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And, of course, some SF is set close enough to here and now that Anglo and European do apply. Since many of the writers come from those backgrounds, so does much of the fiction.

I'm definitely more influenced by European writers than I am by American writers, there's no doubt about that.

In some ways. I always feel between worlds, between cultures, and I think that's not necessarily a bad place for a writer to be. Writers are kind of on the fringe anyway, observing, writing things down. I'm still mostly American, but it's a nice tension.

Writers can write outside their ethnicity or sex depending how open and vulnerable they wish to be.

We all have our opinions. But I suspect that writers are actually less worth heeding, because they regard themselves as so uniquely important, so culturally sensitive.

Wherever a writer grew up, they're obviously influenced by that area, and I'm sure their characters are pulled from those experiences.

Since its beginnings, American writing has been in dialogue with other literatures.

I've done a lot of books with Asian antecedents to them - some of my fantasy novels have been that way, and certainly in the 'Battletech' universe, there's a lot of Asian culture in that.

It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghetto-ized as 'other.'