Conversations with interesting people
Vikram Chandra on the search problem, twisting patterns, Lawrence of Arabia, and working at a higher level through AI
“What we crave, I think, from poetry or fiction or drama is a replication or an echo of our existence. And pleasure that comes out of that, entertainment that comes out of that, but also a kind of human connection. Knowing that there is another human back there who is writing about pain or joy and you’re communicating with a human through the text. I think that’s inevitably going to stay.”
Luis Mendo on telling stories through drawings, always learning, and the meaning of wealth
“You shouldn’t feel guilty for being happy or liking something, for talking about beauty. It seems to me that many people seem to wallow in ugliness, in death, in blood, in suffering. That has never suited my personality, never.”
Kat Howard on convoluted roads, writing in layers, and the cost of magic
“So that’s the idea that you could be a very righteous person, a very justice-seeking person, and that would be a very difficult job. That would be hard, and there would be consequences for magic, there would be consequences for being that kind of chosen person. I think that in fantasy literature we play with the idea of the Chosen One all the time. We don’t often look at the more difficult side of being the Chosen One. What that can do to you. So I really wanted to look at that idea of what actually happens when you make that choice.”
Fiona Collins on Japanese fans and textiles, collectors, and the materiality of art
“And when you go to see it in person, you can see that there are finger marks, fingerprints on the faces, on the hands. You can see where people had been pointing over time – even if you had greasy hands, this is covered in fingerprints. When you see it, it’s kind of gross and kind of chauvinistic (laughs) but when the students saw it in person, they went “that’s so cool”. That kind of physical proximity tells you much more than historians ever could know just looking at slides.”
Victoria Goddard on stories as waves, being an independent author, and how goodness is underrated
“Honestly, competency is always sexy. You always enjoy watching people who are competent – like watching people at the Olympics. That’s fantastically amazing, just mesmerizing, right? Not only are they doing it, they are doing it with a bit of what the Italians call sprezzatura. There’s just something fantastic about watching somebody do something really well. And that can be bureaucracy, too. And I think that’s fun..”
Lisa Tang Liu on photography, motherhood, and mapping her world through art
“So, I’m trying to figure out what all this means. I can’t help but relate it to my experience of being an immigrant too. The United States is a mosaic—I think it’s more multicultural, multiracial than probably any other country in the world, except perhaps Canada. There are problems and tensions, and I’m trying to see how that reflects in nature too. I’m still trying to make sense of all this.”
Nathan Ashman on noir and ecological crime
“I think we’re going to see a lot of ecological crime novels in the coming years. Hstorically, it’s been the dystopian novel or the science fiction novel proper that’s been the space in which these questions are examined. But I think the crime novel is starting to move into that territory more and more. I think that’s going to pick up, and I think noir will certainly be the mode through which a lot of that kind of fear and scepticism and hostility is perhaps expressed. Yeah, I think those two are kind of perfect bedfellows.”
Julia Crouch, Queen of Domestic Noir
“What I have ended up writing about is mostly women behaving appallingly. Because I love that. I love transgressive women. I’m actually quite well behaved as a person, but I wish I could behave like some of my characters: not doing what you’re supposed to do, not being neat and tidy, not sitting with your legs crossed, not washing. All of those things. I wish sometimes I didn’t comply like that – as I get older, I am more in danger of going that way!”
