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.

John Hunter was a medical revolutionary during perhaps the most wretchedly disgusting period in all of Western medical history: England in the 1700-1800s. At a time when most physicians treated the symptoms of a disease without trying to comprehend the cause, Hunter was a dogged experimentalist who was absolutely intent on understanding the inner workings of the human body. And in order to study the human body, Hunter needed—human bodies.

I actually find setting pretty difficult, even though it’s one of my favorite aspects of a story when done well. Usually I think of myself as a more character-oriented writer. But I love writing about physicality, especially the small details like how one character eats versus another, or the sensation of leaving gravity. In this piece, I was making a conscious effort to pay attention to specificity, because this character has very little past or future. She’s entirely invested in the present moment.

I love that so much contemporary SF is bringing #ownvoices narratives to the surface. My attempt is to do that while directly confronting current events, politics, social justice, in provocative narratives that interrogate the foundations of SF, dismantle and demolish them, then recycle the debris to build a new house where a new kind of SF can live, thrive, and grow. It’s a work in progress.

Merc already had a very specific idea of where the story should go, and most of a draft, when they recruited me. They had wanted to write the story on their own, but they needed the climax to revolve around poetry, and they didn’t feel their poetic chops were up to the task. So they asked me for help, as someone who they knew well and who understood the Principality Suns ’verse, and who had a few more poetry publication credits under their belt.