An interview by Jennifer Konieczny

“The Sandal-Bride” by Genevieve Valentine will be appearing in Prime’s forthcoming Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2012 edited by Rich Horton. Pre-order here!

In “The Sandal-Bride,” the character with the most freedom is also the one most limited in his wonderment. Do you think his responsibilities constrain him or that people need to be introduced to new ways at looking at the world that he has not yet been introduced to?

Those are the very questions that this story is asking, and I don’t think there’s any one pat answer. That’s something each reader—and person—has to weigh for themselves.

At the end of “The Sandal-Bride,” the protagonist travels the world writing down people’s stories. Do you also keep record of all you see in your travels?

With my memory problems, you’d think I would! Sadly, I’m an indifferent diarist, and generally forget to make any notes until I’m already back home again. I tend to take away impressions, rather than concrete memories, and many of my stories contain an element of recreating a place half-remembered and half-imagined.

Sara, the Sandal-Bride, collected stories, because “she’d needed something that was hers, to hoard against a life with some dull boy to whom she had given her word.” What stories do you return to time and again? Do you have favorites that you always recommend?

I definitely have a few books from childhood that appeal to me now as much as ever. I own half a dozen editions of Beagle’s The Last Unicorn and Sagan’s Contact—some too worn to read, but all of which I’m keeping. And every once in a while, a story will strike me just so—Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison was a recent find.