1a. What kind of a name is Aristide Twain, anyway?A French one. To be more specific,
“Aristide” is the French variant of an Ancient Greek name; the original 5th-century-B.C.E.
Aristides has gone down in history as “the most honourable man in Athens”, but don't hold that against me. As for Twain —
no relation! Though I'd he honoured…
1b. Yes, but is it your real name?None of your beeswax.
1c. What's your gender? What pronouns d'you use?“He/him” if you want to be specific, but I feel the singular “they” to reflect personhood
removed from gendered concerns as much as an active rejection of the binary, in which spirit I am just as happy being addressed “as a person” as being addressed “as a male person”. As for what my innermost feelings on the matter might be, what I look like, or what's written on my birth certificate, please refer to Item 1b.
2. What is it you do?Didn't you see subtitle? I'm a writer and an editor. I'm also a cartoonist and illustrator, when I have the time; I'm not altogether convinced that I'm any good, but some people apparently disagree.
3. What are you all about?Oh… you know. Being kind. Being human. Enjoying the world. Helping others enjoy it, express themselves, make art. That sort of thing.
4. Do you take commissions?Time permitting, yes. Certainly you can always ask, whether that's for writing, editing, or artwork, and if I say yes it won't be terribly expensive.
5. Can you be contacted?Easily. Drop me a line at any of the social media platforms listed on
the Index.
6. Why did you resign?Nice try, Number Two!7. Will you go on my podcast/write something for my zine/etc.?Prob'ly. Contact me and tell me more!
8. Can I license such-and-such character or element from your works for use in my own stories?Probably! It's always fun. And I most likely won't charge you. However, if I don't know your work — and, oftentimes, even if I do! — I'll likely ask to review the whole manuscript before it's made public, and may withdraw permission depending on how that goes.
9. Is everything you write set in the Doctor Who universe?Not as such. I have some amount of roots in its outer fringes, but a number of my longest-running projects, starting with
The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, are quite distinct in both legal and cosmic terms from that peculiar family tree of indie spin-offs which some call the extended
Doctor Who universe — though really, I think of it as the
Faction Paradox universe if anything;
Who might have come first, but it only ever concerned itself with the tribulations of one runaway godling, whereas
FP deals with the properly
cosmic underpinnings of the universe across which Dr Who's
Tardis wanders.
With that said, it
is true that most everything I write is in some sense interconnected; I write SFF primarily, and continue to assume the Multiverse's background existence even on the occasion that I don't. Given that I find corporate-driven fiction's occasional insistence that there could be more than
one Multiverse in the grand scheme of things philosophically laughable, it follows that any one of my characters might meet another, if inspiration strikes me. The greater
Doctor Who clan, then, is a quadrant of that endless expanse — but by no means central.