Welcome to the AdultFic interview book. Inside you'll find interview sessions with inspiring authors posted each month, as well as helpful hints for readers and writers alike.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Hiya,
I'm Lina from @adultfiction and wanted to share my recent discovery with you. Stacey's "After Humanity" is one of the 2017 Watty Winners, and an outstanding read. An unusual topic as well, presented in an unusual way - as one of the protagonists is an eight year old child, Rachel.
Stacey, perhaps you would like to introduce your literary baby yourself – what is After Humanity in a nutshell? Speaking of nutshell - you did some great pitmad pitches, I really envied you for those.
Stacey:
Awe thanks! Well here is my quick pitch:
Human veal is on the menu but 8yo Rachel is determined to convince her new master she doesn't belong on his dinner plate.
-Planet of the Apes + Hannibal Lecter
Pretty much, After Humanity is set in a world where human are livestock. The story is told from the POV of an eight year old girl who is sold as veal and the POV of the ethical farmer who buys her.
Adultfiction: What made you write this story? Is there a triggering incident, or did the story just want to be written so to speak?
Stacey:Happy to say there wasn't a specific triggering incident? No sibla showed up at my door demanding my young (hehe I joke ;-)) (Adultfiction- AAAARGH. And for those of you who haven't read the book yet, the Sibla are the new lords of our worlds, the ones who have an - shall we say - acquired taste for humans?) .
I would say the story/topic did kind of grow naturally and demand that I write it. In fact, it was another story that first inspired After Humanity.
I was working on my fantasy series: The Pure One ( the series to which my posted epic fantasy A Dangerous Destiny belongs) and had conceived of a race of cannibalistic fae. As I delved into research on cannibalism in general, it forced me to start asking myself what it was about the topic that was so taboo. I mean animals eat meat. Humans are animals. Why was the idea of humans being eaten so very horrifying? Was is hypocritical to be horrified by it? After all, humans eat other animals and have for the entire history of our species. And modern humans do more than just eat animals...we raise them for slaughter.
I have a very mixed relationship with eating meat in general. I was a vegetarian/ ocassional pescaterian for 10+ years. I went back to eating meat. Why? Well to be honest? I started to wonder if in not eating meat I was judging nature. Humans are omnivorous. We can indeed subsist without animal products, but on a basic level? Humans are hunter gatherers. So...what does that mean in relation to farming animals? And more importantly... What would it mean if another being raised humans for food as we raise livestock?
Factory farming had always been atrocious to me, but what about small farms? Could farmers truly raise their animals for meat and be entirely humane in the process? I began to do my research....but with a twist. I looked into farming with the question: Could HUMANS be farmed as all other animals are?
