It was a very writerly time, the spring of 1999. A few days after I learned "The Mercy Gate" was up for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award (it lost) I was off to Australia for three weeks, laptop under my arm. In the meantime, SFWA's Publicity Committee was busy sending out press releases on the nominees. One of the releases ended up at ACES, the American Copy Editors Society, and shortly thereafter I got an e-mail from Shelby R. Bradley of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, who was interested in doing an interview for ACES's newsletter.

Bradley conducted the interview by e-mail over the course of several days. I was staying at a hotel in the Kings Cross section of Sydney at the time, and most mornings I would walk a few blocks to Global Gossip, my "one-stop communication centre," plug in my Winbook and download the latest batch of e-mail from the other side of the planet. The interview appeared a couple months later. I can't be more specific because I could never pry any copies of the newsletter out of my colleagues at ACES.

— mjm

© copyright 2001
Mark J. McGarry

Mark McGarry draws from a world of experience when he crafts words. And depending on which hat he is wearing at the moment, that world might not be Earth.

This "mild-mannered journalist who occasionally steps into the phone booth to change into a novelist" has been nominated for a Nebula Award for his novelette "The Mercy Gate." Winners of the Nebula, the highest literary honor in the genres of science fiction and fantasy, have included writers of such regard as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Frank Herbert and Harlan Ellison.

As an assistant news editor on the business desk at the Washington Post, McGarry's duties include laying out the daily and Sunday sections and editing copy. He has been working for newspapers since the early 1980s, but he has been a writer of science fiction for much longer.

"I started writing when I was 12, submitted my first story when I was 14 and sold my first short story when I was 18," McGarry said. "I lucked into a career in newspapers,"

After the advance for his first novel, Sun Dogs, ran out, McGarry took up with the New Haven [Conn.] Journal-Courier as a typist, formatting stocks and typing horse racing entries.

The novel was due out, and the Journal-Courier's business editor decided the paper was not fully taking advantage of McGarry's knack for words. He was soon given stories to edit and headlines to write.

The Journal-Courier folded into the New Haven Register, and McGarry began working up the ladder -- becoming a reporter, then a copy editor, and finally serving as suburban bureau chief before moving on.

McGarry's career has taken him to the St. Petersburg Times; Newsday, where he spent nearly a decade; and the New York Times before he began working at the the Washington Post last year.

"My newspaper work puts me into a river of news and experience that informs my writing, and I believe my writing gives me a better ear for language and structure," he said.

Working at the Post is demanding, but being subjected to the night shift shouldn't preclude a journalist from having the time to write prose, McGarry said.

"I have sympathy for anyone who feels she wants to write but can't find the time or energy. But the universe doesn't care," he said. "If you need to write, you'll find the time and means."

Authors of every ilk have had to subsidize their writing with other work, much of that work challenging and time-consuming.

"Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive. The science fiction writer Gregory Benford is a physicist, Ernest Hemingway was a correspondent for the Toronto Star, and John Grisham was a lawyer. Is some copy editor ... really thinking right now, 'Lord, I wish I were a medical intern like Michael Crichton was when he wrote his first novel. Then I'd have more time to write.'?"

McGarry has devoted much time to science fiction in many ways. In high school, he founded Empire, a magazine for aspiring science fiction writers that eventually attracted about 1,000 subscribers, and was its editor or editor emeritus from 1974 to 1982. Empire has been credited as the inspiration for Speculations, a publication for science fiction writers that has twice been nominated for the Hugo Award for best semiprofessional magazine.

McGarry was also editor of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Bulletin from 1995 until last summer. Editing the Bulletin required several hours of work every day, and McGarry's muse beckoned.

"My writing fell to almost nothing while I was doing the magazine," he said. "I'm glad to have all that time back."

McGarry is putting that time to work, writing a third novel and anticipating the announcement of the Nebula winners May 1.

"My colleagues who are on the Nebula ballot this year have amazed me as a reader and inspired me as a writer. To appear on the ballot with them is a great honor, the kind of thing I dreamed about when I was 12 years old, pecking out my first crummy stories on a manual typewriter."