I come from a nation where fantastic fiction has a very low status, unless it fits into some very specific categories or is written by already established authors. I don't by any means try to hide what I write, but the way people think in categories here is pretty extreme: it blots out discussing the actual work on its own terms. That's made me loath to talk about my own work in terms of genre, because once you get a label, it sticks and poof go a slew of potential readers and reviewers because eww, fantasy cooties.

I do love the weird, and I realize that I write much in that tradition, so I'm happy to be counted in among some of my favorite authors.

If you want the reader to accept the premise as a given, then being specific is vital. This is what I'm after; I want the reader to accept the setting and the mindset of the characters, so we can get on with the story.

My early stories revolved around reality and faith. I wrote a series of stories about the darker aspects of Christian myth: a woman who hides in the attic and watches the Apocalypse, a cult whose members preserve themselves in huge formalin tubs waiting for the Second Coming, and so on.

I'm not comfortable with categorizing my own work, but I don't mind if others talk about it in relation to genre as long as they don't try to hold it up to some genre standard.

I want my voice to be consistent no matter if it's an original or a translation.

When I returned to short stories, I'd started working on what is still central to much of what I try to do: putting myself in the place of the alien rather than describing it from an outside point of view.