Arkady Martine interview about her debut award winning sci fi novel “A Memory Called Empire” (Tor Books, 2019)

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...