Author Interview with M. T. Reiten
JC – How did you become interested in Mars and training to become a research scientist?
MTR – I was tricked into becoming a scientist by Larry Niven. He mentioned quantum teleportation in an essay. I tried to find out if he was just making it up. I accidentally got a physics degree trying to do that. As for my interest in Mars… For me, it's not just Mars, but everything out there. Mars happens to be the closest, reasonably Earth-like (geologically speaking) planet. And it's impossible to escape the cultural mythology built up around the Red Planet. To think so much of this interest came about because of mistranslation of canali and Lowell's poor optics on his telescope.
JC – What are some other hobbies or interests you enjoy outside of writing?
MTR – I practice Aikido and Tae Kwon Do. But my practice time has greatly reduced since the birth of my daughter two years ago. So right now I'm enjoying her discovery of the world and her current explosion of language.
JC – When it comes to writing, do you plan everything or try to let it flow organically? Do you have a routine or write whenever you feel the urge?
MTR – I use the "troweling" method which is a hybrid between detailed plotting and seat of the pants writing. I develop a general roadmap on how I want the story to progress and conclude and then start writing in a mostly linear fashion. When scenes or dialogue snippets come to me, I write them out even if they're not in the immediate section of the story that I'm writing. Then I merge the new material into the story as I get to the unattached scenes, troweling them in like bricks and mortar to finish the story. Sometimes I have a few bricks left over.
I wish that I could establish a routine. I always have the urge to write, but as a new parent and a fulltime research scientist, making the opportunities to write are my personal challenge.
JC – What books, stories, and authors inspire you?
MTR – This list could be much longer. Anne McCaffrey lured me in with dragons and Larry Niven told me tales of teleportation. David Brin and Gregory Benford showed me that scientists could write interesting SF. Robert Heinlein and Joe Haldeman told me tales of war. Neal Stephenson taught me that there was always someone more badass than me.
JC – Tell us about the inspiration for your story, “Last Resort Pioneers.”
MTR – I was fed up with the for-profit mentality that comes with attaching the business model to every human enterprise whether it fits well or not. Human expansion into space can't be about profit for those back home. It will be about survival. So my story is about the futility of this money making approach to colonizing Mars.
JC – You’ve published quite a few stories! Do you have any advice for writers wanting to get published?
MTR – It's all about getting the right story across the right editor's desk at the right time. You still have to write the very best story possible, even though there's a huge element of luck involved, so don't use that as an excuse. If you can't accept rejection letters as marks of honor, don't try the traditional route to publication.
M. T. Reiten is a research scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and works in the same lab that developed the ChemCam currently in use on the Mars rover Curiosity. He has published professionally in the Writers of the Future XXI, Baen's Universe, and S. M. Stirling's forthcoming Change anthology.
