Please tell a little about yourself and Uncertain Lives. 

Although raised in a family devoted to the arts, I became a scientist, yet one who loves art and collects Inuit sculptures. Now an emeritus scientist at the National Institutes of Health, I write novels, essays, and memoir. My fiction mixes fantasy with reality, and my essays focus on personal experiences and philosophical questions. I have published novels, short stories, essays, and memoir mixing truth and imagination, and I blog on my website (https://joramp.com). 

What sparked your intertest in storytelling? 

My journey in storytelling started, paradoxically, with science, when I linked objectively obtained data into narratives comprising conclusions from verifiable facts, a form of storytelling by blending facts with speculations. I find writing fiction analogous to science narratives by linking ideas and imagination into internally consistent stories. My interest in storytelling, then, evolved by first creating science narratives, which morphed into factual memoir, subjective essays, and finally imaginative fiction.  

How did you develop your subject? 

While a rule of thumb is write what you know, I blend what I know with new thoughts and even far-fetched imagination, which takes me into foreign territory and fantasy. Thus, I live simultaneously in the reality universe and the imagination universe, as do the protagonists in my novels and some short stories. My science career has shaped my reality universe—that is, I am aware of when I cross borders of what’s known—while my writing has led to my interest in exploring the role of imagination in our concept of reality and of identity. Thus, my fiction overlaps reality with fantasy, and my essays probe the nature of reality.  

Was your storyline something that you envisioned from the beginning, or did you build/change it as you wrote your novel?  

I start writing with a fuzzy image of some sort in my imagination. How a story or novel will develop from that image is muddled in my mind. For example, my short story “The Open Door” started with an image of a man whose favorite activity is standing in line and ended with his passive attraction to his secretary. My present novel, Uncertain Lives, started with an image of two friends looking at each other as strangers and developed into a story of uncertainties about what’s true and the power of imagination. In brief, my writing starts with a vague notion and is followed by trial and error in numerous drafts, which becomes an exploration of ideas as they occur. The end always surprises me.  

Is there anything you would do differently in your next book? 

I’m never sure about what I’ll write next, however I believe I’ll continue to explore imagination and the tricks it plays on our memory and perception of reality. I’m considering either memoir or fiction as possibilities. Stay tuned. 

Portions of this Q&A were edited for clarity.