Cobalt Lungs is centered around a talented pianist and a scientist who are navigating a world where cobalt spores transform rain, forests, and breathing into sources of danger. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

This started as a cut chapter from my previous novel, Pulse. That novel is about an alien creature that was buried underground and accidentally gets released by a corporation with too much power for their own good. I had this idea of people moving underground in fear of the alien, but it never really worked. The cut chapter sat around for a few years and then I started playing with it as a standalone novel idea.  Because of that, this novel has very similar themes to Pulse, but Cobalt Lungs, which is a condition, pretty quickly came to me as the reason people were hiding and it different enough to warrant the reimagining of some of those Pulse themes here again with different variables. I wrote the musician first, her struggle and her navigating a world where every breath is measured and calculated. Once I had her story pretty solid, I really needed another character to balance her, so I invented a scientist that we meet about a third of the way into the story, and he functions to explain all the technical details a musician wouldn’t be able to explain. He became so much more than that, but that was his genesis. That is how the story came to be, but the actual condition killing people, that is just my fascination with things like Mad Cow, SARS, COVID, and even a little asbestos is coming into play with the way the spores act and embed. Many years of documentaries and random thoughts that I finally found a way to put to use.

The cobalt organism is both a scientific mystery and a constant source of suspense. How did you develop the rules behind this world while keeping it believable?

By writing all of the musician character first and presenting the first third of the story solely from her POV, I had largely deferred having to explains the very technical side as she can’t explain it herself. Then when I started writing the scientist, I also started creating a science appendix. Once I had the scientist character close to done, I had changed many key details around how the spore moved and infected people, so then I took my science appendix and redid the entire front third making the micro changes or dropping in the appropriate moment to setup the science scene later. One of the latest additions that came well after I had written the science character and I was sitting there working on chapter 3 and 4, trying to find a way to externalize a largely internal condition so the reader and the musician can both see it without being told much on the technical side. I came to this great idea that in the most extreme infections, the spores would mix with mucus and saliva, and as the person dies, a blue, toothpaste-like foam would leak out. That idea really leveled up the story as I could show some dramatic death scenes while deferring what was really going on inside them until later in the novel when the reader is finally ready to learn what is causing all this blue foam. I make sure you know what the spores and the symptoms look like, and you are afraid of it, then I explain it after that fear and dread has settled in, which is very similar to a real outbreak. You would see the outbreak before you understood it.

My entire science appendix is on my website for anyone interested in some extra behind the scenes, but I would recommend reading the novel first, as the appendix will spoil some of the best moments in the story.

Throughout the novel, music becomes a way of expressing grief, hope, and resilience. What role do you believe art plays during times of crisis?

Art is a way to give you hope when everything feels lost. Art is a way to leave a legacy behind when you might not have much else to leave behind. Art is also a time sync. If jobs are gone, if families are fractured. If purpose is just survive and nothing else. There are some long days that can get lonely. Art is something to focus on to keep the mind from spiralling. More than anything maybe, art gives you a way to process a crisis. You can look around you, observe, learn, and make art. You will feel like you have a deeper understanding and perhaps you will even turn something you were afraid of into something you smile at when you see. I have always blended music with my novels, but this I time I was able to take that to another level and I wrote an entire concept album based around characters in the novel as well as some songs from my author/editor POV. I am just as proud of the music this time around as I am the novel, both the music and the book are very ambitious.

What do you hope readers take away from Cobalt Lungs about resilience, love, and what makes life worth protecting? 

“Hope” is an interesting word to choose for the question given its importance to the final few chapters. I think my takeaway is best captured in a pair of songs:

“There’s Still Hope”

There are a lot of dark moments in the book, and dark thoughts in the songs. This song though. It is not dark. It is light. It is about the future. About growing. Surviving. Then thriving.

And “After the Blue”

This song wraps my musicians portion at the front of the album and is meant as a sort of retelling of the story, but in a cinematic, piano heavy ballad. With how dark the story and songs can be, this is again a lighter moment to show the hope that might be waiting for you at the end of the road.

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