I had to mull over ideas for a long time before I settled on one I liked. I had just read an article about the curative properties of raw honey, and particularly its ability to aid in the healing of wounds. So that was probably the actual seed. It’s a real thing, by the way. Raw honey is legendary for its ability to cure stubborn wounds, and now there’s scientific evidence to support that folk remedy.

I get bored sometimes, because selkies are almost always women who spend their long periods of captivity in relative passivity. My favorite selkie women burn down houses and murder fishermen to get back to the sea. People still resist seeing men in damsel roles, so male selkies are rare. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single butch selkie of any gender, which would be a delight.

[The inspiration] was the idea of dolls and how different people imbue them with different meanings. Some people will look at a doll and think it’s cute, others that it’s horrific. I liked the idea of a grieving man finding solace in the strangest of places. Grief can do peculiar things to you.

Monsters are always fun to write about, right? Of a surety, the world is full of them. […] It didn’t take long for the story to take shape, but when I realized where it was going and the underlying metaphor, I almost didn’t write it.