How did “A Sojourn in the Fifth City” originate? What inspirations did you draw on? In the broadest sense, this story is a version of the science-fantasy novel that I started writing when I was fourteen years old, wrote and rewrote many times over high school and early college, but never managed to turn into […]

This story grew out of a writing process I was experimenting with last year where I would write each morning to a prompt nonstop for ten minutes. The idea was just to gather a little more raw story material to work with. I also should confess that I was looking for an excuse to write longhand and make use of my modest collection of fountain pens and inks.

I like films. Sometimes, when I watch a film I try and figure out what the extras are saying in the background. It’s usually with films I’ve seen before. I’ve worked as an extra before so I know it’s mostly nothing, but once you start thinking about this, it takes you places.

This story was inspired by the ecology of animals like the olm, a unique cave-dwelling salamander, and the honeypot ant. One of my favorite things to do in speculative stories is interweave non-human lives, ecologies and cultures into our human ones.

It seems to me like most good advice on writing boils down to 1) read widely, and 2) write. But I wish more people understood that all published writing is an optical illusion, a magic trick that looks effortless but is in fact the product of endless rehearsal, practice, and revision.

I told myself that I wouldn’t be one of those writers who would move to NYC and then write a short story about moving to NYC. I’ve read too many of those over the years and they start to be repetitive. But then, I discovered I wanted to use all the newness I was experiencing.

If you’re a writer reading this, you’re probably invested in speculative fiction. I suspect you share with me the sense that our world could be—and should be—much better than it is! I believe fiction can make space for imagining better worlds and how we might get to them. And I believe your work—yes, you, personally—matters.

“Diamonds & Toads” was one of my favorite fairy tales when I was young. I think I just liked the visual of roses and snakes falling out of people’s mouths. (Still do, TBH.) When I reread it as an adult, though, I was struck by how sorry I felt for the oldest daughter.

If we are to have any chance at averting a climate disaster, we must do more than just reduce our carbon output—we need to get to carbon zero or better. “Carbon Zero” explores the human cost of what may become humanity’s last chance.

It started as most stories do: a what-if that wouldn’t leave my mind, that demanded an answer. What if you had someone with precognition that somehow couldn’t see their own future? Their own tomorrow, a mystery. Initially, there was something a little funny in that idea, but as often happens with my stories, the little bit of humor caved in.