Writer Spotlight: Xauri’EL Zwaan
Welcome to the 20th installment of Writer Spotlight. I’ve returned from my sorely-needed break, and I’m so excited to read more short fiction!
This week’s focus is Xauri’EL Zwaan. I’ve reviewed 13 of Zwaan’s pieces, seven all of them individually on InkFoundry’s “Get WYSR” feed. (In case you didn’t know, InkFoundry is a wonderful and free resource that aggregates short fiction and poetry pieces!)
Recurring Themes:
Bio hacking / Genetic modification
Anarchy
Reflections on Marginalization
Transhumanism
Uploading Oneself to a Cloud
Day One - July 2
Johnson interrogates a bio-terrorist prisoner, but he gets more than he bargained for.
Renee will do anything to find out what people are saying about her. Even get a secret anomaly modification.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
Both of these stories have themes about bio hacking and are set in a futuristic, bio-punk world! They both also have deeper themes about how marginalized people are treated/looked down on. I immediately thought of the X-men comics and movies, though these stories seem more about choosing a different lifestyle, AKA, hacking it, rather than having no choice in the matter. I’m interested to read more of Zwaan’s pieces to see if and how they expound on this.
Individually:
"Virus Alert” is a cyberpunk/biopunk story with themes of anarchism, bioterrorism, and police brutality all wrapped up in a flash piece!
"Anomaly” is a coming of age story with bullies, a group of marginalized children, and beyond the themes mentioned above, also touch on trying to fit in and wanting to know what people say behind your back.
Day Two - July 3
Time travelers have one main rule: don’t cause a paradox.
4. “Normalization” | WYSR Review
The narrator fights to visit their remaining co-self in the hospital but is stymied by prejudice.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories both use a formal, intelligent voice and a first person narrator.
Individually:
“Time and Time Again” is a delightful time traveling story! I enjoyed the various time periods the narrator mentioned and especially the concept of multiple time travelers in a kind of secret society.
“Normalization” Wow. Just wow. Read my individual review on InkFoundry to get all my thoughts on this one. As for recurring themes, this story focuses on biohacking and discrimination against marginalized groups, joining the first two pieces from day one. This one also utilized the concept of a hive mind of one self, multiple bodies.
Day Three - July 4
5. “Cave Art” | WYSR Review
The guardian has an endless task after humanity left Earth.
6. “The Last Blackout” | WYSR Review
When you’re used to blackouts, it takes longer to sink in that the power is gone for good.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories seem pretty different to me.
Individually:
“Cave Art” I loved this audio piece! It has evolved beings, an ancient guardian, and a gentle, quiet tone. Biohacking might recur here as a theme, as there is mention of humanity transcending into new forms.
“The Last Blackout” is a flash with elements of the apocalypse, but in a simmering kind of way, in that people don’t realize immediately that something is wrong.
Day Four - July 5
7. “The 37th Gender” | WYSR Review
Roy makes a transphobic joke and pays the price.
A scientist observes the aliens and their horrifying practices.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories are both comedic but in very different ways.
Individually:
“The 37th Gender” a micro fiction echoing previous themes of marginalization and the other, though this one is very satisfying because of the ending.
“Life Feeds on Life” is a more lighthearted horror piece with themes on how aliens might view humans. Aliens with . . . vegetative biology. :D
Day Five - July 6
9. “For the One Who Has Everything” | WYSR Review
An unhappy wife takes things into her own hands.
10. “Tea For Two”
Anna’s visitor informs her that Earth will be destroyed and she must upload herself to the cloud.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories both continue Zwaan’s theme on bio hacking, though these two stories come at it from a different angle than previous stories did. Zwaan explores the idea of negative side effects / alternate viewpoints of bio hacking/changing the human body. In “For the One,” the narrator’s wife, Evelyn, seems upset at the narrator for how they don’t pay attention to her, and the implication to me seems to be it’s because of the changes they’ve made/upgrades, though I would hazard a guess it is more likely their personality that is rotten.
In “Tea for Two” Anna is decidedly against uploading herself and believes she would die, and comes up with a very good point about being cavalier about destroying all the animals and the ecosystem of Earth. But in the end she does seem to come around a bit to the idea about uploading or at least believing that uploaded people have souls/agency.
Individually:
“For the One Who Has Everything” This story also includes a theme on unhappy relationships/unhappy wife, as well as an unlikeable main character, which reminded me of Johnson in “Virus Alert.”
“Tea for Two” This one made me tear up a bit. I really liked Anna’s character and her stubbornness but also that she was willing to change towards the end once someone gave her evidence against her beliefs. She kind of reminded me of the narrator in “Cave Art” in how she almost seemed to be a caretaker of Earth after everyone else left. Everyone leaving Earth is another theme, actually, in Zwaan’s work!
Day Six - July 7
11. “Conversion”
Alfred opts in to a neuroconversion surgery.
Cale doesn’t know what he wants until he finds Opportunity Knocks.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories are both sci-fi dystopias.
Individually:
“Conversion” This story explores the difficult and heartbreaking theme of denying your own identity, specifically that of a trans woman. It reminded me of “37th Gender” specifically because of the focus on trans identity, but it also echoes Zwaan’s previous works reflecting on overall marginalization / oppression of the other.
“Opportunity Knocks” This story follows Cale, someone who has trouble finding the purpose in his life. I liked that this story had Cale find that purpose in something more mundane and seemingly “low,” in salvaging scrap.
Day Seven - July 8
John Adam is trapped as a digital corporate slave and organizes a union to escape.
“All Rights Reserved” Loved this story! This one touched more on the negative effects of uploading to a cloud - exploring more of the dystopian corporatocracy likely inherent in such a future. It gave me the shudders. Working as a digital copy of myself for the privilege of sensing anything??? Ughhhhh terrifying and too realistic as something Musk would absolutely try to pull off. There was also a kind of hacking in this one, but more neuro-hacking than bio-hacking, I guess? :) And YAY UNIONS!!!
Zwaan does a great job in exploring the varying facets and ramifications of modifying one’s body versus one’s mind.
Emmie’s Personal Favorite: Normalization
Summary!
If I were to summarize Zwaan's style in one sentence, I would say they focus on themes of marginalization against the other, bio-hacking, and neuro-modification, exploring the benefits and drawbacks of technology to achieve transhumanism.
Interview Questions
What are the themes you tend to return to the most in your work overall? Why do think that is?
Zwaan: I tend to come back a lot to the interactions of technology with gender, aging, disabilities, and other aspects of identity that are bound up in the body. My cyberpunk and transhumanist roots speaking, I guess. Vanguardist revolutionaries are something that’s coming up a lot in my more recent work, for fairly obvious reasons. I’ve also noticed I have a certain fondness for unlikable or problematic viewpoint characters. I don’t know why I like the villain’s perspective so much; it just feels right for a lot of my shorter work.
2. What is one of the characters in your short stories/flash pieces that you relate to the most, and why?
Zwaan: Out of the pieces available for free, the narrator in “Normalization” is probably the one closest to my heart. They were born of grief and rage at the way society treats those that don’t measure up to its standard. They’re a remnant of a part of my life that was very painful, but also filled with the vitality of youth, a part that I sometimes struggle now to even remember.
3. How Has Your Writing Evolved Since You Began?
Zwaan: I’ve reined in a lot of the more florid language that marks my earlier work, for good or ill I’m not quite sure. I’ve been trying to pay more attention to description and sensory detail, especially taste and smell. I’m also writing fewer pieces in classic short-story range; everything I’m working on nowadays seems to be either longer than I’d really like or super short.
4. Do you tend to start writing a story idea out of a particular element, like character, setting, or point of view?
Zwaan: Most of my stories start with something like a log line, a basic premise of who and what it’s going to be about. After that, titles are extremely important. Almost nothing gets words on the page until I find the right title, and I very rarely change titles later in the process. Every once in a while I get a piece of imagery or language stuck in my head, usually from a dream, that serves as the seed core around which the rest of the work grows.
5. What short fiction author do you look up to? Why?
Zwaan: In terms of short fiction, Stephen King is probably the one that’s influenced me the most. Nobody can set up a premise and execute on it immediately better than him. I haven’t been reading nearly enough new short fiction; I need to remedy that!
6. Do you have any piece, listed here or otherwise, that you would like to promote?
Zwaan: My most recent publication, “Conversion”, is releasing in the anthology Trans/Port on July 1st, so I would love it if you could direct some attention their way. The link to the draft2digital page is here: Draft2Digital | Trans/Port: Trans Speculative Fiction for a Queer Future | Book by Dan Michael Fielding