Cryptid Bits follows the residents living in the Fairy District, a unique place where creatures of myth and legend live side by side, and humans want to be a part of it all. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The whole collection was actually spawned by a single flash story I wrote from a prompt. The prompt was to write a story where an unexpected character is in a mundane or well-known setting. I wrote a little piece about bigfoot going to the movies and it was such a fun exercise I wrote a couple more. Once I had a half dozen or so little micros I started to see some potential threads and arcs that could connect them and realized I was writing a collection. I’ve always enjoyed books that take a collage approach to storytelling or use a “found document” conceit, so once I knew I was working on a chapbook I made a point of trying out some different storytelling formats. That’s how things like the listicles and Yowl! reviews ended up coming to be. What’s kind of funny is that the original bigfoot at the movies story didn’t end up making it into the finished book, although the spirit of it is still there in the piece “Pros and Cons of Going to the Movies with a Bigfoot”.

The creatures in this book were very intriguing. How did you go about creating them for this book?

All of the creatures in the book come from some kind of folklore or mythology, so it was less about creating them than it was choosing which ones to feature, and which version of the creature archetype to use. I went about that in different ways depending on the piece. A few of them started from the “punchline”—Banshee and the Siouxies was one of those, and so was the vampire at the blood drive. For a lot of the others, I started with the creature I wanted to play with and brainstormed either real-world situations they’d be suited for (brownies working in hospitality) or things I felt would be a funny contradiction (Medusa as a hairdresser).

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

To be honest, I rarely intentionally explore themes in my work. When I was writing Cryptid Bits I was more focused on exploring the world and following the characters who lived there. I do think that some themes naturally emerged when I was writing just because this setting is so close to the modern real world, but I can’t really take credit for putting those in there, and honestly didn’t even really think about themes until after the collection was done.

Will there be a follow-up novel to this story? If so, what aspects of the story will the next book cover?

I definitely plan to come back to this universe, because it’s a very fun sandbox to play in! I’ve been working on other projects recently and haven’t decided yet which creatures the next book will feature or what the overarching plot will be. I do think the next one will probably be at least novella-length and will likely include some longer short stories rather than just micros. I’m also brainstorming some different types of “found document” forms to include, because I think the collage aspect is something I want to continue in some way.

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