Both of your novels feature specific communities that often carry a bad rap. What draws you to explore misunderstood people like the Goths and theater kids?

I am both of those. I have been since adolescence. So, they’re worth exploring and spending time with because I can bring truth and clarity to goths and theatre kids. How awesome.

In addition to exploring the world of theater kids, The Lightning People Play features a character who has epilepsy. Why this diagnosis for Baxter? How did you ensure you were representing the realities of this illness accurately?

Well, I lived it. My brother Matthew had grand mal seizures his entire life. Sadly, we lost him in the summer of 1997 when he was twenty-six due to complications from a grand mal seizure.

We shared a room when I was a kid, and he used to have tremendous seizures in the middle of the night. I always felt there was some hidden magic happening in that room, a door to another world, whether that was some kind of preventative trauma response, or my subconscious at play, or something else.

Ancient Greeks believed epilepsy was a “sacred disease,” and correlated it with the divine. Some Meso-American cultures believe epilepsy comes from a struggle with the afflicted person’s animal soul following a battle between the naguales or spirits who serve the forces of Good and Evil. So, there is a lot of magical thinking around it, and as witness to it for so many years, I understand that and I have felt that.

This book allowed me to transpose those memories into something mystical and beautiful by utilizing my involvement in theatre for over forty years as a framework to tell a story about the two young brothers, Kirby and Baxter; about creative collaboration among friends; and an important story about a struggling family that figures out how to deal with the affliction. 

There are many ways a person can be afflicted with, and manage, epilepsy. This book explores ways that fit this particular family at this particular time in this particular set of circumstances. But it’s going to be different for everyone. The seizure scenes in this book, though drawn from real life, are also not going to look like other epileptics’ seizures. And they’re on a journey to figure it out, with mistakes made along the way, which is how it really was for my family, and is for this one.

Baxter’s older brother, Kirby, is determined to raise money so they can get Baxter a seizure-alert service dog and decides to put together a play with his closest friends. You have an extensive theater background. How did that influence the way you approached writing the theater-related elements of the novel?

Theatre means a lot to me. I’ve been doing it since I was eleven years old. It helped me. I was a bullied kid, assaulted and harassed for being gay. Well, I mean, back then I was not “out,” obviously, because I was a child and didn’t even know what that meant yet, or what was even going on inside me. But I was, for the people around me, “weird” and “effeminate” and “sensitive,” so they tortured me. We’re seeing the same thing happen now with trans kids.

Theatre empowered me. There was a teacher who intuited I had talent. I had no idea I did. Once I discovered it, that I had it in droves, I was off on my journey. The most satisfying thing about it back then was that it was a very rebellious act. It felt kind of punk rock, in hindsight. It angered and frustrated, annoyed and infuriated all the kids around me who had been bullying me and making my life really difficult. To see me on stage steeped in this power, this creativity and sense of play, really angered them. That made me feel so good. Theatre was a kind of f**ck you to the bullies. I loved so much that they hated it. (It changes later in life, of course. Once you enter the professional realm, it feels like a popularity contest.)

In the book, the kids have a theatre mentor named Thaddeus Krasinski. He runs the junior high and high school theater programs. He is a professional working actor and director. He sets the protagonist off on his journey. He’s a loving, supportive, idiosyncratic character and is a conglomerate of so many integral theatre teachers and mentors I encountered along the way. He also has an interesting theory about theatre and being an artist in society. That character in particular was a useful, layered, beautiful vessel for approaching the theatre-related elements of the novel.

At its core, the novel is a love letter to explore and celebrate creativity, neurodivergence, friendship, and family. Why were those elements so important for you to highlight in the novel?

I’ve always been creative, wildly and unpredictably so. And so have the bulk of the people around me in my life. It is a driving force, and as such, a great narrative partner. I wanted to explore it through the eyes of teenagers who are doing it for a specific reason: to help someone.

Neurodivergence and neurodiversity need more representation and exploration. Kirby manages a mild case of OCD (though he is not diagnosed) and the events of the book aid him in managing it better; Mara Gecco utilizes her own unique way of speaking and communicating; Bax, of course, is navigating his epilepsy. I experienced a lot of neurodivergence growing up, not only because of my brother but from being around so many artistic, talented, and creative people.

Friendship, yes. I’ve had the same two best friends since I was thirteen years old. And all through my life, as an actor and a writer, I’ve built community and found family through the closeness that results from doing plays, and from writing. Friendship is a huge part of Alice the Cat as well.

The family story in this book is one of acceptance. Not everything works out the way you want it to when it comes to parents and siblings. But you don’t have to lose the love.  

Were there any novels, movies, or plays that influenced or inspired you while writing The Lighting People Play?

Energetically, probably Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, and The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez. I don’t know of other stories that explore these themes specifically utilizing epilepsy and theatre as their framework.

I am a voracious reader and am always being inspired by books, but I’m also content with this one not having any obvious comps. Not everything needs to be exactly like everything else. Gasp. Oh my God, how controversial. But, I mean, I think it’s refreshing. Let it be new.

How did writing this novel compare to writing your (award-winning!) debut novel, Alice the Cat? Were there any lessons you learned?

Alice was a good book to cut my teeth on. I had a great time with it, though I never expected it to be published. I wrote it in grad school and it felt fecund and unhinged, fun and funny, and loud and weird. As much as I wanted to try to adhere to the industry’s dictates of kid lit (and boy are they stringent), I also didn’t want to adhere to any dictates at all. And I think the book reflects that in its subversive playfulness. Is it a perfect book? Nope. That is what I love about it. It left me so much room to grow. If books were perfect, would we need to release about several thousand of them a day? I try to stay focused on process. Process is better. Process is where you get to be the artist.

We’re lucky to have published your short story, I Am a Person, in our Resurrection issue! Has your writing and editing approach changed since then? If so, how?

Still so proud of that, thank you F(r)iction! I loved inhabiting her voice. The first whispers of that story first came to me back in 2003 when we went to war. Again. War is such a constant. We know its voice so well. It’s magnified and voluble. With I Am a Person, I wanted to amplify and explore a different voice, that of a woman whose husband was fighting during WWII and who seems to have disappeared. I wanted to draw attention to a different kind of violence, the quiet kind that comes from dealing with war back home, in the kitchen, as a single mother. A contrast to the brut, in-your-face male violence we see intensified on the battlefields via the media.  

The experience working with F(r)iction on that story was wonderful, and palpable, because it was obvious to me that the team loved the story and wanted it to be amazing. So, editing it felt like a collaboration.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to get into the publishing industry?

Publishing is bananas. Start small. You don’t need a deal with the Big 5. Let that come later. There are so many small indie traditional publishers out there who want to support writers. You don’t need an agent to get a deal from one of them (though it helps because an agent can handle the contract and ensure the writer is being protected; publishing contracts are bananas as well).

Focus on writing the best book you can—that is what you have control over. Write with people. Join writing groups. Take writing workshops. I run several private workshops a year and I love doing it. I also teach for UCLA’s Writers’ Program and I love that too. It builds community. You have good, smart, kind but discerning eyes on your work, and that’s important.

Know that you dare to make a difference when you put anything out into the world as an artist. Accept that you, and what you write, is not for everyone. Put it out there, and keep going. Become a conscientious literary citizen. Your voice is important, your story is important.

How can we find and support you? What’s next on the horizon for you?

Best way to support a writer is to read their stuff. If you love it, amplify it. Review it. Reach out to the author. Even if you don’t love it, chances are you know someone who might. So, tell them about it. Give a book a fighting chance.

I am on Instagram and I have a website. I do a lot of events, and appearances.

Next up is something way more seditious. A work of adult literary fiction about some very abnormal stuff that happened in New York City after I graduated from NYU. I found myself lost in the darkly glistering underworld of the NYC club scene that was immensely popular at the time, (mid 90s), the Club Kids, designer drugs, outrageous fashion, alternative identities and wonky monikers. All of it pre-internet (how WILD to think about that), all of it so uninhibited and unpredictable—and often nefarious—all of it forever lost to the history of a city that can never go back to that time. It’s an unexpected love story, really, but a cautionary tale about how artists can sometimes delve too deeply into their work and not find their way back out again. It explores the the cost of losing your soul to your art, and points toward ways to get it back.

Five Dystopian YA books to remind you that even in the darkest days, hope prevails. We’re stronger together.

Political uncertainty is an inevitable part of life. We all experience a wide array of emotions, formulate different opinions about what’s right, and carry traumas from past hurts that shape us. But through the power of storytelling, we’re able to share our experiences, find commonalities, and speak out against injustices to create a brighter future. While these five dystopian young adult (YA) novels feature heavy themes, they teach readers the value in thinking critically about social issues, cultivating empathy for others, and the resilience of the human spirit. 

The Giver by Lois Lowry

“Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.”

Long before the release of Pixar’s Inside Out taught us the importance of feeling our emotions, there was Lois Lowry’s The Giver. Often introduced to middle school students experiencing the rapid changes induced by puberty, The Giver teaches kids and adults alike how to celebrate their individuality and treasure their memories, including the painful ones. 

The story follows Jonas, a twelve-year-old boy with BIG feelings, who’s part of an idyllic society called “The Community.” Everything is precisely orchestrated in The Community so there are no arguments, fear, or inequality, but at the steep cost of free will and memory. During the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas is selected for a special assignment as the “Receiver of Memory” and becomes the apprentice of the peculiar old man known as “The Giver.” Throughout his journey with The Giver, Jonas soon discovers the importance of choice and the power of memories The Community had forsaken.

One of the lessons The Giver teaches Jonas is the need for human connection. The Giver says, “The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” By sharing our lived experiences—the joy, the sorrow, the frustration, all of it—we assign meaning to the world around us. Ultimately, The Giver emphasizes the beauty in having the choice to experience the fullness of human emotion and using our empathy to stand up for others against injustice. 

Legend by Marie Lue

“Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything is possible again.”

Although set in a post-apocalyptic United States, Legend depicts a reality not so different from our own. Revolving around the consequences of blind obedience and socio-economic inequality, Legend highlights the danger of a nation concentrating its power in the hands of the wealthy.  

June Ipiris, born into an elite Republic family, is a patriotic and passionate military prodigy committed to defending her country at all costs. Daniel “Day” Altan Wing, born to a poor family in the Republic’s slums, is intelligent and loyal, risking his life to protect and provide for his family; he’s also the nation’s most wanted criminal. When Day and June’s paths cross over the murder of June’s brother, the two clash in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse that exposes more than they bargained for, including how far the Republic will go to guard its secrets.

A book about socioeconomic disparities may not seem “empowering,” but the characters’ mature reactions to tragedy make Legend a must read. Although June is filled with grief and rage, and Day is framed for murder, both protagonists eventually choose hope over revenge. Day says, “You live in the moment, you die in the moment, you take it all one day at a time. You try to walk in the light,” meaning that we must decide to “walk in the light” of love and hope daily for a more equitable future instead of being consumed by anger and darkness over the past. 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

“Kind people have a way of working their way inside me and rooting there.”

The Hunger Games is often challenged due to its gruesome violence against children and young adults. However, if the brutal games themselves were all the book was about, then it wouldn’t be the global phenomenon the series is today. Instead, the Hunger Games uses violence to critique our obsession with media and our complicity in allowing authority to go unchecked. The novel forces us to grapple with the difficult question of how far we’re willing to exploit others as a source for entertainment and allow our fear to prevent us from speaking out against the mistreatment of others. 

Panem, formerly the United States of America, is controlled by the elitist Capitol. To punish the surrounding twelve districts for their past rebellion, the Capitol demands two tributes—one boy and one girl—to fight to the death in the annual Hunger Games until only one tribute remains. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers in place of her sister, she relies on her sharp survival instincts to unwittingly become a contender and fans the flames of rebellion smoldering in the districts. 

Beneath the barbarity of The Hunger Games are sparks of human kindness found even in the most inhumane situations. While aboard the train to the Capitol with her fellow tribute, Peeta, Katniss reflects on his undeserved kindness toward her in both the past and present, as she states, “Kind people have a way of working their way inside me and rooting there.” In the moment, she fears Peeta’s kindness as a form of manipulation, but throughout the book and trilogy, it’s the moments where human goodness shines in the face of intense hardship that keep her alive. The Hunger Games reminds readers we’re at our strongest together and collective action is the greatest remedy for counteracting abusive political regimes.

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

“My greatest wish for humanity is not for peace or comfort or joy. It is that we all still die a little inside every time we witness the death of another. For only the pain of empathy will keep us human.”

What would it take to create a perfect world without death, disease, and war? Neal Shusterman ponders the question in Scythe through the creation of MidMerica, a futuristic utopian society with a wicked underbelly governed by an AI overlord. The epistolary and philosophical novel explores themes like compassion, the meaning of death, and the ethical implications of technology. Through these themes, Shusterman urges readers to reflect on how they assign value to a life and why. 

Scythe tells the story of two reluctant teen apprentices, Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch, who must master the “art” of gleaning lives as Scythes to keep the population in check. However, while training under the Scythedom, Citra and Rowan quickly learn that living in a perfect world comes at a hefty price.

At the heart of Scythe is the lesson to embrace the complexity of the human spirit. Rowan reflects, “Death makes the whole world kin,” demonstrating how it’s not our appearances, power, or wealth that make our lives valuable but our mortality. Scythe encourages us to accept the darker sides of humanity while understanding we’re also capable of great acts of creativity, love, and perseverance. We must decide which side we focus on. Only by clinging to our “pain of empathy” to “keep us human” can we fight off the darkness in the world rather than letting it destroy us. 

An Ember In the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

“When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.”

An Ember in the Ashes is a slept-on series that deserves as much hype as YA dystopian giants like The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner. Bursting with vivid world-building, a diverse cast of characters, and heart-pounding stakes influenced by global events, An Ember in the Ashes asks the question of “Why do we justify treating each other so cruelly?” The novel focuses on the harsh daily realities of oppressed people depicted through the Martial Empire’s militaristic reign over the Scholar class. 

Laia is a Scholar in the Empire. She keeps her head down and does as she’s told, knowing defiance means death. But when her brother is arrested for treason, she joins a group of rebels to rescue him. Her mission? Spy on Blackcliff, the Martial Empire’s greatest military academy. There, she meets Elias, the school’s strongest soldier. When their paths intersect, they find that their decision to help each other will change the Empire forever.

Sabaa Tahir often jokes about drinking her readers’ tears because she’s constantly putting her characters through hell and back to demonstrate humanity’s resilience. In An Ember in the Ashes, Laia is advised that “When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart,” representing how fear is strong, but the tenacity of the human spirit is even stronger, especially when we’re fighting for something we love. The most inspiring aspect of the bookis how the journey of Laia and Elias depicts empathy as a strength, not a weakness, in a cutthroat world constantly trying to strip it away from them.

* * *

Through five powerful and timeless stories, these authors share three key methods for preventing political corruption and injustice from taking root in our society.

First, we need to collectively keep those in power accountable for their actions, just as Katniss rallied the rebels against President Snow in The Hunger Games trilogy, and Day and June took a stand against the Republic in Legend. 

Second, we should remember we have more in common with each other than differences and to treat every life with respect, as we learn from the Scythedom in Scythe and Laia and Elias’s relationship in An Ember in the Ashes. 

Third, we’re born with powerful emotions that are a gift, not a curse. Our innate sense of empathy will guide us to a more equitable world, like how Jonas learned to harness his empathy to drive change in The Giver. 

Each of these novels provides a dire warning to pay attention to the darker sides of humanity while also reminding us to cultivate hope through compassion, empathy, and love for one another. When we remember our shared humanity, we’ll be capable of creating a true utopia in our world instead of a dystopia. 

Discover your next great read and spark your imagination by exploring more free creative work on the F(r)iction Log!

I press tape along the molding. Moonlit Beach goes down

this new border. Just a whisper

of chartreuse on the baseboards. When I’m done,

there will be no memory of wood paneling. Still the walls

throw their shadows through the paint.

A child’s head, once emptied of its skull, folds like clay

on the floor of a blackened hospital. Another keeps his skull

but not his scalp.

The great Gaza sky settles

into homework toy car rack

of wedding veils. Legs torn off at thigh and knee

and hip—

stop—

globs of paint I wipe with thumb attached to hand,

my arm, my torso, stop—look, there’s morning

sun in here, a gold lamp; the internet will cooperate

when I make it. When I get done drawing this margin.

My crisp line. My clean rollers. Bristles left on the wall—

nice morning

but for those, and for

the mother,

crawling into a hospital bed with her dead son, yellow and purple

with bruising—stop—I will pretend

not to notice the flies or the way

the boy’s sister howls

his name to the wind—

I moved south for college and began working part time at a nonprofit dedicated to forest preservation. My department was responsible for converting the field reports into numerical data. Aisha was one of the field workers. Her reports were thorough and well written, often containing poignant notes about the forest creatures. I was always sad to distill her narratives. She’d write: On four separate occasions, the camera observed a gnome hand-feeding acorns to a family of squirrels. The mother squirrel filled her cheeks with the nuts and brought them back to a hole in her tree. Two shining pairs of eyes peered out to watch her ascent and descent.

I’d write: Daily sightings: One gnome; three squirrels.

When I invited Aisha over for dinner one Friday night, I was surprised when she accepted. I made us spanakopita with parsley I’d grown in my flower boxes. She returned home with enough leftovers for lunch the following day. We began having dinner every week, sometimes twice a week.

One Saturday, Aisha texted asking to have dinner. When I picked her up (she didn’t have a car), I noticed she was vibrating in the seat next to me. Her thin frame blurred at the edges.

“Aisha,” I said.

“No, no, I’m fine,” she said quickly. “It’s silly, really. Just a man. A guy.”

I kept my face forward. Aisha seemed too, well, young to be seeing anyone. “From work? How long’s it been going on?”

“A month.” She scratched the back of her right hand over and over with her thumb. “He’s not from work.”

I said nothing; I’ve always had the ability to call forth weighty silences. Once, arguing with a lover, she asked me how I kept my quietude so well hidden yet readily available, like a tightly folded blanket.

“I don’t like to tell people things until they’re serious,” she said. She was looking out the window, still scratching.

“Ok, well, where’d you meet?”

She hesitated. “In the woods.”

The tires thu-thunked over a crater in the asphalt. I asked, “How?”

Aisha proceeded to tell me she’d been in the woods last month to quantify an as-yet unidentified dropping, when she heard a sound like a woodpecker. But the pitch was too tinny, isolated. She followed the sound and found a naked man, standing in a hole in the ground. Rather than run away or call for help (as I surely would have), she asked what he was doing.

“I’m trying this out,” he answered. He had brown skin and black eyes with hardly any sclera exposed.

“Trying what out?” She asked, but he didn’t answer. He continued to stand upright in the hole, holding his back impossibly straight. He made no move to leave or say anything more.

Aisha left the woods and consulted her notes. A centuries-old live oak tree supposedly lived in the hole the man stood in. She’d heard legend of this on internet forums. Trees turning into people for a brief period.

Like Rumspringa for the Amish, treefreak444 had said.

The man was still there the next day. “Come on,” she said. “Don’t waste this opportunity.”

The man hesitated and then stepped out of the hole. The spines of dead leaves snapped under his feet. Aisha told him to follow, and he did.

She took him, first, to an ice cream parlor, where they shared a chocolate sundae with vanilla ice cream and two cherries. She shyly showed him how she could tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue. Then they electric scootered to a soft-drink museum, where they tasted different syrup samples and watched metal machines crush cans into perfect, gleaming cylinders. Last she took him to a reimagined rendition of Waiting for Godot, where, in the end, Godot arrives. The reviews were mixed.

At the end of the day, she did not take him back to the forest. She took him to her apartment. She did not say explicitly, but I believe they were intimate.

He lived with her for a month, rarely saying a word, before informing her he’d be leaving for the woods that night.

“Just like that?” she’d asked, shocked.

“Yes,” he said.

She drove him back to the woods and followed him to his hole. He told her to turn around and she did. She heard that tinny, non-resonant sound again and when she turned back, a live oak tree stood, strong and dusty, in his place.

We sat at my kitchen counter. Aisha had stopped shaking. In fact, a thin sheen of calm had descended upon her.

“He told me,” she stopped to swallow, “that I could join him, if I wanted to.”

“Join him?” My face felt separate from the rest of me. “What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure,” she paused. We both knew what she would say next. “But I think I want to.”

I said nothing to deter her. I stirred the milk, parmesan, and garlic until it frothed into alfredo sauce. We ate our pasta from wide white bowls, traded the cheese grater back and forth. At the end of our meal, I rested the tips of my fingers on Aisha’s knee.

“If you don’t go,” I said, keeping my gaze above her hairline. “You’re an idiot.”

That night, when I dropped her off, she came around to the driver’s side and hugged me. I knew I would not see her again, nor would I read another of her lively reports.

But I was wrong. Four days after our final dinner, I received a report she’d written. It was dated a few weeks back, after the tree man would’ve been living with her for several days. Her words were confused, nearly unreadable. I will always remember how that report ended: the world’s wooden forever believes in our salvation. I copied this sentence down on a paper napkin leftover from my lunch (I’d eaten dry salad and hadn’t made a mess) and threw away the report. There’d been nothing easily convertible to numbers.

I’d compare Alice to infamous characters like Amy Dunne, Tom Ripley, and Joe Goldberg. Was there any particular inspiration for creating such a volatile protagonist?

What flattering comparisons! I love all of those characters. But for me, Alice’s volatility lies in her bodily experience of living as a woman. When I first read Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh I was struck by how singularly unpleasant her protagonist was, how disgusting I found her, with her bodily functions and awful thoughts. I found it so refreshing how this character was unapologetically unlikable, and felt that, in a way, it gave me permission to create my own.

In This Immaculate Body, we are disturbingly immersed into Alice’s mind: if you could step into the mind of any fictional character, who would it be? 

I’m torn between wanting to truly understand the quieter or less knowable characters and keeping the mystery alive. Bertha Mason, from Jane Eyre, which has already been beautifully explored in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, would be fascinating.

Self-loathing and the deterioration of mental health are key themes throughout the novel. How important was it for you to humanize Alice in this way?

I never wanted Alice to alienate the reader entirely or become a pantomime villain. Yes, not everyone would act in the way she chooses to, but I wanted people to, even if they didn’t recognize themselves in her, to recognize her humanity. Sadly, the self-loathing is what most readers (all women, of course!) have let me know they identified with most strongly, so I think I was on the money there. I included her friendship (if it can be called that) with Mr. M as another, less toxic, way of doing this.

How important was it for Alice to be a half-South Asian woman and an ethnic minority? Did you want her identity to shape the story in any significant way?

It’s funny; I hadn’t particularly thought about her ethnicity until I realized experiences from my own life as a mixed-race woman growing up in an overwhelmingly white environment were bleeding from me into the manuscript. I thought it would add another layer of slipperiness to her character, the fact she never reveals her exact ethnicity (try as people might to guess!), which adds to that feeling of otherness and inferiority.

You’ve mentioned the contents of This Immaculate Body have been “toned down.” Were there any scenes you fought to keep, but had to cut as they were considered too “graphic?”

It was less about them being graphic—bloody or visceral—and more to do with the hatred and self-loathing Alice directed at other people, including herself. That was toned down as my team found it too oppressive. There was initially much more swearing as well (in terms of what Alice called herself), which my editor (rightly!) suggested I tone down to make the expletives that do remain, more powerful.

“Fem-gore” is a rising literary movement, which subverts traditional horror as it centers women’s experiences. What drew you to explore this theme in This Immaculate Body and how do you see it evolving in the coming years?

I find it interesting so many books falling under the fem-gore umbrella are coming out now, many of which had their beginnings in lockdown. For all its horror and uncertainty, I think lockdown enabled an artistic flourishing. It was a time of stasis, prompting many people to consider their priorities, and, in some cases, to focus on novels they previously hadn’t had time to write. I think when there is a time of forced insularity, reflection follows. Perhaps many women were able to consider their place in the world, feel things about it (anger, frustration, impatience) and write about it. I’m excited to see where fem-gore goes; although I do predict a backlash against the “unhinged woman,” a trope I love.

Did you have any alternative endings or were you always planning on justice prevailing?

I love the way you’ve described that: justice prevailing! Yes, I always planned for the overall thrust of the ending —what physically happens to Alice. But Alice’s thought process in the final scene (I’m trying not to give spoilers) went through several iterations until I found the one that felt truest to Alice.

You’ve written an extremely intense and—I mean this in the best way possible—disturbing novel. Would you want to keep this momentum going with your next novel, or do you plan on pivoting in a different direction?

I always think I will be drawn to elements of the disturbing. I particularly think trying to draw out the disturbing thoughts we have is interesting. But I am certainly pivoting with my second novel; it is, I hope, partly set in the late fourteenth century, so I am deep in research mode.

What debut novel are you looking forward to reading this year?

So many! One of the unexpected pleasures of being a debut novelist is making the acquaintance of so many others going through the same journey, and I have the rare feeling that my finger is particularly on the pulse! I’m particularly looking forward to The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis and That Time Everything Was On Fire by Kerry Downes.

What advice would you give authors who are planning on tackling these unconventional themes within their work, but are afraid of how their work will be received?

You have to forget your readers, for a while. Write what it is you want to write, write what you have wanted to read. Your readers—and the moment of “oh goodness, my mother-in-law is going to read this, my boss will possibly read this” can come later, once the damage is done!

The boat skids and bounces across the sea in darkness, and Yasser has never been so frightened, for so long, before. In Syria, he cowered as bombs fell from the sky, heard the whistle of bullets just inches from his ear, was splashed by the blood of people he loved. But that all happened with horrifying speed. This night has felt endless, and though Yasser can swim a little, he’s never been on a boat or at sea, and knows he’s no match for these tireless waves. This small, rickety fishing boat feels flimsy as a toy in a bathtub, splashed around by a violent and invisible giant child. He thinks he may die tonight, that this quarter-century is all he’s been allotted—but he’d feel proud to die this way, fighting for a future. Better to die a hare in bounding flight than cower in a warren waiting for death.

Eleni wakes at 5 a.m. as she has every day for six months. As her feet touch cool tiles, her back protests. She defies the pain, forcing herself to stand up. She has found defiance a surprisingly effective strategy for dealing with old age. It has limits, of course. She can’t do much about death (which she senses sometimes, snuffling on her trail) but she can make it a difficult pursuit and she won’t be easy to swallow. She intends to stick in death’s throat: make it choke.

Dawn’s embers glow on the horizon and hope flares inside Yasser’s heart. He knows life isn’t a scary movie, and that death is no nocturnal creature waiting in the darkness: he’s eaten breakfast inside shaking walls as bombs struck and seen bodies steam in the street under midday sun. Yet an illogical, instinctive part of him insists the light is safer. He looks at his fellow refugees—two dozen, shaking with cold, fear or both—and some of their faces reflect his hope back at him.

The night dissolves above Eleni’s head as she packs her bicycle’s basket with water and biscuits. There were two weeks last summer when the boats came almost daily, and the whole island jittered with whispers of a new smuggling route targeting tiny Gavdos. But the boats are less frequent now, since the coastguards got wise and intercepted them at sea, arresting the smugglers and taking the refugees to larger, better-resourced islands. Eleni has read grim reports on the camps in those places, but time’s taught her what she can and cannot change. The boats may be fewer now, but Eleni goes to the shore every dawn, in case she is needed.

The smugglers shout and though Yasser doesn’t understand their Maghrebi dialect well, he sees the way their fellow Libyans start squinting North and knows someone must have sighted shore. Yasser can’t see it, but he can sense it. Greece. Europe. He’s waited so long to get here, travelled so far. In Damascus, he’d saved money by helping people with computers, cycling around neighborhoodas that had avoided bombing for long enough to have functioning Internet. Computers connected the world, and he hoped his IT skills might help him find a better, kinder place in it. Before he started on this journey, he’d been warned of its dangers, but he knew that staying in Damascus could be just as perilous, his hatred of the regime known. In a life full of dangers, you sometimes have to choose by the one your heart kicks hardest against.

Eleni cycles through the village in smudgy dawn light. She knows leaving this early won’t fool the villagers or silence those who call her eccentric. It won’t deter Mr. Patrakis, who warns her, and anyone else in earshot, that soft hearts like hers will ruin the island, will ruin Greece. Eleni leaves early because she knows morning is when most refugee boats arrive. She remembers her father, too, a fisherman lost at dawn in the same sea when she was small. Nobody waited for him on the shore. She’s carried that memory throughout her life: a sad, heavy, useless thing. Only in these last months has she found a use for it.

The smugglers are shouting again, causing tumult among the passengers. A Libyan woman translates for Yasser in urgent, simplified Arabic. A coastguard boat approaches from afar and the smugglers are turning back to avoid arrest. Yasser’s heart wails. It will take a year to save enough for this passage again and he’s so close. As the boat spins and water churns, he thinks he sees a blur of land. Before he can think, he heaves himself out of the boat and tumbles into the frothing waves.

As Eleni cycles along the Tripiti cliffs—where tourists pose for photographs at Europe’s southernmost tip—she thinks she sees something out at sea. She stops and stares out at the waves, but there’s nothing. Perhaps it was a trick of light, or a whale spouting. She wishes she had binoculars, then reminds herself they wouldn’t really help. Not even defiance could help her swim so far at her age, not to anyone so far out that she can’t see them with her own eyes.

Yasser is shivering and tiring despite clinging to an inflatable tossed by one of the other refugees as the boat raced away. He sees the island only in brief snatched moments before another wave crashes against his face, blinding him. His whole world contains just three things now: sea, Yasser, shore. He must live. He kicks, kicks, kicks.

Eleni sits under the cliffs in her usual spot, sheltered from the sun and its dazzling glare. Her heart jumps when she spies a disturbance out in the waves—a clumsy thrashing that can only be a person lost at sea. She sets down her flask of tea, walks to the shore, and wades out to meet a young man who is not her father, but could be someone’s one day.

Divine Misfortune celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. How would you describe Luka, the raccoon god of prosperity, to our readers unfamiliar with this deity?

Luka is a god of luck and good fortune. He’s not a real god, although “real” is a weird word. He’s one I made up.

As a minor god in a world full of gods, he’s not a big deal. However, because he has a lot of good luck, he’s very happy-go-lucky. He doesn’t have a lot of problems he can’t walk away from, so he’s a bit irresponsible as well. Him learning to be more responsible is basically the arc of the book.

Part of the fun of Divine Misfortune is the main characters realizing there is no free ride to success. How is this represented in their selection of Luka?

Gods in Divine Misfortune are conduits. Humans offer them worship in exchange for favor. Worship in the novel isn’t defined by believing in the gods. This is a world where the gods definitively exist, so it’s less about believing in their power and more about doing things in their name. Like burning money and making sacrifices or even something as odd as wearing your shoes backward can count. The exact rate of exchange varies based on the god, but for the most part, if you’re looking for help from a major god, you’d have to do a lot more work to get the reward.

Luka, a.k.a. Lucky, is more relaxed. He’s a minor god who gives a blessing of good fortune. Not enough to solve all your problems, but enough to be helpful. So, he’s pretty easy to placate. Except when he decides to move in with you, as he does with the human characters of the story.

For the past twenty years, you’ve written comedic genre fiction books. How receptive was the publishing industry to your pitches two decades ago? 

I’ve never considered myself a comedic writer. I do have a lot of humor in most of my books, but I’ve never pitched them as “funny.” If you see “funny” or “comic” on a book cover, it was the publisher who decided to put that on there, not me. Humor tends to be part of my particular voice, and since voice is everything in writing as far as I’m concerned, I don’t mind the label. I just don’t use it myself.

Honestly, getting published is hard. I’m not sure it’s noticeably harder if you’re trying to pitch comedy and genre. Plenty of successful writers manage it. Many far more successful than me. Writing is hard. Getting published is hard. Getting noticed after you get published is hard. It’s all hard. Humor in one’s writing doesn’t seem to make it harder or easier, sad to say.

Also, luck is tremendously important. Not mentioned enough, but since we’ve talked about a god of good fortune, it’s probably worth mentioning.

Your writing credits include stand-alone titles and the Constance Verity series. Which of your stand-alone titles would you like to revisit with further adventures?

I’ve gotten this question a lot. I don’t know. Most of the standalones have something interesting worth revisiting. If pressed, I’d say The Automatic Detective, because I love the setting so much. Then maybe Divine Misfortune. I did have a sequel story in mind for Misfortune, but that was a while ago. I tend to find new ideas refreshing rather than pursuing ones I’ve explored, even if those old ideas have plenty of juice left.

Of course, if a publisher came to me with a big check for a sequel to something, it’d be a different story. So far, that hasn’t happened.

What can you tell our readers about your time with DFW Writers’ Workshop and the advantages for emerging writers to attend a workshop? 

The DFWWW is an amazing place. I’ve been going for thirty-ish years now. I happened to stumble upon it purely by accident. This was back before the internet, so I found a random flyer in a supermarket on the other side of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the DFWWW is why you’re interviewing me at all. It gave me the strength and encouragement to keep going during the hard times. Still does. It also—in a roundabout way—got me my wife, so that’s pretty cool, too.

A good workshop can make a tremendous difference. Not only did DFWWW give me great feedback and help me develop my skills, but it also helped me overcome my crippling shyness and prepared me for what to expect when I finally did achieve publication. I note the shyness because nobody who knows me now would call me shy, and that’s thanks to DFWWW. As a writer, getting used to talking about your writing, to treating it as something that isn’t weird to do, is tremendously helpful.

Every workshop is different, of course. Some are great for helping you keep going. Some can help you with your skills. And some are good social groups. DFWWW is all of those. I’ve seen so many new writers come through, including myself, and I can say that while you don’t need a workshop to succeed, a good one does make it a lot easier.

Where can our readers find you online and what project do you have coming out soon?

I have my website, www.aleemartinez.com, which I sporadically update with essays and short stories. I’m working on being more diligent about that. I’m also on Bluesky. I should have a Tiktok, Instagram, etc., but I don’t. My bad. People can also reach me at my email hipstercthulhu@hotmail.com. Always happy to hear from fans or from those with questions about the writing game, though my experience is not the default experience and a lot of it is outdated.

No current projects due, though I do have a new novel out in the world looking for a publisher. Fingers crossed I’ll have something interesting to announce sooner than later.