M.M. Buckner, has a B.A. in English Literature from Memphis State University, studied writing at Harvard University and also earned an M.A. in Creative Writing at Boston University. She has traveled through Europe, New Zealand and North America, lived in California, Alaska, Maine and Massachusetts, and now resides in Nashville, Tennessee. After a decade as marketing Vice President for a nationwide financial firm, she is currently a freelance writer, environmental activist, and ardent whitewater kayaker. Her publishing credits include magazine features, marketing materials, and content for numerous web sites. She recently authored a major research report for the World Wildlife Fund. What has given MM. Buckner the best profesional credits in her multifacetic and proliphic life is "Hyperthought" her first science-fiction novel which is full of allegories to show a possible dark future that could become a reality.

"Hyperthought" has received the best coments and reviews. It is a brilliant, exciting and breathtaking science-fiction novel.

It was a pleasure to interview M.M. Buckner.

Interview by Marisa Darnel

ARTIST INTERVIEWS : Your first science fiction novel is outstanding. What inspired you to write about the mysteries of the human mind?

M.M. Buckner: In life sciences, the human brain is one of the most fascinating frontiers of exploration. Recently, researchers have made intriguing discoveries, yet so much remains unknown. Our brains empower us to perceive, analyze, remember, make choices, create new concepts, and execute actions – but how? We can’t even define consciousness. Our brains are intimately bound with our “selves,” our most personal inner natures – a subject that has enthralled us since the dawn of time. Do we have immortal souls? The study of the brain unites science, philosophy and mystery – for a writer, an irresistible combination.

A.I.: In “Hyperthought” you describe the planet Earth as being almost destroyed by pollution and weather changes to the point of being impossible to live on its surface. We also know that you are an environmental activist. How do you think the human race could help to heal ecology?

M.M.B.: Many technologies exist to restore our environment and prevent further degradation. All we need is the will to use them. Unfortunately, many available solutions are not used because they affect our comfortable life-style. I’m no different from anyone else. I use reams of paper to print my novels. I crank up the air conditioning in summer. I relish the freedom of driving my own car wherever I want to go. Taking the long view is difficult when it means immediate personal sacrifice. When most of the worst effects of environmental damage are decades away, it’s easy to bury our heads in the sand.

I’ve talked to some intelligent people who still deny the scientific evidence that our ozone layer has been depleted and that greenhouse gases are already building in our atmosphere. Some day in the future, our descendants may pass a harsh judgment on us, and I’m not sure they’ll be wrong. On the other hand, humans are as natural a part of the environment as any other species. We’re neither better nor worse. The mixed advances and destruction our human activities bring will certainly change our planet, but so will earthquakes and supernovae and the final extinction of the sun. Perhaps everything we’re doing is inevitable. Perhaps we’re following the natural way.

A.I.: Can you share with us some interesting experiences of your travels?

M.M.B.: Travel is the best kind of education. Living in the world’s only super-power, we easily fall into traps of provincialism. When I see how people with other cultures have arranged their lives and created works of startling beauty, I am humbled. Every journey has its own memories. Once in Paris, I was walking along a busy urban sidewalk and happened upon the ruins of an ancient Roman building. One night I lay on a sandbar listening to the music of the Colorado River, and watching the full moon rise over the Grand Canyon walls. Once in Austria, I visited a castle with a torture chamber and saw a wheel that was used to crush a man’s bones. Once I flew through a thunder storm in southern New Zealand, and our small plane fluttered so low, I could see moss growing on the bark of the trees.

A.I.: After such a success with “Hyperthought”, will you continue to write science-fiction?

M.M.B.:Penguin Putnam/Ace will bring out my next two science fiction novels in 2004 and 2005. Both are still in the works, and I can’t tell you the titles yet. They are all stand-alone novels, but all are set in a near-future Earth that’s been changed by global warming.

A.I.: What are your favorite writers?

M.M.B.: Where do I start? So many fine writers have given me hours of pleasure in so many different ways. Here are a few in no particular order: Cervantes, Shakespeare, Milton, Walter Scott, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Eliot, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Goethe, H.G.Wells, Poe, Balzac, Stendhal, Dumas, Herman Melville, Franz Kafka, Henry James, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Faulkner, Edith Wharton, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Flannery O’Connor, Graham Greene, all of the Latin Magic Realist writers, notably Fuentes, Cortazar and Borges, also Anthony Powell, Willa Cather, Norman Mailer, Peter Matthiessen, Thomas Pynchon, John Le Carre, Elmore Leonard, Toni Morrison, Robert Stone, Carson McCullers, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Stirling, C.J.Cherryh. Naturally, I’ve left out many of the best.

A.I.: What kind of music do you enjoy the most?

M.M.B.: I’m not an expert in music. I enjoy listening to jazz and classical works, also ethnic music from just about anywhere. Any kind of music can be beautiful, from country/western to rap. I respond to the artist, not the category.

A.I.: What are your future plans?

M.M.B.: My plans are to continue reading and writing, to learn more about the craft of fiction, to learn more about the amazing discoveries scientists are making about the nature of our “multiverse,” to travel whenever possible, to savor every moment of life and to have adventures.

A.I.: What's a day in the life of MM.Buckner like?

M.M.B.: Most days, I’m sitting right here in front of my computer, watching words appear on the screen. You see why travel means so much to me!

A.I.: Thank you very much!

M.M.B.: Thank you, Marisa.

You Can Visit M.M. Buckner's Official Site at: http://www.mmbuckner.com