Today it gives the Speculative Fiction Showcase great pleasure to interview Nancy Joie Wilkie, whose collection of novelettes Faraway and Forever—More Stories has its debut on July 18, 2023.
Tell us something about Faraway and Forever—More Stories and how it relates to your previous collection, Seven Sides of Self.
Seven Sides of Self is a collection of seven short stories. The stories, however, are not all in one genre. There are three science fiction tales, three generic fiction stories, and one fantasy tale. Faraway and Forever is a collection of five novelettes … all science fiction … less confusion for the reader, I think.
And whereas the stories in Seven Sides of Self are mostly unrelated to one another, the first novelette in Faraway and Forever takes place one hundred plus years in the future and takes place on Planet Earth, with each new story taking the reader further into the future and farther out in space.
There are certain people and places introduced in Seven Sides of Self that appear in the Faraway and Forever stories … such as Mothersouls, Planet Aurillia, and the events on Planet Solus II.
You come from a scientific background but your Christian faith is also important to you. How do you reconcile the two and does fiction form a bridge between them?
My belief is that science is all about trying to explain the creations of God. My career in science came out of me trying to make sense of all that the Good Lord has built around us … the sea, the sky, the sun, the stars. The fictional stories I write are simply me trying to convey the patterns I see in nature and society and the passion I feel in my heart about God’s creations.
And to answer the second part of the question … I wouldn’t say that fiction builds a bridge between my scientific background and my Christian faith. It’s just a tool.
Are your stories allegories, as with C.S. Lewis, or are they more like Tolkien’s works, where his faith underlies the stories?
I believe they are both. Many of my stories are allegorical depictions of slices from my life and the people who have played major roles in my life.
And for the record, I am a huge fan of both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien … even have paid a visit to the final resting place of Tolkien in Oxford, England during the spring of 1979. I have no doubt they each influenced my writing in some way… I just can’t say how.
How does a genre like Science Fiction lend itself to philosophical or spiritual investigation?
To me, certain philosophical and spiritual concepts are hard to grapple. By creating a fictional analogy of a certain notion or theory, putting what is complex into simpler terms, one might be better able to understand a difficult concept. And science fiction is most definitely a wonderful tool for investigating philosophical questions and spiritual realms.
What are your thoughts about the recent emergence of AI and what role it will play in the creative arts? Is it a threat?
I have to say that I am not a great fan of artificial intelligence (AI). My only interaction with it (to date) is dealing with the suggested edits made by Grammarly … software built using artificial intelligence. It wanted to make changes to my stories which made no sense and were completely out-of-context. And I do fear that younger folks might be tempted to use it to create “original” works of art, music, and writing. Nope. Not a fan of it. We have already lost enough to technology. I don’t want to lose any more.
What do the stories in Faraway and Forever explore and is there an underlying theme?
This collection of novelettes takes the reader from the not-too-distant future to a time when travel between worlds is a common occurrence. Each stop along mankind’s journey outward to the stars is accompanied by a deeper look inward. These stories examine how extraterrestrial beings might use our own biology against us, question the nature of the afterlife, reveal how wishes are really granted, and finally … explore how a book written by someone claiming to be the second coming of Christ can spark a new religion.
You are also a musician and a visual artist. Tell us about these other creative paths and how they relate to your writing.
I've been playing music since I was ten years old. I thank my Dad for encouraging me and exposing me to different artists and different styles of music. And with that came learning about music theory. Then when my paternal grandmother gifted us with her piano when I was fourteen, I taught myself how to play piano and guitar. It wasn’t long before I was able to play along with all the songs on Abbey Road (by the Beatles), Tommy (by The Who), and Jesus Christ Superstar.
And there are indeed connections between my music and my writing. After all, so many of my songs have lyrics and those lyrics do relate to people and events in my life just like my stories. After the release of “Venus In The Trees,” a friend called me and said, “Do you realize the word ‘God’ appears ten times in this collection of songs?” And God and heaven are often themes in my stories.
“The Goldfire Project,” “The Wishbringer,” and “The Last Sunday of Summer” are certainly examples of this.
As for the art? I’ve been drawing pictures ever since I can remember. I was inspired by a cousin who could perfectly draw all of the comic book superheroes! Then he purchased one of the first Apple MacIntosh computers and I quickly followed in his footsteps. When I first developed my Website in 2005, it became a wonderful opportunity to create and post original art. In the years that followed, I have had many opportunities to create cover art for my CDs and CDs of friends.
And then there is this. Several years ago I wrote a song titled “Aurora’s Ring.” After recording the basic tracks, a friend contributed vocals and a lead guitar part. He turned the song into something special! But what was even better? He suggested we compose a concept album centered around Aurora’s story. Its title? “Dragon’s Door—A Tale of Ring and Sword” (released on Mindsongs Musique, December 25, 2022). This gave birth to the short story of the same title included in my third collection of stories titled The River Keeper and Other Tales (to be released by Austin Macauley Publishers in early 2024).
Take a listen …
https://sparrows-tale.hearnow.com/dragons-door-a-tale-of-ring-and-sword There you have it! What more do I need to say!
What are Easter Eggs and why are they important to you?
In fiction, Easter eggs are cultural, literary, or personal references embedded in the text that only a few readers will understand … little gifts for those who find them.
I often take the name of someone or something familiar and look for an anagrammatic cousin. Take for example the fictional Planet Solus II in “The Last Sunday of Summer.” Rearrange the letters of “Solus” and you get “souls.”
Or in the case of “Once Upon a Helix,” the first letters of the names of the two main characters … Gunther Trent and Catherine Arkette … are the same first letters of the four nucleotides present in DNA molecules … G, T, C, and A. Dr. Arkette’s friend, Lizzie, even mentions how it is she keeps track of which letters are paired with which … and that “C” and “A” do not go together.
Other Easter eggs are the incorporation of street names from streets I pass on my way to North Carolina or Bethany Beach, Delaware. Inspector Saathoff and Queen Addix from “The Ledge” and Madison Mills from “Half the Sky.”
How far does your writing, though set in the future or distant places, refer to the present?
If one ignores the stories being set on a distant planet or in the future … all of the stories are meant to serve as allegories of events that have happened to me over the last several dozen years of my life … or the immediate present.
You worked in the areas of biotechnology and biodefense. What did that involve and how did it affect your writing?
While my advanced degree is in what I would call classic biochemistry … things like protein purification … my true love is organic chemistry. I spent my formative years as a production chemist … making bathtubs full of nasty chemicals before trading in my lab coat for two decades of managing new products on their way from a light bulb over the head of an R&D scientist to being a product on a shelf, ready for sale. The last seven years of my career were spent working at NIH in this nation’s biodefense program … managing the development of an alternate smallpox vaccine (Modified Vaccinia Ankara).
As far as influencing my writing, I think science opened up my mind to all sorts of tools begging to be used to explain some sort of technical whatsamacallit.
When you write, how important are your characters and are you drawn to exploring their lives further?
Characters are everything … especially because many times the characters are me or a piece of me … and the stories are allegorical slices are my life … hence the title Seven Sides of Self. I often feel that I do not do my characters justice … don’t describe them more thoroughly. I use them and their voices more to explore an issue or discuss some idea while ignoring certain aspects of their physical or emotional being. The story “Old Mims” is all about that very short falling … me poking fun at myself. But, remember, I’m writing short stories and novelettes and keeping things abbreviated so that more can happen in the short span of the story.
How do you imagine your readers?
I’d like to think my readers are individuals searching for truly original things to ponder … individuals trying to understand the world and the universe it sits in … and individuals trying to understand themselves. It always helps if readers are intelligent, curious, emotional, spiritual, and able to receive the flights of fantasy I’m sending their way. Mindsights!
Did you read Science Fiction or Fantasy when you were growing up, and were there any particular influences?
I absolutely read science fiction in my formative years. It was a time when the masters of science fiction classics were hitting their stride. Isaac Asimov, Arthur
C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert. And it was also a time when the masters of classic fantasy were publishing their greatest works … J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Terry Brooks, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Zilpha Keatley Snyder. But my favorite author of all time had her literary feet in both waters -
Ursula K. LeGuin … oh my! The Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed, and The Earthsea Trilogy are some of my favorites.
You are working on a science fiction novel and a children’s story. How does writing a novel differ from short fiction for you?
I’ll start off saying that writing a novel is much more challenging than writing a series of unconnected short stories. I’d like to think I’m slowly working my way up to dealing with a novel. Seven Sides of Self is a collection of short stories. Faraway and Forever is a collection of novelettes. That is to say, the stories in the second collection are longer than the stories in the first collection.
My fourth work of fiction (unpublished) is a 100+ page novella titled Who Moved My Planet? Once again, I’m working my way up to a longer singular work.
And as I think about some of my favorite novels written by Isaac Asimov … specifically the novels in the Foundation series … many of his novels are a series of very long interconnected novellas … stories within a certain overarching umbrella … but with new characters and situations introduced with each new section of the book. I’m using this approach for my novel … tentatively titled The Oaks of Mamre.
You will be releasing a third collection of short stories, The River Keeper and Other Tales, in early 2024. What can you tell us about those?
After reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings many years ago, I was captivated by Tolkien’s world of Middle-earth. I then read the biography of J.R.R. Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter and discovered information about where the author lived in Oxford, England, as well as his burial site north of town. So, on one cold and rainy Sunday afternoon, my friend and I drove from Gosport to Oxford to visit Tolkien’s home and traipse through a cemetery to find his final resting place and the tombstone on which he likened himself and his wife to Beren and Lûthien, characters in the central love story of The Silmarillion.
But the last important thing the biography revealed to me was that Tolkien had written several shorter stories outside the bounds of Middle-earth, stories such as “Leaf by Niggle,” “Smith of Wootton Major,” and “Farmer Giles of Ham.” It is these often overlooked gems that inspired me to write the seven stories in The River Keeper and Other Tales.
It is a collection of seven tales, all fantasy. And while each new tale might be considered a fable, like all good fables, each addresses a theme relevant to our lives today. Themes of sacrificing one's own life for the greater good, to the power of truth to break through hurtful intentions, to how wishing for things designed to help others can have disastrous results, to what an afterlife might be like and choices we might still have to make.
This collection of tales introduces the reader to the imaginary Kingdom of Imlay, a world still filled with magic, mythical creatures great and small, some good and some bad. Characters, both young and old, face making decisions which will affect those they hold dear.
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