Madeleine Stowe

The weather was turning cold and I remember that Dante was using nothing but natural light as his electric department was away, prepping the scene in the cave. We stayed on that rock for the whole day.

We have been shaken by the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice - shaken, but not sufficiently unsettled. We must contextualize those losses, force our neighbors to become so deeply disturbed by what has occurred that they, too, are inspired to act to change the system.

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.