Author, Nalo Hopkinson

-The SCBC, Inc.

SC: Where are you from?

NH: I've lived in Toronto, Canada for 26 years. I came here at the age of 16. I was born in Jamaica, and prior to moving to Canada with my family, lived in Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana, and briefly in the U.S. while my dad was in university at Yale.

SC: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

NH: When I first got a copy of a magazine with a story of mine in it, and *my* name at the top. My father was a writer, so for the first few years of being published, when I would see books of mine with the name "Hopkinson" on them, I kept expecting them to read Slade Hopkinson, not Nalo Hopkinson.

SC: What genre are you most comfortable writing?

NH: Fantasy and some science fiction. I like that both genres allow me to explore the ways in which we as humans are constantly changing our environments and therefore ourselves. And I like that fantasy and science fiction allow me to imagine more possibilities for humanity.

SC: How did you come up with the title for your book(s)?

NH: That's a tough one. I usually have to come up with the title first. If I don't have a title that encapsulates my obsessions for a novel, I don't have a story. The title of my new novel, "The Salt Roads", actually came from my editor Jaime Levine at Warner, after the novel was written. My working title for it was “Griffonne”, which is another way of saying "mulatta." I picked that title because the main setting of the novel is 18th Century Saint Domingue (Haiti), and a lot of the characters in it are mixed race black women. Warner wanted a title that more people would comprehend more easily. As Jaime and I tried to come up with a new title, I discovered just how difficult it is to create a title after the novel is already written! For me, anyway. I'm happy with _The Salt Roads._ It reflects the ongoing themes in the novel of the value of salt, and of salty liquids (seas, blood) as transportation routes for so many things. I realise that's vague, but I hate to give away too much of a story before people have had a chance to read it. If you do read “The Salt Roads”, you'll see how well Jaime's title picks up some of my themes.

SC: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

NH: Well, I have my own messages in mind when I write, but a novel can't preach, or it quickly becomes boring. So I try not to get up on my soapbox too much, and often people get things from my writing that even I didn't realise were there. When that happens, I learn from my readers. That part is really fun.

SC: How much of the novel is realistic?

NH: This question made me smile. I write fiction; reality is not the point! That being said, physiologist Dr. Charles Richet once wrote, "I never said it was possible. I only said it was true." Even a story about something that never happened and that never could happen can tell you truths about life. And there are some facts in my novel. Among them: there was an African revolutionary freedom fighter in 18th Century Saint Domingue (Haiti) named Francois Makandal; the 19th Century romantic poet Charles Baudelaire did have a black mistress named Jeanne Duval, whose nicknames were Lemer and Prosper; Queen Nzingha of Matamba in Angola (actually, her people called her the king, because she was the ruler, not the king's wife) apparently did have a harem of fifty men. But to find out facts about those people's stories, search out history books, not my novel.

SC: What do you do to set the mood for writing?

NH: I sit down at the computer and open my word-processing programme. Or I sit wherever and open my notebook and get my pen out. I'm doing this for a living now; I can't afford to need the luxury of a particular mood. I've written in hotel rooms, cafeterias, and airport waiting rooms. I've written when I was depressed, when I was on a date, when I was sick, when I had no time to write.

SC: What are your current projects?

NH: I have two novels in mind at the moment. I'm still making notes for them. One is about a woman living on a failed cashew farm somewhere in the Caribbean, who finds a little boy washed up on the shore one morning after a storm. The other one is a futuristic piece set on a planet beset by magnetic storms. The people there find a creature that might be animal, mineral or vegetable, they're not sure.

SC: If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

NH: Samuel R. Delany, author of “Dhalgren” and “Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand” and probably the first black science fiction novelist on this continent. He's brilliant. His work, fiction and non-fiction, has always blown me away. I have had the opportunity to be taught by him, when he was one of the writers-in-residence in 1995 at the Clarion East Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop at Michigan State U. in East Lansing.

SC: Do you feel that the boom in writers who are African American or of African decent is a fad or another renaissance?

NH: Well, the most hopeful, energizing thing for me to feel is that it's another renaissance! And though I'm always thrilled to be in the company of my sister writers, I'm happy to see more black male writers joining us too; the likes of Colin Channer, Steve Barnes, Toure' and Geoffrey Philp.

SC: What are you reading now?

NH: I always have a lot of books on the go. Currently they are: Margaret Atwood's new novel, “Oryx and Crake”, “The Daughter of Time” by Josephine Tey, “Nova” by Samuel R. Delany, “The Good House” by Tananarive Due, “Permanence” by Karl Schroeder, “Best Transgender Erotica” edited by Hanne Blank and Raven Kaldera, “Solitaire” by Kelley Eskridge, “Nappy Hair” by Carolivia Herron, illustrated by Joe Cepeda, “Sukey and the Mermaid” by Robert D. San Souci, illustrated by Brian Pinkney. Those last two are children's picture books. I love quirky children's picture books.

SC: Tell us your latest news?

NH: I've recently edited an anthology: "Mojo: Conjure Stories", which has just been released by Warner Books. Nineteen (19) stories dealing with African diasporic magic. Some of the contributors are Steven Barnes, Neil Gaiman, Tananarive Due and Barbara Hambly. I'm really proud of the anthology. And my new novel, The Salt Roads, will be out from Warner Books in November 2003. I just mailed the corrected page proofs back to Warner. It's beginning to be a book, and I'm very excited.

 

Visit: Nalo Hopkinson Online