First published at Alexandra Pierce’s blog.
Cat Sparks is fiction editor of Cosmos Magazine and former manager of Agog! Press. She’s won a total of nineteen Aurealis and Ditmar awards for writing, editing and art. Over sixty of her short stories have been published since 2000. She is currently engaged in a PhD examining young adult post-disaster literature. Her collection The Bride Price, was published by Ticonderoga Publications last year. Her first novel, Blue Lotus, is finally nearing completion. @catsparx
The Aussie spec fic snapshot project is starting to take on aspects of Michael Apted’s Up documentary series — you know, the ones profiling a group of British children, revisiting them again every seven years. Snapshot comes around more frequently, but I’m starting to see distinct parallels. The Snapshot is a worthy cultural endeavor but for me, it serves to highlight how little control I have over my own career, creative development and achievements.
1. Your collection The Bride Price took out the Ditmar for Best Collection, and its story “Scarp” took out the Ditmar for Best Short Story, this year – congratulations! What was it like to put this collection together? Did it achieve what you hoped it would?
Ticonderoga’s Russell B Farr approached me three times about doing this collection. Three other publishers had previously expressed interest – in the end Russ wore me down with sheer persistence and the offer of a Canberra Natcon launch. I was worried I wasn’t ready, a pointless concern harking back to a different era. Once, authors only got collected when they’d attained a certain level of achievement. Today’s market is saturated with short story collections. I was happy to win a Ditmar for mine.
2. As well as writing, you’ve been an editor and are a designer, including designing the remarkable cover for The Bride Price. Have these skills worked together for you, or are they sometimes in tension?
The tension resulting is always about time and focus. Serious fiction takes serious slabs of time, commitment and research. The longer you’re at it, the more disassociated activities you end up having to shed. Personally I have never had more time to focus on writing than I have now, yet even writing full time isn’t enough. My output is slow, I am always behind and I never seem to achieve as much as I’d like to.
3. You’re currently working on a PhD, which is very exciting. What are you investigating, and how will this impact on your fiction?
My PhD research question is: How does real world climate change data and anxiety shape and inform post-disaster science fiction for young adults? I’m only halfway through but already my fiction has been permanently affected. I no longer believe in a non-climate changed future and expect fiction to acknowledge the dramatically altering landscape, be it science fiction, cli fi or more common garden varieties.
4. What Australian works have you loved recently?
I’ve bought so many Australian books this year but have barely had time to read them. PhD material sucks up most of my reading time. The last thing I loved to pieces was Max Barry’s Lexicon. I also really dug Andy Macrae’s Trucksong and Lara Morgan’s The Rosie Black Chronicles. I’m currently picking my way through Ben Peek’s Dead Americans, Thoraiya Dyer’s Asymmetry and Kirstyn McDermott’s Caution, Contains Small Parts. Podcast-wise, I remain a steady fan of both The Coode St Podcast and Galactic Suburbia. Artwise, I adored Nick Stathopoulos’s portrait of Robert Hoge currently hanging in Sydney’s Salon Des Refuses, as well as the short film produced by Nick and Ryan Cauchi: It Grows. (disclaimer – I appear in that movie myself, a fact that serves to enhance hilarity as I can’t act to save my life!) Trailer link here.
5. Have recent changes in the publishing industry influenced the way you work? What do you think you will be writing in five years from now?
I have zero interest in self-publishing or becoming a relentless self-promotion machine. I write what I’m interested in writing, study the form, work hard to lift my game. That’s what being an author means to me.
Right now, I’m two weeks off finishing a novel and delivering it to my agent. This novel in various forms and guises has been weighing heavily on my shoulders for a very long time. If I’m still working on the same book five years from now, do me a favour, please take me out and shoot me.
Australian SF Snapshot Project 