Welcome to Lightspeed Magazine! We’re so happy to have “If a Discarded God Can Change, So Can I” as one of the science fiction stories for this month. Can you tell us about what inspired you to write this story?

I’m honored that this is my third publication at Lightspeed—and my second this year! Truly humbling. “Discarded God” was partially inspired by a quiet moment when I turned thirty-five last year. I had been reflecting on how much I’d changed from the person I used to be, and how difficult things were in my twenties. I wasn’t out to myself back then, yet alone out to anyone else. I hadn’t realized I could simply use she/they pronouns and embrace being nonbinary. Now? Well, I’m queer as hell and happy with who I am. We all change, and sometimes that change takes time and doesn’t look like how you expected, but it is nice when you realize some of it isn’t all bad.

As a bird lover, I delighted in your description of the crafts that remain flying around the largely abandoned planet. What inspired you to make them so avian in nature?

This is actually a really fun question for me because I’ve gotten even more into birds and birdwatching since I wrote this story! The initial inspiration came up when my fiancé was telling me about all the subway train types in New York—his special interest is trains, especially NYC subway trains—and I had just started pondering birds and birdwatching and vaguely looking into that more, so my brain combined the two. I suspect if I were to write this story now, almost a year later (and one Merlin app wiser) some details about the mechanical bird transport types would be even more specific. Short stories (and stories overall) can be a neat little snapshot of your life at the time you wrote them.

I appreciated the way the story had such an open, hopeful ending. Why did you choose to end the story where you did and not reveal more?

Oh, I angsted over this ending! I intended the core point of the story to be the Traveler’s journey of self as they choose to embrace the good parts of the past (being an engineer, having that awe and love for the mechanical birds, etc.). I wanted that moment of hope in moving forward to be the final note rather than explain further about what happens next. But I do like to think the Traveler and their new acquaintance worked together and turned the Quetzalcoatl into a functional landside creature, and maybe the two chronicle its travels around the planet when they spot it.

What do you feel is the role of loss and grief in the scope of the human experience?

Oh, what a deep question. I can’t speak to all of human experience, but for me personally? Grief and loss shaped a lot of who I am. I’m a childhood cancer survivor, and in a lot of ways I’ve grown up grieving the life I was taught to expect. I feel like a lot of people go through that for a number of reasons. There are so many unknowns to any given day, and there are often shitty twists and turns outside of our control. Living with that is inevitable, so I think finding moments of joy, however brief, and existing as best as possible despite it all is what makes a life. I guess that wound up being part of the Traveler’s story in this piece, too.

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?

I am currently working on a novel whose work-in-progress name is simply “moonlets” because it takes place on a cluster of objects orbiting a gas giant, which is a very me setting. It’s not as cute as the name sounds, though, as it’s a queer battle royale for the fate of reality on a gods and mortals scale. It’s been fun! Of course I also have several short stories going at any given point in time, that will never change.

Also, when this comes out, OTHERSIDE (othersidespec.com) Issue 2 will have been released back in June, so please go check it out. Somehow we already are halfway through our first year of existence, and I couldn’t be happier about it!