Quotes from Ann Leckie

Food is an excellent way to do very elegant worldbuilding - the kind that can make a fictional world seem real, like it extends way past the edges of the frame.

One of the awesome things about being a writer is that I can research nearly anything - tea? Bubblegum? Ants? Neurology? Chocolate? Textile production? It doesn't matter. It's all productive work.

It's a common part of the narrative of the history of Christianity that it was 'real' religion that involved real spirituality and real faith, and that's why it's completely superseded the more pagan polytheistic practices.

If there was anything any Radchaai considered essential for civilised life, it was tea.

Writing was something I always as a kid thought would be fabulous and glamorous to be a writer.

'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell' by Susanna Clarke is a big, thick book. About a thousand pages in paperback. I've heard several people say the size alone intimidated them.

You write alone, but you write hoping that there will be readers who will connect with what you write, and it's so wonderful and amazing - I can't even tell you - when that actually happens.

Does getting an award make you happy? When you imagine yourself at the ceremony, you're always so eloquent and gracious. In reality, it's kind of awkward.

When I'm writing, I don't really have much other guide than, 'As a reader, how would I respond to this?'

What would it be like to live 500 years? Healthy years, of course; no one wants to live 500 years in a coma on a respirator. But reasonably healthy all that time? That would be awesome!

I do realize the impulse to classify people by the food and art they consume is strong - sometimes I have to remind myself not to do that.

I didn't ever imagine, except in the most idle, obviously wish-fulfillment, ego-gratification fantasies, that anything I wrote would ever win awards, let alone so many.

The Internet really lets people connect that wouldn't have in the past, and lets conversations happen and connections happen.

Science fiction in particular is often assumed to be about the future, or about some abstract technological or philosophical idea, or just about 'adventure,' but writers can't build worlds out of nothing. We use bits and pieces of the real world to assemble our fictional ones.

I'd say my biggest influences are writers like Andre Norton and, particularly when it comes to the Radch, C.J. Cherryh.

The lessons of slushing and editing build up over time, and you're not necessarily thinking about them while you're working, but they're in the back of your mind, probably influencing your choices.

I've been a fan of Jack Vance since before I was in high school.

In non-fiction, I found John Gardner's two writing books to be tremendously helpful.

Junk food's not going anywhere. The specifics of what's being snacked on, and what's considered 'junk' and what's 'healthy' will change, of course, depending on what's available.

Occasionally, I hear grumbles about everything being a series or a trilogy, but apart from the question of them maybe selling more books, I think that there's a real problem in trying to introduce a new world or a new concept while also getting your reader to pay close attention to your characters and themes.

It's the people without the money and the power, who desperately want to live, for those people small things aren't small at all.

After about fourth grade, I do remember borrowing my mother's old portable Olivetti and typing stories out on the back of photocopies of journal articles.

Fortunately or unfortunately, NaNoWriMo requires you to write at a breakneck pace, so I got used to just pushing on through.

Kids are fabulous, but when you're home all day with an infant that can't talk, your brain starts to kind of melt, and I thought, 'I have to do something, or my brain is just going to liquefy.'