Clarkesworld Magazine – Science Fiction & Fantasy
In 2011 Clarkesworld published E. Lily Yu’s short story “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” which was a finalist for the Dell Award. The genre community also took notice: the story earned her nominations for a Million Writers Award, a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, a World Fantasy Award, and a Locus Award. In 2012 Yu won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.
E. Lily Yu received her A.B. at Princeton, then a M.A. at Cornell. She attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference as a Tennessee Williams Scholar, then Clarion West. In 2017 she received the Artist Trust/LaSalle Storyteller Award.
Roughly thirty stories later, appearing at a range of venues, such as Cicada, McSweeney’s, Tor.com, Boston Review, Hazlitt, Terraform, and F&SF, plus multiple appearances in Year’s Bests, Yu has developed a reputation for boundary-breaking fiction, wonderful prose, and thorough research. Creatively, she isn’t interested in limitations: she writes poems, plays, novels, essays, stories, songs. She has worked on video games such as Destiny and Destiny 2. Her 2015 Uncanny Magazine story, “Woman at Exhibition,” was part of the Discenza-Straub exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco; more recently, she taught an Interactive Fiction seminar for Clarion West.
Her debut novel, steeped in research from books, Persian language study, detention center visits, travel, and more, is called On Fragile Waves, and it’s due from Erewhon Books February 2, 2021.
What were some of the most important books for you when you were younger?
Ten years ago, my touchstones were A. S. Byatt’s Possession, John Crowley’s Little, Big, Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!
If you mean much younger, to the best of my recollection, third and fourth grade were marked by Redwall, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Boxcar Children, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lang’s Fairy Books, Watership Down, Roald Dahl, Dick King-Smith, Kenneth Oppel, Laurence Yep, David Clement-Davies, Jack London, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tamora Pierce, Tanith Lee, Diana Wynne Jones; sixth grade was Lilian Jackson Braun, Jane Yolen, Patricia C. Wrede, Piers Anthony, Garth Nix, Diane Duane; by seventh grade I’d read all the Discworld and Douglas Adams books, and started on Guy Gavriel Kay; by eighth grade Charles de Lint, Laurie R. King, Mercedes Lackey, Patricia McKillip, and Pamela Dean. I also hauled home the Windling and Datlow best-of-the-year anthologies throughout middle school, though I quickly learned to skip stories that only had Ellen’s initials on them.
How did reading become writing, and when did you start taking writing seriously?
Blow on dandelion clocks, you get dandelions.
I always knew.
Are there aspects of storytelling/writing that you feel are more challenging for you, things you struggle with? And how do you deal with those elements?
The courage required.
I wish I knew.
You had several notable short fiction sales before attending Clarion West in 2013. Then there’s this burst of stories appearing in 2013. Did Clarion West have a significant impact on your career or your craft?
It usually takes between six months and two years for a story of mine to be published, so I’d written all but one of the stories that were published in 2013 before attending Clarion West. That said, I benefited greatly from the instruction I received there, and you’ll recognize several of my teachers’ and classmates’ names in the acknowledgments of On Fragile Waves. Clarion West has also provided community and support for as long as I’ve lived in the Seattle area, both before and after my time at the workshop.
What is your short fiction writing process—is it spontaneous, or carefully planned and executed with lots of editing? And has this process changed much since back when you were starting out?
It depends on the story. Solicited stories tend to be planned. Other stories fall at unpredictable intervals, like apples or meteors, to be picked up and cleaned and baked and pied—or forged into swords—when I have the time.
I have less and less time these days. Though no less love.
On Fragile Waves opens with poetry, using space, sound, and silence to immerse the reader in war as well as to relate the moments of childbirth. But you are far more prolific as a published short fiction writer than a poetry writer. What is your relationship to poetry? Is it more personal, harder to write, or are there other reasons you focus more on short fiction?
I still write poems, but I don’t try to publish them. Poetry is difficult to place and doesn’t pay well outside the biggest magazines. Sending out and tracking poetry submissions isn’t a good use of my limited time, unlike sending out fiction, or, better still, reading other people’s fiction and poetry. I read Siken’s Crush while working on line edits for this book, and your question reminds me to get Beloit Poetry Journal again. They do beautiful work.
Power and helplessness are explored in On Fragile Waves. In your Lightspeed Spotlight for “The Valley of the Wounded Deer,” when asked how that story started, you said, “First came, as it does to all, the experience of cruelty from those with power.” What draws you to exploring power in your fiction?
The mesh-like, self-perpetuating networks of power that infiltrate our lives, whether formal or cultural, are both the strongest determinants of our behavior and the most invisible, least understood part of our lives. The American system of racism is one such network; corporate hierarchies are another; the global private prison industry is a third.
The more we can see the strands in these networks, how they interact, and how they influence what we think, do, and say, the more we can think, act, and speak freely and wisely, if we choose. A clear understanding of power not only frees the individual but also protects communities. There are plenty of unethical people who do see and pull these strings for their own benefit. They rely on others’ refusal to see power to get away with unsavory and destructive behavior. For the most part, unfortunately, that works.
If you are unfamiliar with what I’m describing, ask yourself, in a specific situation: to whom do I give the benefit of the doubt? And why? What evidence, particularly patterns of past behavior, supports or does not support that choice?
In your 2020 Debuts interview you said that On Fragile Waves took seven and a half years to write, and that when you started you weren’t able to write it. What were the most challenging aspects of it, the things you had to learn or do in order to write this book?
When the shape of the book showed itself to me, I was twenty. I knew that I was not yet the person who could write it, but that I could become that person, if I was willing to pay the cost. I also knew I could walk away. No one forces you to wear out seven pairs of iron shoes. You put them on because there is something greater and more valuable than your comfort and safety, than the years of your life that are poured out, at the end.
I did not know the journey would take ten years. I did not know how thoroughly the book would break me. I threw out three drafts—one of them twice the length of the published version—and rewrote the entire book four times, twice in longhand. And when I finally became the writer and artist and human being that the book needed, when I was satisfied with my work and the book was complete, every single major and minor publishing house rejected it.
I had to make peace with the fact that the best thing I’d ever written most likely would never see the light of day. That was difficult. I made my peace with it. After a year and a half on submission, I thanked my agent for his tremendous efforts and unwavering kindness and told him I thought it was time to give up.
He refused.
The morning that “The Valley of Wounded Deer” was published, I got out of bed in Ottawa, in the home of a kind and talented writer who has walked a similar road, to find an email from my agent. He had some news.
It was another month before I believed him.
Looking over some of your prior interviews, I get the sense of you as a person who dives deep into research and likes to get hands-on and experiential, if possible. What were some of the things you found (or did) that didn’t make it into this book?
I started researching this book in 2010 and finished the last major draft in 2018. I’m afraid I have forgotten almost as much as I’ve learned, especially the Persian. I also had five interstate moves in that period, so my notes are in disarray, and I’m not sure I’ve retained all my notebooks. But being chased by a pair of snarling, red-eyed dogs down the muddy side of a hill fort in Kabul was certainly an unforgettable experience.
Do you have any advice for new writers?
Trust the still small voice at your center. It will advise you better than anyone else.
Is another book on the way? What’s next, what’s coming up for you, or what are you working on that you can tell readers about?
At the moment, I’m collaborating on a short opera with Steven Tran for the Seattle Opera, as part of their Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab. This too has been a longtime dream.
Interview: E. Lily Yu – Uncanny Magazine
E. Lily Yu is the author of On Fragile Waves, which received the Washington State Book Award, and Jewel Box, which is forthcoming in 2023. She received the Artist Trust LaSalle Storyteller Award in 2017 and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer in 2012. More than thirty of her stories have appeared in venues from McSweeney’s to Tor.com, as well as thirteen best-of-the-year anthologies, and have been finalists for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards. “The Father Provincial of Mare Imbrium” is her fourth story in Uncanny, a beautifully crafted tale of suppressed research, set in a Jesuit lunar colony.
Uncanny Magazine: “The Father Provincial of Mare Imbrium” is a story of religion and science, set on a remote lunar colony. What was your starting point or inspiration for the story?
E. Lily Yu: I think I am not the most reliable respondent in this case, although there isn’t an alternative. What I would have said a week ago is that I was struck suddenly by the idea of Jesuits on the moon, an idea that felt entirely natural and appropriate, likely as a result of reading Teilhard de Chardin and a longer-form project I recently finished; that I wrote several pages of the story sitting at a Barnes and Noble signing table, in between conversations with curious browsers; and that, when I realized the depths of my ignorance, I reached out to Br. Guy Consolmagno for fact-checking and correction. This narrative is not quite correct.
I became an admirer of Br. Guy perhaps five years ago, while reading Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise, which excerpts a beautiful interview she conducted with Br. Guy and Fr. George Coyne. I had the honor of meeting Br. Guy at Dublin Worldcon a few years later and hearing about the difficulties of fundraising for the Vatican Observatory.
While drafting a note about the story this week, I looked up the full interview with Krista Tippett, in which the host and guests repeatedly mention that Jesuits first mapped the moon, and that over thirty lunar features are named after Jesuits as a result. So, I think perhaps a splinter of an idea embedded itself under my skin without my noticing, years and years ago, and only worked its way out now.
Uncanny Magazine: I love that one focus of the story is the censorship of the Brothers’ research and the way they have to work around that. Navigating power dynamics is a recurring theme in your fiction. What draws you to this theme? What other themes or motifs do you find yourself drawn to repeatedly?
E. Lily Yu: Frankly, I hadn’t noticed. I tunnel in darkness like a mole under a garden, and could not tell you what patterns there are in the flowers I uproot at the end of long digging. When some future graduate student etherizes, pins, and labels my stories, I suspect I will be as surprised by the results as anyone else.
In this case, I had been recently irritated by learning about the Catholic Church’s suppression of the research and writings of Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Uncanny Magazine: What was your favorite part about writing this story? What was the most challenging part?
E. Lily Yu: They were related: the deadline came rushing up, the story remained mostly undone, and at the last minute, without any deliberate or conscious efforts on my part, the pieces of the story clicked into place like the tumblers in a lock. That was a gift, and I remain deeply grateful for it.
Uncanny Magazine: I enjoyed the description of the various pastes served at dinner on the lunar colony—if you were a researcher there, what food would you miss the most?
E. Lily Yu: All of them!
Uncanny Magazine: What research did you do for “The Father Provincial of Mare Imbrium”? Did you turn up anything interesting that didn’t fit into the final story?
E. Lily Yu: It’s a rare event, but the process with this story was the reverse of what the question suggests. To give an example, another story, “The Wretched and the Beautiful,” was cast off perfectly, like a molt between instars, from a ten-year book project that became On Fragile Waves. So much research and thinking had already been done that the story formed naturally of itself. The same thing happened here, as the result of two long-term projects that I can’t say much about yet.
Uncanny Magazine: What are you working on next?
E. Lily Yu: Publishing timelines are so long that writers tend to be years into their next project when the last one is released. Erewhon is publishing Jewel Box, a collection of new and old stories, sometime in Fall 2023. I have two completed non-book projects sitting quietly in someone’s inbox. And I am working on my first work of nonfiction, a collection of essays on creativity and faith.
Uncanny Magazine: Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us!
© 2023 Uncanny Magazine
E. Lily Yu
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Sort: by year of publicationby year of writingby ratingby number of ratingsRussian titleoriginal title | ![]() To see publication dates, switch sorting. |
E. Lily Y. Participation in inter-author projects | ||||
Hellboy Universe // inter-author cycle | 8.65 (54) | 1 review | ||
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E. Lili Y. Novels | ||||
2021On Fragile Waves | ||||
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2007Dovey | 6.00 (1) | |||
2010The Transfiguration of Maria Luisa Ortega (online publication) | 9.00 (3) | |||
2011The Lamp at the Turning (online publication) | 7.00 (1) | |||
2011 The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees | 6.![]() | |||
2012Tiger in the BSE (online publication) | 6.00 (1) | |||
2013Ilse, Who Saw Clearly | 7.00 (1) | |||
2013 Loss, with Chalk Diagrams | 7.00 (1) | |||
2013The Forgetting Shiraz | 6.![]() | |||
2013The Pilgrim and the Angel | 6.00 (2) | |||
2013The Urashima Effect / The Urashima Effect | 6.90 (10) | |||
2013 Daedalum, the Devil’s Wheel | 8.00 (1) | |||
2014Local Stop on the Floating Train(online publication) | 9.![]() | |||
2014Musee de l’Âme Seule | 5.00 (2) | |||
2015Woman at Exhibition(web publication) | 4.00 (1) | |||
2016Braid of Days and Wake of Nights | 8.00 (1) | |||
2016Darkout | 6.![]() | |||
2016Paul Flitch’s Slap-Bang Fracas With Mister Delusio (Online Publication) | 9.00 (1) | |||
2016The Gardener and the King’s Menagerie (online publication) | ||||
2016The Witch of Orion Waste and the Boy Knight | 6.00 (2) | |||
2017 A Quiet Night in the Library | 6.![]() | |||
2017The View From the Top of the Stair (online publication) | 5.00 (1) | |||
2017The White-Throated Transmigrant (online publication) | 5.00 (1) | |||
2017The Wretched and the Beautiful | 8.00 (1) | |||
2018In the Forests of Memory(online publication) | 7.![]() | |||
2018Music for the Underworld | 10.00 (1) | |||
2018The House Inside the House | 8.00 (1) | |||
2018The No-One Girl and the Flower of the Farther Shore | ||||
2019The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E.![]() | 7.00 (1) | |||
2019The Valley of Wounded Deer(Online Publication) | 8.00 (1) | |||
2019Three Variations on a Theme of Imperial Attire | 6.00 (1) | |||
2019Zero in Babel(web posting) | ||||
2019Green Glass: A Love Story / Green Glass: A Love Story | 7.![]() | |||
2019The Time Invariance of Snow | 8.00 (1) | |||
2020The Talking War | ||||
2021Small Monsters | ||||
2022An account, by Dr.![]() | ||||
2023The Father Provincial of Mare Imbrium(online publication) | 6.00 (1) | |||
2023The River and the World Remade(online publication) | ||||
E. Lili Y. Microstories | ||||
2006The Silence (web publication) | 10.![]() | |||
E. Lily Y. Libretto | ||||
2021Stars Between[20 Minute Opera](Online Publication) | ||||
E. Lili Y. Poetry | ||||
2008 What Comes After Rain | 9.00 (2) | |||
2010Come True | 8.![]() | |||
2010 Patience | 8.00 (1) | |||
2010The Poet to the Wasp Queen Among the Plums | ||||
2011Dragonfly to Damsel | ||||
2011Thanatopsis | 9.![]() | |||
2012Thermosphere | ||||
E. Lily Y. Essay | ||||
2021A Love Letter to Libraries(online publication) | ||||
E. Lili Y. Interview | ||||
2015Writing for Video Games: A Conversation with E.![]() // Co-authors: Yoon Ha Lee, Robert Reed, Seth Dickinson, Alvaro Sinos-Amaro | ||||
E. Lily Y. Unpublished | ||||
An Aureate Earth (story, unpublished) | ||||
Hyacinth (story, unpublished) | ||||
Glass, Darkly (play, unpublished) | ||||
All editions of the author (38 editions)
Literary awards of the author (12 awards)
Rating format Note Official electronic editions:
Bibliographers |
Author: E. Lili Y. – 1 books.Main page.
Litvek – electronic library >> Popular authors >> E. Lily Yu. Compilation. Books 1-8
Nikolai Svechin
porn by category
Halley ? Sell your homeland?
Irina 05-07-2023 at 06:34 #191229
The world of the narcissistic victim. Relationships in the context of modern neurosis
Anastasia Dolganova
porno
Santo 05-07-2023 at 05:27 #191228
“Never eat alone” and other rules of networking
Kate Ferrazzi
porno
Jannette 05-07 -2023 at 01:41 #191227
The ninth mirror (SI)
Elena Aleksandrovna Romova
I liked it very much! Where can I find the sequel?
Hope 06/29/2023 at 16:37 #191205
Love and teenagers
Erika Leng
liked it. easy to read. Secrets are gradually revealed.
Zhenya 27-06-2023 at 04:58 #191196
Angel
Mikhail Ivanov
The full version of “Angel” is included in M. Ivanov’s novel “M. Berg. Cup of coffee. (Four stories)”. The meaning of the work is revealed to the end precisely there.
Mikhail 06/26/2023 at 22:05 #191194
Bolotnik
Andrey Alekseevich Panchenko
stupid, illiterate shit
author zaikhohlov
Vova 06/24/2023 at 15:11 #191189
Rzhevsky
Semyon Afanasiev
Hat. I do not recommend.
Artem 06/21/2023 at 16:40 #191164
Indara Bridge
Alexey Arsentiev
Because the book is posted on other resources, and LitVek has a habit of posting books without the permission of the authors. So it turns out that they stole a piece of text, and the author is probably not aware of
Anna 06-20-2023 at 19:01 #191161
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