[Post originally published: Mar 13, 2026]

My guest in this issue is Hugo and Nebula finalist author Marie Vibbert (@reasie on Bluesky and @marievibbert on Instagram). I had the honor of blurbing her brand new novella, Multitude, out by Apex Publications next April.

Here is what I had to say about it: “Multitude shows Marie Vibbert’s range as an author of science fiction. It encompasses unique prose and unusual viewpoints in a gripping tale of discovery--of the other and of oneself. It is able to break any expectations readers might have about first contact stories and about human (dis)connection. You won’t regret this reading!”

Like you can see, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Marie’s novella as I did every other piece of fiction she has published along the years.

Tell me more about what you have published recently (or will publish soon) and what made you write it.

My novella, Multitude, comes out in April. I wrote it out of frustration with... well, humans? For example, there are giant burning piles of never-purchased surplus clothing made from our limited, non-renewable petroleum resources, yet wool merchants are struggling to come up with industrial applications for wool because no one will buy it while polyester is so much cheaper. How did we get here? How can we stop the waste and start caring for ourselves? How can we turn “us and them” into “us”?

If that’s too heavy, I also just released a book about a sex robot flirting his way through capers and heists. It’s called Andrei and the Hellcats.

What is an underrated piece of fiction that you think didn’t get enough attention?

Notes from the Burning Age (by Catherine Webb writing as Clair North, 2021) was a revelation. A tense spy thriller, a hopeful climate-future, an exploration of speculative religion, a Canticle for Lebowitz for today. It made me feel like a better person for having read it. Why didn’t it win all the things??

Show me an illustration that you love and tell me why!

I may not be a big shot. I have no big-5 contract, movie or TV deals, but by my robot overlord Gort, I have fan art!! A person I do not know, Dana Berube, posted this gorgeous picture of Thane from Galactic Hellcats to Instagram and tagged me. Isn’t he pretty? It changed how I saw the character!

I’m also going to show you the cover for Galactic Hellcats, which, next to Multitude, is my favorite cover EVER.

That’s not quite what Ki, Margot, and Zuleikah look like, but who cares?? It’s gorgeous and it captures the pulpy FEEL of the novel!

Your novella, Multitudes, shows us a really interesting look into how a first contact could actually happen in the real world. But more than a good story, the prose of your novella is so beautifully crafted that it feels like we’re eating a tasty meal or feeling the textures of a fine piece of tapestry. It’s exquisite. How do you weave your beautiful prose with an enticing story? How hard (or easy) it is for you?

Give me a moment to get over all those compliments... :D :D

The truth is, Multitude was easy to write. I let myself go. I wasn’t considering selling it. If you look in my diary, you’ll see, “I’ll write this in 1000-word chunks, each a different pov. Total technical challenge! BWA HA HA this’ll never sell! Well, good. I need something just for me after spending three years on a sequel.”

Because this was a “just for me” project, I wrote it one chapter at a time, whenever the muse struck. One of the things I really like to write is an exploration of a character, intimately in an ordinary setting for them, and the format of this book allows me to do that again and again. I guess that when you stop worrying about what other people say you “should” write, you manage to write stronger prose?

Let us show the newer writers that they are not alone! Tell me something that made you feel bad (a rejection, an empty signing session, a very harsh critique) and how you got over it (or not).

Not even that long ago, I was at a book conference sharing a table with another author and I got to watch him SELL OUT of his books while I sold... 2. I felt like I was back at the junior prom, trying to get boys to dance with me.

But even that wasn’t my worst book conference or signing. One of my first signings at a local Ohio Bookstore, no one bought the book, or even talked to me, except to ask where the cookbooks were!

I console myself remembering seeing Ted Chiang at a signing table at a conference where there was a big line for the Guest of Honor and no one talking to him! (It was a more fantasy-oriented conference and the fan base might not have known that THE BEST SF AUTHOR EVER was sitting twiddling his thumbs.) I got to have a nice long chat with him, and that image to console me forever.