The inspirations and origins for our stories.
David Whitaker’s story “Strangers in the Night” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 15 June 2018. I love the idea that mankind is not alone in the universe, however it always struck me that our greatest challenge is one of practicality. Relative to the age of the universe we’re practically a blink of an eye, and we’d need someone else to be blinking at the same time, and exceedingly close, if we were ever to …
L’Erin Ogle’s story “Nobody’s Daughter and the Tree of Life” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 8 June 2018. The idea for “Nobody’s Daughters and the Tree of Life” was about the lengths people go to for children. What if you could just pluck a baby from a tree, but paid a heavy price? When I wrote it, I only had the tree in mind, and a curse, but it became about Alvie, his devotion …
Samuel Chapman’s story “The Foaling Season” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 1 June 2018. I came up with the world of Locksgrove during a worldbuilding exercise with friends. It’s based on revolutionary Haiti, with Dominic L’Escalier a stand-in for Toussaint L’Overture. Reynard aux Chatillon was a later addition, partially based on Jiro Horikoshi, the Japanese aircraft engineer whose dilemma is chronicled in Hayao Miyazaki’s film The Wind Rises. Reynard and Jiro share the same …
Gloria Wickman’s story “Chasing the Light” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 25 May 2018. I wrote “Chasing the Light,” somewhat differently from my typical process. Usually I tend to heavily outline and focus on plot and characters before anything else. But this time I focused much more on the emotional beats and tone of the story and then the plot developed from those feelings. There were two main sources of inspiration for the story. …
David Hammond’s story “Suzy’s Friend” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 18 May 2018. My family and I were staying in a small cabin in Shenandoah National Park. After dinner, despite having hiked most of the afternoon, and despite the fog, I decided I would go on my usual after-dinner walk and listen to my usual podcasts, damn it. I began walking south along the Appalachian Trail and listening to This American Life. In this …
Kathryn Yelinek’s story “On the Scales of Dragons” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 11 May 2018. I’m honestly trying to remember what inspired this story. Perhaps my recollection is faulty, but I remember coming home from World Fantasy 2014 with the idea for a dragon-library. Perhaps I got the idea while attending a panel? I can’t remember. But the idea for a dragon-library stuck, and then it was a matter of trying to make …
