The inspirations and origins for our stories.
Ivy Grimes’s story “Ennui Tea” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 1 October 2021. I must have been feeling ennui while drinking tea, because “ennui tea” came to my mind first, and the story of a young woman learning magic at a goth coffee shop followed. I imagined how great it would be to have a goth coffee shop nearby and to live in a town where everyone mopes and reads poetry all day. Yet …
Eleanor R. Wood’s story “A Seedling in the Dark” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 17 September 2021. This story arose from several sources, but its overriding inspiration was British naturalist Chris Packham’s astonishing autobiography, Fingers in the Sparkle Jar. In it, he describes his early passion for nature – not only his childhood obsession with the natural world, but the deep solace and sense of belonging he found there, particularly as a boy who …
J.A. Legg’s story “Till All the Hundred Summers Pass” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 10 September 2021. One of my favourite things about being a story audience is when a story comes to a crisis point that goes one or two ways, and realizing to myself, “This next part could go a number of different ways, and I don’t know which one it’s going to be, but I’m certain I’m going to enjoy it.” …
Rachel Delaney Craft’s story “Rapunzel Dreams of Elephants” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 20 August 2021. This story was inspired by a run-down house I rented one summer in college, where I lived in a tiny attic-turned-bedroom complete with trapdoor and rope ladder. The idea hit me one morning on my commute to work—why not write a fairy tale retelling with that stuffy attic room as Rapunzel’s tower? That was over five years ago, …
Rubella Dithers’s story “The Waves In Which We Drown” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 13 August 2021. I had been writing a story about a poor kid obsessed with freediving for pearls. There was an ex boyfriend and a sea god and angst. It wasn’t working out. A few summers ago, my friend and I were driving around the fairgrounds. We stopped to watch the sunset, and she told me she was scared of …
L.J. Wetherby’s story “A Wizard Comes to Shorehaven” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 6 August 2021. The prime mover for this story was a dear friend of mine who has enjoyed a lifelong fascination with wizards. This friend organises regular storytelling events among our acquaintance, and since I began attending those events, I’ve always had it in the back of my mind that stories about wizards are likely to be especially welcome. This knowledge …
