Being invited to a convention as an author is always an honor. Being invited to a convention on another continent was an honor of which I had not dreamt. This year, my French publisher Jean-Marie Goater of Éditions Goater, brought me to Lyon for Les Intergalactiques, a science fiction convention. I agreed happily to 15 hours of travel each way. I hadn’t been to France in 20 years and I was eager to meet some of my French readership. I was also overjoyed to meet my translater, Ludivine Fournier.
On my first evening in Lyon, I had dinner with Jean-Marie and Ludivine, as well as Ludivine’s wife, Marie Koullen (also a translator). They were so lovely and kind and sweet to me about my French, which is terrible. Getting to know them was so much fun, and I had a little time to rest and prepare for the convention.
The con was held in an institutional space that felt like a school, aside from the beautiful Salon des Livres in the middle, set in a greenhouse with shade cloth and the doors left open to permit the breeze to cut through. I spent most of my time there, joyously signing books for readers and new fans who came to pick something up after seeing me in panel discussions there.
Those discussions were facilitated for me by my live translator, Natacha Bardy. Natacha was incredible at her job, sitting beside me and translating quietly when others were speaking, lagging only a second or two behind. Then I’d answer in English (and a great deal of the French audience spoke good English, too) and she’d take notes, then give it out again in French. It was a prodigious amount of labor. I talk thoughtfully but fast, and she was incredible at conveying meaning without losing more than a few beats. It was humbling, like any good gift.
In one presentation, I read aloud from The Book of Etta. I haven’t read from my second novel in over a decade and it’s easy to lose track of the person one used to be. But I’m still so proud of that work, and of that version of myself. After I read a section, Ludivine read the same lines again, in her skillful French translation. It moved me to a shocking emotional degree to hear her do that, and to see the room take it in. I’ll be thinking of that experience for a long time.
I met dozens of French authors in science fiction and horror, and I reflected (not for the first time) that we are impoverished for translations into English from other languages. There are so many great stories that we’re not getting access to, simply because we don’t make room for them. It also strengthened my resolve to better my own French, to read more than what’s in my immediate circle. I also met a U.S. author, I didn’t previously know, recent Ignyte finalist Arula Ratnakar. Aside from being a computational neuroscience PhD student at Boston University, she’s also published novellas, novelettes, and non-fiction in Clarkesworld magazine. I was so impressed by both kinds of her professional work, and of how well-respected she is by her French readers for her hard-SF standalone printed works with Argyll, the publisher who brought her to Les Intergalactiques.
Plenty of readers stopped by to talk to me about my work and began by apologizing for their English not being very good, and then demonstrated perfect conversational command of the language. My French keeps pace with about 80% of what I hear, but I lack the grammar knowledge to respond in kind. It seemed to me that many people I met in Lyon had the opposite: excellent grammar and a grasping desire for greater vocabulary. Many of them kindly met me in the middle, speaking their own language a little slower for my benefit and receiving my English answers with equanimity and even joy.
One of my greatest joys was meeting Margot, a French booktuber who has spoken often and well of my work to her legions of fans. Almost half of the people who came to my table to buy my book and speak to me told me she had sent them there. When I ran into her, I told her I felt like I owed her money.
She told me, “If anyone else has told you they’re you’re biggest fan, they are lying!”
I got to have lunch with her on one of the beautiful summer festival days and shoot selfies together, and to discover what a cool and discerning reader she really is. Everyone was so kind and keen on making sure I had a good time, and the truth is I had one of the best weekends of my life.
Multiple authors have told me at one time or another that if I got a chance to travel in Europe or Asia as an author, I should always take it. They’ve hinted that literature and the people who make it happen are held in higher esteem there than in my home country of the U.S., and my experience bears that out to be true. All over Lyon, on the train and in the parks, at bars and cafés, I saw people reading paperbacks. They were on their phones less than the people I see in public at home by an order of magnitude. These good French nerds were ready to substatively talk literature, and more interested in what I write than in how I look. That was the best sort of shock, like a cold drink on a hot day.
This was a whirlwind trip and I am so glad to be home. But if they call me again for Les Utopiales, I will absolutely do it all again.
