Heather MacGillivray

Heather MacGillivray is a first time published author in the 2015 science fiction anthology, 'The Future is Short, Science Fiction in a Flash. Volume 2.' She fell into writing by accident. An online course she was studying set an assignment: "join LinkedIn and at least one group within it" .. and she chose a science fiction group .. which turned out to run a monthly science fiction micro-story writing event. Et voila, suddenly she's a published author!

But then she always knew that "life was stranger than fiction"! What she hadn't consciously realized is that (the) science fiction (genre) - being a VERY strange type of fiction - is actually an ideal platform (soap box) from which to (try to) explore and/or advocate for certain 'truths' which may not always 'get enough voice' in human-structured society as currently we know it.

Heather has two micro-stories in 'The Future is Short ...' anthology. They are "The Portal Mechanic" and "Where Hides The Star of The Sea?" They attempt to explore 'our' relationship with our consciousness, especially our creative consciousness, delving backward and forward and outward to the multi-dimensional states .. as a sort of objection to the more linear, patriarchal, one-God-only-and-no-Goddesses viewpoint that may contribute to the stifling of our inherently deep creativity. Not only are they Heather's two, stand alone, micro-stories in the anthology, they also form the beginning of a series which Heather is developing about bionic and/or alien input into human creative consciousness.

Until recently Heather had a nice little family. She had been her mother's carer (for the past ten years) and they had a beautiful dog and cat (but both elderly animals.) Within the course of three months life's time limits caught up with both pets and with Heather's mother: a major shock to Heather's psyche.

Heather is writing a memoir to her and her mother's relationship which is to be called "There Are No Straight Lines In Nature" .. after a quote by Spanish Catalan architect Antoni GAUDI (1852-1926) {who could almost be classified as a science fiction architect.} Heather remembers that phrase "there are no straight lines in nature" as 'a mantra' said frequently by her mother, whose own creativity was deep and beautiful .. but too often came out contorted, as it tried in vain to 'fit along a straight line'.