At the World SF News Blog’s new home, they’ve got the first of a two part round table discussion up with guests Kaaron Warren, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Vandana Singh and Aliette de Bodard being asked: How, and to what extent, does your environment and background inform your writing?
Here’s a snippet from Aliette de Bodard’s answer:
About the background… I don’t set out to consciously use it (since my experience as a half-French, half-Vietnamese writing in English as a second language is probably not shared by many people on Earth), but for me, the background is still an integral part of my writing. It’s shaped the values I hold, the type of characters I’m drawn to, and the type of stories that appeal to me. Some of it comes from the background, some of it from my own experience, but all of that is stuff that ends up unconsciously going into the stories.