Marc Sirkin is from a faraway, and yet not so distant land called “Corporate,” and has spent the past two decades trying to figure out how to avoid shaving, traffic, and meetings. Two out of three ain’t bad! He’s recently completed a short play, a YA/sci-fi novel, a personal memoir, and several short stories. Marc attended Florida State University and the Art Institute of Atlanta, and when not in meetings, he’s watching or reading things that feature flaming swords, kung-fu fighting, or characters in tight spandex costumes.
3-Question Interview with Marc Sirkin
about his short story "Annabelle"
published in
Imagining Monsters: A Collection of Short Stories Inspired by Frankenstein
"Annabelle" - When a man loses his daughter in a car accident, he creates a robot
version of her to reunite his broken family. Although she resembles his daughter,
the robot unfortunately has its own agenda.
Aside from Frankenstein, where did you draw inspiration for your story?
I'm a huge fan of anything related to the Singularity, that moment when the machines suddenly become more intelligent than humans. It's been a hot topic for a while now in the sci-fi world, and my two favorites movies are The Matrix and Ex Machina. I took direct inspiration for "Annabelle" after re-watching and re-reading the original Frankenstein.
All the proceeds from Imagining Monsters anthology sales are going to the WestportWRITES program at the Westport Library, which is a true haven for local writers in Fairfield County, Connecticut. As a writer, where is your haven - where do you write, and what do you need to help you write?
I don't have much time to write, so I've adopted the mentality that I don't need a haven - that anywhere I am with a pen and paper, my laptop or my phone is good enough. My biggest issue is remembering where all my ideas have been stored; Evernote, Notes app, Scrivener, or in my trusty paper notebooks.
What's next on the horizon for you?
I trying to edit a memoir about my time during the first dot com boom. It's been really fun to try to remember all the crazy things that were happening from 1994 when I got my first job on the Internet and the crash in 2001. I've also drafted a 55,000+ word YA-Science Fiction novel which was really fun, but really, really hard. I'm still deciding how serious I am about getting them both published. My fantasy is to write a screenplay, that the form and format I'm most excited to try and experiment with next.
I'm a huge fan of anything related to the Singularity, that moment when the machines suddenly become more intelligent than humans. It's been a hot topic for a while now in the sci-fi world, and my two favorites movies are The Matrix and Ex Machina. I took direct inspiration for "Annabelle" after re-watching and re-reading the original Frankenstein.
All the proceeds from Imagining Monsters anthology sales are going to the WestportWRITES program at the Westport Library, which is a true haven for local writers in Fairfield County, Connecticut. As a writer, where is your haven - where do you write, and what do you need to help you write?
I don't have much time to write, so I've adopted the mentality that I don't need a haven - that anywhere I am with a pen and paper, my laptop or my phone is good enough. My biggest issue is remembering where all my ideas have been stored; Evernote, Notes app, Scrivener, or in my trusty paper notebooks.
What's next on the horizon for you?
I trying to edit a memoir about my time during the first dot com boom. It's been really fun to try to remember all the crazy things that were happening from 1994 when I got my first job on the Internet and the crash in 2001. I've also drafted a 55,000+ word YA-Science Fiction novel which was really fun, but really, really hard. I'm still deciding how serious I am about getting them both published. My fantasy is to write a screenplay, that the form and format I'm most excited to try and experiment with next.