Each story was inspired by anything from a personal memory or a family anecdote to a news item or something I had heard happen to someone else. Or sometimes it was a formal challenge in combination with those things: for instance, I love short stories written from the collective first person point of view, so I wanted to try that.
Over at AAWW’s The Margins, Melissa Sipin sits with Mia Alvar to talk about writing short stories, shaping characters, and the author’s Filipino roots.
