Jane Yolen has been called the Hans Christian Andersen of America. She has written over 300 books, many poems (including SF poetry), won numerous awards including the Nebula (twice), and is a past president of SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America). She splits her time between her home in Massachusetts and her house in Scotland.
Here she is in email conversation with Russell Jones
Russell Jones: Can you tell us a little about your relationship(s) with science fiction?
Jane Yolen: My relationship began way back in the 1950’s when I discovered the Groff Conklin anthologies. Even then I was more interested in character, story than the actual science. A failure, some might say. But if it is that, it has stuck with me till now when I am <mumble mutter> years old.
I am basically a folklorist with an abiding interest in the natural sciences rather than the space or cutting-edge sciences. My reading (and my writing) follow this interest. Tell me about fireflies mating rituals and I will follow you anywhere. Give me a Mars Rover and I want to know about what it finds. But talk to me about equations, and only if it is a metaphor, can I get hot for it. Maybe it’s why I married a scientist. I could always ask for easier explanations from him.
RJ: It sounds like you’re more interested in the speculative possibilities of science for storytelling purposes, rather than being tied into the accuracy of the science itself. With that in mind, do you think art, and particularly science fiction, has a responsibility to address or challenge contemporary concerns?
JY: I think that all art has a responsibility to itself and to speak the True. That True is often not actual, but something deeper. Emily Dickinson wrote:
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
It’s my mantra. And after all--what is actual is but an agreed upon truth. Is the world flat, round, ovoid? You can probably find people who believe in any of these. Is the ruling god Jehovah/ Christ? Gaia? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? None of the above? I can show you people who believe.
And how many weather deniers can you fit on the head of a pin?
My sole goal is to write well, tell a great story, make my character actually stride across the pages, to write a perfect poem, tell the True. (Note I don’t say Tell the Truth.) But of course, because I am a white Jewish woman of the 20th and 21st centuries, my take on the True will be different from a Man of that time or a person of a different color or upbringing or gender preference or. . .So the secondary part of my writing is to write well enough so that I do not just preach to the choir, but enlarge and engage the choir.
But first I have to write well.
And sometimes I do.
RJ: You raise Emily Dickinson’s “tell it slant” (a popular poetry mantra now), which leads nicely into the realms of verse. You’re a widely published poet as well as prose writer; do you feel that poetry has anything to add to science fiction which prose cannot? Is there anything which science fiction adds to the genre of poetry?
JY: Ah, you are baiting me! Of course I feel both things. Poetry’s metaphor can explain and enlarge upon the facts of fiction; it can be a take-away from that science thing you are learning; a mnemonic to aid your memory; and a depth charge as well. Recently a poem of mine, “The Day After” became the heading for a newsletter sent to people interested in Lynn Margulis’ work on the Gaia Theory and evolution geography which—while truly science—is a very science fictional field itself.
And of course there is a lot of sf poetry out there and a Science Fiction Poetry Association to keep poets abreast of markets, publish small essays on the field, and hand out SFPA awards called the Rhyslings and Dwarf Stars.
If you think about it, even non-sf poets use metaphors that are strikingly like science fiction: Yeats’ “The Second Coming” is a perfect example.
RJ: You mention the SFPA, for which you are one of the Grandmasters. Could you tell us a little about this role, and your views on the potential values of establishing science fiction societies and communities?
JY: The SFPA Grandmaster is an honorary role (as is the World Fantasy Assn. Grandmaster, which I also am.) All I get are bragging rights. […] However, I have been president of SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) and on advisory committees for that organization as well, and there you do work, and strategize when asked, and have a bully pulpit to speak to the outside world. I was the second women to hold that office.
What can science fiction societies and communities do? Sometimes it seems we just crab and carp a lot, and other animal metaphors. But the best of them become second homes for fans and writers and illustrators. There we can share trade secrets, read one another’s work, set up art shows, hold movie parties, conventions, workshops. The best supporter of the arts is--as always--the artists. The best voices for sf are those who read and write it. But we need to be inclusive, not exclusive, not shoving out the Muggles, cold-shouldering the wannabees, or turning on them like rabid puppies. It is imperative to bring the newer sf folk to the fire and let them learn how to stoke the flames.
RJ: that’s good to hear, and those are some of Shoreline of Infinity’s mission objectives: to bring new people to SF, to allow new writers to speak and flourish. On that line - as an Old Hand (at the writing, no comments on age here!), are there any books (from your now 360-odd published) which didn’t make it to print but you wished they had? Or any which were published which you wish hadn’t been?
JY: There are always regrets, mostly about early books, that I wish I could do over. And in fact, the very first one that I published (with McKay) I did. That early book (1963) was Pirates in Petticoats and I completely rewrote it, and it was published by Charlesbridge as Sea Queens in 2008. In the in-between time, a lot more had been published about female pirates than I had unearthed in the earlier book. But female pirates became an obsession with me from then on, as were strong young women. You can find many of them in my sf/fantasy books.
As for books not yet published (and not yet even taken provisionally by a publisher), three stand out, all fantasy rather than a hard sf: Finding Baba Yaga which is a verse novel for teens about a modern runaway who becomes one of Baba Yaga’s legions of feisty girls. The Sea Dragon of Fife, is a middle grade novel about the R&A Royal and Ancient Monster Hunters a hundred years ago in Fife, who trap monsters but are almost out-manned and outwitted by a nasty sea dragon and her son. And The Last Tsar’s Dragons (written with Adam Stemple, my son) which first came out as a novella for adults and we want to turn into an adult novel, about Tsar Nicholas, Stalin, Rasputin and red dragons.
Plus about 35 picture books and poetry collections.
And about 25 books under contract, all but 1 of them written.
RJ: I’m very interested in your thoughts on “strong young women” in your books, and in literature more generally. We are slowly beginning to see more multidimensional, well written women characters in SF on the television too. Can you tell us about the strong young women in your work, and whether you feel there’s been any change in the presentation of women in literature during your career?
JY: I have been writing so many strong young women in my books over the years that these days I am actually getting pushback from parents to include more strong boys! A sort of backhanded compliment I suppose.
Part of that in children’s books was the automatic assumption that girls read all the times but the more active boys (note the double assumption) don’t read, and the automatic corollary: that girls will read books with boys as heroes but boys will not read books with girl heroes.
Nowadays there are more books about strong women in history, strong princesses, strong female astronauts, strong, female bridge builders or explorers, etc. But there are still many literary glass ceilings yet to be broken. I will continue to try and help crack them wide.
Some of my fantasy/sf books with strong females: Sister Light/Sister Dark trilogy; The Seelie Wars trilogy, Snow in Summer, Not One Damsel in Distress, The Devil’s Arithmetic, Except the Queen, among others.
RJ : Keep breaking those glass ceilings, please! I recall a recent online discussion about (I think, correct me if I’m wrong) a lack of male dinosaurs in one of your books. Do you find that you have to defend your work often, particularly given how widely read your books are? It seems as though it would be impossible to escape criticism - how do you deal with that?
JY: First of all, it was a lack of FEMALE dinosaurs in those books that has been a problem. And honestly, given the preponderance of active female v. males in my books, the critics should have considered the overall balance.
Also, the first book (I never thought of it as the start of a series, just the one book) was explicitly written for the editor’s son. She’d said to me, “My son Robbie hates to go to bed and loves dinosaurs, can you write something for him?” As I’d had two sons like that--my daughter was never a problem at bedtime—I had my own models for those naughty dinos.
