Bloggasm

You can find Christopher Rowe’s blog over here.

Christopher Rowe lives in Lexington, Kentucky. His stories have appeared in publications around the world and he was a 2005 finalist for the Hugo, Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. With his wife, Gwenda Bond, he edits a critically acclaimed lit-zine, Say… He maintains an online journal called UnCommonwealth that migrated around various servers for awhile before settling at christopherrowe.typepad.com.

Simon Owens: Your story “The Voluntary State” is arguably your most well-received published work. Since its publication, has your life as a writer changed at all? Do you find that more people recognize your name at cons and more editors are receptive to your fiction?

Christopher Rowe: I don’t know about name recognition at conventions. “The Voluntary State” was prose, less than novel length, and written within the last quarter century, which is three strikes against it in that particular context, but in terms of editorial “receptiveness” and so on, oh yeah, that piece has absolutely been a door opener. It’s been reprinted three times in English so far (with one and possibly two more reprints scheduled), and has been or will be translated into Japanese, Hebrew, Danish, Greek, Portuguese and Czech. So the critical reception the story received has definitely led to new opportunities and audiences.

SO: How does the editing of the Say… magazine affect your writing?

CR: Eh, I’m not sure that it has, really. I think I use two different parts of my brain for editing (other people’s) fiction and for writing, and I don’t think those two parts talk to each other very much. Other than at the big general meetings, I mean.

SO: What’s in store for for future writing projects?

CR: I’ve got a lot going on right now, actually. There are a couple of new short stories making the editorial rounds, though nothing’s scheduled for publication right this second. I’m working on a couple of stories in response to requests from anthologists here and abroad and doing some character development work for one of those “can’t talk about it yet” type projects. In terms of novels, I have a science fiction novel under way and a shorter horror/action novel simmering.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

CR: The five I follow most closely are Gwenda Bond’s Shaken and Stirred, Richard Butner’s GNAW (get an RSS feed, Richard!), the blogs linked off Justine Larbalestier‘s and Scott Westerfeld‘s websites and Cyclocosm, which comments on and aggregates bicycle racing news.