I’d read an article a long time ago about bees that collected honey from flowers that produce psychotropic chemicals, and after that, I’d always wanted to write a story that touched on mad honey in some way. But on its own, the mad honey was just a detail; not enough to shape a story around. It wasn’t until this idea crashed headlong into a writing prompt asking for a story touching on wolves or werewolves that everything came together.

This story originated mid-morning in the Crown & Anchor parking lot, on a particularly potent cocktail of weed, shrooms, coffee, and booze. A friend had come through town to say goodbye before heading off to join the Navy, and he was talking to me about meth-head drywallers and ants being the earliest machine intelligence and how he hopes we eat the rich, and I was too high for it. I kept seeing flashes and texting them to myself so as not to forget.

Write what you love, and only if you love it, because this is a hard and often lonely business to be in. If you loved what you wrote, that’s already a win, whether or not it gets published. But if you are passionate about a particular story, your passion and your voice will shine through, and that’s what will make your story unique and stand out in a slush pile. The writing is all that’s in your hands. Focus on your craft. Get yourself a writing group or critique partners you can rely on. That makes the process less lonely—at least it did for me!

This was originally a short I’d intended to include in a climate change anthology that explored more tangible, localized impact rather than the distant/impossible macro-disaster approach that ends up being the focus of a lot of media. And then the world started catching up to the stories being written and it somehow felt less poignant and more “news at eleven.” So “12th St. Pirates” takes from existing examples of apartheid and classism and places them in a climate justice framework, positing that we are going to take our societal ills into a climate altered future. As our climate situation worsens, there are segments of society that will choose to see walls as a fix.

I’ve seen lots of Baba Yaga retellings and modernizations—and don’t get me wrong, the old witch is fascinating, deserving of every ounce of attention she gets. For this story, though, I wanted to cast one of the figures of Slavic folklore I don’t see revisited nearly as often: Poludnitsa (also known as the Noon Witch, or Lady Midday). Pulling from my own experiences, I threw in some teenage angst, some intergenerational dissonance, and a Burning Man–esque desert setting that’s going to be make or break for our modern Noon Witch.