An Interview with Ekaterina Sedia

Ekaterina Sedia’s short fiction has appeared in Analog, Aeon, Jim Baen’s Universe, Fantasy Magazine, and Lone Star Stories, to name just a few. Her novel, The Secret History of Moscow, released by Prime Books, recently made the Locus Recommended Reading List. Her latest editing project, Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, will be out this April from Senses Five Press. In conjunction with my review of Paper Cities, I am pleased that she was able to answer a few questions about her career as a writer and an editor.

Tell us a bit about your background that led you to becoming a fiction writer and now an editor.

I am a biologist by trade, so I suppose fiction had no real connection to the rest of my life. I started writing when I turned 33, and I just fell into both writing and editing. I’m not sure that there was any specific trigger or a moment that made me stop and go, “OK, I’ll be a writer now.” I just started writing and then sending things out because they didn’t seem to be doing anything interesting while sitting on my hard drive. Then editors started buying stuff—my first sale happened in 2004, so the reinforcement kept me going.

Then I realized that there’re also many writers whose work I enjoy, and would really like to collect it in some form—i.e., do some editing. Since I have neither the budget nor the attention span for a magazine, anthologies seemed like a logical choice.

How did your involvement as editor of Paper Cities come about, and why did doing an anthology of urban fantasy, specifically cities, appeal to you?

First, I like cities, and I find fiction taking place in them very interesting. However, I noticed that much of the label became co-opted by fairly generic vampires/werewolves/spunky supernatural investigators, with cities rarely contributing anything than a generic backdrop. So I wanted to put together a collection of shorts that highlighted both a variety of urban environments and a variety of stories that can take place in them. In order to do that, I asked everyone I knew and liked, and who wrote fiction of the type I was interested in. Plus, Jess Nevins (the author of The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana) agreed to contribute an introduction, and thus we even got a touch of scholarly class. After that, it was a matter of securing a publisher, and we are very impressed with the job Senses Five Press has been doing.

Working with so many wonderful and talented writers has been a blast and a real privilege—I still can’t believe that they trusted me with their stories! I only hope that the readers will love them as much as I do.

Though the scope of Paper Cities is quite eclectic, when selecting stories, what were you looking for?

To be glib, I was looking for stories that I liked. To be less glib, I was looking for stories that exhibited a range of storytelling choices, techniques, and, of course, cities. I think in every story there the unique atmosphere of every city adds something important to the whole of the story. And I was also looking for interesting fantasy—that is, something beyond your typical urban fantasy fare.

Since you’re both a writer and an editor, how do the two tasks vary? Do you have a new perspective on craft or our field after becoming an editor?

Well, editing is all about reading other people’s work; in a way, it is easier to pinpoint weaknesses and tics in other people’s work than one’s own. So in that sense, I’d like to believe that editing helped me notice at least some of the tics I have as a writer.

As far as perspectives on the field—I noticed how much original and interesting work stands out. Much of the field is made up by the same kinds of stories and books—competent, kinda cool, but ultimately not memorable. Not to say that this is anything new, but the more I read the more I notice how uniform much of the field is—and in a way, I suppose, Paper Cities is my reaction to post-Buffy fiction that dominates much of this subgenre, which is so much more than just that.

I’d like to switch over to you as an author now. Do you enjoy novels or short fiction more? I know each has its strengths and drawbacks, but could you share a few thoughts of your objectives and experiences with either medium?

Novels are a lot more fun for me. Shorts are all about instant gratification, but novels you have to live in for several months at a time. Novels are also more elastic—they tolerate tangents and digressions and contradictions better—they are like a forest, where each individual part can be messy and crooked and butt-ugly, but together they make a harmonious impression.

Shorts are more like bonsai trees—they have to be meticulously groomed and trained into a fairly specific shape. Mistakes are more difficult to hide, and there’s no landscape, no place for panoramas and such. But a good short story makes one hell of a beautiful miniature tree—”more charming than nature itself,” as bonsai manuals admonish.

Your next novel, The Alchemy of Stone, will be released this summer. What can you tell us about it?

It’s about feminism and revolution and power and ethnic minorities and steam engines and gargoyles and clockwork automatons and unrequited love. Mostly, it is about the automaton named Mattie who is also an alchemist, and her search for independence and acceptance by people around her. And explosions.

Who are some of your favorite writers who have influenced your fiction?

The standard answer would be Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Kelly Link, Jeff Ford, Ellen Kushner, Jeff VanderMeer, James Tiptree, Ursula K. Le Guin, Nalo Hopkinson, Victor Pelevin, Catherynne Valente, Ellen Kushner, Gene Wolfe. In a more oblique way, John Crowley and Sean Stewart, Thomas Mann, and countless other writers of mainstream and literary fiction.

What’s ahead for you next? As a writer and/or an editor?

As a writer, I’m finishing up The House of Discarded Dreams, my third book for Prime. Also looking forward to writing some shorts, since I haven’t been doing those in a while. As an editor, I’m working on an anthology for Prime, Russian Winters, as well as a couple of other projects, which are still in early stages.