Q&As
by Jeff VanderMeer, September 9, 2022 8:36 AM
We're so happy to feature an interview with Jeff VanderMeer! His book, Annihilation, is included in our Essential List of the 25 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the 21st Century (So Far).
Who are the authors you look to for inspiration?
Early on, writers like Angela Carter, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Katherine Dunn, and Vladimir Nabokov topped the list. My dad loved Vonnegut, so I had those novels to read, too, although I appreciated Vonnegut more than loved him. Then I discovered Deborah Levy’s Beautiful Mutants, along with the...
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Q&As
by Jeff VanderMeer, March 1, 2018 9:33 AM
Photo credit: Kyle Cassidy
Describe your latest book.
My latest book is The Strange Bird, which exists in the universe of my novel Borne. It’s my attempt to write from the perspective of a bird, although I cheat a bit since the bird is part human. The story follows the bird’s quest to be free, while encountering any number of obstacles, including the Magician (familiar from Borne). Borne is also out in trade paperback now, with a bestiary of critters illustrated by Eric Nyquist. It’s quite a handsome package.
I also just finished writing a novel that includes such highlights as talking marmots, singing potatoes, and the disembodied resurrected head of Napoleon...
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Original Essays
by Jeff VanderMeer, January 27, 2014 2:30 PM
Sometimes inspiration comes to you not just from what you visualize, but what you can't, or don't want to, see. It may also arrive because you're distracted... like, say, by a bad case of bronchitis after dental surgery. It may take over your life so powerfully that you wake up one day and find you're the author of something called The Southern Reach trilogy, the first book of which is out February 4 — Annihilation, with the second and third out later this year. Narrated by an expedition biologist, Annihilation details an expedition sent by the government into a strange pristine wilderness protected by an invisible border, where over 30 years before an unexplained Event caused the deaths of everyone inside. This is the 12th expedition, and to say the prior expeditions haven't gone well would be a colossal understatement. As the biologist finds out, however, the secrets Area X contains are matched by the secrets that the expeditions bring with them. The core of Annihilation came to me in a dream, which isn't that unusual for writers. You start thinking about something that interests you — in this case, the 14-mile trail I've hiked here in North Florida for more than a decade — and out pops a story. On the other hand, this was a pretty weird dream — and one of those dreams that's extremely detailed to the point of not realizing that you're in a dream at all. I can't lie — I was scared while dreaming this dream, frightened out of my mind. (If I hadn't gotten a story out of it, I suppose I'd be calling it a "nightmare" or, more accurately, a "nightfreakout.") I woke up in the middle of the night, hazy and coughing, and scribbled down these notes: - Walking down the steps of an underground tunnel but it's more like a submerged tower.
- Words on the wall composed of living letters. Keep walking down the steps. The letters are glowing. Getting fresher.
- There's a shadow around the next bend. Something is down there.
Which is when I woke up, which I'll always attribute to not wanting to know what happened next — not in the dream, at least. If I'd turned the corner in the dream, I know I wouldn't have written the story; I would have seen whatever was down there, jolted awake, had a sip of water, settled back to sleep, and probably started working the next day on a very stupid idea about the war between a man and the armadillos digging up his backyard. (Some of which, transformed, is actually in the third volume, Acceptance.) Waking up meant my storytelling brain had to fill in the blanks — and that's what it did, with a vengeance, over the next five weeks. I was too weak to do anything other than wake up, type, and then fall asleep or watch TV in the afternoons, then repeat that process. I was writing and rewriting almost 5,000 words a day, in a kind of waking dream state, and when I wasn't writing I kept thinking about what the story meant, and what the wider arc might be. I can't tell you that I even remember much from those writing sessions, to be honest. It was a bit like sleeping and waking up to find magical finished pages on the printer, and then editing those pages. At the end of the five weeks, I had a finished draft and a larger vision in my head — the events in Annihilation didn't just have an internal consistency and cohesion; they had causality, there was meaning and purpose behind them, which resonated forward into the next two books. Further, Annihilation is informed and enriched by my comfort level with the setting, which was, transformed, the hikes I'd been doing out in the pine forests, marshes, and swamps of North Florida. Like that ecosystem, the character storylines, the events and situations, grew organically, interlocking and unfolding outward: the blossoming of a strange, beautiful flower. The third book structurally even has the outline of a flower, with lines radiating out from a circular core. But lest you think this was all some mystical process, it's important to recognize the ways in which the conscious and subconscious minds collude. The entire time I was writing Annihilation, my hazy afternoons were filled with hours of just thinking about the story, of examining the characters and situations from various angles, and as I sat down to write the second two novels, I already had scene fragments, character dialogue, and a couple of pages describing the entire scenario from a macro-level, looking down. So I had a framework within which to play, and then conscious thought and instinct combined to create something cohesive that moves, that hopefully surprises but also holds you there wanting to read more about the characters. I can't lie — I'm proud of this work — it's personal to me, and it feels natural and right. You might think I've told you the strangest part of Annihilation's back story, but I haven't. There's one thing stranger still. Do you want to know what it is? The words on the wall were also in my head when I woke from that initial dream, and they not only made sense, but have been carried forward unchanged into the final printed book. They exist there faintly glowing, winking at me. You can follow them right into the narrative, if you like, right into Annihilation… Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the
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Contributors
by Jeff VanderMeer, November 3, 2009 2:59 PM
[ Editor's Note: Don't miss Jeff VanderMeer's reading at Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing on Saturday, November 7, 2009, at 4 p.m. Click here for more information.] Last week, I turned to my wife Ann and said, "Look at my book tour for Finch and Booklife — 27 events in 35 days in 14 states, no breaks!" To which she replied, "No brains, you mean." Well, she might have a point, even though it should be a blessing, not a curse, to have two major books out at once, which is what's allowing me to do this in the first place. Still, it does seem at times, looking at the schedule, that I might have bitten off more than I can chew. Events include everything from traditional readings and signings like the one at Powell's (well, okay, so I'm also telling the "professional cockroach" story) to workshops, lectures, kaffeeklatches, impromptu storytelling, panel discussions, and unholy hybrids of all of the above. I'm hitting bookstores of all sizes and descriptions, colleges, comic shops, arts venues, and even a bar or two. I'm teaming up at some venues with awesome writers like Cherie Priest, David Anthony Durham, Ekaterina Sedia, and Geoff Manaugh. I'm also guest blogging, doing podcasts, print media interviews, and meeting with a lot of really cool creative people. That's a lot of prep, and a long time on the road, not to mention all the work Ann, my publicist, my publishers, and my fans had to do to set up the tour in the first place. And now I have to actually do it, even though my brain seems to have been hiding the truth from me about this war of attrition disguised as a book tour. Some part of me apparently had been thinking I'd use Margaret Atwood's infernal claw of an invention, the distance writer, and never even leave the house. I'd lie on the couch watching football and drinking cocoa, periodically donning the cybernetic helmet, the iron glove with pen on the end, and wii-ing my fans a signature or two, perhaps with a recording of a reading sent to the event sites to stave off chronic disappointment. But, noooooo, it's not going to work that way. This week I'm off on the book tour, and by the end of the first week or two, I'll know the true dimensions of my folly. Will it be Apocalyptic with a capital "A," with the paramedics carrying my babbling remains off to the hospital on a stretcher after getting caught in a Möbius loop during a reading, repeating the same sentence over and over? Or will I just quietly disintegrate behind a calm mask of polite professionalism? Or will it in some ways be utterly life-transforming and marvelous, despite the pace? Probably a little bit of all three, but I really don't know because I've never attempted anything like this before. I did a seven-country book tour of Europe once, but that was at most about two events a week for five weeks. Meanwhile, every minute of every day as I prep for this juggernaut, I'm learning something new. Like, if you think BIG in creating your book tour, think small in packing for it. I don't just mean bringing the minimum amount of clothing so your luggage doesn't dislocate your shoulder. I mean I've bought a little mini computer that's practically hand-held but as powerful as my laptop. As for other things I need, from phone to GPS, tiny, baby, tiny. If I can't hold it comfortably in my hand, I don't want to take it with me. Alas, my jeans and shirts can't be somehow vacuum-packed into a cube 2 x 2 x 2, but at least I know all of the train, plane, and automobile travel won't be nearly as cumbersome as it would be otherwise. On a more serious note, you hear all the time that the book tour is in trouble, and maybe it is... if you don't think outside the box. The diversity of my tour arises from a recognition of that possible trend — as does the virtual element of a tour these days. Blogging here at Powells.com is part of a whole electronic book tour that supplements the physical tour but also has its own integrity. The two elements in concert not only support one another, but complement one another. For example, at one event, where there will be a discussion of fantastical cities in the context of my novel Finch, the recording will be podcast on the internet, garnering more attention for both the event and for the venue. I'm also reporting from the road for a major online site, which will allow me to also plug most of the places I'm appearing at — and let me tell you, bookstores really appreciate any extra coverage because they're the ones taking the risk that your event will be the one attended by only a couple of people snoring in the back. But beyond even that, a well thought-out book tour positions a writer for other opportunities. I know that this 35-day adventure will spark many other things not just for my career but for my creativity, too. I'll meet amazing people, some of whom will become collaborators on my books or other projects. I'll get invites for other events because of someone seeing me on tour. I'll also get to shoot the breeze with booksellers — some of my favorite times on tour because I'll get the inside scoop on great books I don't even know are coming out. So you can say the book tour is dying if you want, but I've lined up 27 chances to prove some of the experts wrong. Besides, I haven't even mentioned visiting a meerkat sanctuary, getting a tattoo (from Jeff Johnson in Portland, of course), or attending the National Book Awards. Who in their right mind would say "I'll pass" to all of that? A Facebook friend even promises (or threatens) "karaoke in Baltimore." I wonder if I'll be sick of performance by the time I get
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Contributors
by Jeff VanderMeer, October 29, 2009 1:10 PM
[ Editor's Note: Don't miss Jeff VanderMeer's reading at Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing on Saturday, November 7, 2009, at 4 p.m. Click here for more information.] My new writer's manual Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer is a unique blend of advice on sustainable creativity and careers in our new media age. It's perhaps the first book to incorporate the modern paradigm for writers, i.e. the Internet, into a discussion of topics that have interested writers for centuries, like dealing with success, envy, and despair. For this reason, you won't find a section on the Internet in my book — instead, every section integrates that discussion into the text. Because it's interested in looking at a writer's life from a strategic level, Booklife also doesn't waste time telling you how to set up a Facebook or Twitter account. Those are administrative details that you can find easily on the Internet. Instead, when I engage new media, it's to tell you, for example, where and when using certain tools like Facebook or Twitter may be useful to your career and to your creativity. The truth is, too many writers mistake the tools for a strategy. It is purely tactical, and thus ultimately self-defeating, to go online and think a tool like Facebook will automatically enrich your Public or Private Booklife. In addition to providing readers with analysis of tools, platforms, and opportunities afforded by new media, I strongly advocate having a balance in your life that skews toward your creativity and puts all of this "other stuff" in its proper, secondary place. This excerpt from the "Gut-Check" section of Booklife, which acts as a kind of "wait a second, think this through" buffer between the Public (career) and Private (creativity) sections of the book, discusses the issue of balance. For more on these topics, please visit the new website. ÷ ÷ ÷ Booklife is as much about balance as anything else. Balance between your Public and Private Booklife — working smarter and more imaginatively for greater creative satisfaction and gain. Losing balance means losing perspective. When you lose perspective you no longer understand the real value of the elements in your Booklife. You distort the importance of promotion weighed against the actual writing. You rationalize web surfing as "research." You tell yourself that all you need is one more push and you'll be over the hill. You respond to email as it appears in your inbox rather than developing a protocol for response. In all things, you are completely reactive to stimuli. This is one consequence of a modern Booklife that has drifted, because our platforms, opportunities, and tools create a false sense of control. By simply responding to information that comes to you from conduits, you feel you're closer to achieving goals. But there's the nagging sense behind it all that instead all you're doing is treading water. The goal's still on the horizon, and you're expending a lot of useless energy. Consequently, too, you're probably not spending a lot of time in the physical world. A balance between the physical and electronic worlds is crucial here. My personal sense of balance requires at least a few hours of walking in the woods every week to truly reset my fragmented, over-stimulated mind. As writers, we don't enhance our skills of observation and intuitiveness by sitting in front of a screen 24–7, and so an hour in the woods or out among people is about a hundred times more valuable to me than an extra hour for networking or other work situated on the "intertubes." As the writer Brendan Connell wrote on his blog, "I plan all my writing while walking...usually in some natural setting. I once read that Dickens would plan his novels while walking also. I think movement and seeing things outside is very beneficial for the mind." However, everyone is different. You might have another approach to achieving balance. Many of my friends find peace by going to church or synagogue, for example. Others prefer meditation. A few hang out in bars or coffee houses just to recharge by soaking up some atmosphere; stimulation of the senses can be a powerful way to regain balance. The sedentary, insular nature of a writing career is exacerbated because most writers have full or part-time jobs. This means that your average work week, including the writing, might run anywhere from sixty to eighty hours. In this kind of situation, you will quickly lose track of family, friends, and your spirituality. The house will fall into disrepair. At times, I must confess, my office has looked like a storage room, or like a pigsty — even though I work at home and theoretically should have the time to clean up. So I'm certainly no stranger to a lack of balance — you strive for the ideal and you always fail. Sometimes you must sacrifice balance to achieve your goals, but you have to be aware of that sacrifice and realize that you will need to "reset" at some point. You'll need to do so not just for your sanity but for the sanity of the people around
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Contributors
by Jeff VanderMeer, October 26, 2009 2:38 PM
[ Editor's Note: Don't miss Jeff VanderMeer's reading at Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing on Saturday, November 7, 2009, at 4 p.m. Click here for more information.] Killers are like mushrooms; the deadly ones look like the ones you have for breakfast, unless you happen to have the sense to turn them over and look at the funny underneath.— Derek Raymond, Dead Man Upright If killers are like deadly mushrooms, then detectives are also like mushrooms, but of the non-poisonous variety. This analogy is more literal than you might expect in my case, as I have a new noir-thriller-fantasy detective novel out, entitled Finch, in which mushrooms play a somewhat important role. Finch is set in the imaginary city of Ambergris, which has been occupied by bizarre creatures called gray caps who have subjugated the human population using their advanced fungal technologies. Indeed, their spores have infected detective John Finch's partner, Wyte, who is disintegrating. Against this backdrop, Finch must solve a difficult double murder without getting killed by his masters or by the rebels who oppose them. Despite the strangeness of the setting, my novel, like most mysteries, depends on the complexity of the case and, perhaps more importantly, the reader's interest in or fascination with the characters. If Finch works, it's because readers care what happens to John Finch, and they care about Wyte because Finch cares about Wyte. But Finch, despite being a man who tries to do the right thing, is not a strictly moral person. He's not a villain, but he engages in dubious actions at times and has rather eccentric habits. He's a reflection of what real people are like — and an acknowledgment that we can feel an affinity for people who are strange or off-center, even in the real world, perhaps because we recognize that quality in ourselves. In that context, here are three underrated mystery series that I love because the detectives in them are deeply weird, deeply flawed people. Stephen Greenleaf's Marsh Tanner series: In books like Grave Error, Death Bed, and State's Evidence, Greenleaf proved Ross MacDonald wasn't the only one who could create classic West Coast detective novels. Lawyer-turned-private eye Tanner is an eccentric and quirky protagonist who encounters a number of odd possible suspects and victims in the course of 14 installments. Books like Fatal Obsession, in which he returns to his childhood haunts in Iowa, showed that Tanner traveled well — it's one of the best books in the series, wedding San Francisco noir grit to a world of small-town secrets. Some of the later novels seemed a little preachy, but I always thought Tanner's method of expression and his take on the cases he investigated made him more than a little different. That said, on the surface he may be the most normal of the three detectives I'm mentioning here. Derek Raymond's Factory series: The five Factory novels — He Died with His Eyes Open, The Devil's Home on Leave, How the Dead Live, I Was Dora Suarez, and Dead Man Upright — are morbid yet satisfying classics of the noir subgenre. The nameless narrator works as a detective in the Department of Unexplained Deaths. He often clashes with his superior, Bowman, and has turned down promotion at every turn. His wife is in a lunatic asylum and is responsible for the central tragedy of the detective's life. The cases in front of him are all about an inner life, of bringing back the dead. In each case, the detective to some extent reanimates the victims and attempts to identify with them. No one would ever want to have a pleasant lunch with this detective, but he's deeply sympathetic despite his hang-ups, or perhaps because of them. As you read the series, you realize that a lesser — perhaps even a more normal — man wouldn't have dedicated himself to murder cases. In the context of the tragedy the nameless detective has faced, a lesser man would have gone mad or become a killer himself. Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's Detective Beck series: Detective Martin Beck investigates several often intriguing and unique murders in these stunning Swedish police procedurals, including the debut, Roseanna, plus The Man on the Balcony, The Laughing Policeman, and seven others. As the series continues, Beck becomes more and more cynical, his health deteriorates, and in all ways his investigations impact him negatively. In a sense, Beck is a less dramatic version of Raymond's nameless detective, in that his cases resonate in his bones. It doesn't help that Beck's personal life is a mess, and that the bleakness of the landscape of the cities and countryside explored by the writer permeates his character. All three of these series influenced my portrayal of Finch in the novel, to greater and lesser extents. All three provide great reading for mystery fans. All three deserve to be better known. Go forth and find them. I'm sure the wise book detectives at Powell's won't mind taking on the
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