After a 34-year absence, we’re thrilled to welcome back Dean Whitlock to the pages of Asimov’s Science Fiction. Get to know him in our latest author Q&A, where we discuss his favorite themes, his advice to new writers, and how an old blueberry garden helped inspire “Deep Blue Jump,” his latest novella, which appears in our [September/October issue, on sale now!]
Asimov’s Editor: What is the story behind this piece?
Dean Whitlock: Thirty-three years ago, we bought a house that came with four large blueberry bushes out back, bushes that turned out to yield a huge harvest of large, wonderfully flavorful berries. Every summer from mid July into August, we would pick blueberries almost every day, enough to put on cereal and ice cream, to make muffins, pies, cakes, and pancakes, to make several jars of jelly and blueberry sauce, and to freeze a dozen or two quarts for wintertime eating.
Picking the berries turned into a meditative experience. I could let my mind roam, and it often roamed over the act of picking (when was a berry perfectly ripe, how could you tell?) and the microecology of the blueberry bushes (the tiny flies, bees, and white spiders, the birds looking for ways in, the chipmunks that sometimes burrowed around the roots).
After a few years, it was only natural to start coming up with various what-ifs that might be used in a story, and the fauna were certainly in there early (usually as boogey beasts that only came out at night), but the pickers were always first and foremost—who were they, why were they picking, who was in charge? Still, nothing coalesced for a long, long time. Finally, current events related to my day job wormed their way into the what-ifs. One of my clients was a substance abuse prevention coalition, so the opiate epidemic and the movement to legalize cannabis were impossible to ignore. Coincidentally, one of my work acquaintances was a lobbyist working on the issue of human trafficking (yes, even in li’l old Vermont). It is a sad truth that addiction and human trafficking are deeply connected in several ways. These were the pieces that gave life and structure to my daydreaming and led to “Deep Blue Jump.”
AE: Do current events feature in all of your writing?
DW: No, though they are certainly present in many of my stories and some of my novels. Ironically, the recent revelations about child labor in the U.S. came out at least a year after I began writing “Deep Blue Jump” and weren’t a part of its creation, but they certainly add a dark resonance when reading it now. “Roadkill” (Asimov’s SF, Nov. 1987) took a fantastical look at dead fur-bearing animals on the sides of our local roads in the context of the green movement and PETA. On the other hand, “Iridescence” (Asimov’s SF, Jan. 1989) was inspired by a fantastic but real bubble act I saw at Circus Smirkus (the best youth circus in the country, if not the world). The burned out human cop and the two aliens are what made the bubble what-if work, not any current events of the time.
AE: What is your history with Asimovs?
DW: If you ignore the early rejections, my history with Asmiov’s began in 1987, when then editor Gardner Dozois selected my very first published story to include in his fifth annual best-of-the-year collection. That story (“The Million-Dollar Wound”) had appeared in the January issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, but my story “Roadkill” was published in Asimov’s that November. Two other stories appeared in Asimov’s in the next two years, but most of my short works have been published elsewhere (mostly due to matters of timing or topic or rejection, plain and simple). In the ’90s, I began to work on novel-length projects, so there weren’t any short works to submit anywhere. Last year, I brought out Iridescent Dreams, a collection of my 20 best stories, which includes the three that were published in the Asimov’s (andis most of my published short oeuvre anyway). I blush to admit that “Deep Blue Jump” is the first of my stories to appear in Asimov’s since 1989, and finally came to fruition a year too late to be in the collection.
AE: Who or what are your greatest influences and inspirations?
DW: I have admired the work of many authors over the years, but I can point to only a few as “greatest influences.” Very early on there was Dr. Seuss, particularly On Beyond Zebra, a book that is not only creative but about being creative. Books like this made me an avid reader for life. In the realm of “almost science fiction,” there was Kurt Vonnegut, whose wry, cynical outlook was perfect for my teen years, but SF&F has always been my favorite genre, and there I would name Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, JRR Tolkien, Harlan Ellison, Sherri Tepper, and Connie Willis.
AE: Are there any themes that you find yourself returning to throughout your writing? If yes, what and why?
DW: Themes of friendship, family, loyalty, expectation versus will, duty versus dedication. Relationships are the core of most of my stories, long or short, serious or funny, though the type of relationship and its effects are not always inherent in the inspirational ideas or themes. We humans are gregarious animals, as are most of the alien and fantastical species we imagine for our stories. Companionship is essential to a full life. Conflict, or at least tension, is essential to a good story. Love can bring delight or tragedy and often something complex, enlivened with elements of both. Whatever the theme, it’s the people who get across the point.
AE: What inspired you to start writing?
DW: I have always read voraciously. My penmanship has only gotten worse, but I grasped the ways of grammar early and easily and have always been good at producing prose. I talk a lot, too, and enjoy acting a great deal, so I had all the necessary skills built in. I don’t remember the precise reason why, but I started my first storybook when I was about 10. It never made it past chapter one. What I lacked was discipline; there were so many other interesting things to do. I didn’t complete a story until I was 17 (got an A+), didn’t sell one until my late 20s (to a semipro zine that folded the month before my story would have appeared), and didn’t see one published until I was 36. During that time, I’d been a lab technician, a shipping clerk, carpenter, a journalist, and finally a technical writer who wrote marketing copy too, and was starting to develop the discipline that writing fiction requires.
Companionship is essential to a full life. Conflict, or at least tension, is essential to a good story.
AE: What other projects are you currently working on?
DW: I not normally disposed to writing sequels (new world always beckon!), but I’m collecting thoughts for a sequel to my latest novel, The Bell Cannon Affair. The Steampunk tropes, ocean liner setting, and broad cast of characters are simply too fun to set aside. I’m also working on expanding a space-opera-based-on-fairy-tale idea I had back in the 1990s but have never been able to develop and am helping a close friend self publish a Space Opera series of his own. That and the occasional article for a local magazine publisher are more than enough to keep me very busy. (Indie author/publisher is one heck of a lot of work!)
AE: If you could choose one SFnal universe to live in, what universe would it be, and why?
DW: I don’t do “choose only one” questions well, if only because I’m not the same person every year, or even every day. When I was 13, I would have said Barsoom, the Mars of John Carter. At 18, I would have said Middle Earth: the Shire, the ridings of Rohan, the glory of Gondor—wow! Now I’m more inclined to say Discworld, for its insanely comical cosmological illogic, or (to satisfy the SFnal requirement and be more likely to survive) the intriguing worlds of Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers series. It seems like a place where you could live an interesting life with interesting people (human and alien) that wasn’t constantly on the brink of doom.
AE: What are you reading right now?
DW: The latest Neal Stephenson novel, with the latest Martha Welles Murderbot installment on order at our local library. And I just finished an interesting non-fiction book titled Hedy’s Folly, about movie star Hedy Lamarr and her alto ego of inventor during WWII. “Tortilla Flat” by day and non-jammable remote radio control systems for torpedos by night? Who’d have imagined?
AE: Do you have any advice for up-and-coming writers?
DW: There are countless books and blogs full of advice, but here’s one aspect of authoring that I think is too often overlooked: the sound of good prose.
Read your work out loud as you write and listen to it carefully. If you stumble over a word or phrase, rewrite so no other reader will stumble. If it sounds flat, rewrite more life into it. If you have to stop and reread in order to understand what you meant, rewrite to make it clear. If all your characters sound like Han Solo, create new voices. If you keep hearing the same words or rhythm over and over, rewrite from a broader dictionary with a more varied grammatical structure. If you don’t get what I mean, read one of your favorite award-winning books out loud. Then read your own prose. Rewrite so your spoken text sounds just as smooth, interesting, and lively.
AE: How can our readers follow you and your writing? (IE: Social media handles, website URL . . .)
DW: I generally keep my website up to date with news, and occasionally put up one of my short works to provide an entertaining break to the day. You can find links to my books on the major online book vendors too. (www.deanwhitlock.com) I have a personal page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/dean.whitlock.58) and always post book news there, though I’m an infrequent poster otherwise. (No FB author page yet, but I’d consider setting one up if I detect a lot of interest.) I sell my books in person at the annual Vermont SF&F Expo (usually the final weekend in April), the annual Vermont Renaissance Faire (always the next to last weekend in June), and the hopefully annual Vermont Steampunk Festival (November 11 & 12 this year). And you can feel free to contact me at boatman@deanwhitlock.com.
From Earth to the Stars 