Cybling


August, 1997

Maureen F. McHugh
Author

 Maureen F. McHugh


BIO


I was born in 1959 in a small town in southwestern Ohio. I went to college at Ohio University and then got my master's degree in English Literature at New York University.

I taught as a part time college instructor for a few years and did temporary office work and basically bummed around New York City a lot, and then I moved to Shijiazhuang, China for a year.

I came back to Ohio, became a technical writer for a medical company, met my husband and got married, and when we were both laid off, he got a job in Cleveland. So now I'm a full time writer.


Question & Answer Chat
August 20, 1997

JanCyberC Folks, while we're a small group we won't run protocol...just let Maureen answer a question before you ask another...and please end your questions with a /ga.
Tess Hi, Maureen and everyone! Still getting my bearings here, but I'm enjoying the starters I can see already -- goats??? Clarion goats??? Let me go call Lister to join in.
Maureen Right now my husband is downstairs practicing instrumental surf music so I have musical accompaniment.
RedCyberC ROFL!
JanCyberC 8^D
Lizstrata I'm listening to the washing maching, I think you got a better deal, Maureen.
Maureen Tess is calling in Lister, who is directing Clarion this year and next. Tess directed it the two years before that. /ga Hey it's a pretty good band. They do a lot of the stuff from Pulp Fiction.
Lizstrata cool.
Maureen And they don't sing, which since I know what they all sing like, is a good thing.
JanCyberC LOLOL.
Lizstrata LOL
RedCyberC LOL! Hi Mandy.
Tess Lister says hello from over my shoulders -- yes it was two years ago already (95 and 96) . Kind of frighening how the time flies. And L says hi too, non electronically.
HugeMaureenFan LOL
Mandy Hi Tech
JanCyberC .:::waving over Tess' shoulder at Lister::::
Maureen Hey Lister! Can I plug next year's Clarion?
Tess Lister says yes -- do you want to know the full line up, which just got settled tonight?? /ga
Maureen Absolutely. This is the list of who is teaching. /ga
JanCyberC Does someone have the URL for Clarion's web page to send me? I'd love to put up a link.
Maureen Jan, I'll get it for you if no one does.
JanCyberC Thanks Maureen.
Tess Yup: In order of weeks: John Kessel, Pat Murphy, Jonathan Lethem, yourself in the crucial week 4, and an anchor team of Nancy Krerss and James Patrick Kelly; Alice Turner from Playboy is the editor in residence.
Maureen Wow, I've never met Alice Tirner.
JanCyberC Sounds like a great workshop this year.
Maureen Have John Kessel and Jim Kelly ever taught separate weeks before? /ga
JanCyberC Maureen...will you be focusing on any particular part of writing during your week? Not sure how Clarion works, here./ga
Maureen Well, if you don't know what Clarion is, Clarion is a six week writer's workshop up in Lansing Michigan, which is known fondly as sf writer's bootcamp. There's a different teacher weeks one thru four
Tess Oops -- that's Nancy Kress, of course! Sorry Nancy! Yes, John and Jim both taught separately (even in separate years) two or three times before they anchored together (in separate rooms) last year.
Maureen and then weeks five and six are taught by a team. Week
Lizstrata Have you taught writing before, Maureen? /ga
Maureen four is traditionally (although not always) the week when people hit the wall. So I'll be doing a lot of handholding. :) Liz, I've taught on and off for years, including teaching week one at Clarion last year.
Lizstrata Thanks. You must find it satisfying/rewarding, to return, yes? /ga
Maureen Week one is the fun week, because they're all so new and they'll do anything you ask. /ga Liz, it's hard work but its great fun and you meet the most amazing people. One of my Clarion students just spent three days at my house. (Harry, for Tess' info.) /ga
mica Hi Maureen (It's sarah)
Lizstrata That's great.
Maureen I thought that was Sarah. Sarah is an amazingly perfect writer.
mica Oh gosh
Maureen We're in a mainstrem group together. /ga
JanCyberC Pleased to meet you Sarah/Mica 8^)
mica Maureen is way cool
JanCyberC Mainstream Group? Is this a small writer's group? /ga
Maureen She's blushing, but you should read her prose.
mica Hi JanCyber
Maureen Really small, Jan. Six to eight people. And Sarah, who got us together, has to keep turning people down to keep it small. I'm in two writers groups,
RedCyberC Hi mica! Yes we're pretty impressed with Maureen here as well.
Maureen The East Cleveland Writer's Group, with Sarah, which is my tough group
mica Maureen keeps us honest
JanCyberC Ah...that can be a problem...but I'm assuming your group work with you as your readers, and you for them?/ga
Maureen and the Cajun Sushi Hampsters from Hell, which is a group of sf writers from all over Cleveland and has about twenty people in it. /ga
HugeMaureenFan Yes, I'm a Big Maureen Fan, myself..er, Huge fan
JanCyberC LOLOLOL! I love that name.
Lizstrata Love the name. LOL
JanCyberC GMTA, Liz.
Lizstrata ;-)
Maureen Jan, that's exactly what we do, sit in a circle and critique each other's stories.
Lizstrata How do the egos fare, Maureen? /ga
Maureen Lizstrata is a name with classic echoes. Speaking of names. How do egos fare?
Lizstrata Yep, I chose my name specifically for it's classic echos. ;-) Yep, do the writers get hurt/huffy, with the critiques? /ga
Maureen I dunno. We're pretty careful about trying to critique the story rather than the writer, and I'd say we're pretty supposrtive. You agree, mica? /ga
mica Yes. I think we all look foreward to what we can learn from each other
Lizstrata That's a good group, then. I've seen it other ways.
RedCyberC That seems to be a big part of writting these days (writers groups) does it help a lot? \ga
Maureen It does me, Red. I think that without someone to push me in the last
mica I couldn't write with out the input of our group.
Maureen couple of years, my writing would have suffered greatly.
RedCyberC And I guess mixing with people with simular interests and problems has to help too? /ga
Maureen I wrote my first novel without a writer's grou, but you know, musicians and painters often take music and art classes their whole lives,
mica I like the fact they push me, don't let me get away with what I've already done
Lizstrata I have a question about your novels--there is a scene in each, which I find similar, one where
Maureen and vovalists have vocal teachers...and the group is less willing to let me get sloppy than I would.
mica Does anyone else in here belong to a writer's group?
Lizstrata David first goes under ocean, and then when Zhang gets under ice. . .is that from an experience of yours? /ga
Maureen Liz, no it isn't. (re-hi Tess! Hi Gazelle!) In fact, I love to swim under water. I don't know what that's from. /ga
RedCyberC On THE COST TO BE WISE I wonder do you have ANY idea how intense a reaction that story can cause? GREAT STORY BTW!
Maureen Red, I am delighted that THE COST TO BE WISE produces an intense reaction.
Lizstrata Thanks for the answer, I found those scenes both very hard to read. Hard as in painful, I should say.
Maureen Red, about THE COST TO BE WISE--I'm working on a novel set in the same world and right now I'm researching the black plague. /ga
RedCyberC Cool!
Goonan So, what have you learned about the black plague?
Lizstrata COST left me in such a melancholy state. . .dang good story, that.
Goonan No, he's on his way TO work--
Maureen Well, it was pretty dreadful. I've been trying to figure out how people's awareness of plague starts. You know, does your neighbor get sick? So far it appears it starts with rumors, and then someone shows up from the city with dreadful stories./ga
Mandy Did you know....the song Ring Around the Rosie is about the plague...
Maureen Achoo, Achoo, we all fall down...
Mandy fall down dead...
mica can you give us a hint how your research will fit in?
Marilee Maureen, I learned that as "Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down." They burned the dead.
Lizstrata Me, too, Marilee. . .perhaps Maureen was being punny?
Maureen I've heard a couple of different versions of ir, Marilee--but having done the research I can tell you, they didn't bury the dead.
Mandy the ring around the rosie...is the mark of the plague...
Marilee LOL Well, then, she broke the smiley rule. ;0 mmhmmm I said "burned"
Maureen mica, I can't tell you how it fits in, it's near the end of the book. /ga
Maureen Marilee, sorry, they DID bury, they DIDN'T burn. Sometimes I make slips of the fingers.
Tess Tough topic, Maureen (now that my screen has stopped misbehaving). What's always struck me odd about the plague is how *un*talked about it was for something that killed 1/4 to 1/3 or 1/2 the population. And then there are the folks who say maybe it wasn't quite what we know as Yersinia pestis after all. No mention of lots of dying rats in the sources, other things too.
Goonan It sounds like you're moving right along, anyway. I can't wait to read it.
Marilee Aha. So I learned wrong. :)
Maureen Tess, the other intersting thing is that one of my Florentine sources talks about animals getting it, like dogs and cats. Hi Hildegarde! You made it!
mica will any other parts of the novel appear as short stories?
Maureen mica, I hope not.
Lizstrata Animals, too? Geeze. Pernicious.
Hildegarde Hi Maureen, sorry I'm late
Tess It wouldn't surprise me if there aren't evolving strains -- still flea borne, but maybe not with rats (a la Camus).
BlackCyberC Have you ever written a character based on yourself? /ga
Maureen Yeah, BlackCyber, I have. I've written a couple of short stories with a character named Amelia who is more or sometimes less a stand in for myself. /ga
Goonan Maureen, are you able to write short stories at the same time you are working on a novel, or are the two forms too different to do at the same time?
Maureen Right now I'm finding it really hard to do so at the same time. But I sometimes do and in the past I've written a novel that was in some ways indistinguishable from a bunch of short stories. But they do use different muscles. /ga
Mandy When did you first start seriously writing...? /ga
Maureen Seriously? How serious is serious? I first started writing poetry (very bad poetry) in High School and wrote my first (very bad) novel in my sophmore year of college. But I'd have to say college was when I really got serious, somewhere writing that novel. /ga
Mandy hmm...I wonder how many writers...start out writing bad poetry...LOL..
Tess Maureen, do you think you're drawn more to individuals as they develop and negotiate their way through societies, or to people in smaller social relations like families, pairs of friends, lovers, etc. as you write, and if one or the other, any sense of what's attractive about those kinds of characters and their situations?
Maureen Tess, that's a cool question. I would say in my novels I tend to write more about people developing and negotiating society, but in my short fiction I concentrate more on families and friends and lovers. But that's a hard question in some ways because sometimes lovers, like in a story of mine called "Prtection" are using each other for social as well as personal reasons. The more mainstream my fiction is, the more it concentrates on the personal, since what is the point of having science fiction without having something to comment on? /ga
Tess Wow, thanks!!
Lizstrata What provoked you to write Zhang as gay, Maureen? I have a lot of gay friends, and I appreciated that you made them hero material./ga
Maureen Liz, i NEVER intended to write a novel about a gay man. NEVER. But I was in this writer's group and we had to have ten pages every week and I was sitting on the subway going to Chinese class (I lived in New York and I was taking Chinese language) and I was trying to think of a story and I'd seen this utterly gorgeous guy leaning up against the door to the subway, right under where it says 'Do Not Lean Against Dorrs' in English and Spanish and he was so gorgeous I knew he had to be gay, you know? And he was interesting, and he was asian and I figured I could write a story about him, and well, he demanded a book. Then I was panicked that I'd gotten it all wrong. /ga
Lizstrata Thanks, Maureen, and ya did fine. Way fine. ;-)
Lizstrata I especially liked the, "left handed help" line. Nicely done.
JanCyberC Maureen...sounds like you pull a great deal of your writing from your experiences...is "write what you know" as important in SF as mainstream?
Lizstrata Sorta like asking if one is a friend of Dorothy's. ;-)
Maureen Liz, I got that from one of my Graduate profs, a writer who is also gay named Ed White. Jan, I dunno if write what you know isn't important to everyone writing. But it's what you know to be true, not the stuff that can be researched that matters. /ga
BlackCyberC Who would you most love to write a story with? /ga
Maureen Gosh, talking about scaring me to death. I don't know, BlackCyber, I'm pretty terrified of collaboration. If I come up with a name before the end of the chat, I'll let you know but I'm really stumped. /ga
BlackCyberC OK
RedCyberC This isn't really a question, but I'd like to say the double sense of alienation in COST was wonderfull. First her own world then the offworlders. /ga
Maureen RedCyber, thanks,
RedCyberC I could relate.
Maureen Except of course, she has this funny way of taking her own offworlders completely for granted./ga
BlackCyberC Here's an easier one: What part of New York did you live in? /ga
Maureen That is easy, Prospect Heights in Brooklyn (take the D Train and get off at 7th Avenue) and then Staten Island. I miss it intensely but don't think I could live there again. /ga
BlackCyberC Ah! I live in New York City, I know that area well
Maureen BlackCyber, where do you live?
BlackCyberC Little Italy, downtown Manhattan
Maureen ::envy::envy::envy::
Lizstrata I remember celebrating the Feast of San Genaro, in Little Italy, once, great night, that. ;-)
Maureen Uh oh, Hldegarde knows all the dirt on me...
BlackCyberC The feast is only a few weeks away!
Hildegarde Maureen, where do you plan on being in your writing in ten years? Still in Sci Fi?
Maureen She also knows the hard questions. I'm interested in mainstream writing, but science fiction is now my career and it gives me the opportunity to do things I couldn't do in mainstream. I'd like to write some of both. I'd like to continue to be financially solvent, though. /ga
mica do you find all the other things about writing get in the way of writing?
Maureen Like the correspondance and doing chats and keeping up my web page
mica Yes
Maureen and going to conventions and all the fun stuff?
RedCyberC .:::guilty look::::
Maureen Of course! And it feels so much like writing! But I went on strike at home and all I'm doing is writing. I spent
Lizstrata LOL Red
Maureen all day today chained to the computer researching the black plague and writing, so it's just a mtter of making myself do it, I guess.
Maureen Besides, I get nagging letters in the mail from the person who runs my writer's group asking for stories. /ga
RedCyberC This may be too personal but do you have a favorite work or your own? /ga
RedCyberC or = of.
Maureen I have a couple of them, Red. One of my favorites is a very small story in an anthology called KILLING ME SOFTLY, a story called "In the Air". It isn't profound but it feels completely realized to me. /ga
Lizstrata How's evil stepmotherhood going, and have you explored it in a story?/ga
Maureen Liz, you've been to my web site? I have explored it in a story and I think that
Lizstrata Yep, I've made the pilgrimage, and love it.
Maureen the story is one of my best to date. Unfortunately it would probably be painful for my family. So I'm thinking about taking the heart out of it and re-writing around that moment. /ga
Hildegarde What percentage of your time is devoted to research? (Regarding your favorite story, I love the dog story.)
Lizstrata Thank you, Maureen.
Maureen Ah, shucks, the band rehersal broke up, no more surf music.
RedCyberC ROFL!
Lizstrata (dryer's still serenading *me* ;-)
Tess Maureen, thanks lots! See you elsewhere/when!
Maureen Very litte of it, usually. Usually I make it all up. I'd say I do about an hour of research for every twenty hours of writing. Maybe less. Hildegarde knows the dog in my dog story, "In The Air." /ga
Hildegarde and I love her lots - tell Smith I'm coming to see her
Lizstrata Any more thoughts about gender, love the discussion on your website.
Maureen She's lying on the bed near the air filter. Actually, I have complete and utter doubts about the point of my gender discussion. Raphael Carter has a great web page, with some really takes on gender, like why are we so reductionist? Why is the point the difference between men and women, when so much behavior overlaps.
Lizstrata Probably cuz we fight so much, trying to figure out why.
Maureen Maybe it's not a this or that, but a scale of behaviors. But I'm still confused. And I'm glad I wrote the essay./ga
JanCyberC Maureen, I don't know if anyone has asked this yet, but I'll go ahead...how did you learn that you'd received a nomination for the Hugo?
RedCyberC "Viva La Difference!"
JanCyberC E-mail? Phone? /ga
Lizstrata LOL Red
Maureen The Hugo nominating committee e-mailed me to ask if I would accept. ::Grin::
BlackCyberC Did you?
JanCyberC LOL! You said no, right?
Lizstrata Congrats on the nomination.
Maureen The nomination? In heart beat!
RedCyberC LOL One wonders how many turn it down. LOLOLOL
Maureen Michael Whelen.
JanCyberC Folks....we're untying Maureen now so she can flee when and if the spirit moves here, and that means we're undoing PROTOCOL as well.
Maureen Thanks everybody!
JanCyberC So, please feel free to chat with her at will....
Hildegarde Goodnight Smith
Lizstrata Thank you, Maureen. . .write well and prosper.
JanCyberC Just try not to bury her in questions.
Maureen See you tomorrow Hidelgarde!
RedCyberC .::::relaxes::::
Maureen (me too, Red)
Lizstrata <------relentless matchmaker. . .I think you'd mix well with Neal Stephenson, btw, Maureen.
JanCyberC .::::pulling out cooler of cold cyberbeer:::: Grab a cold one if you're so inclined.
Lizstrata For the co-author gig. :-)
Maureen Liz, that's interesting. But neither one of us is any good at endings.
BlackCyberC Did someone say BEER???
RedCyberC Now that would be an interesting match. LOLOLOLOL Maureen!
JanCyberC I think you're endings are exceptional, Maureen.
Lizstrata That's OK, the trip to the end of the book is so durn interesting, who cares? LOL
Maureen Jan, you do?!
Hildegarde I think you'd mix well with Jeff Dunn or Malcom
Maureen Thank you, thank you!
JanCyberC There are plenty of authors who's endings I find lacking...but not yours.
RedCyberC Yeah cost left me almost running to the book store to look for more.
Maureen Hildegarde, you be careful I know where you live.
Maureen Soon, Red, soon, I wrote seven pages yesterday.
BlackCyberC What do you mean, ALMOST, Red?
RedCyberC Matter of fact it would have, but I read it right before this chat.
JanCyberC You wrap things up very well...like the ending of HALF THE DAY IS NIGHT...it was fantastic the way you kept the tension going to the very end.
RedCyberC Priorities you know.
Lizstrata Yeah, my heart was in my throat, too, Jan. ;-)
Maureen Jan, the entire end of that book was written almost on the wing and left as is.
RedCyberC Now if I'd known how deep it would have hit me I'd have read it lot's sooner!
Maureen But I'm glad it made people tense.
JanCyberC Well...you're a hot writer then Maureen.
smiley Maureen, what fiction are you reading these days?
Maureen I just read Lew Shiner's DESERTED CITIES OF THE HEART, and liked it a lot.
smiley I'll have to look it up, thanks
JanCyberC Mainstream? SF?
Maureen I read a lot of the New Yorker, mostly. It comes once a week and its got great stuff to steal. Lew Shiner is SF, Jan.
Lizstrata Tacky writer question: whose writing influenced you, do ya think, Maureen?/ga
JanCyberC Thanks.
Maureen Hemingway, Joan Didion, Marguerite Yourcenar, Willam Gibson, Karen Joy Fowler, Ursula Le Guin, Chip Delany...
Hildegarde Mao
Maureen Oops, that's right, mustn't forget Mao Zedong.
Lizstrata Quite a group, that. Thanks.
JanCyberC LOL!
JanCyberC Certainly is quite a group ..::::passing around a plate of canapes:::
Maureen It did make it hard to come to a single style.
Lizstrata Do you have an absolute favorite? I think mine's Steinbeck, btw.
Maureen If there's a writer I admire, it's Karen Joy Fowler. She writes like no one else.
Maureen Liz, do you see much Steibeckian influence in your own writing?
Lizstrata I've not read her, know the name, but I'll run right out and get some of her stuff. Thanks.
Hildegarde What is it that makes her style unique?
Lizstrata Actually, my own writing (you've sniffed me out! LOL) is more influenced by Spinrad.
Maureen Hildegarde, she never makes a misstep, and the feeling are real and human and everytime I read her I wish I could write like that. :)
Maureen Liz, Spinrad?! That's pretty sharp stuff.
Lizstrata Wow! What an endorsement.
JanCyberC Norman Spinrad?
Lizstrata Yes, Maureen, sharp, savage, it's very visceral and exciting. Yes, Norman Spinrad.
Maureen I'm not smart enough to write like Spinrad. (He's very cool.)
Lizstrata I mean his writing is to me, not mine, especially.
JanCyberC Amazing...I'm reading a bizarre book by him, right now.
JanCyberC Well not *right now*, LOL, but you know.'
Lizstrata LOL Jan, yep, I get it.
RedCyberC I'd say synconisaty if I could spell it.
Hildegarde What about Dean Koontz?
Maureen He's an idea man, and I'm not. But I'd love his money.
Lizstrata I don't agree that you're not smart enuf to write like Spinrad, maybe not *mean* enuf. ;-)
JanCyberC You have a point there Liz.
BlackCyberC <===LOVES Dean Koontz' work
Maureen (Koontz is the idea man, with the money, by the way.)
smiley It's back to work for me. Night all & thanks Maureen.
Lizstrata Ya mean the one on the top o' my head, Jan. ;-)
JanCyberC If Clarion is putting Maureen in on the 4th week...that means she has a good heart.
Maureen 'nite smiley!
RedCyberC .::::adding names to must read list wildly::::
Maureen Red, so much to read, so little time!
RedCyberC Why do I do this to myself. Because I LOVE it!
Lizstrata Yep, actually, here's a compliment for ya, Maureen, your 2 novels came to the top of my 40-book to read pile. ;-)
BlackCyberC LOL
Maureen Liz, thanks!
JanCyberC So...bubos in the future huh? I know I'm a big plague fan...is this a post apocolyptic type novel you're writing now? (being nosey).
Lizstrata Pleasure's all mine, Maureen. ;-)
Maureen No, it's a lost colony, actually.
JanCyberC Oooh. Just as good.
Lizstrata brb
Maureen You know where the terran empire lost track of the planet and the settlers decayed into barbarianism and now they've been rediscovered.
RedCyberC Interesting that there's some simularities between the two, don't you think?
JanCyberC I *really* liked the way you handled that in The Cost To Be Wise.
Maureen Very much so, Red. Just no radiation in mine.
RedCyberC Just the way they got there is different.
Hildegarde I wish you would finish Mission Child, I'm REALLY looking forward to reading it. I think it will be your best work yet (and I loved China Mountain!)
Lizstrata bak
Maureen Jan, THE COST TO BE WISE is an earlier version of what has become the first chapter of the nearly finished MISSION CHILD>
JanCyberC Excellent.
RedCyberC Woa that I have to read!
Maureen Hildegarde, I wish I would finish the damn thing, too!
RedCyberC LOL
Maureen (Hilldegarde occassionally provides important pep talks on getting me through this book.)
JanCyberC Any date on that, or am I jinxing something by asking .:::knocking furiously on wood:::
BlackCyberC WOW...I hope you will tell us when MISSION CHILD is finished!!!
Maureen I hope to finish it sometime in September, and then it wil be out whenever the publisher deems fit.
RedCyberC .:::sees a hard back in my future::::
JanCyberC We'll have to have you out here to promote it...speaking of which...anything coming out to the bookshelves between now and that novel?
RedCyberC And I don't buy many of those.::grin::
BlackCyberC Can we hound the publisher for you???
Maureen ...no, actually not even a short story. Red, neither do I. It's Avon, BlackCyber!
RedCyberC I think that was a yes?
Hildegarde I think the guy from Little Italy could 'hound the publisher'
Lizstrata Shall we bury them in "we want Marueen" letters?
JanCyberC LOL.
BlackCyberC .:::Firing up the word processor:::
Maureen I've got to crash. I finally figured out what happens next in the book so I've got to get up tomorrow and write some more on it. Thanks for having me, this was a hoot!
BlackCyberC .:::Now, if I only knew how to use it:::
Hildegarde See ya tomorrow
JanCyberC Maureen...thank you so very much from coming out here tonight.
RedCyberC Cool Maureen THANK you!
Maureen Black LOL!
Lizstrata Thanks for enduring our questions. Sleep well.
JanCyberC Sweet dreams!
BlackCyberC Thanks Maureen!
RedCyberC And more important happy writting!
JanCyberC Sorry if we got a bit cacauphonous there with our demands for MORE! LOL.
BlackCyberC I'll tell HugeMaureenFan what a great chat he missed!
RedCyberC Or whatever it takes.

NOVELS BY MAUREEN MCHUGH