By Chantalé Fletcher
TRINIDADIAN Science Fiction author RSA Garcia is up for two prestige international awards.
Garcia, 45, of Barataria, has been nominated for the 2022 Ignyte Awards for best novella and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short story in English both with Philia, Eros, Storge, Agape, Pragma.
Filled with excitement, Garcia told AZP News recently the Sturgeon award was so selective, that no one has won it twice.
She said, “So being nominated for it is to have your name included with some of the greatest names in science fiction and I am particularly honoured to be a finalist this year alongside the same woman who deeply inspired me – author Nalo Hopkinson.”
The recipient of the Sturgeon award will receive a cash prize and award at the University of Kansas in the United States at the first annual Sturgeon Symposium in September while the Ignyte award would be announced on September 17 via FIYAH’s social media pages.
In case you’re wondering, the Ignyte award was established by FIYAH Literary Magazine to support speculative fiction, while the Sturgeon Award was established by James Gunn in 1987, the Founding Director of the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas, and the heirs of Theodore Sturgeon.
Garcia said the novella was very dear to her as it was the most Trini thing she’d ever written in a series of novellas that was specifically about a Trini/West Indian futureverse.
For both awards, she would be up against big names in Science Fiction like Nalo Hopkinson, Ray Nayler, Tiffany D Jackson and many others.
Who is RSA Garcia?
A speculative fiction author for more than 20 years, Garcia has held many roles in the fields of security to engineering as an administrative professional.
Louisa May Alcott inspired her to become an author and at eight years old she began writing and completed her first book at ten.
Her debut novel, Lex Talionis began at age 14 and came out in 2014 and later became an Amazon bestseller in 2020 and 2021 thanks to her publisher’s marketing campaign.
Garcia added Lex Talionis outsold big names like Frank Herbert’s Dune, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series, and the Expanse series.
She said, “My book was number one in the science fiction and science fiction adventure in the US, UK, Australia and Canada and climbed as high as number 72 in the US Amazon Bookstore and the top three in the bookstores in the other three territories.”
Battling Cancer
Garcia opened up to AZP News about her battle with breast cancer but has no intention to be drowned in sorrow over it.
She said an unusual lump in the breast led to several examinations which later resulted in a full diagnosis that she had the BRAC2 gene Breast Cancer in December 2021.
She added that not having health insurance led her to the public health system in which the doctors were very thorough.
Garcia said the cancer was detected in the early stages and doctors did a mastectomy instead of a lumpectomy which private doctors had opted to perform.
She said there was no fear of not having breasts but the fear of not living. Now she continually has eight chemotherapy fusions every three weeks and hoped to have a second mastectomy soon to prevent any reoccurrence.
“My diagnosis has been a revelation to which I saw how many persons actually cared for me,” Garcia added.
She added that her friends abroad had even raised money to assist her with daily operations while friends and family in Trinidad stood by her side.
The beginning
Asked what sparked her interest in the Science Fiction\Fantasy genre, Garcia said reading and her love for myths, legends and folktales. She became obsessed with Dr Who and Star Trek.
She termed her sister as a “champion” now having to be dependent upon her after her diagnosis.
Garcia also credited her sister for being her first beta reader and editor, friends made along the way, and her now late grandmother and mother as her support system.
She said, “I want to tell stories and have people read them, to give them a world to escape into the way books gave me a world to go to all my life.”
Publishing
Inspiration for her pieces came from blending her culture with thoughts on future worlds and technological and social science breakthroughs that interest me.
However, Garcia said the publication process is a combination of learning about the SFF (Science Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction) as well as the online writing workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror (OWW) – a reliable source to find agents, techniques for manuscript submission, knowing to identify helpful critique from non-helpful, etc was her biggest practical help.
Challenges
Garcia noted her biggest challenge was to access information on how to attract persons to purchase and publish her work.
“Self-publishing was too expensive for me. I was taking care of my sister, a sick mom and elderly grandparents. My salary was barely enough to cover the household. I had to find a way to get real feedback that improved my work, but also information on how to properly get my work in front of agents and publishers,” she explained.
In a message to all Trinbagoninans who aspire to become authors, she said, “Trinis are writing from historical romance, paranormal fantasy, you name it, we are doing it. Any genre you look at, we are already there, performing at the highest levels.”
Garcia also thanked the team behind the Bocas Lit Fest for exposing many Trinobagoinas and Caribbean authors and their work.
She said, “You don’t have to leave Trinidad or have a lot of money to build a career or sell your work to the biggest SciFi markets. People like Shari Paul, Brandon O’Brien and even the diaspora, like Suzan Palumbo, are making a name for themselves in the field.”
When asked where she saw herself in the future, Garcia said, “I want to be healthy, healed, and in my home office working furiously to meet the deadline for the final novel in my series.”
Lex Talionis can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads and other online retailers.
Lex Talionis was brilliant. If Dune was made into a movie, why has Hollywood not picked up on a bigger seller??? And they definitely need new stuff.
Congrats RSA Garcia and looking forward to more of your work. Stay strong.