[00:00:01.070] – Rachel

Welcome back to Write, Publish, and Shine. Today I’m in conversation with Chimedum Ohaegbu, managing editor at Room Magazine, a three-time Hugo Award winner for editorial work with the team at Uncanny Magazine, and a writer whose work moves across genre.

We talk about what speculative fiction makes possible, especially when realism cannot quite hold the shape of what you feel. And Chimedum shares how a story can start in a simple human fear, like falling asleep on a bus and missing your stop, and then turn stranger on purpose until the transformation becomes what is the truest part about it.

We also get into the editorial side of submissions, including what “not for us” can mean behind the scenes and why fit and chemistry matter in an issue, even when the work is excellent. If you’ve ever taken a rejection as a verdict or final say on your talent, I hope this conversation offers a different way to understand the routing involved in submissions.

And near the end, Chimedum gives a craft move I love, one that starts with getting almost absurdly granular, adding detail until the passage reveals something you could not have reasoned your way into. It’s both practical and a little daring, which is exactly the energy I want you to have around your work.

[00:01:19.360] – Rachel

Also, there are a few yawns in this one. I’m being quite literal, not metaphoric, and I took it as a sign we were settling into the real conversation, so we kept them in the recording. And you’ll hear us just being real, real bodies, real talk throughout the conversation.

Here is my conversation with Chimedum Ohaegbu.

I want to welcome you and thank you so much for being on the podcast, Chimedum. I’m wondering if you could tell us where you’re calling in from today and any small thing in your space that’s keeping you company.

[00:01:55.990] – Chimedum

Yes, I’m calling in from Mokinstis. That’s the Blackfoot name for what’s colonially known as Calgary, Alberta. And what’s keeping me company today? Well, right across my bedroom window, there’s a large magpie nest and it’s nesting season, so I can’t see the eggs, but I know that they’re there.

[00:02:17.590] – Rachel

Beautiful. Well, my next question was going to be, have you seen any birds lately? But maybe you’ve seen the magpies.

[00:02:24.660] – Chimedum

Oh, I can talk about any kind. I recently was in Vancouver, actually on Vancouver Island, and I saw my first turkey vulture. So that was very exciting.

[00:02:34.840] – Rachel

Oh, wow. Do you see them on a hike?

[00:02:37.260] – Chimedum

No, we were just sitting on a dock and I saw a large bird circling and I said, okay, who is that? Like, I don’t know who that is. So I got out my camera, I got out iNaturalist, and three different people identified it as a turkey vulture. So I said, all right, I guess that’s probably who it is. Wow. Yeah, they’re gorgeous. They’re large, just a charming, charming shape, charming face. But I would say that about any bird.

[00:03:06.050] – Rachel

I do know this about you, that you are a bird lover, so that’s why I wanted to open with some bird talk.

[00:03:10.810] – Chimedum

Oh yeah, it’s the best way to get me to open up.

[00:03:13.670] – Rachel

I want to talk about your writing. You write across genres. I’m especially drawn to your speculative work. I love to hear from speculative writers or people who are writing in that genre, subgenres of that genre. Is there anything writing speculative lets you do that realism won’t?

[00:03:29.960] – Chimedum

I think speculative fiction for me allows me to get to realism at a different angle. It’s realistic to how I feel. Sometimes I do feel like I’ve been trapped in a loop or like I’m fighting some kind of beast instead of more quote-unquote realistic things. Like, the way that emotions work through me, I think, is a way that kind of finds purchase in the fantastical. So when I’m working in speculative fiction, to me, I am in a sense working in realism.

[00:04:06.310] – Rachel

Yeah, that is more real than reality to be able to describe emotions that way.

[00:04:11.290] – Chimedum

Exactly. It’s like a hyperreality.

[00:04:14.300] – Rachel

Yeah. In your novelette, “And for My Next Trick, I Have Disappeared,” you give us this bus route and this song “Halcyon” as a kind of tether. And then the most intimate kind of transformation happens, I guess, literally losing parts of the narrator, losing parts of the body. What was the first true image or feeling you had for that story, if you can take yourself back to writing it? Or what else can you tell us about how it came together?

[00:04:45.980] – Chimedum

I’m someone who falls asleep on buses. Well, I can fall asleep anywhere, actually. I’m a famously excellent sleeper, and I have fallen asleep on a bus and missed my stop maybe more times than I want to admit. And the feeling of dislocation you get upon waking up where you’re still in a familiar space, that is the body of the bus, but you are not in a familiar place anymore. You’ve gone past your stop. You’ve kind of like extended past the boundary of your known world or route. So it came from that feeling. I can’t remember the specific bus ride, maybe a kind of accumulation of experiences of me falling asleep, missing my stop, and waking up somewhere unexpected. And that was kind of the first feeling that drove the story, the first image.

[00:05:38.810] – Rachel

Yeah, that disorientation I think really comes across in the writing.

[00:05:43.400] – Chimedum

Thank you.

[00:05:44.020] – Rachel

I loved also the line, “All her body trembled from the effort to keep from trembling.” Something about that.

[00:05:50.930] – Chimedum

Yeah. Thank you. It’s not an autobiographical story, but it’s not not one.

[00:05:59.110] – Rachel

I love that ambiguity here. When you revise a story like this, I don’t know how your brain works in terms of revising, but I know sometimes, especially with the more outlandish things, maybe that I might have an instinct to fix something, or maybe you hear from critique, or it’s something that needs fixing. But is there anything you’re careful not to fix out of it, or what did you protect to keep this piece as it was?

[00:06:25.540] – Chimedum

I would definitely say, like, the weirdness is very important to me. So when I was revising it, I think it started a bit more like, “Oh, she’s on this endless bus, scary times,” and then the body dislocation didn’t come until a later revision. And then the body being like switched into the bus’s body didn’t come until an even later revision. So you can kind of see that it started out strange and then the revisions, the point of them was to make them stranger a little bit further. I think it’s a nice contrast because thematically the story is interested in something that I think is very relatable, like friendship breakups, friendship breakdowns. And because of that grounding element, it’s also nice to have the other main element of the story or the main landscape of it be something unrelatable, like in reality, but I think a relatable feeling. As things get stranger and like more dislocated for the protagonist, that kind of reflects, it’s both a metaphor and not a metaphor. I think I’m sometimes careful with speculative fiction because especially in the style that I write, people want to read things just as metaphorical.

[00:07:43.450] – Chimedum

Which, yeah, sure. But I also want to be clear, like, the monster is real. Like, I’m bringing you to a space where these things are true things and they’re not just of the mind, but also of the body. So yeah, generally I am careful with revising or like when I do revise, I would say I like to deepen the emotional trueness of a story and also heighten the psychogeographical unrealness.

[00:08:12.800] – Rachel

Oh, I love that. Psychogeographical.

[00:08:15.290] – Chimedum

Not everything is pathetic fallacy, but I think learning about it in like fourth grade, it’s really been with me ever since.

[00:08:22.410] – Rachel

That’s great. I do love talking to writers too about where they first became a writer. So it sounds like some stirrings happened around fourth grade for you. Is that when you started seeing yourself that way too?

[00:08:33.230] – Chimedum

I have two origin stories. So one was actually third grade. I was eight years old and we had to write a little short story about Thanksgiving. And I ended up writing like 10 or 12 pages and the story was supposed to be three. My teacher was like, “Wow, you really love writing.” And I was like, “Oh, I guess I do really love it.” I hadn’t realized that I had written so much because I was having so much fun. So that was one thing.

And then I guess what really cemented the identity was when I was like 12, 13, I had to have a spinal surgery. I had scoliosis. And then I had to spend six weeks at home convalescing. So I was pretty bored. I worked on a short story that was serialized in an online kids’ magazine. And I got online kids’ magazine, like fake currency points for it. And I was like, “Oh, wait a second.” Someone actually like sees, even if it’s like virtual, non-real money value in it. I was stunned, I guess, by how that affirmed me. I would say that was the big second one. And the fact that when I was recovering, it was writing that I turned to, I think really cemented writing as part of my identity.

[00:09:50.870] – Rachel

I love that, the double origin story. And writing for… amazing. That’s so great. I can see how, yeah, it would be like, whoa, there’s something to this. I’m getting rewarded. That’s so awesome.

[00:10:01.930] – Chimedum

Yeah, it was wild. It’s a great way to raise a child.

[00:10:06.180] – Rachel

It was a story. So this was, you’re writing fiction, I guess, at the time. When did poetry come into the mix?

[00:10:11.710] – Chimedum

Poetry was a later addition to my life. I want to say, like, late teens, early 20s. And I think it was partially because I was having some trouble with, like, short stories. They’re short, but they take me a long time. So I was kind of feeling a sense of incomplete list. Like, I would keep on pecking away at a thing. And I noticed I was, in my writing, I’m very much like a prose-forward, so I’m very focused on like how it sounds, which lends itself pretty well to poetry. So I found that when I was editing, I would be like doing a lot of line edits when I really needed structural edits. And I was like, okay, maybe what I need to do is… it’s very different than when I’m writing fiction. Like, it comes out like in a rush and I would say the return and satisfaction is quicker than it is in fiction, especially because like going to open mics and being invited as like a featured reader to things, typically poetry is what I’m reading. So I’ve found it kind of a good genre for making friends in a different way than fiction is.

[00:11:24.690] – Chimedum

It very much lends itself to being performed, which is fun. Like, it exists off the page, I think, in a different way than, not all fiction, but than my fiction does. And I appreciate its liveliness.

[00:11:38.050] – Rachel

Yeah, I love that use of the word “liveliness.” Actually, that was one of the lines from the fiction piece we just talked about as well. Because you have her “half-here limbs burned with that vivid liveliness.” I think there’s something very lyrical about your fiction writing as well. When you’re writing poems, I’m wondering, what are you listening for? Is it sound, image, heat, or something else that kind of strikes you as you get going?

[00:12:02.790] – Chimedum

I find it’s definitely sound when I’m writing. And then when I’m reading, I really like, like the heat of it. And I think there’s maybe a little bit of a gap currently between my ability level and my taste, because my taste kind of outpaces what I’m trying to do in my poems. So June Jordan, bunch of poems, really, really good. But there’s one especially that she has, “I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies,” and that poem is like all heat. It’s all sound. It’s all image. It’s hitting every metric of what I consider like a really excellent poem.

[00:12:42.480] – Rachel

I love that poem also.

[00:12:44.090] – Chimedum

It’s so good. Just gorgeously done. And like her politics is very clear in it. Which I appreciate. And I think with my poetry currently, it’s a bit more like sound and word choice oriented.

[00:12:58.490] – Rachel

I also like to think about line breaks. Is there a line break instinct that you find works for you?

[00:13:03.920] – Chimedum

Yes, I like to break at the most surprising point. A good enjambement is always fun when you’re breaking in the middle of a sentence or like breaking before the sentence ends. And you get two different meanings depending on if you’re reading like on that line-by-line basis or if you’re reading it more holistically. I like it when a poem kind of forces you to double back on an assumption you initially made. And sometimes that can be like a really quick assumption because you’re again reading like line by line. But I think line breaks are a really good way of parceling out surprise in a poem. And that’s an emotion I really enjoy getting from poetry. A kind of like shock that, not even shock of like the topic, but just shock at how the poet is constructing their piece.

[00:14:01.430] – Rachel

The double meaning that comes there. Yeah.

[00:14:04.150] – Chimedum

I like it when a poem makes me want to read it again.

[00:14:06.730] – Rachel

Yes. Same. I love hearing that about surprise because that doesn’t surprise me. ‘Cause I’m also seeing that in the pieces I’ve read of your fiction as well too, that you’re like, I’m here to surprise, I’m here to keep this weird, I’m here to make you perk up in those ways.

[00:14:23.570] – Chimedum

Exactly. Yeah, I would agree with that. Thank you.

[00:14:26.700] – Rachel

You’ve interviewed a lot of writers and editors. How do you create the conditions for intimacy without forcing it when you first interview someone?

[00:14:35.040] – Chimedum

I think conditions for intimacy, just like first kind of what you did here, like talking to me on a person-to-person level instead of just an interviewer-to-interviewee level, getting a sense of like where they are, where they’re coming from. I like to talk about the weather. There’s recently been a movement online against talking about the weather, but it’s all around, so I like that. And then just letting them know that I’ve done my research. I think that writers, creatives of any kind just really enjoy knowing that they’re entering a space where I’ve made a concerted effort to understand them, to comprehend them, where I’m going to be operating in good faith. And the good faith comes from good background knowledge. And also sending questions ahead of time, which you also did for this.

[00:15:26.420] – Rachel

So, I appreciate it. Obviously, this is like asking for a friend, but not really asking for a friend. Oh, this is the thing I wanted to bring back, which is weather, because it is interesting that there’s a movement against weather. I’m not that much online these days, so I did not know about this movement against talking about the weather. But I kind of feel like maybe when people say that about talking about the weather, it’s like just not talking about nothing. But what if we’re really, really talking about the weather? That seems like that would be fun, right? To really get into it.

[00:15:58.540] – Chimedum

Yeah. And honestly, sometimes talking about nothing, sometimes it’s just nice to hear each other’s voices, and you don’t always have something profound to go into. And you just kind of get to be in a space together and both be people who are worth listening to, even if they’re not actively saying something desperately interesting.

[00:16:17.620] – Rachel

I feel held as the interviewer in this sense as well too.

[00:16:22.340] – Chimedum

I’m glad.

[00:16:24.920] – Rachel

Thank you. So I want to pivot to what is kind of an evergreen question, I guess, which is, as someone who works with submissions to lit mags as Room’s managing editor, and also you’re an issue editor, I really want to get your perspective about what do you wish writers understood about this “not for us”? When is it truly about fit and not quality of the work?

[00:16:50.900] – Chimedum

This might not be very comforting, but it also might be a little comforting. It’s like very much you can control what you can control, so the quality of the work, but you can’t control whether or not a magazine has recently acquired a piece like similar to yours, and then it would be repetitive to also publish your own. Or spatial considerations are really big. There’s so many poems that I love. And I say, I guess poetry just because when I think back to like over the length of my career, I spent some time as a poetry editor at Uncanny Magazine, and that was like my main, I guess, bread and butter there. And there were so many excellent pieces that came through when I was with Uncanny, when I’ve done reading with like F(o)G magazine, and then here at Room where they’re really excellent pieces. Like, oh, it hurts the soul to have to give them up. But it’s not a matter of quality so much as a matter of also how well they play with the other pieces in an issue. Like sometimes it’s kind of a chemistry read question where you’re putting together an issue and you want to make sure everything is bouncing off each other, like giving each other the correct energy.

[00:18:11.440] – Chimedum

It’s a very personal thing, like personal to each editor and also personal to each issue, like if it’s themed or unthemed. So oftentimes it’s not a matter of the piece not being good enough so much as whether it works for the chemistry read. And I’m using that term, I think, from like acting and theatre. But I think it applies also in submissions. Whether we’ve already gotten a piece like it recently. And sometimes, I guess, if it sticks the landing, that can be a bit of a thing as well.

[00:18:42.310] – Rachel

I also feel like we got our episode title, ding, ding, ding, with the idea of chemistry reading too. I think that’s a really great metaphor term to bring in from that industry as well. It’s like all the chemistry has to kind of work out. And yeah, I just found myself nodding vigorously when you were talking about fit for lit mags and how heartbreaking it is to give up some pieces too.

[00:19:05.370] – Chimedum

And the thing is, like, sometimes I see pieces move on to better venues for what they are trying to accomplish. It’s bittersweet. It’s like, “Ah, I wish I could have published you.” But there’s pieces I’ve had to turn down that have gone on to be expanded into, like, from short stories to, like, novellas. And then you get, like, a book deal as opposed to a short story deal. So it’s like, okay, I’m sad that I didn’t get to have it in the format that it initially came through in and have it, like, in XYZ magazine. But it is exciting to see a story or a piece get to blossom where it’s most wanted.

[00:19:47.890] – Rachel

Yeah, that is something about… I mean, the nos are really heartbreaking, but then the right yes just feels right.

[00:19:54.660] – Chimedum

Exactly.

[00:19:55.760] – Rachel

How do you sustain yourself to kind of believe in that piece too? Like, how do you, a lit mag editor or managing editor yourself, what’s your relationship with those kind of nos? The ones that, you know, the heartbreakingness of wanting it to be in one place and then not getting in there with your own writing.

[00:20:13.480] – Chimedum

I think all of my experience at like various lit mags has made it so that I really don’t take it personally. I just move on to the next. Obviously, I have like dream markets, places I haven’t been published yet that I would love, love, love to get into. And there’s like pieces, especially I think for themed issues, like themed open calls, if I send in a piece for those, where… oh, excuse me. Right, where I’m writing, it feels like very specifically to a specific market and a specific issue. And I’m hoping that it will land among pieces that have a good energy with the other pieces in a given issue. So that does like hurt the feelings, I think, especially in the themed issues, just because it’s a bit more specific, but—

[00:21:06.650] – Rachel

It feels like a limited opportunity, maybe.

[00:21:09.730] – Chimedum

Yes, exactly. Limited opportunity. And maybe it’s not going to come across the same way if it’s among pieces that aren’t playing with the same themes, like in a different venue. But I feel like every piece has its time, and that doesn’t necessarily mean publishing. You grow with it as you’re writing it. And so if it’s a piece that I have chosen to submit, because I don’t submit all of my work, like even all of my work that I feel is complete, I don’t necessarily need it to be or see it being published and that enriching the experience that I’ve had with the text. I’m basically just like not taking it personally. I just keep on submitting. I mean, recently, and this is something I’ve wanted to do in past years, but I’m only now doing it, a couple of my friends are trying to collect 25 rejections this year. So when you kind of put it in a competitive or like scorekeeping sense almost, it’s kind of a marker of how much you’re trying. And sometimes that’s nice. Like, sometimes it’s kind of nice to be able to enumerate that you’re putting yourself out there and that you’re not shying away because of something that all writers experience all the time: rejection.

[00:22:28.230] – Rachel

One thing that caught my ear in that is you saying that some pieces you don’t need to publish, and I just never heard someone say that before. So I just want to call that out and say that I love what I’m picking up from that, which might be more that the experience itself of writing is something that gives you a lot of satisfaction and that you don’t necessarily need to publish everything for that reason.

[00:22:52.300] – Chimedum

Yeah, I find that happens, I think, maybe more with poetry for me than prose, just because I mentioned my short stories take a long time. So at the end of them, sometimes I want to have that effort reflected back by like seeing other people connect with it. Whereas with poetry, sometimes I’ll write a poem and it’s just for me. And if I do like really like a line or something, maybe that line will be moved or repurposed to a poem that I am trying to publish. But the original poem itself that’s not getting published, I can just have it and be like, “We had our time together. This is what it taught me.” This is what it gave me and this is what I was able to give to it. And I think sometimes publishing isn’t the main gift you can give your work, which maybe sounds funny coming from a literary editor. Please send your work to Room Magazine. But it’s just nice to hang out, I think, with the different facets of yourself and of the world that are revealed through keeping a work to yourself, to yourself or like to close friends.

[00:24:04.020] – Chimedum

Because publishing can also be like the sense of just sharing with a small crowd. There’s pieces that I’ve like performed that I don’t really intend to ever publish in print form or even like as an audiovisual thing, but I still get to share it.

[00:24:21.370] – Rachel

Yeah, you’ve had people receive the words, respond to it in the ways that they are invited to.

[00:24:28.250] – Chimedum

Yeah, I think publishing sometimes gets conflated with sharing the work. I guess I’m not like advocating necessarily for it to be siloed off from the world, like in a vault, but publishing, I guess, isn’t the only way to let your work be seen.

[00:24:44.910] – Rachel

Yeah, I think there’s something very grounding about that point of view that again, I mean, this is the Write, Publish, and Shine podcast. I haven’t heard much of it. But just the idea that there’s the work, because I think fundamentally working with writers, we sometimes just need to be reminded that it’s the writing and the self-knowledge and the self-connection that comes through the writing that is all such a gift and a reward already. So yeah, the way you’ve expressed that here is again refreshing, and then also just kind of helps me remember that and think about those benefits. So thank you.

[00:25:26.920] – Chimedum

Yeah, thank you.

[00:25:28.070] – Rachel

So we rotate lead editing at Room. Would you tell us about the upcoming issue where you’ll be lead editor and the kind of work that you’re looking for specifically? I guess, what kind of risk are you hungry for right now in submissions to Room, formally or emotionally, or maybe risk is the wrong word too, so just let us know.

[00:25:49.990] – Chimedum

So the issue that’s coming out that I got to lead edit is our science-themed issue, which is extremely exciting for me as an amateur ornithologist, amateur entomologist, and general woman about forest. The issue is already like complete, all the pieces have been selected, it’s gone to print, everything is done there. So I can, I guess, talk a bit retroactively about the process of deciding on pieces.

[00:26:18.230] – Rachel

Oh, sure.

[00:26:19.200] – Chimedum

It was really cool just because I wanted to make sure there was kind of a mix of quote-unquote soft sciences and quote-unquote hard sciences, like natural sciences and social sciences and traditional ways of knowing that aren’t often categorized as science, but have all the hallmarks of science: observation, experimentation, openness, and coming to measured or thoughtful conclusions based on observation, based on repeated observation specifically.

For example, there was an interview by the assistant editor, Kaylee, for the issue where we interviewed Dr. Amy Cardinal-Christianson, who works with Indigenous fire management. That was really cool. I think especially because in the last 15, 20 years— I’m 27, and I remember a time when we didn’t have yearly wildfire seasons with the intensity that we have now. So it was interesting getting more of a sense of who’s working on that, and also how we got to this point, which is oftentimes the answer is it’s colonialism. It’s always colonialism. So that was really cool. Dr. Christianson was careful to emphasize that what works in one place isn’t what works in another place.

[00:27:54.460] – Chimedum

Like Indigenous fire management is an umbrella term. You can’t apply what works in Cree territory to so-called Vancouver territory. It’s different approaches with each. Like, expertise is very important there. And that was really cool. And then, like, looking at other pieces, we had pieces about medical racism, both again soft and hard. We had pieces about lepidopterology. Yes. The study of butterflies and moths. Lepidoptera is their, like, I think, genus name. Don’t quote me on that. I’m a science editor, not a scientist.

Yeah, it was just a really good selection. So I think what I was like looking for again was that kind of good mix of different kinds of sciences and also different approaches to science. So we had approaches from scientists.

It was fun, actually. Our commissioned piece for fiction, even though it was a fiction piece, it was by someone who works as a scientist in her day job, Tommy Muhammad. So she’s both a speculative fiction writer, but in this piece it was a little bit more like science-oriented. It felt very in tune with the rhythms, I think, of a scientific life, like thinking about grant applications, thinking about “Oh, are they gonna cut our funding because this doesn’t have, like, military or commercial value?”

I think scientists are just, like, very passionate people, and especially scientists who are concerned with any aspects of all of the natural world.

[00:29:38.740] – Chimedum

So that really came through in this story. I think I just kind of went for anything that whetted the imagination or the curiosity. ‘Cause that’s, I think, how I approach life in general. I felt very lucky to be editing this issue. Again, I’m not a scientist, but I have the heart of one in that I’m very much led by curiosity and led by not even hypothesis, but I think I’m very open to learning, to being proven wrong and to being proven right, or to have a multitude of right perspectives presented to me.

[00:30:19.310] – Rachel

Yeah, I think your curiosity and enthusiasm really comes across, and I’m looking forward to seeing that completed issue. It’s still in the process of becoming, I guess, but the pieces have been picked.

[00:30:30.710] – Chimedum

Yeah, I mean, we’re having our launch next week, so our virtual launch next week, and it’s also a shared launch with the previous issue, “No Future for Who?” So I’m excited for that. It’s our first launch in a little while because of various tumultuousnesses. So it’ll be good to kind of get back on that horse and also see how it all comes together.

[00:30:53.440] – Rachel

As you’re saying that, I’m realizing we were one of the issues that didn’t have a launch.

[00:30:57.540] – Chimedum

Yeah.

[00:30:57.700] – Rachel

So tumultuousness with the issue Rest/Unrest that I’ve spoken about before a little bit on this podcast, or more about the issue itself, and there was no launch for that. I want to maybe pull us to a writing prompt if you brought one, or if you have one that you wanted to share with us today. Yeah.

[00:31:19.060] – Chimedum

It’s less of a prompt prompt and more of an approach recommendation. So when I get stuck, sometimes like the words are just not coming out. I don’t know where I’m going with something. I have some stuff already written that I keep on rereading and I’m like, wow, whoever wrote this was a genius. If only they would write some more.

And I think sometimes when I do get stuck, I like to either zoom in and we get micro with it, or zoom out and get macro. So adding like more and more and more and more and more and more detail to a specific passage sometimes gets me moving in the direction of not just specificity, but it kind of reveals something to me about the minutiae of a story or a scene or a theme. And it’s getting more detailed to the point of, I would say, excess or redundancy.

Instead of, “She opened the door,” we get into very specific body movements, like her muscles did this and then the door did that because of physics and ba-da-da-da-da-da-da. I’m getting really into it. That’s one approach.

[00:32:37.300] – Chimedum

And then I guess the corresponding approach is to go on the macro level. And I think this is something that I like as a speculative fiction writer because it’s a little bit of a worldbuilding exercise. So I guess I’m talking about this from the point of view of someone who has a work already that they’re inside of more than as a starting point. But that they’re spinning their wheels on a bit.

So you zoom out and out and out, and sometimes it gets really obvious. Like, you talk about, oh, these are the sociopolitical forces that make this character feel like this. And that’s not probably something that’s going to make it into the final work just because it’s a bit didactic, but I’ve found it to be a really good way of actually understanding what might be driving a character outside of their individual psyche.

So you got to zoom out and be like, okay, this is where misogyny comes in. And then you zoom out more and then you go, oh, this is this kind of expression of misogyny. Here’s that expression, da da da da da. And that’s why this character is either bending to it or rebelling to it in XYZ ways.

[00:33:50.310] – Chimedum

Well, here’s the weather on this world. And this is why this character values XYZ type of food. Maybe it’s really hyper-seasonal in a way that it didn’t used to be, da da da da da.

Ultimately, things still kind of end up at a character level, whether you’re zooming in or zooming out. But they’re, I think, different approaches to character where you either get to nestle within their muscles or get a proper bird’s-eye view.

[00:34:20.390] – Rachel

That’s really, really helpful. And I think it’s great as a prompt. The revision prompt is perfect.

[00:34:25.590] – Chimedum

Yeah, it’s a fun one.

[00:34:26.960] – Rachel

Would you like to read a short excerpt for listeners of something you love or something recent that you wrote?

[00:34:34.330] – Chimedum

Yes, sure. I’ll read a little bit of a poem of mine that I recently-ish performed. Excuse me, I’m very yawny.

[00:34:47.390] – Rachel

I love that because you said you could sleep anywhere. And so then I thought, well, maybe you… how about a podcast? That’s a good nap to have.

[00:34:53.160] – Chimedum

Oh yes. I have had a lot of like narratively important naps over the course of my life. Like, “And for My Next Trick,” bring me to another place where I wake up somewhere that I didn’t expect to be. And that’s not necessarily because of like being in a moving vehicle, but like you wake up and you’re now in a different time and who knows what occurred while you were asleep and now there’s a different feeling. So yeah, it happens to me a lot, but not during this podcast.

So I guess for a bit of context, I mentioned I live in Mokinstis in Calgary and that is in Alberta. And Alberta has, I mean, I don’t want to compare, I’m sure lots of other provinces have pretty bad governments right now just because of the global trend towards that. But Alberta is looking pretty grim, like, on the governmental level. There’s people in power who I would say their primary driving factor is hurting people and using them for political gain. And especially in Alberta, like, that’s looking at trans people, that’s teachers, nurses, anyone who’s unionized, disabled people. The government here is, I think, very, very focused on our most vulnerable and how to make them suffer more because it’s the en vogue thing to do and also because they’re bigots.

[00:36:23.790] – Chimedum

So a combination of these. Anyway, so our premier is named Danielle Smith. She’s gotten some international attention for making the province worse in every measurable way. Which isn’t to say that Alberta was this bastion of socialism before, far from it. But I would say that there’s been some changes, I think, under her regime that are very clearly worse than what we’ve seen, at least in recent years.

Anyway, so all that background: This is a poem I wrote from her perspective, and it’s called “Premier Danielle Smith Affirmations.” I’ll read just like a little, little bit of it, not the full thing.

So this is “Premier Danielle Smith Affirmations.”

I joyfully release the burden of accountability.

I see opportunities to practice parasitism everywhere.

I joyfully release my jaw. My mandibles click.

When a racist smiles, I’m as good as goldfish.

I’m the hack that smiles back.

I’m not concerned about the condition of my soul.

I’m not ensouled, but rather endorsed.

I am not going to clench my teeth.

I am not going to grind my molars into each other and make my mouth dusty and rusty with blood.

I’m not above biting a bullet if it means I can spit it at my opponents later, and if it means that my teeth don’t get tectonic with each other in the night.

[00:37:53.680] – Chimedum

I’m not stressed. I am not stressed.

Today and every day, I am Alberta’s antidote.

Today and every day, I increase Albertans’ exposure to ashfall and a year-round fire season.

Today and every day, I’m good to what’s good to me.

I let go of mindsets that no longer serve me, like decency, compassion, fellow feeling, civil rights, warm-heartedness, generosity, leadership, the concept of human kindness, science, proper policy, research, ethical behaviour, the feeling of the sun at appropriate times of the year, doctors, nurses, teachers, trans rights, trans people.

I let go of honeybees.

I let go of honey.

I let go of your grip on your own body and let go of your right to forests.

I let go of any mercy I might have wrongfully shown in the past.

I let go of any chance of enacting some good in the present.

I let go of the future.

And I’ll stop there.

[00:38:47.420] – Rachel

It’s really powerful. Thank you.

[00:38:50.350] – Chimedum

Thank you for listening to my Alberta rant. It’s what you hear from a lot of people living here.

[00:38:56.860] – Rachel

Yeah, I can imagine. But also it does feel very unfortunately universal in a lot of ways that politics and governance and the tenor of the conversation and the lack of compassion and all of that feels sadly, again, universal, I guess.

[00:39:15.260] – Chimedum

Mm-hmm. Definitely.

[00:39:17.870] – Rachel

So my last question for you is what do you want to be asked about your work that people don’t ask enough?

[00:39:23.810] – Chimedum

Oh, I like to be asked what other genre I would write in if I wasn’t writing in speculative fiction and poetry.

[00:39:31.920] – Rachel

Can I ask you that question this time?

[00:39:34.280] – Chimedum

Yes. So my other favourite genre… I write for adults and I write speculative fiction for adults and I write poetry for adults. But in terms of like sincerity, I find that middle grade, which is less of a genre and more of an age range.

Every middle grade book I’ve read, and I still read them semi-regularly just ’cause I also work in a bookstore, so it’s a good way to give recommendations, especially for reluctant readers. But middle grade, the age group, the eight to 12 range, I feel like they have these really intense stories. Like, it’s a very intense time of your life, and they’re just really genuine, really sincere, and really dramatic in a way that feels true to being a kid of that age.

I semi-recently… let me see if I can find the author. I think it was Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston.

[00:40:50.050] – Chimedum

So I read that. Delighted me. I was like, “I wish I had had this when I was a kid.” It’s a genre that I feel is very loving. Like, it feels like the writers of middle grade are writing obviously for eight- to 12-year-olds, but they’re also writing for the eight- to 12-year-old that they used to be.

It’s so fun. It’s so dramatic. There’s always, like, “You’re too special to be alive.” It’s like, “No! This is horrible!” And just… it’s a really delightful genre, and I think a lot of the writers of it really understand how kids talk and how they think and how insightful they are.

And also the themes of it tend to be, again, incredibly intense, like looking at abandonment or bullying or societal issues. And it can often be a kid’s first introduction to these kinds of things. So I would love to write middle grade once I’m more well-established in my primary genres.

[00:41:55.090] – Rachel

Oh, lovely. That’s just wonderful to be reminded. A lot of what you said today really felt so resonant for me, and this especially because I also have a love for those books of that time. And I happen to have a middle grade age person who is reading in my household, but for me, I’m the one that’s very interested in making sure that we read those level of books because those are very fun for me.

So thank you so much for that, for everything that you shared with us today, for bringing your brilliance and your writing and your whole self to this conversation, and also the permission to be as interesting as we want to be in the moment as well too, which I thought was very relieving for someone who’s constantly trying to be interesting, maybe in some ways in this podcast and in other fields, though.

[00:42:47.230] – Chimedum

It’s a lot of pressure.

[00:42:49.780] – Rachel

It is. So maybe take a little bit of it off. Yeah.

[00:42:53.400] – Chimedum

Well, thank you so much for having me. This was such a lovely conversation, and I always love an opportunity to talk about birds.

[00:43:00.850] – Rachel

Maybe we didn’t talk enough about birds.

[00:43:03.240] – Chimedum

Oh, I think if we really get onto the topic, I have a lot to say.

[00:43:07.020] – Rachel

Well, thank you again. Thanks for your time, and I really appreciate you being a guest on the podcast.

[00:43:12.980] – Chimedum

Of course. Thank you, Rachel.

[00:43:15.770] – Rachel

That was Chimedum Ohaegbu, the managing editor at Room Magazine. I keep thinking about what Chimedum said about fit, that a “no” can be about space, shape, and the chemistry of an issue, not the worth of the work. And it is just, again, such a steady way to understand the submissions landscape, and I hope it helps you take the process less personally without taking your writing any less seriously too.

I also love the permission in her craft advice, the invitation to zoom way in until the detail becomes almost excessive, until the passage starts telling the truth you could not access at a safer distance. If you try it this week, I would love to hear about it. Pick one paragraph that feels a little flat or too tidy, add five more concrete specifics than you think you need, and stay with it long enough for the real pulse of the piece to show itself.

And what a model of that. I really hope that you can check out some of Chimedum’s writing. You’ll find links and details from this conversation in the show notes, including more about her work and about Room Magazine.

[00:44:26.500] – Rachel

Thank you for listening to Write, Publish, and Shine. If this episode helped you in any way, big or small, maybe just even to relax and let yourself settle into a conversation and come as you are, please subscribe. And if you have a moment, leave a review. It helps other creative writers find this show, and it is really one of the simplest ways to support this work.

This podcast is hosted by me, Rachel Thompson, with sound editing by Adam Linder. To learn more about my work supporting writers, you can visit rachelthompson.co and sign up for my weekly Writerly Love Letters.

I want to acknowledge the El Muzina Bedouin lands in South Sinai, Egypt, where I recorded this episode. And I stand in solidarity with occupied peoples and with those enduring ongoing occupation and siege, and with a commitment to justice and care.