Can you talk a bit about how “Drosera regina” took shape and what inspirations fed into it?

I keep carnivorous plants, including a Nepenthes I’ve had for many years. I used to post photos of my Nepenthes online, but a subset of men would compare the pitchers to genitalia. Which configuration of genitalia changed each time, but there were always comments, and I began to resent sharing my plant at all.

This crystallized one day when I went from celebrating a friend’s pregnancy to seeing a man compare my pitcher plant to a Fleshlight.

So, I’m giving the people what they want. A carnivorous plant they can fuck. Enjoy.

Early on I thought this could be read as a new take on the concept of vampires. What do you feel this story is in conversation with?

Loneliness. The loneliness of having a body that reflects an angry world back at you. The loneliness of women who seek men to love but find men taught to hate them instead. The loneliness of having no community, no safe harbor, except what you carve out for yourself.

In the end, Jackie doesn’t defeat the monster. She hides from it.

I appreciate how the story quickly established that Jackie only goes after acid vat-worthy men, and how sharply drawn the emotions were around the detective’s betrayal. How much of this was to help readers further empathize with her, and was there anything else you were hoping to get across here?

I would argue Jackie doesn’t go after men. The men go after her. And women let the men have Jackie, whether through quiet complicity or by trying to put her in harm’s way.

There’s a version of this story where Jackie turns her curse into a superpower and becomes a vigilante. That’s the type of story we understand. But I wanted a messier story for Jackie, because that feels more true.

This story doesn’t shy away from leaning into sexual angles. What led you to combine the act of man-eating with orgasmic pleasure?

Because it’s fun! But also, why wouldn’t she orgasm from eating them? The men were going to enact violence on her for their own pleasure, so why shouldn’t her violence result in the same? Eating and sex have a long, entwined history, so surely man-eating would be very pleasurable indeed.

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?

My story “Not Like Other Girls” will appear in Reactor Magazine next year. If you like “Drosera regina,” you’ll like that one as well. I also have a free, mostly seasonal newsletter: buttondown.com/algoldfuss