3 Minutes with Linda, Author of How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend

Original Photo by Riccardo Bertolo from Pexels

We have the great pleasure of sharing 3 minutes with Linda D. Addison, author of How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend, HWA Lifetime Achievement recipient, SFPA Grandmaster, and all around ray of light. See what all the fuss is about in the Afrofuturism and the Black Fantastic storybundle for just a few more days (until July 2nd).

Describe this work in 3 words.

Entertaining and educational.

How do you define Afrofuturism?

Afrofuturism is a self-affirmation that being Black and writing/painting/sewing/singing ourselves into the Future; in a present world that too often denies us past/present/future representation.

What was the most difficult story/part of your novel to write? Why?

This collection was created while I was struggling with the death of my mother (from illness) and didn’t see when I would write again. Putting this together was suggested by Bob Booth, so it began with reprints, but helped me start writing new work for the book.

What subject do you find most difficult to write about?

I started my career writing more SF and fantasy because I grew up in a fearful environment. It was difficult to face the shadows to write horror; in time I’ve learned to come to terms with that past, which has helped me write horror themed work.

Do you have any writing tics?

I like to write with music, but music without words since my imagination is activated by words.

What influences your work? People, other fields, other authors, events, histories?

Everything influences my work. I have been journaling since 1969, so I write everything down; bits and pieces of poetry/stories and my feelings about the world around me. When writing new work, I go to my journal entries for inspirational seeds to build on.

How do recent challenges of the day (the pandemic, post-Trump/post-Brexit) inform what you’re working on right now? Do they affect the context of this work? If so, how?

I lost half a year in 2020 to covid symptoms/long hauling, surviving that has increased my gratitude at life and confirmed what I’ve always believed: humans can be amazingly loving and/or fearful messes.

What compels you to keep writing/editing?

It’s more that I can’t not write than anything else. I tried stopping many years ago, when rejections were piling up, but the inner pressure to write couldn’t be denied.