Have you always been attracted to the science fiction and fantasy genres?

Yes.   When I was eleven I came across Robert Heinlein's "Have Space Suit Will Travel" in the library, and my imagination was fired.  A few years later I found Speculative Fiction in Pat Frank's "Alas Babylon."  I loved those books, and began seeking out similar stories.

I remember feeling frustrated because a lot of Sci Fi spent pages and pages detailing the workings of a space ship, or a fighter craft, or a robot, and then invested little creativity with the characters or the actual dynamics of the story.  What really aggravated me, though, was the fact that actual females were nonexistent in the stories, or limited to inconsequential parts–largely out of the action.  This was the Sixties, and to my young eyes, most men were busy being alternately confused by or hostile to Feminism.  However, there is nothing like being told you already have everything a person could want and then never being able to find a version of yourself in the books you like to read.   As I grew older, I rarely read Sci Fi or Fantasy, because I got tired reading about females who were little more than sex objects for the lusty male heroes.

Of course, the genre changed tremendously in the late Sixties, and Seventies, but by then I was no longer reading Sci Fi.  I had set myself the task of reading all the "Great Books," trying to figure out what made them great.  At fourteen I decided that I wanted to be a writer, and to be a good one I knew I had to understand what had come before.

As an adult, after I started writing Sci Fi, people began recommending to me hundreds of excellent books.  I discovered the work of Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Kate Elliott, Starhawk, Katherine Forrest, Chris Anne Wolfe, Diana Rivers, Severna Park, and many other great Sci Fi and Fantasy writers.  I can't tell you how many times I've read Bradley's "City of Sorcery," or Elliot's "The Jaran," or Park's "Speaking Dreams." I'm also a big fan of the Honor Harrington books by David Weber.   For me, Weber's "Field of Dishonor" is a work of art.   I feel I'm blessed to be living in a time when great female Sci Fi and Fantasy heroes abound.

Which authors in the genres initially inspired you to turn your writing hand to the field?

Pat Frank showed me Speculative Fiction at a very impressionable age, and I never got over that.  By the time I was actually writing to be published, I had learned to love the way Virginia Wolfe described things and the way Eugene O'Neill used dialogue, the way Shakespeare wove exciting plots and how Anne Rice employed the supernatural to enhance very usual characterizations of self-doubt and the will to survive.  I think many of our modern day "great writers" who are selling books like crazy and making the New York Times Sunday edition, will not be known a hundred years from now; conversely, many writers we are today ignoring will be considered geniuses. 

Were there any unexpected challenges involved in writing once you found yourself committed to doing so?

It has always been hard to balance writing, working a cash job and keeping a good relationship with my partner, Susie Hart.  When one part of the triangle is getting an inordinate amount of attention, the other two are not.  I always feel like I'm shirking somewhere.  I'd love to win the lottery and quit the cash job.  That's likely to happen, I'm sure.  As it is right now, I do not earn enough from writing proceeds to quit my cash job.  However, I consider myself fortunate.  I work in the insurance industry and enjoy what I do there.  I've been happily married for almost eighteen years to a loving, supportive woman.  And all of my books are still in print.  When Rising Tide Press went bankrupt, the first three Isis books all got stuck in receivership in an Arizona warehouse for a few years and were inaccessible to the public.  Then my new press, Bella Books, made a deal with the warehouse owners and took over distribution.  I'll always be thankful to Bella's CEO, Linda Hill, for her efforts in that endeavor.  She's terrific.

What are you currently working on?

I'm currently writing the sixth Isis book and its making me crazy.  However, that's the usual way of it, with me.  Sometimes I over-think the story and go through a lot of angst about what path(s) the story will follow, what themes I wish to explore.  I also lost my mother to cancer a few years back and I'm still learning to cope with that.  My soul feels sore; since I kind of open some door inside and let a story pour out onto the keyboard when I write, it has lately been an ongoing experience with anguish when I work.  I am trying to use the sadness, investing it in Danu, a grieving character in "Gift of Isis," but it is slow going. The book is a half year past due.   I'm sure my publisher and the Isis fans are ready to kick me in the seat of the pants.

Do you set yourself a strict routine when you're writing? What's your atmosphere like?

I usually work at night after work, or on the weekends.  I have small room at the back of our house set aside.  There I have my little desk and pc, with towering bookcases filled with reference books, favorite fiction books, with all kinds of knick-knacks (a blue yo-yo, some sea shells and geodes, photos of a couple of my old dog-pals that have passed on).  There are books stacked neatly on the floor, and every surface is covered with organized files full of materials relevant to what I'm currently writing.

I usually immerse myself in the backdrop of the story, and have everything I need at my fingertips to refresh the geographical setting, the time period, the personality types involved.  I sometimes have a file of faces from magazines or movies I've come across, that I pull out to look over.  I'm not sure how it happens, but certain faces become various characters for me—one look at them and I know who they are, what they sound like, even what they wear.

When I write, I usually start each session with some classical music playing, but once I'm really at work the music ends and I'm not even aware of it anymore.  I called this "the soundtrack for the movie in my head" once to another writer, and found out she starts this way, too.  (The other writer is Karin Kallmaker, who used the pen name Laura Adams for "Sleight of Hand," and "Seeds of Fire.")  From a few phrases of the right music, I see the story scene come to life like a movie.  I hear the dialogue, get the gist of where the story is going, and from there I take off.  From the time I was little, my imagination has been set ablaze by symphonic music.

I lose track of time when the work is going well.  Hours and hours pass and I only figure that out when I suddenly find myself starving or have to turn the lamp on because the room is getting too dark to see the letters on the keyboard. 

What inspired the idea behind the Isis series?

I had never forgotten the wonderful "What if?" concept of Pat Frank's "Alas Babylon."   In the early Nineties, I knew a young man that I feared was about to be diagnosed with AIDS, and for me the national fiasco of how we were dealing with that health care emergency became personal.  I was so exasperated with the "ignore it" approach the Reagan and Bush administrations used to deal with the disease, so infuriated by people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who were gleefully making the horrific worse by announcing that HIV was a Heaven sent damnation.  It was all absolutely Mediaeval.  I was worrying about what would happen if the Religious Right and citizen complacency continued to control the future of the United States.  AIDS was a virus, and a virus, by its very nature, mutates.  I went to bed one night very upset about my friend and my country, and in the course of the night I had a long dream.

 The dream was cinematic: in color and action-packed, with the backdrop the American Second Civil War and post-apocalyptic society firmly in place, and the characters Whit, Kali, and Captain Ference  were all there, fully formed, and acting up a storm   That dream was the entire first half of "Return To Isis," the first book in the Isis series.  I woke up with fire in the belly–I had to write it down–had to see how it all came out.  It was an unapologetic lesbian-centric plot with hardly any male characters; what few males there were, were bad guys.  I wrote with the knowledge that it was totally niche storytelling and would probably never be published.  Even after it was picked up by Rising Tide Press, I accepted that not many people would ever be interested enough to bother reading it.  What a surprise for me when it began to become popular.

What do you find most appealing about writing fiction in speculative terms?

I like being able to take a possibility and play around with it until it is a clearly realized story—and then present it to the reader.  It's a cautionary vision: this is what could happen.  In literary circles, my Isis stories published in the early Nineties were pretty much dismissed as ridiculous and something that could never happen.  An incurable, highly contagious disease sweeping unchecked through the populace?  Laws of Public Safety being voted into effect by Congress, created to temporarily but completely usurp the U.S Constitution?  Religious Right Ideologues gaining control of the government, keeping the harsh temporary law in force, and then enacting even fiercer, punishable-by-death Biblical law?  Security police created specifically to monitor citizen behavior, and compel unquestioning compliance with government mandates—mandates that blatantly infringe upon previously guaranteed American rights?   After six years of the Bush II administration, my Isis stories are gaining wider attention and the ideas are considered incredibly topical.

Believe me, I'd rather have my stories still considered silly than have the Patriot Act not only passed once, but recently renewed.  Still, it is interesting, even for me, to see how the arc of a trend plays out.  We Americans are accommodating the programs of leaders who are enforcing limits on our Constitutional liberty.  We have empowered men who talk loudly of God while consistently doing things no God would ever support.  Speculative Fiction lets me hold the mirror up, lets me say to my countrymen and women, "How far are you willing to let this go?"

Has there been a particular book amongst those you have written that was particularly easy (or difficult) to write?

The First book, "Return to Isis" was easy because the first half was given to me in that dream.  The last completed book, "Wizard of Isis," was easy because I saw it vividly while I was writing it.  The movie in my head was particularly strong with "Wizard."  It was like that with "Devulban Dreams," the short story I wrote for your Haworth Press anthology, too.  The scenes were right in front of me–I just wrote what I saw unfolding.   It feels like it is more like transcription more than writing when it is like that.

"Gift of Isis," the one I'm writing now is turning out to be hard.  The ante has raised with every book I've produced.  Thus far, I've succeeded, I think, in making each book better than the last.  I'm feeling the pressure this time.  But I think I can ultimately rise to the challenge and write the next better book.  I have always been my own worst critic, which does somewhat stifle the speed of the writing process.

Which aspect or elements of writing do you find the most challenging?

With Sci Fi it is definitely accumulating the research and then figuring out how to impart necessary facts to the reader while I'm telling the story.  I enjoy researching to a certain extent, because I like learning in depth details about things I find interesting but really do not understand.  On the other hand, so much of science is dry and convoluted.  The wealth of space engineering and quantum physics information I had to grasp to write "Winged Isis" was daunting.  The hard part comes in encapsulating these specific little kernels of knowledge so that they are easily read and digested, so that they are both timely and unobtrusive, allowing the reader to make sense of what is going on in the scene.  The worst outcome would be for the reader to become devastatingly bored and put the book down.  Since I never liked books that went on and on about the workings of the space ship, or some new twist quarks, I try to slip the factoids in as unnoticeably as possible.  The science fact is just there, part of the backdrop, givens that are everyday realities for the characters.  I try to keep the focus on the characters, on what is going on with them, what they are thinking, feeling, wondering.

The other thing that is hard is keeping the magical aspects of a magical plot straight in my head and under control.  I have to keep remembering that this particular character is magical and so the usual way of dealing with a problem would not be this person's only answer.  In addition, I can't let the mage abilities of a gifted character become the repeated solution for problem after problem.  It ruins the sparkle of the unexpected.  I also believe that magical abilities need to introduce as many challenges as they resolve.  That's the nature of being human: dealing with problems.  Kali struggles with being a Mage, and for the most part would rather not be one if she could.  Like all talents, there is the obvious capacity for achievement that others cannot even dream of—while at the same time her gift leads her peers to see her as someone peculiar, and that makes Kali want to forego the skill altogether.

Are you seeing any specific trends in the SF/F genre that has perked your interest?

I like that it is generally accepted now that there is a ready audience for Sci Fi Fantasy and female action heroes   I like that Starbuck in the new Battlestar Galactica series (on the Sci Fi channel) is a woman.  I'd love to see Logo or one of the gay cable channels take on some feminist Sci Fi, like the Isis Series, or some of the other ready-for-cinema lesbian plots out there.  It can't be viewed as any more far fetched than the L Word.  

How would you describe the current state of lesbian-publishing?

It keeps changing.  Publishing houses open and close, and still other houses spring up in their wake.  It's a dynamic business.  Lots of potential for growth. According the predictions of many in-the-know types at the end of the Nineties, the mainstream publishing corporations were supposed to snap up all the "good writers" and the lesbian publishing houses would be left with "the dregs" and eventually go out of business.  That has not happened.  It looks like the mainstream corporations discovered we are truly a niche-audience and the bottom-line wasn't tantalizing enough for them.  So the sistahs are still doin' it for themselves.

I kind of like that.  I like writing books for other women, which are published by women who for the most part get what I am trying to do.  Hey I like men, don't get me wrong.  But I spent my youth reading books written by men, for men, published by men.  But, like I said earlier—I rarely found anyone like me in those books.  It is hard to enjoy a world of the mind when it is a world where you or some version of you, does not exist.  I read all those books by men and survived.  I even learned a thing or two.  I have now found a section of the writing and publishing world where women are the dominant force, the dominant presence, and frankly I prefer that world.  I also think most men would be the better for reading a few books written for the lesbian niche.  There are more perceptions of who we are and why we are than there are raindrops from the sky.  A man like Bill O'Reilly is obviously in need of another viewpoint.

What are some of your favorite books from 2005?

"Dark Dreamer" by Jennifer Fulton.
"The Walls of Westernfort" by Jane Fletcher
"Rangers at Roadsend "by Jane Fletcher
"The Temple at Landfall" by Jane Fletcher
"Protector of the Realm" by Gun Brooke

While there is the argument that most speculative fiction is overall an innovative, open-minded genre—how do you think this relates to the GLBT faction of the genre?

I think Sci Fi-Fantasy-Speculative fiction works on the idea of presenting for your consideration an array of possible futures, all aligned in a colorful spectrum effect, from happy infinity to grim extinction.

I guess we are all hoping that humankind will continue to evolve, to become more accepting of the many varieties of how to be human and how to live at peace with our fellows.  That is the pie–in-the-sky concept that Star Trek was built around.  I was once confident that in my country, we would continue to become more educated and inclusive and peace-loving, that eventually each citizen on earth would be free, and the world would prosper and grow together.  Seeing the proliferation of rednecks in my country (and by that I mean people who purposely choose to be less than they could be, and make it a mission to drag down as many others as they can while they are at it) has been disheartening.  I guess, like the Terminator movies, if we have the choice of blowing ourselves to hell, or not, some nitwits will actually opt for the fireworks.  However, I am an optimist at heart.  Perhaps the Christian Fundamentalists and the Muslim Fundamentalists will focus all their rage and resources on blowing each other up, while the rest of us will somehow manage to escape their insanity altogether.  Or maybe Jesus and Mohammed will smite their asses and wake them the hell up.

Tell us something about Jean Stewart no-one else knows…

When I was young, I had a reputation as a wild girl—one who played tackle football with
the rough boys and readily engaged in a fist fight when necessary.  I was constantly in the Principal's office and was generally badly behaved.  One teacher told my Mom that she thought I might end up in reform school.

My first story was a ghost story, a school assignment written when I was eleven.  I had to read it aloud in front of the class.  Several people gasped during a scary part and I looked up to find everyone's eyes riveted on me.  I was stunned to see that they were deeply interested.  At the end, my classmates gave me a standing ovation.  I had been making up stories for most of my childhood, but I had never shared one with anyone else.  After that day, I started filling copybooks, writing down what I saw and heard and thought.

I was still a wild girl.  Only now it was on paper.

Are there any other genres that you would like to write in at some point down the line?

I want to write some action-adventure stories placed in modern day, or maybe the Old West.  I have some story ideas and characters that I think that would be interesting to play around with, to see what comes out. 

The five things every aspiring SF/F writer must know:

1) There is no limit to the human imagination.
2)  If you can conceive it, you can do it.
3)  Flawed characters are interesting characters.
4)  Don't bother trying to explain your plot or story ideas to others.  Most people either looked abysmally bored, or end up asking dumb questions (totally missing the important parts and dwelling on inanities) or give you discouraging and inapplicable advice.  Just write what you want to write and figure out what works as you go along.
5)  Write the story you want to read.

What's the best advice anyone has ever given you about the publishing industry?

1. If it's important, get it in the contract.
2. Don't expect to give up your cash job just because you got a book published.
3. Try to be objective and listen to your editor.  No matter how good your story is it can no doubt be written better.  Try and see what you can learn.
4. Know that certain presses does not honor a contract and pay owed royalties.  If you sign with them you will rue the day.