HODDER AND STOUGHTON INTERVIEW,
1997, ON THE UK PUBLICATION
OF CENTURIES

hy did you become a writer?

It’s a psychic journey. I wanted to find myself. Storytelling is a renowned technique for self-exploration. It admits one directly into what Tibetans call the bardo, literally “between existences.” There, we create the stories that define us. All of us do this, usually unconsciously. We gauge our distances in life by these stories, right to the edge of the world. The collective soul has its stories, too. These are the tales written down that become part of the psychic fabric of society. The drive of every writer is to find and recount these stories, because then one finds not only oneself but the world.

Why do you write science fiction and fantasy?

Those are the genres that most directly plumb the bardo, because they’re most straightforward about being imaginary. By their honesty, the genres of fantasy and science fiction almost equal poetry in their propinquity to the Place of Mystery that is the soul.

What about fiction simply as entertainment? Why regard fiction as a soulful concern at all?

Entertainment is soulful. It’s symbolic action at its finest. When one is most entertained, most engrossed in a work of art, one is no longer simply with oneself. One has entered a shared psychic space with the artist and the collective soul. From the first fireside storytellers, the goal has always been entertainment, the portal that opens to what is beyond us.