Joe Mahoney

Interviewed by Lynda Williams Dec, 2005

Joe Mahoney is a broadcaster with the CBC, an author of short stories, and a member of SF Canada. His Blog, Assorted Nonsense, is online at http://www.assortednonsense.com/. Photo credits for "on the job" pictures in this interview go to Robert J. Sawyer, with Photoshop touchup by Lynda.

JM: I've been a fan of science fiction and fantasy since about the age of six, when I first caught Johnny Sokko and His Giant Robot on TV back in Prince Edward Island (there are about three of us on the planet who remember that show). Then came Star Trek and Heinlein and A.E. Van Vogt and a host of others, and when I was in my teens my father began to despair that I would ever read or watch anything "grown up."

So I do documentaries like the one on The Arts Tonight for selfish reasons, because I just love the genre and want to be a part of it. But I also do them because there's a part of me that is still trying to prove to my father that science fiction and fantasy are grown up fiction, with much to offer intelligent, imaginative people.

I no longer come at these projects as an overt evangelist, though. You can't bang people over the head shouting, SF is good, SF is good, read it, you don't know what you're missing! I've tried that approach and it works about as well as one might expect, which is to say poorly. Instead I try to engage in intelligent discussions about science fiction and fantasy that will leave people drawing their own conclusions, hopefully that science fiction and fantasy are worth checking out.

Joe with Tanya Huff, at Airport

LJW: Your documentary dealt with "where SF has been, where it's at, and where it may or may not be going". What did you find out?

JM: I found out from Jean Louis Trudel that science fiction as we know it may have begun with Johannes Kepler, who wrote about a trip to the moon using the scientific data at his disposal. So he may have been the first hard science fiction writer. Robert J. Sawyer told me that science fiction as we know it may be on the way out, that technological advances are so rapid in this day and age that science fiction writers are hard pressed to keep up with it, and that we now employ long range forecasting in our day to day lives (environmental impact assessments, climate studies and so forth), so that such long range predictions are no longer the sole province of science fiction. And according to Robert Charles Wilson, mainstream writers of fiction are stealing the thunder of SF writers, employing the same tropes and themes but for a mainstream audience, while science fiction writers are still busy throwing up walls, employing jargon and business impenetrable to a mainstream audience. So on one hand the future of SF as a genre looks rather bleak, with a diminishing readership and certain well regarded authors struggling to retain publishing deals, but on the other hand it is slowly but surely creeping into the mainstream in the hands of writers not strictly speaking associated with the genre, such as Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz.

Just to state the obvious, science fiction needs a J. K. Rowling. Horror was a moribund genre until Stephen King landed on the scene. A couple of science fiction bestsellers that nobody can deny are science fiction and we'll be right back on track.

LJW: Should Canadians know more about Canadian science fiction writers? Can a genre that's so "far out" have a Canadian aspect? Or is that beside the point?

JM: Not being an evangelist, I would hesitate to say that anybody should ever have to know about anything that they don't want to, um, except possibly for matters relating to personal hygiene; then I might step in and wag a finger or two. :-) But it would be great to get the word out concerning Canadian science fiction. For instance, I recently read Phyllis Gotlieb's novel Flesh and Gold and absolutely loved it. It made me sad to think that this book may never get the recognition I believe it deserves. And there are hidden gems like that out there by the score. So yes, it would be great if Canadians knew a little bit more about the embarrassment of riches they have in their midst.

As for whether science fiction can have a Canadian aspect, the answer of course is absolutely not, I forbid it.

Um, but seriously folks, Robert J. Sawyer sets all his novels in an identifiable Canada, just to cite one example. And I love to point out that the movie Attarnajuat, set in the great white north, while not science fiction, has many fantastical elements. It's SF. We contribute to the space program, we have a population possessed of rich and varied folklores, we have brains and imaginations and a definite need for stories of the fantastic to keep us warm on cold winter nights, and if those stories are set in places we happen to be familiar with, so much the better.

LJW: What attracts you about scifi, yourself, both as a reader and an author?

JM: I like to read smart fiction that introduces me to new ideas (Karl Schroeder's Lady of Mazes). I like fiction that explores the human condition through metaphor (Robert Charles Wilson's Spin). I like fiction that provokes that sense of wonder that all readers of SF know so well (Holly Phillip's In the Palace of Repose).

As an author I try to write what I enjoy reading (with varied success).

Joe on the job.

LJW: You are both a producer, for radio, and a writer of short stories. What continues to draw you to the short story as a form of self expression, rather than combining your talents to write for radio, for example?

JM: Well, I've written for many forms. I've written several theatrical productions (charity events for the Pickering Museum Village), I've written radio plays for CBC Radio, I've written a short film (Four of a Kind, rejected by the Toronto Film Festival, screened instead at the Rivoli's Salon de Refusee) and a teleplay (unproduced). I've made three attempts at a novel, and am halfway through the second draft of one that finally promises to be finished some day (knock wood). I write short stories because I have a hope in hell of actually finishing them, and I like the tight, finally honed prose and construction of a well told short story. Not that I've ever completely successfully finely honed the prose and construction of a short story… but it's fun trying.

LJW: You blog at Assorted Nonsense (http://www.assortednonsense.com/) where you describe making the time for it as something "which, let's face it, comes pretty far down the list after family time, work, and chores, including but not limited to dishes, vacuuming, groceries, feeding the cats, shoveling the driveway, food preparation, laundry, sundry repairs, fighting demons, saving the world, constructing time machines, and gardening." How did you get hooked and what does blogging mean to you?

JM: I've dabbled in blogging for a couple of years, but I really got hooked during the CBC lockout, when I penned a blog called CBC Workerbee. Blogging turned out to be this huge phenomenon during the lockout, there were over fifty lockout blogs which successfully united us locked out workers, though not all the blogs were completely pro union. The CBC lock out was such a success in terms of blogging and podcasts and getting the word out that it may well have changed the way that labour disputes are conducted in the future. The top lockout blogs were getting over ten thousand hits a day; mine was fairly well read, peaking at five hundred hits a day. CBC managers have told me not to get too excited, that my readers were primarily my fellow locked out workers, but hey, they were my audience. And I received correspondence from several listeners and interested observers as well.

So that got me hooked on blogging, and I've been posting pretty much daily to Assortednonsense.com. Though I'm down to about eighty hits a day. Perhaps I need another lockout. :-)

LJW: Your web site also features web versions of your published short fiction and non-fiction publications. Other authors do this as well, I've noticed, but it still seems to be important to cite where the work was originally published. Any comments on the interaction between publishing-elsewhere and collecting-together-somewhere? Such as advice to other writers who might be considering the pros and cons.

JM: I have a good day job so I don't need the cash I might receive from selling my short fiction. I don't have the time to go after reprints. I'm happy to publish it once to receive some kind of validation, then I feel free to post it. Nobody's gonna read it locked in a drawer somewhere. I'm reconciled to the notion that the stuff I write doesn't quite meet the needs of the few magazines left out there that buy SF, so I sell mostly to semi-pro magazines. If a magazine like IF were still around I might be able to sell to them, but alas.

I'm not going to get rich posting my stuff online, but it is not without some gratification. A while back I received an email from the owner of a used bookstore. He told me that he and his wife had printed out all my stories and sat up in bed late one night reading them all. He wanted to know where my novels were. I told him I'd get right on that. :-) He asked if he could copy my stories and set them out in his bookstore for his customers. Absolutely, I told him. I write to be read, not to get rich or famous. I really have to visit that bookstore one day.

Mahoney Clan in Niagara Falls Sept ‘05. [flickr]

LJW: My favorites in your online fiction collection were the snappy little trick-story called "Damned Cold", originally appearing in Sintrigue Dot Org (available online 2002-2005), and "John's Worst Enemy", also originally published by Sintrigue Dot Org. Do you have a favorite you would like to pitch to readers, to entice them to go have a read?

JM: Thanks! Gee, an opportunity to plug my stuff. I like "John's Worst Enemy" for the POV, but my current favourite is "Moonstone", which took me forever to write. I'm also fond of The Scapegoat, also for the point of view. Oh, and "Of Platypusses and Things", which my sisters like, and "The Wizard's Castle", which I've sold the most copies of. Sorry! It's just that they're all my children, you see. :-)

LJW: I noticed that you often dismiss your own writing as unimportant nonsense: both on your blog and in the article about your twins (which I also enjoyed). Is that your signature device? An expression of affection for trivia? Authorly insecurity? Or maybe an important part of who Joe Mahoney is as a writer-someone who doesn't take himself too seriously? Can you shed some light on my guesses?

JM: Heck if I know… my approach is not intellectual, it's a gut thing. Assorted Nonsense as a name for my blog felt right to me; I've actually used that name for years as a title for a particular selection of my writing, much of which I've yet to sell anywhere or post to the blog; it's just a bunch of assorted nonsense. It's a term of endearment.

Maybe I'm self effacing as a means of counterbalancing my enormous ego… yeah, that's it.

LJW: Assorted Nonsense includes commentary about shows you are working on, among other things. How do you decide what can and can't be blogged about when internal work issues are concerned? Or is this not an issue.

JM: I criticized CBC management in my CBC Workerbee blog during the lockout; it's not appropriate to do so now. We have journalistic standards guidelines that pretty much state what we can and cannot say about our employer while we're working there. I think promoting the CBC in general and the shows that I work on in particular is a good thing. Plus I have a hunch that CBC Radio fans might be interested in behind the scenes stories about the work that we do, and the people that we work with.

LJW: There's been some excitement, on Assorted Nonsense, about a new show you are producing called "Steve the Second". Can you give us a sense of what the show's about and when it will air?

JM: "Steve the Second" will air for four consecutive weeks on Radio One at eleven thirty Saturday mornings starting January 7th. It's a post apocolyptic science fiction comedy starring and written by Matt Watts. These four episodes were directed by Mark McKinney of Kids in the Hall, who also stars in the show. It features a host of other prominent Canadian comedians as well. It's the Project That Ate my Life; it's eating it as we speak. Tomorrow's going to be a long day as I attempt to finish mixing the final episode. There's exploding dogs, brains in jars, evil overlords and I think it's pretty funny. It makes me laugh while I'm working on it… of course I'm biased, but Ibiased, but I don't always like what I'm working on, and I love this.

It's a sequel to "Steve the First", which aired last year, but this is a stand alone series, you don't need to be familiar with the first series.

LJW: Any "last words" for the On Spec community who are getting to know Joe Mahoney, here?

JM: Buy more Canadian SF! Canadian SF rocks!

Guess that what's what you call "preaching to the choir." :-)