Most Thursdays this year we will be interviewing one of the members of Christian Writers Downunder – to find out a little bit more about them and their writing/editing goals.

Today's Interview: Ruth Embery

Question 1: Tells us three things about who you are and where you come from. 

I am currently living in the beautiful Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, with my husband and dog (we are empty nesters these days). I have lived in a number of areas in country Victoria over my life, including Horsham and the Macedon Ranges, before moving into Melbourne as a young adult. 

I have a background in teaching (was a maths/chemistry teacher in a former life), which more recently I have realised is very closely linked to my passion for learning. Teaching is so innate I have to remind myself to turn it off occasionally. (My younger brothers bore the brunt of this when I was about eight and made them take lessons during school holidays.) 

I strongly believe in the transformational and healing nature of the Gospel message, particularly its essential value to our life journey as believers, both as individuals and as the Church. I can get pretty enthusiastic about this, so will leave it at that for now!

Question 2: Tell us about your writing (or editing/illustrating etc).  What do you write and why?

My writing career (if I could even call it that!), has been somewhat accidental in its birth and development. Growing up in a family where facts were valued far more than feelings, creative writing seemed like something of a waste of time. However, looking back to my childhood, I always loved words, and as a teen, dabbled in poetry as a way to express my feelings in private. I remember one of my favourite pieces of work from year 12 was a descriptive essay, where I let myself go, pushing aside the austerity of fact. It was eye opening to me that I could do it well and that it was not just accepted, but praised. 

I started journaling in my late 20’s and I think this probably was a foundation to the way I write today – from experience and my personal journey with God. As someone with a passion for teaching and preaching, I have also used writing as an outlet when there weren’t other opportunities. Blogging has been a great medium for this, although I have long struggled with the lack of the immediate feedback you get when speaking. However, all this has helped to hone the way I prepare for speaking, especially in the realm of really sticking to the point and not getting side tracked. 

My first book, “Handing Back Control” was very much something given to me by God in one of those suddenly moments. I really didn’t think I had a book in me. It still took me about five years to finish, but perhaps I had more journey to finish first!

After that, I had a number of people encourage me to write another book. I had no idea of what that might look like until again, I started getting ideas that all pointed to a consistent concept. And once more, it has been a painful, battling process to get it out. This book is quite different, in that it is far less personal – more of a discourse on society and how we view the world. In essence, it is exposé on the concept of what truth might look like in our post-truth world.

For the future, I would love to write two biographical books of family members. One about my grandfather who pastored a church in London during WW2. We have many letters between my grandparents during that time as well as his journals, which, to me, make fascinating reading. The other is the story of my great-grandfather and the call he had to be a missionary in far north India (now Pakistan). He started the journey in 1901 with my great-grandmother, two weeks after they married! (My great-grandmother gave birth to eight children while they were there – I would love to know more of her story, of how she coped, given my great-grandfather would often go on trips up into Afghanistan and so on, leaving her home alone. However, I think they were very stoic and just got on with it.) My great-grandfather wrote quarterly newsletters to folks back home, which I will have to travel to England to retrieve from a library where they still store over twenty years of hardcopies some 100 years on.

I also have a couple of other ideas in the pipeline, one an interactive journal using some psalms I have written alongside some of my photographs, with space for the reader to write their own psalms. The other idea is very recent and is around gathering and presenting stories of other people’s Jesus encounters. 

Question 3: Who has read your work? Who would you like to read it?

I have had numbers of people from diverse backgrounds read my blog and book, and it is always the responses from strangers that impact me the most. I love it when God uses my experiences and thoughts to help others on their journey and they let me know of it. Of course, I would like everyone to read my work – as a teacher, I am also something of an idealist, in that I want everyone to get “it”, whatever my “it” of the moment is. Whether it is relevant to their journey is another thing. 

Question 4: Tell us something about your process. What challenges do you face? What helps you the most?

With my walking companion

Process, in the strict definition of the word is not my strong point. I am quite haphazard and tend to need uninterrupted space to focus. However, I am also very good at allowing myself to be distracted easily (I think it is called procrastination – although Ted Dekker wrote a great article on the importance of procrastination in the writing process, which I actually think has more truth to it than I have realised: time to ruminate!). Walking my dog and gardening work very well as my muse.

When I go somewhere different specifically to write, such as the local library, where there are people and activity I don’t have to engage with, I am much more focussed (even though my writing space at home is idyllic). More recently, a friend has offered her prayer room as a space for me, which has been very productive – none of the “at home” distractions. I have realised that, as an extrovert, the energy I gain from just being around people is helpful, even (or maybe especially) when I don’t know them.

Question 5: What is your favourite Writing Craft Book and why? 

Confession time – I haven’t read any books on writing, other than the APA Style Guide, which was part of my compulsory reading when I studied psychology some twenty years ago. Occasionally I have read blogs and picked up helpful bits of advice in places such as CWD. Alongside that, Google is my go-to for finding that “just right” word or quote. My writing was honed and developed by necessity over a three year period of writing a weekly piece for my church newsletter. It taught me how to be succinct and to identify what was essential, as I had to be able to get the message across in less than 500 words. 

Question 6: If you were to give a shout-out to a CWD author, writer, editor or illustrator – who would they be?

The first person who springs to mind is Anusha Atukorala. She is always such an encourager and so filled with positivity, both within her own writing and in her personal responses to me. Her gentle manner and kind words make me feel as though I am adding value, which, as we all know too well, is not something we necessarily get much affirmation in when writing. I really do appreciate all those who take time out to encourage and give me input in this group. The instantaneous acceptance has been such a balm to me.

Question 7: What are your writing goals for the coming year? How will you achieve them?

A sample of the ever changing view from my desk

I really want to get my book finished and published in the next few months. I have been invited to speak at a healing conference in the US in May, which is a great incentive to have it ready to sell there. Some strong discipline in writing and in biting the bullet and preparing my manuscript to send out to some beta readers is an important (but scary!) step. Setting aside writing time and not allowing the needs of others to get in the way is a challenge I continue to grapple with.

An online “Planning for 2020” activity I have just completed has landed me with a commitment to finish the first draft of my book in the next thirty days, though, so I fully realise the only way this will happen is to set aside a day a week (at least) to write, and to make it an unbreakable appointment. If writing this book is not my top priority, it just doesn’t happen!

Question 8: How does your faith impact and shape your writing?

As my previous answers probably reveal, my faith is integral to my writing. It very much directs the course and substance. Early on in my writing, I was sharing material that was extremely sensitive to my journey, but it was amazing how God gave me words so that I didn’t feel too exposed while remaining transparent and honest. My writing also shapes my own faith, as it makes me dig deep and reassess what I really believe. I am learning the value and importance for me to be deliberate in praying and asking Holy Spirit for the words before I start, which I find makes a huge difference and makes the process easier.

You can check out more about me at www.ruthembery.com

Exploring Genre: Dystopia

by Jeanette O'Hagan

What is dystopia?

An imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.  

Oxford Dictionaries 

It's the reverse side of the coin to utopia (a word invented by  Sir Thomas Moore in sixteenth century  in his Utopia (1516) to define a perfect harmonious society.

Utopia means 'no place' while dystopia means 'bad place or a place of pain and struggles.'

With the naive modernist belief in progress and the powers of education and science to solve all problems in the nineteenth century, science fiction often looked to a bright future that would eliminate war, hunger, pain, disease. 

But the wars and genocides and problems of the twentieth dented that belief. As did the failure of attempts at  susposed utopian societies, including those of communism - in Russia, China and other places. 

This turn from optimism to pessimism was reflected in speculative fiction. The science fiction of H G Wells spans this change with often a more pessimistic view of the future of humanity (as in The Time Machine). 

Both utopian and dystopian fiction reveal the author's ideas of what is good and bad in society. And often one person utopia is another's dystopia.

The classics

Some classic dystpoias include well known books such as:

Time Machine by H G Wells (1895)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
1984 by George Orwell(published (1949)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)

Early dystopian novels were often secular prophecies or projections of a possible grim futures if certain trends of the time continued unabated. And while each is dated to some extent, they can still be scarily relevant to our time so many decades later - from Orwell's Big Brother in 1984 or Bradbury's wall TVs, consumerism and senseless shallow lives living for the latest thrill in Fahrenheit 451.

The suggested root causes of the dystopia may vary - form a devastating war or natural disaster, from capitalistic consumerism to a conformist communism, to twisted theological autocratic regimes, to misogyny or climatic catastrophe (or some mixture of these).

The stories are meant as a warning and to provoke change, but often have a pessimistic tone. Thus 1984 ends with complete capitulation 'He loved Big Brother' though others are more optimistic with seeds of change (the 'living books' of Fahrenheit 451).

Young Adult Dystopian books

Dystopia goes almost hand in hand with the emergence of Young Adult literature as a distinct target audience (13-19) coming to prominence in the 1990s.

Lois Lowry's The Giver series (1993), Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve (2001), City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (2003), Scott Westerfield's Uglies (2005) series, Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy (2008), Maze Runner series by James Dashner (2009), Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy (2011)  -  dystopia has become a trope for YA books.

Common elements include a society which may at the start seem utopian (e.g. Brave New World, The Giver, Uglies, Divergent) or the inequities and conflicts may be more obvious (The Hunger Games). However, the apparent peace and prosperity is usually achieved by some evil or sacrifice and/or by a totalitarian control over the citizens.

Veronica Roth is a Christian  and, in the Divergent trilogy, the Abnegation faction arguably espouses many Christian virtues (though the virtues of the other factions such as honesty, knowledge, amity and courage are also valued by Christians). Yet, even these can be twisted and used in the wrong way.

The protagonists are generally part of the dystopian world and at some point, their eyes are opened, and they may seek to escape it, resist it or change it.  In some cases, there is a wider outside world (The Giver, the Divergent trilogy) or there may be a rebel group (The Hunger Games), but in each case, solutions often have mixed results and the ending may be tragic or unresolved or a mixture of good and bad outcomes.

Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic fiction

Dystopia is closely related to post-apocalyptic fiction and is often set after some major catastrophe has fallen on modern society (e.g.  the Uglies, The Hunger Games etc), though not always.

Apocalyptic literature focuses the arrival of a global catastrophe like global nuclear war, alien invasion, or a major pandemic (cf The Stand by Stephen King, 1978). Post-apocalyptic literature deals with the aftermath. It can be dystopian with a focus on dysfunctional societies or it might be more chaotic (cf Mad Max movies or Waterworld) or focused on the individual. Dystopia is generally the individual or group against society, whereas post-apocalyptic is more the individual against nature or other individuals and focuses on survival rather than changing society.

Christian Dystopia 

Is there such a thing as Christian dystopia?

Some may think not. On the other hand, the Bible has strong apocalyptic themes (particularly in Daniel, the Book of Revelation, but also in the teachings of Jesus, Paul, John and Peter). And the prophetic nature of dystopia (e.g. warnings of coming disaster if individuals and societies don't change their ways) is also a strong strand in both the Old Testament and the New (cf with Amos, much of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or Jesus' warnings for instance).

Dystopia provides a great platform for examining the benefits and failings of societies and the balance between the individual and the state, security and freedom, and the place of science, spirituality and religion. It can remind us that no society or social or political system is perfect, even our own.

Christian dsytopia generally takes a more hopeful approach, and would in some way look to God and a renewed heaven and earth, rather than a perfect societal system as one's ultimate goal.

Christian dystopia for an adult audience isn't that common. One suggestion I saw was That Hideous Strength by C.S.Lewis (1945; the third book of his sci-fi trilogy), though I think it might be closer to proto-dystopia - as the focus is on a band of people who wish to bring about their version of utopia (but what is in fact a dystopia) with the potential for terrible consequences and injustice.

Kerry Nietz's A Star Curiously Singing is a more recent example of a future dystopian world from a Christian perspective (though I tend to agree with one reviewer, that it is better to steer away from using a known (non-Christian) religion as the baddie, especially as I get tired of the common stereotype of Christian priests or theocracies cast as the cardboard cut-out villains in book after book after book).

Dystpoia has become more of a thing among Christian Young Adult novels. 

For instance:

• Nadine Brandes's Out of Time series which starts with A Time to Die.
• Anomaly by Krista McGee
• Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee's The Book of Mortals series (starts with Forbidden)

My own Under the Mountain series - while epic fantasy - has dystopian themes - with a enclosed, dystopian society in the deep caverns beneath the mountain and where solutions are not simple but there is always a glimmer of hope. 

So have you read dystopia? What do you like or dislike about it? Which authors would you recommend?

This is a cross-post between ACW & CWD,

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Jeanette spun tales in the world of Nardva from the age of eight or nine. She enjoys writing secondary world fiction, poetry, blogging and editing. Her Nardvan stories span continents, time and cultures. Many involve courtly intrigue, adventure, romance and/or shapeshifters and magic. Others, are set in Nardva’s future and include space stations, plasma rifles, bio-tech, and/or cyborgs.

She has published numerous short stories, poems, four novellas in the Under the Mountain series, her debut novel, Akrad's Children and Ruhanna's Flight and other stories.

Her latest release is Shadow Crystals, the penultimate novella in the Under the Mountain series with Caverns of the Deep due in April/May.

Jeanette has practised medicine, studied communication, history, theology and a Master of Arts (Writing). She loves reading, painting, travel, catching up for coffee with friends, pondering the meaning of life. She lives in Brisbane with her husband and children.


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