Once described as a “rural fabulist,” science fiction and fantasy writer Christopher Rowe is having a bit of a "renaissance" lately.
Rowe takes up a somewhat unique role in the science fiction world — he doesn’t write so much about space exploration or urban life. He often imagines the future (dystopian or otherwise) in rural settings.
“The future happens everywhere. The future does not happen exclusively in outer space. The future sure as hell does not happen exclusively in Los Angeles, in New York City,” Rowe said. “We live in the same time as everyone else in the world. We have as much talent, we have as much verve, we have as much we have as much to say.”
After a publishing hiatus, the Hugo and Nebula Award-nominated author came out with a short story collection in 2017 and more recently with two novellas.
His latest novella, “The Navigating Fox,” is set in a world when some animals have gained intelligence and the ability to speak. Published in 2022, “These Prisoning Hills” is a post-apocalyptic novella set in Appalachia as a sequel to one of Rowe’s most well-known short stories, “The Voluntary State,” in which a band of Kentucky resistance fighters try to free the citizens of the state of Tennessee from a coercive, tyrannical artificial intelligence.
A few weeks ago, Rowe moved back to Adair County, where he grew up. He’s working on his next book, which he hopes will come out next year.
As Rowe walked through Columbia in south central Kentucky, a short drive away from his family’s farm, he pointed to some of the things that reminded him of his childhood -- like the home where the parents of author Samuel Clemens, known as Mark Twain, supposedly lived at one time.
“I can say I played dungeons and dragons in the room where Mark Twain's parents were [married],” Rowe said.
Strolling through the town square, he recalled afternoons spent stocking up on books at the library and comic shops.
“I developed a great facility. I knew all the sidewalks so intimately that I could read a book and step over the cracks and the places where they were heaved up and so on,” Rowe said.
Rowe chose to move back home after living in Lexington to be closer to family and his hometown community. In some of his early works, he manufactured a fake Kentucky county to set his stories in, not far from where he grew up.
He often travels out of the state for book readings or literary conventions. He said he proudly talks about where he’s from.
“I remember introducing myself at this [New York City] reading series,” Rowe said. “I said, ‘My name is Christopher Rowe, and I really do talk this way.’”
In many of Rowe’s short stories, the idea of home and homecoming are central. He mentioned a book by early 20th century author Thomas Wolfe called “You Can’t Go Home Again.”
“Thomas Wolfe was wrong. Not only can you go home again, you can't ever leave,” Rowe said. “If you search yourself, you will acknowledge that where you are from is part of who you are, part of what you are, and you can't leave that. And for some people, that's not a good thing. There are people from terrible places. I'm from a wonderful place.”
Rowe often explores his own hometown — he said he’s been a local history buff since birth. He also has a few projects to explore all of Kentucky’s 120 counties. Kentucky is the state with the fourth most counties, beaten only by states with significantly larger populations. But Rowe said he believes that’s “exactly the right number.”
Rowe is convinced that every Kentucky county has something strange, unique and “delightful” about it. He mentioned the zero-mile marker in Lexington, which is commemorated by a small statue of a man riding a camel.
“It is so strange and bizarre and wonderful, and there are things like that in every county,” Rowe said. “Seek that stuff out.”
Rowe said he’s been to every county at least once, but he’s set himself a goal to ride his bike from each county’s town seat to their point of highest elevation. It’s ongoing, but he’s hit a snag or two.
“You get those places where the roads are a little bit washed out, and some coal truck comes around in the corner at 70 miles an hour, and you're on a five pound bicycle wearing lycra,” Rowe said.
More in line with his writing career, Rowe also has a goal to write a short story set in every single county. He calls it The Uncommonwealth Project.
“I have been writing quite short stories, just like 1000 words or so about each of Kentucky's counties. I wrote one about Bourbon County that people really like, called Bourbon Queens.”
He says sometimes other writers and friends don’t understand why he would move back. But for Rowe, the people and places that make up his hometown serve as inspiration for fantastical works of science fiction and fantasy.
