About my books and stories
And what is the significance of Brewing Fine Fiction being included in Kevin J. Anderson’s NaNoWriMo book bundle? Well, only that it is a diverse collection of insightful articles on writing and related issues (business elements, conventions, etc.) published by Book View Cafe and edited by Pati Nagle and me.
It also contains several of my very own articles on writing, including one first published in Writer’s Digest magazine. Here, for your inspection is the ad copy for this legendary bundle.
History—and nonfiction of various types—offers a wonderful smorgasbord of events and interrelationships for writers to base stories on. Most writers—myself included—have mined nonfiction for fictional ideas. My collected history books have many pages with the words “Story here!” scrawled at the top, often with multiple exclamation points, highlighting and arrows pointing to the text that made the hair rise up on my neck and my ovaries twitch.
It’s easy to get ideas from nonfiction—books, magazine articles, TV documentaries, etc. My first published novel, THE MERI, occasioned me to read three fat and varied histories of Scotland upon whose progression of kings and system of governance I chose to base my fictional government. It was a lot of work, and I think sometimes that the tech revolution has had a deleterious effect on how some writers do research. I’ve had several experiences lately that make me suspect that the abridged nature of the information we take in makes some of us forget the mathematics of writing.
The visual media—TV documentaries and Youtube videos—have taken the place, in some aspiring writers’ lives of the in-depth sort of research and thought that writing a novel on a subject requires. I encountered a situation recently in which a writer I was working with gathered a basket full of ideas from documentaries and wikipedia entries and wanted to write them into his book. What resulted was interesting … in a Vulcan sort of way. Continue reading
Oliver Sacks
I was shocked and saddened to hear that one of my greatest heroes is dying.
I have experienced Oliver Sacks as a being of great wisdom and compassion. His work has been a blessing and an illumination to me as both as a writer and a human being, and has gifted me with many deep insights into the human spirit that have informed my own craft.
Dr. Sacks has written extensively about conditions that impact the way affected individuals experience the world—migraine, sleeping sickness, manic-depression, synesthesia, autism (it was through Sacks’ book An Anthropologist on Mars that I first “met” the indomitable Temple Grandin, who has become the face of autism for many people). But he has also lived with such conditions (prosopagnosia or face blindness, and the loss of his stereoscopic vision) and has written extensively about and chronicled these experiences as eloquently as any fiction writer has chronicled the epic adventures of her characters. An Anthropologist on Mars remains one of the favorite and most significant books of my reading and writing life. I highly recommend it to anyone who has not had the immensely moving experience of reading Professor Sacks’ work.
Though I understand that his adventure is, in many ways, just beginning, I mourn our collective loss of this great humanitarian intellect and selfishly wish we might be allowed to keep him just a bit longer.
Because in some parts of our country it’s still Columbus Day and because so few of us really understand what Columbus (Christobal Colon) did, I offer this fictional re-imagination of the events of his landing on Hispaniola.
Divergence: 1276 CE
What if: Chinese refugees fleeing the Mongol conquest of Hangzhou sailed across the Pacific.
Summary: Two centuries later, Columbus arrives in Hispaniola and is told of the rich counter of the Northern Land. Subsequent events do not occur in his favor.
Published: In Paradox #8 (Winter 2005-2006).
Awards: Finalist: 2006 Sidewise Award for best short-form alternate history.
Click to download a PDF of O, Pioneer
Not long ago, I was asked to write a prequel story for a new comic book series called Alt Control Delete. Somehow the story I wrote ended up possibly being the “origin story” for the series AND being used for one of the rewards for a contribution to the campaign that will allow the creators of ACD to go into business.
The story I wrote for the series anthology is entitled “Mindwyrm”. It’s a novelette, which means it’s over 7500 words long. A delightful length. One of my personal favorites.
The ACD team is also giving away a premier issue of the comic book, T-Shirts, posters, art cards—lovely, lovely swag. So, I’m trying to do my share to promote the campaign and the comic, which is described this way:
Set in a futuristic world where video games have evolved into a virtual reality professional sport. Technology and games permeate nearly every aspect of life in a culture that thrives on games and competition and a society where XP is currency. The prevalent philosophy of this society walks the border of trans-humanism: man and machine are beginning to merge, but not everyone is happy about it.
So, come on, comic book fans, check out the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackmast/alt-control-delete-collapse-part-1-of-3
So, there’s this guy, this man, this wonderful writer that I adore above all others. His name is Ray Bradbury.
It is because of him that I write fantasy and science fiction. It is because of him that I love words and strive for lyrical, evocative, luscious, vibrant prose. It is because of him that I learned something important about science fiction and fantasy: It is not escapist fiction the intent of which is to make reality go away.
No, no. Far from it. Ray Bradbury taught me that the purpose of fantasy and its “robot child”, science fiction, was to, in his words, “make reality behave by pretending to look the other way.”
We seek solutions for today’s problems by framing them in the future or in a world that doesn’t exist. I am fortunate to be able to make my living pretending to look the other way when I am really not. Writers are sneaky. We are always watching, listening, contemplating reality, putting ourselves into endless other pairs of shoes to see the world, thereby, the way someone else sees it, so that we can catch reality unawares and warn of potentials, explore possibilities and suggest solutions.
So, if it seems that I am looking the other way, know that I am not. I’m only pretending.
Someone asked me where he could find a collection of my fiction that addressed spiritual themes and had been previously published in Analog, Interzone and other magazines. This is the place.
The book is not available in eBook format, though I think I may ask the publisher if they would either publish it as an eBook or let me do so.
This collection includes the BFSA (British Science Fiction Award) finalist “The White Dog” which contains a vignette from the life of Abdu’l-Bahá, who is the son of the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith and a truly amazing human being whose qualities Bahá’ís aspire to.
Anyway, I LOVED THY CREATION is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell’s. The stories therein were first published in venues as diverse as Analog, Amazing Stories, and Interzone and span the genres of science fiction, fantasy and magical realism.
All the Colors of Time
A Collection of Short Fiction
by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
Time travel is a dream long held by human beings. Who hasn’t had fond thoughts about showing Nicola Tesla their personal Tesla Coil or taking him for a drive in an electric car that bears his name? The devil is in the details of the technology, which is what ties together this collection of short fiction—the stories in this collection appeared in Analog science fiction magazine between 1990 and 2000.
You can download a sample EPUB here, or a sample MOBI (Kindle) here. Or you can buy the book at the Book View Cafe online bookstore.
