Interview: “Boneshaker” Author, Cherie Priest

Cherie Priest’s award-winning newest novel, Boneshaker, takes place in an alternate version of the 1880s, in which Civil-War-era Seattle has fallen prey to a zombie-fying gas released by the titular bone-shuddering drilling device.  Against a steampunk backdrop of zombies,  mad inventors, and airships, Priest’s hero Briar Wilkes launches a daring frontier adventure.

The book has been getting all kinds of critical and popular attention, and Priest is reading this Friday at Powell’s at Cedar Hill Crossing at 7 pm.  You can catch her there, or you can hear her on OPB’s Think Out Loud this Thursday, March 25, at 9 am.  We caught up with her first to talk about writing, reading, and literary heroes.

Q: Hi! Your latest novel, Boneshaker, is an alternate history of the Pacific Northwest set in the 1880s. It won a 2010 PNBA Book Award, is nominated for a 2009 Nebula Award, got a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and just went into its sixth printing. Congratulations! When you were writing the book, did you have any idea that it would have such widespread appeal? Did you have particular precedents in mind as you wrote, or were you striking out into entirely new ground?

A: First of all, thank you so much! And second, I had no idea whatsoever. Boneshaker was kind of “The book that shouldn’t have been.” I was actually contracted to do a different novel — and I was halfway finished with it — but I began noodling on Boneshaker on the side … partly because I had nothing else under contract and I wanted to get some new projects underway. I was well aware as I was writing that it was an odd duck of a book, and I honestly wasn’t sure if anyone would want it.

My editor heard me talking about it (or saw me talking about it online) and asked to take a look. So I gave her what I had so far, and she loved it — she even wanted to swap it out for the book I was working on. The rest is history, I suppose.

Sometimes reviewers call Boneshaker a “kitchen sink” book, with everything under the sun thrown in: alternate history, zombies, steampunk, pulp adventure, family saga … the whole nine yards. And that’s fair. I admit, it’s kind of a hard sell. But I think the timing was right, and the book is a beautiful object (gloriously designed, in my opinion — and I had nothing to do with that). You just never know what’s going to take off.

Q: Boneshaker has been labeled a steampunk novel by many readers and critics. How do you feel about the steampunk label, and did you intend the book to be read this way?

A: Oh, I love it — and this was absolutely intended to be steampunk. In fact, it’s a bit of a reaction to a mindset that was creeping into the steampunk community a few years ago — that nothing counts as “steampunk” unless it’s set in Victorian England. Don’t get me wrong, Victorian England is a great setting (let the record reflect that I’ve never said otherwise!); but I wanted to tell an American story with all the same trappings and adventure.

Even though Boneshaker is chock full of dirigibles, epic mining machines that destroy cities, air pirates, zombie-stunning weapons, and mad scientists … I still get people telling me it isn’t steampunk. Because it can’t be. Only English stuff qualifies.

In my humble opinion, that’s ten pounds of bullshit in a five pound bag. Steampunk isn’t a binary; it’s not a yes/no designation. It’s a flavor. And this book definitely was made with lots of steampunk flavoring.

Q: You’re an associate editor at Subterranean Press — how do you balance work and writing? Is working with other people’s words draining or enlivening? Or both? Has editing other folks’ work affected your own?

A: First, to be clear, I’m not really that kind of editor. Mostly I’m a proofreader — comparing documents against one another to make sure new editions of books match the old ones letter for letter. So I’m not really telling writers how to write, or giving material more than a corrective pass.

This having been said, I divvy up my day so that day-job work gets my mornings through lunchtime, and writer work gets the afternoons and evenings (if necessary). Juggling both has definitely forced me to get more organized in order to fit everything into the day. Honestly I do find the day-job work itself draining; treating documents line by line is tough on the eyesight after awhile. But I have an excellent boss and the gig has been super-flexible, while allowing me to consistently pay the bills. So I absolutely can’t complain.

Q: You published parts of your first novel online for free, and you continue to maintain widely-read blogs about your writing process and ongoing projects. In general, it seems like you’re doing a great job of using social media to build your readership. How do you feel about the relationship between, say, blogging and writing? Are there any downsides to being a writer and maintaining a visible, active online persona?

A: I’m not sure how to answer this, except to say that the difference between blogging and writing (for me, personally) is the difference between chatting with friends and delivering a keynote address. I blog for a variety of reasons. Take your pick: I have many distant friends and family members with whom I like to keep up; I enjoy sharing links, pictures, and stories; I’m a little bit of an exhibitionist at heart; I have an exceedingly charming cat. It’s quite informal. Hell, the other day I posted pictures of myself dressed up in old-fashioned underwear, just for giggles. But I write because I need to write — I’ve always written, and I don’t know how not to. And these days most of what I write is for publication, so there’s an effort of craft and perfectionism going into it.

Though I sometimes read or hear of writers complaining about how they can’t possibly blog and write books at the same time, I find this isn’t the case for me. The two are not mutually exclusive at all.

As my books have become better known, I’ve found the blogging thing to be an easy way for readers to catch up to me, asking questions or just saying “hello.” I always try to answer questions if I can, and I’m still obscure enough that I can respond to virtually all emails from readers (I don’t get that terribly many). Mostly it’s very cool. I like to hear from people!

I suppose this level of visibility does come with its downsides, but they’re mostly minor. I get some fan mail, sure. But I also get hate mail, lewd propositions, and people wanting to give me their manuscripts to read. I’m not talking about friends circulating manuscripts for blurbs; I mean out of the blue, people I don’t know, will email me epic tomes and demand that I pass these things along to my agent or editor on their behalf. They do this despite the fact that on my website — right where they found my email address — I have a big, bold disclaimer asking people not to do this. I can’t read their unpublished manuscripts for legal reasons, besides the simple fact that I don’t have time to do so and it’s not polite to ask anyone (much less a total stranger) to work for free.

Anyway, I delete those things unopened … which usually leads to more hate mail, since I’m “ignoring” the sender, who originally ignored my expressly stated wishes, but whatever. There are only so many hours in the day, you know? If nothing else, being a writer on the internet has definitely helped me build up a thick skin.

Q: What are you reading right now? Who’s your Southern literary hero, or your regional literary hero? (Pick your region!) Any good graphic novels on your nightstand? Anything in the publishing pipeline you can’t wait to pick up and read?

A: Right now I’m reading an advance copy of M.K. Hobson’s upcoming novel The Native Star, Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen, and A History of Ghosts by Peter Aykroyd. Usually I surf around through a handful of books like this — and often more than this — but I’m in the middle of some deadlines right now and leisure reading has gone largely out the window.

As for Southern literary heroes … hm. Perhaps Joe Lansdale? He’s pretty awesome. I also enjoy Sharyn McCrumb‘s Appalachian mysteries, though those aren’t quite the same thing. (And Joe’s a Texan, but that totally counts.) But when it comes to upcoming titles, I’m so far behind on what’s in the pipeline that I can’t think of a single thing off the top of my head. Which isn’t to say there isn’t anything! Just that I’m drawing a blank.