From rec.arts.sf.written Fri Jul 14 11:22:13 1995 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!news.funet.fi!news.eunet.fi!EU.net!sun4nl!xs4all!flatearth!kruisweg From: kruisweg@flatearth.xs4all.nl (Ruud van de Kruisweg) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Interview with Nicola Griffith Message-ID: <071195023808Rnf0.79b6@flatearth.xs4all.nl> Date: Tue, 11 Jul 1995 02:38:00 +0100 Organization: A Flat Earth Makes Work Easy! X-Newsreader: Rnf 0.79b6 Lines: 603 With the recent hardcover publication of her second novel 'Slow River', I thought this was an opportune moment to post an interview I did with Nicola Griffith. This interview was first published in the Dutch SF magazine "Holland SF". If you'd like to find out more about "Holland SF", send an email to Holland_SF@flatearth.xs4all.nl. You also might want to check out the Nicola Griffith home page: http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ One question though: I've done a couple of interviews with David Brin, Terry Pratchett and Tad Williams in the past. I've posted these on rec.arts.sf.written in the past year, but like all newsgroup postings it is deleted in a matter of days and lost for posterity (until the next repost.) I would like to find a place where these interviews can be archived permanently for those interested. I've already got two Tad Williams homepages where the Williams interview can be found, are there any more of a more general nature, FTP sites with large Science Fiction and Fantasy archives? Ruud van de Kruisweg -+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+. INTERVIEW WITH NICOLA GRIFFITH original publication: HOLLAND SF, October 1994 by Ruud van de Kruisweg (kruisweg@flatearth.xs4all.nl) Nicola Griffith is a British born SF writer now living in the US. Her debut novel AMMONITE created quite a stir when it was first published as a Del Rey Discovery in 1993. It won the Lambda Award and James Tiptree Jr. Award, was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Science Fiction Award and barely missed winning the Locus Award for the best new SF writer. Definately a writer to watch and enough grounds for an email interview. HSF: First, can you tell us something about yourself? NG: I was born in 1960, in Leeds, England, the second youngest of five girls. Went to an all-girl catholic convent school and realized at a tender age (well below the age of consent) that I was a dyke. Single sex education worked out very well for me. I went to Clarion in 1988 (the first UK citizen to attend, I think) where I met Kelley Eskridge - also an SF writer. We have lived together in Atlanta, Georgia, for five years. Some time in the next year or two we plan to move to the Pacific Northewest (Portland, Seattle, Bellingham) because the cooler climate will be much better for my health. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in March 1993. Being ill pisses me off because it means I can't (a) work as hard or as often as I would like, and (b) I can no longer teach women's self defence and martial arts, which is something I have enjoyed doing for the last ten years. In the last ten or fifteen years I have, at various points, also been a singer/songwriter, fronting the all-dyke band, Janes Plane; an alcohol and drugs counsellor and case worker (awful job, hard, depressing, badly paid); a hotline counsellor; a bouncer at a club; a tree technician and fence builder; a waitress; labourer at an archaeological dig; and I've occasionally earned money not-quite-legally...of which I'm not terribly proud of but which seemed necessary at the time. I've taught writing courses in the UK, and hope--now that I have my immigrant visa--to get a Writer-in-Residence post at a university here in the US. Two of the biggest things in my life have occurred in the last year: Kelley and I got married, and I got approval from the US State Department to live and work in this country on the basis of my importance as a writer of lesbian/science fiction. (Apparently I made legal history, the first out dyke to get something called a "national interest waiver" and admittance on the basis of being an "alien of exceptional ability.") The marriage has changed my life profoundly, in ways that would take too long to describe here. Let's just say I'm very happy, and quite lucky. HSF: What were the books and authors that shaped your writing career? NG: The books that influenced how I read, and what I _want_ from books when I read, were by those to whom I tend to refer as the English Landscape Writers: Mary Stewart, Mary Renault, Henry Treece, Rosemary Sutcliffe et al. They were primarily historical novelists, but their work contained a definite element of historical myth-as-reality. It gave me a frisson, a fizz in my bones, that mainstream fiction did (and can) not. From those books I went on to read history books -- Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', for example -- and books on gods and goddesses, the celts and amazons and myths. I hated children's books. And then I discovered SF and fantasy: Frank Herbert's 'Dune' (oh, I loved that book at age thirteen!); Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' (ditto, at age 11-- still do, actually); Asimov's 'Foundation', and E.E. 'Doc' Smith's 'Lensman' series. They were the books which helped form my idea of SF: biology, sociology, and world saving/dooming conspiracies and gadgets. Of course, once I hit fifteen, I began to dislike SF: there were no women in it. I gave it up, and just read lesbian fiction for a while. Then at about age nineteen, I discovered Ursula Le Guin. And Joanna Russ. And Vonda McIntyre, and Octavia Butler, and Kate Wilhelm, and Suzy McKee Charnas, and Elizabeth Lynn. It felt like coming home. "Yes," I thought, "this is what it's all about." Biology, sociology, gadgets _and_ women. Fabulous. From there, I gradually eased back into the flow of SF, and now I enjoy the work of all the above, plus John Kessel, Robert Silverberg, Michael Swanwick, Nancy Kress, Judith Moffett and, literally, dozens of others. And then I began to realize that lots of feminist mainstream writers -- Margaret Atwood, Marge Piercy, Doris Lessing -- were actually writing science fiction. What was going on? The way I see it, reality is currently too big and too varied for any piece of "realistic fiction" to characterize it. So people are turning again to big themes, mythic sweeps...extra-reality, if you like...which leads to SF. HSF: Nice to see that you count Elizabeth Lynn as one of your inspirations. She wrote a couple of very good novels with likeable gay/lesbian characters in the early eighties. I read that she gave up writing for her job as an akido instructor. I wonder if she was the first openly lesbian SF writer? ] NG: I don't know. How does one define 'openly lesbian' in terms of the author? There are several writers out there who are dykes, and often include lesbians and gay men in the their work, and at conventions and so forth they hang out with their partners...but their bios on the backs of books don't mention their partners, and their dedications are coy. Are they out? I don't know. Should they be? Again, I don't know. But I found out Lynn was a dyke through eating breakfast with a woman who went to school with one of Lynn's ex-girlfriends. Nothing on her books indicated unequivocally that she was a dyke. Gael Baudino was the first SF writer I read whose bio said 'Ms. Baudino lives with her lover, so-and-so (I forget her name now) in such and such a city.' It's something I've always been absolutely adamant about to my publishers: "I want it out there, up front, in big letters: Nicola is a dyke and she lives with her partner in Atlanta." Some people want to know: "But why do you want to tell everyone you're a dyke? Why does it matter?" They think it's rather vulgar of me to talk about my private life. For me it's quite simple: if the reader doesn't know I'm a dyke, s/he'll assume I'm straight; _not_ saying I'm a dyke, therefore, would be lying by omission. Besides, I'm still at that proud, stand-on-top-of-the-empire-state-building and-yell-it-to-the-world stage of marriage to Kelley. She's a gorgeous, brilliant woman, and I'm thrilled that she loves me. It makes me feel smug and pleased with myself. (I suspect it always will.) HSF: Was the choice to write SF an obvious one? I sometimes hear that fans and/or writers are drawn to SF/fantasy because it gives them room to be themselves and being 'different' is not frowned upon. How true was this for you? NG: What I write has nothing to do with how other people think, or feel, or act. Those who don't like the fact that I'm a dyke had just better keep that fact to themselves, or be prepared to face my displeasure. So far, no one in SF has ever given me any indication that they believe being a dyke is anything remarkable. This is partly because that's the response I demand, and partly because those involved in SF have a great deal invested in appearing to be cool, radical, and into Changing Times. Being reactionary and homophobic would really destroy that illusion. Besides, in the last few years, I have come to the conclusion that I don't care what other people _feel_ about me being a dyke, I don't care what they _think_, I only care about how they _behave_. I write SF because that's what gives me a buzz; that's the way my mind works. Mainstream work often seems to have something missing. When I read I want not only the writer's analysis of how their world has affected them (whether that's the present or the future, here or somewhere else, gay or straight), but also of how they can then affect the world. I like a writer who can expose systems: political, biological, social and cultural. Sometimes mainstream is just a little too self-involved and personal, a little too myopic. HSF: 'Ammonite' has won two SF prizes: the Lambda award for best lesbian SF novel in 1993 and this year the James Tiptree Award. What's your feeling about an SF award especially for homosexual SF/fantasy novels? Is there a need for such a prize? Shouldn't books be judged on quality and not on the sexual preferences of the protagonists? NG: Let me answer that with another questions: do you think there's a need for a literary award (for example, the Hugo, or Nebula, or Campbell) especially for SF novels? There are already plenty of literary awards such as the Booker Prize, the Nobel, the Pulitzer. Shouldn't all books be judged on quality, and not the reality and/or possibility of their setting? I believe that prizes based on sexual orientation are at least as valid as those based upon genre. I have to say I _love_ winning prizes. It's a great encouragement (writing can be a lonely business) for me, and--I imagine--a useful tool for the reader in search of good material. HSF: Was it difficult to get the book accepted? I would think that Ballantine/Del Rey wasn't the first choice for a novel like 'Ammonite'. NG: 'Ammonite' was not difficult to get accepted. As a matter of fact, I had offers from several American publishers (for example, St. Martin's, and Avon) before I accepted the one from Ballantine/Del Rey. I had three reasons. One, Del Rey were willing to let me keep the book whole and uncut (it's a longish book for writer that no one in the States had ever heard of before). Two, they offered about twice as much money as the other publishers. Three, the distribution network of Random House (Ballantine's parent company) is the best in the country: if I went with Ballantine, my book would appear in every airport, every chain, every supermarket and every speciality bookshop in the US and Canada. And it did. The issue of lesbianism and feminism never came up. However, sales-wise, I do think the book had to struggle against the perception that it would be some kind of awful Womyn's Utopia peopled by seven feet tall, wise, kind, vegetarian amazons who burned men in effigy at the full moon. And there were probably many who wished it was one of those gals- as-one-of-the-boys books, where the woman drinks anything that pours, pilots anything that flies and fucks everything that moves. Instead, it's a book about people, every variety of people--smart and stupid, kind and venal, indifferent and vicious, etc.--who all happen to be women. This seems to upset some readers, who persist in seeing a book about women as a man- hating or man-fearing novel, when--if the book is defined in terms of men at all, which I find irritating--it is more accurately a man-less novel. HSF: How do you feel about the constant comparisons between 'Ammonite' and 'The Left Hand of Darkness'? NG: Mixed: pleased, that my work is considered to be in the same class as Le Guin's; irritated, because I want my work to be sui generis. 'Darkness' is a marvellous piece of work. I borrowed from it quite consciously the idea of Marghe as a lone ambassador. (There again, that's an idea that has been a great deal--for example, Gentle's 'Golden Witchbreed.') The snow and ice stuff seems to be a motif quite common to feminist work: Shelley's 'Frankenstein,' Russ, Lessing, Slonczewski, Bryant, Charnas, Piercy etc all use the trial-by-ice, Demeter myth in some form or another. [See 'A New Species: Gender and Science in Science Fiction' by Robin Roberts for more on this.] But I don't mind the comparisons, in the end, because there is a link between the two books: both were seen as breaking ground when they were published. Both were seen to be both less and more radical than they actually are. The radical subtext of 'Darkness' is simple: people are people, despite biological sex. The radical subtext of 'Ammonite' is equally simple: women are people, despite biological sex and socially constructed gender roles. Both of those statements are manifestly true. Both are occasionally forgotten. Both need repeating, over and over. HSF: David Brin complained in an interview with HSF that he felt that was excluded for the James Tiptree Award because of political reasons: "As I say in my afterword, it is a topic in which men are often denied to have the same wisdom or insight as female authors. Fortunately, only a few silly people have said that about Glory Season... (although those few did make certain the book was not considered for the James Tiptree Award (for gender bending SF)." NG: I was delighted when the book won the Tiptree Award. The award _is_ political, in the sense that _all_ decisions based upon subjective criteria are political (remember the truism, 'The personal is political?'), and that the declared and specific aim of the award is for it to go the novel or short work which best examines and _expands_ gender roles in science fiction. I'm a little unsure about what you intended with the quotes from David Brin. While haven't read his 'Glory Season', I am quite certain that what mattered was not whether or not the author was male or female, but whether the work itself did anything to stretch the current thinking on gender roles, attitudes and expectations. If the book had been good enough, it would have been considered. HSF: He also shares your view about matriarchal societies. NG: I think the current thinking that patriarchal societies are inherently violent, and matriarchies nurturing, is erroneous and based entirely on wishful thinking. There is evidence that early matriarchies were astonishly brutal and bloody. (Where do you suppose the later patriarchal cultures got the example?) Brin is right, though, when he says not all matriarchies need be pastoral. Most women love technology: it saves our lives on a daily basis; it makes for speedy travel; it produces tampax, knives that stay eternally sharp, and agricultural machinery that takes the sweat out of growing potatoes and milking cows. It makes typing easier, hot movies possible, and twelve gauge shotguns affordable to all. Who doesn't like technology, really? There's nothing wrong with science and machines, but the Industrial Revolution changed us and our culture. It's time our values changed to match. 'Ammonite' was set on a non-technological world. Realistically, when you put several hundred people on a raw planet with practically zero metals and then kill half of them off, four hundred years later the people are lucky to be alive, never mind living in Futuropolis. The women in my novel are very sophisticated in terms of art, and agriculture and so on; they are ingenious with what implements it's possible to produce with wood and ceramic. They are smart (well, some are; in every culture you get a few greedy and/or stupid people) and savvy (again, mostly), just not over-endowed with hydro-electric generators or computer chips. HSF: It's a pity that you haven't read Brin's 'Glory Season'. One of the things that surprised me about that novel was that Brin completely ignored sexuality between women, even though the world in that book was almost completely populated by women. The one thing that surprised me about your book was that men didn't play a part. Marghe for instance doesn't seem to have a sexual history, either lesbian or heterosexual, before she arrives on Jeep. This prevents a couple of interesting conflicts from happening. If she'd have considered herself heterosexual, she'd be in an emotional turmoil after falling in love with another woman; on the other hand, if she'd had lesbian love affairs, she might have considered her coming to Jeep a sort of home coming. NG: I'm not really surprised that Brin ignores sexuality between women in 'Glory Season.' The first time I noticed a women-only world written by a man was Lyrane, in E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series: women who were strong, beautiful, intelligent and so on...but they didn't understand the concepts of love, sex, art; their social structure was static, hierarchical and insectlike; they had no great inventors or innovators. In other words, they were not fully human. This seems to be the assumption of many, many male writers: women, on their own, are not people; they only assume human attributes in the presence of men. This implication is sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, but is disturbingly frequent. Brin's lack of acknowledgment of women as sexual beings in and of themselves is just one more manifestation of the assumption that women aren't really human. So I'm not surprised any more, but almost always disappointed. One of the reasons I didn't mention Marghe's sexual history before landing on Jeep was that it was not necessary to the story (how much do we know about Genly Ai before he goes to Winter? how much about Christie before she turns up as envoy in 'Witchbreed'?). I just assumed she was a dyke, and went on from there. There was one review of the book where the reviewer decided that Marghe actually came out on the planet: he read the whole book in terms of her angst at 'coming to terms' with being a lesbian. Marghe is a SEC representative and anthropologist; it's how she sees herself, what she thinks about. The fact that she's a dyke matters--to her--about as much as her eye colour, or her favourite breakfast food. The point of the book is that gender, and biological sex, and sexual orientation don't _matter_, not really. What matters is how generous you are, or how willing to learn; how adaptable you can be, or how steadfast. HSF: You've completed your second novel. When will it be published? How does it compare to 'Ammonite' and what can you tell us about it? NG: My next novel is an entirely different kettle of fish. 'Slow River' is set in a near-future urbanscape. It begins with a woman who is kidnapped, then dumped, nameless and naked and hurt, in the middle of strange city, in a strange country, in the dead of night. It is a novel about the essential nature of self. If you had no name, no job, no money, no clothes, no friends or family or support system, and couldn't go to the police because you believed you had just killed one of your kidnappers, what would you do and how far would you step outside your moral code to stay alive? And what would happen on the morning when you woke up and could not longer face the person you had become? The book is set in the future, and deals peripherally with information technology, but 'Slow River' is _not_ a cyberpunk novel in the nihilistic mode. It is realistic, yes, in its depiction of urban lowlife, but full of the beauty and hope (and absurdity) of everyday life: sunshine and the way it changes the texture of stone-clad buildings; the taste of a hot, fragrant cup of tea; the eyes of a squirrel balanced on a power line.... The protagonist is a woman called Frances Lorien van de Oest, Lore for short, the youngest of three siblings born to Katerine and Oster van de Oest, the owners and officers of the very rich, and very powerful -- but still family owned and controlled -- van de Oest corporation. The VDO Corp made its money from patenting genetically engineered bacteria and fungi and the nutrients they need to live on, which are used in various bioremediation processes. Primitive bioremediation is already with us (remember the oil-gobbling microbes that helped clear up after the Exxon-Valdez spill in Prince William Sound?), but in my near future I have imagined solar aquatics--the transformation of sewage into clean drinking water, edible fish and recycled heavy metals without the addition of harsh chemicals; and the return of the Kirghizi desert from its dioxin-riddled failed-cotton monoculture wasteland to its steppe state using six hundred-foot high heliostats, artificial waterfalls, and glass pipelines hundreds of miles long. In _Slow River_ there are descriptions of and opinions on: personality, a kidnapping, hot but science- fictional sex, nanotechnology, lesbian prostitution, growing up, dangerous and potent aphrodisiacs, illegal media piggyback scams, pornography, fashion, the responsibilities of the rich to the poor, fame, vice, survival and, oh, dozens of other things. Stylistically, it's quite different from 'Ammonite.' There are no lyrical descriptions, no world-threatening Bad Guys. Instead of the two alternating viewpoints of Marghe and Danner, 'Slow River' has three viewpoints, in different tenses...but all the viewpoints are Lore's, from different stages in her life. The tricky part was to make the book read smoothly, so the reader doesn't realize how technically difficult everything is. The reader just gets a good story, with some cool and exotic happenings, and thought-provoking questions. At least that's the plan. It will be appearing as a Ballantine/Del Rey hardcover here in the US in August 1995 (which means it will hitting the shelves in mid-July). Ballantine are also re-releasing 'Ammonite' with a new, more appropriate cover. In the UK, 'Slow River' will be a December paperback from HarperCollins. No translation rights sold as yet. As for other work, I have a novella, 'Yaguara,' coming out in the UK in Ellen Datlow's 'Little Deaths' erotic horror anthology (Orion, Sept. 1994). Kelley also has a story in that one. It will also be appearing in ASIMOV'S magazine early next year. I'm writing a couple of short stories to complete a collection, tentatively called 'Women and Other Aliens.' I have two novels percolating at the moment: one is a non-sf thriller/suspense thing, the other is, well, hard to describe: clairvoyant singing parrots in the subways of New York; black gay male protagonist escaping from a religious cult in the Caribbean.... Fantasy, perhaps. And there's a Magnum Opus I want to start at some point: a maybe-fantasy, definitely historical thing about a ruthless, driven abbess in eight-century Britain. And...but the writing is endless. HSF: I was curious where the name of the protagonist of your forthcoming book, Frances Lorien van de Oest, came from. NG: The protagonist of 'Slow River' is called Frances Lorien van de Oest because ----- (insert serious-sounding explanation of your choice). I'm very bad at names. I often have the idea of the personality of the protagonist a long time before their name, so I assign as a place-holder anything that pops into my head with the intention of sorting it all out later. The only problem is, by the time 'later' comes around, the name has stuck; the character has grown into it and refuses to give it up. Look at 'Ammonite.' Can you imagine anyone really calling their daughter Hannah Danner? Not unless they were very cruel. I just couldn't change it once the book was done. HSF: SF has been a genre dominated by male writers for a verly long time. With the seventies came new writers like James Tiptree Jr., Joanna Russ and many others who made a great impact, but percentage wise the men were still the dominant force. The nineties seem to be a turning point. Browsing through the best new writer list in the Locus polls, I find that almost all of them are women. Coincidence or not? NG: It's been my experience that although SF dreams about being the social and literary cutting edge is, in fact, neither (which isn't to say it shouldn't keep trying). The fact that women now form a substantial percentage of publisher writers is simply a follow-on from (a) the political changes of the last thirty years, and (b) the situation as it has already existed in 'mainstream' literature for the last fifteen or twenty. Just as the New Wave of the sixties purported to be radical and experimental, it was only deemed so in the SF milieu--mainstream writers had already been playing those fiction games for fifty years. Just as lesbian and gay fiction started to become financially and socially acceptable to trade presses fifteen years ago (with a huge surge in the last five), it is now beginning to appear in the mainstream of SF...to the extent that half the new twenty-something straight male writers are penning stories with dyke protagonists. (For some reason, this is particularly true in the UK.) Science fiction may follow hard on the heels of trends but it does not often _create_ them. An example: 'cutting edge' SF of the last two years has been first person present tense narrative, something the mainstream has been doing for years and years. I imagine that someone, somewhere is writing an SF novel that uses second person present tense--just like Jay McInnery did in the eighties--and believing _that_ is brand new. Which does not mean it's not worth doing. I'm just puzzled that many who write and read SF want it to be the literary techniques which are the bright, gleaming forefront. In my opinion, what makes SF so interesting, so constantly new and worthwhile and exciting, is the form itself. Science fiction is what everyone is trying to learn to write. The South American magic realists; the feminist fabulists; the technothriller writers...it's all, really, SF. (I don't care about the differences between fantasy, science fiction etc. etc. I think nitpicking over definitions is, ultimately, a waste of time.) Those who are already writing it might enjoy themselves more if they just relaxed and thought, "Hey, I can do this stuff," and worry about what they were writing, instead of how. Literary technique is-- or should be, in my opinion--all about how well the writer communicates her vision to the reader: how efficiently or beautifully or movingly. That is what technique is _for_, creating effect; it should not necessarily (but, I admit, it can sometimes) be the effect itself. HSF: I see a growing number of SF authors on the Net. What was your reason for joining the on-line commnunity? How useful is the Net for a writer? NG: I've been on-line about a month. Give or take. My original stated motive was to do research easily from my own home. My _real_ motivation, however, was much more basic: I felt left out. (What did 'upload' mean? What did it feel like to be 'on the net?' What esoteric goodies was I missing out on?) There was also the omnipresent (for me) fear of being left behind in the tidal wave of technology (something I talk about in 'Slow River'), and the urge to try something new. It has its good and bad points. Research-wise, I'm finding it totally useless: electronic media are very, very low in information density-libraries are faster, at least for a beginner like me. Entertainment- wise, it's a mix of pretty good and utterly exasperating. Business-wise, which is more often than not also entertaining, (things like this interview, announcements of readings etc) it's great. HSF: The schism between British and American SF that arose after the new wave seems to be a thing of the past. There was this feeling that the Brits would write difficult somber books while the Americans would write fluffy space opera. Now the Brits are gradually recapturing the American market: Iain Banks, Terry Pratchett, Colin Greenland, Mary Gentle, Brian Stableford, Michael Scott Rohan, Kim Newman, David Gemmel and others. Including you of course. My feeling is that British SF has become more accessible: more SF staples, more story telling without losing a European perspective. Do you feel that this assesment of the difference between post-New World British SF and the current crop of British authors is correct? NG: I think the schism between US and UK SF goes back further than the New Wave. In fact, I don't think there ever was a schism; I think they grew from separate places altogether. British SF stems from the literary tradition of H.G. Wells, and Aldous Huxley, and Orwell; American SF springs from Hugo Gernsback. You can see the difference in traditions just by looking at the different way books are marketed over here and over there. UK books have subtle covers, rich colours, occasionally abstract art; designed for adults. US covers are primary colours, spaceships and lasguns, occasionally an anatomically impossible amazon with a bronze bra; designed for adolescents. US SF has traditionally been about What Happens, and Who Saves the World. UK SF has been more concerned with How it Felt. The New Wave furor was the sound of the two traditions colliding and exchanging genetic material. Now we have hybrid vigour... HSF: BTW, congratulations on your permanent green card. This would be a bit more difficult a mere ten years ago. I can remember the case where two Dutch journalist for a national TV station wanted to find out if the law that gays and lesbians weren't allowed to enter the US was still being applied. So they told the customs office about their sexual preferences and were immediately put on the first return flight to the Netherlands. Things seem to have changed. NG: Thanks for the Green Card congratulations. Yes, things here have changed. Not enough, of course (if Kelley and I had been a straight couple, I would have been admitted on a permanent basis five years ago and saved us tens of thousands of dollars and many, many nights of worry and anguish), but it's a start. I have been very, very fortunate that (a) I had a skill/talent that is acknowledged to be important by the US government (dressmakers just don't get the same kind of leeway as writers); that I'm from the UK (practically America, after all); and (c) that I'm white (they'll deny racism until they're blue in the face, but it still very much alive and well). Actually, Kelley and I had decided years ago that if I couldn't get in the US, we would live in Amsterdam. So we could have been neighbours. (Why Amsterdam? Because the political/social climate is--or appears to be from this end--welcoming towards lesbians and gay men. Because as an EEC citizen I could live there without a job, and Kelley could legally work there as long as she registered with the local police. Because the Dutch word for beer is 'bier,' and it's important to be able to communicate one's needs....) HSF: I read in Locus that the SF community also helped a bit. In what ways? NG: The SF community, the lesbian and gay community, and the mainstream writing community all helped me with my immigration application by writing testimonial letters on my behalf. I promised each letter writer that her or his testimonial would remain confidential (so they could use all the hyperbole they wanted, without fear of being quoted later), or I would _love_ to print some of the very flattering things said about me by people like Allen Ginsberg, Ursula Le Guin, and various university professors. Most of them are very exaggerated, but even though I know they're not strictly true, whenever I get miserable, all I have to do is pull the folder of letters out and read about how fabulous I am. Lovely. (This interview was first published in the Dutch SF magazine "Holland SF". If you'd like to find out more about "Holland SF", send an email to Holland_SF@flatearth.xs4all.nl.) -+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+.-+-+. (c) 1994 by Ruud van de Kruisweg (kruisweg@flatearth.xs4all.nl). This document can be freely distributed on electronic media if none of the text is changed. Please contact me first about any form of printed distribution.