SmokeLong Quarterly

Tell me about how this story began. What inspired it?

I wanted a way to explore really strong emotions. I wanted to explore the line between facing a situation and really letting go. It’s about feeling at once powerful and helpless.

This piece embodies such a strong energy of transformation. When Liv transforms into a deer, she lets go of someone she loves. Can you tell me more about this loss and gain?

I needed this piece to be set in nature to plug into the rebirth and destruction of the natural world. Transformation is an everyday magic. And nature is brutal yet beautiful in its examples.

And I guess when Liv realizes she can’t change anything but herself she goes for it, in a big way.

When we lose something we love and transform, where do you think the love lost goes? What do you think happens to it?

To me, everything is energy and can’t be destroyed but can transmutate. I believe when we lose one thing the energy of that transforms into something else.

I struggle with this kind of letting go, which might be why I wanted to explore it here. But I’ve also seen in my life when space is made, something new does come to be. It’s a painful moment, though, when you let go…that moment before your new feet take you on. It was cathartic for me to feel the speed and strength and power that greeted Liv when she moved into her loss.

If you could tell Liv one thing, what would it be?

You don’t always have to run to let go, and you don’t always need a magic creature to tell you it’s time.