Susan Beth Pfeffer

I live about 60 miles northwest of New York City, and whenever there's news of a big snowstorm coming, everyone runs for the store. The perishable items are usually the first things to go, which doesn't make sense because they perish.

It's funny because you know the novel process: you get the drafts, you get the galley, and then you get the galley proofs. You have opportunities to change things all along. But the further along in the process you go, the more careful you have to be in making those changes, and the smaller the changes have to be.

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.