Checking In with Lex Chamberlin

Lex Chamberlin (they/she) is a nonbinary and autistic writer of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. They hold a master’s degree in book publishing and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, and they reside in the Pacific Northwest with their husband and quadrupedal heirs. Find them online at lexchamberlin.com

Lex is the author of “Rise of the Hive” from Radon Issue 8, “Take Care” from Issue 6, and “Ascendant Neither-Nors” from Issue 4.

Q: In our last conversation, you discussed how speculative fiction can be a powerful vehicle for exploring autistic experience. Did you apply that framework when writing “Rise of the Hive”?

I think it’s in my head, to some degree, any time I’m writing about robots—not because being autistic makes someone robotic at all, but because of how we’re often perceived. We might not display emotions as much, or in the same ways that allistic people do, and that can create really miserable situations. The main character in this story is also nonverbal, and while I’m only situationally nonverbal myself, I do have experience with it. That tied in well with the barrier here between this character’s internal experience and the external assumptions made about them.

Q: We’ve previously discussed the challenges of publishing short fiction, along with the state of short fiction publications at large. Despite these difficulties, what is it about the form that keeps you coming back to it?

Dopamine, probably. I like to finish things, and I like for people to read my work— It’s much easier to ask for ten minutes of someone’s time than for hours or days, and a short story is more likely to get published than a novel. And if it doesn’t, oh well! I only lost a few days of work total and can move on to the next story.

This is far from the case for me with novels. I’m not a fast writer, so I can work on a book for potentially years, all while knowing that it’s statistically unlikely to end up anywhere but my hard drive, since I’m not yet agented or interested in self-publishing. One Discord server I’m in is mostly querying writers, and many of the ones who get agented are on their fourth or fifth books, while plenty of others are still trying with even more manuscripts completed. I haven’t given up on long form—I’m writing one novel, I have another planned, I’ve completed one, and I’ve scrapped about three previously.

But I’ve reached a point where I’m okay with the possibility that I’ll only ever get short stories published. They’re more fun for me to write, and they more consistently provide satisfaction and reassurance that I’m not just typing into the void.

Q: Where did your inspiration for writing “Rise of the Hive” begin?

This one actually started with Apex Magazine’s flash fiction contest theme, “last death.” I couldn’t get it to flash length, so I never ended up submitting it there. But I don’t really mind when that happens—either way, I get a new piece out of it.

At first, I considered recycling a different story for this theme—I’d previously done a Flash on the Fly contest and ended up with something that would have fit. But I also knew from the second I finished it that that story was too generic to save. The one thing it had that I liked was a combat-oriented robot hivemind, so I just plucked that out.

From there, I worked on what “last death” might mean for a hivemind. Having a last death implies previous ones, and that got me to continuity of memory. Once I had these parameters set—a final death with recollection of the prior ones, a robot hivemind, and a combat-oriented scenario—the story just kind of appeared.

Q: Has your 2024 turned out like you expected, since we last caught up with you at the beginning of the year?

I’m going to limit this question to writing expectations: I think this hobby is filled with a lot of isolating work, hopeful waiting, and eventual disappointment. So in that sense, yes, my expectations have absolutely been met! I will say that this year has been better than last, by the stats. I got over 200 rejections for short stories, and I’d hoped to be further in my current novel by now, but I’ve also got about twenty active pieces, plus fourteen I send around occasionally as reprints—I feel like that’s pretty cool, regardless of acceptance rates. I’ve had a lot more final-round rejections this year as well, so I know at least some of them don’t suck too bad. For the most part, I guess I’m just chugging along as usual.

Q: To you, how does your Issue 8 story, “Rise of the Hive,” compare to your previous Radon publications?

I hadn’t really thought about it, but there are some commonalities for sure. We’ve got another nonhuman protagonist, and we’re exploring a desire for connection again as well. It’s also my second robot story with Radon. I feel like the endings to the three have very different tones, though: “Ascendant Neither-Nors” is very somber and sentimental I think, while “Take Care” has sad parts but is overall fun (to me at least) in an almost horror-comedy kind of way. This one arguably ends on a happy or at least hopeful note. I was very pleased with the changes we made in the editorial process, expanding on the original ending to make those final happenings explicit rather than implied.

Q: How has your journey querying a multi-viewpoint fantasy novel been this year? Have your full manuscript requests panned out?

Well, I can now say with confidence that I wouldn’t recommend querying a six-POV fantasy novel as a debut! If for no other reason than the fact that getting an effectively focused blurb down is a nightmare. I’d actually planned to give up on it after this month, at about the two-year mark. But I did recently speak with an agent who encouraged me not to, reminding me that as trends shift, it might be exactly what someone’s looking for in the future. She also recommended a few changes to the opening, which I’ve implemented. So we’ll see if that helps? I’ve still got thirteen active queries, and at least thirty-five more agents on my list, so it’s not quite dead yet.

Being realistic, though, very few people seem to debut with their first finished manuscript, and this was not the best book to try to query anyway (see the above-referenced fiasco with the blurb). I’m chill with continuing to query this in the background without significant hope it’ll go anywhere—my short story collection and my next novel seem like better bets.

Q: Are there any teasers you can share publicly about the novel-length sequel you are working on to your Issue 4 story, “Ascendant Neither-Nors”?

Sure! I’m only about 20,000 words into it, but I do have the whole thing plotted out. This book directly follows the events of the short story, with Rhian as the sole main character. I switched it to first person, and a version of the short story actually features in a flashback as well. The main setting is a space station that’s this colossal, layered cube populated by humanoid-flora hybrids and their overlords, orbiting the first planet that was killed by the blight. It’s got conspiracy, it’s got fungal plague, it’s got class commentary! And at the pace I’ve been working, it will maybe be ready to query sometime in 2026, lol.

Q: You’ve mentioned how some of your stories draw heavily on your personal experiences. How do you navigate the emotional weight of integrating intimate aspects of your life into your speculative writing?

Apart from dressing it up a bit in speculative metaphor for some distance, I often just have to let myself cry during the writing. And I tend not to reread those stories once they’re published (though I’m always happy to talk to people who’ve connected with them). There’s catharsis in expressing the things that have deeply affected me. But it’s interesting—I’ve got a couple I’m sending around right now that I absolutely sobbed while writing, but one has had no traction while the other has made it to the final round at four pro markets. There’s no guarantee it’ll hit harder just because it was heavier for me to write.

I do intentionally keep coming back to personal topics I find difficult, though. Touché Amoré has this song called “To Write Content,” which ends with lyrics that are essentially, by my interpretation, about pouring your worst experiences and vulnerabilities into your art because that’s what’s often going to yield the most rewarding results. I feel like I really internalized that, years before I started focusing on short fiction, mainly in the context of writing music. Not everything I make has some painful core—plenty of my stories are just for fun! But when I can dig into something that haunts me, get my hands dirty pulling it all apart, reshape it into something fantastical before flinging it into the world, and then sometimes even hear that it resonated with another person? Therapeutic isn’t a strong enough word.