Christy Climenhage: Reading habits, writing process, the appeal of Canadian speculative fiction

Christy Climenhage is the author of The Midnight Project (Wolsak & Wynn, 2025). A full member of the SFWA and CSFFA, Christy holds a collection of graduate degrees (PhD and two Masters) in International Political Economy, European Administration, and Social Sciences from an alternate life as a social scientist, academic, and diplomat. She is a fan of Canadian speculative fiction.

Author Christy Climenhage

Reading preferences and discovering Canadian Speculative Fiction

On Creative Writing: What authors/types of books do you like to read? 

Christy Climenhage: I read anything and everything and usually have at least three books on the go: one non-fiction, one literary and one before-bed comfort read. 

I particularly love speculative fiction: give me the head scratcher, the weird literary, the borderline horrific. Give me the character-driven romantasy, or the comforting queer-normative space opera, the edgy near-future dystopia or alternative history. I cut my teeth on the genius of William Gibson, Julie E. Czerneda and Guy Gavriel Kay and am thrilled with the quality of Canadian spec-fic these days. I find Canadian spec-fic authors are really excelling in novellas now. Premee Mohamed’s The Butcher of the Forest, Suzan Palumbo’s Countess, A.D. Sui’s The Dragonfly Gambit, these are terrific, they’re all great. 

On Creative Writing: Can you trace any common themes across your writing?

Christy Climenhage: At its core, my writing centers on relationships and community-building. I’m fascinated by how people and society react when faced with existential threats like ecological collapse. Beyond this, I love to push the boundaries of our current technology, political economy and society to see what squirts out. My sci-fi thriller, The Midnight Project, explores the dangers of late-stage capitalism and the commodification of science.   

On Creative Writing: Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Christy Climenhage: I am definitely a pantser for my first draft—I start knowing the characters, the beginning and (usually) the ending and work out from there. 

After the first draft is down (I’m an underwriter so there’s usually a lot missing), I reverse outline the whole thing and work on making the plot and pacing flow together. This second part of the process is so painful to me that I resolve every time to work harder on my initial outline and embrace a more plot-forward approach. 

I aspire to one day be a reformed pantser, but for now, I take joy in discovering plot twists at the same time as my characters as I’m typing. It’s one of my favourite things about my process, if I’m being honest. There’s a delight in discovering the story at the same time as your characters, especially if something surprises you both at once. I wouldn’t want to give that up.

Exploring themes of relationships, community, and technological boundaries

On Creative Writing: Do you edit as you write or write, then edit?

Christy Climenhage: For the first draft, I write in order as much as possible and then go back if I’m stuck or if something is not working. I edit a bit if I’m rereading but try not to re-draft during this first pass and just get the words down. I have several rounds of editing later but find it works best if I approach the story in order.

On Creative Writing: Do you edit as you write, or write and edit later?

Christy Climenhage: The most important adage for me is “What gets scheduled gets done.” The thing that propelled my writing forward was figuring out when to do it and not just waiting to be inspired or have a good idea. 

The piece of advice I would give writers just starting out is: “Be clear about your goals.” Getting published is a different goal than completing a writing project. Sometimes you have to focus on the writing before you get too into the publishing part of the equation because it can be counter-productive. If you’re half-way through your novel and stressing about which agent might like it or whether the market is moving away from your genre, you may find this gets in the way of your writing, and your enjoyment of your own project. 

Finally, “Be attentive to what brings you joy and what keeps you writing. Nurture that.” This might be the writing process itself, or your writing community, or making mood boards and playlists, whatever works for you!