GW: So, why don’t you tell us about yourself?

Okay, who am I? I’m this nutcase who loves science fiction, has loved it her whole life, and just wants to hurt people.

Emotionally, I mean.

That sounds bad. Let’s try again: I won a Nebula for my 1999 novelette, “Mars Is no Place for Children” and my 2007 short story, “Pride,” was on the final Nebula ballot. My novel, An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl, was serialized in Analog. My recent books include Ewaipanoma, Dragon Soup, with Marge Simon, and Your Cat & Other Space Aliens, a Pushcart nominee which appeared on the preliminary Stoker ballot. My work has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, F&SF, Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Cat Tales, Fast Forward 1, and other anthologies and magazines in English, Italian, and German.

My “Steak Tartare and the Cats of Garibabakin” is in the April Analog, and, upcoming,“Chocolate Cats from Mars”is in the revived Space and Time. I’m working on Isidis Rising, a novel set on colonized Mars.

GW: Can you give us some history on the Hamsters, how and when did the group form?

The Hamsters started after I came home from Clarion, full of big plans. I rented a conference room in a Holiday in, called some other newbie writers, and we had our organizational meeting. Our motley group included one member who didn’t even write, but liked to critique. We recruited by word of mouth and from flyers in libraries. Over the last 24 years, roughly 60 people have been Hamsters. Some of the more prominent Hamsters: Maureen McHugh, Sarah Willis (mainstream writer), Tobias Buckell, Ellen Klages, and of course you, Steve. About half of the Hamsters are in SFWA; and most have published, although there are a couple of underachievers who need a fire lit under them. Or a keg of dynamite.

The name Cajun Sushi Hamsters from Hell is so ridiculous I can’t even remember how we decided on it. It had something to do with a strange vegan dish one Hamster brought to a meeting.

A watershed moment came when Geoff Landis moved to Cleveland as a NASA postdoc. Geoff, my Clarion classmate, already had major chops as an Analog writer and Campbell and Hugo finalist. Most of us were still flailing around trying to break in. Charlie Oberndorf had a well received story in Full Spectrum, but he was busy with a new baby. Geoff had experience with two workshops in Cambridge, and with the energy and experience to attract other pros, he gave us a quality background. People who know Geoff also know he is very focussed. We quickly became a team.

Another watershed moment was when you, Steve, appeared as a dewy-eyed child with an unsold novel called Forests of the Night. I knew it was high concept. Not only could I see the cover in my mind, my hands itched to pick it up. Apparently DAW agreed, because the manuscript got snapped up. And the Jim Burns cover lived up to my expectations.

Another early triumph was Charles Oberndorf’s Sheltered Lives: quirky, charged with a sexually intimacy more disquieting than blatant.

Sarah Willis, also a former Hamster, turned to literary realism. Her Some Things that Stay, became a movie. Brett Wagner turned to moviemaking after Cleveland, with Chief and Five Years, also some TV work.

Maureen McHugh’s genius for hostessing became legendary. How did she create all those fabulous feasts while winning Hugo, Tiptree, Lambda, Nebula and a zillion other awards? We think she has a clone.

When Toby Buckell made his first sale, he was too young to buy the traditional champagne. Now, his Halo: the Cole Protocol, is on the New York Times best seller list.

Hamsters have won Hugos, Nebulas, and other awards.

GW: Can you give a quick overview of the mechanics?  How the group meets? The critiquing process? How do new members join?

I’m painting a picture of Hamster success stories. But how does the group function?

After a years of chaotic meetings with seventeen Hamsters critiquing nine stories in six hours, we decided to make potential members audition. Two of the applicant’s stories are juried by four Hamsters. Once accepted, if newbie likes us after a trial meeting, she or he is in.

We use Clarion round-robin method. As Algis Budrys pointed out, less assertive voices are lost in the cacophony of unstructured discussion. Sometimes we limit critique time with a stopwatch.

We meet in each others’ homes. Monthly. We have a meal. We do short stories. Novels are done by agreement only, and in segments. All of these variables can change.

GW:Any suggestions to people who want to form their own group on how to keep it running smoothly?

My advice to anybody who wants to start a critique group? Keep your priorities straight. The point is to improve over-all skill and help the writer polish a story. Some tips:

1. Critique is not an opportunity for grandstanding. One snarky writer in another group pelts each writer with risible barbs, destroying the story while displaying his own pyrotechnic wit. Everybody laughs, and those with thick skins survive. But what of those who wilt under ridicule?
2. Focus on the story, not the writer’s personality. There are exceptions to this rule. One Hamster, call him Alan, had a depressive streak, and his work wasn’t getting accepted. It was just too dark and moody. Should we have said something? But then he got married, and started publishing again.
3. Abrasive people destroy a group. One published but insecure writer attempts to turn a writing group into a cheering section for his own work. I’ve also seen writers engage in behaviors — nagging others to read excessive pages, even semi-stalking s— that could kill a group. Figure a way to get them to leave.
4. Get as many good writers as you can. Avoid weak writers unless they show some genius. (Geoff Landis defines genius as devoting ten hours a day, every day of the year, to a skill for ten years.)
5. But stay open to diamonds in the rough. A writer with bad spelling and punctuation might, motivated by belief in his own talent, smooth the jagged edges. But don’t let the critique group become a school taught by the best for the benefit of the rest.
6. Develop a thick skin. Don’t cry openly during critique. It’s bad form.
7. If you can’t find a good critique group, form your own. Get a peek at the SFWA directory for writers in your area. Ask around at cons. If all else fails, post notices in libraries. Take a local con ed or college course in writing. Heck, try Craig’s List.
8. Organize. People need each other’s addresses, cell phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. Meetings can be canceled for blizzards or hurricanes.

Finally, what does a critique group do for you?

1. It helps you improve a story.
2. It provides support and networking for market news and research
3. It motivates you to produce.
4. It’s fun.

GW:Anything else you want to say about your experience with the Hamsters?

I love the Hamsters. They are treasured friends and allies in a hostile writing world. And all of this would never have existed without the seed being planted by Algis Budrys, Damon Knight, and Kate Wilhelm. I recommend her book, Storyteller , for more insight.

GW: You made extensive use of Ohio locations in The Walls of the Universe, did you choose it because you’re a resident, or is there more to that decision?

Wherever I live, the locations become settings for my stories. When I lived in Pittsburgh, alien ships hovered over the south hills and a desk made from irradiated metal was used to kill a dot-com start-up executive from Carnegie Mellon. When I lived in Ann Arbor, a professor’s murder was solved there with the use of an aromatic forensic device that detects everything that happens in a room. When I lived in Chicago, a girl-band lead singer from the Loop saved the world from extremely slow aliens. When I lived in Ohio, a depressed superhero turned all of Ohio (and some of Indiana) into the Socialist Buckeye Republic, and a Volkswagen Beetle crashed into the Olentangy River not far from where I lived.

Of course those things all happened in my head, but the settings were real. The Walls of the Universe is set in Findlay and Toledo, but across multiple parallel universes. In fact my protagonist visits a hundred Ohios in the book, including a Pleistocene universe in which megafauna still walk the plains below Lake Erie. Ultimately the back story will reveal the significance of the Serpent Mound and other prehistoric artifacts of Ohio. But really, I chose Ohio because I love Ohio and I am a Ohioan from birth.

GW: How do you think it changes and/or informs a work when it’s set in a place around where you lived, as opposed to someplace only visited or researched?

Setting a story in a location that the author knows well allows a depth of visualization that otherwise is hard to achieve. I know the pattern of mud that swirls up when you wade into the Olentangy River below the dam. I know the types of spiders that spin webs in the corn fields near Findlay, Ohio. I know what riding the Incline in Pittsburgh feels like. All of that informs the story, adds authenticity and verisimilitude.

Which is not to say that a researched locale can’t be as real to the reader.  Singularity’s Ring leads the protagonist up a space elevator to GEO and down again, through the Amazon rain forest, the Rocky Mountains, and up a desiccated Congo. I rely on experience and imagination to depict those things for my readers.

GW:  Sometimes authors refer to the setting as an additional character in the story, what’s your take on that? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I’ve heard that expression and it’s always puzzled me. Characters are characters and setting is setting, and unless you’re dealing with a sentient house, I can’t see how treating setting as a character is anything other than another metaphorical tool. Perhaps I’ll use it one day….

GW: Do you think it’s more difficult or easier writing about someplace you’re familiar with (or its analog) than it is writing about someplace out of whole cloth?

There are benefits to both. A real place may constrain your imagination, while a fabricated location can have any detail or facet that you can accurately describe. On the other hand, as I’ve said above, a real place can be used to enhance verisimilitude, while an imagined place may not pull the reader in as well. I of course use both types of settings; creating imagined settings is a key skill for a science fiction writer!

GW: What led to your decision to set The Walls of the Universe in Ohio, was it part of the original story idea, or did it come later? What do you think the setting contributes to the book?

The main character lives in a town very like the town I lived in as a youth. Part of the story deals with slightly different versions of that same town. So I felt that having a detailed knowledge of the locale would make it easier to vary it from universe to universe.

Plus, there isn’t enough science fiction set in Ohio! But really, why not? I love Ohio and love writing stories set there

You can find Sample chapters from The Walls of the Universe on Paul Melko’s website.

Crystal Rain

Ragamuffin

Sly Mongoose

Halo: The Cole Protocol

GW: First off, tell us the story how you ended up with a contract to write Halo:the Cole Protocol. Were you looking to write a media tie-in, or was this just out of the blue?

It was out of the blue, sort of. Bungie and Tor work together to make the Halo books, and apparently I caught their attention with my over-the-top adventure and craziness

GW: How was it working with someone else’s creative property? How tightly were you constrained?  Were there things you wanted to do, but couldn’t? Or things they wanted that you didn’t want to do?

It was pretty cool. I’d played the games and read all the books, so I had some ideas and they had some things they were hoping I could do. We each felt the ideas we all had were pretty cool, so incorporating everything into the book was more fun than anything. Halo, as a whole universe, is still fairly young, so I got to play in unexplored areas and have a lot of fun.

GW: How important was it to have a working knowledge of the property beforehand? Do you think you need to be a fan to write a tie-in novel?

I think it was pretty important. Like I said I’d played all the games, read all the books and the comics and the graphic novel. It made discussions with Bungie easy, as we were all on the same page and I had all sorts of ideas, as a fan of the series, about what I thought could be explored.

GW: How has this affected your own writing, for good or ill?

It was really nice, actually, to do something different. I’ve written 3 books all in the same series and featuring some of the same characters. Getting a chance to do something outside of all that was very useful as I’ve had time to let some other stuff sit and simmer.

GW: Would you do it again? Any other properties out there now you’d like to play in?

If asked again, I would be delighted to write another Halo book, sure. As for other properties, it all depends on if I like them. I’ve been offered a few things since people heard I was freelancing full time, but turned them down because either they offered too little money or they were properties I wasn’t enthused about. There are other properties I dig on, the one people know I’m most a fan of is Wolverine. I imagine I’d jump at a chance to do that.

Not surprisingly, as I just got out of my 20s, most of my other loves are various videogames I love playing.