Because of these several impediments, as well as other technical difficulties, you will find typos and occasional replication of text. In our humble opinion, typos show that the logs are of *live* chats, not canned interviews, and minimal editing of these logs has taken place.

Kathleen Ann Goonan's Home Page

[Cybling] Folks...let's say hi to Kathleen Goonan!
[Cybling] Kathy...so good to meet you F2f...having chatted with you online about your books before.
[Kathy] Excellent to at last see you in person!
[Cybling] How's the con treating you so far?
[Kathy] It's been great. And having the con in Chicago is kind of distracting--so many other things to do
[Cybling] I see that one of the panels you are on is...
[Cybling] Favorite Science Writers
[Cybling] usually we ask what SF writer is your favorite...science writers...didn't know you could have favorites there.
[Kathy] Yeah--I seem to read more science writers than fiction these days, since I do a lot of research. One of my favorites is Freeman Dyson.
[Cybling] Freeman Dyson writes about any particular type of science?
[Ryan] Research on what?
[Lady-Aelexis] hi Kathy
[Kathy] He writes about mathematics and in general writes humane essays about humanity & science in general. Infinite in All Directions is a good place to start.
[Cybling] Kathy...love your novels by the way...
[Kathy] Thanks. Right now I'm working on LIGHT MUSIC, which will be the final book in the quartet.
[Cybling] You started with Queen Jazz City, a world in which folks have been altered...
[Cybling] by an extremely interesting war. Information wars you called them.
[Cybling] how was that info transmitted again?
[Kathy] The information, or Information, if you will, is transmitted by nanotech-infused clouds which carry viruses of thought. Kind of like, perhaps, religion, or any kind of political dogma.
[Cybling] we had W.A.Thomasson here yesterday talking a little about nano-tech.
[Cybling] he's talking 20-50 years before we start to see human modification.
[Cybling] Do you think it's that far off?
[Kathy] Hmmm. I think that we are seeing things that could probably get under the bar of bionan, as I call it, right now. I think that there will be medical applications in terms of drug-release mechanisms and so on in the next few years.
[Cybling] Next few years? 5 or 10?
[Kathy] Sure. Maybe less than five. But if you're talking about deep human modification, in terms of longevity and enhancement of various senses or brain processes, that will probably take a much longer time span to test.
[Cybling] Okay...yes the FDA will have to have a hand in it.
[Kathy] Absolutely. And in my books, the FCC also has some jurisdiction, because I postulate bionan communication via pheromones.
[Cybling] i've read Mississippi Blues where the information disease takes your protagonists down the Mississippi on a quest. Is Crescent City Rhapsody still on the shelves in hardback?
[Kathy] CCR is indeed still in the stores. It went into a second printing a month after it came out, which was Feb. 2000.
[Cybling] As I recall, it almost seemed like the at the end of Mississippi Blues the story had come to a close.
[Cybling] Excellent on the second printing!
[Kathy] There was certainly closure in terms of the characters and their particular quest and in the revelations that came about concerning the world of Queen City Jazz. But CCR is a prequel to those books, and sets up new trains of plot and thought and action.
[Cybling] Kathy, your novels seem to have a musical theme running through them. Queen City, was of course jazz, and as impromptu in ways. Mississipi did have a very bluesey feel.
[Cybling] Is there a specific type of music you were thinking of in CCR?
[Kathy] This of course is entirely intentional! CCR is more Duke Ellington-based. My protagonist, Marie Laveau, is a mob boss in New Orleans who experiences bionan and visionary transformations. She envisions Crescent City, a floating city and a scientific refuge, and uses the skills of many people in much the same way Ellington used his musicians.
[Cybling] Okay...I thought as much. And Light Music...what type of music?
[Kathy] Well. To tell you the truth--it's based on the fact that all of our senses are taking in various vibrations which we sense as light or as sound. So in this sense Light Music has a much larger span and scope. Everything is music.
[Cybling] And when do you expect Light Music to hit the shelves?
[Ann] Sorry to intrude. Kathleen, is that you?
[Ann] This is Ann Crispin.
[Kathy] Good question. I plan to turn it in toward the end of the year so some time in 2001. Hi, Ann--you're not intruding at all! Nice to
[see] you!
[Ann] Great to see you, too!
[Cybling] Okay..so we should see it in 2002?
[Kathy] I hope so.
[Cybling] Excellent.
[Cybling] Kathy...let's talk a bit about the research you did for these books...
[Ann] :-)
[Ryan] Feel free to ask questions and join in, Ann :)
[Kathy] Each book was different. I did a lot of research on bees and pheromones for Queen City Jazz. This was intensified by the time I got to Mississippi Blues; I also did a lot of historical research in terms of Cincinnati, the Mississippi River, and blues and jazz.
[Cybling] Kathy....what kind of research did you have to do, and why did you choose pheromone producing nanotech as your technical problem?
[Ann] Kathy, c'mon back to Virginia for another signing. We miss you!
[Kathy] I just read a piece in the Washington Post about the discovery of the human pheromone sensing organ. Pheromones are used to communicate in all kinds of creatures, and humanity had to find a new way to communicate precisely after broadcast capabilities crashed--which is detailed in CCR.
[Cybling] so it was a science news piece that got this wonderful series started.
[Kathy] Actually, it was my husband, who has a degree in chemistry and who is a physician. He casually mentioned pheromones a year or two before I started QCJ, and offered the thought that pheromones could be used as a powerful controlling device.
[Kathy] Then I had a vision of buildings with flowers on the tops. Which suggested giant Bees . . .
[Cybling] And a wonderful image it is too.
[Kathy]
[g]
[Cybling] http://www.goonan.com/ is your website...
[Cybling] Kathy do you have any excerpts up so that we can read some of your work?
[Kathy] I have the first chapter of CCR, a chapter from the middle of Mississippi Blues, and several short stories (including a new Italian translation of The Day the Dam Broke, which was on Omni online).
[Kathy] Also there are travel pieces from The Washington Post.
[Cybling] Excellent! http://www.goonan.com/ to get a taste of Kathy's work. I can recommend it highly.
[Cybling] Kathy, before we wind up here I had one last question. You've published over 20 short stories...
[Cybling] as well as your novels. Which do you prefer writing? Short or Novel length?
[Kathy] This is true. In Asimov's, Amazing, Interzone, F&SF (a Nebula finalist). I much prefer writing novels. You have to put just as much emotional energy and punch into a short story as a novel, and a novel is just more satisfying because you can explore all that energy.
[Cybling] Thank you so much Kathy for taking time out from the Con to come chat with us.
* Cybling applauds
[Ryan] Thanks, Kathy.
[Cybling] Hope to see you online again in the near future, perhaps when your next short story gets published.
[Kathy] I appreciate the chance to come--a nice break from the crowded hallways. Thanks for asking me, and I'd love to come back any time.
[Cybling] I don't think we can wait until 2002.
[Kathy]
[g]. Sooner is fine!
[Cybling] Thank you!