A Drive-by by the Servant of the Underworld's Mum: Aliette de Bodard

Aliette de Bodard is a writer of fantasy, science fiction and horror. She is also a winner of Writers of the Future and a Campbell Award finalist. Her work has been published in a LOT of places, including Shimmer, Strange Horizons, ASIM, Asimov’s, Interzone. Her debut novel (published by the nice people at Angry Robot) is Servant of the Underworld, and the follow-up, Harbinger of the Storm, is on its way. She has a penchant for steel-reinforced parasols and also believes croissants to be superior to either donuts or danishes – go fancy!

1. Which sale caused you to Snoopy Dance around the room?
Er, all of them? It’s always a little hard to envision someone would want my fiction, so I’m always happy to have acceptances. That said, the biggest Snoopy Dance I ever did (or rather wanted to do) was when I learnt I had sold my trilogy of Aztec noir fantasies to Angry Robot. It was my first long fiction sale, and I really was ready to make the floor collapse under the dance, but as it happened I was at work and still had a few hours to go before I could do the real Snoppy Dance.

2. What keeps you writing?
I think it’s the madness. There’s no other possible explanation for late nights, writing on buses, brainstorming in the most unlikely places (restaurants, waiting rooms, beaches…) when I could have so many other activities. I’d blame the muse, but she’s gone on holiday somewhere in the Bahamas…

3. You get to be your favourite fictional character for one day, consequence-free: who do you choose and why?
Amelia Peabody Emerson (in the Elizabeth Peters novels). I’ve always had a hankering for archaeology, and Egypt in the beginning of the 20th century is an awesome setting. So a terrific Egyptologist witha razor-sharp mind, a great sense of humour and dollops of common sense sounds like a great fit (even if it means I have to put up with a son who has an encyclopaedic vocabulary and a tendency to conduct digs into rubbish heaps). Plus, I’ve always wanted to wield a steel-reinforced parasol.

4. What should a writer always delete?
Extra wordage. The trouble is working out which bits are the extra words without leaving the story drained dry.

5. Donuts (or doughnuts) or danishes?
I’m going to be 100% French here and prefer croissants :-).

Aliette blogs here.