How did this story originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

“Over a Long Time Ago” is part of a series of short stories centered on an interstellar penal colony called Amends. In the series chronology it’s the second story, though I wrote it next to last. The story’s title is a line from a great Steely Dan song, “Pretzel Logic,” this wonky blues ballad about time travel. There’s this sad feeling of inevitability to the song that I hope to evoke in readers, which is a totally appropriate emotional tone for a tale set on a near-light-speed spaceship plunging through the limitless void toward an inescapable prison.

What is your writing space like? What do you like to have around for optimal creativity?

I have a huge computer monitor, like hotel TV screen size, because glaucoma has destroyed about thirty-three percent of my vision. So I need my words to be really big. My desk consists of a long sheet of heavy-duty plywood supported by two short filing cabinets. Swiveling, rolling office chair on a plastic sheet I originally bought to use as a dancefloor for my Michael Jackson impersonation. A cigar box full of paper accessories—passport, greeting card to remind me that I come from the stars, plastic purple bin for keys, asthma inhaler, beaded sea creatures, matches, etc. I face a big window through which I can sometimes see Mount Rainier. An eagle landed on the porch across the street once.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

My first piece of advice is “Try all the advice.” Just try it, and see if it’s right for you. Different processes work for different writers. For instance, people will tell you to write every day. Octavia Butler did. I don’t.

My second piece of advice is “Expect the way you write things to change.” Maybe for a few years you get good results by waking up at three a.m. and racking up huge wordcounts while the rest of your household sleeps. Maybe you lose the use of your hands and become a devotee of some software that types up what you dictate to it. Maybe you’ve always written in cafes, and then a pandemic empties those cafes and you need another busy, happy place to let your creativity juice loose. Pay attention to these kinds of changes. Roll with them.

What trends in speculative fiction would you like to see gain popularity in the next few years?

A trend that I’ve seen increasing throughout my lifetime is the rising popularity and availability of SFFH by, for, and about formerly marginalized people. And that increase can keep on growing, as far as I’m concerned. More queerness! More BIPOC! More everything not the same! That’s what I would like.

What are you working on lately? Where else can fans look for your work?

I just finished edits on a novella coming out from Rosarium in September: “The Day and Night Books of Mardou Fox.” It’s my response to Jack Kerouac’s fictionalization of a Black and American Indian woman with whom he had an affair. Alene Lee, the real-life Mardou, was a fantastic writer and hung out with Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, all the Beats. She was Kerouac’s equal—or better! Kerouac’s “The Subterraneans” reduces her to a piece of tail. In my story she’s not just a successful author, she does magic!

I also recently wrote and sold the final story of the Amends series to a project called Mythopoesis for Techno-Living Systems. The title is “You Can Touch Yourself Anytime.” Not as raunchy as this one, despite the title, which is just a line from another great song, this one by a Post-punk band called Magazine. I think it’s going to be published on the MTLS website? I’ll also include it in a 2025 collection of the eight Amends stories.

Want more? Google me! I have a very Google-able name.