In general, I love the chicken-footed house from Baba Yaga’s story. I’ve often wondered how the world might look from the house’s point of view. Is it a bystander or set piece? Could it be sentient? While I’ve treated the house as its own character before, this was the first time that Baba Yaga herself was entirely removed from the story. Chicken-footed houses multiplied, and suddenly the forest was not so empty.

There’s a phrase, “it’s turtles all the way down,” which initially referred to the world theory that there was a flat Earth balanced on the back of a stack of turtles. When asked what was beneath the turtles, this was the answer. So here, it’s if you’re looking at what’s happening on the internet, there’s more and more algorithmically generated content, and it’s algorithms responding to algorithms responding to algorithms responding to algorithms . . . it’s bots all the way down.

It’s explicitly a response to the ways that trans women are dehumanised, commodified, and othered in this patriarchal society for our lack of reproductive capabilities, which itself is inherently misogynistic, by enforcing a cis woman’s only value as being her reproductive capability, which is neither permanent nor guaranteed. Sadly, a lot of cis women don’t realise this is a shared struggle (read Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl, girl).

I typically need three things to start drafting a story: A setting/premise, a character, and an opening scene, or at least an opening line. If I have all three of those, the story will “catch,” and I can ride it to the end. If I’m missing one of those three, things usually stall out within the first thousand words.

I’ve always been fascinated by stories about adventures, migration, environments, and documentaries, most especially those that are unique with a rich blend of history and culture. I thought for a moment, what if a place existed outside of earth where people can travel, lodge, and enjoy comfort and activities different from what they are commonly used to. This was the crux that birthed this story.

I write all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons, but any time I set a story in or near the Churchlands, the priority is emotional honesty. I want the Churchlands stories to feel familiar to people who’ve worked themselves out of similar situations or wish they could. So I make it all as real as I can, take it as seriously as I can, as a matter of respect.

I know people—I am intimately related to some of them—who say, “I never read fiction. Why would I want to read about something that didn’t happen?” Those people all seem to function just fine in the world, but it is not my world. I and they have, at best, achieved peaceful coexistence.

How did “Operation: Grapevine” take shape for you? I collect a lot of ideas for short stories as I wander around the city with my head in the clouds, so it’s hard to remember the genesis. But I do remember feeling very energized as soon as it popped into my head and wrote it mostly […]

We’re excited to have “How to Build a Homecoming Queen: A Guide by a Bad Asian Girl” in Lightspeed Magazine! How did this story come into being, and what are the inspirations behind it? I’m excited that this story is in Lightspeed too! The first scene of this story came to me in a dream. […]

I wrote this story for a contest. The prompts were “veteran” and “art museum.” I’ve written several stories set on Kata Space Station (including “Gateway Night,” which appeared in the DAW anthology Love & Rockets in 2010), and I thought that would be an interesting place for a museum, since it’s where four different kinds of people interact with each other.