“When a British university works out how to create a quantum link with the past, Malcolm Hendry is confident he’s the right man to conduct the world’s first ‘history field work’ in 16thC Strasbourg. Professor Hendry knows only he can make the project a success – and he will, despite the day-to-day irritations of students, colleagues, and a spate of minor thefts.
In Interdisciplinary, read course notes, emails, and other ephemera to uncover what the professor found in Strasbourg and, more importantly, how it got there…”
Elizabeth Guilt is an author in London UK with quite a few stories out in the world. Some of her recents are:
The Organist and the Old Man (Cosmic Horror Monthly, issue 25)
The Sin Jar (All Worlds Wayfarer, issue XII)
Other Lives (Luna Station Quarterly, issue 50)
We were lucky to include her fresh story of academia, backstabbing and time travel mishaps in our fourth collection of utter speculation.
What made you decide to write a story for The Dancing Plague: A collection of Utter speculation?
I often read through writing prompts and submissions calls, looking for inspiration and story ideas. Prompts are often quite general, and so don’t really spark a story so much as an atmosphere or a vibe. This prompt was immediately appealing, because it was so specific. It contained a mystery all ready to go – I just needed to solve it!
How did you formulate your theory? How much did you rely on research?
I read quite a few articles on the Dancing Plague (starting, of course, with everyone’s favourite resource of Wikipedia), looking for little details that sparked my imagination. One of the things I noted early on was that there was a spate of these plagues across mainland Europe for a few centuries. Another was that one of the ways people tried to control the outbreaks was playing music for the dancers, and that some witnesses reported that those afflicted seemed to be crying out in pain while dancing.
Once I had a collection of odd facts and quirks, I began trying to weave them together to find an explanation.
Do you think your speculation could be a feasible explanation for the plague or were you just telling a good story?
I have a theory that the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world often rely far too heavily on the idea that people (or organizations, or governments) are busily executing complex, well-organised plans. I am sure that an enormous number of things happen by mistake, or because someone messed up; I am always much more inclined to believe in “cock-up” over conspiracy, and feel that even the best plans are often subverted by people’s personal feelings.
My story states very early on that it is going to involve time travel, so I fear “feasible” might be pushing it. I like to think that the human motivation in my story might, at least, be plausible, though!
What are you reading right now?
Right now, I’m reading The Absolute Book, by Elizabeth Knox, which I bought by my failsafe strategy of picking up books which have cool covers. (That thing about not judging? It’s wrong, you totally can.) I find browsing for books online very unsatisfying, but love wandering around physical bookshops, the quirkier the better, seeking gems of serendipity.
As I write this, I’m about four-fifths of my way through The Absolute Book. I’ve really enjoyed the story so far, in particular how it handles the shifts between our world and the world of the Sidh – but I cannot even begin to imagine how it is going to resolve all the various parts of the plot. I’ve got faith, though!
What other projects are you working on? Where can we look for you next?
I’m a fairly chaotic writer, so I always have lots of half-baked stories on the go – sadly, I often need deadlines to spur me into completing them! With luck, the end of this year will see me complete some of them (but maybe I’ll just start more…)
One of my favourite things I’ve ever written, a horror story called Jessica, will be included in Cloaked Press and SFWG’s annual “Nightmare Fuel” anthology, due out this October. Their theme this year is “Objects of Horror” – the object in my story is an old, unlabelled audio cassette.
Be sure to check out Elizabeth Guilt’s other work and keep up with her on Twitter @elizabethguilt or on her website elizabethguilt.com
LC W. Allingham 
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