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Somewhere Else, or Even Here

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AM: I work in the same way, and am always fascinated by the readers’ impressions. I love the fact that we, as writers, are not in full control of what we do, despite the aspirations to perfection. I loved the way the loss of someone in “Overnight Miracles” was both total and gradual. By total, I mean the man is dead. But then the feelings remain, and he is being retrieved, if that is the right word, from the other side. Then, slowly, he is lost again. So this is the gradual loss after the abrupt one. Can you say something about this? So the intelligent-design people—I’m almost wary to tell you this, because the last thing I want is for what I’ve said in public to be interpreted by intelligent-design people—they use ATP synthase as their poster child for intelligent design.

So the other people, the people who think differently about this than you, think, No, our version of life started here, and there may be other types of life on other planets, which we would still get from methane or something like that? And so we should look for things like methane, because we might just see totally different types of life. The collection was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize. She is the recipient of Arts Council England funding as well as a K. Blundell Trust Award and Authors' Foundation Gra A. J. Ashworth is a prize-winning writer whose debut collection of short stories, 'Somewhere Else, or Even Here', was published by Salt Publishing after she won their Scott Prize.AM: I wonder about the theme of loss, which is connected to words and gestures and other things. Loss is also related to happiness in several stories. Can you tell us something about the ways you deal with these themes? Or if the SETI people ever got a signal that had four symbols, like a DNA sequence, and if you did a substitution code and said, “Oh, my God, this looks like some of the genes we recognize”—this is the evidence that there’s a commerce in genomics out there on some other planet. Is she like me?' Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her mind, `There's another little girl in the garden, somewhere!' That's right!' said the Tiger-lily. `The daisies are worst of all. When one speaks, they all begin together, and it's enough to make one wither to hear the way they go on!' I definitely go on a journey whenever I write. Occasionally I have an idea where I want to end up but I don’t always know how I’m going to get there. That’s the way I like it though. I’m not the kind of person who plans as I like to be surprised by what I’m writing. How did you go about choosing which stories went into the collection?

No, I shouldn't,' said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: `a hill CAN'T be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense -- ' I don't know what you mean by YOUR way,' said the Queen: `all the ways about here belong to ME -- but why did you come out here at all?' she added in a kinder tone. `Curtsey while you`re thinking what to say, it saves time.' Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice -- almost in a whisper. `And can ALL the flowers talk?'Do you think that’s the best way to do it? Or are you suggesting that there’s a better way to do them? She had got all the pegs put in by this time, and Alice looked on with great interest as she returned to the tree, and then began slowly walking down the row.

I don't care about the colour,' the Tiger-lily remarked. `If only her petals curled up a little more, she'd be all right.' I talk to author A.J. Ashworth about her short story collection Somewhere Else, or Even Here which won the Scott Prize. AA: I love astronomy so I love to use ideas and metaphors related to it if I can. ‘Tattoo’ is the story of a woman who meets someone during a meteor shower and goes on to have a relationship with this person. Rather than just write a straight ‘break up’ story though, I wanted to bring in bigger ideas from astronomy. So, as the story is about the death of love, I wanted to also place that alongside ideas about the death of the universe – the story then creates a link between the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of the woman’s life. What I also wanted to explore is that, even when you’re in what you think is the darkest place in your life, there is always hope – so, even if something dies (love or a star or even a universe) there is the hope of rebirth (new love or a new star created from the elements of the dead one). A. J. Ashworth captures, with honesty, the collisions that can happen between human beings, whether it’s a couple facing up to life after the death of a child, or lovers broken apart by infidelities either real or imagined. She explores those moments of realisation, those turning points, which will continue to resonate throughout the lives of her characters – those people who, even in small ways, will be forever changed, forever cut loose from their earlier selves. Praise for this Book A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. `Now, HERE, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'Hold YOUR tongue!' cried the Tiger-lily. `As if YOU ever saw anybody! You keep your head under the leaves, and snore away there, till you know no more what's going on in the world, that if you were a bud!'

Paper Lanterns — 4.5 stars [sad...about a couple losing their 8-year-old son...it was well written, and I didn’t think it was over the top] Alice thought it would not be civil to say `No,' though it wasn't at all what she wanted. So she took it, and ate it as well as she could: and it was VERY dry; and she thought she had never been so nearly choked in all her life.The Red Queen shook her head, `You may call it "nonsense" if you like,' she said, ` but I'VE heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!' Looking for methane is a good method to indirectly look for life. The problem is, there are chemical ways to make methane as well. It is not a perfect surrogate for life. So the way most life-detection experiments are proposed from NASA, especially in this era of exoplanets, where so many planets have been detected around stars, is to do spectroscopic studies of their atmosphere. It is always involving abundant chemicals, like methane and CO 2. AM: I agree. You stories have a strong individual tone or style. How close are they in terms of the writing process? Do you usually finish one and then start the next or does the writing of one overlap with the writing of another? If so, how do you think it affects the finished pieces?

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