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Lucy A. Snyder November 8 2001 Go To Chat How To Chat Snyder's Page Eggplant-Productions Snyder's Home Page The November '01 Q&A |
Lucy Snyder is a Texas native whose fiction has appeared in a variety of print and electronic publications. She currently lives in Columbus, OH where she publishes Dark Planet and is a consulting editor for Strange Horizons. |
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OWC Mars: : Okay... Lucy... why don't we start with a question that was left for you on the board... What is it about sci-fi/horror that appeals to you as a genre for your work? Patrick James LucySnyder: Basically, I've always liked the notion that the world is stranger than it seems and I think the stories I have to tell simply lend themselves better to SF/F/H. OWC Mars: I have another one here, also from the board...What prompted you to start Dark Planet? -- Roach LucySnyder: That's a longer answer. Ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to run my own magazine. A science fiction mag, not just any ol' magazine ;-) I worked on them in college. When I was finishing up my Master's degree in journalism at Indiana U. I needed to do a Master's thesis. Originally I planned to do a sample issue of a hard-copy magazine But that was when the Web was starting to become the Next Big Thing and I realized that a Web publication would be both far cooler and far more feasible. :-) The demo version of Dark Planet was my Master's project. It had the distinction of being the first electronic project done at the IU J-school. I'm sure lots more have been done since ;-) At any rate, once the demo was done and my degree earned the logical thing seemed to be to keep it going. OWC Mars: Thanks Lucy... and the url for Dark Planet is http//www.sfsite.com/darkplanet/ . I noticed that there's a fine graphic on the cover as well. What program did you use to create that? LucySnyder: I use Bryce 4 ... it's a beautiful program. And I do lots of touch-ups in Photoshop. Ron Horsley, who did my cover for BLOOD MAGIC, he's a real Bryce expert, though. I just dabble ;-) OWC Mars: Lucy... you've told us why you started Dark Planet. Can you tell us a little about what you see it becoming? LucySnyder: Right now I have Dark Planet on hiatus while I rethink its future. I'm thinking strongly ... HOST EBK Zyxt: : No fair. I just now see Dark Planet, and I see that it's on hiatus. LucySnyder: of doing a hard-copy anthology as a spin-off project. But, as I said, all that's at the thinking stage. DP will continue to exist on the web but whether as an active site or as an archive I can't say for the moment. LucySnyder: It's just resting while I try to get a novel done ;-) If there's a great hue and cry from fans I'm sure I'll be properly motivated to make sure it comes back bigger and better than before. :-) roach: In Blood Magic, there seems to be an underlying theme of "searching." Was this intentional when you were choosing the stories to include in the collection? LucySnyder: I think it's a common theme in a lot of my writing and the stories in the collection were written in roughly the same period in my life so I'm not surprised there would be common themes. But *intentional* intentional, no :-) HOST EBK Zyxt: What will it take for you to keep working on the Dark Planet website? Besides a full body cast. LucySnyder: Heh :-) Mostly, time and energy I feel I need to spend on personal writing projects right now. But email from fans never hurts ;-) OWC Mars: I'd like to get back to BLOOD MAGIC if I could here. This is a collection of shorts, novelettes? LucySnyder: Four short stories. OWC Mars: Lucy, I noticed a theme myself you seem to employ a different set of gods/goddesses/demons than one usually finds in horror stories. Am I mistaken there? LucySnyder: No, you're not mistaken. This is why I view the stories more as being dark fantasy than horror, because they're based in a fantastic perspective. I'm fascinated with myth and the supernatural, and I think much of my work is a reflection of that. roach: The stories in Blood Magic are of a dark/horror bent. Do you write only horror or do you dabble in the other genres? OWC Mars: And since you mentioned you feel your work is dark fantasy... but are there other genres? LucySnyder: Much of my work is horror-[fill in genre here] I tend to write a good bit of SF-horror. The irony is my background is in the hard sciences and I couldn't bear to read horror novels as a youngster. But I work in all sorts of genres fantasy, SF, horror, erotica, mainstream. No mystery, yet :-) OWC Mars: I think Horror may be an acquired taste. LucySnyder: Possibly; mostly it was that it gave me nightmares ;-) roach: Does it feel strange to have people finding themes and meanings in your writings? Do people find things that you never saw there yourself? LucySnyder: Oh, all the time. I wrote a fantasy story for the GUARDIAN ANGELS anthology and my friend Gary A. Braunbeck read it and commented on what a wonderful metaphor I'd created involving a set of antique teacups. I'd not intended it to be there, but it's in there. I think many writers put more into their work than they're consciously aware of. So sometimes you just sort of have to go "Yeah. Yeah, I *meant* to do that!" ;-) OWC Mars: Lucy, I'm not giving anything away here. One story in the anthology BLOOD MAGIC shows some pretty blood chilling scenes involving animated water. How do you pull such strong images into your prose? LucySnyder: Generally, when I sit down to write a story, I often have a set of what are to me strong visual or other sensory images I've got in my head that I want to convey in the story. If I do things right, those images are as powerful on the page as they were in my mind. If I *don't* do it right, well, nobody notices, do they ;-) OWC Mars: Lucy... Roach just poked me and let me know I was talking about "...And Her Shadow" which is the excerpt available online at http//www.eggplant-productions.com/jintsu/excerpt.asp?id=4 OWC Mars: Did you draw from childhood memories there as well? Some pretty strong stuff. LucySnyder: The settings for "... And Her Shadow" are based very strongly in my childhood. The tennis club, the arroyo, the ocean, these are all real places under assumed names, of course ;-) The events in said story are entirely fictional, though. Marcy: Do you ever worry about the people in real life figuring out who the characters are? LucySnyder: I don't often base whole characters off people I know. Most often they're composites, and the parts I appropriate are not recognizable. However, I did write a story once in which I based the protagonists off a couple I know but I got their permission first ;-) Marcy: LOL! midnighter: I remember THAT particular story. Actually an excellent science fiction piece, if I recall it correctly. LucySnyder: Yes, Ron knows who I'm talking about . Marcy: which story? midnighter: "Friends don't let friends...appear in their fiction." LucySnyder: An erotic SF story I sold to Foggy Windows Books, which unfortunately may never be published. OWC Mars: Why not? LucySnyder: I like the piece; I'm trying to get my rights back. OWC Mars: Ah, the mag went under? LucySnyder: The publisher went under, and is showing no signs of life. It was an anthology market. Kids, let this be a lesson don't sign a contract in which you sell all rights unless there's a reversion-of-rights clause in the event they go under. Marcy: Don't you just get rights back automatically? If they go under? OWC Mars: Lucy, you mentioned earlier that you consider your work Dark Fantasy. What's the specific difference for you between DF and Horror? LucySnyder: It's a thin line, I admit, and the difference is often in the eye of the beholder. I think that if a tale deals with gods and mythic monsters it's fundamentally fantasy. So, for instance, I consider Clive Barker's work fantasy as does he, apparently. Horror is an emotion, and you can write horror that is set in the here-and-now with no fantastic elements whatsoever. OWC Mars: Lucy, I just wanted to mention again here that I downloaded BLOOD MAGIC to my PDA and it's a great read on that small screen, flows nicely. Thanks. roach: For the very reasonable price of $3.50! OWC Mars: Thank you Roach, 8^) OWC Mars: Lucy, you mentioned that you're working on a novel? Can you tell us more about that? LucySnyder: About a half-dozen actually. It all depends on what I finish first ;-) OWC Mars: Are they all Dark Fantasy? midnighter: we're ALWAYS working on half-a-dozen projects. like apathetic house builders! LucySnyder: Most of the long works I have in progress are either dark fantasy or SF-horror. Well, if you keep more than one thing going you never find yourself with nothing to do, do you? ;-) midnighter: true...true... OWC Mars: The Isaac Asimov rule of writing, lol. LucySnyder: Hey, the old fellow died working on an essay. I'd just as soon go out that way, myself. Kakaze : If you work on more than one thing, how do you keep everything seperate? Marcy: What makes you lean towards the fantasy end of fiction other than just horror straight up? As soon as I wrote THE END maybe.... midnighter: you'd like to go out WRITING? Oh man, I can already answer to that....but I won't. LucySnyder: Oh, I guess it's because I was always the kid who mixed her peas and mashed potatoes ;-) LucySnyder: On keeping things separate Well, I'm a fiend for note-taking and outlining longer work ... Before I do more work on a piece I've started I re-read what I've written, and doing that gets me back in the right frame of mind for the project. Of course, if I'm far along I don't read *all* of it, mind you ;-) OWC Mars: Lucy... I have an anonymous question from the OWC...Do you write and publish any erotic SF? LucySnyder: Yes, aside from 4 orphaned short stories I sold to Foggy Windows ... HOST EBK Zyxt: LOLOL LucySnyder: I've had an erotic SF piece in Clean Sheets and I'm working on a novella in that vein. OWC Mars: And do you write all your genres under the same name, or should we look for another name for some of your work? LucySnyder: I generally do all my work under my own name. OWC Mars: Sounds like you have quite a few fans here of all of your work. LucySnyder: Great! midnighter: I should say I AM a fan! grumble.... LucySnyder: ;-) OWC Mars: Lucy, we've kept you on the hot seat for about an hour now... I want to ask a couple more questions and call for any last questions from here and OWC... OWC Mars: I see that in addition to Dark Planet you are also involved with http//www.strangehorizons.com/ . what's your involvement with them, and are they a pulp or e-Mag? LucySnyder: Strange Horizons is an online prozine Headed by Mary Anne Mohanraj, who started Clean Sheets. I started out with them as one of their poetry editors but I realized I hadn't the time for that so now I sort of fill in as needed; mainly I've been doing graphics for them ... Gandalara: Gee, all these places I already haunt :) Kakaze: Graphics? Oh, what kind? LucySnyder: I do some of the graphics for their site, did the cover for their PDA version things like that. Kakaze: Question What programmes do you use for your graphics? LucySnyder: I've been doing the graphics for their T-shirts and mugs, too. Photoshop work :-) OWC Mars: I think that answers it, thanks Lucy. LucySnyder: Photoshop is like buttah ;-) OWC Mars: Okay folks...if there are no further questions let's thank Lucy for joining us in interview tonight and let loose the duct tape. Araiused: Thank you, Lucy!! midnighter: Thanks, Lucy. Gandalara: ::: applause ::: T83BIRD: Thanks, Lucy RubyJade123: thank you! Kakaze: Thanks! LucySnyder: Thanks for coming, everyone! It was fun :-) STARMOM79: Night and thanks roach: Thanks Lucy! HOST EBK Zyxt: Thanks, Lucy. |
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