Brenda Clough Interview

Brenda Clough has published works in various genres such as science-fiction, fantasy, steampunk, and mystery. She has lived in Laos, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Germany. Clough has written several fantasy novels (The Crystal Crown, The Dragon of Mishbil, The Realm Beneath, and The Name of the Sun), a children's novel (An Impossumable Summer -- which is set in her own house in Virginia), and a novel entitled How Like a God along with its sequel Doors of Death and Life. Clough will be the teacher for the science-fiction/fantasy/horror workshop at the 2014 Nightsun Writers' Conference.


Did you have any specific experiences during your time living overseas that
influenced your writing?

Living in a foreign place, and having it be quite ordinary -- that's very good
practice for a science fiction/fantasy writer. Of course the neighbors have an
elephant. Oh sure, why not take a rickshaw. We're sent home from school because
there's a revolution, yay!



Where do you draw the most inspiration from for your fantasy writing? 

It depends when in the process. At the beginning, books, always -- it is said
that we write what we read. But then, when the book is going along well, then it
broadens out. Music. Poetry -- I once turned the entire plot of a novel around
after reading a poem. 



Do you have any tips for aspiring fantasy writers on how to blend "the real
world" and fantasy? 

They say that you only have a few get-out-of-jail-free cards -- occasions when
your readers will give you a pass. So the trick is to not use them all up. Magic
wands, okay. But then everything else around them is mundane -- the licensing,
the buying of them on Ebay, the arguments with your neighbors about the noise
and mess. 



You've written works in many different genres -- fantasy, science-fiction,
steampunk, mystery, non-fiction. Do you have different writing processes for
different genres? Which genre do you feel drawn to the most? 

No, the process is always the same. I begin at the beginning, write until the
end, and then rewrite. I always think of myself as an SF writer, even though I
wander away quite frequently.  



Recently, what type of writing do you find yourself working on the most? Why
do you think that is? 

At this moment I have written my first entirely non-genre novel. It is not SF,
or F, or mystery -- it is a Victorian melodrama.