An Interview with Samantha Henderson

For the past few years, Samantha Henderson’s short fiction and poetry has appeared in such publications as Clarkesworld, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, and Lone Star Stories, to name just a few. She has lived in England, South Africa, Illinois, Oregon, and California, and she loves corgis. Sam now lives in Covina, California, with her family, working as a church office coordinator in between writing things on napkins.

I’ve always thought of Sam as a skillful, poignant writer and a consummate professional of our field, and I’m very pleased that she agreed to be interviewed for The Fix.

Tell us a bit about yourself. Did you have an unusual path that led you to be not only a fiction writer but a poet as well?

My family moved a lot throughout my childhood—my mother is Australian, my Dad’s from Alabama, and I was born in the UK. By the time I was in high school we had lived in South Africa, Illinois, Oregon, and California.

I’m an only child as well, and although I did have friends I had to play by myself a lot, and I found that imagination is something you can take from place to place. As a result I tended to make up a lot of narratives and contexts for me to live out, and I think that encouraged a taste for world-building. I also read a lot—my parents had masses of books, and a house without at least one solid wall of books seems unnatural to me.

I don’t know if this was an unusual path—I suspect most writers grew up with many books—but it was mine.

You write in many speculative fiction genres: SF, fantasy, dark fantasy, horror, retold fairy tales. Does this come from being an eclectic reader? Do you have a favorite genre?

I guess one tends to write what one enjoys, and I do like reading all those genres. But then I also like reading mysteries and I’ve never been able to follow through on writing one. I’ve written things that started off fairly mainstream and they just kind of veer off into the fantastic, so I guess that’s just the way my brain structures narrative. And my favorite genre varies with my mood; I tend to go on kicks where I just want SF, or Urban Fantasy until I can’t take vampires, and Trollope until I can’t take endless cups of tea.

Who are your literary influences? Your favorite writers?

I grew up reading from those innumerable books on my parent’s shelves—Kipling, Conan Doyle, P.C. Wren, the Brontes, Jane Austen. Lots and lots of poetry. Later I devoured Graham Greene, Angela Carter. Heinlein’s juveniles were a big influence—I loved The Star Beast. Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey. Lately I’ve been plunging back into Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows through reading it to my kids and I think it’s one of the greatest books in the English language. I love the short stories of James Joyce and Elizabeth Bowen. Early on I found the anthropologist Loren Eiseley’s All the Strange Hours and it was a mini-revelation for me, because he was writing memoir and essay and making it poetry.

Hmm. It strikes me that I’m influenced disproportionately by male English writers with a taste for colonialism, which is kind of disturbing.

At least once a month when my family lived in Portland I’d spend a weekend at my grandparents’ house. They had one of these wonderful finished basements that was filled with my grandmother’s sewing materials—she was a quilter—and lots of books. She had several volumes of a rather cheesy series—maybe it was Reader’s Digest—of books about the paranormal and I just loved those.

What writers in our genre have influenced you?

Well, Asimov, Heinlein, McCaffrey, and MZB, I suppose. I read a lot of Golden Age stories when I was younger, and then I read more mainstream work, and it’s kind of exciting to stumble on what people have been doing more recently, even though I’m probably behind the times. I like what Jacqueline Cary and Naomi Novick are doing with fantasy, and I thought Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell was astonishing and inspiring. I think I may be more influenced by writers like Kipling and Flann O’Brien and Austen than by genre writers in particular.

You’ve written poetry all your life, but recently had a renewed interest in it. Any particular reason why?

At one point my poetic muse wandered away for a bit (boy, does that sound pretentious!). I wrote a few poems here and there, and then Mikal Trimm hauled me off (virtually) to his online poetry group, which consists of some amazing poets. As in a lot of writing groups, members post prompts and offer feedback on each other’s work. It’s a good way to feel connected to the craft, and I think my fiction improves when I’m in touch with my poetic side. That might have less to do with writing “poetically” than that I find I’m more willing to take risks with poetry—to go somewhere dark or improbable or nonsensical, and when I can apply that sense of working without a net to fiction it becomes a more interesting, albeit scary, ride.

I do find many of the poems I start become stories—my Strange Horizons/Escape Pod story “Cinderella Suicide” began that way, as did a story coming out in the next issue [#5] of Sybil’s Garage. Conversely I’ve sometimes found that something I’m trying to wrestle into being a story really wants to be a poem, and stops fighting back when allowed to do so.

You recently became treasurer of the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA). Could you share a few thoughts on your involvement with the association and its goals?

The goal of SFPA, as I interpret it, is simply to promote speculative (sf, fantasy, and horror, very broadly defined) poetry and support those who create and publish it. Every organization has its politics and bickering and the SFPA has had its share, but I’ve seen far more support for members and writers of speculative poetry in general in the organization than tearing down. It’s a group I’d like to support and when SFPA President Debbie Kolodji tied me up and let enraged badgers nibble my entrails until I agreed to run I really felt I had no choice. I did bludgeon…I mean, PERSUADE, yes, that’s the word…John Borneman to run as co-treasurer. Of course, in revenge I killed Debbie off in a particularly gruesome way in my upcoming book…you’re not going to include this, are you?

I’m lucky enough to live close enough to Debbie and other local poets, and we try to get together on a quarterly basis to have a day-long workshop.

My favorite subject to ask any writer concerns fictional technique. Though you write in first person occasionally you seem to favor third-person narratives. I know it depends on the story, but is there any particular reason why?

I’m tempted to say something like the story demands its optimal POV, but the truth is that I write in whatever POV is most fun for me at the time. It’s a challenge to enter an alien mindset, and that may be the appeal of speculative literature for me, both in reading and writing it: for example, I think Tiptree’s “Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death” is a fantastic example of the craft of depicting an utterly alien viewpoint very intimately and very lovingly.

This past summer you attended the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop in Laramie, WY, along with my editor here at The Fix, Eugie Foster. Could you describe the workshop and what the workshop process means to you?

The Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop is the brainchild of writer and astronomer Mike Brotherton. Funded by NASA, it’s an opportunity for science fiction writers to attend an intensive week-long astronomy course at the University of Wyoming at Laramie. Naturally, it’s difficult to absorb an entire college course of astronomy in a week, so some of the most useful information you come away with is where and how to continue your research most efficiently.

Although it’s not a fiction workshop per se, you do spend a week in the company of other writers, which on top of the gobs of information you are trying soak up, becomes pretty intense. I felt incredibly lucky to be able to share the experience with this group of writers, and I highly recommend the Launch Pad experience for anyone interested in writing science fiction who feels they could be better grounded in the basics of astronomy.

Like most writers, you have a full-time job. How do you discipline yourself to achieve your goals? Do you write when the muse strikes you or do you have a set schedule?

I’m not at all disciplined, so I try to make myself write at least an hour a day. I belong to the Novel in 90 LJ community, not so much to write a book in three months but to keep myself to the pace of at least 750 words a day.

You’ve said you’re dyslexic and have ADD. How has this affected you as a writer, a reader? Has it helped you in any way?

I never had much of a problem reading—in my case, I have difficulty remembering the shape of words, which makes me a truly appalling speller. The most frustrating part is when I know the word I want, I could say it out loud, and have no idea for a time what letter it actually begins with. And of course when I was little it was very frustrating to me and my parents—there’s been a lot of advances in the diagnosis and management of dyslexia since then. A lot of my teachers just assumed I was rather dim and wouldn’t make me do any work, so it was kind of a bummer when my mom had me tested and figured out what was going on.

Where dyslexia opens my creative side is in misreading words—sometimes I don’t get them right the first time and interesting juxtapositions result. For example, I’ll read the word “book” as “box” and end up reading a parallel text about a library full of boxes—or perhaps dangerous boxes!—and not realize it’s quite a different story until halfway through. But then I get to write the story about the dangerous boxes.

You just finished your novel, Heaven’s Bones, for Wizards of the Coast. Anything you can tell us about it?

It’s going to be released in September, last I heard. It’s a dark Victorian fantasy, and it’s got angels, insane doctors, and dead little girls in it. What’s not to love?

You’ve had quite a few works (both short fiction and poetry) published, and 2007 was a very good year for placing your work. Do you have any advice for new writers trying to break in?

I’m afraid the best advice I can offer is mundane: keep on writing (but only if you enjoy it, or MUST do it), keep on submitting regardless of rejection. I had a story that was rejected from a pro magazine and went the rounds for a year or so, through semi-pros and token payment markets. It eventually sold to the original market I had sent it to, and became my SFWA-qualifying sale.

Read the guidelines. Be polite. Never argue (publicly) with bad reviews. Submit to markets where you would like to be seen. Remember that it feels great to sell a poem or a story or a book but that within minutes you will be plunged into a stygian pit of self-loathing and thwarted expectations. Have fun.

I had some good publications in 2007 but I think that reflects sales in 2006. I haven’t written very many new stories because of a rather intense book writing schedule, so I kind of feel like I’m beginning all over again.

What are your goals for 2008? For the next five years?

For 2008? Josh Rountree (whose collection of fantastic Americana is coming out this year from Wheatland Press) and I are working on—or rather, hacking and slashing gleefully at—a young adult fantasy. I’d love it if we could finish it this year. I’m sketching out a YA SF book set on a colony on Mars. And I’d like to think that I could write a short story again.

For the next five years? Realistically, the only goal I can have is to continue to write regularly. I don’t think it’s possible to predict what the market will demand or what will be viable, so you might as well write what you like and hope it strikes a chord with somebody.

For more about Samantha Henderson and her work, she maintains a website, Writing Things on Napkins.