My original concept for this story—and I have no idea where it came from—was the part I now think of as Antoine’s subplot, the ghost hunter in search of his wife’s ghost.

I spent some of my academic life around the Medieval Literature department, and in my opinion if there is anyone likely to live unworried by their magic house it is someone from Medieval Lit.

Defining sex and gender is something people get downright vitriolic about—probably the natural result of having a culture in which gender roles are foundational to a lot of how we construct our society.

Bereavement seems to be a recurring theme in my stories. We all experience loss, in one way or another, and grief alters us.

It’s classic Twilight Syndrome—trying to save the tortured bad boy/girl. It’ll only lead to heartbreak and therapy and frankly, they’re not as interesting as they’d like you to think.

You know, voice is usually the thing that makes a story work for me in my head so I can write it, period. Tons of half-finished stories litter my folders because I don’t know their voice.

It’s a creation tale with a twist. Firstly it’s set in rural modern Japan and secondly, rather than the moon being a heavenly body, it’s a whiny pathetic little thing.

It always struck me as such a bizarre coincidence that a tiny bone in the ear that’s involved in the conduction of sound could look exactly like a stirrup (the Stapes of the title), something that was made by humans for a completely different purpose.