We chat with author Mary Robinette Kowal about The Martian Contingency, which is the latest entry to the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Lady Astronaut series.
Hi, Mary Robinette! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m the author of The Calculating Stars. When it came out it won the Hugo, the Locus, and the Nebula award. Next week, book 4 in the Lady Astronaut Universe comes out, The Martian Contingency. In addition to being a science-fiction and fantasy writer, I’m also an audiobook narrator, puppeteer, and the former president of Science Fiction and Fantasy writers of America. I also taught my cat Elsie to “talk” using buttons.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
The first story that I can remember writing was in kindergarten. I wrote and illustrated a story for my mom for Mother’s Day. The only thing that I can really remember about it is that there was a spaceship that was shaped like an iris.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl
- The one that made you want to become an author: All of them?
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
Your latest novel, The Martian Contingency, is out March 18th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Mars, meteor, marriage, mystery, multicultural
What can readers expect?
You can expect people trying to do their best with the tools they have. Something happened on the First Mars Expedition and the silence might kill everyone. Despite that, these are people who love and value each other.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
It felt good to come back to Elma’s point of view after spending time with Nicole in The Relentless Moon. This is set 17 years after the first novel in the series and I love exploring the way Elma has grown.
Can you tell us about some of the research that went into The Martin Contingency?
I got to talk to a lot of astronauts but, since this is on Mars, some of the most fun conversations were actually with people who are trying to figure out how to build a habitat on the red planet. There are a bunch of different approaches, from inflatable domes, to building into cliff faces. I’ve gotten to look at some wild designs involving 3D printing, but… because this book is set in 1970, I had to figure out how to use what we know now, with the technology available then. It was a lot of fun.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Well… to take this to a darker place, my mom died the week I turned this in. It was during what we’ve come to call the Year of Five Deaths. I had to keep breaking tasks into smaller and smaller pieces in order to keep writing. The main thing I realized was that the tools that work in other parts of my life work for writing, too.
What are some of the key lessons you’ve learned as an author since your debut?
Structure was the hardest thing for me to figure out. I came out of theatre, so I understood audience and character but I was always working with a script that was someone elses’s structure. What I’ve learned since then is that I don’t have to always outline. I had to when I started because it was a new skill. Now, as I start to internalize why structure works, I can be more improvisatory with my writing. So, I guess that lesson is basically, “It’s okay to play.”
What’s next for you?
I’m finishing revisions on a dragon novel right now and we’ll see what happens with that! I wrote it for funsies.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year? I
just grabbed Amal El Mohtar’s new book The River Has Roots and can’t wait to read it.
