A radish, a fox, and a boulder walk into the world…
How can you not read a story with that intro? It was such a treat to meet Aimee Ogden’s charming characters in her new novella, Starstruck (Psychopomp). The premise of this story is delightful and just a little heartbreaking.
From the publisher’s description:
Prish has always been a radish who knows what she’s about; chiefly, her wife, Alsing, a literal and figurative fox. They’ve woven together a cozy life around welcoming other starstruck beings into the world—plants and animals ensouled by a falling star—but when the stars stop falling, all of that unravels.
Aimee’s prose is always delicious. I was happy to linger on her gorgeous wordplay, and the thread of kindness and hope that runs through the story gave me a welcome break from reality. Thanks to Aimee for answering my questions, and to Psychopomp for giving me a peek at an advance copy!
***
Myna: I fell in love with the characters in Starstruck! What inspired you to create them? How do they drive the story, and what themes do they explore?
Aimee: Weirdly enough, the first version of this story was a young adult novel; even so, Prish, the middle-aged radish wife, came first. (Maybe that should have been an early sign for me that I wasn’t approaching the narrative from the right place!) This has always been Prish’s story, even when I hadn’t realized it yet.
The idea for her character came from my love of the watermelon radishes that I used to buy at the farmers’ market in Madison, Wisconsin; I found them so beautiful, with a bright vibrant purple hidden inside beneath a very dull yellow-green skin. There’s so much that Prish keeps inside herself—some of it lovely, some of it definitely not, but all of it certainly very vibrant—and her choices to put away those parts of herself to be the partner and provider she thinks she should be certainly help set the story on its tracks.
And even though the book isn’t for a YA audience anymore, Wick, the tweener-aged child character still has an important place for me here. He finds himself asking the same questions as Prish—wasn’t I enough?—from a very different stage in his life, and brought to those questions from other people’s decisions and actions rather than his own. His presence gives Prish a mirror, but he’s also a second chance, someone who has the time and opportunities to take a different path to her own.
Cover design by Christine M. Scott clevercrow.com
Cover illustration by John G. Reinhart
Myna: What’s unique about this novella?
Aimee: I’d like to think it’s the first depiction of a radish-fox romantic relationship! I’m not sure there’s anything truly unique about it, but I hope the mix of elements—forged family, love, regret, searching for a place to belong and be, a living rock with terrible fashion sense—will combine into something that feels both strange and familiar.
Myna: When a reader finishes the last word in the book, what emotion will they be feeling?
Aimee: Oh, I hope it won’t put people off if I say ‘grief’. That’s certainly what I felt writing the last pages. A little healthy grief goes a long way!
Myna: How did this story come about?
Aimee: I wrote a first draft of this book almost a decade ago, and it was originally a young adult novel that died out in the query trenches, never finding an agent to represent it. But I loved the story so much that I never really let it go, and it had one particular cheerleader among friends (to whom the new version is dedicated, in fact) that kept me from quitting on it altogether. When I went back to the drawing board, I stripped back some of the bigger, more action-oriented elements, turned a big explicit betrayal into something smaller and more personal, and cut the original antagonist altogether. The story didn’t need a villain, it needed the characters to collide with each other and their own choices.
Myna: If Starstruck had a theme song, what would it be?
Aimee: “Land of a Thousand Words”, by Scissor Sisters: the regrets that go unspoken, the love and desire that remain, and some (literally) stellar imagery? A perfect fit as far as I’m concerned.
Myna: Did you encounter any surprises or problems in writing/publishing Starstruck?
Aimee: I did originally write it as a young adult book, which got some nice comments from agents but never found a home—which was not a surprise, maybe, but was certainly a problem. Re-writing it as a novella for adults, once I actually started it, was one of the easiest projects I’ve ever completed. The story wanted to be Prish’s all along.
Myna: How would you describe your writing style, in general? Does that hold true for this book?
Aimee: I’ve never been the kind of writer who sees a movie in her head; for me, the story has to sound right, that the words have to hit a certain rhythm and bear up under a certain amount of intonation and implication. That means I generally end up with stories that want to be read aloud (which are also the kinds of stories that I prefer to read). My previous novella, EMERGENT PROPERTIES, had a more straightforward voice, but I think STARSTRUCK returns to prettier prose, while—hopefully—keeping some of the same wry sense of humor.
Myna: What’s your favorite thing about writing?
Aimee: That Hannibal Smith “I love it when a plan comes together” feeling that I get when all the pieces click together. Sometimes it comes when I’m outlining, sometimes only after a couple of editing passes, and of course I start some things that never quite get to that place; but I’m always on the hunt for it.
Myna: How do you stay motivated?
Aimee: Often I have the opposite problem; I write stories that I love and characters whose problems I care about a lot, and I end up having trouble stopping and setting the story aside and I end up, say, burning the bottom of the soup because I was staring into space thinking about what Character X would do in response to Event Y.
Which is not to say I never run out of steam! When I do end up stuck on a tricky scene, I, like many other writers, end up finding chores to do around the house. Fortunately, I really hate cleaning and doing laundry, so I inevitably end up back at the keyboard before long.
Myna: Tell us about a recent accomplishment or share some happy news with us!
Aimee: I was thrilled that one of my works made it onto this year’s Nebulas ballot—my novelette “What Any Dead Thing Wants”, which was also published at Psychopomp—what an honor to be nominated alongside some of my favorite people in the genre and their wonderful stories.
Myna: Do you have other books or stories you’d like to mention? (We can post links to a couple of stories or your other books, if you want!)
Aimee: STARSTRUCK is my fourth standalone novella; my most recent was EMERGENT PROPERTIES, a science fiction story about a body-hopping artificial intelligence investigating xir own murder. More recently, I also had a story called “In the Saying, Make This True” published at Frivolous Comma, about a little goblin who begins to think there must be other ways than infighting and suffering the rule of the next Dread Lord.
Myna: Do you have a pet, or other non-writing hobbies/activities? Show us a picture!
Aimee: Thank you for an excuse to show you a picture of my dog! This is Tilly, our very sweet and very clingy little rescue. Walking her a few times a day is a good way to force myself to spend a healthy amount of time away from my desk.
Myna: What’s next for you?
Aimee: I have a new novella about dragons and messy family dynamics that I’m drafting, and working on an edit pass of a science fiction novel that takes place in the same setting as my novelette “What Any Dead Thing Wants”. That latter hasn’t quite gotten to the “plan comes together” point yet, but I love the complicated relationship at the heart of it, the questions it’s trying to ask about duty and complicity, and the pesky ghost of a terraformation engineer lurking around the edges, so I know I’ll get there eventually.
***
Aimee Ogden is an American werewolf in the Netherlands. She is the author of two Nebula Finalist works, including her debut novella SUN-DAUGHTERS, SEA-DAUGHTERS, and her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022. She would rather eat a radish than be one, but writing about one is the most fun of all.
Find Starstruck here.
Find Aimee on Bluesky.
Find Psychopomp on Bluesky and Instagram.
Myna Chang 