A. Katherine Black lives in Minnesota with her family, their cats, and her many teapots and coffee machines. She loves making snow angels and dreaming up stories about creatures with bunches of legs, tentacles, and wings. She’s a member of SFWA and Codex and a 2018 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Her stories will appear this summer in Cosmic Horror Monthly, Hearth Stories, and the FAMILIARS anthology by Zombies Need Brains, with more of her fiction due out later this year. Find her at flywithpigs.com.
Can you talk about your pre-Odyssey writing process? What kind of writing schedule, if any, did you keep?
My pre-Odyssey process was all about inspiration. I’d begin with an image that popped into my head and expand the story from there. I love exploring a new story this way, but the challenge I faced for a long time, as a working parent and military spouse, was not just finding the time, but also reserving the brain space to be creative. Even when I found a few free moments, I was often too tired to write. I did finish stories eventually, though, usually by staying up late, trading sleep for words. Then would come the painstaking process of identifying a story’s weaknesses and trying to improve them. Sometimes it took more than twenty drafts before I felt like I had a decent story, and then I’d begin submitting.
What made you decide to attend the Odyssey Writing Workshop?
I wanted to apply for years, but there wasn’t space in my life for a six-week getaway. For a long time it seemed like attending a workshop like Odyssey could never happen. But life eventually shifted. One day my spouse was told of an unexpected transfer, which meant I had to leave my job. This could have been frustrating, but in my case, it meant I was free to attend a workshop. Our nest was almost empty by then, with just one teenager left at home, and so the time had finally come when I could focus more on my writing!
How do you feel your writing and writing process changed as a result of having attended Odyssey? What insights did you gain into your own work?
Odyssey was amazing. It was like drinking from a firehose of craft knowledge, and every day brought more aha moments. I continued my writing practice after the workshop, and eventually I could write a decent short story in just a few drafts instead of the twenty-plus it used to take.
My next step used to be whisking the story off on submission, but my post-Odyssey process was different. Odyssey showed me that achieving a “decent draft” does not mean the story is as strong as it can be. So instead of submitting my story at this point, my next steps were sharing it for critique, and then rewriting. I feel fortunate to have met so many supportive, insightful peers through Odyssey, with whom I regularly trade drafts for beta read and critique. Thanks to these awesome writers, I continue to learn and improve.
When and how did you make your first sale?
My first several pieces found homes in smaller, non-paying markets, and I was beyond excited to see those stories out in the world! It wasn’t until after I finished Odyssey that I began selling to pro and semi-pro magazines. Interestingly, my first two sales to pro markets were reprints of stories that had originally appeared in smaller markets. My take-away from that experience was to aim high with my submissions, to never assume my story isn’t good enough. Never self-reject!
Writers tend to repeat themes in their work. One of your recent short stories, “Mother, Shift, Mother,” came out in February 2024 from Intrepidus Ink and features a woman who can also take the form of a spider. What are some of the common themes in your work? Do you consider theme before you write a story, or does theme come to you after you have a first draft?
My stories usually include non-human characters—I’m drawn to creatures that are quite different from humans, and I love subverting expectations with my creature characters. Spiders appear in many of my stories, but as characters that I hope readers will empathize with, and maybe even like.
I don’t typically begin a story with a clear idea of the cast of characters or the theme, though. I usually start with a snippet of scene or a nugget of worldbuilding, and as I progress through the exploratory draft, some non-human character or another seems to naturally emerge and weave itself into the story. I often don’t know the theme until I’ve reached the end of that first draft, but I’m sure my subconscious is involved before this point, as many of my stories emerge with similar themes, often around a character gaining independence, and often touching on socioeconomic issues. That’s one thing I love about exploratory drafting—I learn a lot about myself in the process.
What’s the biggest weakness in your writing these days, and how do you cope with it?
Right now it’s, plotting, plotting, plotting! I’d always considered myself a short fiction writer, but lately my stories have become longer and longer. This means not just a longer plot, but a more complex one, with subplots and multiple character arcs. So I’m examining all the shapes a plot can take (circular, spiral, mosaic, oh my!) and figuring out how to juggle multiple timelines while intertwining several character arcs. There’s so much to learn, sometimes it feels like I’m playing twister on a mat the size of a parking lot, while blindfolded. Bit by bit, though, clarity emerges! I’m so excited to begin weaving some fun, swirly plots!
What’s next on the writing-related horizon? Are you starting any new projects?
As you may have guessed, I’ve started writing my first novel! I’m about a third of the way into it and pleasantly surprised at how much I’m enjoying the process. The old Writer Me thought such a long project would be boring and tedious, but the reality has been just the opposite. With each new chapter, I feel more immersed in the setting and more invested in the characters. I’m excited to one day share these quirky, creature characters with the world!
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