All my stories and worlds spring from the basic principle of being a slave to the premise, to follow the consequences wherever they may lead without taking any easy or comfortable ways out.

All my stories and worlds spring from the basic principle of being a slave to the premise, to follow the consequences wherever they may lead without taking any easy or comfortable ways out.

To the goats, all people are equal, except for those who have treats.

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.

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.

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 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.