Welcome back! We’re so happy to be able to bring your story “The Will of the God of Music” to our readers. I am so intrigued by the point of view of this story and am so curious to ask you what inspired you to make that decision. Could you also tell us how this story came to you as well?

Thank you so much! I love second person—more than half my published short stories use it, and I think it’s a great way to deflect more autobiographical readings (which, cough, tend to fall more often on authors who are BIPOC and/or not cis men) while keeping the intimacy between reader and speaker that comes with the first person. I also use it to loosen up my writing—all my novels so far have been written in third person, so using second for short fiction provides me with a different angle of approach that can get the initial words flowing.

This story came out of a desire to write about chronic pain—particularly the discovery that medicine cannot fix all, that some things don’t heal.

I want to move out of the narrative and go to the personal and ask, what does music mean to your craft or your sense of self as an artist? Are there any memories that you associate with music that proved foundational to this story or your writing process in general?

I think music has primarily shaped my writing through the discipline I developed through it. I played violin for most of my childhood and through college—as well as piano, clarinet, and viola for a few years each—and the idea of practicing every day, as well as the question of what work needs to be done before a lesson (which often costs quite a lot per hour), heavily influences the consistency with which I sit down to write, as well as what I feel I need to have down on the page before showing my work to others for critique.

I am really interested in sitting with the line “there is no cure for being the castoff of a god.” I find it very beautiful. Can you tell us more about what was going through your mind as you were writing that sentence? Maybe a craft choice like using italics, or the inspiration behind it?

Thank you! I’m interested in the intersections between disability and religion—particularly the narratives constructed at both organizational and individual levels around what disability means in relation to the god(s) one worships, as well as how one might respond accordingly. For example, Rach responds to Xemphon’s abandonment in a very different way from what Evan expects (“It is not in your nature, to rage at the heavens when it is your own flesh that is failing you. Not . . . when you can lie so still on your bed you nearly trick yourself into thinking you’ve disappeared”). I find it fascinating that in certain personal and corporate theologies, the god(s) might be blamed for misfortune, might be raged at, while in other belief systems, even within the same nominal religious umbrella, the adherent might be told to focus on their own self-improvement and/or positive thinking, for their virtue is being tested/they are but a worm, etc . . .

I want to be playful and ask about the different ways in which music will be heard, felt, and accessed in the future. Do you think our relationship with music will change through technology, or will it maintain a tether with the core sense of human expression?

My knowledge of technology—and of AI in particular—is rudimentary at best, but I hope music can, at its heart, continue to be a place where we express what it means to be human; where one person can say to another, I see you. I hear you. You are not alone.

If there is one feeling you want the audience to take away from this story, what would you wish for it to be?

I know this is not technically an emotion, but—intensity? Like the feeling of having been on a journey and having felt a lot of things, haha.

What are you working on now, and are there any other projects we can look forward to seeing from you in the future?

I’m currently working on a novel—These Deathless Shores, a Malaysia-inspired, gender-bent take on the Captain Hook origin story in the vein of V. E. Schwab’s Vicious and Natalie Zina Walschots’ Hench. Hopefully more news on that soon!