March 2010

Small Talk with Catherine Shaffer
By Richard A. Lovett

Richard A. Lovett is a regular contributor to Analog — as a science writer and science fiction author.  The following article originally appeared in Analog.  In all, he has published more than 2,000 articles on science, travel and cycling.

Catherine Shaffer is a woman of twin loyalties. On the one hand, she's a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. On the other, she belongs to the National Association of Science Writers. That makes her one of Analog editor Stan Schmidt's "double threats": a writer who can show up with either fact or fiction.

Shaffer has always been drawn to writing, but was well on her way to a Ph.D. in biological chemistry before deciding academic work wasn't for her. She took a job in the pharmaceutical industry, started trying to publish stories, and applied to the 1997 Clarion writing program.

Placed on the waiting list, she almost didn't get into Clarion — then vindicated herself by being the first in her class to make a sale: a lighthearted fantasy called Improving Slay Times in the Common Dragon.

Then came a frustrating dry spell. One problem was finding a niche. "I don't write slipstream or other cross-genre stuff that's fashionable with the smaller magazines," she says. "So if I missed with Asimov's or Analog, there was nowhere else to go."

When the dam broke, it did so in a hurry. In short order, she sold two Analog novelettes plus three fact articles, including a 2004 AnLab winner.

In fiction, she's drawn to big, "saving the world" themes. And she likes history. One novelette, The Doctrine of Noncontact, was inspired by a National Geographic article about Amazon Basin tribes never contacted by the outside world. "It bugged me," she says. "I thought, 'You can't just leave these people in the forest.' But I also thought that it's not okay if they die of disease or become alcoholics or lose their culture. It's a hard problem, and if you try to ask them what they want, you've decided for them."

Unlike the stereotypical journalist turned novelist, Shaffer only recently took up nonfiction, using her fiction experience to boost her science-writing credentials. Now, she writes for such biotechnology publications as Genetic Engineering News, Drug Discovery and Development, and Genomics and Proteomics.

She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she and her husband read Narnia and Terry Pratchett to their son when he was in first grade. Writing is her day job, and she's overjoyed to be doing it for Analog. "Like Alexander the Great," she said a few years ago, "I've conquered the world at 33!"