Author Interview * Janna Miller

Janna Miller’s new collection, All Lovers Burn At the End of the World, conjures a host of weirdly beautiful characters, enticing the reader into landscapes perilous precisely because of their surface sheen of familiarity. I love the way Janna pairs gorgeously lyrical prose with deliciously odd ideas and images. This is a fun collection!

Thanks to Janna for talking with me!

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Myna: Tell us about All Lovers Burn at the End of the World! What themes do you explore?

Janna: I’ve always kind of lived in a crossroads of real and unreal, which acknowledges the possibility of fantasy in everyday life. The fifty flash and micros that make up my collection exist here too.

There are lots of stories about plants: ones that try to kill me, those that connect the cemetery and the living, plants that grow fish, and microgreens used as an honor statement to a past relationship. Another theme is myth and folktale, with takes on Pandora, Beowulf, Toads and Diamonds, and The Most Important Thing. But there are also hints and true stories about the joys and difficulties of being a parent, nose biting jaguars, and that Pontiac Oldsmobiles could top 110 MPH if you are young and stupid.

So anything real with hint of unreal or unreal with a great big glob of whipped cream.

 

Cover Art by Gabriel Devereux

 

Myna: When a reader finishes the last word in the book, what emotion will they be feeling?

Janna: Probably, what the heck did I just read? Can we actually have an organically grown organ emporium? Is there a cleaner I can use to erase stains from past relationships? Can origami predict what will happen in the future? I mean, if you all know, let me know too.

 

Myna: Would you rather live in a magical forest, an advanced urban high-rise, an enchanted underwater city, or a complex alien world? Or do you have another perfect living space in mind?

Janna: Being more simplistic as time goes on, probably a modified magical forest with a stream and whispering trees, where every ten years or so you might find a fairy under a leaf, or a shimmering patch of ghost that walks with you while you take out the garbage. Although in real life, I keep having dreams that my own house changes in the night. A new bathroom or a set of stairs lead down to an abandoned apartment. I keep going back to these same places over multiple years so that my dream house is quite expansive and mysterious.

 

Myna: Do you have a pet, or other non-writing hobbies/activities? Show us a picture!

Janna: My family is an established part of the cat distribution system, of which we now have five (cats not systems, though maybe that’s why furred creatures keep showing up). We also have a crested gecko and four chickens. A picture of one of the goobers is below.

 

Myna: What’s next for you?

Janna: Micros and flashes keep me sane and I continue to write and spew lyrical, controlled nonsense. Lately, I’ve been inspired by dumb things people say on Twitter. I am also querying two novels (if any agents might be interested): one about sentient mycelia and time travel in the Appalachian Mountains, and one about an exiled war goddess and her student loan defaulter army taking on call centers and medical debt in the modern world.

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Librarian, mother, and minor trickster, Janna has published in SmokeLong Quarterly, Shenandoah, Whale Road Review, Citron Review, Best MicroFiction, and others. Her story collection, All Lovers Burn at the End of the World is forthcoming from ELJ Editions. Generally, if the toaster blows up, it is not her fault.

Janna’s website is here

Also find her on Twitter and Bluesky

All Lovers Burn at the End of the World is available from ELJ Editions, and at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC