In this episode we interview the panelists from PuliCon 2017, a one day comic convention in Puyallup WA. First we talk to Majokko Misu and Merri Christianson (Fake Geek Girls) about the geek subgenre, Magical Girls.
We then interview the keynote panelist Marissa Meyer, best-selling author of The Lunar Chronicles. The conversation covers fairy tales, feminism and sci-fi.
Enjoy these fun conversations about the various ways to be a geek girl.
Special thanks to co-host Bonnie Svitavsky, Leila Jacobs and our guests.
Click Here for Transcript
>> Here we go!
[? Blackalicious rapping “Chemical Calisthenics.”?]
? Neutron, proton, mass defect, lyrical oxidation, yo irrelevant
? Mass spectrograph, pure electron volt, atomic energy erupting
? As I get all open on betatron, gamma rays thermo cracking
? Cyclotron and any and every mic
? You’re on trans iridium, if you’re always uranium
? Molecules, spontaneous combustion, pow
? Law of de-fi-nite pro-por-tion, gain-ing weight
? I’m every element around
Dr. Regina Barber DeGraafff: So, welcome to Spark Science. We’re here at PuliCon 2017. And my friends Bonnie and Leila helped put this together, and it’s at the Puyallup Library. I just did a panel, and right after me were these two wonderful women that do magical girls. And I’m gonna let them introduce themselves.
Merri Christanson: Okay. I’m Merri. And I am one half of a podcast called Fake Geek Girls, which is a feminist podcast about geek culture.
Misu: My name is Nadonna Russell [sp?], but I go by Misu. I am a Master’s candidate at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC. My Master’s thesis is actually about the magical girl narrative. And, I was very much inspired by my own encounters with magical girl series. I saw Sailor Moon when it first came out when I was 15. And I liked how it portrayed somebody who was like me, a teenager at the time, as having the power to change the world but still having to deal with homework and friends and family and things like that. So…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah. So, you’re writing magical girls. And what’s… like, how does that all start? So, you’re both kind of the duo that’s doing this. How did it all start, and like, how did you put it out there into the world? What’s that story?
Merri Christanson: We started talking about magical girls ’cause at Geek Girl Con…
Misu: Yeah.
Merri Christanson: …we were on a panel together.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Oh, I love Geek Girl Con!
Merri Christanson: Yeah. It was really good! It was last year, we did this panel together, it was the same panel with a couple of other girls.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: So it’s really just getting the word out there of this genre and how to… like, this kind of story. Is that what you’re kind of doing?
Merri Christanson: That’s for sure what’s she’s doing! That’s for sure!
[Misu laughing.]
Merri Christanson: I just like talk about it because I grew up with it. And, so, I think a lot of people… nostalgia is so huge right now. So, a lot of people are like, “Oh, yeah! I watched Sailor Moon or I watched Card Captor!” And now, all of these magical girl animes are coming out, and so…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: So, it’s like a sub-genre of geekdom that like . . .
Misu: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: …people are kind of like focusing on and finding like a community in that?
Merri Christanson: Yes, very much so.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Okay.
Merri Christanson: Very much so. And that community has been building since… when was the first magical girl anime?
Misu: Sally the Witch or Mahoutsukai Sally, which it first aired in 1968.
Merri Christanson: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Wow.
Merri Christanson: So, it’s been building a really long time, especially in, like, the 90s, where it came onto Cartoon Network, and people…
Misu: Sailor Moon.
Merri Christanson: Yeah, Sailor Moon did, and I think that really helped a lot of people… it’s just relatable.
Misu: The thing about a magical girl series—and I deal with this so much—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yes, please educate me!
Misu: [Laughing.] ‘Cause like, so many people are like, “Well, this series that features a girl who is magical is a magical girl series.”
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Misu: I’m like, no, no, no, no! One of the main things is that, usually, the girl is very young.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm.
Misu: The youngest I’ve seen is 9. The oldest I’ve seen is 16. Usually, she has a magical companion, like…
Merri Christanson: Usually an animal.
Misu: Usually an animal, very cute animal. Precure is so full of them.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Okay. So, Spirited Away: no, then?
Misu: No.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: ‘Cause her animal is like that dragon, and he’s like bloody–
Misu: There’s magical aspects that—
Merri Christanson: Yeah, it’s actually really sad.
Misu: Aspects, but no.
Merri Christanson: Well, maybe soon, ’cause there’s been some pretty dark magical girls coming out!
Misu: Yeah! But the main thing is that there’s a transformation where she becomes a magical girl, and usually there’s a musical cue.
[Regina laughing.]
So, when she has like, little sort of… she either has a henshin wand or a henshin broach, or something that allows her to switch from one form to another. And then, there’s a sequence where she’s transforming. And there’s a musical sort of cue that goes with that.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm-hmm.
Misu: And, that’s how it happens. Like… it’s… You can be girl that has magic, but you know you’re a magical girl when you’re transforming, and you have that cue that lets you know, “Oh, it’s about to go down right about now!” [Laughing.] So….
Regina Barber DeGraafff: So, Powerpuff Girls: no?
Merri Christanson: Powerpuff Girls sort of?
Misu: Mmm, I would say yeah?
Regina Barber DeGraafff: ‘Cause they have a musical cue, but they’re always like magic, like all the time.
Misu: It’s like the western sort of idea.
Merri Christanson: Yeah.
Misu: Like, the west has its own sorts of ways for doing magical girls. And I think Powerpuff Girls are interesting, especially since Japan did their own magical Powerpuff Girls.
Merri Christanson: They did.
Misu: And they literally had a sequence where…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Like Dragonball Z, but Powerpuff Girls. [Laughs.]
Misu: Yeah. And they literally had a sequence where the girls would transform into their Powerpuff—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mmm.
Misu: —so I would say yeah. I would say that.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: So, you’re like “yeah.” All right.
Well, my next question is very science-y ‘cause it’s the show.
Merri Christanson: Bring it!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I mean, I’ve watched some anime, too. And there’s a lot of not only this kind of magic thing, but there’s always… there’s also this, like, Gaia, like, Earth, you know, environmental science kind of aspect, but there’s also a robotic aspect to a lot of the anime. So is there any crossover between this magical girl genre that you both kind of talk about and promote, and like, a crossover between cyborgs, or some kind of electronic, you know, like humanoid, or….
Misu: Uh, Magic Knight Rayearth. The girls actually have to find… they get transported to this magical world, and they have to find their power, which is in the form of actual, like, robots. Like, mecha robots.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Misu: I forgot what the name of it is, but also things like Sailor Moon have like aspects of technology as well. Like… Ami’s computer.
Merri Christanson: Oh, yeah. Thing comes down, and she’s like, “Calculations: The bad guy’s over there!”
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm-hmm.
Merri Christanson: There’s probably not much, but there’s some, definitely.
Misu: Yeah.
Merri Christianson: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Well, tell me about your podcast.
Merri Christanson: Okay. Um, yeah, so the podcast is called Fake Geek Girls, and it, uh…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Why “Fake” Geek Girls?
Merri Christanson: So, essentially, it’s a very interesting story that we call ourself Fake Geek Girls ’cause it’s like a play on words. ‘Cause girls apparently only like nerdy things to get guys’ attention…
Misu: Yeah.
Merri Christanson: Which is just—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Interesting.
Merri Christanson: —not true.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I had no idea.
Merri Christanson: Yeah, right? So, that’s what we call ourselves. And then, we went to PAX, and we were giving out our cards to all these people, and then, slowly, as we go to these panels—a lot of diversity panels–it’s really somber. Like…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Merri Christanson: People were talking like, “Can’t get online anymore,” you can’t… people have left journalism, they’ve left—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Wow.
Merri Christanson: —all these things. We’re like, “What’s going on?” And then, slowly it started to dawn on us. And I remember I went home with my husband, and I just cried.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Merri Christanson: Because I’m like, “What have I done?”
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Merri Christanson: Like, what have we gotten ourselves into? Luckily, we haven’t had much pushback, and things have gotten better. And I think doing our podcast really helped us have confidence in our feminism and what we’re doing.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Merri Christanson: So, putting yourself out there as a feminist right now is scary, and it was even scarier back then.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right. But what do you talk about all the … on this Fake Geek Girl podcast?
Merri Christanson: Yes. Each episode, we take a topic, so… This last one that we did was actually like on Joss Whedon, and we…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Oh, I love Joss Whedon.
Merri Christanson: Yeah, so we took … You might not wanna listen to the podcast, then! [Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: He-he’s…
Merri Christanson: He does a lot of really good things.
Misu: He does a lot of really good things. He could do more. [Laughing.]
Merri Christanson: That’s essentially what we said. [Misu laughing.] He’s doing the bare minimum.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Merri Christanson: And so we take and we look at these things like Joss Whedon, or we did like Archie comics, and we break them down academically and like, try to find papers and statistics and stuff on them. We look at it through a fan’s lens, a feminist lens, and an academic lens.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Okay.
Merri Christanson: Or, we try to, at least.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I’m gonna probably finish this interview up because I have to do another interview, but I wanted to say thank you. But before I go, I want to say: Is there anything you would like to add that I did not ask you?
Merri Christanson: I would just say: Always question the things that you love. So, that’s part of what we do on my podcast is…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Absolutely.
Merri Christanson: Always question the things you love, and they can always do better.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I think that’s beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much for talking to me.
Merri Christanson: Thank you.
Misu: Yaaay!
Merri Christanson: I don’t know much about science, though!
[Laughing.]
[? Janelle Monae singing “Wondaland.”? ]
? Early late at night
? I wander off into a land
? You can go, but you mustn’t tell a soul
? There’s a world inside
? Where dreamers meet each other
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Welcome to Spark Science, where we explore stories of human curiosity. We’re here at PuliCon, right?
Bonnie Svitavsky: Yep!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah. [Laughing.] And our co-host Bonnie Svitavs…
Bonnie Svitavsky: Bonnie Svitavsky.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: That’s the one! She’s back. She was at our old … she was in our other episode, Geek Girl Con. And we talked to Girl Genius together.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: So, today, we are with somebody who is super interesting, super fun. I’m going to let you introduce her—
Bonnie Svitavsky: All right.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: —because you’ve read all the books. [Bonnie laughing.] All of them!
Bonnie Svitavsky: So, today we’re going to be talking to Marissa Meyer, the best-selling author of The Lunar Chronicles series, Heartless, and the recent graphic novel, Wires and Nerve, Volume 1. And, soon to be, Reckless?
Marissa Meyer: Renegades!
Bonnie Svitavsky: Renegades!
Marissa Meyer: Yes.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: It’s okay, Bonnie. Bonnie has actually put together this whole con. And, uh, with other people.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Oh my god. Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: But you put together this whole con that’s at the Puyallup Library. It’s one-day con, once a year. And, there was a big panel that just happened, and there was like, 90 people at the panel?
Bonnie Svitavsky: We had a little over a hundred at the end. [Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah. I just want to kind of bring us into why we’re talking to you. It’s stories about cyborgs, and there’s fairytales, and I just want to ask you, first of all, what made you want to write fairytales in a very, very sci-fi way?
Marissa Meyer: I mean, it kind of draws on to inspirations-things that I’ve loved, you know, since childhood, one being fairytales. Um, I was introduced to fairytales when I was maybe five years old or so, and was given a little book of fairytales that included the original story of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson. Of course, at the time—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: The really sad one?
Marissa Meyer: Yeah! And I…
Bonnie Svitavsky: So heartbreaking!
Marissa Meyer: I was in love with the Disney movie, and then read this story, and was like, “Well, Disney lied about everything!”
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm-hmm.
[Bonnie laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: And so I was devastated as a child, but that also kind of made me really fascinated and curious to know. “Okay, well, what else are they keeping from me?”
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: So I had this obsession with fairytales starting at a very young age, and kind of has continued ever since. On the flip side of that, I, as a, you know, a kid and a teenager, I loved Star Wars, I loved Star Trek, I loved Firefly.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Like, Next Gen Star Trek, or, like…
[Marissa laughing.]
Bonnie Svitavsky: You’re going to get stopped on this one!
Marissa Meyer: Yeah! Um, well I… my family used to watch next gen. It’s mostly what I remember.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: That was like, when I was a kid.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: ‘Cause I was right at that age, you know.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I… I wanted Picard to be my dad so bad!
[Laughing.]
And I actually… I actually told my dad this, and he… my dad is a huge Star Trek Next Generation fan. Like, had… I don’t… you’re a little younger than me, but I don’t know if you remember the subscription of getting like, um, like VHSes in the mail like once a week.
Marissa Meyer: No.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah. Too young!
[Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: But he got all, basically, every single Star Trek Next Generation episode in the mail through, like, VHS—
Marissa Meyer: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: —and, and, I told my dad, “I kind of want Picard to be my dad.” And for like, a second, he was sad. And then he was like, “Well, no. I get it.”
All: “Yeah, you know, I want him to be my dad, too!” Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: My attachment to Star Trek is really… uh, not so much through me. Like, I remember watching it as a kid and watching as a family, which was one of the few shows that we really like, all enjoyed together.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: But my uncle—I have an Uncle Bob who is a huge Star Trek fan, um, and he’s… I mean, he’s the crazy uncle that used to take me to anime conventions when I was a teenager, and—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: He sounds awesome!
Marissa Meyer: And he’s awesome! And he, when I was maybe 10 or so, a new Star Trek movie came out, and so, he let me, like, go through his, um, huge box of Star Trek costumes, and he and I both dressed up as Klingons and went to the midnight opening….
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Oh! The Duras sisters are my favorite!
[Laughing.]
By the way! They’re the best!
[Laughing.]
I also agree with you. When I was younger, I liked fairytales, and I remember getting a lot of crap about that, and especially being a scientist, you know, finishing grad school in the sciences, I remember… I was actually pregnant, finishing my PhD, and there were also women that were just like, dissing Disney and all that kind of stuff, and then once my daughter was actually born, I let her wear pink, and they were like…
Marissa Meyer: How dare you!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah, exactly! And they were like, “Ugh, you really should think about not letting her watch Disney things, and also, don’t let her wear pink.” And I was like…
Marissa Meyer: Mmm….
Regina Barber DeGraafff: You know, she likes Batman, too!
Marissa Meyer: Yeah! No, I don’t think… I mean, I have two young daughters, um, 2.5-year-old twins myself. And, yeah, and I think there’s a balance to it, you know.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: You don’t want to say that you have to be girly, you have to be princess-y, you know, you can’t like robots, you can’t be into archaeology.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: Obviously, you don’t want to go that route.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: But you also don’t wanna say it’s… you know, it’s okay to be feminine.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Exactly.
Marissa Meyer: You know, that’s not a bad thing. So, yeah, it’s kind of a balancing act you have to walk.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I didn’t understand that at all. I remember thinking… I went home, and I was just like, “Why are they saying this to me, to my husband?” And I was like, it’s almost as if they’re saying feminine things are bad,
Marissa Meyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: And being a feminist means you should only like “masculine”—masculine—I’m doing hand, finger-quotes—masculine things. And I was just like, “That doesn’t make any sense!”
Marissa Meyer: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Um, but that’s why… I kind of… I’m reading about your books, and I haven’t read them, but I’m reading about them, and I’m like, “This is really interesting” because you’re meshing those things, you’re meshing these things that we liked. You know, I like fairytales, but I also like science, and I like, you know, circuits, and electronics, and robotics, and I think that that’s really interesting.
Marissa Meyer: Yeah. Well, thank you! That’s definitely, you know, what drew me to it: these two things that I loved. And as, you know, a girl—a nerdy girl—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mmm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: You know, there’s a lot of times when you… not so much these days, but certainly when I was a teenager…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yes.
Marissa Meyer: Like, you felt like you were the only nerdy girl around.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: Like, it was me, and my best friend, and we were surrounded by boys who were into anime—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: —and, you know, science fiction and all this, and we were the only two girls. And, so, yeah, I think it’s a good thing that we’re entering this stage in our media and our pop culture when you are seeing more of this, and more of this, and more that…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: Girls also can do math.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: Girls also want to go to the moon, you know.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: And these things.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: And also, boys also like, you know, My Little Pony. And boys, also like—
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, no, absolutely! It goes both ways, for sure.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: You know, yeah. I really like that. And it’s funny that you said when I… when you were younger, you only had kind of this one other nerdy girlfriend. When I was younger, I used to get crap for watching Batman: The Animated Series. I don’t know if you watched that. It was so beautiful.
Marissa Meyer: Gosh, you know….
[Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Again, a little too young! I’m like! [Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, I mean, I think that I’ve seen it, but it wasn’t, you know, something that I latched onto, I don’t think.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah, it was the nerdy thing that I get made fun of.
Marissa Meyer: Mm-hmm.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: They’re like, “Why do you like cartoons?” And I was like, “‘Cause it’s really well done.”
Bonnie Svitavsky: Oh, I was watching that, and I was watching Gargoyles, like it was my line-up.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yes.
Marissa Meyer: Oh, Gargoyles, yeah, yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Well, so, I was in the panel, and, like, science questions actually came up, and they were people that, um, I think Leila told me there was somebody who asked about certain scenes in your book about the moon, and…
Marissa Meyer: Mmm-hmm. Moon powers!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah! So, do you do… well, I shouldn’t say “scientific research,” but do you do research in making things as scientifically accurate as you could?
Marissa Meyer: Yeah!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Or as you can?
Marissa Meyer: No, definitely. I mean, there’s a balancing act. In this series, it’s… it’s science fiction—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: But it’s a very fantastical science fiction.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Okay.
Marissa Meyer: Um, you know, there is a big premise within the books is that there’s this society of people on the moon that, over time, have been, you know, they’ve genetically evolved to have powers of mind control. So, on one hand, that’s fantasy. That’s a fantasy element.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: On the other hand, you know, I did want to give a scientific explanation, that’s, you know, quote-unquote “pseudo-science.” It’s not really gonna happen that way.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: But at least it has an explanation.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: Other than just, “There’s mind-controlling witches on the moon!”
[Laughing.]
And so for that, you know, there was. There was a lot of research about moon colonization and space travel, and…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: There’s no atmosphere, so they’d get tons of radiation.
Marissa Meyer: Exactly! And that ended up being the reason for it!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: The end!
[Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: The radiation, yeah, changed their DNA and their genetic makeup.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I’ll help you out! It’s fine!
[Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: Um, so, yeah. So there’s definitely that element.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: Um, there’s also… there’s a plague going through, so I researched different plagues and viruses and, and…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: And, you know, antibodies and all these different elements. Um, and then you get to the technology—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: —and there’s a character who’s a cyborg, and there’s a character who’s a computer hacker, and, um … there’s spaceships and hovercars, and, you know, all of these things where, you know, in the book, you may not… I as the writer may not ever have to thoroughly explain how something works.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: But I find that, to write it authentically and to be able to use vocabulary and lingo—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: —that bring it to life for the reader, you… you have to be at least somewhat familiar with that. So, yeah, there’s a ton of research that goes into stuff like that.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Do you have somebody at a university that you talk to about that stuff? Or do you just kind of delve into kind of studies of—
Marissa Meyer: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: —and other things that are happening?
Marissa Meyer: By and large, for me, it was just researching, reading books, and reading journal articles and whatnot.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: I did approach not a professor, but a Master’s student who… I think… she must have been studying genetics?
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: To talk about the Lunars and how this evolution would have occurred potentially. The first book takes place in futuristic China.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: So that I did reach out to a Chinese professor at one point, too—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: —to get some of the language stuff right.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah, and that’s what I was gonna bring up next. I was reading about your first book and how, basically, a Cinderella story is like a very old story that is also a Chinese story.
Marissa Meyer: Mm-hmm.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: And how you kind of … you headed back. And I was just… so happy when I read that!
[Laughing.]
Because being somebody… a woman of color, it’s hard to have stories that have us in it.
Marissa Meyer: Mmm-hmm.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Like, when I was younger, it was like Snow White because she had black hair. Like, that was it.
[Laughing.]
Like, for real!
And I was like, “She’s probably half-Asian like me! I don’t know!”
Marissa Meyer: Right, right! Clearly! [Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Um, and yeah. So, like, it was… it’s just awesome that you had, you know, a story in that environment, and it’s become popular. That’s just so heartwarming for me.
Marissa Meyer: Thank you.
[? Janelle Monae singing “Wondaland.” ? ]
? Dance in the trees
? Paint mysteries
? The magnificent droid plays there
? Your magic mind
? Makes love to mine
? I think I’m in love, angel
? Take me back to Wondaland
? I gotta get back to Wondaland
? Take me back to Wondaland
? Me thinks she left her underpants
? Take me back to Wondaland
? I gotta get back to Wondaland
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Welcome back to Spark Science. I’m Regina Barber DeGraaffff, and you’re listening to our interview with local sci-fi author Marissa Meyer.
Marissa Meyer: Within young adult fiction, there has been such a huge push in the last… um, maybe three or four years, for authors to include more diversity for publishers to, you know, seek out and represent those books, and for readers, too, to step out of their comfort zones.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: And I think, you know, we’re starting to see it now gravitate into, um, more adult literature and, you know, middle-grade—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: —and through other age groups, but really in young adult, it’s really started to be embraced. You know, the importance of including characters—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: —you know, whether ethnically or sexually or, you know—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: —come from different family backgrounds. Or, you know, it really is so important for—
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: —young people to be able to see themselves represented.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: And to know that, you know, you can also be the hero. You don’t have to be relegated to the quirky sidekick, you know.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Or you don’t have to see the world through one kind of lens.
Marissa Meyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Over and over and over again.
Marissa Meyer: Absolutely.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I remember talking to somebody about how, when I was younger, I literally thought people like me, like mixed people, just didn’t exist in the past?
[Laughing.]
Like, we just didn’t exist!
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, right!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Because we weren’t in the movies.
Marissa Meyer: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: We weren’t in TV, we weren’t in books. And so, I was just like, “Well, I must be this new kind of creature that just exists now.”
Which is completely ridiculous, right? I mean, there was…
Marissa Meyer: But I can so see.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right?
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I mean, on my own lineage has mixing. So, how, I mean… I don’t know. I really appreciate that. And I actually have a friend who’s a writer in this area as well, and she tries very hard to have characters that are more diverse, and that’s really, really awesome.
So, I wanted to ask about… you had pictures up of new books that are coming out.
Marissa Meyer: Mm-hmm.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: And there’s… Are they more science-y? Like, I… was kind of reading some of the stuff that they almost seem like more kind of in that direction.
Marissa Meyer: The Renegades, it’s a superhero story.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Okay, maybe that’s where I got… [Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, yeah. So, it’s… not so science-y.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Okay.
Marissa Meyer: Much more urban fantasy, I guess.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Okay.
Marissa Meyer: I’m not really entirely sure what a superhero’s… got its own thing, isn’t it?
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah, yeah.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Yes.
Marissa Meyer: So yeah, very much taking from, you know, the Batman, X-Men influences.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah. Batman’s all about engineering, though, right?
Marissa Meyer: That’s true!
[Regina laughing.]
And, uh, one of the two main characters is herself an inventor who kind of comes up with her own tools and gadgets for…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Is like… is she chaotic neutral?
[Bonnie laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: Um, well, she’s… her path changes over the course of the story. The premise of the book, um, is that there’s a boy who’s been raised by superheroes and a girl who’s been raised by supervillains, and so they have very different ideologies.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: So, it’s Romeo and Juliet? [Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: It’s exactly. It’s Romeo and Juliet with superpowers.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Uh-huh! Oh, awesome.
I want to ask you about your own maybe-science interests. So, you said that you are interested in this science stuff. You became a writer. But how did… how did that happen? Like, did you have any science, like, interest or classes in undergrad, and then, you know, did this writing thing, too? Was there conflict, or were you just like writing and then got picked up?
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, you know, it’s so funny. I did not think that I liked science at all. You know, I was completely uninterested in school and college, you know, and that was… that was the thing that other people were good at. It was not my… you know, I was an English major, I liked, you know, fairytales, and it really wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I began to realize all of these things that I was fascinated by—you know, whether it was space travel, or, you know, computer hacking, or these things that I just thought were so cool from a distance—at some point, you begin to realize: that’s science!
[Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah!
Marissa Meyer: You know?
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Takes a while!
Marissa Meyer: Yeah! Yeah. And so… I came to it late, sort of, when I think that I’d always been interested in these different things, but didn’t really make the connection that, “Oh, hey, science might have, like, real-life applications somewhere.”
[Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right, like, a premise for a novel!
Marissa Meyer: Exactly, yeah!
[Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Well—and I’ve noticed this from my students, too, that I think they have these interests, but they… they’re so intimidated by what science is.
Marissa Meyer: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: The persona of it. And then…
Marissa Meyer: Absolutely.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: They have these like, interests, but they can’t really make that connection like you said. And I… that’s what I’m trying to do with this show, but…
Marissa Meyer: Mm-hmm.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: We’ll see if that works.
Bonnie Svitavsky: I think it’s… it’s been kind of… the perspective of that has been changing for younger kids, as we see, like, at the library doing the STEM programs…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yes.
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, absolutely.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Or the string ones, where it’s just like… it starts out something like, “Hey, do you wanna play with Bristlebots?”
[Laughing.]
And it’s… it’s fun, and you’re like, “It’s a little toothbrush robot, and it’s painting!”
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Bonnie Svitavsky: And then you get to talk about like, “Well, how does this work?”
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Bonnie Svitavsky: And I think that’s kind of… I don’t know. Science is trying to be more appealing at a younger age?
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah!
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, I think so! And it’s important!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah, there’s studies that if you introduce that to a young person, you know…
Marissa Meyer: Mm-hmm.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: It definitely changes their perspective very, very young.
Marissa Meyer: Yeah.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Could you… you talked about this a little bit, like, a little bit about the research process? How you go through that? Because that’s something that I’ve always been curious about for authors, and I know we have so many, so many people who come in who are aspiring authors of different ages, and a lot of them will just start writing, which I just… I so admire. But a lot of the times, when, uh, they come back to the library, they’re… they’re stuck on something.
Marissa Meyer: Mm-hmm.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Because maybe they don’t know enough about a subject. It could be a lot of things.
Marissa Meyer: Yeah. No, in research, I mean, it kind of… it’s different for each book, you know, depending on, obviously, what you’re writing about and how much you already may or may not know about it. With The Lunar Chronicles, you know, I really… research was number 1 for me. You know, I realized, “Okay, I have this idea, it’s futuristic, there’s lots of science, there’s lots of technology, I need to educate myself.” Um, and so, really, one of the very first things that I did once I had the premise, um, was I went to the library, and I picked up a whole stack of scientific American magazines, and I just spent hours going through it, just to get ideas. You know…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: What are we working on now, what are we capable of, what are … they think we’re going to be capable of 50 years from now? And, just, getting those ideas so influenced what the world in the books turned out to be. So that… you know, research for these books was really at the forefront of the writing process. Alternatively, you know, something like Renegades, my superhero novel I’m working on, I already, you know, I’ve obviously been a superhero fan for ages.
[Laughing.]
So, there wasn’t that really that need, you know. So much more of it coming from my own imagination and just being influenced from different cultural things, so that if… you know, known and loved my whole life. Which is not to say there’s not any research involved.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm-hmm.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Oh yeah.
Marissa Meyer: There’s always gonna be, you know, even writing something like Heartless, which takes place in Alice in Wonderland, you know, Wonderland is the most nonsensical fantasy world you could imagine. I still had to research things, like, “How do you make mock turtle’s soup?”
[Laughing.]
I had to research, you know, the rules of playing chess, and, um, you know, what were some lawn games they played in Victorian England? Like, there’s always things that have to be researched.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: But it very much varies from book to book and world to world.
[? Janelle Monae singing “Wondaland.” ?]
? Take me back to Wondaland
? Me think she left her underpants
? The grass grows inside
? The music floats you gently on your toes
? Touch the nose, he’ll change your clothes to tuxedos
? Don’t freak and hide
? I’ll be your secret santa, do you mind?
? Don’t resist
? The fairygods will have a fit
? We should dance
? Dance in the trees
? Paint mysteries
? The magnificent droid plays there
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Thanks for listening to Spark Science. Right now, we’re interviewing Marissa Meyer about her cyborg fairytale series, The Lunar Chronicles.
I love what you’re saying about how to make soup!
[Laughing.]
Like, actually having to put that into a book! Do you have beta readers? Because my friend who is a writer… she had us read her book, and my husband said, “On a train, they wouldn’t be eating this kind of fish.”
[Laughing.]
And he’s like, “There’s no way they could get that fish on that train because it’s inland, and they would have had these two kinds of fish.
[Laughing.]
“You can pick between these two.”
Bonnie Svitavsky: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: And she was like, “Oh, okay.”
[Laughing.]
Bonnie Svitavsky: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: He’s like, a writer’s worst nightmare is what you’re saying!
[Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: That’s all he said the whole book! And he’s like, “Just pick an eel or a trout!”
Marissa Meyer: Oh no!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: “That’s all they would have had at that point.”
Marissa Meyer: No, I did… one of the things… so, the fourth book of The Lunar Chronicles largely takes place on the moon. And turns out that my copyeditor who had been copyediting my books from the beginning had, like, minored in geology or something.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Ohhh!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Like, planetary geology?
Marissa Meyer: And she had, like, all of this knowledge about what the rocks… and I had researched. I had a basic idea of what the atmosphere and what the physical, you know, setting would be like. But I kept referring to it, I think, as Chocky?
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mmm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: And she was like, “No, no, no. We cannot call it Chocky!”
[Laughing.]
And, I don’t remember what word we ended up deciding on, but it was just like one of those random, “I’m glad you’re in my courts.” You know?
Bonnie Svitavsky: Yes! Yes!
Marissa Meyer: I’m glad you have this totally—
Bonnie Svitavsky: Instead of an angry letter. [Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: —random, yeah, just totally random knowledge. But I do… I mean, even now, I’ll get—I’ll occasionally get emails from someone, you know, “In this scene, you had this fabric burn. FYI, it wouldn’t burn. It would melt, or whatever.”
Regina Barber DeGraafff: [Laughing.] And you’re like, “Nooo.”
Marissa Meyer: Yeah! So, there’s always things like that. And I think there’s always going to be things like that that…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: …just slip through the cracks. Um…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: That’s for the second edition.
Marissa Meyer: That you don’t even know you should be researching at times.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: You know, you don’t even know that you’re ignorant about a certain something.
But yeah, you do… you do your best. You know, as a writer, you do your best, and hope that, even if there are those little errors that creep in, that people will see past it for the story. It’s ultimately what you’re trying to do is write a good story.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Um, I was also gonna ask when the decision was to set Cinder to start with in China?
Marissa Meyer: Mmm-hmm!
Bonnie Svitavsky: Like, it—
Marissa Meyer: No, the choice was because the story of Cinderella… well, they used to think that it originated in China.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: These days, they actually think it goes back to ancient Egypt. As far as we know, the first recorded version of the Cinderella story is from 9th-century China.
Bonnie Svitavsky: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: And I had heard that in college, I think. I, you know, picked up that one little random piece of information and thought it was fascinating. Because of course, what do we think of when we think Cinderella? We think either Disney or the Grimm brothers—
Bonnie Svitavsky: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: —or Charles Perrault. And then, to hear that 800 years before then—
Bonnie Svitavsky: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: —was this Cinderella story, which is called Ye Xian, and if you read the story of Ye Xian, it is absolutely, no doubt, the story of Cinderella. So anyways, I just always thought that was really fascinating. And so then, when I was kind of coming up with my world, um, for Cinder, it just felt like a really natural way to kind of pay homage to the story’s history.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: So, what genre, then, do you want to really focus on? Or just kind of like, experience next? So, you have kind of this sci-fi/fantasy, and then now, superhero. Is there something that you’ve always, like, wanted to kind of jump into? Or, just kind of try a little bit?
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, you know, there’s lots of genres that I… I mean, I love reading. I read… really across the board. So, there’s lots of things that I have ideas for that I’d like to attempt at some point. Um, I have an idea for a kind of supernatural/horror book that I’m really excited for. Um, I love contemporary romances. I’d love to write one of those at some point.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: I love… I love… well, I was thinking about Jane Austen. And I’m not a big reader, you’re gonna hate me…
Marissa Meyer: Oh no!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: But I watched everything of Jane Austen, and I… I found out that she died of listeria, and we were talking about, like, this kind of fight in the northwest to be between like, parents and pasteurized milk and not-pasteurized milk, and you know, pasteurized milk’s so we don’t have listeria, basically. And I was talking to my husband, and he… I go, “You know, if we had pasteurized her milk, Jane Austen would be alive today.”
[Laughing.]
Bonnie Svitavsky: I think that would be a really good [unintelligible] for pasteurized milk!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: And then… and then my husband goes, “No, she wouldn’t.”
Bonnie Svitavsky: Is this the guy who talked about, like, fish soup?
Regina Barber DeGraafff: So, I thought you’d enjoy that!
Marissa Meyer: That’s good! That’s a good story.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Contemporary romance and I was just like, “She’d be alive today!”
[Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: “No. No, she wouldn’t.”
Bonnie Svitavsky: Do you ever think about writing for different age groups?
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, I’m dying to write a picture book, having picture-book-aged children.
Bonnie Svitavsky and Regina Barber DeGraafff: Mm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: Um, which, I need to get on that before they’re no longer picture-book-aged children!
[Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right! They’re gonna be 15, it comes out, and you’re like, “This was for you.”
[Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: Yes, exactly! You really inspired this in me.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: A teenager who doesn’t want to see me anymore!
Bonnie Svitavsky: Oh no!
[Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Well, that’s how you bring ’em back!
Marissa Meyer: That’s right!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Like, “You can go on these book tours, too!”
[Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: Yeah, yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: So, yeah, I would love love to write a picture book. Middle grade is something that I think about occasionally, and I’ve been approached by publishers before to consider writing middle grade. So much of my inspiration for writing my books often revolves around the romantic element.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah. It’d be hard.
Marissa Meyer: And middle grade… like, you can have a crush in middle grade. It’s not like there’s no romance potential. It just wouldn’t be the same.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: And so, I think I would struggle with that a little bit. But, who knows! You never know!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Well, I mean, I want to respect your time, so I think you need to get going, but I wanted to ask you: is there anything you’d like to share to our listeners about, kind of, science-fiction and, you know, sticking with their writing or, I don’t know… you don’t have to be inspirational!
[Laughing.]
Anything else you would like to say about science-fiction or your genre, maybe?
Marissa Meyer: No. I mean, if there’s any aspiring writers specifically, I think it is so important to write the thing that you are called to write and write the thing that you love. And the… the story that I give from, you know, from my background, when I first had the idea for The Lunar Chronicles, and I first started writing it, and I was so excited, ’cause it just… you know, was bringing together all of these things that I was so passionate about. At that time, in young adult publishing, everyone said, “You cannot sell science-fiction books to teenagers.”
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Hmm.
Marissa Meyer: “They won’t buy them.” Um, and so, I went through two years of my life working on this book, thinking, you know, with these voices in my head hanging over me, thinking, “I’m probably wasting all of this time writing this book that no one is ever going to read.” Because again, they just said, “Science-fiction for teenagers… it’s just not happening. It’s not popular. It won’t sell.” And then, during that time, The Hunger Games came out.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Right.
Marissa Meyer: And…
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Hmm.
Marissa Meyer: Suddenly…
Bonnie Svitavsky: Mmm-hmm.
Marissa Meyer: Wow, look at that! Teenagers will read science fiction!
[Laughing.]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Yeah.
Marissa Meyer: And so, I mean, if I had listened to all those voices, then, who knows what would have happened and what I would have, you know, moved on to instead. But I loved the story, and I loved the premise so much that I had to stick with it, and I think that’s really important for aspiring writers, you know, to recognize that if you love it, and you can stick with it, then you just have to hope that it will find that readership that are like you, that love it, too.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Write what you would want to read.
Marissa Meyer: Yeah.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: That isn’t out there.
Marissa Meyer: No, definitely. Mm-hmm.
Regina Barber DeGraafff: But I want to thank you for talking to me.
Marissa Meyer: Well, thank you! Thanks for having me!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: And thank you for coming to this con and helping my friend out, Bonnie!
[Laughing.]
It’s been wonderful, and hopefully, you didn’t have to drive too far!
[Laughing.]
Marissa Meyer: No, not far at all!
Regina Barber DeGraafff: [Laughing.] Thank you so much!
Marissa Meyer: Thank you!
[? Janelle Monae singing “Wondaland.”? ]
? Take me back to Wondaland
? I gotta get back to Wondaland
? Take me back to Wondaland
? I think me left me underpants
? Take me back to Wondaland
? I gotta get back to Wondaland
? Take me back to Wondaland
? I think me left me underpants
? This is your land
? This is my land
? We belong here
? Stay the night
? I am so inspired
? You touched my wires
? My supernova shining bright]
Regina Barber DeGraafff: Thank you for listening to Spark Science. This episode was recorded on location at the Puyallup Public Library during PuliCon 2017. Special thanks to co-host and organizer of PuliCon, Bonnie… and also co-organizer, Leila Jacobs.
If you missed any of the show, go to our website, sparksciencenow.com, or KMRE.org and click on the podcast link. We air weekly on 102.3 FM in Bellingham or KMRE.org streaming on Sundays at 5:00 pm, Thursdays at noon, and Saturdays at 3:00 pm.
If there’s a science idea you’re curious about, send us an email, or post a message on our Facebook page, Spark Science. Our producer is Regina Barber DeGraaffff. The engineer for today’s show is Natalie Moore. Our theme music is “Chemical Calisthenics” by Blackalicious and “Wondaland” by Janelle Monae.
[? Blackalicious rapping “Chemical Calisthenics.” ?]
? Lead, gold, tin, iron, platinum, zinc, when I rap you think
? Iodine nitrate activate
? Red geranium, the only difference is I transmit sound
? Balance was unbalanced then you add a little talent in
? Careful, careful with those ingredients
? They could explode and blow up if you drop them
? And they hit the ground
[End of podcast.]
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