I had the amazing oportunity to interview Amie Kaufman, co-author of the Starbound Trilogy and Illuminae Files.

Thank you, Amie, for this, you’re brilliant!

First things first, what is your Hogwarts house? I ask everybody when I first meet them, very important, I need to know.

Ravenclaw pride! Wit, wisdom and learning for me.

I read and watch a lot of sci-fi (my obsession with Doctor Who is a little overboard) and since you write so much of it I was wondering, what do you find intriguing about it? When did you start developing an interest in it?

Oh gosh, so much! I’m obsessed with space — there’s always something new, incredible and awe-inspiring to learn about it — and in general, I’m always drawn to stories about far futures, and worlds I’ve never seen. The more serious answer is that we can use science fiction to ask questions about our own current society, and I think doing that is incredibly important, but it’s also just heaps of fun to visit these places in my imagination. I’m not completely sure when it started for me, but I think it was when I was about eleven, when my dad gave me a copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne, one of the first great SF writers. I’ve also got a bunch of astronomy books I got about that time, so I must have been interested already.

What are some of you’re favourite or most inspiring sci-fi stories? Whether it be books, movies or TV shows.

Oh gosh, SO MANY. On TV I adore recent shows like Dark Matter, and older stuff like Star Trek (The Next Generation is my favourite), and for movies there are amazing stories like Gravity (I don’t care if the physics are wrong) or Interstellar (ditto), or The Edge of Tomorrow. As for books, I could go on and on, but some of my recent favourite include Marie Lu’s Warcross, Ryan Graudin’s Invictus and Cally Black’s In The Dark Spaces. Of course, as I write this none of them are out yet, so you’ll have to wait…

One of my favourite things about your books are the world building, something I often have trouble with when writing. How do you go about it?

It’s tricky, and can take a lot of work! I think my best advice for building a world is to ask yourself what impact every little change would have. If you give people a robot to do their housework, what’s the impact? Do they have more free time? What do they do with it? What inventions are created? How do attitudes to hobbies change? Ask yourself about ripple effects. And in terms of showing world building, I think whether you’re writing historical or far-future science fiction stories, the best way to tell the reader about the world is to think about what the character takes for granted, and what they find unusual. That tells us what their everyday world is like.

I’ve been planning a book to write with a couple of my friends. What’s it like working with a co-writer? Is it difficult, do you ever have disagreements with how the book should go?

I think co-authoring is AWESOME, but I know it’s not for everyone. For me, it’s heaps of fun because I’ve always got someone to brainstorm with, always got someone to check something over for me or laugh at my jokes as soon as I write them, and of course there are whole parts of the book that appear by magic! You definitely need to have the right personalities, but if you do, it’s wonderful. I’ve actually never had a disagreement with either of my co-authors — sometimes we have different ideas, but we always want to brainstorm together until we find something both of us are happy with. Nobody ever wants to steamroll the other person. For a start we’re friends, and anyway, we wouldn’t be writing together if we didn’t love each other’s ideas!

Illumanae, in particular, I found, could get very emotional and intense. Has your writing ever made you cry? Because it made me sob in a pitiful puddle.

Yes, absolutely. I’ve cried, and I’ve also been terrified.

 And one last question: what is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything?

42, obviously. The real thing you should be wondering is: what exactly is the ultimate question?