I cut my teeth on the Star Trek movies. Like, the first time I saw Reading Rainbow (which initially aired 6 years before I was born, so presumably I was exposed to it quite young!) I got excited that the host was GEORDIE LA FORGE!!!

A lot of things have stuck with me from those movies, but the very stickiest is, “I don’t believe in unwinnable scenarios.”

I’m a lot older and a lot more cynical, but deep down I still don’t. The stories that I love the most are stories like Star Trek. Stories where you go up against galaxy-sized problems and the solution isn’t to become ruthless, to weigh your options with scientific detachment. The solution is friendship. Love. Kindness. Going to hell and back and letting the experience soften you.

That’s the story I’ve been writing, over and over, in different forms. Even now that I’m older and cynical and there’s been a pandemic raging for two years and change and the earth is burning and people in power are more focused on getting more power than on fixing anything.

Especially now.

🐦 @MeganSantucci

📧 meganesantucci@gmail.com

Read my short story, Tethered, about a spacewalk that goes awry on a ship en route to Mars.