I loved “Does Harold Lattner Dream of Infected Sheep?” It’s timely, poignant, dark, funny, satirical . . . It’s so many things! Where did you get the initial inspiration for it? What was the writing process like, and was it any different from anything else you’ve written?

It’s funny you ask how I came to write this novelette because it was an experiment. About a week prior, my managers Lawrence Mattis and Antonio D’Intino got me on the phone and told me—you need to be less precious. Edit less, write more. See what happens. My flaw as a writer is that I think too much and try too hard, which might seem like a virtue, but can be a real problem. Anyway, I took their advice with the story, and I’ve been trying to take it since.

Instead of carving out time, I wrote it at the kitchen table, while talking to my kids and accidentally burning dinner (I always burn dinner). I wrote it while I was visiting my dad, who was sick, and I wrote it on the plane between New York and Los Angeles. I didn’t use ear plugs, I didn’t sequester myself. It took less than two weeks and my inspiration was probably my dad—he and I were very close, but also divided generationally. He was old-school, patriarchal, and a little bewildered by a woman who’d actually want to be out in the world, instead of at home. I knew he was dying and was sad about it.

Lattner starts off as a person who thinks he doesn’t have a lot of options in life. He hides things, especially from himself. It’s almost like he’s afraid to deal with his own choices, afraid of taking risks. I think it’s related to the world’s use of Congo: no one has to make a decision when a device tells you what to do and when to do it, so no one has to take responsibility for their actions. Do you fear that’s happening in our society today: this delegation of every little thing to tech?

I think a lot of people live their lives very small. We internalize barriers that don’t exist. I think this is heightened by tech, which would have us sit in chairs all day, reacting to nonsense. The human mind can expend only so much energy, and we sap a lot of it scrolling pointlessly.

I don’t know what the future of tech holds, but it seems to exist not to help people, but to extract data and profit.

I’m fascinated by the (I wanna say hopeful?) theme of appreciating the mundane, which, I think, is very important! I’m thinking of the gin rummy game at the table between Lattner and his kids, or the humming he (thinks he) hears near the end of the story. What are your thoughts on this appreciation? Are there things you would consider mundane that you appreciate?

I was thinking a little of PKD’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? with that ending!

But yeah. Small moments. Lattner’s happiest when he’s useful and has agency in his work and with the people he loves.

Do you have any upcoming projects you can talk about? What’s next for you?

My novella Pam Kowolski Is a Monster is coming out from Raw Dog Screaming Press in spring, 2025. I’ve got a short story called “Squid Teeth” coming out from Reactor in May. My next novel, Trad Wife, is coming out in Spring 2026.