Taryn Heintz makes her debut in Futures this week with her story One of me. Originally from Seattle in Washington, Taryn now lives in Cardiff. Here she explains how she approached the difficult subject matter of her tale — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing One of me

I moved to the UK when I was 21, I’m 30 now. Every year, sometimes twice a year, I make the trip back to Seattle to see friends and family. Trips home at 30 are very different from trips when I was 21. At 21, I would usually go from party to party having fun before returning to the airport exhausted and ready to sleep through the 11 hour flight. By 25, I flew home twice a year for three years exclusively to attend weddings. At 28, the babies started making appearances. First a niece in 2007, and now in 2015, I have four nieces, three nephews (with two more on the way), two god children and about ten various close-friends’ children who also call me auntie.

There comes a point in most people’s lives when everyone around them goes baby crazy and it seems like not a month goes by without celebrating a new birth. Although thrilling, whenever a new child is born, I wonder about the people who are struggling to have families of their own. These are not passing thoughts, as I am someone who has struggled with fertility. Fertility issues are not something people speak about as openly as their food allergies or other health problems. It’s often hidden away in a dark corner and only shared with the closest of friends and family. By the time all four of my sisters were either pregnant or mothers, I decided to start trying, but trying and being successful at procreation are two very different things.

I can remember one particular low moment after a doctor’s visit when I thought at this point I would even clone myself. And that’s when the idea for One of me was born (pardon the pun). I have always been fascinated by alternative futures where clones are used as medicinal remedies — the book Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a personal favourite because it explores the ethical and moral issues behind using clones to produce organs for transplantation. Even at the age of 11, I can remember hearing about Dolly the sheep and wondering if the science behind cloning would be extended to humans and what that would mean.

With these thoughts circling my head, I wrote One of me frantically, in a single sitting. When writing, I was fixated on the idea that people, who couldn’t have children naturally, could clone themselves and what kind of practical and emotional problems that would present. So, I thrashed out my story and tried to create something that had many dimensions and a lot of feeling. The greatest thing about science is that it gives us a chance to remedy the problems facing the world, but one problem solved can also lead to a plethora of other challenges. Because, simply solving a problem doesn’t always heal the trauma it caused in the first place.