ABOUT TOWN: Kirkland's IT Director, Author Envisions the Future

BRENDA COOPER straddles two worlds with ease and, in fact, she says the at-first apparent dichotomy between her job as IT manager for the city of Kirkland and her career as a science fiction/fantasy writer is a fiction as well.

Cooper’s fifth novel, Mayan December, was recently published by Prime Books, and she says it fits into the genre of speculative fiction, but in this case 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,” says the affable Cooper.

Her first, Building Harlequin’s Moon, she co-authored with Larry Niven in 2003, and the next three were the parts of a trilogy.  In addition to the novels, Cooper also has written and published between 30 and 40 science fiction stories in well-known sci-fi magazines and anthologies over the last 10 years, she says.

Though the meshing of her work lives may actually fit into the genre of true mystery, Cooper says that her work in IT provides a balance to her writing, and that the technical things she has learned in that position inform her fiction as well.

“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.

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.

COOPER FIRST moved from the busy pace of California to Longview, Wash., some years ago -- a move she calls a bit of an “over-correction.” So Cooper took a job in Kirkland and moved to the area, where she feels the pace is just right and she can enjoy the beauty of Kirkland’s compact downtown and generous public waterfront.

The city of Kirkland’s IT department maintains everything from the computers on the staff’s desks at and applications such as payroll and GIS mapping, to the free downtown wireless network and the city’s two TV stations.

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, 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.

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 store, at 2 p.m. You can find out more about Mayan December -- an adventurous mix of the past, present and future set on the Yucatan Peninsula -- on her website here.