Upcoming Interview with Camille Alexa on Friday January 11th
Check out Speculating Canada on Friday January 11th for a fantastic interview with Canadian-American author Camille Alexa. If you have been following Speculating Canada for a while, you probably know that I am a fan of her work and have reviewed her short stories a few times. You can check out my review of “All Them Pretty Babies” at http://speculatingcanada.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-speculative/ and “Children of the Device” at http://speculatingcanada.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/doomed-to-repeat/ .
On Friday January 11th, Camille Alexa discusses apocalyptic literature, writing the human spirit in extreme scenarios, the role of SF in allowing the reader to see from a different and maybe dissonant viewpoint, insights into living in a two author house, the role of mythology in her work, and the genesis of stories (which can start as a character voice).
Here are a few teasers from the interview to get you excited:
Camille Alexa: “I’m not sure why my fiction mind turns to apocalypse so easily, but disaster literature is just so appealing, so rife with opportunity for growth and heroism. New beginnings. Dire endings. That sort of thing. Also, maybe I live in constant fear for the state of the planet? Humans are pretty rough with their toys.”
Camille Alexa: “I’m much less interested in – or for that matter cognizant of – exact themes than I am in characters and the ways in which they react to extreme scenarios. Hey! There’s apocalypse in a nutshell: extreme scenario.”
Camille Alexa: “My primary aim in fiction is to have a blast writing.”
Camille Alexa: “Myth taps into things we can’t always justify or explain, moves us or scares us or elates us.”
Camille Alexa: “What CAN’T speculative fiction do? I think that’s its appeal. You can go anywhere when you untether a story from the probable. With luck, you can get others to follow you to those places you pull from the aether, meet the strange creatures there and tread those weird and unlikely paths.”
Camille Alexa: “Because I’m continually moved and astounded by the natural world, I tend to find inspiration in flora, fauna, specialized ecosystems, early hominids, pterosaurs. . . .”
Camille Alexa: “The Canadian scene feels very exciting right now. The speculative fiction scene in the US seems to have gotten bogged down with a distressing focus on awards and “approved” hierarchies and paths to writerdom. There is no single path to writing, or to loving to write, or to living to write – any more than there is a path to reading or loving to read.”
I hope you will tune in to Speculating Canada on January 11th to read Camille Alexa’s interview. If you haven’t yet read her work, you can check out her website at http://camillealexa.com/ which has links to some of her fiction available through online magazines.
