How did “Mother’s Day, After Everything” originate? What inspirations did you draw on?

For years now, I’ve been trying to work through my despair about climate catastrophe and what looks to me like the onrushing extinction both of our species and many others. How do we keep going in the face of annihilation? (Some people are more optimistic about all of this than I am, and I hope they’re right.) My story “Sparrows,” which appeared in the September/October 2022 Asimov’s Science Fiction and won their Readers Award for best short story, represents one approach to that question: we cling to the wisdom of art and to whatever human relationships we can find. “Mother’s Day, After Everything” offers another answer, the project of shifting our hopes and loyalties from human life to Life with a capital L.

What is your writing process like? Did this story fit the pattern?

My writing process is glacially slow, unfortunately. I get an idea, dive into it, inevitably hit a wall, and then come back and finish it months or years—decades, in some cases—later. This story very much fit that pattern: I started it in May 2014, got stuck because I hadn’t figured out the ending yet, returned to it in December of 2022, and finished it in February of 2023. My motto, and my advice to other writers, is never to throw anything out, because even if a story feels dead, you never know when it will return to life.

What are you reading lately? What writers inspire you?

I recently binged on the Expanse series and all of Becky Chambers’ work, and my latest obsession is Ray Nayler. All of these writers both thrill me and reduce me to despair, because I’ll never be as good as they are, But hey, that’s what keeps us striving to improve, right? Complacency is the enemy of art.

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

I love to weave. With my husband’s encouragement, we recently converted our dining room into a weaving studio containing three looms, a sewing machine, and miscellaneous other equipment, including a jewelry-making nook. I started experimenting with metal clay last year and really enjoy it. Right now, though, I have very little time for creative pursuits of any sort, because I work forty hours a week as a social worker in a dialysis clinic. I’m trying to figure out ways to address the work/life imbalance, but I may need to retire to get back to everything.

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

I have a story coming out in a few months, in the July/August issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. At least five other stories are stuck mid-narrative, in the interminable-gestation phase. I hope to finish them before I die. I’m pecking away at the thing I said I’d never write, a trilogy (of novellas, not novels). It’s post-apocalyptic fantasy about difference and oppression and what happens when people learn that their cultures are founded on the subjugation of other sentient beings. No contemporary relevance there, eh? Will I ever finish this project? Bookies are standing by to take your call.