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An Interview With Melanie Tem Melanie Tem's novels are Prodigal (recipient of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement, First Novel), Blood Moon, Wilding, Revenant, Desmodus, The Tides, Black River, and in collaboration with Nancy Holder, Making Love and Witch-Light. The chapbook The Man on the Ceiling, written with Steve Rasnic Tem, is a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award. New novels Slain in the Spirit and Round the Earth, Roaming About will be published by Leisure Books in 2002. Several dozen of her short stories have appeared in anthologies and magazines, and she has published numerous non- fiction articles. Tem also was awarded the 1991 British Fantasy Award, the Icarus for Best Newcomer. Also a social worker, she lives in Denver with her husband, writer and editor Steve Rasnic Tem. They have four children and three grandchildren. Melanie Tem is the author of Wormhole chapbook Pioneer .
Wormhole Books: You have eight novels published: Prodigal, Blood Moon, Wilding, Revenant, Desmodus, Making Love and Witch Light, but short stories are harder to keep track of. Can you tell us how many are out there and where some of them can be found?
Melanie Tem: Actually, there's a ninth novel, The Tides. And I'd like to point out that Making Love and Witch-Light were collaborations with Nancy Holder. Leisure Books has recently bought two more novels, Slain In The Spirit, to be published in early 2002, and Round The Earth, Roaming About, to be published later that same year. I've published maybe thirty-five or forty short stories, in magazines such as Cemetery Dance, Fangoria, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and in anthologies such as Women Of The West, Dark Terrors, Hot Blood, Skin Of The Soul, High Fantastic. I'll have stories in the forthcoming anthologies Museum Of Horrors and The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories By Women.
WB: Most of the stories or novels that I've read by you have been either suspense or horror. Your new chapbook, Pioneer, from Wormhole Books is definitely science fiction though it has scary moments. Have you written much science fiction before and do you intend to write more?
MT: My book Desmodus has science fictional elements, I think. But I don't tend to think in terms of genre very much. I'd like to grow up to be Toni Morrison or Joyce Carol Oates--they can write whatever they please, in whatever genre seems to suit the story, and people just think of it as a Morrison novel or an Oates novel. So, yes, I may very well write more science fiction, if that's what's called for by the story I want to tell. "Pioneer" couldn't have been told any other way.
WB: You've collaborated a number of times, including on the recent and highly acclaimed chapbook, The Man on the Ceiling , that you wrote with your husband, Steve Rasnic Tem, so I'm assuming you like collaborations. Is this true? And if so, why? It seems like it would be more difficult to do.
MT: I do enjoy collaborating, although there are certain hazards. Steve and I do very well at collaborating, and the result is quite exciting--a third voice, not either of ours individually. I don't find collaborating more difficult per se than writing alone; it requires a different set of skills, and a different attitude toward the work, but it's invigorating.
WB: The high quality and depth of your fiction leads me to believe that you must be well read. What were some of your early influences as a writer? Any particular authors you enjoyed reading?
MT: Thank you. My earliest writerly interest was my father. He'd wanted to be a writer but, he told me, "never had the talent or the discipline." I believe he quite consciously gave the writing to me. Every Saturday morning of my childhood we'd sit together in his big chair and read together. I didn't always like this; sometimes I was restless and bored. But some of my earliest and fondest memories are of him reading Keats to me, and listening while I read Eugene Field and Emily Dickinson to him. Poetry seems to have been an especially formative influence; certainly it was one of his great loves and is one of mine. I still can recite "The Highwayman" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" and Amy Lowell's "Patterns." Not to mention most of the Gettysburg Address!
WB: Do you read much now? And who are some of your favorite authors?
MT: Yes, I read regularly, though not as much as at some other periods of my life. I've recently discovered Mary Doria Russell; The Sparrow is a wonderful, wonderful book, and its sequel Children of God which I've just started, looks to be just as good. I love Barbara Kingsolver's work, especially The Poisonwood Bible, and the aforementioned Toni Morrison is high on the list.
WB: Was it tough getting started in the beginning? Did you have much support for your writing from family and friends? How long did it take you to break into print?
MT: As I mentioned before, my father--and my mother, too--were always very supportive of my writing. I published a couple of poems in high school and several stories in the college lit mag but nothing commercial for a number of years. Richard Curtis was my agent who sold my first novel Prodigal after many many rejections and several years of effort. (And I have the usual several novels in boxes that will never see the light of day--practice works, though I didn't regard them that way while I was writing them.)
WB: Knowing that you have a family and a day job, how much time do you get for your writing? Do you have a regular schedule you follow?
MT: For years, ever since the kids were little, I've been getting up at 4:00 or 4:39 in the morning to write and to have some quiet time. Sometimes this gives me a couple of hours. Occasionally I can find another hour or two later in the day for writing-related work like copy-editing or research.
WB: Besides Pioneer, what projects do you have coming out this year, and what are you working on now?
MT: In the answer to an earlier question, I mentioned stories that are coming out this year. I've sold a poem cycle to Rough Beasts; not sure of the pub date for that. A fantasy novel called Daughters, which Steve and I wrote together, will be published by iPublish, the e-publishing branch of Time Warner, in late summer. Lately I've become interested in writing plays. I have finished two mainstream one-acts that I rather like, and am shopping them around; as far as I can tell, getting plays produced is even harder than getting books published! I'm working on a full-length play. Steve and I are working on a couple of collaborations, among them a multi-media project involving video, audio, and other formats. I'm also developing ideas for the next solo novel, and there are some that will need to be stories...
WB: What is it about a particular subject that makes you decide this is the story you want to write next, or in other words what sparks your imagination?
MT: Very often, I observe a scene or overhear part of a conversation or dream an image or am told something of someone's life, and I think, "There's a story in that!" Deciding what to write next has to do with which of the numerous possibilities seems ready. Sometimes I have to work with an idea for a while before I know it's ready, so at any given moment I have notes for several novels and several short stories.
WB: I know you're known primarily for your novel length fiction, but have you ever assembled a short story collection or do you have any plans for one?
MT: I'd love to! Haven't had any takers yet...
WB: Where would you like to go with your writing that you haven't gone yet?
MT: I'd like to publish literary, mainstream fiction. I'd like to publish more poetry. And I'd like to have my plays produced. So, I guess there isn't anywhere I'd like to go with my writing that I haven't gone--I pretty much write whatever I want to--but there are plenty of publishing places I'd like to go that I haven't gone.
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