Can you tell us a bit about what inspired you to write this story?

In the months before writing “What We Don’t Know About Angels,” I was caught in a storm of doctors’ appointments for a bout of spontaneous nerve pain that would become a chronic condition. It was a confusing, isolating time: inconclusive tests, contradicting opinions, medication stigmas, no answers. When I finally sat down to write, I was so engulfed in all that, I couldn’t fathom a world outside illness and the American healthcare system. So I started inside it. That and I’ve always wanted to write a polydactyl story. I was born with six fingers on my left hand, and though the doctors removed the sixth when I was a baby as a matter of course, I think if I could’ve had a say I would’ve kept it.

Has mythology been an important part of your work? What do you think are some of the opportunities that mythology opens up narratively and what do you think are some challenges it brings into a story?

Definitely. I started by bringing mythic and folkloric figures from my cultures into the modern day—into modern-day America, more often than not—and letting those culture clashes play out. I’ve found it comforting, the idea that even powerful gods and ancient spirits aren’t immune to things like red tape at the immigration office, or the language barrier at the drive-thru. If an omnipotent being can be overcome by a sense of dislocation and alienation, it feels inevitable or more meaningful or at least less lonely when us humans are, too.

These days, I’m drawn to creating new mythologies, like some of what’s in this story. We want to feel we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, that our experiences are shared and repeating across time and plane. But the gods and stories of the organized religions I’ve been exposed to haven’t resonated much, so this is my version of that meaning-making. Being able to explain something (like the origin of the Finger Lakes) is satisfying, a balm for the countless things that remain unexplained (like the unfairness of one’s body betraying them).

It is so interesting to see climate fiction, history, mythology, and coffee knowledge come together. Where are you apprehensive about connecting these topics? What would be a writer’s tip to incorporate disparate ideas into a story?

I’m not sure what else my stories can be made of but the things I’m thinking about, obsessing over, and trying to work out or work through. If I have anything in the way of advice to offer, it’s that every story is a place to ask questions of or about the world, and sometimes we might not know the heart of the question we’re asking till we get to the end. So: invest in the process, the mess?

When I began writing “What We Don’t Know About Angels,” my question was: How do we navigate personal tragedies and global tragedies and cosmic tragedies all at once, without succumbing to despair or helplessness, resignation at being pawns in the hands of gods and/or corporations—or conversely, becoming immobilized by feelings of culpability and guilt? How do we take care of (and dream about) the future while fighting to survive in the present? Can we become what we need to become in order to do that? It’s a late-capitalism question(s). Though Clem is at moral odds with her job—where she knowingly, professionally supports corporate environmental destruction—she keeps working there so her dying loved one can have health insurance. Does that make Clem a monster? An angel?

By the time I finished the draft, I realized I’d been asking other questions, too. Namely about the role of stories today. You can do anything with stories. You can put marketing spin on a harmful product till everybody wants to buy it. You can offer the kindness of distraction, a temporary escape, to someone who desperately needs it. With stories, you can lie. You can tell the truth better. You can rewrite an intolerable world into one you might be able to tolerate, a senseless world into one that makes some kind of sense.

What made you choose this vignette style for this story?

A fragmented narrative comes more naturally to me than a linear one when dealing with those things I’m least certain about: gods, death, the worth of meaning-making, goodness, consumption . . . Fragments feel more honest, truer to how I think, and more forgiving in the exploration. With vignettes, I’m circling around and around the question, trying to approach it from different angles.

I’m thinking of Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens now, and the work of mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar: how for decades he collected artifacts from his life and community, shattered them into tiny pieces, then put those pieces back together in new arrangements that are so much stranger and more random than their original forms, yet somehow more cohesive-feeling, too. The resulting assemblages have his hands all over them, but also the universe’s hands, since Zagar’s process embraces randomness: he isn’t precious about where certain tiles fall; he doesn’t like to manipulate the outcome that much.

I’m thinking also of Clem’s compartmentalization, all her distinct fragmented selves: the self that does the job she hates, the self that takes care of Sabrina, the self that’s palatable to her parents, the self that isn’t—and how all these selves split open and give way to a new self that is so unlike the others, is not in the shape of a human at all.

Another thing about these particular vignettes: they invited repetition. I find with repetition there’s this sense that you’ve been here before, now you’ve come here again, so this is right, this is right where you’re supposed to be, and maybe things aren’t so incidental or meaningless after all. Which feels pertinent to a story about gods, mortal helplessness, personal limitations, and purpose.

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?

My debut collection comes out in 2025, and I recently finished writing my first novel—I hope to be able to share more details about both soonish! I’m also excited about a couple of stories, folklore-infused in different ways, that’ll be published in Nightmare and F(r)iction in the near future. Currently, I’m working on a werewolf story I haven’t heard before.

In terms of objects, lately I’m interested in broom-making. Not the intricate ritual stuff just yet, but all kinds of household brooms. I’m surprised it took me this long to get into it, since broom-making ties into a lot of themes I’ve been exploring in fiction already: gendered labor, the notion of “art” versus “craft,” ideas about filth and cleanliness, bridges between ornament and utility, and (if we’re talking about a witch’s magic flying broom) migration.

Folks can keep up with my writing—and maybe with the brooms, too, eventually—at kristinaten.com.