On the night of 22 May, the New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series held a special event, offset from the usual first Tuesday of the month. Apparently, there was some confusion, because the usual venue was double-booked, so a last-minute translocation found the readers and an audience of some 50 people around the corner, at The Soho Loft.
Following his introductory remarks, series curator Jim Freund introduced the evening’s guest curator, Tor Books and Tor.com editor Liz Gorinsky. In her introductory remarks, Gorinsky tied together the evening’s two readers by noting, in addition to writing both fiction and non-fiction, they each do several creative things.
The first reader, Brian Francis Slattery, introduces himself as an editor, musician, and writer. His current passion is old time music, which he said is the precursor to blue grass. He read an untitled non-fiction piece about the the genesis of old time music, though he warned the audience that the piece makes its background sound much happier than reality. Slattery says he was drawn to old time music because it’s “really creepy.” What makes it dark, he said, is the people who played it: their difficult lives, their problems with industrialization, and their exploitation by those who made money off their music. He then went on to a dark piece of fiction called “The Spleen Brothers.” This darkly comic piece is about a folklorist trying to track down the reality of a pair of early 20th Century twin brother musicians.
Following a short break, Gorinsky then introduced the evening’s second reader, Charlie Jane Anders, who is the Managing Editor of io9.com, and the founder of Writers with Drinks. She read her multiply-nominated “Six Months, Three Days”. The tale is a wonderful story about the vagaries of time and the problems of predestination which, based on all its award nominations, I’m the only person to have not yet read the story. Anders read only the first half, so I finished reading it where it was first published, on Tor.com. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it. Go ahead; I’ll wait.
After the readings, Gornisky hosted a question-and-answer session with the author/readers. I’ll try to synopsize from my notes. For the entire session (along with the readings), tune in to Freund’s Hour of the Wolf science fiction talk radio program, which airs on WBAI 99.5 FM on Thursdays from 1:30 to 3:00AM.
The first question was from Gorinsky for the readers. Noting that both wear so many different professional hats, she asked how they make time for them all. Slattery’s response: “Coffee and prioritize.” Anders said she “runs around like a headless chicken. io9 is a big part of my life, and I work on that during the days. Then I try to take a five-mile walk, and write fiction in the evenings, usually in a cafe.” She lives in San Francisco.
Question (from the audience) for Slattery: what music are you listening to at the moment?
Slattery: The Smithsonian folkways web site is awesome. Recently, I stumbled into Colombian music.
Question: Did you ever feel like you wanted to quit writing? How did you push through that block?
Anders: I never wanted to quit. At times, I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere, but I didn’t want to quit. If I didn’t have fiction to write, I don’t know what I’d do.
Slattery: I’m an editor first, even with my own fiction. At one point, that made writing fiction very difficult. I’d write something, put it down for ten minutes, then look at it again and think “this is terrible.” But eventually, I was able to let go. I said to myself “I’ll just do my best, and then let others decide if what I’ve written is any good.” What matters is that you’ve said something that somebody else values.
Question: Do you worry about reading fiction while you’re writing, that it might interfere?
Anders: I think I should worry about it more, but I don’t. I read so much—books to review for io9, etc.—that I can’t worry. Besides, I also jump around a lot with my writing.
Slattery: I tend to avoid things that are similar to what I’m writing, not so much that I’m worried about contaminating my fiction, but because I need the variety.
Question: What gets in the way of your writing, distracts you from it? Do you listen to music while you write?
Anders: Nothing distracts me from my writing. I have eclectic tastes in music.
Slattery: Listening to music is very distracting to my writing. I find that if I’m listening to music, I’ll get caught up in it, and stop writing. If I could make a living playing music, that would be awesome. But I play music that was never commercial, so when I’m writing, I have to leave my instruments in another room, so they won’t distract me. But some of my fiction has a cadence to it, like I’m writing the fiction to music, based on what I’ve been listening to. I want it to have that feel when it’s read aloud, or even in the reader’s mind.
Question: Which writers interest you? And Charlie, why did you set the story in Providence?
Anders: Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, Doris Lessing, Graham Green. I like Iain M. Banks and Iain Banks. As for why I set the story in Providence: I spent a lot of time in New England, and most of the story is actually set in Boston. But I used Providence because the story needed some distance between the characters.
Slattery: I don’t look at it as writers who’ve inspired me, but rather writers I’ve ripped off. there are a lot of writers I read and said to myself “Oh, you get to do that.” I hadn’t known it was allowed in writing. I like the Beat writers, Latin American writers for the rhythm (like music), Gunter Grass, Thomas Pynchon, Jeff VanderMeer, Joan Didion, and a nature writer named David Quammen.
Following the readings and questions and answers, many of the listeners joined the readers for dinner at Spuntos, a nearby thin-crust pizza place.
Freund started with the evening with some announcements, which fit more appropriately at the end of this review. Riffing on Anders’ “Writers with Drinks”, he urged everyone (both physically present, and listening later on the radio) to support their local reading series. On 30 May, Hour of the Wolf will have Ursula K. Le Guin and a discussion of the upcoming stage performance of Lathe of Heaven. On 5 June, the next regularly scheduled NYRSF reading, K. Tempest Bradford will be guest curating an evening with N.K. Jemisin and Ekaterina Sedia. For this evening, remember to show up on time, as there will be a live preview of Lathe of Heaven, the stage play.