J.K. Ullrich’s self-published debut, Blue Karma, is getting rave reviews. The novel won Library Journal’s first Self-Published Ebook Award in Science Fiction, Top Medalist Honors, and the New Apple Summer 2015 Ebook Award. In this interview, Ullrich discusses the world she creates, sf, and her own reading interests. Blue Karma is available to read on the SELF-e platform. Tell us about how you got the idea for your novel. The idea for Blue Karma evolved for a decade before it ever hit the page. In September 2003, Hurricane Isabel tore up the mid-Atlantic coast and knocked out power in my suburban neighborhood, shutting off our water for a day or two. For the first time in my 17 years, nothing happened when I turned on the tap. I walked into my bedroom and spotted a glass of water left on my dresser the night before the storm. Normally I'd have tossed an old glass of water straight down the sink, but circumstances transformed it into a precious commodity. I used it to brush my teeth, wondering what it would be like to live with such water insecurity every day. A few years later, the Millennium Drought in Australia showed us just that. The news coverage evoked my hurricane experience, and I started toying with bits of story: a powerful company regulating water distribution and people stealing polar ice as a last resort. When the California drought brought the water crisis to my own country, I knew the book couldn’t wait any longer. Drafting the manuscript felt like a race against the headlines. Reality nipped at the heels of my tale. It’s a great motivator, the imperative to get the story out there before it’s no longer fiction. What drew you to write sf? Has it always been a favorite genre for you? It fueled my imagination almost from birth. I grew up on Star Wars and, to a lesser extent, Star Trek. My father, an English major, took us kids to the bookstore almost every weekend, while my mother, the self-proclaimed “science geek,” crafted amazing hands-on experiments to show us how the world worked. At one point, she carried glass slides around in her purse in case she encountered any interesting substances for later viewing under the family microscope. So it’s not surprising those two fields became entwined in my head like the strands of a double helix. Today, with an English degree of my own and a passion for science, sf remains my favorite genre because it’s an alchemical blend of information and imagination. I laugh when critics categorize [the genre] as separate—and implicitly lesser—than contemporary fiction because today there’s almost no boundary between the two. Technology is transforming our civilization at such a dizzying rate; we are effectively living sf. Writing stories about it merely gives us a mirror to peek around the corner at what might be next. Amaya, Logan, and Paul are all intriguing, striking characters. Did you plan to tell the story from three points of view when you started writing? Actually, early outlines featured four points of view. My original concept for the story was a collection of vignettes, exploring the future of water around the world. But I also wanted the pieces to connect, which would be difficult on such a large scale. I decided to focus the story on a single geographic region, with each character introducing elements of the international picture. Initial sketches featured two male and two female protagonists: a polar soldier, a water tycoon, an ice poacher, and an environmental refugee sent to live in a desert town. I attempted several plot outlines this way, but it felt unwieldy and there wasn’t quite enough for each of the characters to do. I consolidated the quartet into a trio and found it worked better on several levels. Not only did it smooth out the plot, it brought out complexity in the formerly one-dimensional characters. Logan’s loyalties waver between his dying hometown and his duty to a broader military mission; Amaya’s steely pirate persona is a result of losing her country, family, and future to rising seas; and Paul struggles to be an effective corporate leader while becoming increasingly cognizant of his role in a national crisis. A triad structure offers storytelling advantages as well; it helps pace the tension and keeps things exciting. Have you always wanted to be a writer? Yes, I’ve always aspired to write. Like every kid, I cycled through numerous dreams of what I want to be when I grow up, but I always intended to write in addition to whatever vocation I pursued. Imagining scenarios and making up stories is a reflex for me: I couldn’t prevent it any more than blinking or breathing. I even chose my alma mater because of its nationally acclaimed creative writing program. Ironically, the most significant thing I learned in those college workshops was that fiction writing is neither easy nor guaranteed immediate profitability. So I have an “official” career and work on fiction whenever I can. Finding time to write in the interstices of a full-time job poses many challenges, but seeing a great reader review or having an organization like Library Journal acknowledge my work is extremely rewarding. If you had to sum your book up in a few words to hook a reader, what would they be? “What happens when the blue planet runs dry?” Hey, I sense a haiku hiding in there: Swallowed by a sea We cannot drink; dry throats scream Blue planet turns brown What books have you loved recently and would suggest to other readers? This summer I devoured Octavia E. Butler’s captivating novel Dawn in about a week. Her take on an alien invasion is marvelously subtle and understated, unlike any first-contact story I’d read before. Shortly afterward I read Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon. A modern literary gem, it weaves supernatural undertones into the intrigues of a small 1960s town using some of the most lyrical prose I’ve read in years. Now I’m finally getting caught up on Bernard Cornwell’s “Saxon Tales” series. I’ve read dozens of Cornwell’s books and would recommend them all; he’s a master of historical adventure. For “true adventure,” my most recent favorite is Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea, about the Nantucket whaling ship incident that inspired Moby Dick. I couldn’t put it down (can’t say the same about Melville’s novel, alas).