Am I intentionally moving my career into the mainstream? I think I am intentionally trying not to be categorized, but that’s just because of the kind of writer I am: I get interested in something and want to write it, and it may be genre, or, as is usually the case, it may not be.
Q: I guess you could say the James Dean book is a non-category fantasy, which means it’s a fantasy but you don’t tell anyone it’s a fantasy. I understand that Mark Helprin, for example, is very defensive about not being labeled a fantasy writer, because everybody assumes fantasy means elves and unicorns. Of course fantastic literature is much broader. But as we well know from all those books that you haven’t heard of before they win World Fantasy Awards, there is a great deal of interesting fantasy being published outside of the fantasy category. So I guess you’re very lucky to be able to publish fantasy as mainstream. Great work if you can get it.
Dann: Certainly with The Memory Cathedral I am doing the same sort of thing that John Crowley is doing. And there is the same sort of problem of where to categorize it. But, you see, I love the genre, so it’s not as if I don’t want to be associated with it. I just want to have any given book reach its audience. I’ll give you an example. When The Memory Cathedral won the Aurealis Award in Australia, it was selling very well there, and it was selling as a mainstream, historical novel. I was very lucky. It got full-page photo reviews. When it won the Aurealis Award, my publisher decided to do a sticker, which I thought was a great idea. It read, “Winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy.” Within two weeks, the books disappeared from the center shelves, where they had been selling very well. I asked bookstore clerks and managers what had happened, and they told me, “People who read historical novels want everything to be real. Of course we know that this is a historical novel about Leonardo da Vinci. But the sticker says ‘fantasy’, so historical-novel readers won’t buy it.” I had effectively lost the mainstream audience. So when my novella “Da Vinci Rising”, which was adapted from the novel, won the Nebula Award, Harper made a bigger sticker, which read “Winner of the Aurealis/Nebula Award.” It had “Aurealis” on top, “Nebula” on the bottom, but it said nothing about fantasy. Two weeks later, the books were right back in the center and they were reaching that audience again. True story. Now you and I both know that this is insanity, but it’s the way that stuff gets categorized. So when I say I don’t want to be categorized, I try to make sure that when one of my non-genre or cross-genre books comes out, it’s going to be able to reach that mainstream audience.
Q: There are others who luck out like this. James Morrow, for example, is reviewed as mainstream but also sells as fantasy. Harlan Ellison has certainly made a very vocal point throughout his career of not being categorized as one type of writer. But there are many others who may strive their whole careers and never be discovered outside of the SF/fantasy field, no matter what they write.
Dann: Again, I’ve been lucky. I’ve had publishers who were willing to work with me, and so far I have been able to walk the tightrope.
Q: Did it make any difference because you moved to Australia? Norman Spinrad refers to the “prince from another land” strategy. Were you able to do some of that?
Dann: I wouldn’t call it a strategy, because for me it wasn’t a strategy. I have always been very lucky in that here in the States, and also in Australia, I have had editors and publishers who really believed in the work. This has been a huge help and has made me feel very secure, shall we say, as I am not one of those writers who can knock out a novel or two a year.
The irony is that since I’ve been living in Australia—it’s been about seven years—I have more of a presence in the United States. I was at a convention and Bob Silverberg said, “You’re 50...and you’re hot.” [Laughs.] When I lived in Binghamton, in upstate New York, George R. R. Martin referred to me, correctly, as the hermit of Binghamton, because you couldn’t get me out of upstate New York. I am more present now in terms of a public person, and in terms of just being around in the country, here in the States, than when I lived here. When I travel now, I make a point to be “out there.” I’m in New York and I’m in LA, and I’m at this convention.
Since I’ve been living in Australia, my career has been doing well. In the “bad old days” I would spin off other jobs to stay afloat. I’d say, “I’ll try marketing,” and before I knew it I’d have a viable company that was demanding time. Would you believe it? I took a job in insurance because the hours were good, and after I left, I was asked to be on the board of directors. Crazy stuff. In Australia, I just write and pay attention to the writing. That made a big difference. I was able to make enough money by focusing on the writing.
Q: How has moving to Australia affected your writing? I notice that the first book you wrote after going there was about the American Civil War. Do you have a different perspective, viewing the United States from the outside now?
Dann: I had sold that novel before I moved, but I found myself commuting, living in Melbourne, but commuting back and forth to Virginia. I am one of those writers who tries to get as much information as possible. So I walked all the places depicted in the novel. I was there. But people kept laughing and chuckling and saying, “You’re living in Australia and you’re writing a novel about the American Civil War,” and I noticed that in the reviews, especially the ones in Australia, there was much talk about the idea of distance and perspective. I suppose I am obsessed with my own culture. I think that being out of one’s culture changes the way you see everything.
I did an article for the SFWA Bulletin called “Double Vision.” I see things as an American, enmeshed in my culture, basically, as a New Yorker, but I also see things now from an expatriate perspective, and everything looks different because of that distance. When you travel as a tourist, you take your own atmosphere with you. It’s different when you find yourself living in a place. After I was living in Australia for about eight months, I realized that Australian culture and American culture look very similar, but are really profoundly different. Even the language is different. So, although I’m here [in the USA] and I am comfortable and this is my culture, I feel like an outsider because I can never stop seeing with this double vision. I’m comfortable everywhere, but always an outsider. So I think it has given me this strange kind of perspective, and I am very interested in trying to figure out my home culture.
Q: I am sure a lot of writers have done that—
Dann: Of course, Hemingway living in Paris—
Q: With any number of expatriate Russians.
Dann: But I didn’t do it for that. I met Janeen, and I never believed in this, but it was basically love at first sight. And three months later the Hermit of Binghamton was living in the center of Melbourne and trying to navigate the infrastructure. I would try to dial “operator” on the telephone. I would dial zero and nothing would happen. I would get into a car to drive and then I would have to remember that the steering wheel was on the other side. In other words, I wasn’t saying, “I’m going to go and immerse myself in another culture to have stuff to write about.” I found myself there, and then all that stuff started happening. So it was all unplanned.
Q: Most writers