Q&A with Jack Dann: Part II

Jack Dann returns to answer a few more questions for Voyager Online.

 

Q:    In your intro to Dreaming Again you write ‘There is also a generation of writers who have been around for a while…and have suddenly sparked.’ — What makes a writer spark for you?

 

A:      I think there are two answers involved here. I was referring to writers such as Richard Harland, who have been writing terrific stuff, but hadn’t gotten the accolades they deserved, hadn’t connected with that large audience out there that would love their work. To ‘spark’, in the way I meant, was to be…found by their audience. I don’t know how to explain how it happens. Sunspots? <Grin> How do you explain Tolkien’s trilogy being such a strong reflection of post-war readers’ mood, yearnings, etc. And it is still potent. Or William Gibson’s Neuromancer becoming a catalytic influence on the larger culture? Somehow, it happens: in all its various gradations. That’s all I meant. But for me personally, it’s that, well, sense-of-wonder that I feel when reading a story that has the right stuff. And it’s always different: sometimes it’s the beauty of the prose and the texture of the story (like seeing a painting so luminous it takes your breath away), sometimes it’s the wild twisting of ideas, and sometimes—most profoundly—it’s that feeling that I’ve glimpsed something vital, important, and unforgettable. When a writer does that to me, he or she sparks!

 

Q:    Do you think a place like Australia — with its vastness, it’s complete uniqueness (in location, in animal and plant life, it’s isolation) gives our spec fic writers that extra edge and ability to go beyond traditional fiction?

 

A:      I think Australia gives us a wonderful palette to draw from. This is a unique, variegated, and startling place, and it certainly informs the work of our speculative fiction—and mainstream fiction—writers. How can it not? I don’t know if it gives our speculative fiction writers an extra edge to go beyond traditional fiction. I’m assuming you mean traditional speculative fiction. Certainly this land influences us and interweaves itself into much of Australian art, whatever its form. I think that it’s the talent of our genre writers that is pushing the envelope…and I think that these wonderful talents are influenced by this beautiful, generous, unique environment.

 

 

Keep an eye out for more from Jack Dann in the upcoming Voyager Newsletter, The Captain’s Log, which comes out in August.