Arkady Martine interview about her debut award winning sci fi novel “A Memory Called Empire”
Check the book out here https://amzn.to/3jBmW5H
Interview Summary
Arkady Martine has been writing short stories for a decade. Last year she released her first novel, A Memory Called Empire, and it won the 2020 Hugo Award for best novel. Arkady has also been a Byzantine historian for years and some of the novel is based on Byzantine type politics. I spoke with Arkady about the book, history, writing, and climate and energy topics.
0:54 – Arkady talks about why she wrote A Memory Called Empire. She used to be a professor of Byzantine history.
2:07 – Arkady talks about the book’s protagonist, setting, and conflict.
3:38 – Arkady explains why she made the protagonist a diplomat.
4:23 – Arkady talks about why she wrote a sci-fi novel rather than a historical novel or a fantasy novel.
6:09 – Arkady talks about how she uses space travel in the book.
7:52 – Arkady talks about the hard versus soft sci-fi designations.
9:13 – Arkady talks about the research she did on the ideas in the book. She researched how people would live in a generational colony. She also researched poisons and neurosciences.
12:10 – We discuss Byzantine history research and border towns.
13:24 – Arkady talks about loving Star Wars and Dune. She mentions many other science fiction novels she enjoys.
15:55 – Arkady talks about “the far reaches of the English language.”
16:49 – Arkady talks about the non-fiction she enjoys and working as a climate and energy analyst.
20:28 – Arkady talks about what the feel of the book.
21:32 – Arkady talks about the poetic traditions she drew on for the book.
22:59 – Arkady talks about the languages she knows and the history of the poetry in her book.
23:54 – Arkady talks about different kinds of poetry and what she uses in the book.
25:26 – Arkady talks about the “effectiveness” of poetry.
26:54 – Arkady talks about not outlining your work. She doesn’t like the plotters versus pantsers idea.
28:10 – Arkady talks about developing the second novel in the series.
29:45 – Arkady talks about having to expand her draft.
31:47 – Arkady talks about how her approach to writing has changed over time.
33:32 – Arkady talks about past work experiences.
36:03 – Arkady talks about writing climate fiction and also her sci-fi mystery.
37:45 – Arkady talks about getting into sci-fi and fantasy and then into religious and medieval history.
41:19 – Arkady talks about how she was able to get and agent and get her book published.
44:45 – Arkady can be found at Arkadymartine.net.
Links of interest
https://amzn.to/3jBmW5H
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250186447
https://www.arkadymartine.net/
Contact Information
For more “Full Contact Nerd” please follow me at crisalvarez.com, on Facebook at CrisAlvarezFCN, on youtube at Cris Alvarez on twitter @CrisAlvarezFCN, on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi, and on Apple Podcasts / Google...