1--What is the title of your latest release?
WORLD RUNNING DOWN
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Mad Max+Blade Runner, but cozy n’ gay
Wasteland salvager Valentine Weis needs a visa into Salt Lake City in order to transition; when he’s offered one as payment for retrieving fugitive androids—then discovers they’re self-aware—he’ll risk his own dream to ensure they have the chance to live theirs.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Every summer as a teen, I used to visit relatives in both Salt Lake and the nearest Nevada towns. The salt flats between Wendover, NV and Salt Lake City, UT have an almost otherworldly quality, and they seemed like the perfect setting for a wasteland road trip.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Absolutely! Valentine is far more extroverted than I am, but we have things in common, and he would know all the good queer hangouts. Osric and I would definitely discuss art.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
For Valentine: Scrappy, selfless, snarky
For Osric: Thoughtful, good-natured, artistic
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned that if you’re going to mention an exoplanet as the destination for a mass exodus from Earth, make sure it hasn’t been deemed uninhabitable. In my case, I originally chose Proxima b, which orbits our closest star, Proxima Centauri. Proxima b is in the habitable zone but was predicted to likely be uninhabitable due to extreme solar winds. I ended up changing the planet to Teegarden b, which is a planet orbiting Teegarden’s Star, twelve light years away in the Aries constellation.
My ex, who is an astronomy buff, said the safest thing to do is pick a real star, but make up a fake planet and name it [Star Name] b or c.
The mentions of “Teegardeners” leaving Earth aren’t a plot point, but more of a motivating factor in Valentine’s personality (he’s selfless to the point of detriment because he’s determined not to abandon people the way the Teegardeners did), but it would have bugged me forever if I’d left the planet as Proxima b.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I’m constantly editing as I go. I can’t leave things messy.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I’m not a big fan of sweets, but I love pie. Pie plays a huge part in the next book I have going out on submission.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I have a large art/writing desk with my laptop and coffee mugs full of paint brushes, pens, and drawing pencils. The desk has a built-in bookcase, which is full of books, typewriters, vinyl records, sculptures, and robot figurines. There is a corkboard mounted on the wall in front of the desk, tacked with drawings, enamel pins, and notes. Above are framed portraits of my characters. To the right of the desk, on the wall, is the oil painting I did for the cover of the book. I have a green velvet art deco desk chair, which matches my couch. The rest of the living room is full of paintings, art deco furniture, plants, and a vintage turntable setup.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Essa Hansen was my very first critique partner back when I had no idea what I was doing. I hadn’t written anything in nearly 20 years, and didn’t have the first clue about what it took to get a book to the stage it needed to be to self-publish. Essa was kind, patient, and extremely smart, and I learned so much from her. We’ve worked together over the years and have both become trad published authors since then—Essa is author of the metaphysical space opera trilogy, The Graven. Writing can be rough. Trying to get published can be rough. Everything after being published can be rough. I admire Essa for her help and friendship, and also for all her accomplishments.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
Honestly, my own books, my own writing, changed my life far more than anything I’ve read, simply because that safe space for me to explore myself through different characters helped me realize my identity and sexuality. If there were more queer and trans books readily available when I was younger, I likely would have figured myself out a lot sooner. I love seeing how many more are being published now.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I knew ahead of time that my book was going to acquisitions at Angry Robot, so I anxiously waited for several weeks for the verdict of that meeting. I was getting ready for work in the morning and got an email from my agent telling me I’d officially gotten an offer on the book. It was surreal. Everything about this process has been surreal, and I’m not sure if it will ever sink in. I’m in a perpetual state of delighted shock.
I had my offer meeting via Zoom in late December before the publishing world closed down for the year, and I felt wholly unprepared. On my agent offer calls, I had a list of questions to ask them, but I had no idea what to ask an editor, aside from ensuring that they wanted to stick to my vision of the book. Gemma Creffield, my editor, did most of the talking, and I accepted the offer that day.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
My perfect combination is cozy sci-fi with M/M romance.
I also love books with A.I., post-apocalyptic settings, and gay contemporary romances. But they can’t be too technical, too grim, or too horny. :p
14--What are your top three science fiction books?
The Municipalists by Seth Fried
The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
15--What is your favorite season?
I like both Spring and Fall, because the temperatures aren’t too extreme, but I like Fall the best because it’s Halloween season.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Quietly, without anyone singing Happy Birthday to me. That kind of attention makes me anxious. I don’t like cake, so I have a new tradition of making a weird flavor of pie every year instead. So far, I’ve made alphabet pie, milk pie, and salted honey lavender.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I recently read Odder Still by D.N. Bryn and absolutely adored it. It’s a SFF M/M romance set in an underwater class-divided steampunk city, following a compassionate loner who inadvertently ends up with a sentient parasite slowly taking over his body. The prose is gorgeous and the introspection deeply visceral in a way I haven’t read before. It was incredibly welcome to not only have a queernorm world with a gay protagonist and multiple characters who use they/them pronouns without anyone batting an eye, but a trans man love interest who is also fat, blind, and irresistible. New book boyfriends unlocked, the both of them.
18--Did you have a playlist for World Running Down?
I have playlists for all of my books. Music is one of my biggest comforts, so it’s always going. Having songs I associate with a particular book pulls me immediately back into the story, which helps when I need to switch gears to edit something.
While drafting, I listened to a ton of Simple Minds, Once Upon a Time in particular. During publisher edits, I switched to a whole playlist of Franc Moody. So both of those artists I now associate with World Running Down.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
When I’m not writing, I do art, both pencil drawings and oil paintings. I also love reading, listening to vinyl records, and watching movies with my son.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I’m going on submission soon with a small-town alien invasion book full of pie, romance, and hiccups in the fabric of reality, featuring an autistic main character. I’m also working on a very trippy sci-fi romance that I plan to self-publish later in the year.
A transgender salvager on the outskirts of a dystopian Utah gets the chance to earn the ultimate score and maybe even a dash of romance. But there's no such thing as a free lunch…
Valentine Weis is a salvager in the future wastelands of Utah. Wrestling with body dysphoria, he dreams of earning enough money to afford citizenship in Salt Lake City – a utopia where the testosterone and surgery he needs to transition is free, the food is plentiful, and folk are much less likely to be shot full of arrows by salt pirates. But earning that kind of money is a pipe dream, until he meets the exceptionally handsome Osric.
Once a powerful AI in Salt Lake City, Osric has been forced into an android body against his will and sent into the wasteland to offer Valentine a job on behalf of his new employer – an escort service seeking to retrieve their stolen androids. The reward is a visa into the city, and a chance at the life Valentine’s always dreamed of. But as they attempt to recover the “merchandise”, they encounter a problem: the android ladies are becoming self-aware, and have no interest in returning to their old lives.
The prize is tempting, but carrying out the job would go against everything Valentine stands for, and would threaten the fragile found family that’s kept him alive so far. He’ll need to decide whether to risk his own dream in order to give the AI a chance to live theirs.
Romance | LGBTQ Science Fiction [Watkins Publishing, On Sale: February 14, 2023, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781915202239 / eISBN: 9781915202246]
Author of WORLD RUNNING DOWN and the self-published Hep Cats of Boise series. Semi-finalist in the SPSFC with MAZARIN BLUES.
When not hunched before a computer screen, Al can be found at his art desk. He does portraits in both pencil and oil paint, and loves drawing fellow authors’ characters nearly as much as his own. He writes cozy and uplifting stories with queer, trans, and neurodiverse representation.
No comments posted.
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy