Fireside Magazine No. 1
A Periodical project in Boston, MA by Brian White ·
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Update #10: 7 Questions with Ken Liu
Posted on December 14
Over the next two weeks, we'll be posting interviews with all the Fireside contributors. First up is Ken Liu.
1. What drives you to write?
Probably the same thing that
drives every writer: the hope (or delusion) that telling stories is a
worthwhile exercise because it allows us to live many lives in one lifetime.
2. What are your favorite kinds of stories to read?
I like stories that try to do
things that film cannot. So much contemporary fiction lives in the shadow of
the movies, but words can do things that no special effects can touch.
3. Are those the same kind of stories you like to write? If not, what do you
like to write?
I do. And I'd like to think
that I'm working with the strengths of the written word. But I don't want to
give the impression that somehow I don't like the movies -- in fact, I'm learning
how to write scripts.
4. What are you reading now?
I have a habit of reading a
bunch of books at the same time. Right now, I'm actively in the middle of: a
collection of short stories by Xia Jia (I love her language), Home Game: An
Accidental Guide to Fatherhood, by Michael Lewis, Xiaoao Jianghu, by Jin
Yong (I'm rereading it for the twentieth time), The No-Cry Potty Training
Solution, by Elizabeth Pantley (yes, I recommend it), The Journals of Lewis
and Clark, by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, That Is All, by John
Hodgman, and Patent Law, by Janice M. Mueller.
5. Who are your favorite writers?
Too many to list. But I'll
say that I go back to Jin Yong's novels year after year, and I'll buy anything
written by Michael Lewis and David Mitchell.
6. You also work as a translator, programmer, and lawyer. How do these things mesh, and how do they feed into your writing?
I have
found that all these skills are surprisingly similar. In all three professions,
the practitioner is trying to turn one set of symbols into another set of
symbols and, by doing so, connect two worlds. As for affecting my writing, I
think your life always ends up seeping into your fiction, and work is a big
part of life.
7. You are working on a novel with your wife. What can you tell us about that,
and about the collaborative experience?
The novel actually began as
my wife's idea. We both wanted to write novels, and we weren't sure that either
of us could do it alone. We did a lot of the world-building together, then I
did the bulk of the drafting, while she went in and edited and rewrote
sections. We're now in the process of going through the second draft. I've
always enjoyed collaborating with other writers. The result is usually
something that neither of us could have come up with alone, and that makes it
cool.
Besides being a writer, Ken Liu is also a translator, programmer, and lawyer. His fiction has appeared in F&SF, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Lightspeed, among other places. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts. He and his wife are collaborating on their first novel. Twitter:@kyliu99 Website: kenliu.name
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Fireside is edited and created by Brian White, whose day job — well, it’s actually a night job — is on the copy desk of the Boston Globe. A committed word nerd, he is also the proprietor of Talk Wordy to Me, a blog about words, editing, and other oddities. (He tweets @talkwordy.) He lives near Boston with his wife, a theatrical lighting technician, and their cat, Bast, who is most likely asleep or shredding their couch as you read this.
