I’m a working scientist doing biological research. There is some overlap in my day-to-day work and the science of these stories, so doing the research to write them was a familiar, cathartic, and supremely challenging experience at the same time. I have to be vague now, but I hope there’ll come a time when I can share that in more detail.

A friend gave me a zine on the queer language of flowers and flower symbolism. There are a couple nods to these in the story, or to specific color groupings. I also took inspiration from wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest.

The initial spark, the image I built the entire story around, was a scene from the FromSoft game Echo Night where the player must return the eye of a large fish mural. It’s not a particularly important part of the game, but I found the concept charming and wanted to turn it inside out.

I have always been fascinated by Yoruba mythology, especially the many untold stories it contains. Eshu is a god who isn’t represented enough in the few stories that draw inspiration from Yoruba myths.

I’m excited by all the books by African writers that have come out in recent years, we need more of that. I would love to see more work drawing on African story forms and indigenous knowledge systems, especially from southern African countries.