Tag Archives: quarantine

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Authors in Quarantine – Kate Heartfield

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Kate Heartfield: The priority has been distance learning for my 10-year-old son, and I’ve also carried on with my regular freelance editing and online teaching jobs, in addition to trying to keep up with writing.

Even though I haven’t really had any extra time, I have been starting all kinds of new creative projects, because it helps my mental health. Projects help to remind me that today is different from yesterday and tomorrow will be different again, that change will happen. And I’ve always used work as a coping mechanism, rightly or wrongly! So in addition to everything else, I’ve been painting and assembling a hurdy-gurdy from a kit, baking a lot, and trying to get my garden in decent shape. I’ve signed up for an online course in Old Norse, because I figure, if not now, when? A lot of my projects (such as baking bread and making masks) also serve to help our household cope with the pandemic.

I’ve also been allowing myself the time to do a fair bit of relaxation activity, such as playing Civilization VI (my comfort game!) and watching TV with my partner and son. We just finished Tales from the Loop and are currently finishing up the last season of Clone Wars together.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

Kate Heartfield: Our household is pretty fortunate, all things considered. My partner, my son and I are all introvert homebodies at the best of times, so on a day to day basis it doesn’t feel that strange. But the uncertainty about the future, the stress of distance learning and the inability to see people I love is wearing, for sure. I feel like my heart is a rubber band that’s been stretched into the same position for two months and is weakening at the edges.

I’ve been using Zoom and other online platforms to keep in touch as much as I can with my writing community, although I miss all my writer pals terribly and nothing can make up for their physical presence. I’m taking part in two virtual conventions this month, including the Nebula awards weekend at the end of May, and that helps to keep me in touch too.

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

Kate Heartfield: My creative brain is my coping mechanism, so I’m enjoying dreaming and plotting out my current novel. But when it comes time to sit down and write, I frequently struggle these days with a kind of brain freeze — I can’t execute and get the words down very well. An effect of long-term low-level stress, I think, and I’m sure a lot of us are feeling the same way. Also, I’ve lost a lot of the options I used to have to get into a fresh headspace by going to work at the library or my favourite coffee shop, which sounds trivial but was a bigger part of my working life than I realized.

So it’s slower than I’d like, but I’m getting work done. Soon, my editor will send some edits for my next novel, The Embroidered Book, which is coming out next year. When that happens, that will become my writing priority. In the meantime, I’m working on a novel that isn’t sold yet, so I don’t have a deadline, which is a blessing in some ways as it means there’s less stress, but it also makes it hard to keep at it, because writing a novel on spec is an implicit act of faith in the future and that’s hard right now. I really love the book, so that’s helping. I also wrote a story for The New Decameron Project, which was great, because it gave me a reason to take out an old half-finished concept and finish it up. The result was a story called “In a Hansom Cab at the Liberty Street Ferry Terminal” and it gave me great joy to write.

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille MA, PhD ABD

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Authors in Quarantine – Jay Odjick

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Jay Odjick: Lots of hand washing! Heh! I have mostly been working and working out. Especially now that the weather finally – knock on wood – seems to maybe be getting a bit nicer, my biggest stress relief is lifting outside. I have my weights set up outdoors and it’s nice to break up your day, get some sun and allows me to shut out the world for just a bit, which is important, I think now and then, especially now.

It’s important to stay educated and informed as to what’s going on with the outbreak but I think for us all it can get a bit overwhelming. It’s important to put media, both social and otherwise aside for awhile if and when we need to.

In terms of what I’m working on, I’m writing a graphic novel for Scholastic Canada, a kind of coming of age story about a young First Nations boy, let’s say, much like myself as a child who moves from the U.S to his father’s community and comes to writing and drawing comics. It’s based on my experiences and has been challenging, both reliving stuff from my youth but also a ton of fun. I’m excited to share stories of rez life with people who may have never been to a reserve!

I’ve been doing a video podcast as well at http://twitch.tv/jayodjick – lining up guests for that and trying to acclimate myself to the tech and software involved! Been fun and to date, I’ve had on a biologist with a specialization in ecosystems and a medieval historian to discuss what we can learn from plagues in the past in our current reality as well as how society comes out of these types of things and I thought that was fascinating, especially to learn that might be more uplifting an answer than we’d think. I’ve been learning a lot thru this!

I’ve also been trying to help out as much as I can; I am blessed, in that because I work at home for the majority of my work this affects me less than most people, and I’m still working. If you’d like to learn more about what I’ve been up to in that regard, check me out on Facebook or Twitter! Would love to see you there.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

Jay Odjick: Like I said, I think it really doesn’t affect me as bad as it could and I get that I’m fortunate in that way. Apart from cancelled appearances and speaking engagements, I work from home insofar as writing and illustration. Last year I was working both at the University of Ottawa as a teacher and with the Ottawa Citizen as a freelancer; this year I’m focusing more on creative endeavours, mainly the above mentioned graphic novel as it’s a lengthy project.

Having said that, there are things I miss, just like any and everyone else. Friends and especially family. It’s crazy to think that this is something that, for the first time in my life that I can think of is something that is truly affecting the entire world! Just crazy to think about.

I think one of the things that’s been important for me in this time is perspective. As weird and negative as this time is, it’s helped to focus on the temporary nature of this for me and to look at certain situations from around the world as well as our own past. This hasn’t impacted me financially as much as some and my heart goes out to those who are struggling.

But I try to think about conversations I’ve had with older people who have lived thru wars or a friend of mine who lived thru the Bosnian War and told me what that was like.

Or even looking at things closer to home – I have a digital copy of the paperwork filed for the arrest of my grandfather here in Canada when he was arrested for leaving the reservation without papers. It may get hard, but I can go for a walk without being arrested.

When it feels tough for me, how I feel is valid but it helps to remind me of how resilient people can be and how much we can get thru.

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

Jay Odjick: I have to admit..my writing has been impacted by the outbreak and maybe moreso what’s come from it. Media and politicians are being so divisive and we are kind of inundated with negativity and attempts to anger us or again, divide.

At times it is hard to get myself into the right headspace for writing.

It comes and goes but as one example, sometimes at the moment, humor can be tough to write because we know so many ARE suffering or in need.

If I sat down to just CREATE something in this time, I’m fairly certain it might come out a bit dark. Maybe ultimately uplifting but you know, things don’t always work that way – we have deadlines and I have a book to deliver that has priority over writing or even drawing as a form of expression, but I strongly believe in creative expression as catharsis. I should try drawing more, from the heart and not from the head, when I have time.

If you are having a hard time, know that you aren’t alone. We may be isolated but we are all dealing with similar things. Maybe that’s of little comfort but we will come out of this better, I truly believe. Better and stronger and we can use this to come together.

We just have to get thru the NOW.

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD, ABD

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Authors in Quarantine – Liz Westbrook-Trenholm

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

COVID fashion statement: bleachy duds and shaggy hair.

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID outbreak?

Liz Westbrook-Trenholm: Domesticity way up, writing way down.

I’ve been washing and bleaching everything inside and from outside our home, baking comfort foods, (state of emergency diet now enacted for the month of May) and sewing (searching for the most bearable face mask), all while listening to audiobooks, all cozy and historical mysteries as I seek respite from COVID news.

Routine has become strict and rarely varied. First it’smorning coffee, when we mutually drown in the firehose of social media, followed by a few hours spent on projectsuntil it’s time for an afternoon walk timed to beat the 3-5 pm jogging and biking rush hour on our preferred nature paths. We come back, dry off (we go in all weathers), readand play board games until wine-time, dinner, chat and music. Our day concludes with TV and bed. Rinse and repeat. Every day.

Excitement is laundry day, a video chat with a friend or relative, or Hayden’s weekly trip to the grocery store, me waiting at home for my hunter/gatherer (he has better lifting power than I do and we don’t run a car) to bring our weekly food, which I dunk in bleach mixture, except for eggs. Trust me, eggs in soggy cardboard containers do not go well. 

​The routine is comforting, at first, giving a sense of control to the uncontrollable situation we all find ourselves inhabiting. How can we react to the endless torrent of sorrow, disaster, fear and conflicting advice pouring from our media? Why, bake cinnamon buns, what else?

Aaaand it doesn’t take long for the comfortable routine to become a prison. Hayden starts taking dyspeptic pictures of himself in his bathrobe and turning them into silly gifs. I’m trying one hair style after another. After gentle discussion, we decide we need to schedule in some spontaneity. We write lots of activities on slips of paper which go into a cookie tin. (Hayden rejects ‘give each other haircuts’) We pull one out every couple of days when we get edgy. Sometimes just a game we haven’tplayed forever. Reading to each other, possibly with dramatizations. Looking at photos from years ago. A take-out Mexican food fiesta. Birthday party, with home-made hats (I knew there was a reason I’d kept a shoebox of orphaned earrings and feathers for decades). Other activities that are MYOB, so there. It’s not so much what we do, but that we burst out of the wire cage of routine we’ve built, and change things up a little. It’s surprisingly refreshing. Sex in the afternoon is awesome. Oops. I said I wouldn’t talk about that.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

Liz Westbrook-Trenholm: All of which spills over into how we deal with social distancing. Note the ‘we’. This would not be possible without each other. Always a close couple, a kind of two-person party, we’ve become, if anything, even closer, more careful and tender. Of course, it was disappointing for two inveterate travellers like us to see our plans collapse and our world shrink to only anywhere we can walk to. We can get tetchy, but we cut each other slack when the black dog drops by, or when one or the other wants to be all alone. We don’t take offense. It all makes sense. An old friend once said, “Where is it written you should be happy?” Sometimes it’s necessary to sit under the dark cloud and just breathe until the sun comes out again. It does come out again.

That being said, we work hard at keeping in touch with others via Zoom, Facebook chat, phone, email and text – whatever medium works best for each. We have especially upped our calls with family. I talk often now with my daughter who is distancing alone in London (the UK one). She’s worked out some solutions and has produced some powerful art in her off-work time, but it got pretty dark and desperate before she found her COVID groove.My sister and I vent constantly, bless her for being there.Calling friends and acquaintances and hearing that they’reokay releases swacks of relieved endorphins and hugely shortens the list of people I have to worry about. If they’renot okay, I’m there to hear it out and keep in touch. Sharing their burden paradoxically lessens mine.

​Another side-effect is my tendency to babble uncontrollably at sight of another human. I strike up two-meter distance chit-chat with total strangers or the pharmacy clerk behind her plexi-glass shield. My urge to chat about anything anything at all, at some length, is difficult to contain. I try. Truly I try. Let me tell you ALL about it sometime.

​I’m also thinking about what comes next as treatments and, we hope, vaccines evolve over the coming one or two years. Years. Yeah. As an asthmatic baby boomer smack dab in the middle of one of the at-risk demographics, I’ll need to keep shying away from close contact with anyone who might be a carrier. While we’veall been in it together, it’s been do-able. When I become a minority, it’ll pose new challenges. My friends with disabilities and health issues are nodding their heads with grim grins and saying, ‘Yuh-huh. Tell us about it.” No need. In sharing your stories and concerns, you gave the world a lot of information and demonstrated a lot of coping strategies, long before COVID came along. I expect to be using them shortly! I’ll likely write about it.

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

Liz Westbrook-Trenholm: The times have affected my writing in two main ways. One is that I have done much less. My writing often takes me deep into dark corners and edgy issues that can leave me drained. I’ve been a little nervous to approach it.

But now, after a hiatus for bleaching and retreat, I find I’m approaching it with a gentle, cozy style. A young woman, a run-away on her last legs, physically and psychologically, falls into a carefully dug hole in the middle of a forest. She looks up from the pre-dug grave at a man silhouetted against the dawn who says, “That’s mine.” And they go from there, into a gentle interaction of restoration and understanding between generations.

Or the old woman, isolating alone in her apartment, who opens her door to the god of the underworld in the form of a lost toddler in a really odious diaper. She draws him into her home and nurtures him, fearless and practical. What deal will they cut when he reaches his full size? 

End of life is a theme in the back of mind for all of us right now and in both of these stories. It’s a topic that turns up in my fiction regularly, but in these, my emerging ‘COVID’ stories, I find the characters less fierce and more wise and accepting than my frequently angry, feisty dames. 

So. How about that COVID thing, eh? Who among us thought we’d be living through history in the making? How can anything be the same again, any more than it was after the plague years, or the potato famine, or the abolition of slavery in the west, or the world wars? So many scabs have been ripped off our social shortcomings. So much strength and ability has emerged, showing us what we, as a society, could be. What will we do with it? Where will we take this experience, both within ourselves and in the way we interact with each other? Now, there’s a good writing topic for any spec fic writer.

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

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Authors in Quarantine – Karen Dudley

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Karen Dudley: The pandemic really hit at terrible time for me. My dad is quite unwell and I am currently recovering from major surgery (though naturally I tell everyone the 8-inch scar on my abdomen is from a bat’leth fight). Keeping everybody (including me) together has been tough. Combined with anxiety/fear about Covid has meant that I’ve basically been doing my best interpretation of a fruit fly: buzzing around, lighting on something for a picosecond before taking off again. I haven’t cleaned closets or made bread or learned a new language or calculated the distance to Mars in Mars bars. BUT my family is (relatively) sane, the cats are happy, everyone is getting fed, and the house isn’t too gross, so I call it a win.

At first, I spent too much time reading upsetting articles, scrolling through social media, and having an occasional cry. But I am trying to enjoy the beauty of a quieter, less smoggy world. I write messages of love in chalk on the sidewalk and put hearts and stuffies in the windows so kids out for their daily stroll can count them. We’ve also been taking advantage of the various productions that are streaming for free: operas, Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, Shakespeare plays.

The other cool thing that we’re doing—the thing that is helping most to keep my daughter happy and occupied—is having theme dinners. The first (pictured above) was, not surprisingly, an ancient Greek dinner. We researched the foods, the clothing, the makeup, and the dining rooms to recreate an ancient Greek symposion. We brought out the camp cots to make dining couches and piled them with pillows. We dressed in our finest chitons and ate sesame pancakes and shrimps in honey while we listened to lyre music (thanks, Youtube!) and gossiped about how Socrates always looks like an unmade sleeping couch. It was so much fun!!! We went Medieval after that. We were nobles in our dining hall and all my grandmother’s old silver serving dishes looked amazing (though the kitten tried to make off with one of the trenchers). This weekend we’ll be dining in an Elizabethan tavern. My husband and daughter look fantastic as lace-collared dandies about town. I, however, will be a lowly serving wench.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

Karen Dudley: I DESPISE IT!!! I am an unabashed hugger; I HATE not being able to hug people. My husband and daughter are both introverts and it’s getting to the point where they beat a hasty retreat as soon as they see me coming. “No, Mom! Nooooo! Not another hug!!”
Needless to say, the cats are getting a lot more cuddles.
But I go for a walk every morning, and I smile at strangers as I pass by (always from at least 2 metres away). Most people smile back and I love that brief acknowledgement. The unspoken ‘I am only avoiding you because of the virus, not because of the way you look or who you are’. It lifts my heart. But I tell you, when this pandemic is over, I’m going to hug every single person I see. Every. Single. Person.

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

Karen Dudley: I have to echo Kate Story here and laugh uproariously at the question. Seriously, how could something like this NOT affect one’s writing? Most days I can’t concentrate for more than five minutes at a time. It’s driving me crazy! And then there’s the problem of what to write. Before my surgery, I was working on the second book of a fantasy trilogy, but it’s set in a society on the verge of collapse. Quite frankly, I don’t want to write that right now, I’m LIVING it! And yet, I feel as though I do need to write—if only to lose myself in work for a spell. Fortunately, my daughter, who is a budding animator, had asked me a while ago to write down a story I made up for her when she was young (she wants to animate it for her grade twelve summative project). It’s a goofy tale of how our cat, Monsieur Goobère, got his stripes. When I realized that my fantasy novel wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, I started working on the Goobère story. Not only have I been able to concentrate on it, the project has actually made me quite happy. It’s gentle and sweet and exactly what I need right now. Obviously, I hope to get back to my novel one of these days, but for now, this is enough.

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

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Authors in Quarantine – Kate Story

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Kate Story: Freaking out. Cleaning the house. Drowning in certainty that I am not cleaning the house enough. (Somebody said to think of the virus as glitter – and when you go out, you and all the things you bring home are covered in glitter. As anybody who works in theatre knows, GLITTER IS EVERYWHERE AND YOU CAN NEVER GET RID OF IT.) Working on funding applications for future projects that I don’t even know will happen. Discovering what other people see during meetings with me (unspeakably horrid – my god, I need a filter! How to do you activate a Zoom filter, please somebody?? Is there a filter for life? Wait, that’s plastic surgery, scratch that). Laughing a lot. Poking around in the garden. Pissing off the cats by being home too much (yes, it is possible). Cooking. Eating. Drinking bad beer. Going for walks. Finding every corner of this town that looks like an Edward Gorey drawing. Reading from the Tsundoku. (I find I want to read things that really grip me. Not so much into post-apocalyptic fiction. I like to write it, and I used to like to read it, but living in it? not so much) Finally watching Citizen Kane. Rinse and repeat.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

Kate Story: Other than cringing every time I hear the term (it has this kind of smug, packaged feeling. And it should be “physical distancing,” no?) it has not affected me as much as some people, I think. I already worked from home, in my split life – the writing and arts administration was almost all from home. It’s the theatre work that is suffering the most. Theatre artists literally can’t practice our art right now. Not only do I miss everyone dreadfully, I miss the work – and fear for the future of live performance. But in terms of my daily work and routine, the main daytime structure hasn’t changed much.

I live with my partner, and a dear friend too, and they are both good company (I won’t speak for myself). We do our best to be careful with each other and give as much space as we can. Most days, it works. I live in a house with a yard, in a smallish town where lots of totally uncrowded walking options are available. My Newfoundland family is pretty much okay thus far, and although I worry, they are fairly safe. I am insanely lucky.

I am now drinking bad beer (see above) and eating meat. That’s the weirdest thing. What the hell is happening to me?

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

Kate Story: HAHAHAHAHAHA you have to be joking. It’s a mess. If I had five dollars for every person who has greeted me with a jocular, “Bet you’re getting a lot of writing done, eh?” I’d be a friggen millionaire. I am just as messed up by all this as anyone! I had forcefully carved out time to write before all this – a global lock-down pandemic is not a dream come true for me (or for anyone, I sincerely hope). Also I had a serious blow in terms of my writing career just before all this happened, one that some people will know about and I will say no more here. The world has more than moved on, but many of us affected by it are still reeling from the loss and trying to deal with the aftermath, and my attempts to do so have of course come to a grinding halt. Because Covid 19.

Like many people, I overdid news and social media at first, and have learned that one needs to limit that for mental health reasons. I try to keep up with news once a day or so, mostly through the Guardian, CBC, and Stephen Colbert (yup. Hard to encounter the Orange Caligula unfiltered by humour). I am disturbed by some vicious social media shaming I have seen, although grateful to be able to stay in touch. However, I can only look at so many photos of home-baked bread. And the accompanying apologies for posting said pictures. If I can’t eat your bread, I don’ts wants to sees it.

At the same time I am terribly fortunate. I have 2 books in the pipes. One (a collection of my short fiction) will be postponed. Printers are non-essential, so are shut down, and the publisher is rightly questioning whether it makes sense to release an e-book and then a print book a year or 2 later… plus there will be a cascade of books by heavy hitters coming out once all this lifts! – and books by more obscure writers would get lost in the shuffle. So that is up in the air, for good reasons, although still likely to happen at some point. Another book, a YA fantasy, is slated for 2021. So far the publisher is still keen to do it. And very fortunately, I had ground out a first draft before the pandemic hit us in Ontario. I’m almost certain I’d fail at doing that right now – my brain is mush. So I am working in a desultory fashion at Draft 2, which is due in a little over a month. Pray for me.

I don’t feel like there’s any way for me to have a writerly view of the pandemic while living in the middle of it. Maybe ultimately it will change how and what I write – I am interested to see what occurs in that regard.

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

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Authors in Quarantine – Chadwick Ginther

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

Chadwick’s companion in Quarantine – Algernon!!

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Chadwick Ginther: I’ve been fortunate enough to still be employed at my day job, and have been working from home at what tasks are available to me. I’ve tried to impose some structure on my days, such as not sleeping in, writing before I sign on for work, daily walks and short workouts. I’ve also watched entirely too many terrible horror movies and caught up on a few television shows I’ve been meaning to check out. I’ve also been trying out some new recipes, and doing a bit more baking then normal.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

Chadwick Ginther: There was a lot of anxiety at first. Worry about health and wellbeing, for myself, my wife, our loved ones. Fear about what things will look like on the other side of the pandemic. All that anxiety is still there, but the waves of it don’t seem to be hitting quite as heavily as they were.

It’s been painful not to be able to see friends and family, but both my wife and I tend to be pretty solitary folks, and we really enjoy each other’s company. I call my parents to chat a bit more frequently, and a group of my friends created a text channel for us to share recipes and pictures and updates, and that’s been great for feeling connected.
All of my roleplaying games have moved to online platforms, although many of them were partially, or already there. I’m resisting the urge to join new games because I know I won’t be able to maintain the commitment when things return to a more normal normality.

Not going to a store the moment I think of something I want, or run out of has also meant a bit less snacking. Hopefully I’ll carry a bit of that newfound impulse buy restraint forward when the restrictions are relaxed.

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

Chadwick Ginther: At first, it was brutal. Nothing was getting done. I struggled to finish even the tasks with existing deadlines, like some editor mandated short story revisions. Motivation to revise the book I had been working on prior to the pandemic was nil. Later, after the first couple of weeks, I managed to write a couple story pitches I’m waiting to hear back about, which seemed to help. Two weeks ago I decided to work on a passion project novel I’ve kept telling myself I’d start writing once this or that task was crossed off the list. I’m pretty happy with that decision, as it’s kept me writing every day, and I’m having so much fun exploring what might end up being the weirdest and most ambitious thing I’ve ever attempted in fiction.

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

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Authors in Quarantine – Regina Hansen

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Regina Hansen: I’ve been teaching online, trying to keep the family fed and the house clean.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

Regina Hansen: I am very good at keeping busy and I am lucky to be with my husband and kids, and to have a balcony so I can get outside. But I am not an introvert or a minimalist, so I really miss the joy of being around people, chatting, hugging, going to restaurants and movies. I am very much willing to give that up for everyone’s safety.

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

Regina Hansen: I have been able to get the requested revision done for my novel but it is much harder to settle down to new writing. I’ve been channeling my imagination into other creative pursuits – singing, sewing/crochet, our balcony farm. I’m finally feeling ready to sit at a desk and write but I’m definitely not Shakespeare writing King Lear in quarantine.

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

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Authors in Quarantine – David Demchuk

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID-19 outbreak?


David Demchuk: I am lucky to be able to do my job from home, and to have a home which is already set up and equipped for remote operations. The team I work with is small; we communicate well, and spell each other off with the day-to-day work, special projects and the many video meetings that this situation has spawned. Apart from that I’ve been reading, catching up on movies and trashy TV, cooking and baking (and eating), spending too much time on social media, and playing Animal Crossing.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

David Demchuk: I was already a fairly solitary person, so I have not been as heavily affected by the need to isolate as many of my friends and colleagues. However, I suffer from agoraphobic anxiety, so going outside to go shopping or run errands is now one long panic attack from start to finish–and standing in store lines on narrow sidewalks is the worst. One thing that’s been a huge challenge: My partner and I have been together for 11 years but we live separately, albeit in the same building. He comes to visit for about an hour every day but, because he goes out more and has a greater potential for exposure, we remain at opposite ends of the couch six feet apart. We haven’t had physical contact for more than five weeks.

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

David Demchuk: Well…the short answer is “I haven’t done any, so–great?” I am holding off on writng much, at least formally, until I receive my editor’s notes on my newest book. My hope is that I will be able to focus my energies (and my emotions, including my fears) on the pages once they’re in front of me. One thing I have been doing–both for the new book and the one I plan to start in the fall–is jotting down short snippets on index cards–images, dialogue, turns of phrase–and tossing them into a small plastic storage box beside my coffee table. No expectations of structure or order or ‘finished’ writing, just capturing material as it comes to me in unfiltered unprocessed snapshots. It’s oddly cathartic and makes me feel productive with probably the least amount of effort I can expend. Apart from that, there’s Animal Crossing!

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

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Authors in Quarantine – Nathan Frechette

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Nathan Frechette: I’ve been fortunate enough to work from home for my day job, so I’ve been doing a lot of that. I have children at home too, so I’ve been spending a lot of time caring for them. I’ve been cooking a little bit more, and I’ve been playing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

Nathan Frechette: As someone who is disabled and introverted, there hasn’t been much of an adaptation. I do feel like I have more physical energy now that I don’t have to commute so much, I’m able to be much more productive in my work. My mental energy has really been all over the place, and I miss my friends and family.

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

Nathan Frechette: I see a lot of creative folk talking about getting writing done, but I have been too harried to write, really. I have been working on my graphic memoir, since that was scripted and thumbnailed months ago, I just have to draw, which is more mechanical than creative for me. I’m having lots of creative dreams, and even trying to record them has been difficult.

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD

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Authors in Quarantine – Ian Rogers

With this this series, I am hoping to capture how this cultural moment is affecting our speculative fiction authors and how our authors are surviving during the COVID-19 outbreak

Spec Can: What have you been up to during the COVID-19 outbreak?

Ian Rogers: During the COVID-19 outbreak I’ve been been trying to adapt to the “new normal” and keep busy.

Spec Can: How are you adapting to social distancing?

Ian Rogers: Since I’ve been writing full-time for the past three years, I’m already a bit of an expert at social distancing. So I’ve been helping my wife adjust since she’s been working from home since the lockdown and is a much more social person that I am.

Spec Can: How is the outbreak affecting your writing?

Ian Rogers: I’m certainly not writing as much as I normally do, because of the stress and the news/information overload. These days I only allow myself to read the news twice a day — once in the morning and once in the evening. I’ve managed to sell a couple of stories in the past month, but my head is still not in the right place, creatively speaking. I guess most people probably feel this way.

Interviewed by Derek Newman-Stille, MA, PhD ABD