Could you give us the origin story for this piece?

Sometimes a story originates in a mood. During the pandemic I spent a lot of time walking through my neighborhood, where there was a sense of desertion and abandonment. It had an autumnal mood of endings and regrets.

Then again, perhaps it was because I was spending a lot of time reading the poetry of John Donne. One of his sonnets starts with the line, “What if this present were the world’s last night?” From there, my thoughts went in a different direction than his did.

What is one book you would take with you? Is this an impossible ask? Why?

I spend a lot of time now reading books that lift me out of my reality. But if I were truly leaving my reality (as we all must), I think I’d want something to remind me of it. Until I face that choice I can’t be sure.

What is it about books and the apocalypse that connects poetically?

Writers decant ourselves into books. They are our immortality, our legacy. We hope they will outlast us and spin a connection to people we will never know, as books have connected us to people of the past. Nowadays, we are pretty accustomed to the idea of all the people perishing. But what if all the books went, too? Everything we have thought and experienced through all the millennia would vanish with them. Somehow, this seems like an even greater tragedy.

Why this particular ending? Are you suggesting we are a book in ourselves or I am I completely off the mark?

You may well be right. I guess every reader needs to decide for themself.

Is there a project you are currently working on? And if not are there any themes, objects, or news that might be tickling your fingers?

I have just finished a science fiction novella called “Testament of Leaves” which, now that I think of it, explores some of the same territory as this story does—legacies and memories, and how we preserve them. I am also working on a novel about an alternate America, because it seems to me we need one right now.