I'm incredibly pleased to be working with Marco Palmieri and Tor Books on 'The Geek Feminist Revolution.' This was an exciting book to pitch and is proving to be a lot of fun to put together.
— Kameron Hurley
Know that you're gonna screw up, and be OK with it, and do better next time.
What I found so captivating about the idea of being a writer was having the ability to write down all these things I made up in my head so other people could see them.
While many alternate reality stories ask, 'What might have been?' parallel universe stories literalize the war between good and evil that plays inside each of us every day. It's what makes this type of story so perfect for many fantasy tales: we're all just a coin flip away from being entirely different people.
As a science fiction and fantasy writer, I used to love writing bleak, grimdark futures full of bleak, grimdark people. But I've found that as the world around me darkens, all I really want to do is grasp for more light.
There are no failed ideas, just ideas that haven't found their moment yet.
I tried to be really nice and like the things other people liked and do the things other people were supposed to do, and what you find out is that they're going to bully you anyway. And I thought, 'You know what? If I'm going to get bullied anyway, I might as well get bullied for making a difference in the world.'
Authors are often sent a number of books to read for possible review and advance praise. It can be easy for new books to get lost in the pile.
What history taught me is that societies are not static and that the straight line of progressive ideals - this thinking we have that a society will just magically become more egalitarian over time - is patently false.
I want to be constantly in awe of the possibilities of the universe.
Human beings thrive on imagination and pushing boundaries and limitations. Imposing limits when we don't actually have any true idea of what's possible is like imposing a steel trap over the mind.
When we see sexist and racist behavior, the only way to change that is also to point it out and make it clear that it's not okay.
Storytelling is a universal: every culture does it. There's a reason our religious books aren't simply a list of shall-and-shall-nots. Morals and teachings are contained in stories, which are studied, dissected, and passed down; we remember stories in a way we don't remember lists of facts.
I'm terribly particular about what I read: lush writing, secondary world or seriously far-out science fiction, strong worldbuilding, dynamic characters. I need to have it all for it to work for me.
I'm a naturally lazy person, and I live for a challenge.
I'm the sort of writer who likes to leave doors open for readers.
Folks will always, always, always go back to the comfortable status quo, with its silent voices and lack of conflict, if you give them the chance.
I write for free online out of love, passion, and often, rage.
Before I wrote 'God's War,' I probably did eight years of research into the Middle East, Judaism, Islam, Catholicisim, and all sorts of fabulous other things.
My parents both worked full-time flipping burgers at the local fast-food joint, and my grandmother looked after us. English was her second language, so instead of books, I learned spoken French nursery rhymes and curse words.
Writers of all things speculative have played in alternate and parallel worlds for a long time - everyone from Stephen King to Philip Pullman to Tanith Lee - and it's an obsession that likely isn't going away any time soon.
Your enemies love your failures, sure. But what they love even more is to see you brought so low by those failures that you never get up again. Sometimes enemies aren't even external. Often, our biggest critic, our greatest enemy, is ourselves.
Novel writing, like so many things in life, is an iterative process. You come at it again and again, working at it like you would a piece of pottery or a stone sculpture, chipping away the parts that don't make sense, smoothing over the rough edges.
Pen names have always fascinated me, in part because I understand the professional and economic and even societal reasons to do so.
I don't like to write about things that bore me, and that means I steer far clear of writing books that are just like what's on the shelves.
Watching the progression and backlash against feminism even since 1970 will give you a serious case of whiplash.
I read and write speculative fiction because I want to go someplace really different.
I understand that space travel and expansion is just as much about altering ourselves, our attitudes, our social structures, our very biology, as it is about altering the places we choose to live.
As both an essayist and science fiction and fantasy novelist, I write about and for the future. I talk about the past to remind us that what we believe has always been true - that men and women are somehow static categories, or that men in power has always been the default, or that same-sex love affairs were always taboo - has not always been thus.
One of the things I stress to those I meet, especially young people, is that we are the heroes of our own lives, and we can be the masters of our own stories.
I've told people before that I don't want to be a part of a genre; I want to be my own genre. I want to create it.
I want to write books that keep people up at night, where they cry through the first forty pages and keep reading anyway.
What makes a book unique isn't always about having one big grand new idea. It's about combining many different ideas in new and interesting ways.
It's easier to say people are crazy than to try to figure out why.
Half the world is full of women, but it's rare to hear a narrative that doesn't speak of women as the people who have things done to them instead of the people who do things. More often, women are talked about as a man's daughter. A man's wife.
As an introverted kid who lived in the middle of nowhere, my stories made up the whole of my social life. That meant that while other kids cultivated hobbies like skateboarding or playing the piano, I sat at home scribbling in notebooks.
I know a lot of writers who tell me they 'always' knew how to read. They can't remember a time before reading. And those writers make me want to tear my hair out.
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of 'Twilight Zone.' My mother was obsessed with the show, as it was a staple of her childhood - and thus she made it one of ours, too.
Many people don't even want to start something until they feel fairly confident that they will be a success at it. But me? I love to throw myself into things headfirst and fail all over the place.
I think that there's this idea - especially for male readers, but female readers as well, because we're all indoctrinated, right? - where there's this idea that if a woman is tough, it can only be in a way that is still sexy.
Once readers and industry professionals have you pegged down as writing a particular type of book, they are less likely to try something new from you if they decided they didn't like the first one.
If your entire conception of what's possible in fantasy only comes from other fantasy books, you're going to go on to create a copy of a copy of a copy. There's nothing original there, nothing dynamic. Which is fine if that's your goal, but I've always wanted to do something no one else was doing before.
'The Stars are Legion' is part space opera, part thriller, about two warring families battling it out for control over a legion of organic starships.
Creating a future requires a profound and yes, unrealistic, vision of what is possible. But it is fantasy and wonder that drive technology and innovation.
There is no greater threat to progress than the phrase, 'That's impossible.'
Science fiction writers create all sorts of futures - that comes with the job. But it's not the type that matters - hopeful or dark - it's the variety we see as readers. It's nurturing the imaginations of those who will go on to create the world around us.
We don't fall in love with perfect people. We fall in love with complex ones.
I started writing books because I couldn't find the books I wanted to read on the shelf.
I enjoy challenging myself in new and different ways.
Authors make stuff up. Let's not pretend it's any more magical than that.
