Why do you write?
Because I'm not fit to do anything else.
What's the one invention/political policy you'd like to see realised in your lifetime?
I would like to see a complete worldwide end to the use of fossil fuels.
If you could be any fictional character for a day, who would it be, and why?
I think it would be Xena the Warrior Princess. I'd love to go around looking great in a black leather swimsuit and beating up the first 50 people who irritate me.
Five books that will always stay with you?
- The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria
- The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
- Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell
- A Natural History of the Rich by Richard Conniff
- Jerusalem Poker by Edward Whittemore
Has the Internet significantly changed writers, for good or bad?
I doubt it has changed writers, but it has certainly changed many of their activities, both for better and for worse. As is true of many other people, writers waste a lot of time on the internet, absurd writer quarrels and feuds are fueled by internet interaction, and rumors circulate at a dizzying speed and become known as "fact."
On the other hand, research is a hundred (no, a thousand!) times easier than it used to be, thanks to internet resources (including the ability to shop for research books nationally and internationally without leaving my office), and communication with everyone---editors, readers, other writers—is also far easier than it used to be.
Although it's certainly true that the internet is full of bad "information," it's also full of extremely good information that used to be a lot harder to get. For example, see my "Writers Resource Page" at. Simply by using that page as your guide, you can access more valid information about the craft and business of writing professionally than you could have found in two years of painstaking effort prior to the advent of the internet.
What are you working on right now, tell us more!
The Palace of Heaven, a traditional fantasy novel for Tor, set in the same world as my previous Tor books, and Unsympathetic Magic, the third Esther Diamond novel, an urban fantasy series set in New York City.
My upcoming releases are:
The Purifying Fire, (Wizards of the Coast, July 2009)
Doppelgangster, the second Esther Diamond novel (DAW Books, January 2010)
Laura Resnick is the author of such fantasy novels as Disappearing Nightly, In Legend Born, The Destroyer Goddess, and The White Dragon, which made the "Year's Best" lists of Publishers Weekly and Voya. She is also the Campbell Award-winning author of sixty short stories. Her most recent book is Rejection, Romance, and Royalties: The Wacky World of a Working Writer, a nonfiction collection of her columns and essays on the writing life. Laura's upcoming releases include The Purifying Fire (July 2009) and Doppelgangster (January 2010). You can find her on the Web.
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