The Outspoken and the Incendiary

Interviews with Radical Speculative Fiction Writers

Terry Bisson

• Publisher: PM Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9798887441214
• eBook ISBN: 9798887441245
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

In-depth, intense, insightful.

For more than a decade, radical science fiction author and activist journalist Terry Bisson interviewed some of the most provocative and outspoken authors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Anarchism, sexuality, creativity, and the future of humanity itself—no topic was taboo. Bisson's prankster spirit also shone through as he quizzed his subjects about what cars they drove, played free association games, and created an atmosphere of two old friends having intimate late-night chats. Collected from PM Press's award-winning Outspoken Authors series for the first time, The Outspoken and the Incendiary showcases insightful and long-form explorations into the lives and minds of some of today’s most politically charged fiction writers.

“PM's Outspoken Authors series looks almost like a science fiction Who’s Who or Hall of Fame, except that I included myself. Because I could.” —Terry Bisson

Words and Thoughts By: Eleanor Arnason, Terry Bisson, Michael Blumlein, John Crowley, Samuel R. Delany, Cory Doctorow, Meg Elison, Karen Joy Fowler, Eileen Gunn, Elizabeth Hand, Cara Hoffman, Nalo Hopkinson, James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Paul Krassner, Joe R. Lansdale, Jonathan Lethem, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ken MacLeod, Nick Mamatas, Michael Moorcock, Paul Park, Gary Phillips, Marge Piercy, Rachel Pollack, Rudy Rucker, Kim Stanley Robinson, Carter Scholz, Nisi Shawl, John Shirley, Vandana Singh, and Norman Spinrad, with additional new contributions by Nalo Hopkinson, Jonathan Lethem, Nisi Shawl, Peter Coyote, and Rudy Rucker.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword: Outspeaking in Our Field
• Introduction
• “At the Edge of the Future”
• “Fried Green Tomatoes”
• “A Babe in the Woods”
• “I Did Crash a Few Parties”
• “Discourse in an Older Sense”
• “Look For the Lake”
• “Sprawling into the Unknown”
• “More Exuberant Than Is Strictly Tasteful”
• “I Did, and I Didn’t, and I Won’t”
• “Flying Squirrels in the Rafters”
• “Who Does the Work in a Utopia?”
• “Correcting the Balance”
• “Encounter with a Gadget Guy”
• “I Planned to Be an Astronomer”
• Reflections of a Realist
• “That’s How You Clean a Squirrel”
• “A Lovely Art”
• “Rooms Full of Old Books Are Immortal Enough for Me”
• “Working the Wet End”
• “Put Your Twist in the Middle”
• “Get the Music Right”
• “Punctuality, Basic Hygiene, Gun Safety”
• “But I’m Gonna Put a Cat on You”
• “Living Off the Grid”
• “Radical, Sacred, Hopefully Magical”
• “A Real Joy to Be Had”
• “Load On the Miracles and Keep a Straight Face”
• “Gear. Food. Rocks.”
• “The Fly in the Sugar Bowl”
• “Pro Is for Professional”
• “A Source of Immense Richness”
• “No Regrets, No Retreat, No Surrender”
• Afterword: For Terry
• Elegy by Rudy Rucker
• Elegy by Peter Coyote
• About the Authors