Karen Heuler interview
The award-winning author of everyday absurdist short stories and novels.
Karen Heuler began publishing stories in the mid-80s. In 1995, her first collection of stories was published by the University of Missouri and the New York Times review called it "haunting and quirky." In 1998, one of her stories won an O. Henry award. One of her books was a finalist for Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize, and she's been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award twice.
Her stories are surrealist, haunting, and wonderfully weird.
Lancelot Schaubert — So when did you first write something for fun?
Karen Heuler — I'm kind of stuck on the concept of "fun" — yes, writing gives me great satisfaction and I started writing stories in my early teens, but it wasn't fun until I found my own particular voice. You've probably heard that Kafka laughed to himself while writing, and I laugh metaphorically when I write. I grasp the absurd and put it in the everyday — which is what we all do without noticing it.
Lancelot Schaubert — How so? Specifically the absurd in the everyday? How do we all do that?
Karen Heuler — For example, our assault on nature—we take away the forests and put deer statues on monoculture lawns. We name streets after all the trees that have been removed. We plant foreign ornamentals rather than native ones, and take away the habitat of the animals. Bug spray. Fertilizers polluting our groundwater. These are everyday absurdities that we don’t even notice. And then there’s politicians!
My last novel, “The Splendid City,” dealt with a state that didn’t like how the nation was run and formed itself into a new country. And they have a stolen river, which is used to bottle water to sell back to the people who relied on the river. There’s magic involved, and an overweening “President” of the people, who uses parades and giveaways to keep up the people’s spirits, promising much and delivering little. I write about telemarketers from space who make cold calls to the wrong numbers. A recent, as yet unpublished, story depicts a problem with the Rapture, in that it only gets halfway before there’s a stoppage and people are stuck hanging halfway to heaven.
But this is fun! I garden, and as a result I wrote a story about a woman scraping the soil away to discover the top of a bowler hat. A whole race of people grows out of her soil. I’ve written stories where people steal someone else’s hair, not merely their hairstyle, and another one where a woman accidentally becomes a bank robber (how does that happen, anyway?). We get invaded by some very nice aliens with teenagers who create havoc, and they have a hidden agenda that, really, is a lot like our historical agendas. Or a lover refuses to accept a breakup no matter how many times he’s killed. Something strikes me as odd, or interesting, and I play with its possibilities. For the most part, it’s serious and not-serious, and while I don’t laugh out loud as Kafka did, the occasional mental smirk intrudes.
Lancelot Schaubert — So two questions on that, but first I want to talk about the rapture bit. I always find the rapture hilarious because the main verse it’s based on isn’t being read clearly by the folks who believe in it:
“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”
I think it’s hilarious that they get the rapture out of this because VERY CLEARLY both for Jesus and the flood narrative (Noah’s and Gilgamesh’s alike), you DO NOT want to be taken - raptured - by the flood. You WANT to be left. I’d read a story about people really excited for the rapture and so the flood takes them away.
Regarding Kafka: have you read much Chesterton fiction? I usually call him “happy Kafka.”
Karen Heuler — This is actually the second story I’ve written about the Rapture (fyi, we missed another Rapture date recently). I’ve written a story about the Second Coming as well. I was raised Catholic—now happily an atheist—and religions are fruitful grounds for story ideas. Society is a faith, too, in that we accept our cultures whether they’re just or not. I’ve read Chesterton in the past, and you’ve provoked my interest. I’ll have to revisit!
Lancelot Schaubert — (You should check out his Everlasting Man too, though that’s nonfiction, it’s about myths).
Karen Heuler — I’ve had myths roaming around in some of my work—most visibly in “The Glorious Plague.” It’s about a fungus that leaps from the insect kingdom to people. In bugs, it causes them to rise to the highest stalk, to be eaten by another insect that then carries the virus.
In my book, people climb to the highest point and sing (in company with others) till they die. The world is reset, and myths and folklore begin to roam in New York City. I love images and old stories, so this one was a pleasure to write. I went to the Amazon ages ago, and I love forests and jungles because anything could walk out from among the trees, or peer down from the branches. It’s that sense of wonder and curiosity that often engages me, and myths and folktales do that to the mind—engage it. Open it. Enlarge it.
It’s no surprise that fairy tales were referred to as Wonder Tales. The familiar so often becomes invisible after a while, and just as murals and public statues reset our gaze, so do stories. Movies and series have taken over that space and moved into our cultural references now, the way folktales did. I’m not against it, I just wish they didn’t rely so much on the same playbook—war, fights, individual physical conquest. Most of us feel a sense of personal adversity, I get it, but what impresses me is when it’s a community that joins together rather than an army. Ted Lasso, for instance, celebrates the group even as we grow to love Ted the most. We get attached to series that have great ensembles, and it’s because the idea of a steadfast, accepting community strikes such a deep chord. We grow to love and stand behind the people, not just the hero. I suppose there’s a wish that someone larger than we are would pick the right fight and win it. Myths, religions, fairy tales, superheroes: they remove ambiguity. Well, maybe not fairy tales. They can be ambiguous. And since the majority of fairy tales revolve around women, the fight is more often for and against fitting in to society.
Lancelot Schaubert — Oh that's super cool. Reminds me of Hothouse by Brian W. Aldiss — the stalks / Amazon stuff.
Have you read Tolkien's On Fairy Tales?
I feel the same way about nonviolence.
Karen Heuler — I like rumors in fiction; I like seeing how they spread, how they’re exposed. “The Splendid City” started as a homage to Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita.” The edition I loved had a black cat with a gun on the cover, and it was a satire about Russian literary politics. I grabbed that cat, gave him a story, and it had to be a satire because I also grabbed that, but in this case it was political satire. A lot of my writing starts with an idea surrounded by a setting. I say that even though I rarely do anything like world-building. The world comes through the story, for me. But what I just said sounds so intentional, and I’m not sure I’m intentional. I’m one of those pantsers—I don’t know what’s coming up, but I’m curious about it and by and large I’ll get there eventually. On the other hand, I’ve started many stories that went nowhere. I keep these, and it’s happened that years later I’ll look at my story starts and one of them will suddenly call to me and then I’ll either finish it or just get a little further and stop again.
Lancelot Schaubert — You said happily atheist. What was that journey like for you?
Karen Heuler — I was sent to Catholic grammar and high schools, and believed in it for most of the time, but when I hit college the world opened up. I became a vegetarian after dissecting a fetal pig for Biology class, I read atheists and freethinkers in English class, and besides, the hippies were arising. I was unexpectedly hospitalized for a dramatic spinal problem (I was 18) and somehow the slot where one declares one’s religion was left empty. No priest darkened my doorstep, though my mother and then my brother begged me to see a priest before surgery. I had a sudden revelation that I could actually decide such things for myself. After I recovered, I stopped going to church, I stopped believing, I got my first apartment in the East Village, and I became a hippie. It felt so natural. College can be a portal. I am forever grateful to my teachers for making education exciting.
Lancelot Schaubert — What thinkers did you encounter? What were their premises?
Karen Heuler — I will always remember Dostoyevsky's "Who is laughing at mankind, Ivan?" in The Brothers Karamazov, for instance. This was in direct contradiction to the presumed care offfered by a Catholic god. All kinds of fiction from all over the world directed some of my own questioning about morals and social constraints, freedom and license. Plus, the second feminist wave was happening on most college campuses, as well as anti-war, civil rights, and environmental fights, so the world looked quite different from Catholic high school.
Lancelot Schaubert — Dostoevsky was Eastern Orthodox, so it would be different. But different doesn’t necessarily mean atheist, does it? I mean that’s a fascinating quote to reach for first, particularly because in context Ivan doesn't reject God, he rejects creation. Ivan says that we have "Euclidian" minds to bound by spacetime to comprehend the mind of God, which... I mean that is true, even if Einstein's work is true. Ivan’s not an unbeliever so much as a rebel, Ivan. He even admits that all wounds at last will be healed, all scars will disappear, all discord will fade. Ivan’s conscience can't bear it, though, with the suffering of children.
What's odd to me, though, partly because it's odd to the Eastern Orthodox philosopher
(I'm paraphrasing and often even directly quoting his book The Doors of the Sea here over the course of the next few paragraphs), in reaching for this quote: Ivan's argument is actually a Christian one.Lurking under Ivan's anguish hides this gut-level assumption — a purely Christian one, though many have grown callous to it — that the eternal God of love cannot will evil in any direct or positive manner, neither provisionally, nor in passing, precisely because he's infinitely free. Tucked inside Ivan's prosecution of God's creation is this still Christian prophetic bend: for if some God's actual essence required the death of a single child to be revealed, then it wouldn't be sinful at all to think of that God as some sort of demon, to hate said demon, to blaspheme him, to seek a better God or none at all.
Fascinatingly enough, Alyosha makes it clear that Christ in a sort of coup cast down such demonic principalities who rule the world without justice and in defiance of charity — that he exorcised the maleficent god of this world — and so made Alyosha and therefore all of us free (including in this very moment, in this very mortal body) from “slavery to arbitrary power, from fear of hell’s dominion, and from any superstitious subservience to fate.” Which makes Alyosha’s holy liberty — the gospel — a kind of hidden, but active treasure buried under Ivan’s rebellion. Meaning that the faith of Aloysha is indeed one of salvation — of a God who came to rescue the creation Ivan hates from that very absurdity of sin, that very emptiness, that very waste of death, any power — either cold and calculating malevolent sociopaths or the idiocy of blind chance — “that shatter living souls; and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred," as Hart would say. Especially the suffering of children.
Requiring us to believe in cosmic time — meaning all of our history, all of the geological and astronomical epics are mere shadows and whisps of the reality of time. This world being only a shadow of the real, substantial world Alyosha’s God intends (as we see in the end of that book). Allowing our world to be a muddy shattered mirror of divine beauty, full of light with novels like The Brothers Karamazov, yet riven in twain by darkness. That everything has hidden glory waiting to be revealed, more radiant than a million healthy suns. Veiled in and through all things that even the greatest, most gregarious and gracious dreamers and longers cannot conceive. Alyosha’s gazing — by way of the vision he inherited from Father Zossima — upon his very broken (and our very broken) world with more and more and still more charity, he sees more and more the hidden glory waiting to be revealed.
It’s there in the blue and brilliant eyes of my infant nephews, for instance. Even if something terrible happens to them, forbid it to happen, yet it’s there as Ivan knew. And even if they themselves commit heinous crimes, that same hidden glory waits, longing to be free — even in the concrete of their potential prison cells. Still there, still in the flood, still in the fire. It’s why it’s so hard to see someone we love do something so evil — or even watch someone as talented at writing beautiful like Neil Gaiman commit such crimes — that inherent irony latent in every human. According to Alyosha, at such times to see that latent goodness in every one and everything demands such a Herculean effort of vision, faith alone like Alyosha’s in resurrection can sustain it.
Yet it remains in the eyes of those boys, in the stone of the cells, in the waters of New York’s harbor where Hurricane Sandy rose up to destroy so much of the city: radiant, undimmed, unguilty, weakened by the chains of injustice and death and decay, yet groaning, according to Alyosha and Zossima. Groaning with a longing of that weightiness, that reality yet to be revealed. Until that revelation, the world remains divided, light and darkness, life and death growing up together awaiting harvest. What, then, is Alyosha’s inheritance in such a world? Charity from Zossima. What can sustain him in the face of so many deaths and sufferings? Faith. Even in the face of heinous crimes against his own bloodline. What comfort is there for Alyosha in the death of a child? That when we see it, we see not the face of God, but the face of the enemy who possesses Ivan himself in the end of the book. Alyosha’s faith may seem incredible to Ivan, and it won’t silence Ivan’s anxious conscience, or substitute peace where Ivan’s rebellion stirs, but Alyosha’s faith is also not one that Ivan’s arguments can defeat. Why?
Because Alyosha’s faith set him free from optimism long ago and taught him — and us — to hope instead. Alyosha rejoices at the end of the book knowing he’s not saved through the “immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace;” not that God will “unite the strands of history into a synthesis, but will judge much of history as false; not that he’ll reveal some Euclidean sublime logic, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes — and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, “Behold, I make all things new.””
That in mind, why do you think — of all the texts — you reached for the quote “Who is laughing at mankind, Ivan?”
After all, isn’t it Alyosha who says that?
(End paraphrasing of Hart. Apologies if that was too much — my dad died in 2021 and I read Brothers K for the first time to process the grief, it had quite the impact on me so I’ve been thinking about it rather myopically of late).
Karen Heuler — I'm so sorry, Lance! I read Passage by Connie Willis while my mother was dying; it was all-consuming emotionally. Not sure I would have the same strong attachment now or ever. Sometimes a book matches up with emotional or internal struggles.
Lancelot Schaubert — Oh for sure. What's Passage about? I do think the broader arguments about Brothers K are worth dealing with, particularly the Ivan / Alyosha debate, Ivan's possession, and Alyosha's revelation at the end in the context of the Zossima conversations. But if that's too much we can move on.
Karen Heuler — The question—“Who is laughing at mankind?”— was a revelation for me. I’d been raised to believe in a strict but just god who rewarded good and punished evil. We didn’t understand this god’s plan but had to accept it. With Ivan’s question, my acceptance of a plan broke down. Instead, there was the possibility that the god wasn’t all that kind, or maybe had a plan but it wasn’t necessarily to our benefit, all because this question introduced the possibility of divine cruelty. I left Catholicism without pain and I don’t care if there is one god or many gods or no god at all. Lots of religious symbolism is interesting and I find that belief is a fascinating subject, almost supernatural in a way. That goes back to my earlier statement that we tend to align ourselves with people who share our values and if they dispute science, or (if you consider yourself Christian) Jesus’s principles of kindness and fairness to the unfortunate, then science and charity become obstacles. I’m an atheist and I believe in living morally. I suppose the difference between what people say they believe and how they actually behave preoccupies me and gives me a sense of discordance and unreality. So this sense of perception versus reality steers me into writing speculatively.
Lancelot Schaubert — Fascinating. So you would say the main theme of your work is hypocrisy?
Karen Heuler — No, that’s just one branch of what interests me. Stories, for me, are ideas and possibilities. What if a person did this, what would happen? What would the world be like if this doesn’t get fixed? Who could fix it? What would the fix be like? Why do we do such stupid things? Why do we believe lies? If it doesn’t affect us, does it count? Isn’t life funny. Writing is very much like magic. You learn what works to create the spell you want. In “The Splendid City,” there’s a new witch who makes a mistake with a spell, and in writing I make mistakes all the time. I go back a few pages and try to find the thread out of the labyrinth.
Sometimes, it’s better not to worry about where the story is going; sometimes it’s fun to NOT do what your impulse wants to do. When the story goes well, there’s a feeling of ease, like driving a car, getting where you want to go but always being willing to see if there’s an interesting side road, or a creature winking at you from the shoulder. It’s impossible not to bring your sensibility along on the ride, as I’m very aware. I’ve been writing for a long time, and I sometimes worry that I’ve written this story or that story before. But of course I have! The stories in my head (or sometimes, it seems, in my fingers) are stories I carry around with me, incomplete as they may be before I write them.
Stories are instructions, little bits of ways to view life. And life can be confounding. When I’m reading a really good story, I’m fascinated, sometimes even startled. I’m glimpsing a world outside my head, observing thinking that isn’t my thinking, a world that doesn’t run the way my world runs, and I love that, I love being refreshed by what I haven’t seen or thought that someone else has. I wonder if I should take that bit of newness away with me. I sometimes get tired of me, of the way I think, of the way I act. How interesting it would be to be someone else for a while! (I have a story where the fingers refuse to work for a musician until they are allowed to change places on the hand and go where they want to go. Adventure!)
Lancelot Schaubert — Sure. That's the speculative element — why Robert Silverberg says, other than poetry, this genre is limitless.
Life is funny like that for sure.
I once heard that you never learn how to write a novel, you only ever learn how to write the novel you're working on.
What's the easiest story that you ever wrote? And which one sold the quickest? Was there any correlation between sweat equity and speed of purchase?
Or perhaps sweat equity and longevity and size of readership?
Karen Heuler — I don't really keep that kind of data. Some stories go within the first two submissions; some stories take years. One took 10 years. Of course, the reality is that if you've written a good story, you still have to match it to the publication that likes that kind of story. When you're not writing or living your daily life, it makes sense to read as many online magazines as possible, and if you can manage it, buy a subscription. I have, in my youthful naivete, sent stories to magazines that never published anything like it--these were in the days before the internet, when you had to track down a physical copy and that wasn't easy. I'm sure that every decade or so an editor goes wild and buys something that confounds his readers--but in general, no. They have a type. If a story doesn't get accepted by a magazine I was confident would take it, then I figure the story needs more work. If I can't figure out a different way of doing it (it sometimes happens), then it gets sent to smaller magazines. It's a market and I have to work with the market. And yes, if I write so far outside the market that no one wants it, then I'd better love it for itself. Failed stories just end up with all the story starts on my Mac, waiting to be helped someday in the future. I’ve found stories I don’t remember writing, which is great until I wonder whether I actually wrote it or copied-and-pasted something I liked from somewhere else. I am not an organized person, and I pay for it.
I wonder how common that is--finding partial stories on your computer and not knowing if you've written them? I've written a lot over a long time, so it might be more common in people who are well into aging. I'll have to ask around.
I would think that we would all recognize our own personal writing style--because of course we do all have our own personal. style. And we have a distinct subject area and also a distinct camera angle. Yet I can't always tell. This is both interesting and portentous.
Lancelot Schaubert — What was the one that took ten? Why do you think it took so long?
Karen Heuler — There are two possibilities when a story doesn't get accepted: it's not as good as you think it is or you haven't found the right market for it. You can fiddle with it some more, put it aside for a while, or keep trying to find the right place. If your gut says it's good, keep trying, but it's simply not possible to write a perfect story every time, so be open to the possibility that this one just might not work.
The story I referred to is called “The Hair” and was written about 2000 and published by Michigan Quarterly Review in 2011, then collected in “The Inner City.” It’s about a woman whose hair was stolen by a coworker. The thief rises up and up at the job while the woman whose hair was stolen finds herself demoted. What’s it about? I lost my hair during chemo, so part of it is the sense of vulnerability about being visibly sick, and part of it concerns the unpredictable and out-of-control working world. I have lots more old stories, a number of which went into a collection of flash and short stories called “The Ten Children,” which itself is still looking for a. home.
Lancelot Schaubert — Are there any films that characterize the sweet spot of your work? And which of yours do you think would make the best and easiest adaptation?
Karen Heuler — For film, the first Haunting of Hill House definitely has that feeling I love, as does Contact with Jodie Foster and the first Body Snatchers. I suspect a lot of the SF movies of the 60s--when I was a kid--are still playiing at the back of my mind, as is Twilight Zone. Movies that suggest an intrusion of the unreal into the real interest me.
My book, Glorious Plague, is very visual so I always think it would be a great movie. It contains the most beautiful plague of them all! A disease crosses over from insects and causes people to climb to the highest point and sing until they die, often joining songs already in play. They’re climbing up the Palisades, joining others on the clogged GW Bridge, where people have been called to climb up and join the singing. The songs keep expanding. The people are on houses and in trees, standing together for days as they sing. One woman, looking for her daughter in NYC, meets a researcher trying to figure out the disease, who joins in her search. As the plague retreats, myths and religious figures, including Moses, Vishnu, and the Little Mermaid, begin to inhabit Manhattan. Has the city changed, or has reality changed? How do you recognize reality? How do you fit into the new order if you don’t believe it exists? There are also stories that would work for short films or even serials, but I'm sure every author believes that.
Lancelot Schaubert — Contact is supremely weird. How do you think that’s different from most first contact films?
I have never heard of Glorious Plague and can’t tell if I am horrified or inspired. Is that one out?
Karen Heuler — I don't know if it's different—I just liked it. It treated language as the most important and most difficult step when dealing with aliens who are completely different. I liked the persistence and the differences. I also liked how the aliens were nonlinear. WAIT! I went to look up that, and found that the movie I'm thinking of wasn't Contact, and I'll have to do some research to find the right one. It may not even star Jodie Foster!
Glorious Plague is currently out of print (though probably still on Amazon and the publisher's web site--Permuted Press) and I'm pursuing reprint with a new publisher.
Lancelot Schaubert — Yeah that's only seen in like Out of the Silent Planet / Perelandra as well as Ted Chiang's work.
Oh that's wild and great.
Where do you think the genre should go? What can it add for us philosophically? Morally? Scientifically? Aesthetically?
Karen Heuler — I don't think about that much at all; I'm mostly just focused on writing. I'm glad that the publishing world includes so many more faces than it did when I started out. And I'm glad that there is indeed an emphasis on what we've done to the planet, but I notice also the sameness sometimes of the imagined catastrophe. Dystopia has replaced vampires and zombines. I've written dystopia, too, but I wonder if there's a kind of eagerness for the worst-case scenario rather than a consideration of what humans will do to save themselves. Which doesn't dismiss the real danger we're in, but we'll all be forced to share the damaged world in the future, and I'm not sure there's enough exploration of what that will look like.
Lancelot Schaubert — Do you think self can help self if self got self into this mess in the first place?
Karen Heuler — Not everyone cares enough, but some do. And self-preservation may be the only trigger.
Lancelot Schaubert — What other kinds of hope can speculative fiction depict?
Karen Heuler — I'm really curious about what would happen if we did encounter intelligent alien life forms. The possibilities for mistakes on both sides are endless. And wouldn't it be something if their culture was so different that we couldn't get past it? Or they thought ours was? How would we behave if we were shunned? And if they were beneficent--how would we figure out how we can trust that? I love the strange, but only if it's strange in a way I can understand...
Lancelot Schaubert — Have you seen "The Intelligent Life Debate: Antiquity to 1915" sourcebook?
Karen Heuler — No. But the movie I was trying to mention was Arrival with Amy Adams, based on a Ted Chiang story. And the reason it impresses me so much is just those elements--alien being, language difficulties, easy to misinterpret, and a totally different way of being (in that they don't live a linear life as we do).
Also--Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End--a favorite--in that it holds o many surprises. Why do the aliens hide themselves? What is their motive? The core wonder of anticipation provoking fear. Love that book.
Lancelot Schaubert — Oh sure. Though I think the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on which it's based to be an absolute joke — complete bunk — it's a beautiful story and Ted's a wonderful person from the first impression I had of him.
I haven't read that one.
I want to return to something here at the end, if you don't mind. "I’m an atheist and I believe in living morally," is a fascinating statement to me too. Certainly there are in my life, as Hart might say, "goodhearted, kindly atheists out there, who long for a just and compassionate social order and who would never so much speak harshly to a puppy." I'm friends with many of them in Brooklyn. Colleagues, so forth. Wonderful people, wouldn't trade them for many much nastier non-atheists in my life. So of course they can live morally — you seem to already be doing so as my kindly atheist friends do.
That in mind, I have no idea where such goodhearted, kindly atheists get their morality, and I mean here intellectually. In my worldview, it makes sense that a kindly atheist could still be a moral creature (my worldview accounts for the existence of that inconsistency), but were I to become an atheist tomorrow (being, myself, someone absolutely committed to following truth wherever it leads), I wouldn't know how to intellectually explain the existence of morality or of goodness in general as something I could even seek. As something I could be even aware of seeking. It seems to me any system of thought bent on eradicating ultimate Good is precisely apathetic to morality, even immoral — or even anti-moral — to its core, is it not? Regardless as to whether or not my very real kindly atheist friends are truly kind, does their intellectual system allow for this inconsistency? That is to say is "living morally" inconsistent with the intellectual idea of the absence of the existence of any ultimate morality? And if that's the case, whence — intellectually — comes hope for speculative fiction, since it seems the only true progress may be moral progress?
Karen Heuler — You seem to believe that morality is imposed on you, that it isn't a very obvious reaction to knowing/feeling that other beings feel pain, feel pleasure etc. How is it hard to think that respecting others' needs comes from just that--a simple but deep belief that those others can feel what you feel? All you need for that is observation. A god imposing restrictions tells people that morality is external--ie if no one told me this is immoral, then it must be moral because I need a commandment. Look how well that works. Raise and educate people so they understand that morality is not reserved for Sunday sermons, A god is not necessary in order to be aware.
Lancelot Schaubert — Oh no, I'm more talking about the search for goodness. If "the good" exists, then we ought to pursue it through — as you said — empathy (something that didn't properly exist in literature prior to the tears of Peter, though the tragic moment did) or respecting their needs. But if it doesn't exist in some ultimate sense — if, for instance, human dignity isn't a good predicated on an ultimate good of, say, existance itself — then what intellectual motive do I have to care about human dignity? How is there any gradation between greater or lesser goods? I'm not talking about rules, but the same moral code you're talking about.
Karen Heuler — Again, I'm talking about empathy. This just doesn't exist as a question for me. "The good" is not really hard to understand and recognize. I don't need god for that.
Lancelot Schaubert — Do you think all of the big controversies in WorldCon and World Fantasy and online are more because of the national environment or more because artists are notoriously hard to wrangle together and keep in a collaborative mode?
Karen Heuler — When there is evidence of ongoing state-endorsed persecution, then that country should not be a host--though I admit it's hard not to find current or historical persecution in most countries. It's good, I think, that this becomes an issue. I'm glad that people are aware and vocal about it. It's a harsh world, and I'm so glad that writers are including current politics and struggles in their real-world efforts. Will there be mistakes and divisions as a result? Yes. Writers live in the real world.
Lancelot Schaubert — Oh for sure with China. Agreed.
But I'm more thinking in a general sense. The Raytheon thing. The China thing. The George R.R. Martin thing. The Sad Puppies thing. It seems every year there's some major controversy.
When you add in the online wars — what one person did or did not say at GenCon, how much money another one made on Kickstarter, etc. — it seems, sometimes, like there's in inordinate amount of drama. Perhaps that's just the outside, but I don't remember feeling like the community had this much drama even ten years ago.
Karen Heuler — I'm not following a lot of it. I mostly look at a few comments and accusations and move on if there's a kind of gleefulness or self-righteousness apparent; if it sounds vindictive. But the large issues that pop up--some of them (Chengdu) call for reform, and I'm glad there was an outcry. Personal ones (and generational ones) I read with caution, or maybe even skepticism. I think it's just easier to make bad experiences more visible now than it used to be. And people leap to conclusions easily.
Lancelot Schaubert — Yes indeed. Chris Barkley and Jason Sanford’s work was amazing and needed (I’ll include the link for those that didn’t read the actual piece).
For sure.
Generational is interesting. I haven’t thought of it that way. Do you think there are positive and negative assumptions within the genre across the last few generations? Or how would you stratify the science fiction generations? Obviously many agree on what the “golden age” is and who was at least involved for sure. But beyond that?
Karen Heuler — The golden age was mostly white and male, and there was terrific stuff written, but I came of age slightly after that, when it was still white and male all through publishing. I appreciate how diversified the field is now, and it rankles when young writers complain about how easy it was then, how they didn't have to pay submission fees, how this and how that. Some great writing; some major exclusions. Every age has its pluses and minuses. We go through waves.
Lancelot Schaubert — Do you have any suggestions of our current blindspots? Any "truth to power" you would use this space to speak? Any reforms you'd call for? Any changes of heart in the writers themselves?
Karen Heuler — As for writerly wisdom, I don't feel I have any. I try very hard not to be jealous of other's good fortune, which means I try to keep my head down and just keep working. It's too too easy to get discouraged. I allow myself one or two days of self-pity after a major failure--and then move on. That's basically my philosophy. Do what you believe in, and keep moving on.
Lancelot Schaubert — Yeah the work is the way. But wouldn’t that be the case for success as well? Even after a major award or a major slush fund of money dumped in your lap? Even then, is the work the answer to the way forwards? Head down and keep dreaming?
Karen Heuler — Awards don't always change your life. Maybe if you know how to market yourself, you'll get a bigger bump. But there are always new winners of awards pushing you back. I'd guess that the reality is 60% work, 40% publicity, to get you sales and recognition. The numbers are absolutely arbitrary.
Lancelot Schaubert — I was also going back through your bio to see if I missed something and realized that you were born in Sunset Park, where we now live. What was the neighborhood like back then?
Karen Heuler — Very working class--I suppose it still is? Mixed Norwegian and something. As kids we were unsupervised and on the street all day. Long walks to school. Loved the park! We moved to Bensonhurst when I was around 8, so my memories are rather slim. I really liked it there. Sunset Park was a good city childhood; Bensonhurst didn't have the same kind of street life--I suppose that really depends on luck, based on how many kids lived there. I think it's mostly Mexican and Chinese now? I should take a trip just for the food.
Lancelot Schaubert — Sunset is Mexican, Chinese, Hasidic, Arab, older white families, but not many (changing a bit around Industry City). Happy to take you on a food tour. We still have tons of block parties and street life. vibrant late night family park
Karen Heuler — I may take you up on the food tour! As a vegetarian, how much choice would I have?
Lancelot Schaubert — Gobs. I mean Asian + Kosher + Halal + Industry City, there would be gobs. If you wanted to invite friends, maybe we could joint host a speculative fiction food tour some weekend? Old School Sunset Park + New School Sunset Park UNITE
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As you look for holiday gifts this year, keep in mind that I’ve written several books:
My novel Bell Hammers, though “hilarious,” has been critically acclaimed in every review outlet that has covered it. It’s a great gift for a blue collar man who needs a fun story, equally for readers who like literary pieces, picaresques, family sagas, pranks, historical fiction, or who feel the need to understand middle America right now.
If you have a child in your life, I have two picture books. One is Harry Rides the Danger and the other is The Elevator Out.
Of Gods and Globes III features multiple well-known science fiction and fantasy authors writing stories about astronomical (or mythological) influence.
The Greenwood Poet will feed the hearts of the poet in your life, the melancholy goth or emo kid, or just the death obsessed artsy fartsy type.
Tap and Die parodies Die Hard in a fantasy realm.
Other trinkets:
For gamers, we have a mouse pad based on Of Gods and Globes III that’s fire.
For students, we have a backpack based on my fantasy universe: the Vale Megacosm.
For those with wall space that needs cool decor, there’s a Gergia treasure map.
And for those of you with a nostalgic, 80’s, ironic t-shirts — there’s our t-shirt of my dad Steve with his handmade “beer nurse” costume from the 80’s where he dressed up as a fire hydrant that could disperse beer.
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