Mandy J Watson interviewed me about writing, tech, comics and my new novel, The Shining Girls for Vodacom Now and Ulrich Knoblauch did an awesome photo shoot to accompany it. Bladerunner cosplay FTW!
“Writing novels is lonely work, stuck in your head with imaginary people”.
(That is not my real pink hair, alas, but it is my Pris-like raincoat that my comics editor, Shelly Bond found for me when she took me shopping in New York, which is something all good comics editors should do.)
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The Roundtable Podcast invited me on to discuss my work, curiosity feeding creativity, writing about what pisses me off, the joy of collaboration and seeing someone make your ideas more interesting.
Even more fun, they roped me in on a Roundtable Workshop Episode, to workshop someone else’s novel, in this case Joshua Cordasco’s devilish apocalypse tale.
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I also talked to The Bizarre Assemblage Literary Journal about Zoo City, feminist characters, research and more.
TBA: How did you go about creating and shaping the sloth-laden character, Zinzi, and did you find yourself infusing any specific feminist ideologies within your protagonist?
Beukes: I never set out to write a specifically feminist character. I set out to write a smart, interesting, damaged human being who has made terrible mistakes and is trying to make up for them and do the right thing, even if she doesn’t always succeed, who is full of spark and attitude but also vulnerable, and selfish and generous and complicated. You know, like a real person.