Fantastic Metropolis

... and now the unexpurgated question and answer segment

M.M. Hall: In ‘83 you wrote the mysterious text for an erotic story book featuring illustrations by Michael Johnson that too few people had access to. It begins: “When I was a child I was magic and did not know it…” one of the best opening lines I’ve ever read. Later on in the text you write: “My power encompasssed me like a shield. At times it seemed more punishment than blessing, for I could not cast if off and it isolated me even among crowds. I was always alone…” Were you talking about yourself?

Lisa Tuttle: Goodness, no! (I have no supernatural powers; none of the rumours are true.) There are sometimes autobiographical elements in my fiction, but this isn’t one of them. I wrote the text of Angela’s Rainbow specifically to accompany a series of paintings by the artist Michael Johnson. What I wrote was in response to the pictures, which already had an order decided on by the artist—it was then up to me to attempt to create some sort of narrative, if I could, which would link them in some way. The publisher gave me a fixed word-length, not just for the entire text, but also how many words were to be on each page, and where those pages would be placed in relation to the pictures—which has got to be the oddest way I ever had to write a piece of fiction! Yet somehow it did work out; I actually felt quite pleased with it in the end.

M.M. Hall: Well, I think it could be reprinted in a collection without the artwork and still stand up. Any chance of that? And after reading this, someone may wonder if it can still be purchased. Has it become a rarity?

Lisa Tuttle: There’s no chance of me having the story published elsewhere, as the publisher owns all rights. I don’t know whether or not the book is still easily available.

M.M. Hall: Describe the moment you decide you were a writer.

Lisa Tuttle: Oh, I can’t remember the actual moment. For as long as I can remember, reading and writing went together. As soon as I’d learned to read and write, I loved to read, and started writing my own stories.

M.M. Hall: What was your very first story? Mine was in the fourth grade. I wrote a story about the nun who was my sixth grade teacher going beserk, whipping a gun out from beneath her habit and shooting us all for laughing too much. She actually grabbed it off my desk (I had illustrated it as well) and laughed, saying she had to show it to Mother Superior. I thought I was a goner but I wasn’t punished for it–and maybe that’s why I thought I could be a writer?

Lisa Tuttle: I can’t remember my very first story (perhaps my mother still has it tucked away somewhere?) but it was certainly written before fourth grade, most likely in second grade because I’m sure I didn’t have the writing skills necessary in the first grade! I may not remember the actual details of my very first story, but I do strongly recall the thrill and satisfaction of writing them in pencil on a Big Chief Tablet. (I don’t know if these iconic artifacts are still produced, but I remember that as late as the mid-1970s, Howard Waldrop wrote an entire short novel on a Big Chief Tablet.) Around the ages of 8 to 10, one of my favourite words was “mysterious”—although I didn’t know how to spell it—and I wrote a number of stories with titles like “The Myserous Voice” and “The Mysterus Door.” These generally involved a small group of children, bored out of their minds in their quiet, suburban homes, discovering a previously unseen door which led into an amazing underground world; or finding a magical object which could grant wishes; or seeing a strange, ghostly person or light and following it into some adventure. Whenever I discovered a book I especially enjoyed, I would promptly try my hand at writing my own version—I remember writing about children who had a magic, flying bed after reading Mary Norton’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I also played games with trolls (do you remember those “Dam” things?) or other small toys with my friend and neighbour Shelly Cain; we especially liked creating tiny objects, furniture, clothes, houses, etc for our toys as well as making up adventures for them, so I was always writing (in as tiny a hand as I could manage) little stories and then making them into little books. I used to make up ghost stories, too, gathering Shelly and her little sister Vicki, and my sister Megan, into some enclosed space (the cedar closet where out of season clothes were stored was one favourite spot; we also had a play-house made out of a piano box) where I would elaborate the scariest tales I could invent.