How did you approach the theme/topic when you first received the prompt?
When I first received the prompt, I thought to approach it from the most ordinary angle. Most nights are ordinary. They come and go without anyone taking much notice of them. And even on nights when you hear a sound coming from your kitchen, or a light begins to flicker, the most common reaction is to ignore it until morning comes with its light and drives the night’s monsters away.
What drew you to the particular angle you explored in your story?
The theme forces one to look. And in looking, the monsters that usually seem enormous are really ordinary. That was what drew me in.
Did writing this piece change or deepen your own perspective on the topic?
It absolutely deepened my perspective. It forced me to look closer at those ordinary spaces and realize that the things we build up as monsters are often much more grounded than we think.
If readers remember just one idea from your piece, what would you want it to be?
What I would want any reader to take away from this is how simple the things we ignore really are at the heart of it. Good, bad, simple.
Complete the sentence: “I hope my writing makes people…”
“…a little less dismissive of the things we’d usually overlook because they exist in the shadows.”
