Nothing and Blank Save the World and Other Tiny Works follows a constellation of poems and stories that intertwine cosmic creation, human vulnerability, and the beauty of connection into a single, awe-filled tapestry. How do you balance scientific wonder with emotional truth in your writing process?

As the second-to-last poem, “A Scientist with an Arts Degree” hints—or, rather, outright states—I have both a science (Biology) and arts (English and Creative Writing) degree, obtained in that order. I think the order matters. For as long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated in the sciences; the theories and explanations of the unknown, and the possible answers to impossibilities. That curiosity, and perhaps a tiny bit of staring at and learning about the night sky, is what fueled many of the works in the collection. The physical world can be explained in complex terms that people read in textbooks or academic journals. Elements of the human experience, much like atoms, chemical compounds, and even space dust, are also tangible, universal (no pun intended), and can be explicated.

But what if, I thought, it was more than that?

As a person of faith, one of my favorite things in the world is things that are unseen. Faith is the evidence of it. Evidence of the unknown, the not yet, the maybe. How can we as humans answer unknown questions or give unknown answers? That, I believe, is the vehicle of this collection that the fuel powers. There is what we know, there is what we don’t know, and then there’s us, smack in the middle of the two. I wanted to write about both together—to form that ever-so-peculiar balance. I pick an idea or concept or person and just… think, and write down my thoughts. Take, for example, a star. We know it’s there. We know what it’s made of, we think. But… how did it get there? What is it, really? Can it think like we can? What if it could? How does it spend its life? What if, what if, what if? The exact same thing goes for people. Everything is a wonder, and, with the right words, they can be explained further or explored from different angles. I’ve, as someone I talked with recently put it, “allowed myself to feel” this sense of wonder and curiosity, and the very human emotions behind them. Writing them down was the next logical step. Somehow, it all fits into two hundred thirty-six pages. And curiosity fuels the cat.

The title story feels allegorical and foundational. What inspired the beings who created the world out of light and darkness?

The characters Nothing and Blank are probably the earliest concepts that have come from this book. Over a decade before the publishing of the book, I wrote a little bit about the two in a smaller version of the final poem. In the early stages of my fixation on space, I fashioned small beings in my brain made of stardust, just floating somewhere in the universe with nothing to do but play around. I came to the conclusion that the two were children, curious about the world around them. So curious, in fact, that they would want to participate in their surroundings after watching it all happen for some time. Nothing and Blank simply watched creation unfolding. At some points in life, that’s all we as humans can do. Watch beauty form. Watch things change and grow. And, when given the opportunity to make something of our own, we use what we have and what we know to mold something else. Nothing and Blank are the embodiment of cosmic inquisitiveness—in many ways, my cosmic inquisitiveness, and my own quest for creation from childhood to adulthood.

It’s not easy for me to describe what exactly the light and darkness are in the poem, and what connotations are connected to them. They are both powerful forces coexisting. But I think it was important that the two characters were not one-hundred percent light or dark, and that there was a little bit of each other within. Balance. Equilibrium. Order. A more neutral version of yin and yang. I think writing “the balance thereof is life” was the moment I reached an epiphany concerning the ideas of the poem. The two beings, with their light and darkness, worked together to make a world, to save a world.

The balance of light and darkness as a concept is present in many beliefs and symbols on Earth. Neither can exist without the other, so to speak. There is good in bad; there is bad in good. The balance thereof is life. Everything that was created, I think, is a result of that concept. In my own life, I’ve had to sort of come to terms with this, more especially the good in the bad. Maybe I longed for the balance when creating the poem, or I wanted to know where the balance came from, or what it felt like. Both light and darkness were used to create in the poem. It gives me assurance in a weird sort of way.

Your imagery is vivid and recurring. Are there particular symbols you return to intentionally, or do they emerge organically as you write?

Sometimes I look back at my own work and, while laughing, I notice quite a few recurring ideas: life, death, space, and the unknown human experience. All things I love writing and learning about. All things I have never fully understood or participated in myself, save for a few decades on Earth. I look at my surroundings, again with laughter, and find that I am bombarded by these ideas every single day. I know of life. I know of death. I read about space all the time. I hear stories from people I could never be doing things I could never do.

Sometimes, I come up with thoughts and scenarios about these ideas in hopes that I am close to an answer for them, or at least something that makes sense to me. I’ve never died or stepped outside of our galaxy. I’ve never gotten married (yet?) or been to Washington state. I’ve never seen a constellation up close or run away from home.

What would it be like?

It’s really convenient that these ideas are, in many ways, both constant and changing continually. I think they’ll stick with me for a very long time.

What part of this collection challenged you the most to share with the world?

Though most of the poems and short stories are fictional, there is a little piece of me laced in some of the letters. I was most afraid of… doing that. A good writer will place themselves somewhere in their work to make it more relatable, either through characters, plot, or other story elements. But me? The hardest thing to write about is myself. If I were to place myself in this book, what would happen? Would people understand? Would people get it? Would they paint a picture of me and pass some sort of judgment? I was afraid of writing about my experiences and thoughts in their raw form. I was afraid of revealing so much about me, even in subtle ways. I didn’t want people to know (the real) me. For months, I struggled with pouring out my heart into the pages as I typed and being honest and open about myself. But I realized that it was the only way to breathe life into the poetry and stories and make the language authentic. Short stories like “Coffee Stains” and poems like “6/8” or “Sussan’s Sonnet” became much easier to craft.

The review of my book called me “brave.” I think that’s the word for it. It took a lot for me to be as vulnerable as I was, allowing myself to be myself. Allowing myself to be. It was okay to be honest and expressive. I didn’t have to limit my emotions or interweave my diction with superficial statements or imaginary sentiments. I could be genuine. It sometimes feels, in real life, that I can’t. But on paper, I can.

Now that this book is out, readers can catch a glimpse of my mind, of me as a person. And, ultimately, it was a great decision to make.

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