Interview with Shannon McDermott

I discovered Shannon McDermott's books while browsing Enclave's (a publishing house) website. After reading and reviewing The Time Door, I discovered that there was a second book in the series!

What are your published works? (books, articles, etc.)

In the last two years, Singularity and The Time Door were released by Enclave. Singularity revolves around the complexities and dangers of AI, and The Time Door tells the story of the first explorers on Mars—who are imperiled first by disaster on Earth, and then by the secrets of Mars.

Singularity and The Time Door are my most significant works, but not my only ones. My most recent published work is “Lazarus,” a short story about an automat and the end of the world. It was released this summer in the Third Flatiron anthology SciFi To Go. My time-travel story “The Fulcrum” was published in an earlier Third Flatiron anthology, Hidden Histories.

Have you won any awards? Which ones?

No awards to report, sadly.

When did you start seriously writing?

When I was a teenager. I don’t have an exact age, but it was in those years that I committed to the work and began to seriously try.

How long have you been an author?

I have been a published author for a little over a decade. I had a few early works, now pretty much out of print, before beginning the novel that would ultimately see the world as The Time Door.

What is your favorite genre to write?

Science-fiction by a long shot. I am fascinated by many sci-fi tropes, from time-travel to exploring other planets to the uncanny valley of things that are almost human. Even more than that, sci-fi is a genre about ideas—ideas about the future, about technology, about possibilities and impossibilities.

Despite looking so much to the future, sci-fi returns to the oldest questions about who we are and what the universe is, what is good or bad, right or wrong. I like turning over the old questions in a new context.

What is your favorite part of writing?

The ideas that surprise you. It’s the moment when something about the story comes to you and you think, “That’s it. I’ve got it.” It’s like finding something that you didn’t know existed.

What the hardest part of writing?

For me, it is when I am trying to construct some part of the plot, or even the action in a single scene, and I get … blocked. I know that I want to go from Point A to Point B, but when I come to it, it’s a hard leap. (Usually, I find that I actually have Point A and Point C, and I need to fill in Point B.)

What advice to you have for other writers?

Just remember that your whole business is to find something worth saying, and then to say it in the best way that you can. That’s it. Don’t worry about style or originality or what other writers may be doing. Take that idea or image, that thought or emotion, and present it as clearly as you can.

What do you like to do besides writing?

Reading is quite important (I like to keep a balanced diet of history and novels). I also like to listen to my favorite playlists, watch the occasional show or movie, and visit (too often) social media.

What is your favorite book? (besides the Bible)

Out of so many excellent choices, I will go with Till We Have Faces, by C. S. Lewis. It is beautifully written, exciting and moving by turns, and gives a profound answer to the question of Job.

What is your favorite Bible verse?

Another wealth of choices here! For me, this does change. At the moment, I am thinking of the end of 1 Corinthians 3: “All things are yours,  whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.”

Do you have a website or blog that we could check out?

I do indeed! You can find my site here. I am also active on Twitter and (more occasionally) on Instagram.

Thank you for coming! Readers, come back soon for another interview!