Andy Duncan Takes Off!

August 2001

Andy Duncan attended Clarion West in 1994, studied creative writing at North Carolina State University under John Kessel and earned his MA in 1995, and completed his MFA in fiction in 2000. He was a finalist in 1998 both for the Hugo Award (for his first sale, short story "Beluthahatchie") and for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Later novellas ëëThe Executionersí Guildíí and ëëFortitudeíí (both 1999) were Nebula finalists (in 2000 and 2001). His first book, collection Beluthahatchie and Other Stories, was published in 2000. He lives with his wife in Northport, Alabama. Excerpts from the interview: ëëThe Clarion West experience was an amazingly positive one for me. I know itís not true for everybody, and I am very cautious about recommending it too indiscriminately. The biggest single factor in whether or not you have a good experience is who your fellow classmates are, and thatís purely the luck of the draw. If, as I was, youíre with a great group thatís very harmonious, and everybody is supportive, and it has some really first-rate talents, then it can be wonderful, but if any of those things donít magically happen....

Photo by Beth Gwinn Official web page: Andy Duncan

It really does shut some people down terribly, even some of the most celebrated alums, like Octavia Butler and Stan Robinson. When I was interested in applying, John Kessel took me into his office and quizzed me for about 45 minutes. It was nothing about my writing -- he knew about my writing. He quizzed me about psychological things: Why did I want to go? What was I expecting to get out of it? How did I deal with criticism or classroom situations? And all these hypotheticals. When he was done, he said, ëOK, I think you can go to Clarion.í But my impression was, if I had not answered those questions to his satisfaction, he would have said, ëYou shouldnít go.í Itís not for every aspiring writer, but it transformed me, it made me feel very much like a professional. I came back and took a subscription to Locus that week!íí

*

ëëIím proud of my novella ëThe Chief Designerí. Itís sort of a secret history of the Russian space program, so itís about as far from a Southern voice as you could get. But if you look at it in the context of all my other stories, it has in common the things that are more important to me than just the region or the accent.

ëëFor one thing, history is vitally important. I love what Phil Klass said about how history is ëthe real science of science fiction.í That quote really struck me. It just made perfect sense, the more I thought about it, and it has helped give me strength to keep dealing with history. Some folks think science fiction is supposed to be the future, always looking ahead. But itís all about history -- future history or alternate history or transplanted history -- and we keep looking behind. Thereís so much retro and historical stuff being written, some argue thatís a sign of decay in the field, or weíre in the end times of science fiction. I donít agree. I think the future is going to be a lot like the past, rather than this entirely discordant break with everything weíve done before. There is a great, almost mystical, yearning on our part for a Singularity to come around, but I donít foresee it happening. All these innovations, all these new things weíre going to be implementing, are going to be implemented by the same old human beings that have been designing and implementing them all along, for good and for ill. I agree with Connie Willis and Orson Scott Card -- he says, in a thousand years itís not like weíve discovered any new ways to be happy, enthusiastic, new ways to be cruel, new ways to be selfish, unconcerned about our fellow human beings.íí

*

ëëWhen you put some familiar thing in an unfamiliar environment, or put two thoughts that do not seem related right up against one another and see that they are related, things get very interesting. My story in Starlight 3, ëSenator Bilboí, came about because I noticed some time ago that the name of one of the Southís most infamous demagogues and racists was the same name as the kindly halfling hero in Tolkien. That made me think, again, ësomebodyís done this already,í but apparently not.íí