The Ending Drive-by: Deborah Biancotti

Deborah Biancotti is one of Australia’s leading lights in the spec-fic scene. This means her short stories are positively luminous and can also be used to light up dark rooms … of course, the stories themselves are pretty dark (The Razor Salesman!!), so the light will be a kind of black light than will scare adults and children … but well worth the read! See? I said so here. She is also funny and award-winning and  danish girl … not the same as a cornflake girl.

1. You get to travel between the cracks of any city – which do you choose and what do you do?
These questions are hard. You didn’t say these questions would be so hard. I have at least half a dozen answers to this question & I’m not even sure I understand what the question *is*.

I have this great fantasy city I return to when I’m daydreaming: it’s always night time & the city is made of cobblestones & glass. In some daydreams, murders happen at the junctures of streets, pale corpses lie with their arms flung out like they’re pointing, blood runs in jagged lines between the stones. In others, chases occur along the rooftops, and nimble assassins outwit slower-moving authorities (but just barely), breaking in and out of gaol like they’re moving between living rooms. Sometimes magic is banned from the city, sometimes it’s used to hunt out new recruits for ancient orders. It’s all quite busy & complicated, & I’m usually in the thick of it somehow. Dressed as a ninja.

I think this city is probably what would happen if Sydney bedded down with Rome, and then invited New York City to join them.

2. Short stories -v- novels?
Yes, very.

3. What are the five things that all good stories need?
A beginning (endings are negotiable, I figure), a raison d’etre (some people call this a ‘theme’), a character that either fascinates or compels, some kinda emotional *something* going on, a need to be written.

4. Preferred Doctor Who and why?
Dawn French. Wait, has she played the Doctor yet or was that in my head? Or, Tom Baker, because he has the exact mix of grown-up & child you’d expect from someone that old & that eternally curious.

5. Donuts or danishes?
Danishes! Because even a bad danish is good.

Her site is here.

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