The Hot Author Report

Interview with Sylvia Engdahl – Author of ‘Stewards of the Flame’

Sylvia Engdahl is best known as the author of award-winning Young Adult novels, but she is now writing only for adults. Although her fiction is set in the distant future on other worlds, it’s not just for science fiction fans and because it focuses more on the characters than on fast action or strange environments, it is usually enjoyed more by general audiences than by readers with extensive science fiction background.

Engdahl lives in Eugene, Oregon, and currently works as a freelance editor of nonfiction anthologies. Her main website is at www.sylviaengdahl.com and the website for her novel Stewards of the Flame is at www.stewardsoftheflame.com.

Q: Hello and welcome to The Hot Author Report!

It’s rare today to find an author who does nothing but write for a living. Do you have a ‘real’ job other than writing, and if so, what is it? What are some other jobs you’ve had in your life? Have they influenced/inspired your writing?

A: At present I work as a freelance editor of nonfiction anthologies for high schools. I’ve done freelance copyediting, and I’ve taught occasional online graduate-level courses in media studies. In my youth I was a computer programmer and computer systems specialist for ten years, and before that a teacher; but that’s all ancient history! None of these occupations had any effect on my writing — my fictional worlds are far removed from my personal life.

Q: Tell us briefly about your book.

A: Stewards of the Flame is a about a space colony where today’s trend toward government involvement in health care has been carried to its extreme logical conclusion — there is no government other than the medical authorities and no police other than the ambulance officers, since all crime is viewed as illness and all illness is considered crime. Medical treatment is compulsory and everything thought to be harmful to health is illegal.

Starship Captain Jesse Sanders finds himself detained on this world after being picked up in a bar, although contrary to the charge against him he isn’t an alcoholic and never drinks while on duty. What happens to him after he’s rescued by dissidents is even more of a surprise to him. Oppressive as the world’s government is, it’s not corrupt, and so they’re not trying to overthrow it; it was democratically established and is supported by most of the voters. They have another approach to preserving their personal freedom.

To say much about that here would give away too much of the plot, but it involves developing the latent allegedly-paranormal powers of their own minds.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A. I have just finished the sequel to Stewards of the Flame. It’s titled Promise of the Flame and it’s now available. I can’t say much about it here because any description would necessarily reveal the ending of Stewards of the Flame and thus spoil its suspense. I will mention, though, that Promise is an independent story that doesn’t depend on having read Stewards, so readers not attracted by the controversial medical theme of Stewards may want to read Promise by itself.

Q: What type of music, if any, do you listen to while you write? Do you need the noise or the silence?

A: I need total silence. When I’m not writing, I listen mainly to film soundtrack music.

Q: How do you balance out the writer’s life and the rest of life? Do you get up early? Stay up late? Ignore friends and family for certain periods of time?

A: As I have no family and no responsibilities other than meeting deadlines for my freelance editing work, I live by an unusual schedule — I can’t sleep well at night, so I go to bed about 6:30 a.m. and sleep until early afternoon. I work in the late afternoon and evening, and do my best writing in the early morning hours.

Q: The main characters of your stories – do you find that you put a little of yourself into each of them or do you create them to be completely different from you?

A: The hero of Stewards of the Flame is completely different from me, which the plot demanded. I put a little of myself into the protagonists of my earlier books, though their circumstances were very different from mine.

Q: When they write your obituary, what do you hope they will say about your book/s and writing? What do you hope they will say about you?

A: I hope they’ll say that I had some meaningful ideas about humankind’s future. What I hope they will not say is that I was a “children’s author.” My first book Enchantress from the Stars became a Newbery Honor book and of course I am very happy that it did, but at the same time, it meant that the book was often given to younger readers than it was intended for — readers who were interested only in the plot, not the ideas about the future — and it labeled me as a writer for children.

My other Young Adult books were for high school age readers, not children (and are enjoyed by many adults), yet they too were given to many readers too young to understand them. And now that I’m writing adult fiction, I’m finding it difficult to be taken seriously as a novelist since readers familiar with my name assume I write only YA novels. Many of them want another book “like Enchantress from the Stars” and are disappointed to find that my other novels are different, which makes it hard to attract the notice of the readers most apt to enjoy them.

Q: What is your writing space like? Do you have a designated space? What does it look like? On the couch, laptop, desk? Music? Lighting? Typing? Handwriting?

I write — and do everything else of importance to me — on my desktop computer, where I spend virtually all my waking hours. (I have physical problems that prevent my moving around much.) The desk beside the computer table is usually a mess because when I have work on my mind, I can’t stop to deal with stacks of papers. I do have a laptop, but I rarely use it because it’s impossible to settle in a chair without one or both of my cats taking possession of my lap.

Q: Is there anything you’d go back and do differently now that you have been published, in regards to your writing career?

A: I regret having published the first edition of Stewards of the Flame under an ISBN assigned by a POD publisher. At the time I did so, authors could not get individual ISBNs; they were sold only to publishers that bought a whole block of them. I should have done that despite the cost, because although I created the files from which the book was printed myself, the POD company’s ISBN made it look as if I had paid for publication, and thus discouraged buyers. Now, independent authors can create imprint names and buy only as many ISBNs as they need, which I have done for the new edition and the sequel.

Q: In my experience, some things come quite easily (like creating the setting) and other things aren’t so easy (like deciding on a title). What comes easily to you and what do you find more difficult?

A: By far the most difficult thing for me is writing action, or even thinking up the action — it often doesn’t come to me until I’m actually in the process of writing a scene. This is why I didn’t write more fiction during the decades between my last YA novel and my first adult novel. What comes easiest is writing the thoughts and feelings of the characters and the dialogue between them. Determining the chapter structure of the book is also easy for me.

Q: It’s one thing to write a book and another to edit it. How do you feel about the editing process? What was it like to edit your book?

A; I don’t separate writing from editing — I am constantly going back and editing what I’ve written before. Often an improvement in the wording of a past sentence occurs to me when I’m in the middle of something else and I immediately go back and change it before I forget it. Also, it helps me get into the momentum of a new scene to read over previous ones, and every time I do, I make minor changes.

And of course, I proofread the entire book several times after it’s all written — as I’ve done some professional freelance copyediting, I’m more qualified to edit than most authors, though to my chagrin I did miss a few minor typos in the first edition of the book.

Q: Is there anything you would like to add?

There is a lot of information about Stewards of the Flame at www.stewardsoftheflame.com — not only a video trailer, many review quotes, and a reading group discussion guide, but a large section of background information about the topics with which the book deals. This includes my comments, links to informational sites and opinions on the Web, a list of recommended nonfiction books on each topic, and even some videos.

(Many people don’t realize how close we are to some of the developments mentioned — I wasn’t aware of that even while writing the book that they’re not all science fiction anymore. )

There’s also an order form for signed copies of the book and its sequel, plus links to Amazon.com for purchasing unsigned copies. Be sure, if you buy it at Amazon, that you get the 2009 edition; the 2007 edition is also available there.

My main website at www.sylviaengdahl.com is focused on my Young Adult books and on my advocacy for space colonization, plus a FAQ about my personal life. Also, I have a blog at http://towardtomorrow.blogspot.com, started when Stewards of the Flame was first published, that has been dormant for some time — it was just one more thing than I had time for while writing the sequel, considering the deadlines for my freelance work. But now that Promise of the Flame is finished I’m reviving it, and I certainly welcome comments there.