How did “A Sojourn in the Fifth City” originate? What inspirations did you draw on? In the broadest sense, this story is a version of the science-fantasy novel that I started writing when I was fourteen years old, wrote and rewrote many times over high school and early college, but never managed to turn into […]

This story grew out of a writing process I was experimenting with last year where I would write each morning to a prompt nonstop for ten minutes. The idea was just to gather a little more raw story material to work with. I also should confess that I was looking for an excuse to write longhand and make use of my modest collection of fountain pens and inks.

I like films. Sometimes, when I watch a film I try and figure out what the extras are saying in the background. It’s usually with films I’ve seen before. I’ve worked as an extra before so I know it’s mostly nothing, but once you start thinking about this, it takes you places.

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.

It seems to me like most good advice on writing boils down to 1) read widely, and 2) write. But I wish more people understood that all published writing is an optical illusion, a magic trick that looks effortless but is in fact the product of endless rehearsal, practice, and revision.