Bookstore employee publishes science fiction story

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/kim foottit edited.jpg” caption=”Kim Foottit published her first short story, “Walter’s Brain.” Photo by Susan Bubak.”]McMaster researcher Walter Wyndham talks to dead people. Wyndham was studying the memories contained within the brains of the dead when one of the brains began communicating with him through his computer. Sound like science fiction? Well, it is.

Wyndham doesn't exist, nor does the Study of Antiques: Organics Division at McMaster University, where he studies brains. Both are figments of Kim Foottit's imagination.

The aspiring writer just published her first short story, “Walter's Brain,” in North of Infinity II, a science fiction anthology.

Foottit graduated from McMaster with an Honours B.A. in History in 1997. She has been working at Titles Bookstore since 2002.

A friend was the inspiration behind Foottit's story.

“She told me how when she was a kid, she used to survive long car rides by talking to the 'people in her brain,'” Foottit explained. “She was so smart, she knew that in the future, scientists would extract information directly from the brain. I told her it would make a good story and she said 'go for it!'”

“Walter's Brain” was first published in Hamilton Literary Journal Hammered Out in 2005. It was republished in North of Infinity II earlier this year. Edited by Hamilton author Mark Leslie, the anthology is available at bookstores, including Chapters and Titles.

Foottit has been writing since she was 11.

“I've never really thought about why I like writing; I just do,” said Foottit. “I think that with writing and reading, especially fantasy and science fiction, you can go anywhere, do anything and be anyone. It's your imagination that takes you on the journey, puts you in the situation and if something doesn't work or exist, you can just make it up as you go along.”