Eileen Myles

If you have a dog, and you're a person whose moods are constantly changing, there's a moment when you look at the dog, and you feel bad for them because they're attached to you, and so it's funny for the dog to vocalize those things in some ways.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.