Initially, I started with trying to envision a positive future. I came up with the Overview Initiative concept, then immediately realized all the reasons it is a terrible idea. That tension, as well as a tension I’ve been feeling around what the “point” of science fiction writing is more broadly (as if there is one singular point), drove this story.

The location is loosely based on the Round Table Foundation, an occult and psychic research facility that existed on the Maine coast in the mid-20th century. It was led by one Henry Puharić, who is well known in paranormal conspiracy circles, and a guy named Harry Stump, whose biography has to be read to be believed. Aldous Huxley used to stop by.

The story came directly out of two incidents around the same time last summer: a con released a panel description complaining about the existence of too many lesbian stories, and a couple of gaming websites started mass-censoring/banning queer games and creators. The way these events overlapped made both even more frustrating; looking back at my early handwritten notes for this story, the first line is “too many lesbians” in scare quotes.

I have been a professional writer since I was sixteen—which is fifty years now. I have always wanted to write. I think it comes from being the youngest of four. One of my earliest memories is of five adults (my parents and siblings) sitting in the living room reading, while I went from person to person begging them to play. They were reading instead.

“Ten Unsent Letters to the Dark Lord” originated at Can*Con 2024. There was a masterclass workshop at the convention called “Write a Story in a Weekend,” hosted by Brandon Butler and David Schultz of the Toronto SFF Writers Group. I like writing challenges, and I like deadlines, and I decided that writing the first draft of a whole short story in forty-eight hours while also attending a convention sounded like exactly the kind of bad idea I would enjoy.