How did “The Historiography of Loss” originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

On this one very hard day, I offered to go into a trailer after someone had died by suicide—to retrieve necessities and to get the dog. This of course is not that story. But I wouldn’t have written this story if that wasn’t something that happened. In writing these sentences, I feel stiff and disconnected. But in writing this story, I did not.

What are you reading lately? What writers inspire you?

I wrote a fan letter to Sofia Samatar today because I just kept bumping into her brilliant stories and I adore her work; I don’t write fan letters much, but I should do more of it.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

Writing is the gift. Doing the work is the gift. Protect that. If I’d read that advice while a young writer, I’d have hated it. But it’s now my primary job, to protect my love of the page and the intimate and personal work done there. To protect while engaging in a career. It requires compartmentalization.

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

I have a science fiction novella called The Wick coming out from Underland Press and my first collection of stories, after years and years of novels, called I’d Really Prefer Not to Be Here With You; they’re all odd, speculative, science fiction, fantasy, or a mix of all those impulses and a few more.