American author (1979- )
An ending means there is order in the universe, there is a purpose to events. There is a reason to do things, an answer to be found, a solution key at the back of the book that maps to the problems posed. Find one ending, a real ending, and the universe is redeemed, ransomed from death--but death can never be that ending. It is a cheat, a quick shock, but no story truly ends with death. A death only begs more questions, more tales.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
Secrets seem so important until there's no one left to spill them to.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
A war story is a black space. On the one side is before and on the other side is after, and what is inside belongs only to the dead.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Deathless
I have no interest in writing a book about my abusive childhood or my awful marriage, stripped of the folklore and myth through which I saw those things even while they were happening. For me, those images are part of what happened, and part of what makes personal experience into stories that can touch others. It's more interesting to walk between the real world and the constructed world--and more, I don't really think there's much of a difference. Fiction is always fiction. It might as well have manticores in it as divorces.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
interview, Rain Taxi, November 21, 2013
And of course in stories there is always fate. It goes by the name of foreshadowing and it is the emperor of everybody.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
Splendid things are often frightening. Sometimes, it's the fright that makes them splendid at all.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making