Q&A with After Dinner Conversation author, Keith "Doc" Raymond
A bite-sized interview for your Sunday morning.
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Q&A
Are there any ideas or topics that you wish you had the courage to write about?
I write what I want not to appeal to editors but to readers. Therefore, not all my stories are published. I can and do write on controversial issues. Some unexpected ones as well. One example, in my story, Under Born, a sign of the zodiac, Ophiuchus, was discarded by astrologers. It made me wonder why, so I came up with an explanation. People born under the sign of Ophiuchus became megalomaniacs, torturers and berserkers. The story follows one of them, and even horror magazines wouldn't publish it.
Is there any standard publishing or writing advice you disagree with?
Write what you know. Really? And if that were so, science fiction and fantasy as genres wouldn't exist. And most philosophical questions would never be pondered in narrative form.
Is your process for writing philosophical fiction different from the way you approach other works?
Absolutely! Particularly when it comes to writing for ADC. I adopt a pose consistent with debate. Using characters to argue both viewpoints of an issue and a philosophical dilemma. If my arguments are not strong enough on both sides, I fail the reader. Perhaps I can change their minds, and in writing them, sometimes I change my own.
Describe your ideal reader.
I prefer readers with a scientific background. Why? Because they are willing to discard a long held belief if it doesn't align with the proven facts. Many folks in society today are polarized, and are not flexible enough to acknowledge they could be wrong. They simply ignore evidence if it doesn't support their philosophy. Sadly, machine tools at media outlets evaluate the reader and eliminate articles that don't coincide with their beliefs. Therefore, everything they read reinforces their impressions of the world. And while this supports the media outlet, it denies the reader perspective and other viewpoints.
Is there an interview question you wish someone would ask you?
Yes! If you could travel in the multiverse, where would you go? I would not only sit down with great minds of our world, Einstein, Jung, Aristotle, Asimov... but also other planets, where their great minds lived. Then I'd shift to universes where their ideas were lauded or persecuted. What if Jesus was ignored? How would life and religion be different in that Earth?
Dr. Keith Raymond is a Family and Emergency Physician. He practiced in eight countries in four languages. Currently living in Austria with his wife.
When not volunteering his practice skills, he is writing, lecturing, or scuba diving. In 2008, he discovered the wreck of a Bulgarian freighter in the Black Sea.
He has multiple medical citations, along with publications in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Grief Diaries, After Dinner Conversation, The Satirist, Chicago Literati, Blood Moon Rising, Saddlebag Dispatches, Utopia Science Fiction magazine, and in the Sci-Fi anthologies Sanctuary and Alien Dimensions among others. Nominated for a Nebula Award in the Short Story category for 2024.
He is the fiction editor of SavagePlanets magazine.