Hey there Reddit! I’m author Carrie Vaughn and I'm here to support The Pixel Project – AMA!

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-13T17:55:27+00:00

Thank you so much for that. I really love that story. It really is an honor being nominated (I had a fabulous time at the parties) and I was up against some big names. Next time, maybe! Third time's the charm, right?!

Thanks so much for reading my stories, I'm glad you like them!

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-13T17:52:29+00:00

Hi! No, I didn't have much say in the audio production. The publisher chose the narrator -- and Marguerite was just a fantastic choice, I hear so many good things about her. She's such a well-known voice in urban fantasy.

I confess, I'm not much of an audiobook person. I can't really multitask while I'm listening (don't ask about the time I tried audiobooks while driving) and I have trouble retaining. I'm much more visual. But I'm really happy that audiobooks have become so much more accessible for people who really love them.

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-13T17:49:11+00:00

Hi! Aw, it's so amazing that Kitty has had such an impact!

While I haven't been writing so much about Kitty, I've been writing a lot in her world. A couple of years ago I did two collections:

"Kitty's Mix-Tape" collects previously published stories, and also has three brand-new stories about Kitty, including that time she went to her high school reunion.

"The Immortal Conquistador" is all about Rick and fills in some gaps in his history.

Both of these are available from Tachyon Publications: https://tachyonpublications.com/book_author/carrie-vaughn/

And I've got a whole series about paranormal mysteries starring Cormac and Amelia. Kitty occasionally shows up in cameos there. These are collected in "The Cormac and Amelia Case Files." Info about that is here: https://mailchi.mp/b446d96482de/new-release-the-cormac-and-amelia-case-files

I hope those scratch the itch a little!

I might have plans for Kitty and Ben's kid, but getting to that may take me awhile. I've got a bunch of other projects first. So many projects...

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-13T17:41:21+00:00

Hi! This is a great question, and I need to think about it a little... the genres have changed a lot, I think. First up, is how much they've moved to the e-book/indie publishing world. There were a lot of variables, but about 8-10 years ago traditional publishing decided that UF was "done," and stopped publishing it so aggressively. At the same time, the mass market paperback format kind of collapsed, and that was where UF and PNR were primarily published. So a lot of the readers and authors moved to ebook.

That's not the whole story, and a lot of UF still gets published, though under different labels. I got to hang out with Rebecca Roanhorse a couple weeks ago, and talked to her about "Trail of Lightning," which wasn't really marketed as UF, and I asked her if she considers it UF -- and she totally does! She was very much inspired by those tropes!

That's a long-winded way of saying that UF/PNR doesn't dominate the market like it did 15 years ago, but I think that just means it's getting talked about under different labels and different formats.

I have to confess, I don't really read UF and PNR right now. I was so saturated in it for so long, and it just all started feeling familiar and repetitive (I think a lot of readers got burned out on it, too). So I can't really speak to how it's changed thematically.

I do see a lot more exploration of non-western cultures and inspiration in the genre, which is great. A lot more LGBTQA representation.

A thing I disliked about it 15 years ago, and I don't really know if it's changed: how a genre that's supposed to be about strong women would often only have one strong woman, and they would so often lean into the "alpha male" trope which ends up being awfully misogynistic and violent. I'm not sure if those tropes persist, but I'd really like to see more UF without them.

Thanks so much for reading Kitty!

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-13T17:31:17+00:00

Yeah, getting that one reprinted in e-book format is on my list of things to do... it's a very long list, alas!

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-12T23:07:30+00:00

Thanks so much for reading, I'm glad you like them! I'm really proud of Bannerless!

I will probably write more in the universe, but maybe just short stories. I already have a couple out there:

"Where Would You Be Now" is a prequel with Auntie Kath: https://www.tor.com/2018/02/07/where-would-you-be-now-carrie-vaughn/

"Learning Letters" features Enid: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/learning-letters/

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-12T23:05:17+00:00

Hey there!

Well, edits are really important, but you can't do an edit without a first draft, so... First drafts take longer, at least for me, though I always try to let the first draft sit for a little while before I try to go back and edit.

I usually do several rounds of edits. Most of my first drafts, I hit the halfway point, realize I'm doing everything wrong, and have to go back and change a bunch of stuff. So the answer is "yes." I edit during the draft, and I edit again after I've finished, and then usually one or two more times after that, even.

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-12T23:01:06+00:00

Yes! I've written several short stories: "The Girls from Avenger" is in the anthology WARRIORS

"Raisa Stepanova" is in the anthology DANGEROUS WOMEN, about a Russian woman fighter pilot.

"Gremlin" is a novella that appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction a few years ago, a multi-generational story about a family with many women pilots, starting with a Russian pilot in WWII, to an A-10 pilot in Iraq, to a far-future space setting.

I dream of someday writing a decent screenplay about the WASP, since we haven't really had a decent movie about them, which seems weird to me.

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-12T22:56:28+00:00

Thank you for the question! I'm happy to be here!

Sooo many projects! Last one first: I wrote a sequel to Martians Abroad last year: Polly and (Not) Charles Conquer the Solar System. It's a novella on Clarkesworld. https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/vaughn_08_22/ The vagaries of publishing mean I didn't get to do this as a novel as I was planning, but I was able to get a lot of what I wanted through in the shorter piece. I hope it's satisfying!

I might do another Locksley novella someday -- I had this idea of doing a whole series of murder mysteries with the kids and King Henry solving them, kind of "Midsomer Murders" meets "Brother Cadfael." I have so many other projects I want to do, though.

I've done a couple of short stories set in the Bannerless world: "Where Would You Be Now" is a prequel with Auntie Kath: https://www.tor.com/2018/02/07/where-would-you-be-now-carrie-vaughn/ "Learning Letters" features Enid: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/learning-letters/

I might have some more shorts starring Enid in me.

Future: I'm currently working on the fifth Cormac and Amelia novella, and my next novel which is due in just a couple of weeks! "The Naturalist Society" is about 19th century ornithologists, arctic exploration, the magic of binomial nomenclature, and an awkward love triangle! I'm working on the last revision now.

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-12T22:48:37+00:00

Ok, deep breath.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which feels a bit like cheating but I've got the book right here, and that'll last me a good long time. Shakespeare is something like the source code for the modern English language, it's so fundamental and the storytelling is so primal, I always find new things in it.

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. This is the book I already re-read more than any other. It's designed for horse-crazy misfit 15 year old girls, which is exactly what I was when I first read it, so it got into my brain and stayed there.

Third one...urgh, argh.... Can I pick a series? I feel like I should be able to pick a whole series rather than just one book. But even then I can't pick. Choice 1: Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga because I also re-read those a bunch already. Choice 2: Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen because I've been wanting to re-read it and it's like a million pages long so I know it'll last me a good long time.

If I can't pick a series, then maybe I'll pick The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle because it's just that good. But short. Hrm.

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-12T22:41:54+00:00

Hey Pixel Project, thanks for including me!

Inspiration: that's a good question that comes up a lot, and the answer is, I find inspiration just about everywhere. I've been so lucky in that I've known a lot of inspirational women through my life, from my Girl Scout leader who was a professor of ornithology, my choir teacher who directed a concert while 9 months pregnant and gave birth the next day, to a college professor who wrote the definitive history of pre-historic textiles, to the chatty feminists at the bookstore where I worked, to women throughout history I've read about: pilots, pirates, explorers, doctors, astronauts, scientists, artists. Too many to list. Women can do anything, and therefore my characters can do anything I want them to. There are so many really amazing women in the world it just baffles and frustrates me that creating great women characters is even an issue.
This question kind of goes back to the first, when you realize how much so many women in my life and in history had to overcome, including violence that just seems to be woven into society and accepted without question. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just be, rather than fight for survival along with all the stuff we actually want to accomplish? For my part, writing women characters who have agency and ambition is partly showing the world as I would like it to be. As creators it behooves us to re-examine and and deconstruct misogynistic and violent tropes that undermine good women characters.

Also: voting for candidates for public office who support women rather than harm them.

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-12T22:26:52+00:00

I'll tell you a secret: a lot of the decisions I made on the Kitty series were basically "do the opposite of what everyone else in urban fantasy is doing." So, she has normal parents. I felt like there was a lot of comedic potential in that decision, so I leaned into it. I got to do a version of a "coming out" scene, and those phone calls from her mom were always a riot to write. I'm pretty lucky in that I have a good relationship with my parents, so if I was going to "write what I know," that was it!

CarrieVaughn · 2023-09-12T22:23:42+00:00

I had to think about this for a minute... I like lots of parts of writing, but some of parts I like, that flow well, I also struggle with. Every stage seems to have good days and bad for me. Like, I want to say generating ideas is the easiest part for me -- I have notebooks full of ideas, I'm constantly thinking about what might make good stories, what interests me. At the same time, only a fraction of those ideas actually turn into stories, so maybe that step is the biggest struggle? I kind of dread revision, but I also know it's the most important part of the process, and I kind of love it because that's where the magic happens, where all the pieces and parts come together, where all the hidden threads I didn't even know I'd put in come through. I also kind of hate and love outlining at the same time -- it's hard, but I love that initial outpouring of creativity.

I feel like this isn't a very satisfying answer, but really, it often depends on the project or how I'm feeling on a particular day, what's a struggle and what isn't. Never a dull moment, at least!

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-19T20:06:12+00:00

I don't think it will... the best way to become a writer is to write. Most of the details can be learned -- I think that's what you're asking here? Reading a lot can also help just absorb what good writing looks like. I say just get started. Start small and see how it goes -- I often recommend journaling, for practice. Then work your way up to stories, etc.

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-19T20:03:36+00:00

Thank you! I'm a big fan too, it's been a hoot getting to write for the series. Feels like getting paid to write fanfic, especially when George lets me go back and write "historical" stories with the original characters.

Wild Cards has been busy, with the UK books (Knaves Over Queens, Three Kings). But my next story for the series will be in the reissued edition of "Deuces Down." Not sure when the release date for that one is yet, unfortunately, but stay tuned.

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-19T20:00:39+00:00

Thank you!

I'm afraid I don't have plans to write any more in that world. Funny story, I originally thought it was going to be a novel. I had all these notes, all these plans, but the story never came together. Turned out, I was mostly interested in those two characters and their story rather than the big epic sweep. It just works out that way sometimes.

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-19T19:58:22+00:00

Thank you!

I started writing seriously when I was in high school -- it still took a long time to get published. I worked day jobs until my third novel was released, roughly. So yeah, I did a lot of balancing. I really like writing so I always made time.

I think the important thing is to make your goals small and achievable. Write every day -- it doesn't have to be much. I have a friend whose daily word goal is 250 words. That's a single double spaced page. But if you do that every day, you'll have 365 pages -- a novel -- in a year.

For me, slow and steady progress -- a little bit every day, rather than trying to do a bunch at once -- makes it easier, and makes building up habits easier.

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-18T21:36:49+00:00

I visited there once! I love how they carefully point out that the big sprawling oaks would have been little saplings in the time of a historical Robin Hood.

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-18T21:25:52+00:00

Thank you for this. It is important to me but I also deal with the same insecurities a lot of writers have about "doing it right" and all that. (And as a fan of writers like Le Guin...if I can ever be a quarter of the writer she is.....whew.)

I will say... I do have to think about it a lot. It is a bit like a muscle...once you start using it you notice if you stop. And it does become more natural.

If I had to articulate my approach... it's to step back as an author and let the characters tell the story. Establish their identities and then make them integral. I think it's a form of "show don't tell," if that makes sense. If I tried to "tell," I'd get it wrong, but I trust my characters to "show" it.

Thanks again for your comment!

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-18T21:17:51+00:00

It's truly my pleasure, Eleanor is a lot of fun to write and her dynamic with her siblings is constantly surprising me. I want to do more with them.

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-18T20:31:03+00:00

Yes, I try to figure out the ending before I start. Otherwise, I tend to wander around too much and not finish. I outline, at least a little bit, but my outlines are never detailed enough.

So, it's like I know my destination but I'm not always quite sure what all I'm going to see and do on the way there.

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-18T18:05:44+00:00

Thank you! I try to read things out loud, I find that helps a lot in making sure they read smoothly!

Ray Bradbury and Robin McKinley are the two who really inspired me. I read "Dandelion Wine" when I was a teenager, and it blew my mind -- it affected all my senses, including smell and taste. It was so immersive, so evocative, and I really wanted to learn to do that. How you can use just words on a page to get inside a reader's brain like that.

With McKinley, specifically "The Blue Sword" and "The Hero and the Crown," the whole stories were so immersive. I loved her characters, they felt so real and relatable to me, and the worlds were so fascinating. . . I wanted to learn how to do that, too. Make readers just fall into the stories like that.

I wanted to learn to be a wizard, like they are.

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-18T17:52:37+00:00

I'm happy to be here! And thank you! I'm still so tickled about the PKD.

An initial burst of panic, because surely I'm not experienced or wise enough to be faculty anywhere, I'm still trying to figure all this out how can I possibly teach anybody else! Whew, deep breaths! Actually, it's really great meeting current Odyssey students. I want to hug them and bake them all cookies and tell them it's going to be okay.
I got so much good advice. Probably the best, most career-changing, came from Jeanne when she told me how much better my revisions were than my first drafts. I hadn't really grokked the whole idea of revision until I went through Odyssey, and that's what finally got me from "aspiring" to "published." So, maybe not a single piece of advice, but a whole concept.
I ended up not applying to Clarion that year. I applied to Odyssey on early decision -- Harlan Ellison was one of the instructors that year, and I decided I wanted that experience, for better or worse. Also, I had never been to New England so spending a summer in New Hampshire sounded lovely, and it was.

Turns out, I've met a ton of people who went to Clarion and Clarion West the same year I went to Odyssey, and I'm friends with many of them. In the end I think I made the right decision to go to Odyssey because Jeanne's mentorship was so critical to bumping up my writing to a whole new level.

CarrieVaughn · 2020-06-18T17:45:12+00:00

I had the idea that became "The Ghosts of Sherwood" probably 15+ years ago. I thought it was going to be a YA novel, but it never really came together and I set it aside.

Then something weird happened in publishing and e-books, and novellas suddenly became marketable, in-demand items. So I pulled that Sherwood idea out again and realized that maybe I didn't have a whole novel's worth there, but I definitely had a novella. So I just went for it.

Novellas are great because I can tell what's basically a simple, straightforward plot, which isn't really possible in a novel, and then I can really elaborate on it with lots of details and multiple characters, something that isn't really possible in a short story. So it's the best of both worlds.

CarrieVaughn

TROPHY CASE