Juliana Hatfield

It may seem strange, but the most grateful I've ever felt was when I was held up at gunpoint. After I handed over my wallet and the mugger ran off into the woods, I thought, 'Thank you for not shooting me.' I was overwhelmingly glad to be alive and unharmed.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.