So... Who the hell are you? Give us five random - though of course, nothing is truly random - facts about yourself.

I have three university degrees, but never learned basic grammar. Some bureaucratic sack of assholes thought it was so common that schools didn't have to teach it anymore. (Now there's a whole generation of us who never learned.)

I ate haggis and I liked it.

My cat swallowed a mouse toy the size of my fist. The surgery to extract it cost more than a month's rent and the staff was so impressed that she ate it in one piece, they put it in a bottle and made me take it home. I still have it.

I held an Olympic torch. The runners came through our city and I was in hospital right across the road. So I hauled my sick ass out of bed and got my photo taken while holding it. The torch itself looked like some weird children's ski. It was...very modern.

The F-16 is my favourite plane. I made my mother (who was not an artist) draw it on my birthday cake. By hand. The poor woman.

What did you want your schoolyard nickname to be?

Something to reflect my caffeine habit. It was a point of pride that I could ingest more than the daily rec of 500 mg without poisoning myself. Whether it was 20 ℃ or -20 ℃, you'd never see me without an ice coffee. (Protip: below -15 ℃, double cup because the plastic starts to crack.) Instead, I got stuck with crash because...well. It's in the police report.

When you were a young padawan, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A fighter pilot. Unfortunately, my eyesight started to deteriorate by the time I was 12. In those days, correcting your vision with laser surgery disqualified you because the procedure was too new. It was very Little Miss Sunshine.

Other than writing and/or reading, what hobbies do you have?

Video games, astronomy, airplanes, photography, cat wrangling, crocheting, music. If it discourages contact with other human beings, I'm a fan.

As your crew cast your lifeless body into the core of the nearest star, list three pieces of music likely to be rattling the bulkheads.

Anyone who knows me knows I want to be sent off with Irish coffee and speakers blaring with an over the top dirge.

Highway to Hell - Cristina Ramos

The End is the Beginning - TSFH

Morte Lumina - Metalocalypse

https://youtu.be/iByZ_J4MhIo

Who is your all-time favourite author? Why is that?

Evelyn Lau. She's one of the few poets I like (and understand.) Her book A Grain of Rice gave me a new appreciation of and insight into language that I could glean nowhere else. She articulates an entire lifetime in a single line and makes it look effortless.

Of everything you have written, what is your favourite?

Spectraterrestrial. It explores mortality through the lens of the universe and the nature of light. Astronomy and angst. What's not to like?

...and what is your fans' favourite?

The Marble. For such a wee non-fiction story, it gets a lot of love.

Do you use real life experiences to influence your writing?

Oh, yes. A large portion of my work is actually non-fiction. When I do write fiction, I obsessively ask myself, "Okay, but what would it really be like?" Research accumulates, characters barge in, and voila. A wild book appears.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Flying. Definitely flying. We share a common lineage with birds. I like to think something in the human body remembers taking flight.

Is there a particular moment in history that you would change if you could, regardless of the consequences?

The Battle of Kinsale. #StillSalty

The Technological Singularity presents a rather daunting, some say inevitable, future. Does the prospect of that level of Artificial Intelligence excite you, or make you quake in your boots?

Why in the goddamn do people insist on giving machines human intelligence and then insist they do things that no human would ever want to do? It's a recipe for disaster.

Anyway, I loathe our future robotic overlords.

R E S I S T

The Earth is, at some point, gonna' die. There's nothing we can do about it, certainly not realistically and definitely not with our current technological level. Of all the things that could possibly destroy our homeworld though, which do you think is the most likely and why?

Destroy it completely or destroy its capacity to host life? Because short of colliding with another planet or being destroyed by the sun, the planet will be okay. But plenty of things can sterilize our world of all life. An astroid is the most likely candidate, even though it's a boring answer. A gamma ray burst might strike us, too. If we're unlucky enough to be aligned with WR 104, for example.

There are countless stories and legends of 'lost worlds.' Which is your favourite, and why?

Avalon, in no small part because of the book Mists of Avalon.

Who was your first Sci-Fi crush..? Who is your current one? (by this, we're talking about a character in a book/game/movie/show)

Optimus Prime. When I watched the '86 Transformers movie, I cried when he died. Then I swore vengeance at the top of my little lungs.

Now? I've been getting back into Star Trek so Captain Janeway. She's the first woman I saw on TV with a natural aura of command. The older I get, the more I appreciate Kate Mulgrew and the character she portrayed. Anyone who can trip up Q is good in my books.

Fan Fiction is a little bit like Marmite, you either love it or you hate it. On which end of that scale do you sit?

It's a good thing. Sure, we've all seen that one crossover fic with mpreg inflation vore, but hey. That's Internet.

You see people working the same muscles in fan fiction as they would in original fiction. Many a young writer uses it as practice and it lets people explore things that the mainstream rejects among like-minded peers. It's uncensored, anti-structural, and decentralized content, which can encourage creative expression in a way that the establishment won't.

You're a low-ranked crewman on an intergalactic cruiser. It pays well enough but it's not the most exciting job in the 'Verse. Drinking one night whilst on shore leave you find yourself deep in conversation with the leader of a band of space pirates. What do you do next?

Cut a deal. If I'm bored, so are the hundreds of others aboard my cruiser. It sounds like a lucrative opportunity, my friends. You in?

Now this one might prove to be a bit of a shout-out to a fellow Wattpadder, but that's no bad thing if you ask me! If you could experience the world of any science fiction book on Wattpad, first hand, which world would that be and why?

krazydiamond's Zombies vs Aliens. It's fun, funny, and it actually made me interested in zombies again.

And finally, any words of wisdom for new and aspiring writers?

Speak your truth. I know that sounds like hippy dippy bullshit, but if your story doesn't resonate with something fundamental in your life, it won't resonate with anyone else's. Read non-fiction about what you're writing about (or anything, really.) The power of those stories isn't just some quirky or interesting event, it's about peeking into somebody else's life. Whether it's a recipe book or a novel about sentient robots, people crave that glimpse.

Okay, that definitely sounds like hippy dippy bullshit, but you get the idea.