Genre Chick Interview: Edmund Schubert

One of the original items on my to-do list that launched May 2011’s Month of Writers here on the site was a series of interviews I planned with the contributors of How To Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion.

Are you familiar with the Magical Words site? If you’re a writer, you should be! The contributing bloggers there are some very experienced folks who have exceptional insights about all things wise and wonderful in the world of publishing.

So this week in the Month of Writers is special — It’s Magical Words Week! Every day I’ll be hosting an interview from a contributor from the Magical Words website. Today, my guest star is the exuberant Edmund Schubert! (You might remember him from the most infamous Genre Chick interview ever, back in 2008…)

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Mac or PC?
PC (though more and more people I know are going Mac).

Coffee or Tea?
Tea, unless there’s a bottle of Kahlua handy.

Travel the World or Travel Outer Space?
Outer space, no question. I haven’t talked to Elvis in years.

Fantasy or Science Fiction?
Yes.

Music or Silence (while you write)?
Absolute silence. I am constantly amazed that anyone can write down one set of words while another set of words is flowing over them in the form of music. I would build and write in a sensory deprivation chamber if I could.

What weird food do you like?
I’ll eat almost anything that doesn’t eat me first. However, at a Chinese buffet the other day I did decline to eat the baby octopi.

What is one of your most irrational fears?
Bab octopi. I also have a deathly fear of the best-seller list. Fortunately I’ve  been able to avoid it thus far.

Did you watch the Royal Wedding? Why or why not?
I got up at 4am when Chuck and Di tied the knot back in ’81, and one royal wedding in this lifetime was enough for me. Funny thing, it looks exactly the same on video at 9am as it does live at 4.

How many novels/short stories/screenplays/poems/etc have you published?
Well, my “stories published” count goes WAY up if you count the stories I’ve published as an editor. Minus those, it’s something like one novel and 35 short stories.

How much do you write every day?
As much as people will pay me for.

How much do you WISH you could write every day?
A LOT more.

What are you working on now?
A YA fantasy novel for my kids. I’m not going to say any more than that because I’ve learned the hard way that the more I talk about something I’m writing, the less actual writing I do.

If you could write like one author, who would it be?
J.K. Rowling for the paycheck, Ray Bradbury for the prose, and Richard Matheson for the fun of it.

If you could be one superhero, or have one superpower, who/what would it be?
Is there a superhero who can slow down or reverse time? If there is, I want to be him or her.

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done?
Went hang-gliding on the sand dunes at Kitty Hawk, NC, right near where the Wright Brothers first flew. Crashed into a dune hard enough to damage the glider, too. It was awesome.

What’s the coolest thing you’re about to do?
Answer your question about three things to do before I die.

Name three things on your List of Things to Do Before You Die.
Gasp, wheeze, then make a short but moving farewell speech.

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Edmund R. Schubert began his career as a writer in 2001. Since that time he has published approximately 35 short stories in a variety of genres, in magazines and anthologies in the U.S. and Britain. In 2006 he took over as fiction editor of the online science fiction and fantasy magazine, Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show. In early 2011, a collection of his short stories titled, The Trouble With Eating Clouds, was published by Spotlight Publishing. He is currently writing a YA novel, and two new anthologies are also in progress.