I really enjoyed this short romp through time in the search for love, especially the character of the Time Traveler. What was the inspiration for this story?

At its heart, this is a genie story. This is the story of the guy who asks a magical figure for a wish and does not get precisely what he asks for. The great power he asked could have been a wizard or a demon, with little rewriting necessary. The story actually began with the anecdote told in its middle about the time traveler commissioning Shakespeare for a love sonnet, and could have been just that, but I wrapped another story around it.

Samael feels like an everyman character, a blue-collar worker who wants to be happy like anybody else. What is it about the everyman character that seems to resonate with so many people, and how was it to write an extravagant, well-traveled character like the Time Traveler alongside Samael?

Samael is more than an everyman; he’s a guy who gives the impression of being a brute, and whose poor communication skills make it unlikely that he will ever find a companion for himself. The Extravagant Time Traveler is of course a well-beloved trope to those of us who watch BBC America, and I will confess that while writing this I occasionally teased myself with the possibility of this being the same Time Traveler. Ultimately, I decided he was not. But I mostly wanted this to be a wise and helpful man, meaning only the best.

The future that the Time Traveler brings Samael to is fascinating, weird, and different, but what interested me was how people could transform into whatever their daily needs required. If you had that ability, what sorts of things would you transform into to suit your daily needs?

I would eliminate chafing.

What’s next for you? Anything in the works you’d like to talk about?

Right now I am working on a couple of pieces that I am not ready to talk about, except to say that they’re awesome.