Tobias S. Buckell is a Caribbean born speculative fiction writer whose sometimes island-flavored work has show up in anthologies edited by people like Nalo Hopkinson and Mike Resnick, and in magazines like Analog. He is a Clarion graduate, Writers of The Future winner, and a Campbell Award nominee. Oddly enough, he currently lives in Ohio. Questions and Answers What are you currently working on? I just finished the first draft of my novel 'Crystal Rain,' and am gearing up to do the final polish. It was first solicited by an editor who turned down the proposal noting that it would be hard to sum the book up in a paragraph. So now I'm telling everyone that it is a 'far future Caribbean steampunk adventure.' I really enjoyed writing this. Is writing your full time occupation, if not what is? No. I wish I were full time! Right now I am a 'Technology Associate' at a small liberal arts college in mid-West Ohio. I mainly help people use computers and equipment, as well as some other random techie type stuff. What was your first professional sale? How did it feel when you received the acceptance? My first professional sale is a strange story. I wrote a piece called Fish Merchant and sent it to a magazine that kept it for 9 months. In the meantime I had gone to the Clarion SF/F workshop, revised it, enjoyed summer break, then withdrawn it and sent it to Science Fiction Age. Of course, my life being what it is, the magazine I withdrew it from accepted it and then Science Fiction Age also asked for it the same week. It was quite a heady thing to know that both magazines wanted the story, but also nerve-wracking to have to explain the situation to both editors and come to a decision about which magazine to refuse. I wondered if I would get jaded as I sold more and more stories, but the truth is I keep getting really psyched to know that soon people will be able to read them. Who is your favourite author? One author? Good grief, I'd almost rather get tortured than answer with only one name. I'd say Vernor Vinge, for writing A Fire Upon The Deep. I love that book. But I also admire Arthur C. Clarke, Tim Powers, Bruce Sterling and so many more others than I can think of right now. If you could give one piece of advice to a would-be author, what would it be? Work hard and persevere. But don't get stuck in a groove while you're busy persevering. I took me hundreds of rejections and many years to get to my first sale, and I kept on working on getting better while I was waiting. I know some people who are persevering the heck out of the world, but aren't changing over the years and they get frustrated. It's a tricky balance to be able to stubbornly hang in there while being open and accepting to criticism of your work, and to also seriously examine your work on your own. But I think being able to balance the two pays off in spades. When did you first decide that you wanted to be an author? I guess I'm highly ADHD. Everything I read and people who are in the know claim I am, and it doesn't surprise me. All throughout school I was never able to sit still and was quickly bored. In order to avoid getting into trouble I would bring novels to class and read them on my lap while pretending to look at the desk. These novels would get taken away as the teachers wised up and spread the word. After a while I started writing snippets and vignettes during class to keep my mind occupied. Somewhere around my sophomore year of high school I started realizing that I couldn't read a book without wanting to go ahead and do it 'my way.' From then on I have been working at it. When did you first feel that you were an author? I started to get inklings of what it was like when I was at the Clarion workshop, and then right after my first sale. However it really felt like I was an 'author' just recently when I took a few days off to finish the first draft of my novel. During that week off I sold four short stories one right after the other, then finished my novel. At that point I felt like I was a writing machine, even though I knew that it would be many months before anything quite like that happened ever again. Now I'm back at my day job, writing during my lunch hour and in snatched pieces of time as life allows. Is there anything else that can be done with Alien Invasion, Time Travel or Robots? I think so. I have a whole set of unique perspectives on these things. Alien Invasion can be done differently than it is. I grew up in the Caribbean, and have a distinctly post-colonial view of Alien Invasion that differs from the more pro-colonial mindset I find myself often coming across in some genre work I read. There is room for many more voices on all of these subjects, or the field would have given up and packed the boxes back in any of the past decades. As long as there is change in the world at large, I think there will always be more things done with those subjects. Do you have a scientific background? No. I went through college as one of those 'evil & literary' English majors. Sometimes I get tired of hearing how 'worthless' my field of study is from some people, but I'm comfortable with my choice. When I need science I am glad to hit the books and ask questions of science friends. Good research skills are applicable across the board in this age, and I try to avoid specialization so that I am free to investigate as many different interesting things as I can. I guess that's one of the reasons being a writer appeals to me. Do you get inspiration from recent scientific discoveries and theories? I'm addicted to scouring places like Slashdot, BoingBoing, and Spacedaily, that sort of stuff. I have way too many bookmarks. But it all turns into a goo upstairs in my head, and I draw on some of the wilder things I read about at times. Do you enjoy collaborating? Strangely enough, yes. I didn't think I would, as I'm a stubborn person who lives off in his own world half the time. But I had the chance to collaborate with Mike Resnick on one story, and enjoyed seeing how his mind worked. Soon after I wrote a story with Ilsa J. Bick, who had a different approach to story as well. It helped me to see directly how other people worked. Do You Always know a Story's Ending When You Begin Writing? As often as possible I now prefer to have an end in mind. I visualize it as a bulls-eye that I'm headed for and that the story is an arrow in my head. When I first started writing I used to just start out with an idea and throw things in as they occurred. One editor wrote back to ask if I had ever heard of the phrase 'everything and the kitchen sink.' I took the hint. Sometimes I use an outline, but having the bulls-eye in my head is important. Now that isn't to say I might not suddenly see a much better bulls-eye hit right when I'm at the end of the story, and that it isn't to say I might not adapt the story to this new direction, but having a direction makes the story more successful for me. Plug away - what do you have coming out? Well, I'm up for the Campbell Award For Best New Writer and will be at ConJose to see how that turns out. I think I'm the only nominee without a novel out, so I have no idea how this will end up, but I'm excited just to be nominated. I just had a story out in the July/August Analog, and a story out right now in Fictionwise.com's first original anthology called 'switch.blade.' Nalo Hopkinson also just accepted a very different story of mine for her second anthology called 'Mojo Conjure' that I'm very excited about. In the future I will be out in a SFWA sponsored anthology called 'New Faces in SF,' another called 'Men Writing SF As Women' and my collaboration with Mike Resnick will be out at some point in an anthology called 'Visions of Liberty.' You can also find my reprinted short fiction at Fictionwise.com, or visit my webpage, both links are below. If you come to the home page I keep a weblog and people are invited to ask questions, chat, or throw virtual rotten tomatoes at me. Many Thanks, Tobias! Relevant Links Tobias S. Buckell's Website Tobias S. Buckell at Fictionwise