COMING NEXT: Author Laura Rankin.
COMING NEXT: Author Laura Rankin.
Editor's note: This is the first article in a series of interviews with local authors. Look for future author interviews every other week in the Sunday Accent Books & Authors section. Send comments to features@seacoastonline.com.
Melissa Scott of Portsmouth was already an established science-fiction writer when the Herald first interviewed her more than a decade ago.
She'd studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University and earned her Ph.D., in comparative history, and published her first novel at 23, while still a graduate student.
Scott has more than 20 published books, three co-authored with her partner Lisa Barnett, who died in 2006. She won the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction in 1986, and three Lambda Literary Awards for "Trouble and Her Friends," "Shadow Man," and "Point of Dreams," penned with Barnett. Scott also wrote novels based on the "Star Trek" series. Today at 46, "a true child of the '60s," she says, Scott is starting a new chapter of her life and career.
HERALD: You haven't written a book in a few years. Why have you taken the time off?
SCOTT: It began because I was trying to switch publishers. Then Lisa got sick; cancer in 2003. That became our main focus. ...; I did some short stories, three, more than I'd done in the past 20 years. Lisa died a year ago (after 27 years together). So I'm sort of digging out from that emotionally. It's been kind of a long haul. ...; Now I'm trying to get myself back into writing mode. I've given myself two year to get it back together. If I don't, I'll have to get a real job.
HERALD: When did you start writing?
SCOTT: Probably as soon as I learned to read. My mother tells me that she was writing her master's thesis while I was doing mine. I was 2. I told people I was writing it on 'Moby Dick.'
HERALD: When did you approach it as a profession?
SCOTT: I actually assumed I was going to finish school and be a history professor. About halfway through I realized I was a better writer than a historian — a nasty fact. I also had more success as a novelist than an academic, due to a quirk of circumstance. My academic specialty is not very much in demand: early modern science and technology with a military specialty.
HERALD: What was your first published work?
SCOTT: "The Game Beyond," a novel with Bain books. ...; I pretty much began with science fiction.
HERALD: Why did you choose science fiction?
SCOTT: That's simple. It's what I like most to read. But then that begs the question: Why do I like to read it? It's a genre that lets you look at ideas in concrete, messy, human terms. It's a genre about ideas — what happens 'if,' but you have to work it out in the context of humans or some equivalent there of.
HERALD: Your work generally features lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender characters. How does that work for you?
SCOTT: It helps and hurts. ...; It's gotten me an audience that I wouldn't have had. A lot of the gay community doesn't read science fiction, but they've found (my books) and like them. But since 2001 when the publishing industry shrunk so much the non mainstream (books) are getting squeezed out. Publishers are afraid to take chances on things without the broadest possible appeal.
HERALD: What is your most popular book and why do you think that's so?
SCOTT: "Trouble and Her Friends." ...; It's probably because it's the nearest-future and deals with a lot of computer stuff people are already familiar with, so there's a lot of ways into the book. It's also the book that those that don't read science fiction find the easiest.
HERALD: Your personal favorite and why?
SCOTT: I like different books for different reasons. ...; "Shadow Man" because it was a stretch for me technically — I had to invent a new set of pronouns. "Kindly Ones" and "Dreamships" are both ones where I made personal strides forward, and some that I wrote with Lisa ...; they were so much fun.
HERALD: What inspires you?
SCOTT: The pleasure of figuring out the consequences of technological development. And (writing) gives you a chance to talk about issues that are contested here and now. ...; People think of science fiction as prediction. But actually all of it is about what's happening now but pushed to the extreme. In 'Trouble and Her Friends,' it's about control of the Internet. ... 'Shadowman' is about gay rights. "The Shapes of Their Heart' is about religious extremism. ...; That one is not fully successful. It's an odd book. I'll revisit that subject I think.
HERALD: What's in the works?
SCOTT: An odd, magical realist novel about bootleggers in Arkansas in 1930.
HERALD: Has it got you excited about writing again?
SCOTT: I hope so. I think so. ... I've got about 70 pages on the bootleggers and a lot of sketching on three other projects.
HERALD: How did the time off affect your career?
SCOTT: It's a setback. In some ways I'm starting over, especially with the change in publishing.
HERALD: So, now what?
SCOTT: By the end of the month I'll have four proposals with my agent to see which ones to work on this summer.
HERALD: How long have you been in Portsmouth?
SCOTT: I moved here in '89. ... Lisa got a job here.
HERALD: Why do you stay?
SCOTT: It's a funny thing. It's hard to articulate. ...; I love the history of the place, the place itself. The music scene in the '90s really got me. And I put down tabards; I'm like a dandelion. I'd be hard-pressed to uproot at this point.
HERALD: How does it support what you do — or doesn't it?
SCOTT: Well there's been an awful lot of interesting part-time jobs in historical houses. I've been with Historical New England as a guide in several houses for the summer. That's been really, really interesting. I'm starting to get a sense of the Piscataqua region and the interesting place that it is. And I know some of that shows up in my writing.
HERALD: Back in the 1990s you used to sport cat-eye contacts. Still wearing them?
SCOTT: Nope. I don't. They expired and then I got old and had to go to bifocals. I hope they make them in bifocals at some point.