How did “What You Are and the Wolf” originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

“Little Red Riding Hood” is a fairy tale that’s always captivated me, especially because I like stories of sexual awakening, and I’ve loved wolves since I was a child. Its many retellings and different endings also make it a rich playground for experimentation.

I wanted to play with the power dynamics of the tale, both by empowering Red, and by changing the story’s villain. I wanted to push back against the gendered assumptions of Red as a powerless young woman and the use of the wolf as a symbol of evil.

The image that inspired this story was actually of Red riding the wolf into a portal that opened for them in the forest. My first draft included an epilogue where we see them arrive on the other side; ultimately, that focus took away from this story, which is more about Red coming into their own understanding of themself and their power, as well as escaping the trap laid for them.

What led you into writing genre fiction?

I owe my shift into writing genre fiction to a college writing instructor who is now a friend. She steered me toward Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin and introduced me to the Clarion workshops (although I didn’t become involved with those until much later). In the years since she was my instructor, both of us came out as trans, so I wonder if she knew then that I needed to explore worlds with expansive ideas about gender. “Bloodchild” and The Birthday of the World blew open a lot of the ideas I’d internalized from a fairly conservative upbringing. Writing speculative fiction gave me the tools to interrogate the expectations placed upon me as someone assumed to be female and to dip my toes into very different waters.

Is there anything you want to make sure readers noticed?

A friend gave me a zine on the queer language of flowers and flower symbolism. There are a couple nods to these in the story, or to specific color groupings. I also took inspiration from wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest.

The flower imagery serves a secondary purpose as well, since flowers are so often equated with femininity. Red’s ability to distinguish between plants isn’t appreciated beyond the superficial task of selecting a colorful bouquet. And of course, Red is seen and understood by most in their life in the most superficial way, where their greatest value is to be an obedient daughter and wife.

What are you reading lately? What writers inspire you?

I just picked up The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia, and I can’t wait to dig deeper into this tale with its unique magic system and exploration of immigration and ethnic marginalization. I adore second-world fantasy, and I love that the narrator’s nonbinary gender and asexuality are just as natural in this world as cisgender heterosexuality.

This spring I read through all of Nghi Vo’s published books—I aspire to write such clean, elegant, and effective prose! If you’ve been sleeping on the Singing Hills Cycle, I urge you to check it out. Two other books I read recently that surprised me in pleasant ways are Isaac Fellman’s Dead Collections and The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang.

Other than writing, do you have any other creative pursuits? What do you do to relax?

I dabble in different visual and fabric arts. I enjoy embroidery for the ability to transform something—a bag, a hat, any piece of fabric!—with colorful string and my hands. I’m also always taking pictures of flowers on neighborhood walks and learning more about edible plants. Last fall I took a songwriting class, and lately I’ve been doing taekwondo. I’m not sure it helps me relax, but it does work out some of the tightness from sitting in front of a computer!

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

I have a fantasy novelette at Beneath Ceaseless Skies and another story in the pipeline with Lightspeed. More of my work is linked at jaesteinbacher.com.

I enjoy short fiction because I like zeroing in on one story and then jumping to a completely different world. Committing to one world, really digging deeply into it, intimidates me! But there is a novel project I’ve been researching with a setting based on Al-Andalus during La Convivencia. This is the period in medieval Spanish history when Muslims, Jews, and Christians coexisted in some cities in Southern Spain. It wasn’t necessarily a harmonious time; there were a lot of inequities and prejudices, and power was constantly shifting as leaders of the Catholic Church and the Caliphate changed.

My story centers around a group of “cursed girls” with unexplored powers—one of whom can level part of a city. Some factions see them as demons requiring exorcism, others as weapons that could turn the tide of conquest; they are just trying to protect their found family and survive.