Brenda Cooper

Last year, Ben Lovatt of Educated Earth interviewed Brenda Cooper about Building Harlequin's Moon, which Cooper wrote with Larry Niven. Lovatt's overview and the first exchange:

Overview:

Building Harlequin's Moon is an epic tale of humanity's quest for the stars. Spanning a period of 60,000 years, this work of science fiction brings to life the social and physical challenges forced upon an interstellar colony ship when they find themselves stranded light-years from their desired destination Ymir. With a depleted antimatter supply and no hope of rescue, the colonists have no choice but to terraform a nearby star system and forge a civilization to refuel their vessel.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys science fiction, especially psychological SF. The characters are very well developed and often struggle with realistic moral dilemmas.

How did you first get into writing?

"Well, I’ve always wanted to be a writer. When I was just a small girl, I wrote poetry and short stories. Although I never stopped writing, at some point in my thirties, I decided that I’d better stop procrastinating about writing commercially accessible work if I wanted to be published. This realization partly came out of a series of workshops by Steven Barnes, another Niven collaborator. So I went back to school at our local community college and started attending writing workshops and classes given by published writers with real track records. After that, it only took a couple of years to start publishing. And of course, knowing Mr. Niven and writing with him helped. Steven also helped me out with good advice. Science fiction writers are generally a really supportive community, and we have a tradition of helping newcomers."

Read the entire Q & A.

Brenda Cooper's solo and collaborative short fiction has appeared in multiple magazines, including Analog, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Oceans of the Mind, and The Salal Review.

Last year, she applied the Page 99 Test to The Silver Ship and the Sea, the first book in The Silver Ship trilogy. The sequel, Reading the Wind, is due out this month.

Visit Brenda Cooper's website and her LiveJournal; read an excerpt from The Silver Ship and the Sea, and learn more about Reading the Wind.

The Page 99 Test: The Silver Ship and the Sea.

The Page 99 Test: Reading the Wind.

Writers Read: Brenda Cooper.

--Marshal Zeringue