How did “The House, the Witch, and Sugarcane Stalks” originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

Longtime readers of the Spotlights may recall other writers crediting their story’s origin to the Weekend Warrior contest on Codex, an online writer’s forum. Well, this is another success story (pun intended)! For those new to it, Weekend Warrior is a contest of five weeks where participants are challenged to write a flash of 750 words or fewer, inspired by various prompts, over a weekend. I usually go into Weekend Warrior with a goal, and one of mine for that year was to write a story about a witch. Then the prompt I used for this story was to hit Wikipedia’s “random article” link I think up to five times. I happened upon a Wikipedia article for “Sugar Creek.” The name alone made me think of Hansel and Gretel and the witch’s candy house. I knew I didn’t want to do a straight retelling, so I began playing around with what other types of candy houses there might be, and who might be considered a witch. My feedback from the contest was that the story needed more words. It grew about double in length.

Where are you in this story?

I’m mixed Black/white, and grew up with many European fairy tales. I also have a lot of thoughts of my ancestors who were stolen from their homes and enslaved, and their cultures stripped from them, and that cultural knowledge lost for future generations—effects that I grapple with myself. So I identify very much with my witch, Agnes, when she says, “But this food, I made it mine, like House is mine . . . They don’t get to take it, too.” I’m making the European fairy tales and other trappings of colonialism that I’ve inherited one way or another, mine.

Is there anything you want to make sure readers noticed?

Following feedback from an early reader who’d attempted to research the name of my then-fictive plantation, I decided to reference an actual historical plantation, though all characters remain wholly fictional. During the approximate time setting of “The House, the Witch, and Sugarcane Stalks,” the named plantation was known as Habitation Haydel, as mentioned in the story. Habitation Haydel later became Whitney Plantation, and now serves as a museum with the mission of educating the public about the realities of slavery and its effects. Please visit whitneyplantation.org for more information. Any factual errors in the story remain mine alone.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

Find your people. By this I mean find your trusted readers and the folks you really jibe with, their art and yours. Especially if you’re a writer from a traditionally underrepresented background, there are strong chances that not everyone is going to “get” your work. Those who do are the ones whose opinions you should seek out as you work to improve your craft, or even just this one single story. Trust that there are readers for you!

What are you working on lately? Where else can fans look for your work?

By the time this story is published, I should have finished the last round of edits on a dark fantasy novel before it goes out on submission (assuming my agent and I agree it’s ready). Because I am both lazy and not great at summarizing my work, I’ll copy the book’s Twitter pitch that first connected my agent and me: A maladjusted woman with sentient sea monster teeth stuck in her arm must combine the magics of two warring cultures to save her lover and homeland from a ghost monster—all before the teeth’s bloodthirsty song consumes her.

Once that edit is done, I’ll be switching back to another, still-untitled fantasy book, which I’m mentally comping as “Mexican Gothic meets Snowpiercer.” So hard-in on novels at the moment! To see what else I get up to, folks can check out my website amandahelms.com. I’m also intermittently on Twitter and Instagram as @amandaghelms, and on Mastodon @[email protected].