Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.

Recently, we interviewed Chris Coward about her writing and her debut novel, Perpendicular Women: Adventures in the Multiverse, a solid, thoroughly engaging tale that leaves a mark. (Read the review here.)

What inspired you to write about a multiverse, and all the implications suggested by that kind of worldbuilding?

First, thanks for inviting me to interview with BookView. It’s an honor and a pleasure.

The multiverse didn’t just pop into my head. In fact, when I started writing Perpendicular Women fourteen years ago, my understanding of the science was vague. The human story came first, with a protagonist—Kara—who is curious, sensitive, and conflicted. In short, she’s like us, and she wants to fix her life.

Then she learns about the multiverse and discovers a way to travel it. In the multiverse, anything is possible, and everything exists, including Kara’s perfect world. Her literal journey mirrors the emotional one many of us dream of.

In the story, Kara creates a plan. It’s crazy-dangerous, but she’s crazy-desperate.

How did you keep different universes distinct in your mind, so that the writing would be as clear and unique as possible?

Who doesn’t dream of another kind of existence? Through our imaginings, we can try out what we want to do and who we want to be. It’s not hard to distinguish the worlds we dream up from our often-colder reality, but what we see in our imagination can guide us for the here and now.

Perpendicular Women opens with Kara in her mundane home universe―basically Earth in 2012. It’s not a terrible world, but it is for Kara.

The second universe is the one Kara chooses to travel to. It, too, is basically Earth 2012, but in that world, Kara’s life is “perfect.”

In the third universe, true world building begins. This is an Earth-like place poised at a time equivalent to Earth’s 2099. In this world, today’s “Earth” problems have grown to fruition. You might say it’s our world today, on steroids. We’re talking climate change, shortages, and fear of artificial intelligence. We’re talking a dangerous, toxic society, where there’s no dearth of excitement, and protagonists stay busy.

What drew you to this genre with a sci-fi bent? Have you always gravitated toward authors or stories of science fiction?

When I was younger, I didn’t think in terms of genre. I simply liked what I liked, and often it turned out to be science fiction.

In a word, what drew me is scope. Consider science fiction’s sub- and related genres—speculative fiction, social science fiction, magical realism, and so on. Consider Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, or Lord of the Rings. Each of these works has a profound message, and each conveys its message in a different and spectacular way. Such is the range of sci-fi.

Science fiction gives authors a unique opportunity say something about us. Our dilemmas and challenges. Us. Right here. Right now. In high relief in a new, revealing context.

What was the most gratifying thing about writing Perpendicular Women?

As I began writing, I remembered being six years old, walking behind our apartment on a Virginia winter’s day. I wore a soft, fuzzy hat that covered my ears. I loved that hat, which almost made me like winter. So I was walking, happy not to have to take a nap, happy to study the sparkles in the cracked sidewalk. Then I wondered if the ground was really there or just in my mind. Or in someone else’s mind. I loved those thoughts. Loved being that girl.

As the years passed, life took over, things got serious, and I “grew up.”

In writing Perpendicular Women, grown-up author-Chris could pursue the multiverse of ideas as surely as six-year-old Chris explored the mystery of the sidewalk. And whatever our age and whoever we are, don’t we all need curiosity and creativity?

But the gratification writing Perpendicular Women wasn’t all intellectual. I wanted to write something that could also be a beach read—an adventure. Fun. Or a catharsis. There’s a human story. Or something beyond that for readers who want to sink their teeth into some intriguing cosmology. It was gratifying to create these layers—adventure, catharsis, and meaning.

Before writing Perpendicular Women, you not only wrote for magazines, but studied and taught English at the college level. What have you learned from your previous writing endeavors that you carried into writing your first novel?

I used to think that writing fiction would be an easy segue from writing Congressional testimony, political speeches, and marketing copy. Ha! Fiction is hard. Really hard. It’s triple-axel-on-the-long-figure-skating-program-for-the-winter-Olympics hard. And I was a beginning skater. Perpendicular Women took some fourteen years and a mortifying number of drafts to get where it needed to be. But methinks it got there, which only goes to show, what you practice, you get better at.

I believe that every experience teaches, even those that seem unrelated to what we’re doing now. From writing Congressional testimony, I learned organization and strategy. From writing marketing and magazine copy, I learned to put myself in readers’ shoes. From teaching, I learned patience. From all of these, I learned to persevere.

Can you give us a sneak peek of what to expect in the sequel to Perpendicular Women?

So glad you asked! In literary terms, Perpendicular Women focuses on the transformation of the individual. The sequel will focus on the transformation of humanity—the collective individual. Imagine The Wizard of Oz meets Gulliver’s Travels meets The End of Men. In Perpendicular Women’s sequel, new characters (and two carryovers, I won’t say which) explore the multiverse to learn if humanity can control AI to avert Armageddon.

But neither book is a treatise. Far from it. Both propel the characters into some strange and scary places, forcing them to examine their own imperfections and to reach deep down to discover their courage.

Feel free to check out the sequel’s first two chapters. You’ll find them at the end of the first book.

Enormous thanks for the opportunity to interview with BookView and for the excellent questions. I’m reachable at chrisbusiness@comcast.net, and Perpendicular Women is available on Amazon.

May your universe treat you kindly!

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