Memory is suspect, but I did suffer the image of a woman leaving a room and then not returning for a great long while. I think I was watching TV. Maybe something on the screen triggered the image.

The current situation in Nigeria is highly volatile. There are militants in the delta region who are kidnapping and sometimes killing oil workers, they are blowing up pipelines and assassinating officials. This kind of situation cannot last long. Change is inevitable.

Exploring our cosmic context is a major purpose of SF, I’d say. But in fiction you do need to find an intimate human story to tell!

I envisioned a species that had no evolutionary imperative towards competitive behaviors, and as such thrived on constant, snail’s-pace communication routines that similarly kept all members of any given community bonded at all times.