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Hi! I have loved every moment of writing Smoke Signals, even the difficult ones. I’m entering a phase of my career where I really need to give my academic work the amount of attention it deserves, and it seems like a natural door closing as Smoke Signals has also reached the end of the story I set out to tell.

I don’t think I’m retiring from fandom as a person, and I don’t want to make some grand declaration that I’ll never write fanfiction again. But after Smoke Signals, I do feel like I need to step back from writing at this pace and with this level of commitment. This story has been such a huge part of my life for FOUR YEARS, and I’m so proud of it, but it also took a lot of time, energy, emotion, and brain space. I think after such a big project, it's healthy to take a break and try something new.

As for traditional publishing Smoke Signals: no, I would not want to do that. I know some fanfics have been reworked into original novels, and I completely understand why some writers choose that path, but for me personally, Smoke Signals belongs where it is. It was written in conversation with these characters specifically, and pulling it away from that context and trying to turn it into an original book would feel inauthentic to that purpose.

First of all, I love love love love LOVE your stories. I've stumbled upon Smoke Signals recently and I cannot wait to devour it 🖤

Second, I wanted to ask whether you give permission for your stories to be bound for personal use? I asked on AO3 a while ago but I don't know whether you saw it. If you did and the answer is no then just ignore this second question please 😅

Have a lovely day, and I can't wait to read the final chapters of Smoke Signals; thank you for sharing your stories with us! 🖤

What a lovely question. Doing a PhD has shaped the writing in many ways I was conscious of and some ways I've only noticed in retrospect. The conscious ways first: the author's notes are basically a direct product of academia. Part of this is just the simultaneous nature of the work: when I'm writing a scene about Hermione in the Wizengamot, I'm also thinking about my Foucault assignments for class. I can't unsee that comparison, so I put it in the notes (because in fanfiction, I can do anything! I can break any rule! It's so different from academia in that way). My research practice has also been genuinely useful in looking into post-WWII German reconstruction, which directly informed how I wrote the wizarding world's post-war ideological landscape (specifically, the way fascist sympathizers survive a regime's defeat by becoming suddenly moderate and cooperative and conveniently interested in moving on). Selwyn is a character I could only write because I'd spent a full semester reading about denazification and how thoroughly it failed (the banality of evil is all over Part III).

The messier part of this answer is that academia has also given me some bad habits I've had to actively fight. Graduate school rewards a very specific kind of writing, which is genuinely terrible for action sequences or letting a joke be a joke. There's also something that academia does to your relationship with completion: a dissertation is never finished (we joke that instead, it's abandoned at the deadline). You can always read one more source, qualify one more claim, address one more gap, etc. I think Smoke Signals has that quality. It keeps finding new things to be about. Five chapters from the end and I'm still discovering what it's trying to say, which is either a sign of a living, breathing piece of work or a sign that I need a stricter Smoke Signals dissertation committee, though it's probably both.

The thing academia gave me that I'm most grateful for, though, is permission to take the project seriously. Literary fiction takes itself seriously. Genre fiction is often embarrassed about itself, required to be either apologetic or defensively anti-intellectual about what it's doing. Weirdly, academia gave me the confidence to write this story both without apology and with full confidence that this form is capable of the same ambitions as any other form, and that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy are a sufficient subject for a serious literary and political argument. I believe that and I wanted to prove it. Whether I have or not is for my readers to decide, but the wanting came directly from the academic world's insistence that rigorous engagement with a text, any text, is always worthwhile.

If you have the time, would you be able to share which authors or books influenced your writing style? (and if this already exists as a post I've missed, kindly redirect me! And if you dont have time, it's alright either way. Just wanted to let you know I've been swooning over your prose. Will immediately be sharing and recommending to other people asap)

Thank you so much, again, for writing and sharing your work. You've made my year brighter. Xoxo

Dear reader, I’m sorry you’ve been down lately, and I’m very touched that the story has been able to keep you company in any small way. The reason I write is to feel connected to the world, so to see that red thread between us, even as strangers, is such a powerful feeling.

My writing is basically a little compost heap of everything I’ve absorbed. For prose influences, I’m inspired by writers like Donna Tartt, Elena Ferrante, Zadie Smith, Naoise Dolan, Ottessa Moshfegh, Carmen Maria Machado, Garth Greenwell, Elizabeth Strout, and Marilynne Robinson. On a sentence level, I seem to prefer lush, spiky interiority: I write (and enjoy reading) long sentences that build through escalation, then undercut themselves with something blunt/ profane. Prose that can move from tenderness to filth to political argument to grief fast enough to remind me that these facets are all part of the human experience.

My biggest influences though were probably Literary Epic-War/History Novels (like Tolstoy's War and Peace, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy, and Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke) that really helped me understand the scope and form of the story. Gothic novels helped me a lot with the descriptions/tone: I've always been drawn to stories that treat the past as something that doesn't stay buried and the Gothic understands this better than any other form (I'm partial to Wuthering Heights especially).

"Now then," Draco said, taking in the scene with dark satisfaction. Hermione Granger—war hero, Wizengamot member, the moral compass of magical Britain—was sprawled across the Minister's desk, thighs trembling from the orgasm he'd just wrung from her. The leather-bound ledgers and decorative quill sets had been swept aside, replaced by her body, flushed and obscene against the polished mahogany. "Where were we?" "Inside me," Hermione managed, finding her voice. "Please, Malfoy." His eyes flashed, dark and delighted. "You want to fuck on Cadwallader's desk?" “He deserves it,” she insisted. “Don’t you think?” “Wicked little thing,” he said approvingly. “Turn around and bend over.” 

TINSEL AND TEMPTATION: A CHRISTMAS FIC

Rated E | 25K Words | NOW COMPLETE!