer folk and women. You can find them shouting at the sun on Twitter at @ap_mess, or for updates you can go to their website, apoythress.com
  

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A. Poythress's short story “bite” appeared in The Future Fire #45, May 2018.

Interview with Petra Kuppers

It is our pleasure to welcome to the blog Petra Kuppers, author of The Road Under the Bay and River Crossing in TFF, and of Playa Song, part of our disability-themed anthology Accessing the Future. We asked Petra to tell us more about her work as disability activist and performance artist, and about her new publication Ice Bar; a collection of short stories on disability, LGBTQ experiences and the future; pain, myths and the body; climate change, access, and non-realist embodied and enminded difference in science fiction, fantasy, horror and literary work.

Petra Kuppers, an internationally active disability scholar and artist, is a recipient of the American Society for Theatre Research’s best dance/theatre book award, and the NationalWomen’s Caucus for the Arts’ Award for Arts and Activism. She received nominations for a Pushcart (from the Dunes Review) and for the Best of the Net Anthology (from Anomaly/Drunken Boat). Petra is a Professor of Performance Studies in the University of Michigan’s English and Women’s Studies Departments, and she teaches on the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College. She’s a disability culture activist, a wheelchair dancer, and a community performance artist.

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TFF: You are a professor of Performance Art and part of a performance and dance collective. Movement seems to be something very important in your life. How did it start?

Petra Kuppers: I think the fact that my love of movement has lasted into adulthood has to do with being a disabled woman of size who loves to move and be in her body! If everybody around you tells you, “this is not for you,” it’s quite easy to go all contrary and make that something the center of your life. That’s certainly the case with me. I remember being in my late teens in Germany, in hospital, waking up from one of my knee operations. The doctor told me “I am sorry, but you won’t dance again.” Maybe that doctor was doing me a weird kind of favor, offering me a challenge I could not resist. I continued to dance, explored Contact Improvisation, Butoh, Laban Creative Movement, and many somatic modalities. These days, I dance in a different form: five-minute dances, little engagements with specific environments, which then lead to dances with words. I often free-write after movement, and these little site-specific movement/writing nuggets become the seed of a story. That’s the way most Ice Bar stories were born. Site-specificity is still central to most of the stories: sitting on a wheelchair ramp in Grand Rapids, Michigan, by the Rio Grande in New Mexico, or on a barrier island in Georgia.

The Olimpias: The Asylum Project  at Judson
Church/Movement Research. Photo Ian Douglas

TFF: Do you think that performing on stage holds a particular value for people belonging to minorities and marginalised communities?

PK: Yes. On stages, we can show ourselves as well as the wider world our own beauty, pain and depth. I am mainly a street/park performer, which means that I work with fellow disabled people in public environments rather than on stages and in galleries. So few disabled people have (cultural) access to those spaces. Having fun while disabled in public feels like a very powerful way of shifting stereotypes around disability. The same is true with fiction: disabled authors tend to write about everyday life differently from someone ‘imagining’ what it would be like to be disabled. Non-disabled people often make a particular disability (and often its cure) a major plot point. Few disabled writers do that in the same way… for most of us, disability is part of our make-up, not the central feature of it. We can get on with character and plot development in a different way, if we are not caged in by non-disabled stereotypes. We can have fun… in stories as well as on stages.

TFF: Reading praise for your upcoming collection Ice Bar, I was fascinated by the adjectives used to describe your style: “gemlike”, “psychedelically nightmarish”, “gritty”, “fabulist” and many more. What is the most unexpected description of your writing that you have come across?

PK: What an excellent (as unexpected) question! One of my readers wrote in an Amazon review about me being ‘an explorer.’ That seemed a fabulous and surprising way of thinking about what I am doing in Ice Bar: I write as an ethnographer of disability culture, approaching new forms (poetry/performance/dance/fiction) all the time in my ongoing journey to chart cultural ways of understanding difference…with ’disability’ being just one of these borderzones of difference.

TFF: In all three of your Ice Bar stories originally published by TFF, water seems to become a space for transition, either into other places or into other identities and states of mind. Many of the stories in your anthology also explicitly reference to water—what makes this such an interesting and flexible narrative setting?

PK: This goes back to being a disabled woman. I live with pain and fatigue, and water is my dancerly medium. That’s where I can move, can shift my heavy body easily, can gyrate and twist in the ways I want. It’s my science fiction fantasy of low gravity! When I was a little one, my mother, who also had a pain-related disability, would go to thermal springs to help her pain, and I have inherited that habit. I will travel far for a good warm mineral soak for my aching bones. During the writing of the Ice Bar stories, a different kind of water pain was also with me: the protest actions around the oil pipelines, water protectors, in particular the indigenous women who walked the rivers and reminded all of us of our dependence and love for life-giving water. Each day I wrote Ice Bar, I checked in with their news stories and Facebook pages, and joined the protests in my own way.

TFF: The stories in Ice Bar seem to explore a larger than usual range of genres. Was that a deliberate experiment or did you just follow your multiform literary inspiration?

PK: It was deliberate. I love reading horror and dark fantasy, but it’s sometimes hard to be a feminist and queer woman and do that with real enjoyment. So I looked to feminist, queer, solarpunk, afrofuturist and other inspirations, and wrote myself into the interstices of genres, from cli-fi to science fiction and fairy tale retelling, from fabulist erotics to contemporary myth-making. All slippery genres which I approached from social justice perspectives. One of the books I had with me a lot during the writing of Ice Bar was Octavia’s Brood—that’s the kind of meta-genre and community work that inspired me.

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Thank you Petra for being our guest. We wish you the best of luck and we look forward to read all the stories in Ice bar!

Invitation: Making Monsters book launch

Please join us to celebrate the launch of this speculative and classical anthology from Futurefire.net Publishing and the Institute of Classical Studies.

Thursday September 6th 2018, 6-7.30pm.

2nd floor lobby, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU.

Dress: Monster-themed costumes are encouraged!

RSVP: ics.sas.ac.uk/events/event/16433

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

New issue: 2018.45

“Révolutionnaires, nous l’étions, hommes et femmes, animés par une telle force de volonté, et une telle volonté de force.”

—Maya Jribi

Issue 2018.45

Flash fiction

• ‘The Good Wife’, Rebecca Buchanan (illustrated by Pear Nuallak)

Short stories

• ‘Where Thorns Can Grow’, Meryl Stenhouse (illustrated by Katharine A. Viola)
• ‘Bite’, A. Poythress (illustrated by Laura-Anca Adascalitei)
• ‘They Built the New Jerusalem on the Ruins of the Old’, William Squirrell (illustrated by Rachel Linn)
• ‘An Argument in a World Full of Wonders’, Omi Wilde (illustrated by Toeken)
• ‘When Dessa Danced’, Donyae Coles (illustrated by Saleha Chowdury)

Poetry

• ‘Mermaid's Comb’, Colleen Anderson (illustrated by Cécile Matthey)

Download e-book version: EPUB | Mobi

Full issue and editorial

Making Monsters table of contents

Last month we revealed the cover art for the Making Monsters anthology (and which is so lovely, we're giving you it here again—huge thanks to the amazing Robin Kaplan for creating the poignant "Lonely Gorgon"). Now we want to share and celebrate the wonderful authors, poets and critics who make up the table of contents of this volume. As you can see below, there are fifteen short stories, three poems, and six short essays (in addition to introduction and afterword) on the theme of ancient monsters; rethinking, reimagining and retelling their stories.

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Table of Contents:

• Introduction – Emma Bridges
• Danae – Megan Arkenberg
• The Last Siren Sings – George Lockett
• Field Reports from the Department of Monster Resettlement – L. Chan
• Calling Homer's Sirens (essay) – Hannah Silverblank
• Aeaea on the Seas – Hester J. Rook
• To the Gargoyle Army (poem) – H.A. Eilander
• Water – Danie Ware
• Monsters of the World (essay) – Margrét Helgatdóttir
• A Song of Sorrow – Neil James Hudson
• Helen of War (poem) – Margaret McLeod
• The Vigil of Talos – Hûw Steer
• The Monster in Your Pocket (essay) – Valeria Vitale
• A Heart of Stone – Tom Johnstone
• The Banshee – Alexandra Grunberg
• The Giulia Effect – Barbara Davies
• Caught in Medusa's Gaze (essay) – Liz Gloyn
• The Eyes Beyond the Hearth – Catherine Baker
• Eclipse – Misha Penton
• The Origin of the Different (essay) – Maria Anastasiadou
• Justice Is a Noose – Valentine Wheeler
• Siren Song (poem) – Barbara E. Hunt
• The Tengu's Tongue – Rachel Bender
• Ecological Angst and Encounters with Scary Flesh (essay) – Annegret Märten
• When Soldiers Come – Hunter Liguore
• Afterword – Mathilde Skoie

I can't wait to share the contents with you, but you'll have to wait until September when it goes on sale. (Review copies and sneak previews a little sooner.)

Interview with Michael Lujan Bevacqua

In the last in our series of five interviews with Pacific authors, we are joined by Michael Lujan Bevacqua. Michael talks to us about his story, about decolonising his home island of Guam, and about the importance of language and heritage.

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Michael Lujan Bevacqua is an assistant professor of Chamorro Studies at the University of Guam, where he teaches courses on the indigenous people of the Marianas Islands, the Chamorros and their language and culture. He is a passionate advocate for the revitalization of the Chamorro language and the decolonization of his island of Guam, which remains a colony of the United States. His academic work has been published in the journals American Quarterly, Micronesian Educator and Marvels and Tales. He is a member of Guam’s Commission on Decolonization and is frequently invited by the United Nations Committee of 24 to testify as an expert on the state of affairs in Guam at its annual regional seminars. With his siblings, they started a creative company, The Guam Bus in 2015, which publishes Chamorro language and Guam focused children’s books and comics.

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TFF: How would you describe the taotaomo’na, who appear in your Pacific Monsters story, “I Sindålu” or “the soldier”? What should we do if we ever meet one?

MLB: They can take any form, but you usually know if one is around you because there will be an overwhelming presence around you. This can sometimes feel like a strong, but invisible pressure, or for most people it is an abnormally potent smell. They can assume very natural forms and look like trees, but they can also appear in human form. One of the most frightening things about them if they appear in human is that they tend to not have heads, but instead an empty neck.

If you meet a taotaomo’na, make sure you are respectful, but they usually make themselves known in response to people being disrespectful in sacred or natural areas. This is important because sometimes the spirits don’t quite know their own supernatural state. Some of them may think they are still alive and if they touch you they may inadvertently curse you.

In “I Sindålu”, the protagonist is a Chamorro man who joined the US military. Can you tell us more about the complicated relationship between the island of Guam and the US army?

Guam is an island of just 212 sq. miles. 1/3 of those 212 sq. miles is US military Navy and Air Force Bases. Guam has been a vital asset for the US in maintain its interests in Asia since it was taken from the Spanish in 1898. Troops and bombs have been fed through Guam to US conflicts in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East today. Military commanders and strategists have referred to Guam as “The Tip of the Spear” because of what it represents in terms of projection force into Asia and defending American interests in the Pacific.

The Chamorro relationship to the US and its military is complicated because of how this heavily militarized state has come about. Chamorros, as a people feel a great deal of gratitude to the US for its role in expelling the Japanese who brutally occupied the island for 32 months during World War II. Each year the island celebrates the American return as “Liberation Day” and that experiences allowed Chamorros to develop feelings of patriotism to what in other terms would be their colonizer. But the US took advantage of Chamorro gratitude to seize 2/3 of the island illegally. Chamorros who waved American flags to celebrate the return of American troops were within months being forced off their farms to see them bulldozed to make runways and Quonset huts. Many Chamorros were willing to give up their lands while the US was still at war with Japan, but most of these land-takings took place after hostilities had ended. This experience is compounded by other programs and policies of Americanization in the island that have attacked the Chamorro language and traditional Chamorro culture. So while Chamorros serve in the US military in large per capita numbers for such a small ethnic group, and enjoy the opportunities it provides, they also remain angered over the historic and continuing treatment of their people.

Is there a distinctive quality to SF/F stories written by Chamorro authors?

Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of science fiction Chamorro stories, but there are an increasing number of Chamorro fiction writers. One of the interesting thing about these emerging writers, is how they write almost exclusively about the past, as in historical fiction. Few of them engage with Guam or the Pacific as it is today, and none, with the exception of my work, talk about the future. This in many ways represents the modern trap in which indigenous people often find themselves. Your vitality belongs to the ancient past and as you move through time, you are always losing your culture, your essence and on the verge of dying out. For me, this anxiety that indigenous people feel from being ensnared in the modern gaze makes fertile ground for fiction however. Even though I’m a historian as an academic, I don’t delve much into historical fiction, but instead love to challenge notions of the inevitable indigenous extinction.

What do you think about the relationship between a group’s cultural heritage and its representation in popular culture products like comics?

For me this is an essential link in terms of cultural revitalization and indigenous empowerment. One person who influenced me quite a bit was the late Chamorro author Jose Mata Torres. He had a classical music program for decades on Guam, which was notorious for his speaking about Bach, Beethoven and Brahms in the Chamorro language. Much of the media in Guam is in English, and so his program stood out as unique. Before he passed away I talked to him about his motivations. He said that as a young man, he had attended college in upstate New York, which was as different from Guam as he could imagine. He felt isolated and alone, but one thing that spoke to him was classical music. He would listen to it and it would make him feel as home, it spoke to him in a special way. He said that it was in his heart and his heart was Chamorro and so the best way he could express himself was to use the language of his heart and the music of his heart together. The prevalence of Western popular culture in Guam makes it so that the ways in which we have to speak to youth in particular has shifted, and so I feel that adapting things is essential in keeping things vital and active in terms of identity and culture.

You are also involved in the publication of children books and comics in the Chamorro language. Does this endeavor in particular have an educational goal?

In 1941, 100% of the Chamorro people could speak Chamorro. Today the number hovers around 20% and this is primarily elders. The language was lost in my own family, as I didn’t grow up speaking the language and neither did my mother. I did end up learning the language as an adult through my grandparents and it changed my perspective and life entirely. Since then, I only speak to my own children in Chamorro and became a teacher of the language at the University of Guam. My goal is to create media to support children like my own in their learning, to increases the chances of the language thriving for future generations.

Decolonising a country is a long process. If you think of cultural products on offer in Guam when you were a teenager and now, do you see any encouraging changes?

We are already seeing the impact of efforts that are locally referred to as a “Chamorro renaissance.” After centuries of cultural attacks by various colonizers that left Chamorros without much of a sense of pride in their heritage, this is starting to shift. The creation of art, music, literature and other types of media that reflects more the Chamorro perspective or aspects of the continuum of Chamorro existence has led for a greater sense of desire amongst youth to learn their heritage and to embrace their language. This heightened sense of Chamorro consciousness about their history and their place in the world has also helped to foment movements for change in Guam’s political status. At present Guam is a territory or a colony of the US, and the majority of people today wish for a change in that status to something more beneficial for the island and its people.

What is the first thing that you teach to your students about Chamorro heritage?

That their choices shape the culture in which they will live their lives, and therefore pass down to their children. In a community of millions of people, the choices of 100 don’t necessarily affect the fate of all. But if you are a community of around 200,000 worldwide, where only 20% speak your native language, whether or not you decide to teach it to your children or learn it yourself makes a huge difference. The same goes for a variety of cultural forms. The culture isn’t being maintained by some amorphous government bureaucracy. It is being maintained or lost by the choices each of our families make.

If you were a taotaomo’na, who would you haunt?

Probably the US military. They have a reputation lately for wanting to target historic and culturally significant sites for their construction projects. I would want to make that process a bit spookier if I could.

Do you remember the name of the protagonist of the very first story you wrote?

When we were young, my brother and I tried to create our own fictional universe akin to Marvel or DC. We made a lot of random and obviously very derivative characters, but one of my favorites was a warrior named “Nomad Shredder.” He was an archer whose mouth had been sown shut long ago and no one knew what he had done to deserve the punishment.

What is your favourite optimistic science fiction work?

Before I became a father I would have answered differently, but when my daughter was born, I was reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy and even though it is depressing and dystopian, it will always remind me of the importance of sharing a bond with my children.

What would be the most important thing for you to hold onto if civilization started to break down in your city?

The ability to drink clean water.

What do you think future archaeologists will think of our century?

I feel embarrassment just thinking about it.

What are you working on next? What can people who enjoyed your story in Pacific Monsters look for to read more?

They can check out our website theguambus.com. We have another comic in our Makåhna series coming out later this year.

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You can read Michael’s graphic story “I Sindålu” in Pacific Monsters.

Making Monsters cover reveal

The Making Monsters anthology now has a full complement of stories, poems and essays, and will very shortly be producing the first ARCs (with a scheduled release date of Sept 1, 2018). All of the authors are listed at the press page, and we plan to post the full table of contents very soon, once all contracts are signed. In the meantime, although this is something of an open secret, let’s have the official cover reveal here…

As you’ll immediately recognize if you’re as much of a fan of her work as we are, this is an expanded version of Robin Kaplan (aka “The Gorgonist”)’s Lonely Gorgon, which you can buy as a poster print from her Etsy store. We’ve worked with Robin before, and she produced the covers of our Outlaw Bodies and Accessing the Future anthologies, as well as half a dozen issues of The Future Fire over the years. This is the most appropriate cover image for all sorts of reasons—I’ll let you read the anthology and figure out why for yourselves!

Interview with Tihema Baker

One more visit from an author with a story in the Pacific Monsters anthology published by our friends at Fox Spirit Books and edited by Margrét Helgadóttir. We always love hearing from authors, and Tihema Baker was kind enough to answer a few questions about his writing, culture and literature in Aotearoa New Zealand, translation and childhood fears. Read on, and then go check out his fabulous published work.

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Tihema Baker is a young Māori writer, belonging to the iwi (nations) of Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Te Āti Awa ki Whakarongotai, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. He grew up and lives on the Kāpiti Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand. He currently works full-time at Parliament in Wellington as Private Secretary to the Minister for Crown/Māori Relations. He is the author of Watched, a YA novel about teenagers with superpowers, which was a finalist for Best Youth Novel at the Sir Julius Vogel Awards 2015, and earned a finalist position in the Best New Talent category at the same awards. He also has a short story published in Huia Short Stories 10 called “Kei Wareware Tātou”; which won Best Short Story in te reo Māori (the Māori language) at the Pikihuia Māori Writers Awards 2013. He is on Facebook as Tihema Baker - Author, and blogs at Tihema's Dilemmas.

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TFF: Could you tell us more about the Patupaiarehe people who appear in your Pacific Monsters story? What would usually happen when the human characters like those in your story “Children of the Mist” meet them?

Tihema Baker: Accounts vary between iwi and regions, but I guess the fairly common threads between them all are that Patupaiarehe are an ancient people who inhabit the mountains and forests of Aotearoa New Zealand and are believed to have done so since before Māori arrived somewhere around 1000-1200AD. Sightings of them are almost always at night or under the cover of mist, and they are characterised as fair-skinned and -haired, which is where we get the term “Urukehu” from; in older times fair-skinned and -haired Māori were believed by some to be the offspring of human-Patupaiarehe relationships and they were referred to as Urukehu, literally meaning “red-haired.” Similarities between accounts probably stop there; I’ve heard stories of Patupaiarehe being giants, or walking on legs like rabbits’. In some stories Patupaiarehe were kind to humans, showed them how to hunt and fish, and even fell in love with them—and vice versa. In darker stories Patupaiarehe weren’t kind to humans at all, bewitching them with cruel magic. Wherever the truth lies, I think any encounter with them should be treated with respect.

Is there a tradition of Māori science fiction, fantasy or horror (books, films, or other media)? Does Māori literature influence New Zealand culture more widely very much?

I’m not aware of a real tradition of Māori speculative fiction. In my personal opinion, there exists in Aotearoa New Zealand a hierarchy within Māori literature, and Māori speculative fiction is at the bottom. Our big name Māori writers—and I do not say this to undermine them in any way—are not typically speculative fiction writers. I’ve personally found it difficult as a Māori writer to find support for my speculative fiction writing and I believe this to be because the genre is not taken seriously by the Māori literary community at large. As an example, my sci-fi novel Watched was a Best Youth Novel finalist at the Sir Julius Vogel Awards for science fiction, fantasy, and horror, yet the publisher—our leading publisher of Māori literature—declined to take on the sequel. It’s not a criticism but just the reality I’ve experienced as a Māori writer of speculative fiction.

Do you think that any kind of story could be told to children or young adults or are there limits?

I thought for a while about this. My first reaction was yes, there are limits. But then I thought about my childhood/adolescence and remembered that I was reading things I probably wasn’t supposed to years in advance. I don’t mean that in an arrogant way; I mean it in the way that, as children typically are, I was hungry to “know” things. At times, that hunger for knowledge led me to things that my parents probably would have preferred I come across at a later stage in life. I guess my point is that I think we sometimes underestimate the ability of young people to understand what we do as adults or grasp certain concepts. That doesn’t mean I think we should tell all sorts of gruesome stories to children, but just respect their ability to understand, to show empathy. I think it’s about how you tell a story, not necessarily the story itself.

Do you translate your own stories from Māori to English? How different do they feel to you afterwards?

I don’t actually write primarily in te reo Māori. The reason for this is, while I have a decent understanding of the language, I’m still far from what I would consider to be fluent. When I write I need to be able to express myself as fully as I can, and unfortunately my proficiency with te reo Māori is just not yet at a stage that allows me to do that. What I will say, though, is that I often have to translate things from Māori to English for colleagues in my day-to-day work. I find te reo Māori to be a very poetic, metaphoric language, and one of the beautiful things about it—like any other language, I assume—is that ideas are often expressed in ways they just can’t be in English. This can make translating from Māori to English challenging when there just aren’t the words to describe a fundamentally “Māori” idea, or when the depth of that idea or word is lost in English. I think in those instances the Māori word should just be left as is—there are plenty of phrases in other languages that English has adopted because they need no translation, so maybe we should do that for Māori phrases more often too!

Could you give an example of such an untranslatable word?

A good example is the word “mana”—common translations would be “authority”, “prestige”, “respect”, or even “power”. Those single words don’t convey the depth of the concept, though; in my view (and I stress I am not an expert, and my understanding may be very different from those far more knowledgeable than I am), one can have great mana but not necessarily respect, or have great mana but no authority. It's relative, and one person's mana may always trump another's depending on the circumstances and/or the relationship between the two. Mana is inherited but it can also be bestowed—and removed, sometimes irrevocably. It's a spiritual concept just as much as it is societal, and there are different expressions of it; mana wahine describes the mana specifically held by women, while mana whenua refers to those who have mana over land or a certain geographical area. Land itself can be perceived to have mana, as can water. I’ve just written a paragraph and I’m still probably miles away from giving it an accurate description! But when you understand the meaning that the word "mana" encapsulates, you also understand why it can't be translated.

If you could choose a superpower for yourself, which one would you pick?

I get asked this all the time and I’m afraid I have a very clichéd answer! I would love the ability to fly. I don’t care how: gravity- or wind-manipulation, shape-shifting, I’ll take anything that gets me airborne.

Illustration by Eugene Smith,
for “Children of the Mist” (Pacific Monsters)

What is the oldest memory you have?

My oldest memory is of my mum. I must have been about three years old; I walked into my bedroom, where I think Mum was sitting on my bed, folding clothes, and went up to her for a cuddle.

I don’t think I’ve shared this before but I actually have another very early, bizarrely vivid memory from around the same age. It was the moment I realised my own mortality. I just remember sobbing to my mum with the realisation that one day, inevitably, I was going to die and I didn’t want to. She did her best to console me by saying that I had a long, happy life ahead of me before then. She also said that everybody dies, and one day she will too. That didn’t make me feel better. I don’t know why that memory is so clear; maybe that was a life-defining moment, or maybe I was just a weird kid. Probably both.

What is your favorite progressive SFF movie or TV show?

Black Mirror has to be one of my favourite shows, hands-down. It often makes me feel uncomfortable, makes me think about our society and our future, and makes me confront things about myself I probably don’t want to. But that’s the great thing about it. It makes me think. Any piece of art that makes someone question their understanding of the world (and in some episodes, reality!) is great, in my opinion.

Can I also branch out a little bit; I’m a gamer, too, and I believe video games are quickly becoming a powerful art form in their own right. In terms of progressive SFF games, it’s hard to go past the Mass Effect series (or anything from Bioware, really). It’s one thing to have a well-written story supported by excellent characters and engaging gameplay mechanics, but another when that story is dictated by the player, who can customise their character however they wish, pursue romances with characters of any gender, both human and alien, and whose actions have consequences that carry across games. It’s a series that forces players to make choices, and live with the effects of those decisions on themselves and others. There hasn’t really been another video game experience that has stayed with me in the same way that my character and my decisions in that game have.


What are you working on next-what can fans of your writing look forward to?

My immediate priority is getting my second novel, the sequel to Watched, published. I have a completed manuscript so now it’s just a matter of finding a publisher. I’ve also just started work on the third and I’m really enjoying it! Aside from that I have some other ideas I’d like to dedicate more time and research to; a historical novel exploring the relationships between my three iwi in the 1800s, and I’d also love to write something fantastical set in space.

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You can find Tihema’s story “Children of the Mist” in Pacific Monsters, and his novel Watched from Huia Books.