Sofia Samatar (as part of UCSC's Living Writers series and on the theme of shelter that the series director introduced): "The story itself is the shelter. The story is a place." And then she gives us three words: Save. Stash. Sustain.

Samatar now reading from the opening of "Selkie Stories Are For Losers" as a nod to her first word: Save.

Samatar explains that this story pulls from her experience of living in Madison, Wi, and that the restaurant (and the cemetary) exist, and the story preserves a real time and place (she worked in the restaurant as a summer job) even if the characters are made up.

Stash is for "Monster Portraits" -- you save the family photos and they're on display. A stash is something in your shelter that you save, but you hide it b/c it causes anxiety (such as money or jewels).

The reading is "The Huntress." Samatar stashed in "Monster Portraits" precious things: quotations (from her research on monsters) and memories of childhood.

"Realism often does't feel adequate for what you want to express", thus: fantasy.

Oh, interesting. Samatar says that the reason childhood memories are stashed in the shelter of this book of stories is because they are often disturbing and difficult and strange.

For the final word: Sustain. (need to have sustenance in your shelter; the things that protect and sustain you). Reading for that is three of the ogres from "Ogres of East Africa."

Reading includes one of Samatar's best lines: "My employer always shouts because the report of his guns has made him deaf" [me: colonialists summed up in one sentence]

Samatar explains how in grad school she found this terrible book from 1907 that is a racist screed about native Africans. Also in the same library basement she found books on folkore from all over Africa. And folklore for her is sustenance. It's collective memory.

Folklore is resilient. "It retains its' character."

The folklore she provided her with "imaginative resistance" to the book by the racist white hunter. And led to the story, of course.

Samatar in the Q&A: "If only we could write like dreams."

For speculative ficton "Worldbuilding is what we have instead of research." One of the thing she likes to think about "who is saying what to whom and why" (in relation to how worldbuilding detail is revealed and what is revealed).

Samatar also notes that's why she likes to write first person narratives in speculative fiction--the narrator is embedded in that world and it provides a focus for what detail can be revealed and it can happen in an offhand way.

But she also notes that she is not a person who hates the infodump. Because she happens to like information. "Sometimes you can go too coy with the worldbuilding."

Recommends 2312 as an example of a good use of and framing for infodumping. Infodump as a found object.

A question on using personal memories in fiction. Samatar says she ahs a crackpot theory: "literature is a technology for transforming time into space." Time meaning memories and space being the words on the page. And that's one of the reasons we write.

Notes that she is most interested in literature as atmosphere, as the feeling you get from the story. As a space where you can capture or hold those memories, those feelings.

That atmosphere is conjured through the details you capture through your senses. And notes that hearing and sight are the most distant sensory perceptions.

Also notes that the quality of the light is important -- describing that "goes directly to the creation of atmosphere."

And the Q&A is now over. If you want to participate in future Living Writing Series Winter 2021 events -- Lauren Groff is up on 2/4! -- you can register for free here: https://creativewriting.ucsc.edu/news-events/living-writers-series/index.html

Also: I don't think it was recorded, unfortunately, but Samatar provided all of the UCSC creative writing students (and other writers who tuned in) with an excellent model for how to do an author reading and Q&A.

Won't try to capture all of why that was the case, but: 1. Came in with a theme to give direction to the reading. 2. Read parts of three different pieces rather than one long piece. 3. Gave succinct intros to each piece. Didn't overexplain the context.

4. After reading each piece she tied in something about the story itself and/or how it was written and/or its' thematics to her theme for the reading.

5. Because she did all of that, the questions directly bounced off of her overall vibe and theme, which then gave ther the opportunity to develop those ideas further.

Really one of the most cohesive author readings I've attended. No, actually: the most.

(sorry for all of the typos--it's been a long time since I livetweeted something)