Warthog Asks: Mark Dykeman (How About This)

Atlantic Canada, Science Fiction, and interviewing

Recently I reached out to

Mark Dykeman

, the author of

How About This

, a Substack about Atlantic Canada, creativity, and other subjects. As part of our conversation we decided to do a mutual interview, exchanging questions and answers over email.

You can read Mark’s interview with me on How About This. Below is my interview with Mark.

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What's your writer origin story, were you interested in writing at a young age or was it something you only got into later?

For me, writing started out as a mimetic desire because people I liked and admired were writing and sharing their work, including my long time friend Scott Marshall who was an avid and prolific fiction writer starting in his teens (early to mid 1980s).  I used to belong to several amateur press associations at that age, which was a great way to be exposed to writing and to geekier, nerdier interests which are more in the mainstream these days.  But for many years I struggled at writing, fiction in particular.  This came down to three main things:  a)  lack of confidence  b) lack of knowledge and skill at writing and  c) focusing more on the cooler, geekier things that interested me about science fiction and fantasy without really understanding story and character. 

As an example, using Star Trek as a reference point, I loved the idea of spaceships traveling around the galaxy, blowing things up and defeating evil but I cared less about the motivations for developing these futuristic cultures and technology.  Science fiction in particular evolved in part to showcase the value of advanced technology but it was actually a reflection of the past and present day, exposing inequities or proposing better ways of life and civilization (thought you could make a strong case that some of these writers advocated fascism, eugenics and racism as being ideal, so it certainly had some flaws).  All this to say, growing older and hopefully wiser is a tremendous boon for any writer who also works on their craft.

Non-fiction, primarily through essays and blogging, is where I started to develop a voice and approach.  I didn't really start writing regularly until my late 30s/early 40s, back when I was writing a couple of blogs that focused on social media itself but also some of my current thoughts about creativity, cognition and psychology/sociology influenced writing.  A lot of that blogging was awful writing in retrospect, at least to my way of thinking, but it was important work to build some skills and get some experience.  But I've also put a lot of time and effort since then to become more educated about the writing process and to get better at writing, especially planning, outlining, revision and editing.

I do have some fiction projects simmering in the background, including the first part of a novel that I wrote during NaNoWriMo four years ago.  I have a much greater appreciation for all of the work that goes into creating publishable fiction of any length than I did as a teen!

What's something about interviewing that you think more people should know?

Really good question.  I do a very specialized kind of interview where I rarely interact directly (i.e. in person or by voice) with the subject so I'm not spending hours researching, talking, compiling notes and spending huge amounts of time crafting the output.  I'm not spending a lot of time to build trust and going deep with the subject to get profound personal revelations (like Barbara Walters, Terry Gross or Oprah Winfrey).  So I try to make the interview as light and as fun as possible and I always present back exactly what the interviewee wrote except for any minor edits for spelling, grammar, etc. 

To summarize, I'd say that an interview shouldn't make the subject feel like they are on trial - it's an opportunity for them to share more about themselves, their interests and their work.  I'm not a journalist and I have no duty to inform the public about any topic.

Is your preference to write posts for your weekly sections as the week comes, or do you like to plan things in advance and already have the next week or two's posts scheduled? Or is it a mix of the two?

I try to write ahead as much as possible and schedule the posts to publish automatically given my work schedule.  It's all about trying to use my time wisely and effectively.  Sometimes I will deviate a bit from this but interview posts, as an example, are always scheduled in advance because of the time it takes to do the interviews, format them and align everything with the interview subject.

Part of How About This is focused specifically on the Atlantic Canadian provinces with the fittingly named Atlantic Canada Mondays. What motivated you to focus on this specific group of provinces, rather than narrowing it down to just your home province of New Brunswick or expanding it to all of Canada?

One of the reasons for focusing on all four provinces is to widen the potential readership:  there are 800K residents of New Brunswick vs. 2.4 million for the region, which not only creates a potentially greater pool of interested readers but also a greater pool of interview subjects.  Another reason is that Atlantic Canada is often seen as a "have not" part of the country:  less prosperous, less sophisticated, and less important.  I've often felt that by working more closely together and doing more things as an allied group the region would be more prosperous and have more clout.  There's been mixed success at doing this.  It's also interesting to note that the region is geographically close to the north eastern United States, which adds a different element into the mix.  

As for why I didn't focus on all of Canada... that feels too big for a single person newsletter and I worry that I would tend to gravitate to the largest centres and more general Canadian topics instead of focusing on what I know better, which in turn might be less known and potentially more interesting because of that.  I do write on topics which are more generally Canadian, like the essay I wrote talking about both how Canada uses British spellings and the differences between date formats between the US and most of the world.  But at that same time I'd like to focus more on conveying my sense of living in Atlantic Canada.

I've noticed you usually end interviews with the same question: "Pretend you wake up one morning and you learn that the Internet has been destroyed.  What's the first thing you do?" What was your thought process for making that one of your standard questions? 

I maintained a couple of blogs a decade ago, which was when I first started to ask this question during E-mail interviews.  I thought it would be an interesting question to ask, something offbeat that might make both the interviewee and reader pay close attention. But the second reason was, in a way, acknowledging how ubiquitous the Internet has become, to the point where many of us rely upon it to earn a living and it's also a social gateway because without it we'd lose a significant portion of the people that we regularly interact with. 

Have you observed any general changes with science fiction since you were first interested in it, such as certain concepts or tones going in or out of favor? Is there any key thing that could be pointed to as a difference between science fiction now as opposed to science fiction then?

SF certainly seems to be more diverse in terms of authors and viewpoints.  Dystopias, environmental and racial/social issues seem to be more prevalent, with more of a focus on near future instead of far future.  Travelling at or faster than the speed of light seems to have died with Star Trek unless there's a wormhole or jump gate involved, which makes sense based on the science we know and understand today vs. what became popular with Star Trek, Asimov, Heinlein, Doc Smith, etc.  It's sad to me that we can't collectively believe that we can traverse vast distances in our SF today but maybe it's a welcome maturity call to focus on more emotional/philosophical stories.

Do you think there's any cultural back and forth between Atlantic Canada and New England in particular? Or do you think any influence from one to the other could be chalked up to Canada and the United States in general. 

Definitely there is cultural exchange between two countries and regions although I think there may be less now and there are two key factors which have influenced this.  One is the Internet:  my part of Atlantic Canada, especially in the rural areas, would rely on the US for a lot of entertainment because the TV stations and radio stations were better on the US side than the Canadian side, plus in some cases you had to cross the border to get certain types of fast food or see a movie.  The Internet has levelled a lot of that playing field.  The second factor is COVID-19, which has cut down a lot of cross-border travel for the past 2 - 3 years.

But in border communities it's very common to have relatives on both sides of the Canada - US border so that's a factor.  US based professional sports teams remain popular, especially those based in Boston/New England.  A lot of people like to cross the border from Canada and do their shopping in parts of the US.  So I think it's still there but it's been diminished.

One thing, though:  I feel there have always been more Canadians travelling into the US for shopping and entertainment than vice versa.

Are there any features you would like to see Substack add, or are you content with the current offerings?

I'd love to see better Web analytics and maybe a few more features for managing graphics and text but it certainly meets more of my needs for you.

Who do you most want to interview?

Probably Andy Partridge (XTC), Merlin Mann and Oliver Burkeman.  Austin Kleon would probably be fun to talk to as well.  Oh heck, while we're at it, throw in Stephen King!

Pretend you wake up one morning and the Internet has been destroyed. What's the first thing you do?

Try to figure out who did it.

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Thanks again to Mark for this interview. Be sure to check out

How About This

.