What was your inspiration behind “Her Dark Places”? What was the writing process like, and was it any different from the way you normally write stories?

The writing process for a story of this length is normally to let the premise guide you and see what you discover. Sometimes it’s horrific and something it’s transcendent. The story discovers itself.

“Her Dark Places” is about many things, but one thing I took away from it is that sometimes people continue on in relationships despite them being over emotionally or physically. What sort of mindset were you trying to get into while writing this dynamic between characters?

I was just trying to examine the death of love and what that means.

Death or rot is used to show the emotional separation between the narrator and their wife. What I really enjoyed was that the horror was a slow reveal rather than a quick jump scare. How do you usually implement scares into your fiction?

The writing of the story is an exercise in scaring myself.

What’s next for you? Are there other projects you’re working on now or coming out soon that you can talk about?

I have an Asimov’s story delayed by printer issues, my first in that magazine after close to fifty years of trying. It is called “As Long As We’re Still Here, We Might as Well Dance,” and it is far-future space-opera horror, and I’ll let you discover it.