I’m publishing text-based interviews with authors from my science fiction and fantasy anthology Recognize Fascism, which was published in October 2020 by World Weaver Press. I thought it might be nice to highlight their work again, and remind folks that this book is still a resource (and sometimes prescient!), and it was honestly lovely to touch base with the authors again.
TODAY: Jonathan Shipley, whose story in Recognize Fascism is “Brooklyn.”
Crystal: First off, let’s talk about your story in RECOGNIZE FASCISM! What drew you to the topic of your story?
Jonathan: It was the clash of cultures that drew me. While not overtly onstage in the story, the futuristic human culture depicted is involved in redefining itself vis-a-vis alien cultures that humans are encountering as they press outward in space. It’s the colonialistic mentality rearing its head again, but perhaps with a different outcome this time.
Crystal: What was your favorite part of writing this story?
Jonathan: I enjoy the nameplay that is integrated into this story with a character named after the Brooklyn Bridge. As the linguists says when she is trying to offer anonymity, “In your case, the name is the whole point” since the name Brooklyn McClaren does not generically translate into 145th Street O’Reilly or any other substitution.
Crystal: Why did you steer the story in the direction that it went, and did anything about that direction surprise you along the way?
Jonathan: I imagined from the start this interaction of the linguist and the homeless, disenfranchised youth on Brooklyn Bridge. I did not foresee that they would join forces and emigrate off world together, but characters take on a will of their own once they start speaking in dialogue.
Crystal: Ha, fair enough! What work did you do in order to authentically present the voice of your narrator?
Jonathan: The voice of my narrator, a linguist, was easy to capture because she is basically an academic and I know many of those. She is an observer to large-scale societal events, rather than a participant, so she represents Everyone’s eyes on the situation.
Crystal: Okay, let’s talk specifically about the editing process we underwent together. When you started the editing process with me, what were your hopes and fears?
Jonathan: The fear in working with a new editor is always how much change is going to be required. You want an editor to identify points of confusion and lack of clarity, but you worry about whether the two of you will be grammatically compatible regarding the small things – Oxford comma, semicolons, etc. And the follow-up question: How confrontational to get about the small things? The answer is not very. As a writer, my job is to tell my story, and even my favorite word in the piece is not worth fighting over if the core idea is still there.
Crystal: What didn’t make the cut for your story? What did you/we leave out, and why? Were there fiddly little details that you loved but were dropped from the final draft?
Jonathan: Backstory – it’s always backstory. Writers have a whole head full of additional information about everyone and everything in their stories, but most of it is unhelpful in actually telling the story once you have conceived it.
Crystal: So true, so true. What do you wish people would ask you about this story or about the larger RECOGNIZE FASCISM project?
Jonathan: I wish people would ask – or wonder – what happens to these characters going forward? And as this world unfolds, how successful is the implied reverse course to human expansionist policies? What is the cost incurred? We know the cost of war, but we sometimes forget that peace and cooperation also involve a price. Compromise is an art form in its own right.
Crystal: What’re you working on lately? Share! 🙂
Jonathan: Since the pandemic, I have shifted from a decade of writing short stories back to my first love – novels. I am in the middle of my third pandemic/post-pandemic novel about the fall of a vast intergalactic empire and the forces that brought it down. Pure space opera with a little horror and magic thrown in to confuse and spice up the genre. The on-going problem, of course, is getting that first novel published. Short story publication is attainable by mere mortals; I’ve yet to discover if that’s also true for novels.
Crystal: Ha, totally fair. I support you and hope to be reading more good news from you on this front in the future, then!
Jonathan Shipley writes in the genres of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror with over 100 short story publications, including the last ten volumes of SWORD & SORCERESS. The AFTER DEATH anthology where he contributed won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award. A complete bibliography of his short fiction can be seen at www.shipleyscifi.com/publishedworks.
Crystal Huff 