With every book I’ve put out, I have always added notes at the back of the book or at the end of each story. I’ve always loved when authors do this, but so few do. To me, this is like getting an inside look at the process of coming up with a story. It’s a sneak peek into the mind of the author. 

Sometimes there’s not much to the process at all. It can be as simple as overhearing something someone said (as is the case for Digger’s Lament, written in 1999). Or it can be as complicated as seeing something, not knowing exactly what your mind is thinking, but absolutely knowing there is a story there (as is the case for a picture of a woman playing the piano near a railroad track as it appeared on the front page of the New York Times one day in the summer of 2023 which led to the story, Face the Music). Sometimes the idea can come from a picture a child drew (as is the case for On the Rails, based on a picture of a colorful train my daughter drew with people beneath it). It could be something disturbing or funny or maybe even worrisome that you witnessed (as is the case with Cassidy and Owen’s Cemetery For Almost Dead Things). The inspiration could have come from a song (which are the many cases for most of the stories I wrote in and around 2007). The inspiration could come from a real life tragedy (as every story I have written on September 11^th has been since that day in 2001).

Amy Winehouse once said in an interview these words: “Music is the only thing that will give and give and give and not take.”

That’s powerful. I agree with her that music gives and gives and gives and never takes. I don’t agree it is the only thing that does that. I believe stories give and give and give and don’t take. Both of them are art. Both of them are created from nothing and become something. Both of them involve words and if a story is done right, it is like a song without music. Every song is rooted in something the creator saw or felt or heard or something that touched him or her. It’s personal. Every story is exactly the same. The creator saw or heard or felt something that moved him or her to create a fictional world from it. It’s a beautiful thing.

When I read about where a story comes from it’s as if the author is telling me these things—me, not you or anyone else. Me. It’s like he’s saying, ‘Hey, buddy, let me tell you how this story came to be.’ I get excited. No one else may care about this thing. But I do. 

Every story, no matter how short or how long, has a background, it has roots in something. It has its own life. And I like to share that life with you.

So, here we are, on this website, me getting personal with you about how my stories come to be. I hope you’ll stick around. I hope you’ll read these pieces. I hope you will comment and have a discussion with me about them. I hope I don’t bore you with them. That would be tragic. 

Thank you.

A.J.