Conversation with Keira Perkins

Keira Perkins writes both short fiction and poetry, most of it speculative. She is also a scientist, which is mostly not speculative. Keira lives in Indiana with her husband, dogs, cats, and whichever stray animal she’s brought home that week. Keira can be found at keiraperkins.com, where she blogs about knitting, ghosts, miscellaneous trivia, and occasionally, writing.

Keira is the author of “A Junkyard Full of Stardust” from Radon Issue 7.

Q: What brought about your idea for a self-aware, semi-murderous robot named AU-47912A?

I was watching an anthology series on Netflix. I won’t say which one, because I don’t want to insult it by accident. I really did enjoy it, but it ultimately wasn’t the story I wanted at the time and I was disappointed by the ending.

While I was watching, I assumed it was unfolding the question “who gets to be human?” and “whose life has value?” There were robots and everything! But, alas, I was wrong. It was actually about a man’s inability to deal with his loneliness.

It planted the idea in my head, though. Who gets to be human? What if we switch up the genders? The ages? Their importance in society? I started writing and AU-47912A was born.

Strangely enough, it’s also not the story I set out to tell.

Q: What draws you to dystopian scifi featuring philosophical androids?

I don’t have a great answer for this, unfortunately. It just happened. I purposefully made AU-47912A female and I set up a situation where she wouldn’t have been socialized to be “nice.”

I’m sure I’ve been influenced by other philosophical and semi-murderous androids in fiction, but it wasn’t a conscious decision.

Q: Do you have a favorite Futurama meme to share with our readers?

They are all my favorite. You may as well ask me to pick a favorite child. That said . . .

1) I avoid anything with Seymour the dog. I can’t even watch the episode, “Jurassic Bark” (Season 4, episode 7) because it makes me too sad. Fry tries to clone his dog Seymour in his present (future) while the real Seymour sits and waits for Fry to come back to him. It absolutely wrecks me.

2) I have a dog named Scout. Her nickname is Scooty Puff Jr. If you know your Futurama, you know that Scooty-Puff Jr. suuuuuuuuuuucks. And I’m teasing, of course, but my girl ATE the couch. And a chair. And a mattress. We love her deeply, but she sometimes makes poor choices.

There are a lot of Scooty Puff Jr. jokes and self-made memes in our home.

3) Did you know you can make your own Futurama memes at morbotron.com?

Q: Who are your favorite writers and journals to follow online?

There are so many! I don’t want to list authors as I’m going to forget someone and regret it. As for journals, of course I follow Radon. But, I also adore Interzone, Apex, Nightmare, and Bourbon Penn.

Q: How does your spouse support your writing career?

My husband thinks I’m smart and creative and I think the same about him. He’s one of my favorite people to bounce ideas off of as I flesh out new stories.

He also is so calm and chill. I have no chill. I am all in, all the time. The man reminds me that I need to rest and eat things that aren’t coffee. Coffee is not food. He reminds me that rejections are normal and that I don’t suck.

Honestly, he’s my biggest fan. As long as he likes my stories, I’m going to keep writing.

Q: You have mentioned loving both dogs and ghosts. Have you written in stories involving the ghosts of dogs?

It depends on what you mean by a ghost. I have a story in Luna Station QuarterlyIssue 058 called, “Cry to the Moon.” The dog dies in the first sentence. Then weird stuff happens. Spooky stuff. Strange stuff. It’s not a ghost story, exactly. I’d say it’s a (philia) love story that features a dead dog and folk magic.

True ghost stories are hard to write. They take a lot of skill. For me, the ghost stories that ring truest are the mundane ones that don’t have tidy endings. I like ghost stories that could be caused by any number of rational explanations.

Here, let me show you:

Years ago, I was in the backyard at night, corralling my dogs back inside. I looked down, and the dog I thought that was walking protectively next to me in the dark was not there. It’s easy to make mistakes in the dark. It’s easy for your eyes to see things, even dogs, that aren’t there.

But the reason this is a ghost story, with no meaning and no ending, is that I had only looked down when I felt a nose being pushed against my right calf. And the only dog that did that to me, the one I called my Velcro dog, had passed away months prior.

This anecdote is true. It’s interesting. But it’s not a story. It may not even be a ghost. It’s just a small odd thing that happened.

Q: Please go off on a tangent for us about time travel, the multiverse, and math.

I cannot! It requires wine and at least one of my sisters to capture that magic.

But, I will say this. I am begging you all, please consider that the Earth is spinning as it follows its orbit around the sun. The Milky Way is moving at 2.1 million kilometers per hour. The Andromeda Galaxy is moving towards us at 1.08 million kilometers per hour. The universe is expanding at 67.4 kilometers per second per megaparsec (yes, I looked those up. I know lots of triva, but I didn’t know the exact velocities).

The point is, if you move your time, you need to move your space too. It’s very important.

You know that saying, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you end up among the stars”?

It’s a bad saying. Do not miss when it comes to time travel. You will die.

Q: What was your reaction to becoming a paid poet last year?

Surprise, mostly! I enjoy writing poetry, but I’m better at judging the quality and craft of my short fiction. I can’t tell yet if my poetry is any good. That’s not false modesty. I’ve become a better fiction writer with experience and I hope the same will happen with my poetry.

Q: Will you be focusing on speculative poetry or fiction this year?

I’m writing both! I’ve written more stories this year than poetry, but I’m curious how the rest of the year will play out. I have a few projects in the works that I’m excited about, but I’m not sure yet which ones will be finished first.