The February 26 Final Thursday Reading Series features Jim O’Loughlin, who will be reading “Extension Cords,” standalone short stories set in the world of O’Loughlin’s science fiction novel, The Cord, a Midwest Book Award finalist. In-person attendees will receive a free Extension Cord publication, as supplies last. O’Loughlin is the founder of the Final Thursday Reading Series, which is now celebrating its 25th season. He also is an Associate Dean in the UNI College of Humanities, Arts, and Sciences.
The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). The featured reading starts at 7:30, and it will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click to register for a link.
Interview by Faith Okon.
FAITH OKON: Your novel, The Cord, starts closer to the chronological end and then moves backward to reveal the story’s details. What inspired you to use a non-linear narrative structure, and how do you think it affects the reader's experience of the characters and themes?
JIM O’LOUGHLIN: I was drawn to the structure of a reverse narrative because I feel it mirrors how we learn about the past, and how that knowledge informs our understanding of the present. As much as The Cord is a science fiction novel (set on either end of a future space elevator), it is also an intergenerational novel where characters have a past and a family history that impacts their lives. In the abstract, it can sound confusing, but I was really glad that many readers of The Cord found the reverse narrative to be a distinctive part of the book.
JIM O’LOUGHLIN: I was drawn to the structure of a reverse narrative because I feel it mirrors how we learn about the past, and how that knowledge informs our understanding of the present. As much as The Cord is a science fiction novel (set on either end of a future space elevator), it is also an intergenerational novel where characters have a past and a family history that impacts their lives. In the abstract, it can sound confusing, but I was really glad that many readers of The Cord found the reverse narrative to be a distinctive part of the book.
FO: The story moves through time in a way that keeps the reader piecing things together. Was there a challenge in writing the story like this, and what did you hope the non-linear timeline would bring to the plot?
JO: There were many challenges! I had to have a general sense of the whole narrative before I started writing, and I kept careful notes about details I needed to include later in the book based on what happened at the beginning. I also scribbled down a sprawling “family tree” to make sure I didn’t lose track of anyone (a version of that appears as a preface to the published version of The Cord). When it works (and I hope it does!), it has the effect of deepening your understanding about what you’ve already read.
JO: There were many challenges! I had to have a general sense of the whole narrative before I started writing, and I kept careful notes about details I needed to include later in the book based on what happened at the beginning. I also scribbled down a sprawling “family tree” to make sure I didn’t lose track of anyone (a version of that appears as a preface to the published version of The Cord). When it works (and I hope it does!), it has the effect of deepening your understanding about what you’ve already read.
FO: How do you think the idea of the space elevator impacts the characters’ sense of place and purpose? Is it just a means of transportation, or does it symbolize something larger for them?
JO: That’s a great question, but it doesn’t have an easy answer. The space elevator, and the capacity it brings for a kind of permanent colony orbiting the Earth, means different things to different characters because it can be used for many purposes—space exploration, energy generation, tourism, astronomy, military advantage. The novel shows the project’s early stages, what happens after an authoritarian takeover, and how a collectivist alternative emerges. Now that you’ve pushed me on the issue, I realize that it was important that the cord and the space station did not have an inherent meaning but could be made to mean many different things depending on how people used them. I think that is generally how I feel about new technologies, which can have great potential and can also be enshitified (to use the word of the moment).
FO: What are the “Extension Cords” that you will be reading at FTRS, and how do they relate to The Cord?
JO: The nature of a book like The Cord, with many narrators whose stories interlink with one another, is that there are always other stories that could have been told. Some of those stories are hinted at in the book, and some have come into my head since the book has been published. For example, without giving too much away, I can say that The Cord was written and published before the public release of generative Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT. Since that time, our sense of what kinds of AI and future robots are possible has really been transformed, and that’s one issue I’ve continued to explore as a writer of science fiction.
Eventually, I hope to bring out an expanded edition of The Cord, but for now I’ve figured out a unique and thematically appropriate way to present the Extension Cords, and if you show up on February 26, you’ll get to take one home with you. How’s that for a teaser?
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