Bellevue Author Melds Science Fiction and Real World Technology Job

Brenda Cooper straddles two worlds with ease.

One world is her fiction. Cooper is a science fiction novelist and short story writer, whose work includes collaboration with popular science fiction writer Larry Niven.

Another world is her day job as Information Technology Manager for the city of Kirkland.

Cooper says that her work in IT provides a balance to her writing and that her work in technology informs her fiction.

“They all interact well,” Cooper says. “My stories are often about some new technology.”

In fact, she says, many of her techie coworkers are also very creative, providing a left-brain/right-brain balance for themselves.

Cooper’s fifth novel, "Mayan December," has recently been published by Prime Books. According to the book description, "Mayan December" is about an archeoastronomer specializing in Mayan culture who gets tangled in a plot involving the end of the world, political machinations and finding her daughter who is trapped in the past. The novel includes more of a fantasy element than her previous novels and involves the past as much as the future.

“The others are more ‘rocket-ship’ adventures,” the affable Cooper says.

In addition to her novels, Cooper also has written and published between 30 and 40 science fiction stories in well-known science fiction magazines and anthologies over the last 10 years, she says.

Her first novel, "Building Harlequin’s Moon," was co-authored with Niven in 2003. The novel's plot involves the struggle between colonists from Earth and the subclass of humans and artificial intelligences created by the colonists to exploit their labor.

Though Cooper had always been interested in writing, when she was a college student in California, where she grew up, an English major was not an option, she says.

“When it came time to pay for college, my dad said, ‘You have to pick something for which you will get paid,’ and he wasn’t going to pay for an English degree,” she says. She studied information technology, and has had a successful career. She says her career in information technology suits her natural curiosity well.

“I like IT because it’s always changing,” she says, though at this point in her career her work is somewhat more conceptual.

After a move from the busy California pace she moved to Longview in Southwestern Washington -- a move Cooper now calls a bit of an “over-correction.”

As her son got older, she thought more about writing again. Like many writers, Cooper was frustrated that she couldn’t find time to write with her busy schedule, and yet, “I did find time to fill journals full of angst” about how she didn’t have time to write, she says.

What sets Cooper apart from many other frustrated writers, however, was that she decided to do something about it. She began taking writing courses at Lower Columbia College in Longview, discovering along the way that if she simply devoted some time each day to writing, that practice made her a productive writer.

“It’s mostly discipline,” she says. “As long as you write a page a day, you can write a novel in a year.”

Cooper says she was drawn to the science fiction and speculative fiction genres because she is very interested in how the future will be shaped.

“Science fiction talks a lot about the future—I think that’s the most important conversation we can have right now,” providing an avenue to explore the potential positive and negative effects of new technology and other issues we face, such as climate change and “how do we deal with that,” she says.

Ten years ago, she took a job with the city of Kirkland’s IT department, which maintains everything from the computers on city staff’s desks and the applications such as payroll and GIS mapping, to the free downtown wireless network and the city’s two TV stations.

She now lives in north Bellevue, in the midst of the triangle of Kirkland, Redmond, and Bellevue. She foregoes television mostly, because she prefers to spend her time writing or getting out with her three dogs.

“I like walking the dogs, riding my bicycle, and that’s about all the time there is,” Cooper says, between her responsibilities in Kirkland (which often have her in a sort of on-call mode), as well as managing social marketing for her books.

On Saturday, Sept. 24, Cooper will read from, discuss, and sign copies of Mayan December at the Crossroads Bellevue Barnes & Noble store, at 2 p.m. You can find out more about Mayan December and Cooper’s other works at her website. http://www.brenda-cooper.com/