I did not set out to be a science fiction writer.  I don't feel that I am especially hooked on writing about science or the future.  My stories are usually about my own life and the things I struggle to make sense of.  But, for some reason, they almost always end up being science fiction.  I think I like the freedom it gives me to invent things and play with ideas.  

One thing I like about writing fiction is finding things emerging in my own stories which I wasn't conscious of, a bit like a dream whose symbolism only slowly dawns on you.  

Some of my stories draw on my experience as a social worker.  I am now a lecturer teaching social work students: I have written a couple of textbooks for social workers, in case anyone wonders whether this is the same Chris Beckett.  It is.

Many people are turned off by 'science fiction' which in book shops  is usually cordoned off in its own little ghetto, along with 'fantasy', where the books have extra garish covers and black spines.  It is kept apart from the stuff which is just called 'fiction' which tends to have lighter, less garish covers.  This is a pity because of course science fiction is as varied in content, quality and style as any other kind of fiction.  

Actually it is a mistake to think of science fiction and fantasy as specialist genres and of naturalistic fiction as the mainstream.   The early classics of literature were all what we would now call fantasy (think of the Odyssey, the Iliad, Beowulf, the Icelandic Sagas).   Naturalistic fiction is a relatively modern invention.  It is a very specialist fantasy genre which, although it is really 'made up', nevertheless mimics real life.  

Science fiction is just a modern kind of fantasy: fantasy for an age in which we don't believe in magic.  Or rather for an age in which we actually can do magic (fly through the air, talk to machines, sent pictures to the far side of the world, sew the living heart of one person into the body of another...)