Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

Sometimes I write to confront or embrace themes, and that confrontation can yield a dark friction. John Wiswell: It depends on my mood, honestly.

Do you find one of these tones easier to write than the other? Uncanny Magazine: You’ve written stories with a wide range of tones, from light and heartwarming to more ominous and dark. I’m very curious how your readers will take that ending. A great friend of mine, the screenwriter and actor Nat Sylva, stayed up late one night talking through the themes with me to help me figure out what I really wanted. Not that I knew the exact ending at first. I wanted to let Anton slowly recognize what was a trauma mirage, while his worthiness of self-respect wasn’t illusory at all. Everything that we sometimes dread will happen to us, or our loved ones, because of our trauma? That is partially because we’ve been harmed. The other thing I knew was coming was Anton wouldn’t have a normal ending. In a sense, the entire novelette is about how unreal being safe can feel. It was a powerful dissonance between where Anton was physically and emotionally, that I knew would push the story forward. He was traumatized, unsure how to cope, believing his master is outside his door-and simultaneously, he was in a safe place, with people who would come protect him if something happened, and videogames were on the TV. John Wiswell: It began with Anton in Grigorii’s ramshackle house. What was your starting point or inspiration? How did you bring all of these elements together? Uncanny Magazine: This story combines a lot of elements-familiars trying to escape from a bad situation, bleeding wounds, enduring friendship, stories that people are (and aren’t) ready to tell. “That Story Isn’t the Story” is his second story in Uncanny (following “ The Bottomless Martyr ” in 2020), an emotionally powerful tale that features escaped familiars and bleeding wounds, video games and enduring friendship. His work has appeared in Nature Futures, Fireside Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He won the 2021 Nebula for Best Short Story, and is a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy Award, and British Fantasy Award. John Wiswell is an ace/aro writer who lives where New York keeps all its trees.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell