Kameron Hurley

“Science fiction writers create all sorts of futures - that comes with the job. But it's not the type that matters - hopeful or dark - it's the variety we see as readers. It's nurturing the imaginations of those who will go on to create the world around us.”

“Novel writing, like so many things in life, is an iterative process. You come at it again and again, working at it like you would a piece of pottery or a stone sculpture, chipping away the parts that don't make sense, smoothing over the rough edges.”

“Light doesn’t always keep the dark things away,” Nyx said.”

“When we see sexist and racist behavior, the only way to change that is also to point it out and make it clear that it's not okay.”

“It was men, not God, who had done those things...”

“Watching the progression and backlash against feminism even since 1970 will give you a serious case of whiplash.”

“I have spent my life battling monsters. It was only in realizing that I was the monster, and choosing to destroy her, that I could save the world.”

“I think anger of any kind is valuable. It's all about learning how to channel it. The worst thing we can do is get bored or complacent or worse - suppress our anger and then see it burst forth in unhealthy ways.”

“Authors are often sent a number of books to read for possible review and advance praise. It can be easy for new books to get lost in the pile.”

“I can think of only two movies with women killers we’re meant to sympathize with, and both because they’d been sexually assaulted—Thelma and Louise and Monster. And to be honest, I don’t imagine anyone would call the women in these films heroes. The popular comic book mercenary Red Sonja is, perhaps, a proper hero, but is, once again, motivated by a sexual assault. Male heroes are heroic because of what’s been done to women in their lives, often—the dead child, the dead wife. Women heroes are also heroic for what’s been done to women … to them.We build our heroes, too often, on terrible things done to women, instead of creating, simply, heroes who do things, who persevere in the face of overwhelming odds because it’s the right thing to do.”

“The monsters don't live in the belly of the world like they all say. The monsters live inside of us. We make the monsters.”

“My parents both worked full-time flipping burgers at the local fast-food joint, and my grandmother looked after us. English was her second language, so instead of books, I learned spoken French nursery rhymes and curse words.”

“Folks will always, always, always go back to the comfortable status quo, with its silent voices and lack of conflict, if you give them the chance.”

“I don't like to write about things that bore me, and that means I steer far clear of writing books that are just like what's on the shelves.”

“There are no failed ideas, just ideas that haven't found their moment yet.”

“While many alternate reality stories ask, 'What might have been?' parallel universe stories literalize the war between good and evil that plays inside each of us every day. It's what makes this type of story so perfect for many fantasy tales: we're all just a coin flip away from being entirely different people.”

“The reality is that much of the stuff you see in film, television, comics, and children's cartoons got its start inside the inspired, disruptive halls of science-fiction and fantasy literature.”

“I started writing 'God's War' knowing that I wanted to write about real people on a resource-strapped planet at perpetual war.”

“War makes monsters of us all. But what happens to those of us who no longer wish to be monsters?”

“What I found so captivating about the idea of being a writer was having the ability to write down all these things I made up in my head so other people could see them.”