An Interview with Julie Czerneda

Former biologist and science writer, Canadian Julie E. Czerneda has turned her passion for living things and love of science fiction into a career as an awarding winning author and editor. Today, with thirteen novels in print from DAW Books, and six more under contract, she also keeps busy editing anthologies, when not doing workshops for educators and the public on scientific literacy and SF. Her latest anthology is Ages of Wonder from DAW Books, with co-editor Rob St.Martin, featuring stories with fantasy settings based in lesser used points of human history.

As for her novels, this summer sees the release of Rift in the Sky, the concluding volume of her latest trilogy, the Stratification Cycle of the Clan Chronicles. Which oddly enough, started with her very first novel, A Thousand Words for Stranger, the book that made Julie a finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the last Australian Worldcon. Her Nebula-nominated Species Imperative trilogy was set in part in New Zealand and In the Company of Others was inspired by the introduction of non-native fauna to that country. And now she’s here at last, proving the world is truly a circular place.

Questions

New Zealanders are famous for asking visitors "What do you think of New Zealand?" as soon as they are through customs, to which the standard answer is "I liked the inside of the customs shed". So, Julie: What brings you to New Zealand, and how did you like the inside of the customs shed?

Actually, I loved the inside of your customs "shed." Especially the Biodiversity Beagle. Brilliant. And Auckland's Airport is gorgeous. By the way, nice touch having passengers walk out through the duty-free shop.

What brings me to your magnificent country? The kind invitation to be the International Guest of Honour at ConScription, the New Zealand National Convention for Science Fiction and Fantasy. I still pinch myself, even though I’m here.

With Nalini Singh, you are running a three-day writers' workshop before ConScription. What do you hope that the participating writers will get out of this workshop?

Excitement, enthusiasm, a new and/or renewed belief in what they want to accomplish, some practical advice and information. Being a writer – putting your dreams in front of strangers – is incredibly brave. Whatever we can do to help and encourage, we will.

You're a Canadian science fiction and fantasy author, and a four-time winner of a Prix Aurora Award, which is the well-established Canadian equivalent of New Zealand's Sir Julius Vogel Awards. Is the Canadian literary and publishing scene hospitable to science fiction and fantasy writers?

Yes and no. In young adult publishing, everything goes and speculative fiction across the board is sought by publishers in Canada because, in part, it has a readership they know how to reach. Recently there’s been a trend towards more SF and F from Canadian publishers. I think much of that is due to people who understand those genre and their readers becoming senior editors. In literary circles, though, as I’m sure is the case for other youngish countries trying to establish a national “voice,” we face an uphill struggle for recognition. Science fiction in particular is considered commercial or entertainment, rather than serious work, and you’ll see authors scrambling to distance themselves from that label even now. Which is silly. Hopefully we’ll grow up soon.

Do the Francophone and Anglophone SF communities in Canada work closely together?

Yes, in the sense of fan communities and connections between authors. Not directly, in the sense of publishing. Unfortunately work isn’t automatically translated into both official languages. Instead, there’s a bewildering array of options and government funding that usually puts Francophone work in French only and Anglophone work only in English. Then there’s the issue of publishing in France, which isn’t the same French or funding, so those titles tend to cost most of all. Where we do work closely together is in promoting science fiction, as you’ll find at Anticipation, the Worldcon in Montreal this summer, and in collaborations. I have many colleagues in Quebec, writers, artists, and editors.

When I think about other Canadian SF writers, the names Nalo Hopkinson, Robert Sawyer and Elisabeth Vonarburg come to mind – not to mention Margaret Atwood. Which other Canadian SF writers should we be looking out for?

Tanya Huff! She’s been around for over twenty years and writing marvelous SF and fantasy. Probably one of our best and yet most overlooked authors. Her contemporary fantasy is often set in Toronto, which makes them even more fun. James Alan Gardner, Douglas Smith are two to keep in mind for sure. Robert Wilson. Peter Watts. There are many more.


Do you have one novel, or one series, that is your favourite among all the novels you have written?

The one I’m writing now. ::laughs:: It’s always that way. I love them all, but the new face is the one that has all my heart.

Not all writers are willing to talk about their current writing projects, so feel free to disregard this question, but what are you working on at the moment?

My favourite! (I had to say that.) What I’m writing now is something I started 7 years ago. It’s a standalone fantasy novel called A Turn of Light. I’ve always enjoyed reading fantasy, but never quite dared write it. After all, I’m a biologist not a lyricist, and to me, great fantasy is about the words every bit as much as it is about the story. But an idea had niggled at me, so I took a fountain pen and a notebook and began writing a sentence here, a note there. When I realized I knew what the story would be, I mentioned it to my editor at DAW, Sheila Gilbert. I’m sure it was a surprise to have her hard sf author trot out a romantic story with dragons and spells and magic! She took it well. And took the book. Such trust. Now, of course, comes the part where I produce it. Wish me luck.

You are a science educator as well as a novelist. Do you find it easy to switch between the two types of writing involved?

I find it wrenchingly painful, like pulling off a bandage. Best done quickly, with grim determination. That would be when I have to put aside the fiction to write non-fiction. To go the other way is like going camping – you leave concepts like time behind and paddle into the wilderness, grinning like an idiot. When I was still writing a great deal of non-fiction, I had a separate office and computer, so I could focus. Now, I only do the occasional feature or special request, which makes it easier.

Not that doing both was all bad. Typically the research I’d do for a science article would also find its way into my SF.

Finally, Helen Lowe suggested that I ask you about your views on the capability of science fiction to develop readers, literacy and creativity. As a keen science fiction reader in high school, that struck a chord with me. Please tell me more!

There’s something that happens to people who stop reading imaginative works at a young age. Their ability to ask questions as adults is blunted. Worse, they lose the flexibility of thought that could help them find answers. We live in an age of technological and scientific change right in our homes, let alone all around us. Everyone needs to be able to speculate about possibilities, to reason from what’s before them to what might happen, to ask questions and find answers. The literature that promotes speculation and reasoning is science fiction. Change is what SF is about. You couldn’t ask for a better question than “what if ...”

SF allows us to examine horrifying futures and the most dreadful consequences in utter safety. That’s important, especially when dealing with students. It allows us to leap past what we can do now, to imagine new applications or needs. That’s important for anyone, especially scientists. And science fiction rejuvenates the imagination in a way nothing else can do. That’s something we can’t afford to leave behind with childhood. Not and survive.

Plus being great fun. I did mention that part, I hope.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Julie is giving a talk at Manukau Libraries on Tuesday May 26th - thanks "Anonymous" for reminding me. Details are here, although I note registration closed yesterday.

Voyagers: Here At Last

I was going to do a much longer and more complicated blog post tonight, but I'm too tired. So instead, this is just to say that I have a copy of Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand sitting right here besides me, and that feels good!

Mark Pirie and I started on this project in 2004, when we called for submissions for our planned anthology of New Zealand science fiction poetry. While submissions were coming in, we went off and deepened our knowledge of New Zealand poetry by looking for previously-published SF poems. (Well, I deepened my knowledge - Mark's was pretty deep already.)

By mid-2005, we had the first version of the manuscript pretty much sorted out. As I've previously recounted, finding a publisher proved to be difficult, and we were very pleased when Interactive Publications of Brisbane took the project on in 2008. We couldn't include all the poems we wished, but those we have included look rather good to me. You can find sample poems from the book, by David Gregory, Meg Campbell and Mary Cresswell, at the Voyagers mini-site (bottom right of that page).

Mark and I will be sending out contributors' and review copies over the next couple of weeks. There will be a New Zealand launch for Voyagers in July, but if you'd like to get a copy while it's fresh off the presses, you can buy it from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book (search for "Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry"), or from Fishpond in New Zealand. You can also find out more about Voyagers, and buy it directly from the publisher, at the Voyagers mini-site.

Voyagers for Sale, Stand Up Poetry, Online Voting for the Vogels, and James Dignan's New Exhibition

Voyagers for Sale

Mark Pirie and I are still waiting for the contributors' and review copies of Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand to make their way to the shores of Aotearoa, so we can start sending them out. But it is already possible to buy – or at least order – Voyagers online, as follows:

• From Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book (search for "Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry")
• From Fishpond in New Zealand.
• From the publisher, via the Voyagers mini-site which also has information about and excerpts from the book.

And a poem from Voyagers has already gone cross-platform! (That sounds good - I hope it makes sense.) Meliors Simms has produced a video version of part of her poem "Two Kinds of Time", which appears in the anthology. You can see it and read about it on Meliors' blog, and also see it as part of Helen Rickerby's initiative, NZ Poets on Video. It's well worth watching.

Get Up, Stand Up

I will be the featured reader at Stand Up Poetry at Palmerston North City Library on Wednesday 3 June at 7pm. Helen Rickerby was the May reader, and it sounds like she had a great time; Harvey Molloy is reading in August; if someone can tell me who's reading in July, I'll mention them too. I'm looking forward to it - come along if you are in the Palmerston North area and hear my repertoire of anecdotes for the first time!

UPDATE: As Helen Lehndorf has reminded me, and I should have remembered, Glenn Colquhoun is the June reader. Helen Heath will be reading in September.

Online Voting for the Vogels

The Sir Julius Vogel Awards, New Zealand's equivalent of the Hugo Awards, will be awarded at ConScription, this year's National Science Fiction Convention, being held in Auckland at Queen's Birthday Weekend. There's a very strong field of finalists, and yours truly has two finalists (Transported and JAAM 26) in the field for Best Collected Work.

Members of ConScription and of SFFANZ, the administering body, are eligible to vote - and if you join SFFANZ (it costs $10 per annum) you can vote online until 27 May 2009. I encourage you to do so.

James Dignan's New Exhibition

Dunedin artist and reviewer James Dignan has his fifth solo exhibition, "The Unguarded Moment", at the Temple Gallery, 29 Moray Place, Dunedin from May 15-28, with the opening this Friday (the 15th) from 5.30-7.30pm. I recommend it! You can find out more about the exhibition, James's art, music and writing, and his past exhibitions on his website.

An Interview with Iain Britton

Iain Britton had his first collection of poems, Hauled Head First into a Leviathan, which was a Forward Poetry Prize nomination, published by Cinnamon Press (UK) in February 2008. Interactive Press (Australia) is about to publish his second collection, Liquefaction.

Iain, let's start with Liquefaction, your new collection. What would you like readers of this blog to know about it?


Liquefaction is a collection of 35 poems following no specific theme, although I would like to think my work does have connecting lines of thought that can be identified when one reads through it. Each poem should be approached as a portal for the eyes to ‘walk’ into, for the reader to pass through and hopefully experience something different and then elicit pictures, images, word associations that they will find interesting.

The collection will be released on 15 May and is available through www.amazon.com or it can be ordered directly through Interactive Publications - www.ipoz.biz/Store/poetry.htm.

At the moment, my understanding is that the collection will be launched in New Zealand in July 2009, when Interactive Press will also be promoting two other NZ publications – Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, editors Mark Pirie and Tim Jones, plus The World Cup Baby by Euan McCabe. I presume the three books will then be available in bookshops in New Zealand.

You have been extensively published overseas, and your previous collection, Hauled Head First into a Leviathan, was published by Cinnamon Press in the UK and nominated for the Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. Have you published primarily overseas by choice, or is that just how things worked out?


As a poet, I enjoy the challenge of publishing offshore and watching how my poems are accepted or rejected and also observing how NZ poetry is generally received overseas. We have many fine poets pushing their poems around the world and it’s great to see we are prepared to promote this aspect of our culture internationally. It’s a huge and essential learning curve to try and stand beside the best poets in the UK and US and elsewhere. I see everything ‘right’ in that.

How long have you been writing poetry, and what motivated you to start?

I have been writing poetry seriously since my first NZ publication in 2000. Prior to that I had a long haul through years of writing – completing 5 very unpublishable novels, all now consigned to some bin. I also had a number of years spent writing plays in the UK. I really enjoyed writing plays and even had the audacity to try to get major repertory theatres to accept them … of course, they didn’t! However, poetry has always been a real life force within me, so it was only a matter of time till mind, body and soul coalesced and began pushing the pen with a degree of success.

Can you identify poets, or poetic movements, that have influenced your own poetry, and if so, who or what are these?

Learning to be a good poet requires total commitment and an inner sense of belief in oneself, that this is what you want to do, combined with a feeling of allowing yourself to be driven by it. I have had the privilege of seeing/hearing such great poets as Thom Gunn, WH Auden, Robert Lowell, Octavio Paz, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Robert Graves and many others during years spent in London. It is also where I first heard Fleur Adcock read her poetry. Once I had decided that poetry was what I wanted to do, I was hooked.

My reading has been wide and varied and I have involved myself in most movements of one sort or another. The Americans of the middle and latter part of the 20th Century impressed me with their willingness to experiment and push literary boundaries. Many poets have influenced my writing over the years and each one has contributed to my ability as a poet eg T S Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Rae Armantrout, Robert Creeley, Seamus Heaney, John Ashbery, August Kleinzahler, Charles Bernstein, Jorie Graham, the NZ poets Allen Curnow, James Baxter, Hone Tuwhare, Bill Manhire and so on. Even the great Romantics have a place in my learning. Perhaps, my small knowledge of Te Reo and Tikanga Maori and all they entail has been vital to the sounds and rhythms of my writing also.

Consequently, you can see the field of influence is huge and those groups of individuals associated with poetic movements are part and parcel of this learning process too.

Your poem "Departing Takaparawha" is included in the forthcoming anthology Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand. Do you write much poetry that falls within the "speculative poetry" genres (science fiction, fantasy, horror), or were your submissions to that anthology fairly much a one-off?

This is an interesting question for me to answer as my poetry probably does at times verge on the fantastic. For many poets the metaphor is an integral literary device and this can lead to highly imaginative pieces of work. My poetry could be said to tend towards the surreal sometimes. It is open to many interpretations but I don’t write with any exclusive kind of poetical form in mind.

Do you regard yourself as an "Auckland poet", or is it simply the case that you are a poet who lives in Auckland? Is there such a thing as a distinctively Auckland poet, and if so, what makes an Auckland poet distinctive?

My sister-in-law, who is based in the UK, once asked me a similar type of question after a poetry reading I had given at the London School of Economics a few years ago – whether I considered myself a poet (for everyone) or a NZ poet. My answer was ‘a poet first and foremost’. This applies also to the idea of being an Auckland poet or not. I don’t think of boundaries when it comes to poetry. Although I am aware of these city differences, I don’t particularly espouse to any of them. Good poetry should cross borders and touch hearts regardless.

Do you enjoy performing your poetry, and are you planning launches, readings and so forth to mark the publication of Liquefaction?

Yes, I enjoy the challenge of reading my work, rather than performing it. Reading is never easy. The inner voices are an interesting mob to deal with when you stand and deliver. They determine the sound, rhythm and nuances and I feel I must do justice to the poem that has been channeled through me. It is a big responsibility to get it right. But that is what being a poet is all about for me.

I hope to promote my poetry collection with readings at the launches, which are to be in July. The timing will be important to enable this to happen. As yet, I have no dates, but I know Interactive Publications are well into the planning stages.

On a final note relating to Liquefaction, I wish to express my gratitude and thanks to Gretchen Albrecht, for providing the incredible cover image from Chorus 2008.

J G Ballard, 1930-2009: A Man's Man?

The British writer J G (James Graham) Ballard died on 19 April. Many excellent obituaries of J G Ballard have been written, and I don't intend to try to emulate them here. Instead, I suggest you check out the obituaries by Harvey Molloy and Jack Ross, and also the entire special section devoted to Ballard from the Guardian.

My experience of reading J G Ballard has been remarkably similar to Jack Ross's experience. Like Jack, I was already an SF fan, though in my case it was the YA SF novels of John Christopher that I was reading when I first encountered Ballard; like Jack, the first Ballard I read was the novella "The Voices of Time"; as he did Jack, so Ballard gave me a completely different view of what science fiction could do. I read all the early Ballard I could get my hands on - the short story collections The Terminal Beach and The Atrocity Exhibition, and the four catastrophe novels that map to the four classical elements, my favourites among them being The Drowned World and The Crystal World (the others are The Wind from Nowhere and The Burning World aka The Drought).

These novels were superficially similar to the post-war English "cosy catastrophe" novels I had read previously, such as John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids - novels in which upper lips remain stiff even as civilisation collapses around their owners. But in Ballard's world, both the external world and the narrator's mental state were in transition from one state to another. As a young man, these descriptions of unavoidable external and internal transformation resonated with me, and influenced my own writing. Though I have rarely read Ballard in recent years, it only takes a couple of paragraphs of his unique prose - both cool and feverish — to remind me why I once read little else.

I say "as a young man" deliberately, because it seems to me that JG Ballard is a writer who speaks to and appeals to men much more than women. Part of the reason for this may be the sheer quantity of sex and violence, and sexualised violence, in some of his books. Another, at least in his early work, is that his protagonists are alienated males, frequently known only by their surnames (Travis, Travers, Traven, Talbot; Vaughan; Ransome), adrift in this world and searching for psychological fulfilment in a world remade closer to their desires. Their relationships are superficial, their loyalties to the imagined world inside their minds rather than to family or friends. It's existentialism run rampant, and existentialism has always struck me as a particularly masculine philosophy.

I have no doubt that J G Ballard is a great writer - and there's no obligation on writers, even great writers, to appeal to all readers equally. But am I right in thinking that his work appeals more to men than to women?

The Cover of Transported: It's Embossed, I Tell You! Embossed!

When I posted my list of ten reasons why Transported makes a great present (for another, or yourself), I forgot the best reason of all: the cover is embossed. Some of those funny little creatures on it are slightly raised above the surface. You can run your hands over it and feel the difference. Check out this post on Meliors Simms' blog if you don't believe me - see the third picture down. Is that little flying fish embossed, or what?.

The cover of Transported is based on the painting "Castaway Bardo" by Maryrose Crook, musician, songwriter and artist. I'm a lucky man to have such a great painting on the cover of my short story collection.

If you'd like a copy, the easiest way is to buy Transported online from New Zealand Books Abroad or Fishpond. It looks like Whitcoulls no longer stocks Transported, but independent bookshops such as Unity Books in Wellington still have it on their shelves. Thank you, Unity!

An Interview with Trevor Reeves

I have known Trevor Reeves for many years, firstly through our joint involvement in environmental activism and the Values Party during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later through his work as a poet, publisher and editor of the literary magazine Southern Ocean Review, in which I had several poems and a couple of short stories published during the course of its 50 issues. When I heard that Trevor was bringing Southern Ocean Review to a close, I thought it would be a good time to talk with him for this blog.

Trevor, readers of this blog are most likely to know you for your recent poetry and as the editor of Southern Ocean Review. They may not have heard of Caveman Press and all the other things you've been involved with as a publisher, editor and writer. Can you tell us how you got started with writing, publishing and so forth, and what your major ventures have been?

Caveman Press started up in 1971 – I still don’t know why I chose the name, but it seemed to go down well. I was given an old Golding Disc Inker printing press (letter press) and proceeded to teach myself how to print books on it. The first was a book called “Skyhook” – poems by Lindsay Smith. He now lives in Australia and I am still in touch with him. He was quite an influence in my own writing and my books ‘Stones’ and ‘Apple Salt’ came later. Other books followed in close succession as sales in those days were good. Alan Loney set his own book then – now a collector’s item. The late Dennis List then Murray Edmond and two of Hone Tuwhare’s books; ‘Sapwood and Milk’ and ‘Something Nothing’ - also a new edition of his ‘Come Rain Hail’ came next. Later in the 1970’s, we branched into general books. They were books on architecture, politics, humour, health, etc. It was a busy time. We also did four issues of a literary magazine, ‘Cave’ which contained some overseas writers, including Charles Bukowski.


Since 1996 you've been the editor of Southern Ocean Review, which appeared with impressive regularity, four issues per year, right up to Issue 50 in January 2009. What led to your decision to make Issue 50 the final issue?

It's done its dash and is a lot of work anyway. It was fun to do, of course and online a long time before any other magazines were. The print version started at #3 and carried on right until the end. That’s 47 separate issues; the largest being 84 pages but most around 64 pages. We asked for submissions from all around the world. However, we published plenty of NZ content, too. People got around to sending their best work too, which was pleasing. We had a policy, too that every work was illustrated – by Judith Wolfe, co-editor. All issues are still on line at www.book.co.nz and will be for some time yet. l have the print versions available for anyone who wants copies. The magazine survived without any subsidy or grants, which resulted in a bit of a struggle to keep it going, but we managed. One of the joys of the magazine for me was the reviews section. There were always plenty of books to a short review or notice for. We were privileged to get review copies from Auckland University Press and other well known publishers of poetry, stories and novels. Victoria University Press never came up with any despite being continually asked, but that’s the way it goes, I guess. My main task as I saw it was to give each book a good plug; realising that people have very different tastes.

I didn't know that you wrote fiction until I reviewed your short story collection Breaker Breaker for JAAM magazine. Is writing fiction something you've been doing all along, or is it a comparatively recent development?

I have always been interested in short story writing. My earliest pieces were science fiction ones and I remember my first one being published in the centenary Otago University Review, in, I think it was, 1968. Short story writing was a rigid discipline for me – beginning/middle/end which was good for me and I enjoyed the constraints. Usually, I would dream up a plot and sit on it for quite some time; years, even. Then I would write it up in a couple of hours, usually. I sent them all around the world and they generally got a good reception, which was pleasing. Gathering them all together, I published them in the book; “Breaker Breaker”.

I like your poetry a lot. I was trying to think of a way of characterising it to someone who hasn't read your work, and the best I could come up with was "experimental but accessible": it's not always straightforward, but it is always rewarding. Is that a fair or useful description? How would you describe your own poetry?

My first book was ‘Hibiscuits’ published in England in 1970. That contained some pretty traditional poems mainly about nature and domesticity. Next was “Stones” with Bill Mackay illustrating it. I became a fan of artworks illustrating poetry early on. In 1975 came ‘Apple Salt’ which started off with poems that were pretty traditional then I began experimenting, with ‘found poems’ etc. Then I stopped writing poems altogether to concentrate on commercial art, to try to earn a living etc, and also to research non-fiction books. Then, from 1993, I began to get some stories together and experiment further with poetry. I liked the idea of rhapsodic lines, no beginning middle or end, in a kind of ‘formlessness’ like random speech. With my poems I like to relate as much as I can to ordinary speech and ordinary situations etc.

Who or what - in terms of individual poets, groups of poets, or particular magazines - were the main influence on you when you started writing and publishing poetry? Have those influences changed over the years?

I followed and contributed to most magazines that emerged in the 1970’s. New Zealand influences for me were Tony Beyer, Dave Mitchell, R A K Mason, J K Baxter, Hone Tuwhare etc. I didn’t follow any ‘group’ as such but was involved in most of them. I think there are more poets than ever now, though sales of poetry books have dropped as people have been accessing the internet more. Certainly, publishing small volumes of poetry as I have done over the years doesn’t pay off now but I am pleased to have published the books of many, including Murray Edmond, the late Dennis List and Hone Tuwhare, the late James K Baxter, Alistair Paterson and many others.

Do you enjoy performing your own poetry, or listening to other poets performing theirs?

Yes, I do, or rather, I did. I did quite a lot of readings around the country in those days. Most enjoyable were in Auckland, with people like Dave Mitchell, Tony Beyer, Peter Olds and many others. I would love to have read overseas, but never got the chance.

It's been 16 years now since I moved from Dunedin to Wellington - alarmingly long! - but from what I can make out, the Dunedin literary scene is quite lively at the moment. All the same, it seems to me that authors from the southern South Island - maybe from the whole South Island - don't get as much attention as they deserve in the rest of the country. Do you agree, and what (if anything) could or should be done about it?

I have, and always have had, a wider outlook. And since the onset of the internet, places seem to have become even less relevant in terms of distance. The ‘Dunedin Scene’ has always been lively as has been most other centres. Writers in Auckland have always considered themselves more important of course but that’s just natural, being a bigger centre for writing. I don’t think anything can really ‘be done about it’ – I mean, what, and what for?

Finally, where to next for Trevor Reeves as a writer?

Who knows? I have written in just about every style there is, except a novel and I’m in no hurry to do that. I am back on to the poems now, with my ‘sequences’. I published a book of those, called ‘Hand in Hand’ – which was a collaboration with Judith Wolfe, artist. Before that there were other collaborations with Judith Wolfe, but with non-fiction books. “An Abuse of Power" was the first one, about the building of the Clyde dam. The second was ‘In the Grip of Evil’ – our investigation into the Bain murders – illustrated. This drew threats of a legal action against us but nothing happened. Something may happen in the future, who knows… The next book was ‘Nazi Holocaust’ a cartoon book of the holocaust, in Nazi Germany. This was a harrowing book to do and took a lot of research. Lately, I’ve been on to 6-word ‘American Haikus’. These are strung out in sequences of eight stanzas. These take a while to do, but are nice as it makes me think of the principle of the aphorism and has strict rules. I am not editing anything any more; nor publishing the works of others, either. I have done my share of journalism, editing ‘free’ papers and writing for them, so no more of that.