Colson Whitehead ILU

I was an incredibly strange creature the year I wrote my first novel, "The Intuitionist." ... I'd tried to sell a novel before, one with a similarly ludicrous-sounding premise, and had got dumped by my high-powered agent. Now here I was doing it again. Like an imbecile. But I had no choice. I kept working, and if that meant departing from the realm of normal people to enter the psychotronic, so be it. How far is "I'm writing a book about two warring groups of elevator inspectors" from "I'm going to make the first monster musical?" ... It depends what row you're sitting in.

This week's New Yorker seems to be a special sci-fi issue -- yes, "sci-fi" rather than science fiction -- with little essays by Ray Bradbury and Margaret Atwood (still very much being Margaret Atwood, sadly) and Ursula K. LeGuin (very much being Ursula LeGuin, more happily.)