Daniel Ausema

As part of our SFFWorld.com’s Member Spotlight Series, Nila interviews Daniel Ausema, fantasy writer and reader.

Hello Daniel, thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to chat with me. I promise I’ll make this quick.

Daniel: Thank you! I’m thrilled to be asked.

SFFWorld: What’s your SFFWorld.com’s forum alias and why did you pick it?

Daniel: Rather uncreatively, danielausema. Back in my college days (nearly twenty years ago, yikes) I would create an alias when I joined a forum. Or…what did we call them then? A talker or something like that. Really cheesy way to waste time, but I sure lost plenty of sleep my first year of college doing that… Since then though, I’ve always been comfortable with just my own name, so on every forum where I need a screen name, I’m either dausema or danielausema.

SFFWorld: How did you discover SFFWorld.com and why did you decide to join?

Daniel: A number of years ago, I was quite active in a handful of forums and visiting a dozen blogs and participating there, and it just got so overwhelming. Social media is such such a firehose, and for my sanity I needed to step away. I basically shut down all that kind of activity, except for one writing forum. My own blog went from frequent updates to very irregular, and I just withdrew from all that. I slowly eased back into more blogging, though it’s still nowhere near as frequent as it was. Then last summer I decided that maybe I could cautiously add a little more without it overwhelming me. But when I started looking around, I discovered that all of the other forums I’d been on were gone.

Fortunately about a year ago I’d had a novella published in a shared world series called the Darkside Codex. I read an interview with another of the shared world authors, Andrew Leon Hudson, and he mentioned this forum. So I wandered over to check it out. And decided to stay 🙂

SFFWorld: How long have you been a member and what keeps you coming back?

Daniel: August 2014, I guess, though I hadn’t really done much more than introduce myself before I entered my first monthly flash competition back in November. I enjoy seeing what other writers are writing for the comps and getting a feel for what they’re doing in the very broad fields of speculative fiction. I also find that publically stating goals is a great spur for getting that writing done.

SFFWorld: What’s your favorite book (genre or not)?

Daniel: I always find it hard to pick just one, but I almost always end up choosing Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler. I love books that play with structure, and I find works that are fiercely original and imaginative appeal to me. And this book has all that and so much more.

SFFWorld: What’s your favorite author (genre or not)?

Daniel: I would say that of current writers, the one I’m always most excited to see what he has coming out next is Jeff VanderMeer. I’ve loved his writing ever since I happened to see the original City of Saints and Madmen sitting in the new books shelf at our local library. I’m not sure I even needed to read a single word to know I’d love it–that cover by Scott Eagle was just so cool. And I appreciate how each book is a new experience. He doesn’t just write the same book over and over.

In short fiction, which I also try to read widely, I’m always thrilled to see a story by Yoon Ha Lee listed in a magazine or anthology. So I have to mention her, as well, as a definite favorite lately.

SFFWorld: What’s your favorite genre (science fiction, fantasy, horror, steampunk, etc)?

Daniel: I would say fantasy, but I define that very broadly. A lot of what I write is steampunk or at least steampunk influenced, but I still see that as part of the spectrum of fantasy. I like fantasy with with a literary sense of the lyrical and allusive (but not necessarily a literary sense of pacing…). And I’m always interested in discovering new approaches and new twists on the familiar genres.

SFFWorld: Where’s your favorite place to read?

Daniel: Wherever and whenever. Pacing with a baby in one arm and a book in the other or sitting comfortably on the couch doesn’t matter to me. Just give me a good book 🙂

SFFWorld: Favorite con (convention)?

Daniel: Well…I once managed to get to a single day of WorldCon when it was in Denver a few years ago. That was a great time…and the entirety of my con-going experience. One of these years I’ll find a way to get away from other responsibilities long enough to go to another. I hope.

SFFWorld: What do you do when you are not reading or messing around on SFFWorld.com?

Daniel: I’m a stay-at-home dad with three kids, and my wife’s job has pretty long, stressful hours, so mostly my time is taken up with them, one way or another. I write whenever I find a gap to fill. And I can often be seen out running, pushing a jogging stroller on the the city trails here, with my youngest inside while the older two are in school.

SFFWorld: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Daniel. Anything else you’d like to add?

Daniel: Yeah, just a quick note on my Spire City series. A couple of months ago, you reviewed season one of that steampunk serial fiction series, which for those who missed the review is the first of three books being released serially, about a mad scientist’s deadly, lab-made serum and the powerless people who band together to stop him. Well, last month my publisher surprised us us all by suddenly shutting down. So I wanted to mention here that plans are in the works right now to re-release the first season and the episodes of the second season that had already come out and then press on with the full series. So stay tuned!

Thanks so much for having me. 🙂