Su J. Sokol on Invisible Line, Five Points, and Radical Hope
What does it mean to build a family, a community, and a future when the systems around you are determined to keep people divided?
In this edition of The Arrow Dispatch, we speak with speculative fiction writer and activist Su J. Sokol about the newly revamped edition of Invisible Line and its brand-new sequel, Five Points on an Invisible Line.
Together, the novels explore resistance, migration, activism, queer and chosen family, and the stubborn hope required to build a better future.
Listen to our conversation with Su below, then continue to the complete edited transcript.
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This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Interview Transcript
Dave Dufour 00:11
Let's welcome our author Su J. Sokol, who's releasing Invisible Line and its sequel Five Points on an Invisible Line, which is basically science fiction and hopepunk. So we're gonna get started with a few questions about the world of 2075 Montreal that's been created in Invisible Line. So Sue, could you tell us what inspired you to set Invisible Line in 2075 Montreal?
Su J. Sokol 00:43
Oh wait, did I set it in 2075 Montreal? I didn't put a date actually. I kind of left it. I set it in the near future, and and I actually keep the date a little bit vague because it's hard sometimes to to predict how things are going to go, and I didn't want to suggest a particular date because people will fill that in for themselves usually. But yeah, so so what was the question?
Dave Dufour 01:15
What inspired you to set your series, The Invisible Line, in a futuristic Montreal?
Su J. Sokol 01:21
Yes. Okay. Well, actually, so I had this idea for a novel when I was I was biking home from work one day. I'm originally from New York, and I moved to Montreal largely for political reasons in 2004, and I was at that time working for a community organization that worked pretty with a lot of immigrants and migrants and refugees. And I was thinking about my own life, and I was thinking about how if anyone ever needed to escape the United States for political reasons, the best way to slip across the border would be by bicycle, like you'd find a little small little like way to cross over, and a friendly, hopefully border guard, and especially if you had kids, and that would be the way to do it. And then it suddenly struck me, oh my gosh, that would make such a great story. The only problem, and this was in 2008 that I had this story, this idea for a story. The only problem was that I had some doubts that a lot of people in Quebec and in Canada might doubt how desperate a person from the United States would be if they could actually even qualify to be a refugee seeking asylum. Because well, isn't the United States a democracy? How could that happen? And you know, I knew very very well that of course there there can be refugees from the United States and have been for for you know for centuries. But a lot of people don't think of it that way. So I said, you know what? I'm just gonna, I'll set it as science fiction. I'll call it the future, and then and I'll say it's a dystopian United States. And then people won't argue about it. They'll just like, oh yeah, yeah, you know. But I was really kind of writing about the present, as many as most people who write in the near future are really writing about the present. That's the big dirty secret of science fiction: is we all are really writing about the present. And so I decided. Ah, this will be fun. I'll, I'll, I'll kind of exaggerate the dark political problems in the United States a bit, and I'll, and I'll accentuate the hope that I see in Montreal. Because as an immigrant, I did see a lot of hope in in my new in my new country in my new world. Things that I felt were more positive here, and I would accentuate those, and I would create this kind of dystopian, utopian kind of vibe to the story, much as I'd seen in two books that inspired me quite a lot, which were the Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin and Women on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy, and both of these authors also kind of presented a dystopian and a utopian vision, which is what I also hope to do. I wanted to, you know, kind of say, here's a warning for what what could go wrong, and here's kind of where we might find some hope to build a better world. So that's basically the story.
Dave Dufour 04:15
I find it really interesting that you're an actual immigrant, you know, who came to Montreal, and so you've been through all those experiences that your characters go through themselves, and so a huge part of your series that well really gives a special color, I think, is the fact that you use French and English a lot, and so I would like to know a little bit more about how this bilingual nature of Montreal evolved in that vision of the future,
Su J. Sokol 04:48
Right? And just to be clear, the things that happened in my character, thank goodness, many of them did not happen to us because it's more extreme. But yeah, I was really interested when I came to Montreal. My partner is a francophile, very very excited about the idea of living and learning French fluently. And I thought, oh great, maybe I could become fluent in the second language too. Because although I'd worked for many years in in a in a Latina community, I never really became fluent in Spanish. And I thought now I'll have to become fluent. I'll jump over this line. It will be called fluency. It really doesn't work that way, not at all. Fluency is more like the layers are of an onion skin. You know, they just you reach a certain point where you could say, okay, yeah, I'm fluent, but I'm not fluent like that one is fluent or like this other person's fluent. So, I found it fascinating the whole idea of of living in two languages and of taking on a new language, and the way you could actually become almost a new person in a new language. I'd read about language issues in Quebec. I found them really, really interesting from a historical point of view. And as an outsider who knew I was coming into a place that was supposed to be a French province. I was I was happy with that. I was fine with that. I thought it was super interesting, and I think for that reason, like I we really embraced it as a family. You know, the idea of of learning not just learning French, but you know, living in French. And I love the way people here can just they slide back and forth between English and French sometimes, and it's it's very very interesting. So I wanted to show, I wanted to show what it's like to to to come to a place that speaks a different language, to start living in that language, and the kinds of struggles because two of my characters, one embraces it almost to almost to escape from their traumatic past, and the other resists it because they're so angry. That's the one of the children in the story that their parents just tore them from their lives that they love so much, and so that's the way they were going to resist. So it was fun using language as certain things that I needed to say about my characters and their struggles. But I also just think it's basically super interesting to be in a place where people are are speaking at least two languages often and going back and forth between them, and even the French influences the English, and the English influences the French, and it's it's super fascinating.
Dave Dufour 07:10
Great. So this is something you think that will continue to evolve in the city, right?
Su J. Sokol 07:15
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I think, and and it already has since in the 20 years since I've lived here. I see more and more bilingualism, and and less resistance. I feel on the part of anglophones. There sometimes is some resistance towards the fact that this is you know supposed to be a French place. I see less resistance from the younger generation who who are just embracing that. Of course, being bilingual is is is wonderful and something that we should we should try to do, you know.
Dave Dufour 07:46
Now I'm curious. Could you walk us through a typical day in your version of future Montreal? What would that look like?
Su J. Sokol 07:55
Well, let's see. In future Montreal, future Montreal is greener even than that. Now Montreal is greener than New York. Let's start there. But future Montreal is greener than real Montreal. There are lots and lots and lots of bike paths everywhere, and and cycling is is a big part of of of the life of the city. There are so what else? There, there's a lot. There's more freedom. Like Quebec in my story, I had played with the idea of making Quebec sovereign in the story, actually. But then I ended up deciding to go for a middle ground where it has a certain amount of independence, but still is part of Canada, and so it has certain things that it gets to decide upon in different areas, and and and kind of like balancing that is pretty interesting. There's holo advertising in the world at this point, but it's pretty annoying, as you can imagine, like walking through the streets and having ads like in the air in front of you. Well, in Montreal, they control that better, and and have the technology work for instead of against people. What else? There's more. So, for a person who is a so Montreal has declared itself a international solidarity sanctuary city. So, it's a place where where people who have come, immigrants, refugees, migrants, can feel safer because even if the government does not give them the status that would make them safer, there's a there's a whole underground network in Montreal where that's trying to take care of people even if their government doesn't, and it's very strong. Montreal has always been a place, or for a long time, has been a place with a very, very strong social. How do I put this exactly? The community organizations in Montreal are part of the fabric of our society. In a way that I think is very unique, and when there are emergencies, and if when government doesn't step in, the community organizations step in, and they and they take care of things, and I think that's a real strength of the city. So that's some of the examples of things that you would see in a Montreal in this Montreal of the future that I've that I've created.
Dave Dufour 10:21
And it sounds to me like there are a lot of great things happening in that liberation of Montreal, like better things than we have now. And I think those are some of the things that would qualify what we call the whole punk genre. Is that correct?
Su J. Sokol 10:36
Yeah. Although I would say hopepunk is actually a pretty misunderstood subgenre. I think people think of it as like, oh, there's hope, or it's it's more rosy. We're looking in the world more as with rose-colored glasses, where it's not actually like that at all. The first thing about hopepunk is it starts from a very dark place. That's the punk part, where people are struggling, where people are marginalized, where people are far from the center of power, and they're resisting and they're pushing. The hope comes from the resistance. So, so in in a world in a hope punk story, even if really really difficult things are happening, where there's a lot of repression and darkness and marginalization, part of hopepunk is the process by which people fight that, not as individuals, not as saviors, but as communities of people working together, you know, arm in arm, and particularly marginalized people who are pushing back at those forces of like, of of capitalism, of of of prejudice of marginalization to try to make a better society. And in a hope punk novel, you don't necessarily make that society, but you see a path. You see a path towards it, and as a bit of hope, and you think, huh, maybe this could happen. Hasn't happened yet, but it looks like maybe we're going about this right, and it will eventually happen.
Dave Dufour 12:04
So, in Invisible Line and Five Points, how did you balance the darker elements of the story with the underlying message of hope?
Su J. Sokol 12:13
I guess the hope, you know, the darker part comes from the world as we know it, and unfortunately, that seems still to be pretty dark, if not darker. But the hope comes from the relationships between people on both a micro and a macro level. So there's the relationships between my main characters. There's the love between them, and it's a love that's not like okay, this is where this is how you're allowed to love, and that's the only love we're going to show is the love that you're allowed. Family is defined more broadly. There's chosen family and found family and non-traditional family. There's love that crosses borders, big into crossing borders as invisible lines will speak to that. So it comes from the relationships between people, their who they consider their families, their friends, their communities, and then the communities get larger, and and and it's in those relationships and how people work together and how they imagine the future together and the steps they take and the things they're willing to do to make that future happen-that's where the hope comes from. And you see in the story usually towards the end, because you know, of course, in the book, like you're not like you're not sure what's going to happen. But usually towards the end, you start to see, okay, maybe it's all going to turn out right if this keeps on going like this, and if we keep working hard and together, and remembering this is not just what we're struggling against, but what we're struggling for, and how we do that struggle, that's that's very important in the stories.
Dave Dufour 13:56
And now I'd like to know a little bit more about your protagonist, Laek. What inspired you to create this very mysterious character?
Su J. Sokol 14:08
That's a good question. I mean, I feel like like Laek is just first of all, I feel like he's a real person. I know that sounds a little insane, but to me, he's a real person, and I didn't create him so much as I found him. I saw him, and and yeah, I mean, in the beginning, maybe I didn't know everything about him, and I got to know him more and more over these two novels as as I wrote about him and started getting into, especially in in five points, we learn a lot more about his childhood, and he also starts realizing certain things about himself and his needs start becoming more clear, and he starts acting on them. And so we get to learn more and more about him. And part of it has been a learning process for me too. It doesn't feel. I mean, I don't know. Probably a lot of writers feel this way, but it doesn't feel to me like I'm getting ideas and I'm getting inspired, and then I'm writing this character. It feels like I met this character and I'm getting to know them better and better as the story goes along. And as each in each situation I put him in, I see what he does, and then I'm like, ah, yes, that's that's Laek. So it's hard to say, you know. I mean, I think we're all inspired by by just the people in our own lives and and in our own thoughts and what we've seen, and you know, so it's it's a combination of of different people and ideas and things inside my own self as well.
Dave Dufour 15:45
Now, how do Laek's bilingual multicultural experiences shape his journey?
Su J. Sokol 15:54
Well, so Laek, you know, is a character that's been that's been hurt, that's been traumatized in his life from from a pretty young age, and and when when he's kind of forced to start a new life in a new language, it's for him it's an advantage because it helps him to become a new person to try to put his trauma behind him by living life in a new language and in a new culture, and he's very good with language, and so that's an advantage. And so it helps him first of all to because it's he's able to to push things back a little bit so that they don't overwhelm him all the time, it gives him optimism, you know, to be able to live in a new in a new language, and it also because he's so good at learning language and incorporating a new culture, it makes it very easy for him to to make more friends, to make more contacts, to to kind of insinuate himself into the community and into a whole network-that's his strength as an activist-is his network. He knows so many people, and he's very, very likable, and that's very, very useful in a world where you know we always hear about political infighting and small, little conflicts within people who basically feel the same way that can can kind of hamper a movement sometimes from progressing. So those are his strengths, and he plays on them by being able to come and start living in a new language and in a new culture. And it's also he feels good about his competence because in a lot of ways he feels a lot of guilt. He he's always afraid that he is somehow hurting those he loves, that he's bringing harm to them. But but he's because he's very good, you know, with the language and the culture thing. He's a historian. He's actually a high school high school history teacher. He's he's able to give this to his family that like I can do these things. I have a mastery of the language, so his it was also useful. So that's that makes him feel good.
Dave Dufour 18:08
All right, that's interesting. And so one thing I really find interesting about your series is that it's not just Laek's point of view. We also have other point of views. Actually, four in in in the first book, and an extra one in this sequel, and so I'm curious to know which character you think underwent the most significant evolution during the writing process.
Su J. Sokol 18:34
Huh, that's interesting evolution. The character that went through the most evolution. It's interesting because, in some ways, I would have to say it's probably the fifth character of Philip, who starts off in cycling as a very minor character. Actually, when I first was writing it, I didn't think he was going to have a major role in the story. I was wrong, and so I had to think about him quite a lot. You don't get to know him quite as well in the first story as you get to know him in the second story. I mean, I do feel like for all the characters, all those things were already there, but they had a chance to sort of show themselves when certain situations, when they found themselves in certain situations. So, Philip really had to undergo a lot of change. He's the one character in the story that is has least experience with the activist world, with being an activist, and he doesn't think of himself as an activist. He's just sort of a good guy, you know, who tries to do the right thing. But he starts really having to to raise himself to the situations that he finds himself in, and to be his best self, and and you see him growing in confidence and incompetence as as as events happen in this story that he never never ever expected, whereas. With Laek and Janie, I mean Janie was probably born an activist. She has activist parents. She knew what that was like, and and and Lake, you know, well, Lake is complicated. But with the children also, I'm tempted to say Siri also, but she changes quite a lot, or she seems to. I would have to say that she was. She's always the person you see at the end of book two is not a new person. It's who Siri always was, but but you didn't see that in her in the beginning because you meet her as a kid who's like 12 years old, who who you know who's a who's a good kid, but also it's very important to her to fit in, and to you know get along with everybody and her friends. And she doesn't really, you know, want to. You know, she has beliefs, but she's not going to be out there telling people what she just wants to really be accepted by everyone. And and and and then you see her very very angry, you know, when her parents, without telling her, or you know, they had to hide what was going on. You see her very, very angry in her new situation at her parents because she doesn't know why this has happened. You know, and then once she learns what by the end of the book what's happening in book two, you know, as as much as she tries to resist being like her parents, as adolescents do, it's the last thing you want to be is like your parents. You see, by the end, that she really is quite a lot like them in in in a number of ways. But she's also very much her own person, and that's that was fun for me to write to show her. You know, she goes from 12 to 16 through the two books, and to see her at 16 might be a surprise for some people who met her at 12 and never saw that coming. But it was actually it was it was in her the whole time. It just needed to grow.
Dave Dufour 21:55
Right, that's super interesting. Now I don't want us to spoil the story too much, so we're gonna move away a little bit from talking about the characters and maybe talk a bit more about your writing process for this series. So one thing I'd like to know is what were some of the challenges you faced in creating a believable bilingual future society? Because there's quite a lot of elements in there that have to fit in.
Su J. Sokol 22:24
Hmm, a believable bilingual society. Well, I mean, one thing that was a disadvantage is the fact that I came as as a as an immigrant. I have lived in much. I only lived in Montreal, you know, a fairly short time when I first wrote wrote the book, which in its first incarnation was Cycling to Asylum, and was written in 2011 and 2012. And so I didn't have a whole depth of knowledge about Montreal and about living. I mean, in New York, you could say it's kind of a bilingual society. There's a lot of Spanish speakers in New York, but it's not quite the same thing, and so you know there was a certain lack of knowledge, lack of experience. But I also found that to be a great advantage, because there's nothing like getting an outside view of your own society, because you know sometimes people just take things for granted as being normal that are actually not at all normal. I found that a lot coming here, where people say, "Oh yeah, that's way, and I'm like, "No, there's actually other ways it could have been. And so I think that also helped me to be able to see things more clearly because it wasn't just it wasn't normal for me certain things, so it helped me to understand them better. So I would say it was both a disadvantage and an advantage. Yeah, I mean, I would say that was probably the main thing. You know, it was it was helpful being an immigrant myself, but of course, I am not actually a refugee, and I didn't come here on an asylum, you know, seeking asylum. I didn't have to go through that horror, that kind of horror. So I needed to learn, you know. Although I've known many people who've been in that situation, it's not the same thing as being in it yourself. And I did quite a lot of research into the refugee process, even you know talking to talking to people, talking to refugee lawyers, getting you know information on real hearings that happened. You know, the advantage, of course, in writing science fiction is you don't have to do things exactly as they're done. You could invent stuff, you could change stuff, which I did, but it helps to know something how something is really before you start messing with it and making it science fictional. But I had a really, really great time creating a kind of slightly different immigration and refugee process for the first book, and. Yeah, and even hearing. Of course, it helped me that I have a background in law, but it was fun creating a kind of science fictional hearing.
Dave Dufour 25:09
Oh yeah, so definitely there had you've done a lot of research to be able to you know create this believable bilingual society, and that's why actually when you read it, you really feel like this is something that could happen, and so well, obviously, one of the main characteristics of your series that I think makes it stand out from a lot of other books on the market is the fact that it's bilingual and that you actually found a way to incorporate English and French elements into the narrative. And so, how did you approach that?
Su J. Sokol 25:43
Oh, that was so much fun. I mean, I just followed my ear. You know, like I said, when you come when you come to Montreal, and first of all, one of the things you notice is that even people who speak English, they don't speak English in the same way as they do in other places. There's an influence on the way you use English words, like for instance, I remember my first days at the community organization where I worked, and people would talk about, "Oh yeah, we're you know we're fighting for social rights, and I would be like, "The right to have a party. Like I didn't even understand like what that was because you would never talk about it that way in the United States. You'd say individual rights or civil rights, or human rights, but you didn't talk about social rights, which right there says a lot about the difference between those two societies, right? And other words, like people would talk about, you know, I'm gonna, we're gonna be collaborating with this other organization, you know, Collaborating, like, has a negative connotation in the United States that it doesn't seem to have here. So it's just I found it really interesting. So I let it slip into the dialog. I had people using English words more like you'd use the French cognates, whether they were francophone or bilingual, I had people doing that, and any other way around. And when I had francophones speaking in English, I had them speak in English in the way that I hear francophones speak English, which is again, it's it's speaking English in a slightly different way, and and it's a way I enjoy hearing, and I enjoyed very much putting into the story, and the other way around. I, you know, people speaking anglophones, trying to speak French, filled with anglicisms and not doing things quite right. But one thing that I felt was really important in order to try to kind of communicate what a bilingual society looks like is I didn't italicize the French. In fact, I should go back and say I used American spelling, U.S. spelling, in the first half of the book that takes place in New York, and I used Canadian English spelling in the second half. But then I threw in the French, and I didn't italicize anything because I felt it would help the reader dive into the same world and just see words as words. It could be a French word, it could be an English word, it could be an English word being used like a French word. It could be any of those things, and that's the way you kind of experience it. And even like I remember when I first came here and was trying to to become fluent, I would sometimes get especially confused when a francophone was actually using an English word and then just conjugating it in French, or or the other way around. When suddenly a French word would pop up in a phrase, and I didn't, my brain didn't know how to switch back and forth quickly yet. So I would get like I would stop, like wait, what? Wait, what language we're in now, you know. So I wanted to try to communicate that in the way I crafted the dialogs, and you know. But then when the book got translated into French under the title Lelina Invisible, that was quite quite a big job for the translator. She was fortunately is an amazing translator, so was able to do that, but I thought, how is anyone going to translate this book? Anyway,
Dave Dufour 29:06
yeah, it's always challenging when you have to deal with different languages in a single book because then you can sort of lose the effect, right? We're trying to to create originally,
Su J. Sokol 29:16
Right, yeah.
Dave Dufour 29:18
So yeah, so that was an experience, right? But it turned out all right, right?
Su J. Sokol 29:23
Oh yeah, it was great. It was fun. I really, I really enjoyed it, and you know, and I learned. I like I learned more and more as as I went along, you know. So I made less mistakes, I think, in the French in my second book than I did digitally.
Dave Dufour 29:38
So so there was quite the learning curve there too, right? Just writing those books.
Su J. Sokol 29:45
Yeah, no, for sure. And it's not, of course, it's not just knowing you know what the right words are, but how people actually talk in real life. You know, that's really important. It's of course important when you're writing in your own language, and all of us have read things where it's like people don't sound that way. What you know, and you know. Don't want to do that. You want them to sound the way they sound, but then you will have to do that in in the other language. If you're writing in another language as well, you have to do the same thing. You can't just look, you know, like so. When I have one of my, you know, younger characters in the second half of the book cursing someone out, it has to be like the way people curse each other out here, you know. And it had to sound. It had to sound right. So yeah, it was it was it was a lot of fun. I would say the other challenge actually is because I'm writing. I wrote both books are present tense, first person point of views, switching point of views, which is a kind of challenging thing to do. It's probably probably crazy to try to write your first novel that way, but hey, that's what I did. And but then voice becomes super super important. You know, the voice of your characters has to be strong enough that even if you don't know whose chapter it is, you still know whose chapter it is by the way they're talking. And I tried very hard to perfect that, but then you also have to do it in the French, you know. If and and that's harder to do as as as when it's your second language. But fortunately, I also have people around me who who are able to help. So that that was good.
Dave Dufour 31:13
Great. So Invisible Line is a very rich series with strong themes, and so how does this series address current social and cultural concerns?
Su J. Sokol 31:29
Yeah, I mean, it it addresses quite a lot of them, and even though I wrote the first one more than 10 years ago, almost 15 years ago, I mean the original version; it's been updated since then. But I would have to say, unfortunately, all of the same issues are as relevant, or even more so, as they were when I first wrote the book. So you know, the question of of borders, of immigration, of the the right of people to move freely and to seek a home where they can live a full life, not under jeopardy, not you know able to feed themselves and their families. This is this is a bigger issue than than ever right now with people closing their borders and closing their hearts, and and it's something that I still I feel very strongly about the whole question of of borders. I mean, also it's also a thematic that I write about a lot, even when I'm not talking literally about international borders. I'm still talking about the borders that the fake borders that we erect between ourselves and other people that let us harden our hearts to other people's, you know, concerns. So that's one of the issues. One of the issues I wrote about in both books, particularly the first one, is state and police violence. The book came out originally in 2014, like right around Ferguson, and a lot of people were like, "Oh my gosh, you foresaw Ferguson! I'm like, "No, not really, because this is nothing new. Unfortunately, you know, things come in and out of the news, and certain people who are less aware it suddenly gets in their minds. People who who are not from those communities, mostly, but but that was something that unfortunately is still a very very bad and real issue in our lives. So I wrote about that, environmental issues, ecological issues. As things sort of spin worse and worse, that's also was a is a factor in both my stories. In my first story, it's more part of the world building, and in my second story, I take it on more as a political issue that we need to fight for. You know, queer family is another issue that I kind of touch upon in the first, and then go flat with in the second. And chosen family, and not like letting other people define for us who is family activism. Of course, is a big theme. It's it's importance and a way to do it ethically and and effectively. I mean, there's a lot of issues. I guess that's that's enough to give us a taste.
Dave Dufour 34:19
What message do you hope readers take away from the story?
Su J. Sokol 34:24
That we shouldn't have to spare that we we need to open our hearts and open our minds and and kind of tear down those false boundaries between ourselves and others and work together to create a better world. That we can do it. That we must do it. One of the things I love about, I think, the reason I've always been drawn to science fiction, speculative fiction, is because the writers in that genre and the readers in that genre get to imagine different worlds. And honestly, if you can't imagine a different world, you can't. Create the different world, and so I guess that's the message I would leave people with.
Dave Dufour 35:04
Very hopeful. All right, so we have discussed a lot of different aspects of Invisible Line as a series. As we said, there's the bilingual elements. There's you know like this imagined version of the future of Montreal, so it's very anchored in Canada. So, how do you think your series Invisible Line contribute to the Canadian science fiction landscape?
Su J. Sokol 35:36
Well, I think I think one of the things that a lot of people here loved about the first novel is that I looked. I was looking at at Canada, at Quebec, at Montreal in in a positive way, in a hopeful way, and and you know a lot of people feel like you know people feel like oh the United States it's better it's bigger it's whatever and. and and kind of think. Well, actually, we got a lot going for us here, and there's a lot that's better here. I think people understand that more now than when I first was writing the book, and so I think that's something to just look at Canada and its potential in a more in a more positive light, and also, you know, the way. I guess I mean, again, because I'm not from here originally, I think it's also just interesting to see what Canada looks like from the outside a little bit, like the things that I think people think are just maybe normal that are actually not-they're just a culture. Like every everyone, every place has its own culture. Different communities have their own cultures, and sometimes it's you can get a better glimpse at your own culture through the eyes of an outsider to that culture. I mean, obviously, you know, I was still born in North America, and arguably there's a lot of overlap between these two North American cultures. But there are actually surprisingly more differences than one would think, and I think that's also interesting for you know Canadians to read about you know what does this culture look like from the outside. So I kind of at this point I've lived here for 20 years, so I kind of am able to give an insider and outsider point of view, and so I think that is that's also you know interesting.
Dave Dufour 37:31
Oh, now let's get a bit more personal. What's next for you as an author?
Su J. Sokol 37:37
Ah, well, good timing because just today I finished the full draft of my new novel, pensively titled Seven Seven Time, and like like my other novels, it takes place in a future Montreal. I mean, some of my novels do takes place in take place in a future New York, or like Invisible Line, you get to see both New York and Montreal. But this story takes place in a future Montreal. It's much more consciously an ecological fiction novel. It it writes about what you know ecological devastation in in my world that I've drawn, most people are going hungry. There's there's a shortage of food, and and it's a very very difficult life and existence. It's a story about hunger, not just hunger for food, but hunger for love, hunger for community, hunger for other sensual things, and it centers a relationship between my main character Seth and his beloved seven young man he meets at a bar who seems very strange, and we have to figure out what is what's going on with him. But it's it's a story about time and about ecology, and about the nature of existence, and again about getting together to kind of try to imagine new worlds. There's a bit more urban fantasy. There's a bit more quantum physics than in my other stories. There's a lot of foraging and some weird stuff, and I'm very excited about it. And yeah, so and and I think after I might write a couple of companion story novels that go with it. One of them taking place in Seven's World, but I won't say too much more about that.
Dave Dufour 39:33
All right, that sounds really exciting. I'm sure everyone's wondering: Are there other stories to tell in the invisible line world that you've created.
Su J. Sokol 39:43
That is a very good question, and and I'm not sure of the answer yet. Sometimes I think about going backwards, and maybe telling Lake's story in much more detail from when he was a child, and what happened what happens to him. That's one thought that I had, but I'm not sure yet. You never know. It's I never thought I'd write a sequel. To be perfectly honest, a lot of people ask me, "Are you going to write a sequel? And I was always very confused by that question because I would be like, "Why the story ended? Everything, all the you know, no loose ends. But then finally, someone told me another writer friend of mine said, "I think people are asking that question because the characters you've drawn are so real that we feel as though you're not done with them yet, and that may be true. So we shall see.
Dave Dufour 40:31
All right, that's great. How has writing Invisible Line influenced your approach to future projects? Now that you finished a new one. What would you say?
Su J. Sokol 40:44
Hmm. Well, Invisible Line and and its sequel. I I took on the challenge of writing a multiple point of view story, and that was challenging and fun, and you know I think like least I'll speak for myself as a writer. I love telling stories with interesting characters and plots and and and so forth. But I also like being able to do stuff with Like certain literary craft to just try to try to make something what you might call crafty something interesting, and I think the thing that's crafty and interesting about both of those stories was the multiple point of view and the present tense. And in the second book, even more so because there were five, so I stretched myself even further to do that. But the other thing I did in the second book is I followed a structure that was what Ursula K. Le Guin called the the carrier bag way of telling a story and way of telling history, and it's also a way of organizing because you see a lot in in Western literature. You have the the hero's journey. This is one hero, usually a guy, usually a white guy, usually a white heterosexual guy who goes saves the world. Maybe there are some friends or accomplices, but it's really his story, and that's not the way change really happens in real life. It's always a collection of people all working hard. Maybe some more behind the scenes, and so I-that's what I did in this in five points. I wanted to show that it wasn't just one person. So I had a lot of different stories interacting in different ways, where one story wasn't supposed to be supreme. So I think that I met that challenge. It was it was difficult. There are things, questions that don't get answered because in real life it's like that, and figuring out which ones you have to answer and which you don't have to answer and which you shouldn't answer. And so the next thing I wanted to do is try to find a new way of playing with structure in a novel to tell a really, you know, a story that is a real page turner that's mostly linear, but in a way that's structurally interesting, either either with time or with some other factor. So that's my next challenge.
Dave Dufour 43:18
All right, and what aspects of Canadian science fiction? Would you like to explore next?
Su J. Sokol 43:25
Well, I've started exploring, and I would really love to continue exploring much, much more Indigenous science fiction. It's such a oh, there's such great stories out there, and I'm trying to find as many as I can. Honestly, I have. I I've been. I was looking for hopepunk, Canadian specifically Canadian hopepunk. There's less of it than than I would like, or maybe I haven't found all of it yet. I am still a big voice for hopepunk, and so I actually started finding it in indigenous writing. That's where I've been finding a lot of hope punk, and so that's a main area right now that that I'm interested in exploring.
Dave Dufour 44:11
Great. All right. So I'd like us to do a quick fire round. You're interested. So it's just a few, you know, questions, and you just share whatever comes to your mind. All right. What's your favorite spot in present day Montreal?
Su J. Sokol 44:29
Um, I would say either the old port or the top of Montreal, the mountain.
Dave Dufour 44:36
Your most surprising research discovery.
Su J. Sokol 44:41
Huh. My most surprising research discovery. That's hard. I'm not sure. I'll have to pass on that one.
Dave Dufour 44:50
What's one technology which existed from your futuristic world and invisible line?
Su J. Sokol 45:01
I guess I think it would be interesting if we used holo technology more, and also, oh yeah, if we had in something that could keep you invisible when you need to be doing surveillance.
Dave Dufour 45:14
Biggest challenge in writing bilingual characters.
Su J. Sokol 45:20
Keeping the voice, keeping the voice both accurate and and convincing. These these you want you want it to if the if the person isn't perfect in their second language, you don't want them to sound unintelligent or awkward. So figuring out you know how how to do that in a real way, you know, to portray intelligent, articulate people speaking in a second language.
Dave Dufour 45:46
All right, and last one, the most hopeful aspect of your future, Montreal.
Su J. Sokol 45:53
That would be, I think, making it a place that's welcoming to all people, to to refugees, to activists, to people who just need to be somewhere else, and regardless of whether they can meet the very, very, very narrow and difficult procedures that our governments present them, that we could somehow integrate them anyway and keep them safe.
Dave Dufour 46:19
All right, that was exciting. So the interview is coming to an end. But first, I'd like you to share a message, maybe, to your readers.
Su J. Sokol 46:32
I mean, I guess my message would be: keep dreaming, keep hoping, keep writing and reading and thinking and experimenting, and and hopefully that'll bring us to a better and better world, and do it together with other people, not all by yourself.
Dave Dufour 46:50
Great. And so, how can your readers connect with you?
Su J. Sokol 46:56
Okay. Well, I'm on some of the social media places like Blue Sky and Instagram, and and Facebook, and I have a website www.sujsokal. That's s-u without an e, sujsokol.com. BlueSky and the other places you could find me @cycling2asylum, where the two is a number. On any of those networks, you could find me there.
Dave Dufour 47:28
All right, and will you be attending any events in the future?
Su J. Sokol 47:34
I guess the next event that I'll be attending is the International Literary Festival In Montreal, that's called Blue Met Metropolis Bleu, which is a bilingual but also multilingual literary festival of people all over the world. I'll be moderating a panel that has to do with an anthology about climate change, actually called green to gray, and I'm excited about that, and and attending all the other really exciting panels and presentations that will be. That's in April, about a month from now.
Dave Dufour 48:15
All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing. You know about your world, your inspirations, your hopes for the future, and we're really excited to see your books, you know, and yeah, and to read them for sure, and then to see also what readers have to say about the sequel.
About Invisible Line
Some revolutions start with a roar. Others begin with the quiet turn of a wheel.
In a near-future New York under authoritarian rule, history teacher Laek can no longer hide his radical past. Following a brutal confrontation with the police, Laek and his family flee across the border by bicycle and seek refugee status in Montréal.
As Janie fights to protect her family and build a new life, their children must navigate a different language, culture, and understanding of where they belong. Their journey asks whether sanctuary can truly offer safety and whether the most powerful borders are sometimes the invisible ones people create themselves.
The newly revamped edition of Invisible Line is a hopepunk story of resistance, resilience, migration, and chosen family.
Author: Su J. Sokol
Publisher: Flame Arrow Publishing
ISBN: 9781990368219
Language: English
Genres: Science fiction and hopepunk
About Five Points on an Invisible Line
Three years after finding refuge in near-future Montréal, Laek and Janie are preparing to expand their unconventional family. When their friend Philip arrives at the same time as an explosion at the airport, the safety they have built begins to crack.
As street kids disappear and danger spreads through the city, a community of queer, polyamorous, and neurodivergent activists must decide how much they are willing to risk to protect one another.
Told through five points of view, Five Points on an Invisible Line is a story about activism, social justice, family, solidarity, and the lines people choose to cross together.
Author: Su J. Sokol
Publisher: Flame Arrow Publishing
ISBN: 9781990368240
Language: English
Genres: Science fiction, hopepunk, queer fiction, and dystopian fiction
Discover Five Points on an Invisible Line
About Su J. Sokol
Su J. Sokol is a speculative fiction writer and activist whose work bridges imagination and social justice. Through stories exploring identity, resistance, and belonging, Su’s writing celebrates community and the quiet power of hope.
Their novels Invisible Line and Five Points on an Invisible Line invite readers to imagine new forms of solidarity in a changing world.
Keep the Flame Burning
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