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 LAST UPDATED: 24 October 2000
VZSciFi Live Creator Event:
Author and Script Writer Fiona Avery
Saturday 8 July, 12 noon VZT (PST)
9.00pm GMT
Space City Conference Centre
Fiona Avery is a freelance scriptwriter whose latest works includes scripts for Earth: Final Conflict and the Seeing Ear Theater over at scifi.com. She continues to work as Reference Editor for the hit SF TV series Babylon 5 and its follow-up series, Crusade.
In addition to working as the Reference Editor on Crusade's first season she wrote four episodes for the show.
Fiona Avery attended Indiana University, graduating with degrees in the field of anthropology and archaeology with specialisations in pre-history, Medieval European weaponry, palynology, forensics and comparative religious studies. Her educational background is a key element in her writing.
Her original intent at Indiana University was to major in music and theatre. She has played the violin and piano since the young age of fourand performed in Carnegie Hall at the age of 14 as the concertmaster of a symphonic orchestra. A background of performing arts familiarised Avery with drama, narrative and character.
As an editor, Avery works with licensees, novelists and artists creating works based on the universe of Babylon 5. Avery checks all text in relation to the series, keeping it 100 per cent canon, while also building the first style guide that Babylon 5 and Crusade use to date. Avery is also a journalist. She's internationally published in magazines such as Starlog, Indiana Alumni, Visions, and The Official Babylon 5 Magazine.
Avery recently finished a full-length feature screenplay set in Feudal Japan and a novel set during the reign of St. Louis IX (1245). Her latest short story to appear on the 'read on the screen web site", bookface.com is "Philberta the Bold".
 | | Timothy Hutton stars in Fiona Avery's adaption of Kim Stanley Robinson's short story The Lucky Strike for scifi.com's Seeing Ear Theater. |
She has a new comic book which will appear soon in comics stores; and wrote a radio drama adaptation of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Lucky Strike for the Seeing Ear Theater, which debuted on 21 July 2000. Avery wrote the radio adaptation of the famous short story and Timothy Hutton stars as Frank January. Fiona has just finished another adaptation for the Theater: Ursula K Le Guin's Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight.
Her latest gig: writing an episode for Earth: Final Conflict's fourth season, title as yet undisclosed...
This transcript has been edited in co-operation with Fiona Avery, and to remove a strange digression as what we believe to be younger members of VZones took great delight in the knowledge that the event was being screened to the Nexus Convention goers in Bristol! The guilty know who they are…
For reasons of making some sense on the electronic page, we have also sadly omitted the ongoing fun with a bunch of flowers Fiona kept getting presented with…
Attendees included: Anna70*7; Congobill; Cordielia; Erin; ~€KiTkAtKaNdY€~*; •~~~~~~Roxxie~~~~~~~•; Soichi Tomoe; Jalore (MedSupport); Marty1, Ms. Melinda; Linsue; Marty1; ~•Violet•~; VORLON(HD). Not all attendees or ghosts are listed here. the event was moderated by John Freeman (Mr. Templeton)
Mr. Templeton: Welcome to everyone here in VZSciFi and at the Nexus convention, who are watching today's creator event with on a big screen in Bristol, England. Give the real humans a wave, folks!
Fiona: Oops, I'm waving furry animals around!
Mr. Templeton: Today's guest is author Fiona Avery. Fiona's credits include reference editor for Babylon 5, and writer for Crusade, the B5 follow up series. Some of her work now appears on the electronic read-only web site bookface.com and I recommend checking that out.
Fiona: I got cool news about that too, remind me to tell ya...
Mr. Templeton: This is a moderated event. If you would like to ask a question, please ESP me and then I will ask you to ask it. Bear in mind I will get a few questions so you might have to be patient. If you are a ghost, I will voice your question for you. And people in Bristol will be asking questions too…
 Fiona: Heehee ... I confess I've never been interviewed by an alien before now. What would Oprah think?
Mr. Templeton: Fiona, perhaps we could start by asking: when did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Fiona: Honestly this is kind of a tricky question for me ... because I just started to write, rather than having an immediate ID as a writer in training. I suppose I realized I wanted to be a writer when I finished my first novel. I started writing the novel, just to write it ... so thinking 'I will be a writer' when I finished didn't actually happen. When I was done I thought, 'Now what? Oh, I guess I should publish this'. Or try. It's in my closet now. heehee!
Mr. Templeton: What was your first published work?
Fiona: My first published work .... <hmm ... pulling out my clipping book here> I wrote an article on a producer for Indiana Alumni magazine. That was the first thing I was ever published with ... it was a very fun interview. He was a producer of archaeology documentaries. I got to do the whole thing! Interview with tape recorder, go on location and see what he was up to, view footage...
That was my first official publication. In terms of fiction, I was not published until my first episode of Crusade, which aired in June 1999, The Well of Forever.
I went from a publication of like 500 people to 10 million viewers… I think I still have the one grey hair I sprouted! heehee
Mr. Templeton: A question from the audience here in Bristol: how did you get involved in Crusade?
Fiona: Well, that one interview with the producer of documentaries led to looking for other material in a similar vein: you try to accumulate your credits by finding like things of higher magnitude. Interview a producer, interview a TV producer, interview a director of latest high-budget film etc. I was trying out my hand as a journalist -- lol! And I decided to interview Joe Straczynski because he was a producer of a TV show who was very approachable for interviews. He even had a direct email addy. These things are very handy for journalists!
So when I emailed him and conducted an interview with him (after setting it up and it being ok) I asked, as an archaeologist/anthropologist, how he intended to keep the facts straight in Crusade (a show about archaeology of distant planets in search of a cure for a plague on Earth). He said 'We're hoping to find a person who knows the facts, who is a writer/editor, who can help with the details. Why?'
I said 'Hey, I'm an archaeologist (this is my degree from college) and I'm a writer and you want my resume?'. So my whole journalism career is now shot thanks to Joe. LOL!
I could have been the next Peter Jennings but no! Now I write for TV. Jeez…
Linsue: That’s so cool
| | | Fiona's 'Bulldog' livery, drawn by Angela M. Taylor. image courtesy and © 2000 Angela M. Taylor. Not to be reproduced without permission. |
Mr. Templeton: But did you expect to be writing some of the scripts?
Fiona: I honestly did not expect that he would be interested in my writing. I was working as the 'Reference Editor' which was making sure all text and manuscripts etc. (and toys merchandise) were as canon as humanly possible. They had nicknamed me at the set Bulldog. In fact, I still have my engraved nameplate with Fiona 'Bulldog' Avery on it. It was for my tenacity in fact checking and stuff, and my never-let-it-go personality. I'm never sure if I should be flattered or horrified by that nickname.
Linsue: lol
Soichi Tomoe: lol
Fiona: When I told Joe I wanted to write scripts, he was interested in knowing if I'd ever written them. I said I had a spec SF script and he asked to see it. Point of Fact: Producers have to ask to see your work. If you thrust it at them -- ferget working in this town [Los Angeles].
So, I showed it to him and cringed. It was really baaaaad. Heehee! I look at that little script now and I just die. It is also in my closet, next to my novel! But he began to tutor me as a new writer -- possibly to be a staff writer -- on his series. He had it in mind to have several new writers on Crusade's second season, some of which, you know ... we had folks like Peter David and Larry DiTillio. They are of course pros who I am just in awe of. Like that whole tango scene with Dureena that Peter did [in Ruling From The Tomb] I'm like ... must think outside the box! Anyway, I was definitely honoured to be asked. (More)
Fiona Avery Event Transcript Continued: Part One | Part Two | Part Three |
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