The inspirations and origins for our stories.
E.A. Petricone’s story “Not All Rot Is Ruin” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 22 January 2021. A few things were on my mind when I started writing “Not All Rot Is Ruin”: Grief, for one—particularly the type that’s tough to hang a hat on. Grief for the things that you don’t do, or the doors that close as you make choices (or don’t make choices…which is a choice), grief for the things you’ll never …
Edward Ashton’s story “Unifiers” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 15 January 2021. “Unifiers” began with a single line: “Doran?” Michaela says. “I don’t like you. I want you to know that.” For a long time that’s all it was, one obscure line of dialogue in my Ideas folder—but I kept coming back to it, and eventually I realized that this was not a couple on the verge of divorce, or two office workers forced …
Cécile Cristofari’s story “All We Ever Look For” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 8 January 2021. Kate Bush is one of a handful of musicians I started listening to as a teen and still swear by today, in particular because of her fearless approach to sound, her ability to take noise and turn it into music. In one of her songs, you can hear a person in high heels walking across a room, opening …
Lynne Peskoe-Yang’s story “Superbloom” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 1 January 2021. I wrote this in an attempt to relate to a kind of organism I find unfathomable. I think I’m jealous of lichen, the way it smoothly integrates two distinct sets of DNA into a single body, without conflict or suspicion. I wanted to fuse with something like that, so I wrote about someone who I thought would understand that impulse. Subscribe to …
Andrei Pechalin’s story “Heritage” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 18 December 2020. I grew up in a family with quite a few high achievers: actors, journalists, engineers, etc. That puts some pressure on you to be something – you want to be successful as quickly as possible, almost so you can tick that off and move on. It can lead to bad decision-making, and I made some mistakes in my late teens and early …
Elise Kim’s story “The Three Thousand” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 11 December 2020. I was reading Herodotus’ Histories one summer when I found the initial inspiration for “The Three Thousand”. Herodotus is a great author to consult for ideas. I like to imagine him as an intrepid but easily distracted explorer, more focused on what would make a good story than what is actually factual history. He writes this of the religious beliefs …
