It would have been a hard year if I'd spent it berating myself for not working on the book.
Emily BartonA lot of people have come up after Brookland and asked, "What happens to her at the end of the novel?" and I will very politely say, well, here are the two possibilities.
Emily BartonTeaching is enormously satisfying because I'm constantly learning more. Just constantly being exposed to new voices and new life experiences and new worldviews and new structural dilemmas and new characters - it's really exciting for me.
Emily BartonOne of the things that's exciting for me about this novel is that, to me, Brookland and The Testament of Yves Gundron were both, in certain regards, crypto-steampunk. They're both books that are interested in an alternate technological past that in fact didn't historically come to pass. If you were to ask me what my novels were about, I would say, well, these are novels about technology and how we relate to technology and what technology means.
Emily Barton