THE PARTICIPANT
Merc Fenn Wolfmoor is a queer non-binary writer who lives in the Minnesota.
Favorite things include: robots, dinosaurs, monsters, and tea. Their
stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Fireside, Apex, Uncanny,
Shimmer, and other fine venues, with reprints included in The
Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, Wilde Stories 2016,
Heiress of Russ 2016, and Transcendent 2016. Merc likes
to play video games, watch movies, read comics, and wear awesome
hats. You can find Merc on Twitter @Merc_Wolfmoor, Patreon
(https://www.patreon.com/mercrustad) or their website:
http://amercrustad.com. Their debut short story collection, SO YOU
WANT TO BE A ROBOT, is out from Lethe Press in May 2017.
THE QUESTIONS
QSR
– Okay, opening strong here: If you could send a piece of writing
advice back to your past-self (probably the past-you that was first
starting to write fiction and send it out), what would it be?
AMR — I would tell myself that it's okay to write
things that are weird, and things that have feelings; that it is okay
to put your heart into the work, because that is how you survive and
flourish. "Small!Merc," I would say, "take it from me,
who is your future self. (You know we've always loved time-travel.)
There are people now who will tell you that you write awful, overly
emotional characters who are nonetheless unsympathetic or too weird;
that exploring queer content will never sell; that you should never
mix genres or take risks because you're an unknown. Stay strong,
small!Merc. All these things are untrue. You don't know it yet, but
being autistic/aroace/queer/ non-binary influences your work even
before you have the words you need to understand your identity. It's
okay. I know it's scary and painful, but you'll persevere. (I'm sorry
that it will take so long. Remember the dark doesn't last forever.)
And always know, there are people now, and there will be people in
the future, who believe in you, who help you, who are supportive and
awesome and kind. You got this, kid."
QSR
– Aww. And while we're on the topic of time-travel, if Future!Merc
were to appear before you today, what would you hope to hear from
that future self (about fiction/writing/etc.)?
AMR
— Hmm, this is a tough one! I think, mostly, I
would like to know future!Merc is still writing and that they are
happy with what they write. Because that's always a fear, for me:
that once again I will break myself and be unable to create words.
As
for specifics, well. This is ideally what I'd like to hear:
"Hi,
past!Merc," future!Merc would say, rocking an excellent hat and
coat, "I'm here to tell you what's up. First, yes, you did
actually finish the novel revisions. I can't tell you how long it
took (there's all these NDA time-travelers have to sign, you know how
it is), but we did it! THE COLLARS WE WEAR is a finished book. We
queried it and, well... NDAs. The prognosis is positive, though, so
keep at it."
I'd
nod, take notes and ask, "What can you tell me of the short
fiction scene?"
"It's
good," future!Merc would say, "we can still finish things!
And write new things! And people still want to read the things we
write!" They'd look happy, and I'd be happy, because yay
things! "While I can't speak for sales,
awards, etc, I can tell you this: that novelette you just started?
You'll finish it. Sure, it'll need work, but you got it done. That's
the thing, current!Merc—we're getting better at the whole 'finish
what you start' thing, and it's working out well. Okay, I gotta go.
Can't say too much more or we'll mess with the space-time continuum.
You know the drill. Never give up, never surrender!"
I'd
wave to future!me and, yes, get back to work. I like positive
outcomes.
QSR
– You have a short story collection coming out soon, So You Want to
be a Robot and Other Stories (from Lethe Press, and available forpreorder here). What was the largest challenge of organizing
your work into book form? Was there any strategy that you used to
make the task easier and/or more meaningful to you?
AMR
— One of the biggest challenges was figuring out which stories to
include (part of this was what was available, rights-wise, and also
what went together best for a collection). I knew, from the start, a
debut collection had to have "How To Become A Robot In 12 Easy
Steps" as the final story. From there, I looked at a balance of
dark and lighter, long and short, SF and fantasy. Steve Berman,
editor at Lethe, also asked for one to two original stories to help
sell the collection. I considered length, genre, tone, and how the
new stories would fit into the overall book. (The new stories, by the
way, are "A Survival Guide For When You're Trapped In A Black
Hole" and "Batteries For Your Doombot5000 Are Not
Included." WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE A THING ABOUT LONG TITLES.
>.>)
I
drafted a TOC by hand in a notebook when I was in the proposal stage
for this collection. I'd shuffle around titles, list all the relevant
details (to me) such as length and genre; whether it was first,
second, third person; tone and style. I also knew I wanted twenty-one
stories (to mirror "Robot…12 Steps" from which the
collection title is taken). I shuffled around things for months
before I at last settled on the choices, and I went through, oh, five
or six TOC iterations before I had an order for the stories I was
happy with. The stylization word I'd use for organization is
chiaroscuro—light and shadowed patterns. I hope that reflects well
in the collection!
QSR
– I love the idea of light and shadowed patterns as a guiding
organization to the collection! Especially with the climate right now
I feel it's important to both recognize the dark and try to hold to
hope. It's also exciting that the collection will contain brand new
works! Are there any other new projects/stories/etc. that you're
working on that you can talk about?
AMR
— Yes! My
biggest ongoing project is a snarky, epic interactive space opera
novel-game titled GALACTIC BOUNTY HUNTER, which I am writing for
Choice of Games. I've pitched it as "Mass
Effect
meets The
Witcher
with a liberal dose of Deadpool." You play a down-on-your-luck
bounty hunter who is offered a job to go fight monsters. Naturally,
nothing is that simple. (Choice of Games produces a wide variety of
excellent games, novels similar to CYOA but with more player-driven
choices and results. They are sooooo much fun, and I'm absolutely
thrilled to be writing for the line!) While I cannot give any hard
and fast dates or promises, I aim to have the game draft finished
around late summer. It's going to be a blast. :D
As for other works, I'll have a short IF (interactive
fiction) story out with sub-Q at some point; I've sold two stories to
anthologies for summer release (can't share details yet! but I try to
keep my website page updated when I am allowed to squee about
news publicly); and I'm working on a couple more short stories and
novelettes set in my Principality Suns universe. Oh yeah, and novelrevisions which I am trying to juggle along
with everything else! It's going to be an exciting year for me,
writing-wise, I can say that much.
QSR
– If you were going to point a new reader to a good "entry
point" to your fiction, what story would you pick? Or is there a
particular work that you would select as especially emblematic of
what you want to do with your fiction?
AMR
— As far as emblematic I'd say "How to Become A Robot in 12Easy Steps" (Scigentasy) because it is definitely the
most "me," and also has lists and robots and hope. That was
one of the hardest stories I ever wrote; it's also one of my best.
I
think other good entry points are my Nebula-nominated (!!!!) short
story, "This Is Not A Wardrobe Door," (Fireside) and "TheAndroid’s Prehistoric Menagerie" (Mothership Zeta). They both
contain dinosaurs. ^_^
Also,
if second-person present-tense doesn't scare you off, "WhereMonsters Dance" (Inscription) and "Monster Girls Don't Cry"
(Uncanny) take on the darker, grittier side of fairy tales. You can
potentially exercise your brain with "Later, Let's Tear Up theInner Sanctum" or "Tomorrow When We See the Sun" (both
Lightspeed) for more intricate SF adventures; and I'm particularly
proud of the fantasy stories "The Gentleman of Chaos"
(Apex) and "Iron Aria" (Fireside).
QSR
– You mention "The Gentleman of Chaos" and "Later,
Let's Tear Up the Inner Sanctum" above, and let me just say that
I love both of those stories, in part because they both share (to me,
at least) a heady darkness and a focus on how narratives shape
perception (now that I think of it, "Monster Girls Don't Cry"
features some links to this idea as well). As a writer, do you feel
that you have some place you want readers to be after experiencing
your stories, some perception you'd like to show them, or challenge
them about?
AMR
— Well, unlike a fictional narrative, I don't have any control over
how readers experience or react to my stories. :D But I do hope that
when someone reads my fiction, they can find grains of truth—whether
it's about the world, themselves, or just a sense of 'you know, I
hadn't thought about that before.' Definitely there are stories where
I want to challenge something in our humanity-narrative: maybe it's
examining tropes, or digging deeper into who gets to tell what
stories and why, or asking the reader to consider assumptions they
have. It really varies a lot with the particular story.
Storytelling
is ingrained in us all. I think that when we engage with narratives,
we can learn about each other, ourselves, and the world. That's what
stories do: they let you see through another's eyes and heart and
soul. I think we make the world better for having this understanding
and empathy for other people and ourselves, spun through the lens of
'beginning, middle, end'.
QSR - Thank you so much and all the luck with everything!!!
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