On November 26 & 27 we’re hosting our second-ever AugurCon, our virtual celebration of speculative literatures! We’re joined by over 45 amazing guests, including authors, poets, editors, and publishing professionals, to explore the intersections of the world we know—and the ones we dare to imagine.

We connected with prolific writer and artist Millie Ho, creator of the webcomic sorrowbacon, who is a panelist at this year’s AugurCon.

Get your ticket to attend her panel:

Speaker, Voice, Persona: Exploring Speculative Poetry
Sunday, November 27 at 3–4:00 PM EST / 12–1:00 PM PST

To see the full weekend program schedule, visit our website.

You’re on our panel exploring speculative poetry. As a multimodal writer and illustrator with published stories, poems, comics, and essays, we’d love if you could tell us a bit about your writing process. Does it vary depending on what sort of writing you’re doing? What are some of the challenges and joys involved in switching between creative modes?

Working across mediums allows me to examine a concept from different angles and to share what I find interesting in a form best suited for it. Since I work in this investigative way, I create an outline for longer works to structure the chaos. The outline is loose and I will happily tear things out if something becomes clearer to me while drafting. For shorter works like a poem or comic strip, anything goes. I usually start with a strong visual and then fix things as I go along.

It’s infinitely easier to draw than to write. I can quickly forget myself when I make art but writing often feels like I’m stumbling around in the dark, occasionally knocking into furniture and the like. But nothing beats the joy of eventually discovering the shape of a story or knowing, with certainty, why something affected me so much that I had to write it.

Do you have a favourite spec fic genre to read? To play in as a writer? If these genres are different, do they interact with each other? If so, how?

I’ll read anything, but I do love horror, cyberpunk, and anything with speculative elements set in the real world. They’re fun to write and give me the best opportunity to deconstruct our relationships with ourselves and the external structures we live in.

Horror, for example, allows outsiders to see themselves as the main characters. I love monsters, the traditional and invented, the monsters on the outside and those within. It’s a versatile genre where anything can happen. Cyberpunk blends my love of detective fiction with sci-fi futures we may or may not want to live in if certain trends or ideas are taken to their logical conclusions. Like horror, there’s a darkness in the genre that I find appealing—not just visually with all that rain and neon, but a kind of psychological heaviness as characters grapple with their choices, identities, and the external forces at play.

But I don’t think too much about genre when I’m writing. I usually let the characters tell me the story and construct the world around that.

At Augur, we talk a lot about “stories for the futures we need.” What does doing this hopeful work mean to you? Is there a moment when you felt most proud as a storyteller, taking this sort of eye to hopeful futures?

I think it means we continue to tell stories we would have loved to have read when we were kids and remain open to sharing parts of ourselves that might be difficult, if not impossible, to express any other way.

My proudest moment as a storyteller came when I realized I didn’t need to ask for permission to write the stories I personally enjoy or feel I have to tell. After all, if I’ve ever felt or thought something, chances are good that someone else has, too. The future is hopeful if I continue to trust my instincts, preferences, and ability to tell stories that allow more people to see themselves in fiction.

Who do you think is absolutely KILLING it right now in Canadian speculative fiction—novelist, magazine, playwright? What was the last work you reached for when you needed an inspirational nudge?

Augur Magazine is doing an awesome job of promoting Canadian speculative fiction and building an inclusive space for creators around the world.

For Canadian writers, there’s Senaa Ahmad, whose work I first read in Augur. I love her precise descriptions and the way she blends reality with the fantastic. My favourite short story by her is “Let’s Play Dead,” which is strange, brutal, and beautiful. Yilin Wang is another writer I admire. Her body of work—from poetry to fiction to translations—makes me feel closer to my cultural roots and I always look forward to her upcoming projects. I’m also a fan of Phoebe Barton, whose stories refreshed my interest in hard science fiction and taught me a lot about space. Her short story “The Mathematics of Fairyland” recently won an Aurora Award.

The last work to inspire me was actually a film: Jordan Peele’s Nope. I thought it was a stunning example of what’s possible in the realm of science fiction horror. It’s a cinematic experience I’ll want to relive again.

When you think about your career so far, what’s one of the moments that keeps you going—a career highlight, a beautiful moment, an inspiring mentor, or something you’re just incredibly proud of? How has that stayed with you through your career?

The highlights are whenever I receive messages from readers about how they connected with something I wrote.

An example is my short story “The Fenghuang,” which was first published in Lightspeed Magazine and about a young woman in Hong Kong who habitually burns to death and then comes back to life. Readers told me they related to the main character and saw themselves in her journey. Another example is the feedback I received for my poem “Hungry Ghost,” which was first published in Uncanny Magazine and nominated for the Ignyte and Rhysling Awards, and about an English teacher in Seoul whose girlfriend comes back as a hungry ghost.

I’m grateful to receive these messages because they remind me of one of the best parts about being a writer: the ability to bridge the gap between your mind and the reader’s. It makes everything worthwhile.

Hear more from Millie: Get your ticket to AugurCon 2022

Millie Ho is a writer and artist. Her short stories and poems appear in Lightspeed Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Augur Magazine, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. Her work was a finalist for the Ignyte and Rhysling Awards. She draws the webcomic sorrowbacon.

Join Millie at AugurCon! Our panel on Speaker, Voice, Persona: Exploring Speculative Poetry takes place on Sunday, November 27. Get your ticket to AugurCon 2022 now!