P.M. GRIFFIN GOES LIVE!

Romance novelist Bernadette Walsh interviews science fiction and fantasy writer P.M. Griffin Sunday May 26 at 7:30 p.m. EST on Nice Girls Reading Naughty Books. Please stop in to cheer P.M. on.

To watch the interview live please click HERE or go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bernadettewalsh/2013/05/26/nice-girls-reading-naughty-books--pm-griffin

Pauline (P.M.) Griffin's Irish love of story telling coupled with her passion for history, the natural world, and research have resulted in seventeen novels and ten short stories, two Muse Medallion Award winners among them, all in the challenging realms of science fiction and fantasy.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her cats Jinx, Katie, and Nickolette and three tropical fish aquariums and devotes just about every 'spare' moment to writing, research, and reading.

To read excerpts from P.M. Griffin's books released by Musa Publishing, please click HERE.

A Moment with Christopher Cornell

Why did you choose to write speculative fiction instead of another genre?

We live in a world of miracle drugs, robotic companions and extraplanetary exploration. Likewise, we struggle with adaptive viruses, technological exploitation and diminishing privacies. Speculative fiction gives birth to many aspects of the modern world before they became part of everyday life. To read and write within this realm is to consider the possibilities of life, both great and horrible.

To speculate is not simply to imagine worlds that do not and will never exist. Imagination allows the reader, as well as the writer, to consider reality in a new light. Sometimes we reflect on the society we want to build; at other times, we spin cautionary tales that manifest our fears of what may come. Whether our heroes and heroines are from other worlds, or rooted firmly in our own, they can serve as markers for our progress as a society. Whenever Big Brother is referenced in a discussion of modern surveillance, or Judge Dredd considered the exemplary of a fascist police state, I am reminded of the role of speculative fiction in steering societal discourse. Many who have shaped our world grew up with Homer and Verne and LeGuin and Huxley. There can be little doubt these diverse voices have fueled the endeavors of those who turn fantasy into reality.

I write speculative fiction because it is more than a cataloging of the familiar. It’s an invitation to deconstruct the world and redeem it with what works, or damn it with what doesn’t. A work of fantasy or science fiction is the personal exploration of an idea, on a scale of one’s own choosing. Though some are tempted to consider such works frivolous entertainment, history proves otherwise. The dialog of our future begins within the pages of books and magazines. To continue that tradition is a true privilege, and provides impetus to continue expanding my own views on the world at large. These ideas need not become truth to accomplish their most important goal: broadening the discussion of where we are headed and what comes next.

I can’t begin to imagine what wonders of our near future have already been revealed within the pages of other authors. Where are the cars, submarines, elevators and satellites of the twenty-first century? The possibilities make reading fun. And heck, it’s pretty fun to write about, too.

But I’m still waiting for my flying car.

Christopher Cornell is a writer, musician, interface developer and somnambulist in California's East Bay. He has also studied film and television, and is a graduate of the Viable Paradise writers' workshop.

More information and inane anecdotes can be found on his website and Twitter.

How It All Began

Today, we host a short Q&A with Randy Lindsay, "Not Fragile", and Edorado Albert, "Time Hoppers". Both talented authors and their work appeared in the November issue of Penumbra eMag.

Randy, when did you first realize you wanted to pursue writing as a career rather than a hobby?

It’s entirely possible that I live in a fantasy world of my own devising. Whenever a great idea pops into my head, I am convinced that there is a market for it – somewhere. So, it isn’t as much a matter of when I decided to pursue a writing career as it is a question of when I decided to start writing.

That happened while I was reading a book. I happened to disagree with many of the story telling decisions that the author made and discussed with one of my friends how I would have written it. When I finished, I thought I had a pretty good alternate story going on and started my journey as an author.

Several years of learning the craft and dozens of failed stories later I decided it was time to get serious about writing as a career. That would have been about three years ago. I started attending conferences to network within the industry. I started my blog so it could serve as a media platform once my stories started to be published. And I started submitting my stories.

What I find most interesting is that while it took a while to get here, things are really popping for me now. Right on the heels of my sale to Penumbra I had three more stories accepted for publication and will be coming out in 2013. I appreciate Penumbra opening the flood gates for writing career.

Edoardo, when did you first realize you wanted to pursue writing as a career rather than a hobby?

The first thing I can remember wanting to be was a paleontologist. When I realised that, unfortunately and despite the hopes raised by Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, all the dinosaurs really were dead, I switched to zoology. Then, an astronaut, a physicist, the President of the United States (abandoned when I found out that, not being American, I couldn't actually be president), an engineer and various other ideas in a rather dizzying succession. However, the only constant through all of this was reading.

I read - all the time. I even got told off as a seven-year-old for sneaking a book into a lesson and reading it under the desk because I couldn't wait to find out what happened (it was one of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books and to this day I will hear no calumny against her). So, in the end, I realised there was a thread through my life: words. And I began to pursue them. It has, though, been a long, slow slog - some thirty (30!) years of learning, being rejected, learning some more, making connections, getting rejected, and, hopefully, learning even more.

Randy Lindsay worked in the Hobby-Game industry for several years as a game designer and is now a stay-at-home dad looking to establish himself as an author. He writes Fantasy, SF, and is working on a Murder-Comedy. His short fiction has appeared in City of the Gods anthology and now Penumbra with upcoming stories in the Once Upon An Apocalypse anthology and the second City of the Gods anthology.

Learn more about Randy on his website and blog where he also writes on topics related to the craft of writing and offers movie reviews.

The responses to Edoardo Albert’s work rather prove what he argues. The stories, the books, the articles, have drawn some compliments, but the best response ever, which saw a friend rolling on the ground, helpless with laughter, was a lonely-hearts ad. It was probably the bit about tickling the belly of a wolf that did it.

Find Edoardo Albert’s books (he’s particularly proud of Northumbria: The Lost Kingdom which has just been published) and stories via his website although the lonely-hearts ad will not be making an appearance in the foreseeable future). Connect with him through his blog, Twitter or Facebook.