I like the idea of steampunk and I enjoy it especially when it’s set against the backdrop of our world, if only an alternate version. I have a problem, though. As a black male, the 1800s is not an American era I like to revisit or even re-envision . . . I find it incredibly difficult to overlay steampunk technology on a society gearing up to fight a civil war over the right to enslave my ancestors. And I find steampunking London to be a well saturated undertaking.

During the drafting process it became clear that personal agency was something I wanted to explore. The women of “Waterbirds” are its focus, of course—when Celia gets to choose how she presents herself to the world, or Irene breaks away from a difficult situation, I hope readers will see how these experiences are relevant to them as women. But the characters—and therefore we—struggle against social and cultural constraints as well.

Earth can recover from anything we do to her, even if it takes entire geological epochs. The chemical processes that resolve as life will continue to churn, and eventually, maybe long after we’re all gone, a fresh diverse web of life will emerge, and it will be one wholly alien to what we see when we look out our window. It’s only the current tenants, including the many who have done nothing on the scale of our own destruction, who are royally screwed.

I think Wild Bill represents a very specific kind of harmful, destructive masculinity—one that’s got a very hard surface, but an interior that’s mostly made up of weakness and insecurity. He’s constantly putting pressure on himself, very tired and very alone, and that gives him a strong desire to connect with someone while feeling he shouldn’t. I think this kind of masculinity is damaging both inside and outside.