Mary Robinette Kowal talks about Shimmer, the special pirate issue, puppetry, art, and writing.

Mary Robinette Kowal is a writer, puppeteer, and the art director of Shimmer, which made its debut in

fall of 2005, which received glowing reviews. Tangent Online mentioned its

"numerous well-told stories by many unknown names, wonderful artwork

weaved into each story, [and] a pleasing and original layout" while

the Internet Review of Science Fiction said it was "a nice-looking

publication with some nice-reading stories." Kowal's work has appeared

in Strange Horizons, Apex Digest, and All-Star Stories among other

places.

Q: How did you get involved with Shimmer?

MRK: Beth Wodzinski knew me from the writer's forum at Hatrack.com. She approached me about being part of this new magazine. At the time I said, "No, I'm too busy." Beth was, shall we say, persistent. Since I liked her writing and had always gotten great critiques from her, I felt pretty confident in her editorial vision.

Q: So what sets Shimmer apart from the rest of the small-press magazines?

MRK: The answer differs for readers and writers.

For readers, Shimmer focuses on a particular kind of short story-the combination of a strange and original idea, a well-developed plot and characters, delivered with exquisite writing. In general, we are more concerned with compelling stories than with genre boundaries, so in one volume of Shimmer you might find urban fantasy, magical realism, fairy tale retellings, character-driven SF, cyberpunk, and horror stories. You are less likely to see conventional interpretations of the speculative fiction genre such as sword and sorcery or space opera. We like unusual stories that take us to places we have never been - but that we instantly recognize.

That said, Shimmer is a speculative fiction magazine. This means that most stories have a speculative element at its heart. On the other hand, we have been known to accept non-speculative stories. The thing all of our stories have in common are both solid storytelling and vivid, compelling prose.

We are also perfect bound with a glossy color cover, more like a small book than a pulp magazine.

For writers, we have an average response time of one week and offer personal comments on every story.

Q: What advice would you give someone thinking about starting their own F&SF magazine?

MRK: Don't rush into it and have clear reasons for starting the magazine. We saw a niche that we felt was not being filled. We took six months to decide about format--originally we were going to be an online magazine, but researching it and getting feedback convinced us that it was not a viable route for what we wanted to do. There are good online magazines, but we were interested in something different.

Understand that it will be very time-consuming.

Have a printer lined up before you do anything else, because that controls pricing, format, schedule. Everything. The printer needs to be someone you can trust.

Make a business plan with clear goals and milestones.

We have a plan which will allow us to be sustainable and grow. We have broken even with each issue and are slowly raising our rates. As our subscriber base grows, we raise our payrates. If things stay on schedule we should be at pro-rates in three years.

Q: What's your overall artistic vision for Shimmer? Are there artists you would particularly like to work with?

MRK: Shimmer is about story-telling, which means that the art work needs to add to that tale. When I assign an artist a story, I ask them to read it and to pick one line, which speaks to them, as their jumping off point. Sandro Castelli, Chrissy Elsworth and Stephen Stanley have created beautiful images which support and add to the stories.

We also use "found art," which means that I'll see an existing piece and contact the artist to ask if we can use it in Shimmer. David Ho, who did the cover for our Spring 2006 issue, had a style that spoke perfectly to our cover story, Aliette de Bodard's A Warrior's Death.

The goal for our art is much the same as our fiction. I want art that uses conventional techniques in exciting new ways. Inside Shimmer you will find art with strong compositions, exquisite technical execution and a unique artist's voice.

Q: Shimmer's website/print layout are pretty simple and unassuming, although elegant. What's the design philosophy behind that look/feel?

MRK: We want to focus on the writing. I used the same handwriting font for the logo as for the text pull-outs on the interior as a nod to the days of handwritten manuscripts. Some magazines are over-designed, I think, and pull me out of stories because of the flashiness of the layout. For most of those, I think they are trying to generate newstand appeal. We were more interested in reading appeal.

Q: You've done some reading of audio fiction - what sort of stuff do you like to read? What's your favorite of the ones you've done so far?

MRK: I'll read anything with a female point-of-view character, but some stories lend themselves to being read out loud more than others.

When I was in college I was on the Forensics team (speech, debate and interpretive reading). This was in the days before audio books were prevalent. I took some radio classes, because I was fascinated with the idea of audio plays. For years, I was only able to use that training in my work as a puppeteer. After I got married, to an audio engineer, we started working with Willamette Radio Workshop (www.radiowork.com) which is great fun. So probably my favorite thing would be one of the radio plays at WRW.

But, of audio fiction, I would say that Middle Woman by Orson Scott Card was very satisfying. It's been one of my favorite short stories for years and to get to read it was a kick.

Q: What prompted the upcoming pirate issue of Shimmer?

MRK: Last September--remember what I said about planning ahead?--we were tossing around the idea of doing a theme issue at some point in the future. National Talk Like a Pirate day occurred around that time, and I think someone posted a link to the Flying Spaghetti Monster website. We decided that a) Wednesdays would be dress-like-a-pirate day at Shimmer and b) it would be a lot of fun to do as the theme issue. In part, I think, because you can do such a range of genres with pirates. Arrr! Then it was a matter of picking a guest editor for the issue. We are very pleased that John Joseph Adams, from Fantasy & Science Fiction, has agreed to helm the ship for the Pirate issue.

Q: Are you puppeteer or writer, or some unholy amalgam of both?

MRK: I'm a storyteller. I love world-creation in all its forms, so I guess that means I'm an unholy amalgam. When talking about puppetry, I've often paraphrased Orson Scott Card--puppetry is the theater of the possible. That's why I like speculative fiction; I like playing in the world of "what if."

An actor comes to the stage with baggage, but a puppet is only that character--no worries about bills, or getting a latte after the show--and they are not bound by gravity. With fiction, I have the same freedom. It excites me.