F. Brett Cox is the author of The End of All Our Exploring: Stories (Fairwood Press, 2018) and Roger Zelazny (U. of Illinois Press, 2021) and co-editor, with Andy Duncan, of Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (Tor, 2004). His most recent fiction appeared in Daily Science Fiction, The Dark, and Sunday Morning Transport, and is forthcoming in the anthology Yemoja’s Tears. He is a co-founder of the Shirley Jackson Awards and currently serves on the SJA Board of Advisors. A native of North Carolina, Brett is Dana Professor of English at Norwich University and lives in Vermont with his wife, playwright Jeanne Beckwith.
If you were to create a superhero that had a weakness for something totally unexpected, like pickles or bubble wrap, what would it be and why?
I’d give my superhero a weakness for candy corn because it would cause people to at least momentarily lose respect for him, which could lead to some interesting story complications. The fact that I love this much-maligned candy is, of course, a coincidence.
If you could choose any real-life celebrity to make a cameo appearance in one of your books, who would it be and why?
Well, I already wrote a story in which the late Sinead O’Connor makes an appearance (sort of), so, confining my choices to the currently living, I might go with Patti Smith. There is no living American artist I admire more, and I think she would have very interesting responses to whatever weird stuff happened in the story.
If you were stranded on a deserted planet with only one book to read, but it turned out to be one of your own, how would you feel?
Bereft.
If you had to choose between fighting 100 duck-sized robots or one robot-sized duck, which would you pick and why?
One robot-sized duck because I’m pretty sure that, no matter the size, trying to deal with one thing is going to be easier than trying to deal with 100 things.
If you could travel to any alternate universe where a different version of yourself exists, what do you think your other self would be like?
There is an alternate universe in which I did not go down the academic/literary path and am instead a working musician and/or actor. In the academic alternate universe, I’m a marine biologist.
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My most recently published short story, “Sure Shot,” is an alternate history about Annie Oakley. It’s at Sunday Morning Transport for September 8, 2024. Another story, “Miriam After the Flood,” is about the aftermath of the recent catastrophic flooding in Vermont. It’s forthcoming in Yemoja’s Tears, a benefit anthology to raise awareness of (and money to address) global issues of water access and sustainability.
Website: https://www.fbrettcox.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brsett.cox.3956
