Looking at loosely realistic projections of what might happen if the moon exploded, I realized it was possible for the weather and oceans to be very volatile. The American South seemed like it would be a dangerous, but potentially still better-than-other-places location to live. And I liked the Mississippi river, since it is such a main artery for the USA. I could picture new settlements and old surviving cities returning to using shipping to get people and goods moved around.

My parents were divorced when I was very young, and for a long time, I considered that rift in our family the central crisis of my life. I was fascinated with the process of falling in love and getting married and starting a family. I imagine lots of people are, and that’s why romance novels are so popular. I didn’t really believe in romantic love the way it was presented in stories. I spent a lot of time wondering if an arranged marriage (sort of epitomized by Beauty and the Beast) was better than marrying for love.

We need more inclusiveness and representation in genre fiction as an accurate reflection of our world, not just as it is now, but the way it’s been and the way it’s going to be. Fighting against inclusiveness not only puts you on the wrong side of history, it also puts you on the wrong side of wrong.

I was thinking a lot about totalitarian states, and how insidiously they turn people against one another, making them complicit with great evil. Obviously, the Nazis and such states were in my mind; among many other things, the pit is a concentration camp. But I was thinking about the war on terror, as well — especially the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

I was mildly tickled, certainly not captured, by the thought that Earth is probably about a fourth-generation (across the history of the universe) living planet; that is, about three planetary lifespans of living worlds have probably gone all the way from first replicating molecules to dead husks before we even started. So if there was panspermia, it would have had plenty of time to evolve.

To me, steampunk is a genre that straddles the border between fantasy and science fiction, with one foot in each camp. It’s also a genre that is inextricably bound up with the history of colonialism and empire. As such, it’s particularly suitable for telling metaphorical stories about the impact of technology as one aspect of cultural invasion and the responses of the colonized peoples.

I tend to think of myself as a quiet writer, meaning that when given the opportunity to write about something big — like destructive climate change, for example — I’ll usually look inward for the emotional struts that get knocked over by such life-changing events. With so many bombastic, epic destruction stories in our lives — the “disaster porn” of modern cinema a prime example — I often find myself most moved by the portrayal of believable, honest people who are unfortunately living in the shadow of such towering events.