The Best of Trek Fanfic Interview with Una McCormack
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Best of Trek Fanfic Interview with Una McCormack |
| Interviewer: | The Best of Trek Fanfic |
| Interviewee: | Altariel |
| Date(s): | December 2000 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Star Trek: DS9 |
| External Links: | An Interview with Una McCormack, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Best of Trek Fanfic Interview with Una McCormack was conducted in 2000.
It is part of a series of nineteen interviews, see The Best of Trek Fanfic.
Also see Interview with Una McCormack, an interview with a Blake's 7 focus.
Excerpts
[Tell us a little bit about yourself.]: Born 1972 near Liverpool; moved to Cambridge in 1990, live here with my partner Matthew and not enough shelves. Just started the second year of my PhD on the social impact of new technologies. What else? 'Blake's 7' fangirl since the age of 8; red hair and specs; email junkie; obsessive reader and writer; love watching B7, snooker, 'Farscape', films in the cinema, Garak, and John Cusack.
[How long have you been writing?]: I wrote for pleasure as a child, although I didn't do any writing during my teenage years after a close family member died. I started writing fanfiction for 'Blake's 7' when I was 18, and have written a fair amount of fiction in that fandom since then. I was never really inspired to write for another fandom, and then started watching DS9. I saw 'In Purgatory's Shadow' and 'By Inferno's Light' and bingo! I had to write about Garak.
[You write Garak-centred fanfic. Any reason why?]: Where do I start? Very simply, I think he's a fascinating character.The fascination, I think, stems mostly from his ambiguity and his complexity. You can't help but like Garak, but a lot of what he does is wrong and often plain wicked. But I'm not interested in apologizing for what he does since, really, you can't. I'm interested in exploring why such an obviously perceptive and intelligent character has allowed himself to lead a life which he clearly knows is bad, both for his victims and for himself.
Then the angstometer is turned up to 11. Take 'In Purgatory's Shadow'. We get a glimpse of the loneliness of exile. We learn why Tain holds such power over him. And, as if that's not enough, in the next episode he gets whacked with an attack of claustrophobia! How can I resist unpacking and exploring all that?
Plus he makes me laugh. He has so many great one-liners. He can't resist going that extra bit too far and invariably gets thumped as a result. You can see that the script writers had a field day writing for Garak, and I know how they feel.
How did you get started writing fanfic?]: With B7 I had been writing stuff when I was quite young, beginning with a rather dodgy stick-man cartoon scribbled into notebooks when I was about nine. I started writing again rather nervously at university when I got involved in fandom and various people encouraged me to 'give it a go'.Some of this stuff is online at: www.aquitarfiles.org.uk where you can marvel that I actually let a vast, shameless and completely unironic Mary Sue loose on the world.
With DS9 it was seeing Garak that got me started. I had to write about this amazing character.