Interview with Kelly Curtis, Author of The Mars One Incident

What can you tell us about your new release, The Mars One Incident?

A question on a lot of people’s minds these days is: What are the negative effects of social media? In The Mars One Incident, I wanted to set up a future where social media and personal technology is banned. That all communication through any kind of technology is seen as rude, unhealthy and inauthentic to the humans in the 27th century. However, humans of the future still participate in the relevant goings-on in the galaxy so technology off planet is permitted, hence our captain and heroine’s plight to protect her government with her starship. On terra firma, no personal technology is allowed, the population is capped, all energy is green and the society is more or less organized by everyone’s occupation, into specific guilds around the world and the one government is a direct democracy. This is a world I will continue through subsequent books, however, The Mars One Incident is a short book, only 200 pages, that sets the scene and gives readers some background about humans of the future and specifically the competing opinions about whether or not this ban on social media and technology should continue. My writing style is a lot of dialogue with very little description, which is different for science fiction, but I want readers to feel like they themselves met these characters through the conversations, not long descriptions I provide.

What or who inspired you to become an author?

As James Baldwin said, “The terrible thing about being a writer is that you don’t decide to become one, you discover that you are one.”

What’s on your top 5 list for the best books you’ve ever read?

1. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
2. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
3. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
4. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
5. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

Say you’re the host of a literary talk show. Who would be your first guest? What would you want to ask?

Anne Rice, Why were your first books about male vampires?

What’s your favorite thing about writing?

Being able to create such fun characters. I purposely take characters, both men and women equally from many age groups and from across the planet. I am currently having The Mars One Incident made into an audiobook and I am having great fun working with a actor/narrator who is able to take on the many accents required for this book.

What is a typical day like for you?

I write and edit throughout the day, in waves.

What scene in The Mars One Incident was your favorite to write?

My favorite scene to write in The Mars One Incident was when our heroine is trying to explain to her boyfriend what it feels like to be out in the solar system and interacting with aliens. He, of course, does not get it and she compares him to a pile of wood you keep for winter. It is a scene most of us can relate to, we are in a relationship with someone who, on paper, should be perfect for us, but it just doesn’t click no matter how much we want it to.

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” Oprah Winfrey

Kelly Curtis is the author of the new book The Mars One Incident.

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