Each author in Tesseracts 15 was given some questions to answer for inclusion on our blog. Here are the answers from authors Elise Moser, Mike Rimar and Kevin Cockle. Enjoy!
TT: What is your name?
Elise Moser: Elise Moser
TT: Where in Canada are you currently located?
Elise Moser: Montreal
TT: What is the name of your story in T15?
Elise Moser: Darwin's Vampire
TT: Could you please give us a summary of your story without spoilers?
Elise Moser: A woman is bitten by a vampire ... and it changes her perspective.
TT: What do you love the most about this (or being in this) anthology?
Elise Moser: I love being in the company of such a range of imaginative and well written stories.
TT: Each author was given the option of selecting two final stories to answer. Which are yours?
Elise Moser: What is your main writing process? Mostly I just sit down and write "from my fingertips" as a friend recently put it. Sometimes I a first sentence comes to me and I go from there. And then when I have done with a first draft, I really need someone to look at it and help me find the infelicities and inconsistencies and the things that go "clang" when they shouldn't even be noticeable.
Elise Moser: What is the best piece of writing advice you've discovered? I was once told "If you want to be a writer, you have to write."
TT: Thanks Elise for being with us today!
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TT: What is your name? Mike Rimar
Mike Rimar: Mike Rimar
TT: Where in Canada are you currently located?
Mike Rimar: Whitby, Ontario
TT: What is the name of your story in T15?
Mike Rimar: My Name is Tommy
TT: Could you please give us a summary of your story without spoilers?
Mike Rimar: Tommy Smith, a teen with special needs who lives aboard a generation ship, learns he has a gift.
TT: What is the first sentence of your story?
Mike Rimar: “Commander Paul says he won’t ever let me be Captain," I said.
TT: What do you love the most about this (or being in this) anthology?
Mike Rimar: It's a Tesseracts! You're not a Canadian genre writer until you've been published in Tesseracts.
TT: Each author was given the option of selecting two final stories to answer. Which are yours?
Mike Rimar: The first one is What is your main writing process?
My main writing process? I really don't have one. I've read a lot of books, attended panels and workshops all on writing, and it seems everyone has different techniques. I use them all, or variation. I outline, but more to keep an idea of where I want the story to go. I don't have to stick to it. Sometimes I don't outline and just hack a way because I've thought about the story so much I know what I want, or I happened to have a lot of time and wrote most of it in one sitting. Sometimes I'll mash two or three ideas together into one plot. I don't listen to music on a first draft. The room needs to be quiet. But on rewrites I like to listen to instrumental soundtracks on internet radio. Lyrics seem to ruin my concentration. Let's face it, I'm not a teenager anymore. Sometimes I'll walk away from a story because I'm stuck and need to figure something out. Sometimes, I put the thing on blocks like an old car, and cannibalize parts for other stories. If I've a common denominator, it's when I get an idea, I like to think on it for a while. Let it percolate in my brain until I get a plot that I like.
Who is your inspiration?
I've always said Stephen R. Donaldson was my inspiration. His Thomas Covenant series introduced me to the antihero, and his world was both fantastic in scope and his plots very mature in nature and themes, at least for me. My dream has always been, should I ever get a book published, and I had the opportunity to meet him in person, is to give him a signed copy as a thank you. And then he would write me and say how he read my book, and either thought it was great, or is suing me for plagiarism. Usually depends on what I ate before going to bed that night.
TT: Thanks Mike for being with us today.
_____________________________
TT: What is your name?
Kevin Cockle: Kevin Cockle
TT: Where in Canada are you currently located?
Kevin Cockle: Calgary
TT: What is the name of your story in T15?
Kevin Cockle: "The Bridge Builder"
TT: Could you please give us a summary of your story without spoilers?
Kevin Cockle: Real-life elves hide in plain sight at comic-con.
TT: What is the first sentence of your story?
Kevin Cockle: "THIS, was cool."
TT: What do you love the most about this (or being in this) anthology?
Kevin Cockle: I'm particularly delighted to be included in this anthology. I'd assumed I'd be rejected as I'm totally ignorant of YA as a publishing category, and the guidelines seemed skewed towards ruling me out. No swearing? Hopeful ending? They may as well have been saying "Kevin Cockle need not apply. We mean that." But that was the artistic challenge - to use images/language/setting I might not have otherwise. I don't normally think of myself as an "artist" per-se, but I did when I sold this story.
TWO-QUESTION OPTION:
WHO ARE YOUR BIGGEST INSPIRATIONS?
Kevin Cockle: Bernard Hopkins. Ex-con early in life, got out to become arguably the world's best pound-for-pound fighter (ie: in boxing) for a time. But it was the way he got to the top: self managed; never played promoters' games; negotiated his own contracts; laboured in obscurity for years, taking short-money/big-risk fights. Once finished a fight one-handed after dislocating his shoulder when anyone else would have gone to the cards...Bernard didn't want to take the chance on politics, so he went ahead and won it on sheer will, guts, and paranoia. Totally inspiring, and of course well beyond my capacity to emulate. Also, I once heard the expression "tougher than prison beef" with respect to Bernard, which cracks me up every time I think about it.
On the writing side...George RR Martin; Robert E. Howard; James Ellroy; Robert McCammon.
And Chuck Yeager. Who also dislocated his shoulder before doing something really challenging. I'm sensing a pattern here. He's inspiring because he's one of those guys that causes people to stop and think: "What would Chuck Yeager do?" before going on to do almost the exact opposite. You can't be Chuck Yeager: he's an ideal type.
FAVOURITE STORY OF MINE?
Kevin Cockle: I wrote a story for On Spec a few years back called "Eight Precious Spiced Jewels". Quirkiest sort of Seinfeld non-plot I ever came up with; effective voice (by my standards of course - not compared to Alice Munro or anything); neat ideas (again: I'm the benchmark); no violence, obscenity or other shock-tactics I'd normally employ to get a sale - this one felt like a bit of an outlier, like I'd jumped ahead in my career and written something I probably shouldn't have been able to at that time.
"Stone Cold" in Tesseracts 13 is another favourite, because Nancy (Kilpatrick) said such nice things about it. If I never write anything else, I'll always have that.
TT: Thanks Kevin for being with us!
 |
| Elise Moser, copyright Monique Dykstra 2009 |
Elise Moser: Elise Moser
TT: Where in Canada are you currently located?
Elise Moser: Montreal
TT: What is the name of your story in T15?
Elise Moser: Darwin's Vampire
TT: Could you please give us a summary of your story without spoilers?
Elise Moser: A woman is bitten by a vampire ... and it changes her perspective.
TT: What do you love the most about this (or being in this) anthology?
Elise Moser: I love being in the company of such a range of imaginative and well written stories.
TT: Each author was given the option of selecting two final stories to answer. Which are yours?
Elise Moser: What is your main writing process? Mostly I just sit down and write "from my fingertips" as a friend recently put it. Sometimes I a first sentence comes to me and I go from there. And then when I have done with a first draft, I really need someone to look at it and help me find the infelicities and inconsistencies and the things that go "clang" when they shouldn't even be noticeable.
Elise Moser: What is the best piece of writing advice you've discovered? I was once told "If you want to be a writer, you have to write."
TT: Thanks Elise for being with us today!
-------------------------------------------
 |
| Mike Rimar |
TT: What is your name? Mike Rimar
Mike Rimar: Mike Rimar
TT: Where in Canada are you currently located?
Mike Rimar: Whitby, Ontario
TT: What is the name of your story in T15?
Mike Rimar: My Name is Tommy
TT: Could you please give us a summary of your story without spoilers?
Mike Rimar: Tommy Smith, a teen with special needs who lives aboard a generation ship, learns he has a gift.
TT: What is the first sentence of your story?
Mike Rimar: “Commander Paul says he won’t ever let me be Captain," I said.
TT: What do you love the most about this (or being in this) anthology?
Mike Rimar: It's a Tesseracts! You're not a Canadian genre writer until you've been published in Tesseracts.
TT: Each author was given the option of selecting two final stories to answer. Which are yours?
Mike Rimar: The first one is What is your main writing process?
My main writing process? I really don't have one. I've read a lot of books, attended panels and workshops all on writing, and it seems everyone has different techniques. I use them all, or variation. I outline, but more to keep an idea of where I want the story to go. I don't have to stick to it. Sometimes I don't outline and just hack a way because I've thought about the story so much I know what I want, or I happened to have a lot of time and wrote most of it in one sitting. Sometimes I'll mash two or three ideas together into one plot. I don't listen to music on a first draft. The room needs to be quiet. But on rewrites I like to listen to instrumental soundtracks on internet radio. Lyrics seem to ruin my concentration. Let's face it, I'm not a teenager anymore. Sometimes I'll walk away from a story because I'm stuck and need to figure something out. Sometimes, I put the thing on blocks like an old car, and cannibalize parts for other stories. If I've a common denominator, it's when I get an idea, I like to think on it for a while. Let it percolate in my brain until I get a plot that I like.
Who is your inspiration?
I've always said Stephen R. Donaldson was my inspiration. His Thomas Covenant series introduced me to the antihero, and his world was both fantastic in scope and his plots very mature in nature and themes, at least for me. My dream has always been, should I ever get a book published, and I had the opportunity to meet him in person, is to give him a signed copy as a thank you. And then he would write me and say how he read my book, and either thought it was great, or is suing me for plagiarism. Usually depends on what I ate before going to bed that night.
TT: Thanks Mike for being with us today.
_____________________________
 |
| Kevin Cockle |
Kevin Cockle: Kevin Cockle
TT: Where in Canada are you currently located?
Kevin Cockle: Calgary
TT: What is the name of your story in T15?
Kevin Cockle: "The Bridge Builder"
TT: Could you please give us a summary of your story without spoilers?
Kevin Cockle: Real-life elves hide in plain sight at comic-con.
TT: What is the first sentence of your story?
Kevin Cockle: "THIS, was cool."
TT: What do you love the most about this (or being in this) anthology?
Kevin Cockle: I'm particularly delighted to be included in this anthology. I'd assumed I'd be rejected as I'm totally ignorant of YA as a publishing category, and the guidelines seemed skewed towards ruling me out. No swearing? Hopeful ending? They may as well have been saying "Kevin Cockle need not apply. We mean that." But that was the artistic challenge - to use images/language/setting I might not have otherwise. I don't normally think of myself as an "artist" per-se, but I did when I sold this story.
TWO-QUESTION OPTION:
WHO ARE YOUR BIGGEST INSPIRATIONS?
Kevin Cockle: Bernard Hopkins. Ex-con early in life, got out to become arguably the world's best pound-for-pound fighter (ie: in boxing) for a time. But it was the way he got to the top: self managed; never played promoters' games; negotiated his own contracts; laboured in obscurity for years, taking short-money/big-risk fights. Once finished a fight one-handed after dislocating his shoulder when anyone else would have gone to the cards...Bernard didn't want to take the chance on politics, so he went ahead and won it on sheer will, guts, and paranoia. Totally inspiring, and of course well beyond my capacity to emulate. Also, I once heard the expression "tougher than prison beef" with respect to Bernard, which cracks me up every time I think about it.
On the writing side...George RR Martin; Robert E. Howard; James Ellroy; Robert McCammon.
And Chuck Yeager. Who also dislocated his shoulder before doing something really challenging. I'm sensing a pattern here. He's inspiring because he's one of those guys that causes people to stop and think: "What would Chuck Yeager do?" before going on to do almost the exact opposite. You can't be Chuck Yeager: he's an ideal type.
FAVOURITE STORY OF MINE?
Kevin Cockle: I wrote a story for On Spec a few years back called "Eight Precious Spiced Jewels". Quirkiest sort of Seinfeld non-plot I ever came up with; effective voice (by my standards of course - not compared to Alice Munro or anything); neat ideas (again: I'm the benchmark); no violence, obscenity or other shock-tactics I'd normally employ to get a sale - this one felt like a bit of an outlier, like I'd jumped ahead in my career and written something I probably shouldn't have been able to at that time.
"Stone Cold" in Tesseracts 13 is another favourite, because Nancy (Kilpatrick) said such nice things about it. If I never write anything else, I'll always have that.
TT: Thanks Kevin for being with us!
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