I loved reading this. There was so much loving, careful detail put into this story. It feels like you got so much mileage out of so few words. What was the initial inspiration for “Babywings”?

I wrote the first draft of “Babywings” about two days before my daughter was born in spring 2023. I was full of anxiety about the prospect of having a newborn—having children is something that people do all the time, yes, but there were so many things that could go wrong, so many paths my mind could spiral down. I process anxiety by writing, and so write I did.

What was the writing process like? Did you run into any challenges?

I wrote the first draft of “Babywings” after rereading Gabriel García Márquez’s “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.” The older I get, the more magical realism hooks its claws deep into me. Coming at the story through this genre, at a sideways angle, has allowed me to grapple with themes that are, for me, more emotionally challenging: birth, death, family dynamics. These are the things in life that for me, as a horror writer, truly inspire terror and awe. My first draft was about 400 words and didn’t have an ending . . . and as I said above, I went into labor, like, 36 hours later and was a little too busy to work on it for a while! Nine months later, when I had a healthy baby napping in the next room, I pulled it out of the proverbial drawer and found that I had so much more perspective on the story. That was when it really came to life.

“Babywings” is such a beautiful, evocative look at the uncanny, especially the beauty in crows. A few weeks back, I watched as a couple of crows played on an empty soccer field. It was beautiful! What is it about crows that you find so fascinating?

To me, birds in general are vehicles for the uncanny—sometimes I look at them and am just astounded at these tiny, feathery dinosaurs hopping around pecking at the dirt. The opening image of the chick is pulled directly from an early childhood memory—I remembered thinking that the way it was positioned on the sidewalk reminded me of a dinosaur fossil. I am particularly fascinated by the intelligence of crows and their rough-hewn beauty. I also find it so fitting that my daughter, now sixteen months old, is obsessed with crows and mimicking their cawing.

What’s next for you? Do you have any projects you’d like to talk about?

My next novel with Berkley will release in 2025! (I would tell you what it’s called, but I have no idea if this interview will go live before we announce it.) I think that readers who loved the spookiness and scares of The Hacienda and the romance of Vampires of El Norte will absolutely love it.