Lightspeed Magazine Issue 36

by Eleanor Arnason

  This story’s setting is rich in culture and theology, with an unusual funeral custom. What can you tell us about the creation of this world?

  When it came time to write this story I had a bit of a head start, because the world Akan inhabits already existed. I first wrote about it in a novel called A Warrior of Dreams. The culture is based on a premise you’ll find in Hindu mythology, among other places, that what we call the universe is simply a god’s dream. In this case, it’s the dream of a goddess named Somna, with a lover/antagonist called Gahon who is forever trying to wake her up so she can pay attention to him. The catch is that he has to do this from within the dream itself without letting Somna know that he’s the one who did it—she’s rather fond of this dream. All magic in this universe requires the manipulation of the fabric of the dream itself, which makes it an extremely dangerous thing to do, much to Gahon’s delight. In this story, we meet Gahon in the temple scene.

  You explore the themes of love, loyalty, and promises. Akan makes a difficult choice and pays a high price for it. Are choice and consequence ideas you tend to explore in your fiction?

  Constantly, and no doubt because they are issues I’m still trying to get a handle on myself, touching as they do on both the notion of free will versus destiny and how we at once fear and hope for a rational universe. People say the only certainties of life are death and taxes, but I’d add choices and consequences. All choices have consequences. Whether they are good or bad depends entirely on our perspective, but regardless of the outcome, we are not excused from making those choices. The problem is that we are very seldom aware of the actual consequences beforehand. We like to think we make informed decisions about our lives and careers and our relationships with others, but in truth most of the time we’re flying blind.

  “… best not to leave the choosing of your bride to chance. That gives the Forces of Gahon too much room to play.” Does this line foreshadow the outcome of Akan’s night at the temple?

  It’s a tenet of this society that “chance” is the thread from which Gahon weaves his traps. So they tend to be a little regimented in their outlook, or at least try to be, to avoid doing anything that gives Somna’s Adversary room to work. The irony of Akan’s night in the temple is that he meets Gahon instead of Somna, but at the same time Gahon doesn’t “trick” or mislead him. He simply tells Akan what he already knows, but doesn’t want to acknowledge.

  Is there anything else you’d like to share about this piece? What’s next for you?

  Only that I hope the readers enjoy it. As for what happens next, I’ve got a few things in the pipeline. Prime Books just brought out the first Lord Yamada Collection, Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter,in January,and PS Publishing is scheduled to release the first Yamada novel, To Break the Demon Gate, in November. I’m currently at work on the second Yamada novel, which I hope to have finished by early next year.

  Jude Griffin is an envirogeek, writer, photographer, and an expert in learning and knowledge management. She cannot parallel park, lies about how far she runs in the morning, and has a tin ear—transforming her goal to learn bird calls more subtle than a blue jay’s into a Sisyphean struggle. But hope chirps eternal.

  Kevin McNeil reads slush for Lightspeed Magazine and is an editorial assistant for Nightmare Magazine. He is a physical therapist, sports fanatic, and volunteer coach for the Special Olympics. He graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2012 and The Center for the Study of Science Fiction’s Intensive Novel Workshop, led by Kij Johnson, in 2011. Kevin is a New Englander currently living in California. Find him on Twitter @kevinmcneil.

  Author Spotlight: Damien Walters Grintalis

  Christie Yant

  “Always, They Whisper” was tough to read. I think there are an awful lot of readers out there who are going to identify with what is a very common experience for women in particular. How did the ideas of contemporary street harassment, sexual assault, and the plight of Medusa collide for you to produce this story?

  I was reading yet another article about sexual assault and the comments were dreadful. (No, I usually don’t read the comments; I’m honestly not even sure why I did that day.) There is so much stigma, so much blame, and it all gets shifted onto the victim’s shoulders. They become scapegoats and villains, bearing all the culpability so the real villain can retain an air of false respectability. She shouldn’t have teased him, she shouldn’t have done this or worn that. Ugh. It’s an ugly truth that’s everywhere. Always. In turn, that external blame becomes internal. Why did we go out? Why did we wear that? My fault, my fault, my fault—an ever-present litany of wrongly-placed blame.

  Later that same day, I saw a picture of Medusa that someone posted on Facebook, something clicked in the word machine in my head, and the first paragraph came out in a rush. I wrote the rest of the italicized portions, but since I knew I wanted to set the story in modern times, it took a few drafts to get the rest of it to fall into place.

  I was fascinated by the elixir; the idea of disguising herself, of deliberately becoming invisible, was one that really resonated with me from my teens and early adulthood. What left me thinking hard after I finished reading was that for Medusa, it stopped working. Can you tell us more about that metaphor and how it went in that direction?

  Women learn at an early age that whenever we go out, we open ourselves up to the possible risk of harassment. A lot of men think that catcalls and such are flattering, but, in truth, they can be alarming and often escalate into frightening, e.g., when it becomes a demand of sorts—Hey, I’m talking to you. Why won’t you talk to me?

  For me, Medusa’s elixir was the metaphorical equivalent of no makeup, sweats, and a disheveled ponytail. Walking with your head down and shoulders hunched so as not to capture anyone’s attention.

  The elixir provided her with the peace of being able to walk freely without harassment; when it stopped working, I was alluding to the fact that, unfortunately, no matter what you wear, no matter how old you are, you can’t hide. And to some, your very existence is an open invitation for their attention, regardless of whether or not that attention is wanted.

  Medi’s snakes were part of her curse, but their whispered voices could also be considered the enforcers of it—in that sense, I wonder if it’s even fair to consider them “her” snakes. When she tried to free herself of them, it caused her physical pain. Where is the line between the snakes’ voices and her own, or between the snakes and herself?

  To me, the snakes represented the internal voice we all have. In Medi’s case, that voice was turned against her, and the snakes became separate entities of their own, feeding her a steady stream of what they demanded she believe.

  She had to reach a point where she was strong enough to recognize that the snakes were filling her with bullshit and lies, strong enough to shed the blame and reclaim her sense of security, of self. I loved the concept of taking the emotional pain of healing and turning it corporeal.

  Your novel Ink was recently launched by Samhain Publishing—the book is about a tattoo that has a sinister life independent of its host. Tattoos are such personal things that permanently alter our appearance, and in Jason’s case that part of his appearance betrays him. In that sense, Jason has something in common with Medi. Is this a theme that you explore often in your work?

  I don’t consciously write with any themes in mind, yet as a woman, the concept of appearances, being judged by or the betrayal of, is inescapable. I think mostly, though, I’m drawn to emotionally fragile people. Everyone has ghosts and I like to explore what happens when those ghosts finally come knocking at the door, demanding attention.

  In Jason’s case, it’s the result of a bad decision made when he’s caught beneath the dark cloud of a dysfunctional relationship’s abrupt ending. He’s developed internal blinders to avoid seeing how broken he really is, which makes him ripe for the tattoo artist’s taking.

  In addition to your novel, you’ve had an impressive number of short stories published in
the past year or two. What else can we look forward to seeing from you, and what are you working on next?

  I have more short fiction forthcoming in Apex Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Shimmer, and Shock Totem, dark explorations about relationships, the fragility of memory, congenital analgesia, and the ghosts of grief, respectively.

  My agent has my next novel in her capable hands, I have two others that need editing, and I’m in the early stages of another that, thus far, is about six families coping with loss that they’re unaware is connected in a dark, supernatural way. It’s the first novel I’ve written that has a very large cast of POV characters, which is both exciting and daunting.

  Christie Yant is a science fiction and fantasy writer and habitual volunteer. She has been a “podtern” for Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, an Assistant Editor for Lightspeed Magazine, audio book reviewer for Audible.com, occasional narrator for StarShipSofa, and co-blogger at Inkpunks.com, a website for aspiring and newly-pro writers. Her fiction has appeared in magazines such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, and Fireside Magazine, and in anthologies including The Way of the Wizard, Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011, and Armored. She lives in a former Temperance colony on the central coast of California, where she sometimes gets to watch rocket launches with her husband and her two amazing daughters.

  Author Spotlight: Holly Black

  Jude Griffin

  I loved this work from the moment I read the title. Given the richness of the Aarne-Thompson classification system, was it difficult not to put more in the story?

  First of all, thank you so much! But, actually, I came to the title much later in the story than you did—long about the time that I realized that the performers had to be performing something and also that I needed to eventually title the story—so it had already evolved a really defined shape. It was a story I lucked into, one where I had an idea for the beginning and I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going until I got there.

  Is the mermaid’s line about her comb working on “even the most matted fur” a signal that she recognizes Nadia as a supernatural creature?

  Yes. I wanted them to be trying to signal to her that they knew, but she’s been alone too long to hear it.

  Nadia is the only clearly supernatural creature in the story. Why did you choose to make the truth of the nature of the other characters more difficult to discern?

  I wanted Nadia not to quite be able to see the opportunity for community around her, so I wanted to show it in subtle—but not too subtle—ways. She’s so locked within herself that she can’t see when she is among her tribe.

  The use of the present tense to tell the story feels so right. Was this always the choice for the story or did it happen in revisions?

  I started telling the story in present tense almost from the beginning because present tense can be really distancing in interesting ways for me. It allows a character to exist in a perpetual now, looking neither backwards nor forwards. And for a character like Nadia, who is trying incredibly hard to not think backwards or forwards, it really fits.

  At the end when Nadia transforms on stage, why must she brace herself for the audience’s applause?

  I must have tweaked that line a dozen times at least, but finally I decided that Nadia has done a brave thing, by showing her true self and being her true self, but she’s still vulnerable and raw and even acceptance is going to feel scary at first. Does that make sense? I also think that the audience rising up is scary, even if it is just to clap their hands. There is something about it that feels threatening—all that noise, all that attention—and, of course, since the story stops where it does, we’re never entirely sure that all they do is applaud. I mean, I don’t think they get their pitchforks out and storm the stage, but we’re not sure. And that lack of surety is also part of what makes her brace herself.

  Jude Griffin is an envirogeek, writer, photographer, and an expert in learning and knowledge management. She cannot parallel park, lies about how far she runs in the morning, and has a tin ear—transforming her goal to learn bird calls more subtle than a blue jay’s into a Sisyphean struggle. But hope chirps eternal.

  Author Spotlight: Dennis Danvers

  Robyn Lupo

  This is a fresh look at the end of the world; how did you get there? What problems did “Leaving the Dead” present for you that other stories didn’t?

  I guess the story arose out of the knowledge that we’re all dying all the time, though we like to remain scrupulously unaware of it. To know it, like Darwin, ironically is to be more alive, not less. That idea met up with zombies, a trope I’ve never liked. In my experience, the dead remain dead. It’s the single most distinctive feature of death—its permanence. I think of “Leaving the Dead” as an anti-zombie story. One thing you can count on in this tale is that no one is the living dead. Dead is dead.

  You change inner views from Darwin, to Gabriella, to even Elvis. What prompted this choice?

  Gabriella demanded to be heard immediately. Elvis too. I’ve never had such delightfully assertive characters before. I suppose in a world in which they’re the only life not on autopilot, their views define the world. They’re all three creatures whose thoughts go largely ignored and usually don’t have a voice. The story gives them one.

  At the story’s open, Darwin says regarding the end of the world “It seemed to happen gradually. You know? Everyone dying a bit every day.” How did this notion inform the story, as it doesn’t seem to be a huge stretch to suggest that even in our world we are dying a bit, every day?

  Not a huge stretch at all. The speech echoes one by the doctor in the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, one of my favorite SF films. Even though he knows that the takeover is the result of an invasion, he still laments how we’ve invited this somehow by living, especially loving, less and less. Darwin experiences the invasion of mindlessness gradually.

  There’s a lot of optimism in this work. Was that hard to maintain, given the subject matter? Can you tell us why you chose the optimism, as opposed to, say, a cautionary tale?

  Last man, last woman (and dog) is also first man, first woman, so there’s more optimism in the premise than was first apparent to me even as I set out with them. They were all so delighted to find one another, that once they resolved to leave the dead it was easy. Cautionary tales, focused as they are on the horrible future and how we fucked up in the past, distract from the most effective remedy to lifelessness: Be here now.

  What can we expect from you next?

  I’ve been working a lot on short stories, enjoying the form a great deal, and am working toward a short story collection. I have a story coming out in April, “Christmas in Hollywood Cemetery” in Remapping Hallowed Ground, an anthology of fiction, poetry, and art responding to the Civil War Sesquicentennial in Richmond.

  Robyn Lupo has been known to frequent southwestern Ontario with her graduate student husband and elderly dog. She writes, reads, and plays video games. She is personal assistant to three cats.

  Author Spotlight: Maria Dahvana Headley

  Patrick J Stephens

  The second person point of view presents many challenges to writers, especially those working with an apocalypse. How did you approach the narrative voice in creating “The Traditional”? And, as a writer who found success with a memoir (The Year of Yes), and has a strong connection to that community, how much of your own voice influenced “The Traditional”?

  The voice in this story is tonally different from the apocalyptic content, which pleases me. I have a theory about the second person POV. I think it’s a myth that it’s more challenging to write in it—it’s actually a kind of vaudevillian intimacy shortcut. For example: When you’re performatively telling a story, you might speak the whole thing in second person. “So, you walk into a bar …” It has a kind of jokey colloquial comfort—you’re saying, essentially, “we’re the same, imagine yourself in this situation.” If you can make a reader feel comfortable, you can wriggle under
their skin more easily.

  A second person POV is inherently fake when you see it written—as in you know it’s not a spoken voice, but it feels acceptable, because you feel addressed by the speaker as someone who is part of the story. So you can (hopefully) also get away with some styling, like I did here, while retaining the juice of it seeming like something that could be spoken, a riff. It’s a happy little cheat. Second person feels deceptively real—hence, I suspect, your question about autobiographical voice. It’s fun to write in it, because you can add uncomfortable things, things like “You touch his brain with your fingertip.” And the reader feels it as a sympathetic action before they can judge the character for the creepy. More daredevil is the first person plural, which I’ve never yet tried. That’s saying here we are, we ALL did this. It could be exquisitely used in a dithyrambic scary story. Maybe that’s next. (Oh no, this is dangerous. I shouldn’t think about new stories.)

  So, as for the genesis of this particular second person POV, I happened, at the time I was writing this, to be reading Junot Diaz’s great new collection, This Is How You Lose Her, which is mostly written in badass second. Junot’s work is bawdy, brainy, extremely precise and blisteringly funny. It also always manages to break my heart. Dude just kills it. I first tried to steal Junot’s voice from Drown, back in my playwright days, 1996 or so. His stories are very much like monologues, and so I copied the fuck out of Drown, and failed. Years passed. Now Junot’s a friend of mine, and here I am, stalking his voice again. With “The Traditional,” I thought, let’s see what happens if I use a second person bullshitter voice like his—but a girl bullshitter. I really can never get enough of female bullshit artists as characters.