Q. How did this story come about?

Every day I walk on floors and have no fear they will buckle and that I will fall through and be crushed in the plummeting wreckage. Some people don’t have that luxury. A mother’s job is to protect. How does a mother protect a child from the phantoms of her own mind? This story is about struggle, fear and obsession. There are people who live with obsessive behavior on a daily basis. I wanted to explore how that would be when a child was involved. I wrote this story.

Q. What song would you pair with this story?

Faust Arp by Radiohead. I’m not sure why this song fits the story for me. There’s something gentle and beautiful about the music and the repetitiveness of the lyrics, they way they pepper, feels like obsession to me. Mixed all up with Thom Yorke’s signature plaintive voice and it just feels like the story to me.

Q. What makes fiction necessary for you?

For fiction to be necessary to me I must want it and I do. I want it. Why do I want it? I want it because escaping is necessary. I want it because there are beautiful people who can take me to beautiful places that I can’t get to all by myself. I want it because sometimes I want to know what it’s like to be a princess and sometimes I want to know what it’s like to be a whore. There is no danger in fiction. It is a safe place to be assaulted. It is taking the contents of the needle into my most vital vein without worry because it’s pretend. There is no rehab for fiction. Oh, well, yes there is, it’s called death.