By Diana Nollen/SourceMedia Group

(Geoffrey Cook photo) Steven Polansky of Appleton, Wis., uses his novel, "The Bradbury Report," to explore the effects of human cloning on the lives of three people a grieving widower, his much younger clone and a long-lost friend he met in grad school at Iowa State University in Ames. Polansky will discuss his what-if work Tuesday night (9/28/2010) at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City.

Just as hearing “Riverside Shipyard” sent a shiver of pride through local “Star Trek” movie fans last year, so does reading Iowa references sprinkled throughout Steven Polansky’s new novel, “The Bradbury Report.”

But make no mistake. While both take place in the future, one is science fiction exploring strange, new worlds and alien life-forms; the other is speculative fiction exploring the “what ifs” of human cloning.

“I don’t know anything about science fiction. I didn’t read it as a kid,” Polansky, 60, says by phone from his home in Appleton, Wis. “… I wouldn’t presume to write it. Though ‘The Bradbury Report’ is set in the future, it’s set there because what I write about has to be mathematically plausible. The cloning project I envision has to have enough time to develop a 21-year-old clone.”

In Polansky’s future world, it’s 2071 and the United States government runs a “copy” system in which all residents are issued a clone to provide spare parts in case of illness or injury. The humans never meet their clones, which are kept on a huge collective in North and South Dakota, known as the Clearances.

Naturally, the plot revolves around what happens when a human meets his clone. The human chronicles his year on the lam with his clone and Anna, a long-ago friend from his Iowa State University days. She grew up in Le Mars, not far from the Clearances, and is now part of an illegal anti-cloning activist group wanting to show the world what is going on there.

She loved the man 45 years ago, but he has become a grief-ridden shell just waiting to die. His clone is the image with which she fell in love. All three are in close quarters now, facing unfamiliar emotions and circumstances.

“It’s a love triangle unlike any other,” Polansky says. “It’s not happy. The ending is bleak, but it seems it had to be.”

Anna gives her narrator/friend the alias “Ray Bradbury” to protect his identity.

“That’s my way of saying to the reader, this is the type of work Ray Bradbury does — it’s more than just genre work.”

Polansky, a native New Yorker, taught English and literature in several Midwestern colleges before quitting at age 46 to devote his time to writing.

“I was writing while teaching,” he says. “Some people can do that well. They are disciplined and energetic enough. I found I spent my best energy and time teaching, with only the leftovers left for writing.

“When writers say they work full-time, for me that means I work three to four hours a day. By the time I’ve written three or three and a half hours, I can’t even speak an intelligible sentence, let alone write one.”

He calls himself “a coffee shop writer,” preferring that space to his in-home study, where he says he gets antsy.

“I write in the mornings and spend the afternoons with my daughter and wife and try to be a reasonable citizen,” he says.

“When I was a serious basketball player, I always felt energized afterward. When I finish writing, I’m in a stupor. I find it hard — I find it not an un-risky transition from living in a world that’s inside your head and going back into the world where I really live. Sometimes I’m glad to make that transition, sometimes it’s a rude one.”

Even though he traded in a steady income for an uncertain payoff, he’s careful not to let financial gain drive his art.

“When you’re getting a paycheck regularly, it affords a certain amount of freedom to write whatever you want. When you’re trying to make a living as a writer, you have to be very careful that you’re not writing for the money. I try very hard not to orient it toward the marketplace. (If) I did that, it would be over for me. For some writers, that’s what they want.

“I don’t have a clue about the marketplace. If I started thinking about that I assuredly would fail in both ways. It wouldn’t be a particularly good book and I wouldn’t make any money anyway,” he says. “Writing as a teacher is a way to give yourself the chance to write what you want without worrying.”

The genesis for this book came during some long walks with his two adult sons in New York City’s Central Park.

“I was between books,” he says. “I was not hunting for a subject — you have to wait for them to come to you. One of my sons brought up something about cloning. It may have been about George Bush’s stance on stem cell research. One of us said it would be interesting to meet a younger copy of yourself. It would be like time travel.

“I don’t keep a notebook. the only way I know if an idea is any good, is if it stays with me a couple of weeks or I spend a couple of months brooding about it, then it might be worth pursuing,” he says. “I gathered my sons again for a long walk. They were instrumental in seeing the possibilities.

“I never would have done it until I understood there had to be a third character. The two men are interesting, but as soon as you stick a woman in there who loves them both, you’ve got an interesting story.”

He’s looking forward to his trip to Iowa City.

“As a fiction writer, Iowa City is kind of a Mecca. … I’ve only been in Iowa a couple of times, but I respect that state because of its education system. If you want to send your child to public school, you darned better live in Iowa. In the course of my teaching I had hundreds of students from Iowa. Most of the book takes place in Canada, which I suggested was a more enlightened country at that time and now — maybe because it has fewer people, not as closely packed.”

He’ll talk a little bit about the book, read a passage and take questions. “It won’t be a burdensome evening,” he says.

He spent about two and a half or three years writing the book and another year making revisions. It came out in hardback in May, is being published in nine other countries and is slated for paperback next spring.

More novels are in the works.

“I have one book my agent is attempting to sell right now and another novel I’m about 230 pages into,” he says. “I try to have one in the pipeline all the time.”

A writer since his early 20s, he says, “It’s the only thing I know how to do besides teach. When I’m not writing I feel like a bum — useless, shiftless — I get kind of gnarly, so I write to protect the people I love from me. They can’t live with me or around me if I’m not writing. I love words and love the sound of my own voice, so I’m kind of narcissistic.

“My love of language is fierce. Writing makes me feel good when I’m done — not when I’m doing it — so I try to be dedicated.”

His work has found acclaim. His story collection, “Dating Miss Universe,” won the Sandstone Prize for Fiction, and he’s had short fiction published in The New Yorker, Harper’s and Best American Short Stories,

“I’ve been at it 40 years, so you’d think I’d be a lot better,” he quips. “I’m very slow. I strive for a usable page a day; 350 words sounds ridiculously meager. The trick for me is to do it every day. If I can produce 300 pages a year, that’s almost a book a year, so I’m a bleeder, but I bleed constantly.”

FAST TAKE

• What: “Live from Prairie Lights” features Steven Polansky, author of “The Bradbury Report”
• When: 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010
• Where: Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City
• Admission: Free
• Event information: www.prairielights.com/live
• Author website: http://stevenpolansky.com/