When I started writing this collection, my only goal was to write a short story every week of last summer. I did not have a theme or idea in mind, though I did have a specific focus for my inspirations. I ended up with a dozen stories, one of which I published separately as a Halloween special, and my favorite ten ended up here.

In general the collection came out sadder than I originally wanted. As I polished the stories, it really became clear that all of them were connected with loss, breakups, and moving on. And it occurred to me that I might be dealing with some amount of depression.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious, but it is difficult for me to recognize it in myself. As I looked back through some old stories, I noticed that I had written more over the course of one year (2017) than in the following five years combined. Part of that was because I went back to college, part of that was Covid-19, and part of that was a divorce. But I hadn’t realized how obvious the creative absence was until last summer.

For me, writing this collection, “When Hope Burned White,” was a cathartic process. There was a lot of emotions and ideas I simply had not dealt with in the previous years, and it felt like taking a breath of fresh air.

The title comes from the idea that life often wears you down, but there is always a spark of hope before it is gone. I stereotypically imagine life’s energy like a fire, and life’s issues wear us down until there is nothing left except coals disintegrating into ash. And yet, even when there is nothing left, we still have a choice. We can still choose how we are going to move forward.

That is why most of my protagonists make a distinct choice. Sometimes it’s simply to buy flowers, sometimes it’s to end a toxic relationship, and sometimes it’s to sing because they can’t do anything else.

As a high school teacher, I see a lot of teenagers that are struggling to survive, and most of the time there is very little I can do other than say hello and ask them how they are doing. I see kids with fires in their eyes, and I see others where its going out. And all I can say is, “it’s not over until you say its over.”

Living is a choice. And it’s hard.

Getting up and choosing hope can seem impossible sometimes, especially because some days are just plain ridiculous. That’s what these stories mean to me. How did you connect to them?