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When Laura Chow Reeve and I first met in 2022, we were students at the same low-residency MFA program, Randolph College. We workshopped pieces of novels in progress and learned from many brilliant faculty mentors. Now, in 2024, Laura is a graduate of the program and is celebrating the publication of her debut short story collection, A Small Apocalypse. I was immediately drawn to this collection for its queer characters and themes, its inclusion of the speculative, and its nuanced depiction of my home state, Florida. The collection explores hauntings, both figurative and literal, and what those hauntings can mean for both interpersonal relationships as well as one’s relationship to the larger world. At its core, the book celebrates the weird, surreal, and tender aspects of human life. I sat down with Laura via Zoom to discuss her craft, the composition of her book, and so much more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Malavika Praseed
I’m interested in how story collections develop from this germ of an idea to a full-fledged work. I recall you telling me that you’d been writing these stories for ten years. What was the first story you wrote for this collection and how do you think your writing has changed since then?
Laura Chow Reeve
The first story was “1,000-Year-Old Ghosts” and I wrote that back in 2014, so about ten years ago. There are these buckets within the collection that correspond to where I was living at the time of writing, so when I first wrote “1,000-Year-Old Ghosts,” I was in an Asian American studies master’s program at UCLA where I was writing a creative thesis. Not all of those stories are here, but some of them are, and I think those stories are the most interested in exploring a mixed-race identity and how that can be better understood through speculative elements. I don’t think those themes are lost in the other stories, but then I moved to Florida and my exploration of that exploded into Florida. You have “Rebecca,” which started as a queer retelling of Hitchcock’s “Rebecca,” and then I became infatuated with Danny as a character and saw them as a person profoundly grieving in a world that doesn’t recognize that kind of loss in a heteronormative world, so that opened up to “Sewanee” and “A Small Apocalypse” and “Migratory Patterns.”
I also used to begin early stories with this “What if?” premise. What if we could pickle our memories to protect ourselves from intergenerational trauma? What if everyone was matched on a website and there was this eugenics element? I think now, especially in the last two years, my writing has started to focus on the relationships between characters and less of an argument. More of an exploration of people within a larger societal context.
Malavika Praseed
I love literary depictions of Florida, and I love that you took on queer, BIPOC Florida, I felt this kinship with the work. I feel like with Florida, especially now, there is this sense of embarrassment when it comes to claiming the state. I’m interested in knowing about how you claimed Florida and wrote into that nuance?
Laura Chow Reeve
So, I am not from Florida, but I would feel no shame about being from there. I love Florida in so many ways, I was just there for a friend’s wedding and it was very queer and wonderful, I was with all these beautiful friends who I love, many of whom still live there. My partner has said before, “Humans don’t deserve Florida.” There is so much natural magic, mysticism, spookiness. I know I write a lot about humidity, but there’s something in the air that’s both stifling and mischievous. I was introduced to Florida as I was falling in love with someone from there. My partner, their community, all of it, head over heels. I’ve never felt more inspired in my writing than when I was living in Florida, specifically Jacksonville. At the same time, writing while still being clear-eyed about the harm the state can inflict on queer and trans people, and people of color. Even though I’m not from Florida, I will fight for it and will fight for the people from there. They’re resilient and loving despite everything happening to them and their loved ones.
Malavika Praseed
You mentioned your growth with the collection, how some of the stories are more explicitly speculative and others maybe less so. To me it was interesting to see both types of stories in one collection. How did you decide these belonged in one collection?
Laura Chow Reeve
This was a question that came up when I was on submission and when we thought about ordering the stories. The ones that are more realist are my set of linked stories, like “Sewanee” and “Migratory Patterns, but they still exist on a spectrum of speculative. I was never doubtful that they all belonged, because when read all together you see the larger narrative thread, seeing a literal ghost encounter haunt some of the other stories. You know these exist in the same space. I think I feel resistant to the idea that not all of the stories are speculative, because they all exist in the same universe. I hope readers allow the magic of some stories to seep into the others.
Malavika Praseed
Who are your literary inspirations? Who are the people you think about, that you return to, that feed your soul?
Laura Chow Reeve
Someone who’s always speaking to me is Octavia Butler. Talk about someone who explores all the juiciness of what speculative fiction can be, along with thinking about what liberation can be. I think of Karen Russell as a Floridian writer and a masterful short story writer. Her first collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, has some of my favorite stories of all time. I’d be remiss in not mentioning Her Body and Other Parties as an influential collection. I also think Carson McCullers, as a Southern writer. Those are the ones coming to mind right now. And I mean, Toni Morrison goes without saying.
Malavika Praseed
I apologize, this is the hardest question. A lot of my readers are aspiring writers, a lot are queer, people of color, trying to get books out there. Do you have any words of wisdom?
Laura Chow Reeve
It’s all going to sound cliche at this point, because I’m still that person, the person trying to figure out “How do I do this?” I’m still searching for that same advice. I think persistence and stubbornness are really helpful to have. We face so much rejection; even after acceptances and wonderful things happen, rejection still happens. It also requires you to resist isolation and embrace community. As cheesy as it may sound, find your people and celebrate them. Don’t look at this as an exchange, that there’s only a little for all of us. But if you resist jealousy and envy and embrace the people around you and celebrate where they are, that helps keep you invested. It’s easy to feel consumed otherwise. A practice has turned into genuine joy for me. I want to see them win and I want to lift up their wins.
FICTION
A Small Apocalypse: Stories
By Laura Chow Reeve
Triquarterly Books
March 15, 2024
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