Roxana Arama

Roxana Arama is a Romanian American author with a master of fine arts in creative writing from Goddard College. She studied computer science in Bucharest, Romania, and moved to the United States to work in software development. Her short stories and essays have been published in several literary magazines. Extreme Vetting is her first novel. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her family.

Twitter: @RoxanaArama

What period of history do you wish you knew more about?

I’d love to learn more about the history of religion, from the Roman Empire to the ancient Middle East, China, and the Americas. I spent a few years researching this subject for a historical fantasy I completed, but there’s always so much more to learn. In the last few decades, archaeologists have made fascinating discoveries about ancient cultures, challenging many of our assumptions. For the latest news in this field of historical research, I’ve been attending the annual Bible and Archaeology Fest online, and I’m always amazed by what I learn there, from new interpretations of ancient documents to the rediscovered meaning of artefacts. Every time, I gain more appreciation for the harsh and complex lives of our ancestors and for the storytelling that helped them survive.

Favorite non-reading activity?

Being outside. I like hiking with my family, and we’re lucky to live in the Pacific Northwest, with its mountains, forests, lakes, and more. There’s so much green around us and so many trails to discover and explore. Picking up my kids from school and walking home together is another way for me to be outside and have fun. Going for a walk in my neighborhood and admiring people’s gardens lowers my anxiety and helps me come up with new ideas for my writing.

Is your go to comfort food sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing?

I prefer savory food, but I don’t really know how to cook. I grew up in Romania, and as an immigrant, I ended up parting with my native cuisine. In my adoptive country, I became familiar with new and delicious ingredients and dishes. Which is why I find myself writing about food all the time. Food connects people in meaningful ways, and it also reflects the resources available to a community—both important aspects in storytelling. That’s why in my stories, significant things happen around the kitchen table or in restaurants.

Is there another profession you would like to try?

I used to be a software developer. When I shifted to writing, I discovered that programming and storytelling are not that different: both involve creating imaginary worlds and having them become reality through user or reader interaction. Graduating in computer science with a major in artificial intelligence was the closest I ever got to being a scientist, but if I could have tried another profession, I would have liked to explore the convergence of neuroscience and artificial general intelligence, because they deal with sophisticated systems that generate immensely complex behaviors. The great thing about being a writer is that I can research these things to my heart’s desire and then imagine stories about them, as I’m now doing in my work-in-progress sci-fi novel.

Do you speak a second language? Do you think differently in that language? Does it influence your writing?

I speak and write in English and in my native Romanian. I also studied French and Spanish, both Romance languages with similarities to my native tongue. Romanian and English aren’t that different grammatically, so my thinking runs usually the same in both languages. But some concepts that exist in one language are absent in the other, making for more precise descriptions in one language versus the other on that particular topic. A few almost-identical words have different meanings in these languages, which used to give me trouble a long time ago. Latin-based words in English are usually multisyllable, which is discouraged in fiction, so when I first started writing in English, I kept searching for shorter, Anglo-Saxon words. English has a huge number of verb-preposition combinations that collapse into fewer in Romanian, always sending me to the dictionary to make sure I get the exact meaning and nuance I want in English. And sometimes I need to correct and polish my prose when my Romanian seeps into my English, or the other way around.