#fiction

#fiction

Old Skies deftly explores the themes of stagnation and the emotional weight of being forgotten in a life dedicated to serving others' nostalgia.

When I was setting out to write this one, I didn't have a sense of it being a big idea at all: it was just the thing that, when I was faced with quite a lot of rejection, I kept coming back to.

Murata's characters often engage in perverse behaviors to appear normal, showcasing the extremes of human effort to conform to societal expectations.

"You can literally think and talk about fictional characters despite the fact that they neither exist nor are they otherwise real, which I find compelling and nifty."

I could picture her in my head, sort of trudging around with...cleaning supplies...taking such care to never let anybody see her, never have to talk to anybody. Who is this woman and what happened to her?

The key to overcoming the sandfish puzzle is coordination, using distractions effectively while one player makes their way across dangerous terrain to safety.

"...there's something about fiction—one of the strengths is that you can get inside the characters. You can illustrate their emotions, conflicts, and motivations in ways reporting can't."