How did “A Saint Between the Teeth” originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

This story was inspired by the ecology of animals like the olm, a unique cave-dwelling salamander, and the honeypot ant. One of my favorite things to do in speculative stories is interweave non-human lives, ecologies and cultures into our human ones. The metaphors, conflicts and emotions that crop up from that exciting friction when you bring together human and non-human cultures and biologies always excites me. As someone whose ancestry is also mixed and whose cultures are vastly different, I always find it fun to write about culture clashes and characters finding new insight in one another as they try to bridge the gap of their limited perspective.

Did you get stuck at any point while writing this?

I wrote this story while at Clarion West back in 2022 where you aim to write a story a week during the duration of the workshop. By the time it was this story’s turn to manifest, it just flowed out of me! Usually it’s not the case, I feel like I get hung up on details and especially language but the urgency and energy of the workshop helped me move past that quickly.

What are you reading lately? What writers inspire you?

Some current writerly inspirations are Simone Weil, Shelley Jackson, Louise Erdrich, Livia Llewellyn, and Alejandra Pizarnik.

What trends in speculative fiction would you like to see gain popularity in the next few years?

I’d love more ambiguity in fiction, particularly towards its themes and its sense of morality. I feel like this is an issue in most fiction I’ve read recently, short and long; there’s an insecurity in a lot of fiction from what I think is due to the hostile cultural climate towards art. A lot of writing ends up feeling fabular or almost like a therapeutic diagnosis and I think a fear of the reader is definitely at the root of this. A fear of the work being misunderstood. Personally, I think ambiguity is a generative space, a space to play for both the author and the reader. More ambiguity, less didacticism.

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

I’m working on my dark Pasifika fantasy novel, two new collaborative graphic novels and editing the second volume of my illustrated BIPOC horror anthology, Death in the Mouth: Original Horror from the Margins. I also had a new novella come out through Interzone #296 called “With the Blade as Witness,” a visceral indigenous adventure following a tribal mech pilot trying to survive on a post-apocalyptic planet. You can also find more of my work on my website sloanesloane.com.