In the final part of our interview with Mary Soon Lee about Elemental Haiku (check out Parts One and Two), we discuss writing for various format, her current and future projects, and Star Trek!
I’ve read that when you moved to the USA you weren’t able to get a work visa and started writing TV scripts. What made you want to write for TV and then what prompted the move towards fiction?
Mary Soon Lee: I was a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I knew that they were considering scripts from people without screenwriting credits. The idea of getting to write a Star Trek episode was very appealing to me. I wrote three scripts, and learned a great deal in the process, though none of them sold. Beyond Star Trek, I wasn’t drawn to writing for television, so I switched to prose. I don’t think I’ll want to write for television in the future, though it’s not quite certain. In 2015-2016, I did write a handful of short pieces in script format as part of a novel-length epic fantasy told in poems.
Next Generation is the only Star Trek series that really clicked with me, are you looking forward to the new Picard series?
Mary: I am indeed looking forward to the Picard series. I re-watched both the original series Star Trek and the Next Generation series with my daughter, and a lot will depend on whether she likes the Picard series. (These days, I very rarely watch television shows without one or more of my family. When left to entertain myself, I read.)
Scripts and poetry both have a certain conciseness in their language, do you feel like writing those early scripts helped your poetry as well as your prose?
Mary: It probably did help. I think that most writing, and indeed reading, helps you become a better writer. At the time, I was most aware that the scripts helped me with dialogue. N.B. Concision is one of the things that I love in poetry, a quality that can be found in poems that lack rhyme or other formal devices.
You have degrees in mathematics and computer science, an MSc in astronautics and space engineering and spent time working as a programmer before becoming a writer. Do you miss the more technical career?
Mary: I enjoyed programming in much the same way as I might enjoy solving a puzzle, but I don’t miss it. On the other hand, I would have loved to contribute to science or the space program, and in some small way writing science poetry approaches that. I’m currently working on a collection of astronomy poems, as well as other poetry and fiction.
Since you’ve mentioned it I was going to ask about upcoming work. Let’s start with the astronomy poems, can you tell me a little more about the collection?
Mary: I’ve been working on the astronomy poems intermittently for over a year, writing a few at a time. At the moment, all the titles begin with “How to.” For example, there’s “How to Be a Star,” “How to Speak to Pluto,” and “How to Fathom a Light-Year.” The poems vary widely in style and tone. A few rhyme, most do not. They deal with the planets and stars, black holes and people with a connection to space. To date, sixteen of the poems have been published individually, but I would like to eventually gather them all together in a book.
I’ve read and enjoyed a couple of your ‘How To’ astronomy poems and did wonder if there was a plan behind them. The periodic table has an obvious end point, how will you know when you’ve reached the end of the project?
Mary: I’m not sure! There are some topics I feel should be covered, such as having a poem for each of the planets in the solar system. Beyond that, it’s far from clear. I’m also undecided on whether to include any astronomy poems that don’t fit the format of being a “How to” poem.
You’ve written a fantasy epic presented in the form of poems – Crowned: The Sign of the Dragon, Book 1. What made you want to tell a longer narrative through the form of poetry and what are your plans for the rest of the series?
Mary: I wrote “Interregnum,” the opening poem from “The Sign of the Dragon,” at a time when I was just returning to writing fantasy after years of writing mostly mainstream poetry. And I rediscovered that writing could be both all-engrossing and a joy. When I wrote that first poem, I thought it was a standalone piece, but the character of the sixteen-year-old boy tugged me back, and I wrote more and more poems about him. A lot of the later arc of the story is implicit in the first poem, though that wasn’t clear to me then. I’ve now written Xau’s whole story, which comes to over three hundred poems, and it is in the hands of my agent (the superb Lisa Rodgers).
It must be a nice feeling to have the whole of Xau’s story written, do you think you’d want to take on any other longer narrative projects like this in the future?
Mary: I would love to write another long narrative work, whether in poetry or prose. At the same time, it was a hugely absorbing project, so part of me wants to delay until my daughter is older. (She’s fourteen. She doesn’t need attention the way a young child does, but I like her company and I’d like to be available when she’s at home.)
Do you find the process of reviewing the books you’ve read on Goodreads helps your own writing and do you have a recommendation from the last year?
Mary: My book reviews aim to report my reaction as a reader, rather than attempt something more scholarly. Even so, I think the process does help me assess what I like — or dislike — and that may well help my own writing. I have many recommendations, but will try to restrain myself. In the past year, the book that I’ve loved most is “A Brightness Long Ago” by Guy Gavriel Kay, a quiet, reflective, beautifully-written fantasy. On the science poetry front, I very much liked Simon Barraclough’s “Sunspots,” which is a collection of poetry themed around the sun.
Finally, I’m curious about your website and twitter profile picture – can you tell me a bit about it?
Mary: Do you mean the little antenna being? That dates back at least as far as the 1980s when I was a first-year mathematics student at Cambridge University: I would draw the antenna being in my lecture notes. N.B. I’ve been blogging about my mail on the web since 1995 — my website is antiquated and alarmingly close to its original version. I’m hoping it will soon be thoroughly updated.
Well I hope the little antenna being makes it onto the updated website! Thank you so much for talking with The Sciku Project about Elemental Haiku and your writing, it’s been an absolute pleasure.
Mary: Thank you very much for all your questions and for your friendliness! I very much appreciate your enthusiasm for the haiku.
I wish you all the best for your next writing endeavours and I’m looking forward to whatever you share with the world next. Thank you.
Check out The Sciku Project’s review of Elemental Haiku and Parts One and Two of our interview if you’ve missed them.
You can find out more about (and order) Elemental Haiku here. Images and text reprinted with permission from Elemental Haiku: Poems to Honor the Periodic Table Three Lines at a Time by Mary Soon Lee copyright © 2019. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.