CMAJ‚s new editorial fellow merges science and science fiction:

Barbara Sibbald

Dr. Alison Sinclair leads a double life: part physician en route to becoming a pathologist and part critically acclaimed science fiction writer with 3 books, a rave review from The Times and a nomination for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Sinclair brings her multiple talents and considerable energy to CMAJ as its third editorial fellow. The fellowship is a 1-year position that gives residents a chance to learn the inner workings of a medical journal. ”I always wanted to write for a medical journal,” says Sinclair. ”I just wasn‚t sure how to get in.”

That didn‚t deter her from pursuing her science fiction career. She fired off her first novel at age 9, and then simply kept on writing. Legacies was published in 1995, and was followed by Blueheart in 1996 and Cavalcade in 1998. Throne Price, a space opera written in collaboration with Lynda Jane Williams, will be published next year, and a fourth novel, Opal, is under way.

How do SF and medicine meld? ”It‚s useful to have a broad-ranging scientific background in writing SF,” she says. For instance, the underpinning of Blueheart is medical ethics.

The theme of the displaced person features prominently in her fiction, and this isn‚t surprising given her peripatetic childhood. Born in Colchester, England, she spent her early childhood in Edinburgh — both parents are Scots — and then moved to Canada when her father, a radiologist, took a staff job in Victoria in 1967. They returned to Edinburgh in 1971 and came back to Victoria in 1975.

Sinclair opted to remain in Canada for university, studying science at the University of Victoria and eventually earning her doctorate in biochemistry at McMaster University, where she was also on the varsity fencing team. After graduating she spent 5 weeks at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts, studying under the renowned Alistair MacLeod.

Sinclair then spent 2 years researching Alzheimer‚s disease in Boston before moving to the University of Leeds, where she worked on ion-channels research until 1995. ”I love pure research but it was very insecure and medical research was taking over.” So Sinclair decided to become a physician. After graduating from the University of Calgary in 1999, she began a residency in anatomic pathology in that city before taking a year off to work at CMAJ.

Eventually she‚d like to return to research, this time in molecular pathology. She also intends to keep writing SF and ”playing with hard science.” —