Interactive fiction is gaining recognition in the literary world, as a Carleton instructor has been nominated for the first Nebula award in game-writing.
After decades of honing her craft, science fiction and fantasy author Kate Heartfield is garnering international renown for her diverse and inclusive fiction.
Heartfield, who also teaches arts and culture reporting at Carleton University, has been nominated in the “Best Novella” and “Best Game Writing” categories at this year’s awards. The Nebula Awards recognize authors who have achieved excellence in science fiction and fantasy writing. They have been doled out annually since 1965, but Heartfield is part of the first ever group of video game writers nominated for the award.
Road to Canterbury, Heartfield’s interactive fiction novel, playable online, was nominated for a Nebula.
She said she was shocked to find out she had been selected as a finalist, but added that she didn’t need to win to appreciate the honour that goes with a Nebula nomination.
“It’s a cliché, but I really am just happy to be nominated,” said Heartfield. “I’m looking at it as an opportunity to get dressed up with my peers and my heroes.”
Heartfield’s first published novel—a work of historical fiction titled Armed in Her Fashion—was released just one year ago, but she admitted she has been eyeing a Nebula for some time.
“It’s always been one of those things I’ve had on the dream list,” she said.
Last year proved to be a big one for Heartfield. Armed in Her Fashion was closely followed by the publication of Alice Payne Arrives, a novella about the adventures of a time-travelling highway robber, and the release of Road to Canterbury, a choice-based interactive novel based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. All three works focus on the past, but Heartfield imbues all her work with elements of fantasy.
“There’s something inherently uncanny about the past,” said Heartfield. “That duality of the way things used to be and the fact that time’s always changing is inherently fantastical to me.”
She said historical fiction provides an avenue for her to tell the stories of groups that have been erased from the literary narratives of the past. The titular protagonist of Alice Payne Arrives is in a long-term relationship with a woman, and Road to Canterbury allows readers to play as a number of gender identities and sexual orientations.
She said she wants her fiction to fill a gap that has gone unaddressed for too long.
“A lot of these stories have not been told enough,” she said. “There’s still a lot of stories that go under the radar.”
Heartfield said she writes inclusive fiction to make sure her nine-year-old son learns about all kinds of people in ways she didn’t.
“As a bi girl, growing up, I would have liked to have more stories that represented my own sexuality,” she said. “I want him to live in a world where all of those stories are being told.”
With a novella coming out this week, and another novel and video game slated for publication in the upcoming year, Heartfield said she’s hoping the Nebula nod will boost her career to new heights.
“It helps to give me some sense that I’ll be able to keep doing this,” she said. “That’s how I see successes that have come along. Every one of them means that I’ll be able to be secure and keep doing this.”
Heartfield said accolades, though validating, aren’t the reason why she writes. Her lifelong passion for storytelling has brought her to the Nebula Awards, and she said it will carry her through the remainder of her career as an author.
“More and more of my hours of any given day are taken up with writing fiction and telling stories,” she said. “It’s a real privilege to do it now.”
Image provided
