Charles Lennox’s Comments
Sometimes a story begins with an idea, a sentence. Other times it’s a title. That’s how “Hyena Ha Ha” and “One Day A Lion” came to be. In “Hyena …” I knew the hyenas would be vicious and mocking, but I wanted the plot they were mixed up in to be rather surreal and out of place. So I made them to be more like foxes. I also like the recurring theme of new life constantly springing out of death. It’s one of my favorite stories. In “One Day …” I wanted to create snippets of the narrator’s life to hopefully reveal a grander story. I like it when animals are used in stories like real life human beings. I think Dave Eggers does this especially well.
I like the rhythm and repetition in “Touching the Spine.” This one took a while to get going, but once I found the narrator’s voice it came together rather suddenly. Violence, to me, is both intriguing and frightening.
Ben Gibbard wrote this song called “Grapevine Fires” in response to the California fires. I wrote “The Burning People.” I live in So Cal and remember the flames and how the sky was divided in half with a wonderful blue on one side and the thick clouds of smoke on the other. When the fires creep closer to home you start talking about what you’d take with you should the order of evacuation come. I like how this story starts off about hell and then becomes something else. I like the contrast of hell and a hell on earth.
“Pups” began as an offshoot of another story. I imagined a woman holding a plastic bowl to her stomach as if pregnant. The idea came to me at work for some reason. I think we do strange things when we are at home, alone and feeling lonely.
