The inspirations and origins for our stories.

It came from B.C. van Tol

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B.C. van Tol’s story “Joy (Unplugged)” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 28 August 2020. “Joy (Unplugged)” is a product of multiple inspirations. The first is my great grandmother, who, despite not having much, would leave food out on her porch for impoverished people traveling through town looking for jobs during the Great Depression. The second is a curiosity about potential psychological and societal impacts of immersive technology. The third inspiration comes from interviews I’ve …

It came from Michael Gardner

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Michael Gardner’s story “All That Remains” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 21 August 2020. Despite current events, this story wasn’t inspired by the coronavirus. I wrote this a good six months before COVID-19 broke out. I’d been reading a number of dystopian fantasy and horror stories at the time. I began wondering what might happen to a doomsday prepper who hid away from the end of the world, only to find out years later …

It came from Evan Marcroft

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Evan Marcroft’s story “Devilish Calliope and the Ungrooviest Apocalypse” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 14 August 2020. I’ve always been a fan of the ongoing fantasy/sci fi series. Your Dresden Files in particular, and anything by Simon R. Green. I would devour every new installment as soon as it came out and wait impatiently for the next one. As I developed into a writer myself, however, and grew a more critical eye, I noticed …

It came from Spencer Nitkey

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Spencer Nitkey’s story “Calling Me Home” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 7 August 2020. This story came to me after an afternoon reading articles about quantum mechanics. Immediately I became obsessed with the idea of quantum entanglement, the fact that you can, essentially “entangle” two particles, so that, even when they are separated, moving one, affects the other. Recently, in 2017, a team of Chinese researchers tested the limits of entanglement by sending one …

It came from Rachel Ayers

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Rachel Ayers’s story “The Chorley” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 31 July 2020. I had this image in my head of the valiant teddy bear defending a sleeping child from the monster in the dark… and I wondered what would happen if the toy hero were taken away. (Which I guess makes me the Mama in this scenario…) Subscribe to our e-mail updates so you’ll know when new stories go live.

It came from Alexandra Seidel

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Alexandra Seidel’s story “A Picture of Home, in Silence” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 24 July 2020. I wrote “A Picture of Home, in Silence” in early 2020. At the time, COVID-19 hadn’t yet started dominating our everyday lives. Like many of my stories, this one started with a specific image, the main character looking at the stained glass windows and about how light breaks those colors into picture, and it grew from there. …