Marge Simon, multiple Stoker winner, HWA Lifetime Achievement awardee and Grand Master of the SFPA, has had work published, well, pretty much everywhere (including in Penumbric, we’re happy to say). She is both a writer and artist, highly influential, and an all-around good person, and we were honored to interview her for this issue of Penumbric).

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Your education was focused on art, and you were even an art teacher. How did you end up focusing on writing? Or was there ever a change in focus?

My focus was to get a decent job so I could be independent of my father. At first, I wanted to major in Journalism, but my advisor was off on a sabbatical. I tried another field. With a talent for art, I knew I’d make a good art teacher–but I anticipated teaching adults, or at the vey least, high school age. Due to a plethora of graduating teachers in 1970, teaching jobs were not so easy to find, especially at upper levels. I finally got a job as an elementary art teacher, and because it allowed me freedom once the day ended, I figured things worked out okay after all. I started writing and publishing around 1984.

Did you continue to teach while publishing your writing and art?

I certainly did! I used to say I chose teaching as a way to afford furthering my career (writing, illustrating).

How did you get into science fiction, fantasy, and horror (just speculative fiction in general)?

I joined a local writer’s group in the ’80s, but I didn’t really fit. The lady who ran the group didn’t like me, or maybe she just didn’t “get” me. Anyway, one day she handed me a couple of sheets of paper stapled together saying, “Here, this should be what you’re looking for.” It was an early version of Scavenger’s Newsletter! In it were listed a number of small press as well as a couple of greater small press sf/h/f magazine guidelines. She was right, Scav was my key to the future of illustration and writing I craved! True, I also had copies of Writers and Artists Markets, not as much help.

We’ve been able to publish several pieces of your art. Could you tell us more about your art? Do you have favorite subjects or media?

I’m multi-operational, my subjects & media–even my styles vary, depending on what I’m doing. Covers and/or interiors for vampire themes, illustrations for stories online or in print. [See, for example, the works accompanying this interview.] This has worked to my disadvantage as an illustrator, because you don’t want to confuse market options with too many approaches. I know it, but I can’t help it.

The b/w ones with stenciled flower designs are collaborative pieces with Canadian artist Cathy Buburuz. She became Born Again and ceased to do art. Sadly, she died a few years ago. She marketed all our works. Sometimes editors would think she did the drawing and want her to do illustrations.

Strange Horizons called you an “Artist of Antithesis” back in 2004, which I realize was in reference to your illustrated poetry collection of the same name. But was there another meaning to that? Would you call yourself an “artist of antithesis”?

Yes, perhaps, in the sense that I’m always about change, asking questions before I create: antithesis is the Hegelian process of change in which a concept or its realization passes over into and is preserved and fulfilled by its opposite. I’m often contrary in some respects.

Could you elaborate on that? In what ways are you contrary?

I may write (and paint) poems/fictions serious and profound, but my personality doesn't fit. My sense of humor keeps tripping me up, and I've illustrated quite a few limerick books with cartoons. I'd rather laugh than frown, putting it simply.

Does history (including art history) continue to influence your work? What about current events?

I feel good about all my poems inspired by historical events (such as wars) and have won a several awards for poems based on such, past or present. Past: “General Tecumseh Sherman’s Ghosts” and Future: “Shutdown,” Rhysling winners, and an Elgin for “WAR,” a collection with Alessandro Manzetti.

Are you still active as an editor?

Yes, I help with poetry and flash fiction selections for Siren’s Call Publications. I still edit a column, “Blood & Spades, Poets of the Dark Side,” for the HWA Newsletter, as well.

Do you think speculative fiction in general is more inclusive now (in terms of authors)?

If you mean we are seeing more stories by people of color or diverse groups (LGBT, etc.) in the past ten years or so, I would say yes–but in my experience, we didn’t know what ethnic group or sex the writers belonged to, years ago. Today, thanks to the internet and blogs, substacks, FB, Instagram, there is much more opportunity and information about breaking into writing speculative fiction and more emphasis on promoting diversity of writers and their output.

What are you working on now (if anything)? I know you have something upcoming (or will be just out when we publish this interview) in Bestiary of Blood. Can you give us a hint about that?

Editor/poet Jamal Hodge has corralled thirty-seven fine poets/writers together to contribute some powerful works told about or inspired by animals of all sorts. I guarantee this collection is worthy of personal libraries far and wide!

And at the end of last year you published Cast from Darkness, a collaboration with Mary Turzillo. How is it to collaborate with another author? How do you end up doing so?

I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with a goodly number of authors/poets over the years, including my husband, Bruce Boston. The incomparable Mary Turzillo is most recent; we really inspire each other. She’s one of my very dearest friends, too. How is it to collaborate with her? Magical, and a little bit crazy, if you believe it! How do we collaborate? Sometimes with poems, as in a call and response, or within a poem, trading alternating stanzas such as in “Sirens” [see sidebar] where she began with the first two stanzas and I added the last.

Finally, do you have any advice for those getting into either speculative art or writing?

Join the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and/or the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) and volunteer. Sooner or later, depending on your drive and willingness to take constructive criticism, you’ve a good chance to see your works in publication!

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You can find Marge Simon’s work in many, many places, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can buy Bestiary of Blood at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DF7RSV2K. You can contact her about her work at MSimon6206@aol.com.