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

I moved to Norwich in 2022, a medieval city in England which—as I read on a sign tied to a fence—has a “surplus of churches.” Throw a stone in Norwich and you’ll hit a fifteenth-century church. I find them architecturally and historically interesting, these hulking, intricate structures built at a time when everything had to be made by hand. I had the image in my head of churches sprouting up in a city like mushrooms. And I watched a video about one of the largest pipe organs in the world, an instrument so big it’s basically part of the building, embedded into it and unmoveable. All of it came together to form the seed of this story. It was one of those things where I stepped into the shower with a bunch of loose thoughts in my head and stepped out of it with a story.

I appreciate that you start with a phrase that could be viewed multiple ways and not only immediately collapse it into fantastic unreality, but deepen it through church song and churches with skeletons. How important is that kind of juxtaposition to your writing process?

I like short stories with unsettling openings! They tend to stick in my mind a lot. So when I was approaching this story, which to me revolved around this strange premise, I wanted to bring the oddness of the situation to the fore right away. I love weird juxtapositions! I love things where you read them and have to stop and go, “Oh, huh, that’s interesting.”

Maybe it’s just that I’m noticing it more, but it feels like fungus is having a moment in SFF these days. Do you think that’s the case, and what led you to write about a fungal church in particular?

Fungi are wonderful. There’s something so unsettling and yet beautiful about them. There’s an allure in the spores, the feeding off dead matter, the variety of forms. In a past life, before I became a writer, I was a biologist. I loved the breadth and scope of life on this planet. I think fungi have an appeal to people because they’re so alien to our human experience of being alive, and we can’t quite domesticate them the way we can other plants and animals. It’s like having an alien species in our very midst.

The way this story literalizes the metaphor of “religion as alien invader” is an angle I’ve rarely seen explored. What led you to tell the story from the perspective of someone spreading it, rather than resisting it?

For this story in particular I thought it would be interesting to inhabit the head of someone born in, and deeply damaged by this system, and yet continuing to propagate it anyway, because they don’t know how else to exist.

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?

I have a novella due out sometime soon—I’m not sure if I can talk about it yet as I don’t think it has been officially announced. But it’s sapphic fantasy with dragons and a knight who hunts them, and a princess with a secret. It’s slated to release in May 2025. Right now I’m working on my second novel. That one’s a bit further off, but it’s a queer revenge story set in a world with magic and reincarnation. Please look forward to it in the future!