Where the Stories Come From

Posted by Lisa Slomin

June 10, 2025

A quiet beginning.

I never set out to write a book of 24 stories about the end of the world. I just kept writing what haunted me.

The stories in Chasing the North Star didn’t arrive in order. They didn’t ask permission. They came the way memory does, out of sequence, blurred by grief, sometimes lit by hope, sometimes stripped bare. I wrote one story. Then another. Then one that didn’t belong anywhere. Then one that belonged everywhere.

I didn’t build a world. I uncovered one.

Most of my stories come like that, not from plot or concept, but from a single image or ache. A dog waiting for a child who isn’t coming back. A scarf clutched in shaking hands. A woman who never leaves her room. A boy and girl walking into the forest, hoping the trees will be kinder than people ever were.

I write when I feel haunted.
I write to remember what I’ve never actually lived.
I write to shape the ache into something that might be useful, or beautiful, or at least true.

If there’s a thread that runs through all my stories, Chasing the North Star, To the End and Back, The Enchanted Journey, even the darkest ones, it’s this:

We don’t always survive, but we keep walking.

This space will hold fragments like that. I won’t post constantly. Just when I need to put something down. A spark. A scar. A line that won’t let go.

Thanks for walking with me.