Author: Sue Burke

“To me, human life in all its forms, individual and aggregate, is a perpetual wonder; the flora of the earth and sea is full of beauty and of mystery which science seeks to understand; the fauna of land and ocean is not less wonderful; the world which holds them both, and the great universe that folds it in on every side, are still more wonderful, complex, and attractive to the contemplating mind.”

— Theodore Parker (1810 – 1860)

Also: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

— Theodore Parker from a speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention, 1858.

On Sunday, August 13, the ebook version of Dual Memory will be only $2.99 everyplace where ebooks are sold.

Dual Memory will also be part of Kindle Editor’s Pick Goldbox.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 2:

When I was a little boy, one day the camp held an art class for children, what I later learned was supposed to be art therapy. An aid worker in much nicer clothing than ours asked us to express our greatest fears. Paper and boxes of old crayons had been set out on the tables. I had a lot of fears, but even then I was smart enough to know it wouldn’t make me feel better to draw them. I wanted to make beautiful art like a real artist, but I also knew I should obey, so I drew stick-thin people standing in a line. They were waiting for rations, and we never had enough to eat.

The aid workers had brought their own food, nice food. I’d overheard grown-ups grumble. When the aid workers saw my drawing, they told me what a great little artist I was. They liked the picture so much that they kept it, so to get even, I stole some crayons. I could make more art, real art, and I did, as beautiful as I could, even if I was surrounded by ugliness and disaster, even if I wasn’t supposed to.

How do science fiction authors predict the future? Do you want to write a book but don’t know where to start? Cat Rambo, J.S. Dewes, and I will try to answer these and other questions for you at two panels at FanExpo Chicago on Saturday, August 12, at the Douglas E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. You can also enjoy cosplay, celebrities, comics, anime, shopping, fan meet-ups, workshops, artists, tattoo alley, family-centered events, and gaming..

Writing the Future with Sci-fi Authors, 12:30 p.m. in Fandom Panels Room 11. Join authors Cat Rambo (You Sexy Thing, Devil’s Gun), J.S. Dewes (Divide series, Rubicon), and Sue Burke (Semiosis, Dual Memory) with moderator Meg Bonney as we chat about our books, inspirations, and building strange new worlds in science fiction. Plus, bring your books and stay after the panel for a free signing.

Sci-fi Authors Signing, 1:30 p.m. in Fandom Panels Room 11. Cat Rambo, J.S. Dewes, and Sue Burke.

Ask Me Anything: Writing Advice from Science Fiction Authors, 4:00 p.m. in Workshops Room 4. Want to write a book but don’t know where to start? Have a question about the age-old debate of plotting vs. pantsing? Or maybe you just want to know more about where inspiration comes from. Then this panel is for you. Join authors Cat Rambo, J.S. Dewes, and Sue Burke with moderator Meg Bonney and get your burning questions answered.

While I was at Pemmi-Con, the North American Science Fiction Convention on July 20 to 23 in Winnipeg, Canada, I succumbed to encouragement and entered the Masquerade. This is a kind of costume contest often held at science fiction conventions since 1939.

Masquerades can be intimidating. Some costumers put breathtaking effort into them, and all I had was a Doctor Who scarf. But it was no ordinary scarf: It meant something. I entered it as “Tangible Artifact,” and when I went on stage, the convention’s toastmaster, Tanya Huff, read my story:

“When I first started going out with Jerry, neither one of us wanted to go out on Friday nights, and eventually one of us admitted: ‘Well, there’s a TV show I like to watch. It’s kind of odd. It’s called Doctor Who.’ ‘Oh, I love Doctor Who!’ Soon, I asked my mother, who loved to knit, to make a Doctor Who Scarf for my boyfriend as a gift, and I got her the official BBC pattern from a fan club. She watched the show to get the colors right, and she loved it, too. Eventually Jerry and I got married, and a year later Mom died, but the scarf remains as a tangible artifact of the love that flows through fandom.”

The audience was touched, although I wasn’t the best in show, obviously. You can see the winners here and admire the master-level craft in the costumes. Still, I won two awards: an Honorable Mention in the Novice Class for Stage Bravery, and a Workmanship Award for my mother’s exceptionally skillful knitting. We miss you, Mom!

As you know, I love plants, and I’ve found an ally in my quest to make you a plant-lover, too.

Shepherd is a site where authors can share their favorite books — and here are the ones that I hope will change the way you look at the greenery around you: The best books to make you love plants.

That’s not all you can find at Shepherd. For example, you can see an expert list on how to keep your houseplants alive. You can view a whole shelf of the best plant books picked by other authors.

You can also browse book recommendations for all kinds of topics in both fiction and non-fiction, by genre, author, age of reader, or books that are like one of your favorite books. Unlike some book-selling sites, these are recommendations for readers, not for corporate profit. Maybe you’re interested in history, parenting, mysteries, or cooking. If you like to read, this site is worth bookmarking.

If you’ve read the novel Dual Memory, you know how it ends — and then what happens? For fun, I wrote what might be the next scene. You can read it here.

If there’s a next scene, is there a next book? Honestly, that depends on sales of the first book, and bigger sales are always more encouraging when it comes time to make a hard business calculation. If you enjoyed the novel and want a sequel, recommend Dual Memory to your friends and leave a review wherever you can.

The best sales technique is word of mouth: person-to-person buzz. You can accomplish what no one else can.

My latest novel, Dual Memory, drew very vague inspiration from the Dutch tulip bubble in the 1630s (the real tulipmania, not the hysterical pseudo-history). Because naming characters is hard (as Rebecca Makkai explains here), I decided to name as many people, places, and things as I could after tulips.

The available choices seemed close to infinite. One of the sources I used was the US National Gardening Association listing. Some of the names are unexpected because whoever develops or finds a cultivar of a plant gets to name it, and people can be moved by whimsy.

Tulip names tapped for the novel include:

Thule, a kind of Triumph tulip (see picture)

Antonio Moro, a pink Triumph tulip

Par Augustus (now extinct; tulip cultivars naturally peter out)

Cedonulle

Devenish

Miss Fanny Kemble

Ollioules

Ginrei

Ho Tcho

Ibiza

Koningin

Macx

Marathon

Moniuszko

Mussi Knol

Nico

Toproy

Oscar

Pinky

Romero

Goya

Switzer

Tetry Vivi

Valentinier

Wirosa

Antraciet

Bronzewing

Chatelaine

Marathon

Quidam

Swan

Upstar

Hocus Pocus

Rosella

Fontaine

Blanka

Grand Rapids

Farness

Wrestlemania (seriously?)

As you know, Stevland is a character in the novel Semiosis, specifically a bamboo tree. The bamboo was named after a colonist who died on the way to the planet Pax, and that colonist was named after the musician and singer known as Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder’s real name is Stevland Hardaway Morris. But how do you pronounce “Stevland”?

Now we know for sure. In this clip from a television special in about 1970, Diana Ross introduces him with a breathy “Hello, Stevland.” She says “STEEV-land.”

You can see the greeting in the opening minute at https://youtu.be/mxs2nRekH2w. But listen to the whole thing as Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross sing “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me.” Stevland (the namesake on Pax) loves music, too.

My novel Semiosis is set on a distant planet called Pax where iron is a scarce element in the planetary crust. But plants need iron, so some of the plants on that planet find ways to hunt and kill animals, which are a rich source of iron. This becomes a problem for the humans who arrive to colonize Pax.

Here on Earth, iron is a common element in the surface in most places — but the soil in flowerpots can become depleted. I’m taking no chances. This is the label of the plant food I give to my houseplants. They get all the iron they need, and I can sleep soundly.

This is a coleus in my living room. I think it’s gorgeous, and I use this photo as wallpaper on my phone.

Photos are an art form. I spend most of my time writing, which is also an art form. And one of my hobbies is houseplants — which is to say indoor gardening. It’s occurred to me that gardening, too, is an art form.

I’m hardly the first to have this thought, nor am I the first to believe that we can all make art, many kinds of art. Art and creativity get defined too narrowly, limiting “artist” to someone like Picasso, not the person who doodles in the margins of a letter. (But Édouard Manet doodled in his letters, and he’s a “real” artist, so logically, marginal art is “real” art.)

I make art with water, dirt, time, sunshine and a collaborating plant.

What art do you make?