I’m thrilled to feature Premee Mohamed in MicroVerse today. Premee’s stories are completely immersive, filled with gorgeous language and images that always draw me in. I enjoy spending time in her worlds—probably because she is such a masterful storyteller. I’m excited to read her new collection!
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MYNA: Tell us about One Message Remains! What are the stories about? Who are your characters?
PREMEE: ONE MESSAGE REMAINS is a mini-collection consisting of one new novella (ONE MESSAGE REMAINS, which we decided to use for the collection title), two new novelettes (THE WEIGHT OF WHAT IS HOLLOW and FORSAKING ALL OTHERS), and a reprinted novelette (THE GENERAL’S TURN, which came out in The Deadlands in 2021)!
Each story is different, but they’re set in the shared world that began with THE GENERAL’S TURN — a world at war, but each story set at some distance in space or time from the actual fighting.
In ONE MESSAGE REMAINS itself, Major Lyell Tzajos, a good servant of his empire, has been sent into the land of the defeated enemy on what he believes to be a charity mission: exhuming the physical and spiritual remains of the enemy and repatriating them to the new government. Assisted by his second-in-command Yather and his interpreter Calamuk, Tzajos’ mission seems to be going well until he begins to start writing in the voices of his dead foes. Whether it puts his work at risk is one thing, but it might also be putting his life at risk—and the lives of many others.
In THE WEIGHT OF WHAT IS HOLLOW, Taya is a young apprentice to a family of bone-gallows makers. When she and her aunt attend a botched execution of a prisoner-of-war, she catches the eye of one of the top brass—who requests her as the gallows-builder for his next high-profile execution.
In FORSAKING ALL OTHERS, the young deserter Rostyn has had about enough of this senseless war, and is fleeing to his grandmother’s house in the mountains, where he believes he will not be pursued. Along the way, he picks up Kalek, another deserter like himself seeking safety. However, they’ll both have to watch their backs in a land where there is a strangely persistent myth about a personal devil.
And finally, in THE GENERAL’S TURN, General Vessough is presiding over the theatrical trial-by-game of young prisoner-of-war Stremwynn. The challenge? To identify which of the costumed players on stage is played by Death herself before time runs out.
MYNA: What’s unique about this book?
PREMEE: I’ll have to eat my words after going on record as saying that most books and even premises are not in the least unique (it’s the execution that counts!) but at least for me, having a mini-collection like this is a first! And in a shared world based on a short story. The stories can be read in any order, without any connection to one another except for the setting (and one other thing, which perceptive readers will not, I hope, mind).
MYNA: How did this collection come about?
PREMEE: Psychopomp reached out to me (HI SEAN AND ELISE I HOPE YOU’RE READING THIS INTERVIEW LET ME KNOW IF I GOT ANYTHING WRONG) in 2023 to see if I might be interested in submitting something to their first novella call, and I was already noodling around the idea of ONE MESSAGE REMAINS; it was untitled at the time, and I knew the premise and very little else, not even the setting (basically the only other thing I knew for sure was that I wanted it to be novella-length). So when they reached out I was like “Oh hey! What if I set this in the same world as THE GENERAL’S TURN?” and it kind of proceeded from there. Then someone floated the idea of having it be a kind of mini-collection, by reprinting THE GENERAL’S TURN and adding maybe two more stories. I was excited to explore more in the world; I had already been kicking around the idea of the ‘personal devil’ story and then I just needed one more, which came to me as I was re-reading THE GENERAL’S TURN looking for threads to pull out, and hit on the idea of “Okay, who is making these disgusting bone gallows anyway?”
I guess in terms of unifying elements, I didn’t really codify or set anything out for myself… I was running entirely on vibes and aesthetics and strong emotions, but I did have a sore spot that I kept avoiding and that was writing about the actual fighting in the war(s). All the stories are about the things running peripheral and parallel to the ‘official’ hostilities: military justice (or injustice), vigilante action, rebellions and revolutions, collateral damage, tradition, sacrifice, betrayal, colonization, and retaliation. I basically wanted to recreate several wars by highlighting the negative space they left behind, and asking the reader to perceive the shape of history by perceiving the smaller stories that go into making the edges of the shape.
MYNA: If your book had a theme song, what would it be?
PREMEE: OH I LOVE THIS QUESTION. I don’t know! I was probably listening to a lot of instrumental and classical music while I wrote the stories (I often find myself getting too into the lyrics) but maybe ‘Barricade’ by my favourite band, Stars. I love the contrast between the soft, dreamy melody and the surprising violence of the lyrics.
MYNA: What’s your favorite thing about writing?
PREMEE: Too many things to list, but I think the main one is that even after writing for literally decades, language is still my favourite thing to play with. Some kids really got into sports, some got into Lego, some got into Play-Doh, I don’t know, I’ve always just liked messing around with words and ideas the best because you can make them do whatever you want. (It was really more of a bonus when I got older and was informed that you could also sell words and ideas, which blew my mind.)
MYNA: How do you stay motivated?
PREMEE: Honestly, writing itself is still motivating enough to me! I’m never not excited to hear that I’ve been asked to write something (that includes when the asker is Past Me after having some great idea in the middle of the night). Deadlines also help, of course. I would say for the most part though, motivation is rarely my issue; finding time and energy to write around a couple of chronic health conditions tends to be more of an issue. I always, always want to write. My body is the one that tends to be more ambivalent about it.
MYNA: Tell us about other recent accomplishments or share some happy news with us!
PREMEE: Lots of happy news for 2025 certainly! I’ve been asked to teach at Clarion West, which will be happening in (I think?) July, as well as at the first ever sci-fi literary residency at the Banff Centre in September. I’m also excited to head back to Toronto (briefly) in February for the launch party for ONE MESSAGE REMAINS at the extremely cool Merrill Collection at the Toronto Public Library!
MYNA: You have a lot of fantastic stories out in the world! Which of your other works is your favorite?
PREMEE: Oooh loaded question, I don’t know if I have favourite-favourites, but certainly a recent-ish favourite was the short piece NOT LOST (NEVER LOST) which also came out in Psychopomp in 2024! I guess I just like stories where people (or not-people, or whathaveyou) confront their mortality and come up with different answers from the people (or not-people) around them.
MYNA: Do you have a pet, or other non-writing hobbies/activities? Show us a picture!
PREMEE: I have a terrible, useless, fluffy writing assistant who yodels for attention when I am trying to concentrate! His name is Fiasco and I adopted him in 2022 when I moved into this house (partly for unsentimental reasons: every single person I talked to was like “If you are buying that old house, there will be a million ways for mice to get in; get a cat.”).
MYNA: What’s next for you?
PREMEE: The audio version of my 2024 novella THE BUTCHER OF THE FOREST will be coming out at… some point! I wasn’t sure if we were going to ever get an audio version of it, so I’m excited that that’s the case. I am also super stoked to have the third book in my THE ANNUAL MIGRATION OF CLOUDS trilogy coming out in 2025; the final book wraps up the story and is focused on the character of Henryk. (No one asked for Henryk’s POV, but my editor was like “Yes cool, go for it.”) I will also have several short stories out, I don’t believe most of them have been announced just yet, but in August my story HUNTED TO EXTINCTION will be out in the THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT anthology, which is based on Stephen King’s THE STAND novel, so that’s quite cool!
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Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, Ignyte, World Fantasy, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for numerous other awards, including the Hugo, Locus, British Fantasy, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Crawford. In 2024 she was the Edmonton Public Library official writer-in-residence. She is the author of the Beneath the Rising series of novels, as well as several novellas. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.
Find Premee on Bluesky and Patreon
ONE MESSAGE REMAINS is available from Psychopomp
Myna Chang 