Author Interview: Kara Race-Moore
JC – Do you find that working in the legal field helps you as a writer? How?
KRM - Following the latest court cases proves over and over that ‘truth is stranger than fiction.’ If you ever need story ideas, start reading some law blogs. The justice system can sometimes read as a highly ritualized form of gossiping about all spectrums of society.
JC – What are some other hobbies or interests you enjoy outside of writing?
KRM - I have recently started boxing. An early morning workout of whacking a large bag repeatedly is a surprisingly good way to wake up the brain and get ideas flowing!
JC –Do you have a process or routine for writing? Do you use an outline or just start writing and see where the characters lead you?
KRM - I usually start with single character or scene and work outwards from there. I tend to write a story in pieces and then stich them all together in the right narrative order. I like to tie my writing in with history, either as the skeleton of the story or try to draw some parallels.
JC – Which authors inspire you?
KRM – First, Anne McCaffrey, for blazing the trial. The woman was light-years ahead of everyone else. She was writing action-taking female, handicapped, minority, and / or LBGT main characters back when Sci-Fi was seen as a genre written for, by and about white men of the most normative variety. Next, Tanith Lee, for her ability to take the rules of writing, calmly break all of them, and create some amazing works of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Kage Baker is another who took old tropes and rewrote them into fantastic new takes on time travel and cyborgs. And Tamora Pierce, who writes great characters and knows how to show the work it takes to accomplish hard goals.
JC – Tell us about the inspiration for your story, “Betting the Boot.”
KRM – With current technology, and even with current projections of not-too-distant technology, travel to Mars is going to take several months at least, and voyagers are going to have to be creative to stay sane. My starting point was the last line in the story, and I worked backwards from there, developing a weekly card game in an environment where no one would care about money – but things like candy would be precious.
JC – You’ve published quite a few stories! Do you have any advice for writers wanting to get published?
KRM - Keep writing and keep submitting. Don’t let a blank page or a rejection letter intimidate you! Both will happen, but keep on writing and submitting. If you want to get words on paper, don’t let the mundane daily tasks of dishes and laundry and everything else get in the way – they will always wait. Carve out time for yourself to right and give yourself permission to do that and only that for however long each day.
Kara Race-Moore studied history at Simmons College as an excuse to read about the soap opera lives of British royals. She worked in educational publishing, casting the molds for future generations’ minds, and has moved into the more civilized world of litigation. She attended 6th grade in a one room schoolhouse on an island, an experience which taught how to live with limited resources on any planet. Ms. Race-Moore first came to science fiction through Anne McCaffrey and is still grateful to her for showing an impressible teenager that woman can be in and write science fiction too. Her publications include: “And a Pebble In Her Shoe,” in Redshifted, Third Flatiron Press, anthology, 2013, Science Fiction; “From Scratch,” in Dying to Live, Diabolic Publications, anthology, 2013, Horror; “A Passing, Pleasing Tongue,” podcast, Tales of Old website, 2012, Historical Fiction; and “The Undead Pay the Bills,” It Was A Dark and Stormy Night, anthology, Pill Hill Press, 2011, Horror.
