Fun Facts for “Phoebe Gets A Holiday”

Factoid One

To ensure that I was accurate with the timeframe I indicated in the book, I actually looked up on what days of the week certain dates would fall in the year 2404. Thus, I was able to state with certainty that Christmas Day, for example, would occur on a Saturday on Earth, which would be Day 6 of Week 12 on Phoebe.

Factoid Two

I modeled Dorothy, the Base Administrator, on Bea Arthur. (Get it? Dorothy.)

Factoid Three

I named Aria after the name of a statuette I keep on my writing desk at home…

Picture of Aria on my desk…

Factoid Four

Kalina’s partner as gravgen technician is Steve Austin, and yes, he is named after that Steve Austin.

I came across this old-timey show called “The Six-Million Dollar Man” on the streaming service Peacock. I looked it up and was intrigued by the premise. And my Dad told me he used to watch it as a kid, and that it was kind of a big deal.

Well, I watched it, and thought it was completely ridiculous—with the exception of episodes that had Farrah Fawcett or Lindsey Wagner in them, because those two women were absolutely gorgeous.

Anyway, I liked the name Steve Austin. It has a ring to it, so I decided to include it in this story.

Factoid Five

Like Kalina in Chapter 14, I too have never played matchmaker for a straight couple. I have absolutely no idea what straight women would find appealing in men.

Factoid Six

The tricky part was deciding which moon in the solar system to base this story on. I wanted one that wasn’t as well known as Ganymede, Titan, or Europa. Of course, it had to be large enough and solid enough to support a mining facility. The decision became easier once I settled on wanting the moon to be in orbit around Saturn…sort of. Saturn has 146 moons, the most of any planet. I chose Phoebe for being this weird, little moon that orbits far away from the planet. It is also heavily cratered, which I felt was perfect for my purposes, as I figured that such a mining facility would in fact be constructed at the bottom of a crater.

Factoid Seven

Of all of my books, this one was the hardest to come up with a cover for.

In fact, originally, I was going to incorporate some Santa imagery into the artwork; imagery that I had hand-drawn. But I never felt satisfied with any of the concepts I came up with, until I finally arrived at what is now the book’s cover.

Factoid Eight

The gravity on Phoebe really is low. Very low. Very, very low. This presented a problem for me.

I’m a writer who likes details. And although a lot of science fiction movies and books will often not even mention how it is that something like structures on other bodies in our solar system can support life, or even have the kind of gravity human beings need, I didn’t want to do that. So I had to account for how artificial gravity was created on Phoebe.

This was a good thing, because it allowed me to give Kalina a job. I also had fun coming up with describing certain parts of the gravgen machinery, all in an effort to make the book sound authentic.

Factoid Nine

I actually have a friend exactly like the mini-powerhouse Mimi, who is not as tall as others in the real-life Royal Lesbian Court. She is a vocal advocate of making sure that she is not treated any differently because she is shorter…which is good for her! But it sometimes becomes hilarious. Once—not too long ago—I casually mentioned in a conversation my friends and I were having that thank goodness I’m as tall as I am because I was able to hang an art print Katie and I recently bought at a “comfortable viewing height” in the house. My Mimi-esque friend glared at me and asked, “Is that a short joke? Are the pictures in my house not at a comfortable viewing height?”