Q&A With David Lee Zweifler

David Lee Zweifler is a former journalist who lived and worked in Hong Kong for six years. For his latest story, he drew on his experience leaving Asia with his future wife. Learn more about David in this Q&A, and don’t miss “Wasted Potential” in our [November/December issue, on sale now!]

Analog Editor: David, you’ve been called a visionary a literary genius, and an all-around great guy. Do you feel like that puts a lot of pressure on you when you write?
David Lee Zweifler: First off, I really want to thank Analog for allowing me to write some of my own questions for this interview, like this one. That said, no, true genius does not succumb to external pressures.

AE: What is the story behind this piece?
DLZ: This piece is a fictionalized account of a critical juncture in my relationship with the woman who is now my wife, put into a science fiction setting.
I was working as a journalist in Hong Kong and had just received an offer back in New York that would allow me to become a dot com billionaire (which I achieved for, about, ten minutes). My then-girlfriend had just landed a plum gig at a major investment bank in Hong Kong.
I needed to get back to the US for work, and I had been in Asia for almost six years and was ready to return home.
Still, my future-wife and I had been dating for only six months or so. I felt like we were too early on in our relationship for me to ask her to move with me, let alone move in with me—especially because she would be leaving a job that she wasn’t excited about but paid well. (Very well).
Unlike the protagonist in this story, I was not an unemployed shlub. (I was an employed shlub, thank you very much!) Like the protagonist in this story, I was afraid that my job decisions would be holding back this amazing woman who had such incredible potential.

AE: How did this story germinate? Was there a spark of inspiration, or did it come to you slowly?
DLZ: It was autobiographical, but the major science fiction element is the quantum job search platform. That platform, using advanced analytics and unthinkable levels of computing power, can tell you your professional future at any moment in time . . . although it leaves the element of free will since your current decisions shape all the possibilities from that moment forward.
I was originally thinking of that device as the premise for a McSweeney’s type humor piece, where the job search platform is outlining your job possibilities. In that story, the platform is taking jobs off your list before you can apply to them, or revising your professional ambitions downward, based on your character shortfalls and foibles.
There’s also this odd human trait where human beings develop these truly awesome new technologies, and then put them to really stupid uses. (I’m looking at you, Generative AI-driven real estate listings!)
Channeling Douglas Adams, I thought it would be hilarious if we established that man could create “a practical, omniscient god who serves humankind by managing our day-to-day affairs for us, eliminating the need for work entirely.” Then, we could have this insanely powerful technology tasked with something mundane, far beneath its potential, like expediting human resource recruitment.
Those elements of “Wasted Potential” ended up being central to a more layered piece but, hopefully, they are still humorous to the reader.

---

AE: How much or little do current affairs influence your writing?
DLZ: I would say, quite a bit, for better or worse, although it’s a blend of current events and autobiographical past for most of my stories . . . just like it was for this one.
This type of inspiration is “for the better” because, when I’m inspired by a current event and it relates to a piece of my own past, I can sit down and bang out a three- or four-thousand-word story almost as fast as it takes for me to type it. (I’m a former wire-service reporter—I type fast!) That’s because I already know the story. It’s just a matter of marrying the significant history to the current event that serves as the hook.
However, this mode of inspiration can often be “for worse.”
I haven’t written any speculative short stories in the last few months because I’m discouraged by recent events.
A move towards authoritarian regimes, human obsolescence driven by AI, global pandemics—I liked those better when those things were the inspiration that I took from current events, and not the events themselves. Now, it feels a bit like I’m living in one of my stories, which makes it harder to write new ones.

---

Like the protagonist in this story, I was afraid that my job decisions would be holding back this amazing woman who had such incredible potential.

---

AE: What themes do you find yourself returning to repeatedly in your writing?
DLZ: Although I’ve been doing non-fiction and marketing writing for decades, I came to fiction late in life. (Okay—some of that marketing copy was fiction, but I really believed it at the time.)
I’m a new arrival to the art form. That, combined with the fact that my formative years were spent in a world without GPS, Internet, or streaming services, gives me what I think is a different perspective than many experienced younger writers. Sometimes, all this breakthrough technology leaves me with a sense of wonder. Other times, I feel intense alienation and isolation.
Either way, these seem to provide fertile content for my stories.

AE: Do you have any advice for up-and-coming writers?
DLZ: I had a chance to work as a first-reader for a semi-pro publication when I was first starting out. In this role, I supplied feedback on other people’s work. It forced me to identify the parts of the stories that I liked, and thought were working well, and show what, specifically, made me feel that way. I also had to supply detailed justification on the places where those stories fell short. In addition, I could also see the feedback of other first readers, some of whom were very experienced editors and writers, which helped me understand the likes and dislikes of a broader audience.
If I had immersed myself in nothing but exceptional stories I don’t think I would have learned as much. I certainly wouldn’t have learned as much by marinating in tons of bad, amateurish writing . . . and I would put my own work in that category when I was first starting out.
Reading unpublished work that ranged from (mostly) mediocre to (in just a few cases) great, and then being forced to articulate where and why stories were on that spectrum was the best training I could have had. I would recommend it for any new writer.

AE: How can our readers follow up with your writing?
DLZ: Readers can connect with me at my website, which is davidleezweifler.com, and they can see all published and upcoming work there as well.

---

David Lee Zweifler spends his days sowing the seeds of his own demise as a technology marketer. By night he writes fiction, mostly horror and sci-fi, where he curries favor with the robot overlords. His work appears in Little Blue Marble, The Dread Machine, The Paramnesia anthology from Grendel Press, Shortwave Media’s Obsolescence anthology, and, of course, in Analog. He has upcoming stories in Nature: Futures. You can connect with David on his website, davidleezweifler.com, and on Twitter @dzweifler.