Q&A with author Paul Levinson
A bite-sized interview for your Sunday morning.
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Q&A
Which philosophy or philosopher most aligns with your own beliefs?
For epistemology, for how we know, I like Kant’s mixture of empirical and innate, as well as his never being able to know the thing-in-itself. For ethics, I’d go with John Stuart Mill’s utilitarian greatest good for the greatest number, refined from James Mill and Jeremy Bentham.
Is there any standard publishing or writing advice that you disagree with? Or any standard advice that you feel is too often neglected?
Well, my standard advice to writers, which I think is all too often recognized but ignored, is that in order to successfully write, you have put writing ahead of social engagements. There are a myriad of good reasons not to write on a given occasion. But in order to start, proceed with, and finish what you’re writing, you need to put those social necessities aside whenever necessary.
Is your process for writing philosophical fiction different from the way you approach other works?
Different from writing scholarly nonfiction, in that I don’t need footnotes or references. Not really different from writing any other fiction, because almost all of my fiction has elements of philosophy.
How do you come up with ideas for your short stories?
They just pop into my head, sometimes months or even years apart, other times more than one on a given day or night. I probably have more than fifty times the number of ideas for stories, with titles and maybe a paragraph or two, than those I’ve actually written. I consider those ideas and titles ideational money in the bank.
What is the greatest compliment you have received as a writer? The most stinging criticism?
The best: My daughter, then 12 years old, said after she read one of my novels, “Daddy, this is the best novel I’ve ever read!” The worst: A reviewer once said one of my novels was my worst novel. I guess every writer has to have a worst novel or story, but deep down I still think that none of mine are the worst.
Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor at Fordham University.
His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (winner of the Locus Award for Best First Science Fiction Novel of 1999), The Consciousness Plague, The Pixel Eye, Borrowed Tides, The Plot to Save Socrates, Unburning Alexandria, Chronica, and It’s Real Life. His novelette “The Chronology Protection Case” was made into a short film and is on Amazon Prime Video. His alternate history short story about The Beatles, "It's Real Life," was made into a radio play, won The Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fiction, and was expanded into a novel It’s Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles published in 2024. His novelette, “Robinson Calculator,” was published in the Robots Through the Ages anthology in July 2023. He was President of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) 1998-2001.
His nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge, Digital McLuhan, and New New Media, have been translated into 15 languages. He has appeared on CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the History Channel, and NPR. His 1972 album, Twice Upon A Rhyme, was re-issued in Japan and Korea in 2008, and in the U. K. in 2010. His first new album since 1972, Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time, was released by Old Bear Records and Light in the Attic Records in 2020.
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