Even with short stories, I design the plot as carefully as a standard-length novel. “Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” shares a background with my novel GENE MAPPER, so I only set up the drama for this short story. I enjoyed thinking the way Minami talks.

I tend to sketch my stories out in a rough paragraph form before I start to write. This is something I call a thumbnail sketch, from back in my art school days. The specifics, those I tend to discover as I am writing. This story is a little unusual because it started from a very vivid dream in which my husband had a clone that killed himself. It was unsettling and, being a writer, I started to wonder why a clone would do that.

I wanted to do a story about pirates, Maroons, and Seminoles. I had an image of these folks getting on a boat and making their way to freedom. So after I started putting down notes for the story, I did research and found that what I imagined, Seminoles in the early 1800s did. I also had the pleasure of talking with historian Nicole Ivy, who pointed me toward the Ethiopian Leg Myth.

It started off with the scene of a garden on the Moon popping into my mind. In my imagination, it was not a garden inside a habitat or on a terraformed lunar landscape, but a garden on the airless, lifeless surface. How could you do that? What would it look like? Why would you do that? And the story grew backward and forward from there.

I know so many women writers who are really struggling at the moment — who are excellent writers, but who never get the breaks or the recognition that men do. Once you’re over forty, it’s more or less as though you’re invisible, with a little blip when you die and everyone says ‘oh, wasn’t she wonderful!’ To redress this, I’m supporting women’s work where I can.

The introduction to “Crazy Rhythm” had me laughing out loud at both the antics on set and Margie’s casual efficiency. What is it about humor that invites readers into the story? You know, I’m not sure I know the answer to that. In this story, I’m relying quite a bit on well-established tropes of dictatorial […]