Can you talk a bit about how this story took shape and what inspirations fed into it?

Two things happened at roughly the same time; I can’t remember the order. The U.S. Supreme Court granted the states the ability to reduce women to second-class citizen status in their own country, and I had a dream. I saw a humanoid-shaped bone construct the height of a skyscraper loping across a horizon. I was standing about a quarter-mile away, on a hilltop, and I thought, I don’t know what side that thing is on, but I hope it’s mine.

At first I read this as a weird buddy comedy, because how else to interpret a story lingering on a road trip about stealing bones for a skeleton saint – but it became something more than that very quickly. How important was this kind juxtaposition to you during the writing process?

All of my favorite genre stories remix familiar elements to spin up an idea in an unexpected or different way.

This story is deeply rooted in Christian iconography, to the extent that it’d collapse without it. What led you to take this route in the creative process?

If I remember correctly, I worked backward from a concept. If I were to introduce a siege machine made of bones, where would I source the parts? Good ol’ grave robbing came up as a possibility, but I didn’t see much of a fun read in that. I had assumed—incorrectly—that Catholic reliquaries, perfect bone sources as they are, were limited to the Old World. When I learned there’s a purported holy ossuary in Pittsburgh, that took the idea of a giant bone saint right over the top for me. That and the fact that Catholicism is nothing if not a study in hypocrisy when it comes to women’s bodies. I think it was just as much luck as anything else, that the religion and the main monster worked so well together.

The original title of your story was “More Bones,” which struck me as unassuming and ordinary, given the extraordinary nature of the story itself. What’s your process for titling stories, and was this an intentional decision to sharpen the contrast?

The crimes that the world heaps upon women, the cycle of violence and beatification—there’s nothing gorgeous or rich or poetic about that. And at first, I thought that was something the title needed to convey. The evil we’re fighting is banal as fuck and let’s not forget it.

Is there anything you’re working on that you’d like to talk about? What can our readers look forward to seeing from you in the future?

Hey, you like bones? How about a whole house made of ’em? I’m writing my first novel! Somebody be a saint and publish it. I’ll see myself out.