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.

Maureen McHugh's Home Page

[Cybling] Let's welcome Maureen!
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] WEclometh!
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] eep
[Pam_M] Hi, Maureen
[Maureen_McHugh] Hi, how's the party here?
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] Welcometh!
[Cybling] Hi Maureen...so good to see you F2F
[Riesengrosser] Greetings Maureen!
[Cybling] Been too long since I've seen you online.
[Maureen_McHugh] It's weird to actually see you since I know you virtually.
* Serenah_SS_Suchomimus laughs a bit
[Maureen_McHugh] I mean, I'm sitting here typing to a person I know sitting to a person I don't.
[Cybling] LOL. I know. We all look kind of nekked without our keyboards, don't we?
[Riesengrosser] ß-)
[Cybling] LOL.
[Maureen_McHugh] I actually think some of us look better at our keyboards--present company excepted.
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] ^_^
[Cybling] Folks...Maureen McHugh's first novel, China Mountain Zhang, won the Tiptree Award and the Locus Poll for best first novel.
[Cybling] It was a very interesting study of the difference between our culture and China's...
[Cybling] Maureen, can you tell us what kind of research you did for that first novel?
[Maureen_McHugh] Well,I lived in China for a year, although that was only incidently research.
[Maureen_McHugh] Mostly I rode the subway a lot--I used to live in New York City and I needed to write something for my writer's group...
[Riesengrosser] The problem with China is it has a very deverse Culture in itself!
[Ryan] Can you briefly describe what living in China is like?
[Pam_M] so does the NYC subway...
[Maureen_McHugh] And so I combined two things I was interested in...New York City subways and China, and came up with the opening cchapter.
[Cybling] Hold on the questions folks.
[Maureen_McHugh] Go ahead now.
[Maureen_McHugh] Living in China? Sort of like camping--this was ten years ago and there wasn't much in the way of heat and air conditioning...
[Ryan] Ah.
[Maureen_McHugh] And sort of just weird because I didn't speak much CHinese.
[Talos] brb
* Ryan chuckles
[Ryan] How did you communicate when you needed to?
[Maureen_McHugh] And really strange for a white girl from Ohio because I'd never been a minority before. g/a
[Maureen_McHugh] Ryan, I communicated by bad Chinese and by pointing, or sometimes I just didn't communicate...
* Ryan nods.
[Maureen_McHugh] I was taching Englsih tostudents who were studying English and they understood pretty well...
[Riesengrosser] Well, the main reason to travel to a diffrent country, is to come home, and complain about the plumming ;-)!
[Pam_M] So, the novel began as a writing exercise?
[Maureen_McHugh] But the moment I left the classroom I was pretty lost.
[Maureen_McHugh] Riesengrosser--there wasn't much plumbing.
[Ryan] I've never really been to another country yet. I want to though. Actually, I went to Mexico before, but it seemed "Americanized" besides it was a primary tourist spot for cruise ships and such.
[Ryan] because, even.
[Riesengrosser] Maureen.-or the lake of it1
[Maureen_McHugh] Pam, the novel began as a desperate attempt to come up with something for my wirter's group...it wasn't even as thought out as an exercise!
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] whoah
[Maureen_McHugh] Ryan, I love Cancun, but you're right, it didn't feel very foreign.
[Pam_M] Then, the first few paragraphes lead to the story?
[Maureen_McHugh] Pam, I think I wrote my best work when I ran out of things I thought people would like to read and only wrote about things I was obsessed about...
[Maureen_McHugh] It's a lesson I have to relearn again and again. g/a
[Cybling] Interesting idea, obsession as muse. Do you still belong to that writer's group.
[Pam_M] So, Mission Child was written in the same manner?
[Maureen_McHugh] Pam, Yeah, sometimes the first paragraphs lead to a story.
[Maureen_McHugh] Cybling, that writer's group was ten-twelve years ago and two countries and three states ago, but I belong to a writer's group today.
[Pam_M] Not a plot writer,then....
[Maureen_McHugh] Pam, Mission Child was from a short story that Gardner Dozois in _Asimov's_ said felt like it had a novel in it. And no, I plot for sh*t.
[Cybling] do you ever use an outline once you've gotten started on a story?
[Cybling] lol
[Pam_M] Do you use the writer's group for work in progress?
[Maureen_McHugh] Pam, I'm a writer's group junkie. Cybling, I outline, but then I never follow the outline.
[Cybling] LOLOLOL.
[Cybling] So the outline is just an exercise to prove to yourself that you're really doing this?
[Riesengrosser] B-)
[Maureen_McHugh] The outline is an attempt to get control of the material, and it makes me feel better, but the control is mostly an illusion...
[Cybling] lol.
[Maureen_McHugh] Luckily for meand editor eventually told me this was okay. g/a
[Cybling] Maureen, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your new book Nekropolis which is due out from Avon next year
[Cybling] When next year about.
[Pam_M] Hard cover release?
[Maureen_McHugh] I think spring, but I'd have to track down my editor--I saw her in the lobby for five minutes thos morning and we promised to go drink this afternoon.
[Maureen_McHugh] Hard cover release, we;ve been talking about covers. I hate cover discussions--the book never looks right to me.
[Cybling] Nekropolis is a city of the dead, right? Can you tell us a little more about it?
[Maureen_McHugh] In Cairo, they buried people in little masoleums and since Cairo has been around for thousands of years, the cemetary eventually grew to city size...
[Maureen_McHugh] And eventually the poor started using them as shelter. I thought that was a great idea, so in my story, which takes place in Morocco, where there is...
[Maureen_McHugh] no city of the dead, of course, the main character grew up poor and living in the Nekropolis...
[Maureen_McHugh] and when her life gets wierd, that's where she runs to hide.
[Pam_M] wow.....nice!
[Cybling] Sounds like another of your exciting and richly detailed novels, Maureen. Can't wait for it to come out!
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] Run and hide...
* Serenah_SS_Suchomimus blinks
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] Sounds familiar...
[Maureen_McHugh] It's a perverse anti-romance. I wrote it because I got mad at a book I read last year.
[Pam_M] a romance novel?
[Maureen_McHugh] Sorry, not last year, years ago. But Serenah, I published a novella of the same name...
[Maureen_McHugh] that was nominated for a Nebula. Yeah Pam, a kind of romance novel. _The Silver Metal Lover_ by Tanith Lee. I tell...
[Maureen_McHugh] a similar story only with much different results.
[Cybling] Maureen, you were on a panel yesterday entitled Made It and I Didn't Go to Clarion
* Serenah_SS_Suchomimus smirks a bit. 15I just think it's typically human... run and hide. We all do that some day... ah, nevermind me.
* Serenah_SS_Suchomimus is currently a bit psychologically thinking. ^_^
[Cybling] Serenah...we're on a white background here.
[Cybling] are most of today's successful writers graduates of that class?
[Pam_M] please say no......
[Maureen_McHugh] I think running and hiding is a pretty human response. Not that I would ever do anything like that, of course.
[looking innocently away.]
* Serenah_SS_Suchomimus chuckles @ maureen
[Maureen_McHugh] Cybling, some of the successful writers are, but Pam, more aren't. A lot of people can take six weeks out of their life.
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] Prejudice too... ah, I'll be quiet now
[Maureen_McHugh] I never studied at Clarion--nor did David Brin.
[Cybling] It's not an inexpensive course, either (scottish in me coming out here), but I've heard it can be worth the fee.
[Maureen_McHugh] Yeah, it's up over $2,000 I think. But it's a kind of short cut--it can do in six weeks what can take someone like me years to figure out on their own.
[Cybling] Maureen...I haven't asked you yet how this convention is treating you. ARe you a big con-goer?
[Maureen_McHugh] I do about three or four a year--WorldCon is so hard though. I've seen so many people I depserpately want to spend some time with...
[Maureen_McHugh] students of mine, fellow writers like Nancy Kress, editors, all sorts of people I just want to sit down with. And there isn't enough time!
[Cybling] LOL, yes. I gave up on the lines for the elevator last night....though I'm told they move pretty quickly and efficiently this year.
[Maureen_McHugh] We're on the 23rd floor so I wait for the elevator.
[Cybling] A *lot* of people here. Green Room for instande is nearly full right now and quite noisy.
[Maureen_McHugh] The CHinese word for a good time is the words 'hot' and 'noisy' put together. But the Chinese are a little odd about that.
[Cybling] LOLOL. Appropriate for this convention! Maureen, you're on a panel on Monday which is titled "Girl Cooties", lolololol.
[Maureen_McHugh] Yeah, that's Mary Turzillo's panel...
[Maureen_McHugh] It's actually going to be fun if I can stay and do it--my plane leaves that afternoon--it's about...
[Maureen_McHugh] whether or not sf books can really concentrate on human relationships.
[Pam_M] depends upon the author
[Cybling] You won a hugo in 1996 for the short story "The Lincoln Train." Still writing short fiction?
[Pam_M] imho
[Maureen_McHugh] Pam, you're right. But it's also true that sf has to use some of the space in the text for really cool stuff and ideas. So the panel will probably talk about how to balance that.
[Maureen_McHugh] Cybling, I justsold a story for _Starlight 3_ and I'm finishing a story about a woman whose husband has alzheimer's and the results of a fututristic treatment on their marriage.
[Maureen_McHugh] My husband says all my stuff is depressing, and he's right.
[Maureen_McHugh] Pam, you talk like you're a writer.
[Pam_M] wantta be....lol
[Cybling] Any idea when the Starlight story will be on the shelves?
* Serenah_SS_Suchomimus wantsta be a writer 2
[Maureen_McHugh] The editor is still getting back to people so the book hasn't even been officially finalized--it will be probably next year.
[Maureen_McHugh] Serenah and Pam, are you in writer's groups?
* Serenah_SS_Suchomimus shakes her head.
[Pam_M] del rey sf writers workshop
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] I live in Sankt Peter Ording ... not many possibilities up here
[Maureen_McHugh] The secret, at least the first one, is to write a lot. Where is Sankt Peter Ording?
[RedRaptor] I also try writing, but mainly for myself and close friends
[Maureen_McHugh] And of course, you can form a group on the Internet, which isn't as good as meeting face to face, but better than no feedback at all.
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] Germany... waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay north
* RedRaptor is a slow typer
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] And I tend to DCC my things to people who care, I get positive resonances, but, hey, they're friends
[Maureen_McHugh] Hey RedRaptor, I think that's a neglected art. Pam, Iknow a couple of people from the Del Ray group. Some of them are here.
[Maureen_McHugh] Pam, you know Chris Evans?
[Pam_M] yes, know a few of them to, tell hi
[Cybling] Ack! Maureen's duct tape has given way, so we're going to have to let her run away and track down all those people she needs to talk to. Folks...let's give Maureen a big hand!
[Pam_M] critted a piece for him once
[Maureen_McHugh] Thanks guys! This was cool!
* Cybling applauds Maureen McHugh
[Pam_M] Thanks, Maureen!
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] I Toraq-hun
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] Farewell
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] Arreverderci
[RedRaptor] what do you mean by a neglected art?
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] Et Cetera