“The Sighted Watchmaker” by Vylar Kaftan will be appearing in Prime’s forthcoming Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2012 edited by Rich Horton. Christie Yant interviews her on the story.

You seem to be as much at home in biology as you are in physics. Which scientific disciplines do you feel most comfortable borrowing from when writing science fiction? Are there disciplines you’re too uncomfortable with to try?

My strongest disciplines are genetics, epidemiology, and neuroscience. I’m reasonably solid in astronomy and immunology as well. There are certainly disciplines I’m not as knowledgeable in, but that’s fixable with research and study. I can’t imagine being uncomfortable about an entire discipline. There’s plenty of stories I wouldn’t want to try without some research, but that’s not the same thing. I think writers should write what they know—but  if they don’t know it, they need to learn it. And that includes all the sciences.

MORE: Read the rest of the interview here!