The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(121)

You imagine the future in this book. What was the writing process like for that? Is it much different than writing a timeline set in the past?

The writing process is definitely different. With historical fiction, my research involves newspaper databases, museum visits, looking at old maps and ephemera, and plowing through a ton of nonfiction related to each time period.

When writing about the future, you have your imagination and a blank page. It’s freeing, but also daunting. Instead of researching a world, you’re building one.

Fortunately, I’ve published short stories that have been speculative and dystopian, so I’ve always had an interest in writing about the near future. This is just the first time I’ve done it in a novel.

Did you always know that you would end this book with redemption for your characters?

I always know the ending of my books before I begin, so I definitely knew where I was taking my readers. (Thanks for making the journey.) I tend to think of writing fiction as banking and spending emotional currency. Sometimes there’s a withdrawal at the end, sometimes there’s a payoff.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on another novel that’s historical but also speculative. I’m going to refrain from saying what it’s about, but for research purposes I just visited the University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies—a research unit within the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences. It’s a group of parapsychologists who study near-death experiences, altered states of consciousness, and children who report memories of previous lives.

Some of that is in the next book (and my lucid dreams as I write this thing).