I set many of my stories in a gritty "realist" world, but one that is plagued by an overuse of technology, which is akin to the world we find ourselves living in now.

Wit and humor seem to always factor into this - there's a tongue-in-cheek tone you get when you take on a formalist story - because there's an inherent voice you're trying to copy (and often to satirize).

However, in my fiction, I want to give an even further warning of where we're heading. And so, in "Heartland," you have people selling off their topsoil, and an underwater oil spill that has lasted over three-hundred days.

Presently we're seeing these kinds of battles for our most vulnerable students - such as Trans and LGBTQ students. You have a lot of conservative parents/school boards making life much harder for these children by trying to ensure bullying remains in place.

The environmental catastrophes we're presently seeing are considered "normal" though they're horrific. Fracking has made drinking water flammable, families are dying from planned lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan, mountaintop removal is killing families throughout Appalachia, and oil/mining companies continue to denigrate Native American and indigenous rights throughout the world (see North Dakota Pipeline presently). This is horrific - and yet we somehow consider it normal.

That particular story ["The Pyramid and the Ass"] was written during the dark days of the Bush years. George W. Bush had just been "re-elected" (or elected for the first time, depending on how you count the stolen election) and it seemed like the horror of his presidency would last forever.

I think the future is intrinsically linked with our universal human problems. In fact, it's these very problems, and how we deal with them, which will determine our future.