I was given an opportunity to participate in the release of the book Dark Matter: Artificial by An Insecure Writerr's Support Group, here are the authors responses to the question I asked, ' I would love to know how each author came up with their ideas for their own story in the anthology.'
, When I heard that someone was publishing an anthology of stories about dark matter, I took it as a personal challenge, because I studied this subject when I was an astrophysics major at Princeton. Later on, when I was an editor at Scientific American, I wrote and edited magazine articles about the dark-matter hypothesis, and when I wrote my first novel Final Theory (Simon & Schuster, 2008) I set the climactic scene at the Tevatron particle accelerator, where physicists once hunted for dark-matter particles. With my new short story, “Vera’s Last Voyage,” I wanted to honor the late Vera Rubin, who should’ve won the Nobel Prize for discovering the best evidence for dark matter. By the way, I have some inside information about how Dr. Rubin was cheated out of the prize, and believe me, it’s not pretty.
- Mark Alpert
I started writing my story, "Rift," about two years ago. I had a character in my mind of a woman who found herself alone and dealing with a certain amount of guilt about it, even though the circumstances were out of her control. Having had my own losses in life, I suppose part of the character and plot was drawn from personal experience, but what really made me want to write the story was the whole notion of, what if this isn’t the only world for us? I like to ponder the idea of infinite worlds or realities. I took my character, Lindy, and put her in a seemingly boring and normal setting, that still held the possibility for something extraordinary to develop. The wide-open and isolated prairie, not unlike places I spent much of my childhood growing up in Saskatchewan, became that setting. I think all that expanse leaves a great deal of room for the imagination to run wild.
- Kim Mannix
The inspiration for "Resident Alien" came during the civil unrest after the death of George Floyd. When I saw white people on social media condemning the demonstrations more harshly than the murder that sparked them, I wanted to shout: "What would you do if it happened to one of you?" But I realized the answer was likely to be: "It wouldn't." For white people to imagine how it feels to be a displaced, formerly enslaved people living in a hostile land that's still the only home you've ever known, with no way out, there was really no equivalent time and place on earth. So, I thought, we would have to go somewhere OFF Earth - a distant planet where the few human beings, descendants of the original space explorers, are a persecuted minority fighting for freedom and equality.
- Charles Kowalski
As soon as I knew what the Dark Matter was in my story, I knew it had to be stolen. But beyond that the story wouldn’t take shape. I mean – yes, the heroine would have to go after the thieves, but that felt banal. I needed a twist, an interesting wrinkle, to make the story work. Then I talked to my son – I often discuss my stories with him – and he said: what if the thieves are not really the bad guys? What if they had a reason to steal that thingy, and your heroine decided to help them instead of prosecuting them. And suddenly, I had the whole story mapped up in my head.
- Olga Godim
As a librarian, I'm especially interested in saving information and preserving the past. My parents call me the family "historian" because I can track down photos of grandparents, great aunts, and distant cousins when needed. So in thinking up futuristic ideas for the Insecure Writer's Support Group science fiction anthology contest, I originally came up with a public digital archive where photos from our modern smartphones are saved for the next generation. But after reading a friend's master's thesis on artificial intelligence, I thought, "What if our photos were saved to a person instead?" And the idea for an artificially intelligent android with a photo memory was born.
- Stephanie Espinoza Villamor
I asked my daughter what dark matter is, listened to Dark Matter by Les Friction, and researched what NASA had to say on it. After learning about its mysteries along with the inspiration from an old story, I wove my own tale. I made sure the pacing was fast, the plot interesting, and with an elusive feel all with a surprise ending. It seems to fit in with the rest of the stories. The judges chose well!
- Elizabeth Mueller
Mine all started with a line from Neil Gaiman, which was to be the start of a fable: "Long ago, in the days when there were still fish in the oceans and cars on the roads, there lived a woman who was not afraid of governments…"
I kept thinking of the line and, oddly enough, I set the story in Montreal after I'd moved away from there. Sometimes when you look back, it's easier to see a place more objectively. I remembered the ice storm of 1998, and that's what led me to imagine The Snow, and to wonder how people might start rebuilding a community from the beginning—by making rules or telling stories?
And that's where the title came from: One to Another is a song on Tellin' Stories by The Charlatans.
- Deniz Bevan
I have been building this particular universe for several years and decided to go a little deeper into the mythology of it. As I developed the galaxy worship of one of my invented alien races, I wondered what it would be like if the galaxy was actually a being. I also did some research on signals that would allow these individuals to communicate and looked into theories regarding dark matter. In an effort to better understand my characters I imagined how they were created and what the consequences of their creation would be. The first Utten was born and The Utten Mission was written.
- Steph Wolmarans
Dark Matter got my brain churning with ideas as soon as I heard the sci-fi topic! Right in my wheelhouse. With all the turmoil of late--the virus invasion, the country isolated and divided--it felt like the perfect time for an alien invasion with the earth in such a weak state! This made me wonder how extraterrestrial life would view us/judge us. Dark Matter is so mysterious, I thought it needed to have sentience as the fabric of the universe that keeps everything balanced. In hopes of showing opposing sides both have good in them, I had the representative scouts choose opposite specimen humans...and you know how opposites attract...so lots of fun twists and turns! Is earth worthy of existence? Or is it throwing the universe off-balance? Sentient Dark Matter has a big decision to make.
- Tara Tyler
A few years ago I saw a call for submissions on an anthology of sci-fi retellings of classic fairy tales. Unfortunately I missed the deadline, but it sparked several story ideas, one of which was a version of Hansel and Gretel. I combined the basic premise of the Grimm Brothers’ tale with another love of mine--military sci-fi, in the vein of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Wing Commander, and Battlestar: Galactica. And voila--the story grew from there. Of course, I also had to make it funny. I can’t write anything without taking the piss out of it.
- C.D. Gallant-King
It was amazing to see how authors were able to come up with ideas. My review will be coming to my blog soon.
Thank you Dancing Lemur Press, for this opportunity.
