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Interview with Author Lindz McLeod

14 Jan, 2025
Interview with Author Lindz McLeod

In “One by One,” Evie’s best friend suddenly vanishes. But she hasn’t only vanished; she seems to have never existed in the first place. One by one, others in Evie’s community begin to disappear, but hardly anyone seems to notice or remember the missing. The world goes on as if they were never there. Evie and her new friend Lisa, one of the few others who notices the absences, are determined to find out what’s happening and why, but time is running out, because they think they know who is next.

Lindz McLeod is a queer, working-class, Scottish writer and poet who dabbles in the surreal. Her short prose has been published by/is forthcoming in Apex, Catapult, Nightmare, and many more. Her longer work includes the award-winning short story collection Turducken (Spaceboy, 2023), as well as her books Sunbathers (Hedone Books, 2024), The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet (Harlequin/Atom, 2025), We, the Drowning (Android Press, 2026), and the collaborative anthology An Honour and a Privilege (Stanchion, 2025). Her work has been taught in schools, universities, and turned into avant-garde opera. She is a full member of the SFWA, the club president of the Edinburgh Writers’ Club, and is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing.


Marissa van Uden: Thank you for joining us, Lindz! The theme in this story, about the overlooked disappearances and invisibility in the queer community, is such a heavy one. As Evie understands what’s happening, she tries to keep finding connection and joy in the little things in life, but the grief and loss underlie everything. The line “At least we’ve been alive” hit me hard. While I can tell that you had a lot of fun with the time period of this story, it must also have been difficult emotionally to write. Can you walk us through the creative process for this one?

Lindz McLeod: George Eliot wrote that “Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them” (Adam Bede, 1859). I think about that quote a lot, especially when I read the news. Every day or week or month, there’s some horrific act committed against a child, a woman, a person from a minority group, and I know that I can’t remember them all, that the people who knew the victims will one day also pass away and that these names and events will vanish entirely. And at the same time, I’m aware that being alive is such a rare occurrence in the first place—the amount of factors that have to line up, the sheer number of ancestors who had to survive long enough to mate—that it takes my breath away. Jamie might be gone, but Evie remembers everything about her with such devotion that it feels as if Jamie is still somehow physically present in the story. And that’s how I think of love, deep at the core: being seen, being valued, being remembered.

The very first line of ‘One by One’ popped into my head one day, and I sat down to see if there was more to it. Before long I had a classroom scene, and then I realised—this isn’t just about one missing person, this is about what she represents, and whatever is causing this terrible erasure isn’t going to stop at one. It’s going to consume and devour and expunge until there’s nobody queer left. The moment I understood that, I knew I had to keep going to find out what was going to happen to the rest of the characters.

I’d wanted to set a story in the ’90s for a while; that’s the decade I grew up in, and I remember the neon colours, the sharp howl of grunge music, the bright brashness of it all. I thought that was a nice juxtaposition against this gradual, ominous sadness, and it also allowed me to focus on the interactions between Evie and other characters without the looming presence of social media. I didn’t want her to be able to search on the internet for answers, to find out if it was a bigger world issue, because this story is about connections in the midst of isolation. She needed to stay in her own sphere while it constricted around her, to give the reader that same sense of gradual claustrophobia.

MVU: Did you know the ending and how the character relationships would develop right from the start?

LM: When I first started writing, I had absolutely no idea how it would end, but by the time Lisa appeared I had started to discern a final destination forming in the darkness ahead. I wasn’t even sure that Evie and Lisa were going to kiss until I started writing the scene in Evie’s house after school, but as soon as I’d decided which album they’d chosen to listen to (Pearl Jam’s Ten, which begins with the song ‘Once’) I realised I was subconsciously leaning towards a romantic moment. I’d actually put that album on in the background while I was writing, and the lyrics of ‘Once’, combined with the raw power of Vedder’s voice, helped me get the vibe right—that sunset-groggy, teenage-intense, held-breath atmosphere.

MVU: That whole vibe really comes through so well. In the story, there is no measure of morality you can have that changes the outcome. If you are queer, the world simply holds you to a different standard, and you can disappear at any moment without a ripple. Can you talk a bit about this unfair higher standard that queer people are often held to, and what it means to be invisible in certain contexts.

LM: I’ve seen a recent phrase crop up with respect to American politics: “One candidate can be lawless, while the other must be flawless”; this feels so true and deeply enraging. If someone who is from a minority group commits a crime or goes against the accepted rules of society in some way, then their noted inclusion in that group puts all the others at risk. It’s far too easy to paint vast swathes of people with a single brush and say that one person’s actions represent the entire group as a whole. In essence, a person belonging to a minority group is rarely allowed to be an individual rather than a group member, which erases their lived experience and existence as a person in their own right. If you screw up in some way, you’re not just impacting your own life but potentially the perception of the whole group in society’s eyes. You become part of a faceless mass of bodies, all held to the highest of standards. Scrupulously invisible, in a way.

In ‘One by One’, we don’t know why people on the queer spectrum are disappearing, but we know that whatever force is causing this to happen doesn’t care where people land on that spectrum or what kind of person they are. It’s erasing them regardless, simply because they’re part of this group in the first place.

My work area

MVU: Yeah, it really touches a nerve, that selective indifference and the cold complicity of so many. I adored your story “The Immortal Game,” published here in Apex Magazine. It’s masterfully layered and a true experience to read—I highly recommend everyone checks it out. The story is structured around chess moves, and I recall Lesley sending it around to us all on the slush team, trying to figure out if the game really works (we learned that it does!). I believe you have since developed it into a novel? Can you tell us a bit about your process of expanding this short story into book length, and what you found the most challenging or most fun.

LM: I did, back in 2022 (so, approximately a thousand years ago now!). After I’d written that story, I was repeatedly badgered by my fiancée and friends to write more in that universe. I realised I’d left clues for myself already by mentioning the other ‘players’ in the Hotel in the original story. This one is different from my other novels; since I’d started with a really intricate story that played with structure, I felt that it would have been too easy, maybe even outright lazy, not to push myself to achieve something equally as unusual and challenging with the rest of the book. I decided to write each chapter in a completely different way: a chapter in prose divided by the meaning of mahjong tiles, a chapter in the form of a real recipe that you can use to bake alongside the character, a chapter written in the form of an instruction booklet, a chapter written in script format, a chapter about a banquet which then devolves into five subchapters, each of which is written in future third, etc.

This might sound like a nightmare but it worked surprisingly well. The characters and readers understand the rules of this time-travelling Hotel, but once the building starts to unexpectedly break down, everything we once knew begins to fall apart. I’m always interested in stories that play with structure and form, and that theme forms the basis of my ongoing PhD thesis. How many times can you twist or subvert a story before you lose that emotional connection with the reader? How can we tell familiar stories in new, exciting ways? Is it possible to tell oddly structured stories in a way that remains accessible to the ordinary reader?

MVU: It sounds wild—I love that you’re out here taking big swings. I was first introduced to your work when someone recommended your exquisite story “On the Wing” to me, and right after reading it, I immediately sent it to all of my friends. I love the spell you cast with this story, and how perfect every metaphor is. What sparked the idea for this piece? And did you start with the form, or was that something that evolved during the writing?

LM: Thank you so much! Having undergone a big ‘animal adjective’ obsession a few months prior, I’d moved onto the harder drug of collective nouns. After stumbling onto a huge list of collective nouns for different kinds of bird, I began to wonder if I could tell a story—a really simple story, at heart—about a marriage crumbling, using those collective nouns to connect and reflect the shapes, colours, and emotions of each stage of decline. I fretted so much about which ones to use in each paragraph to evoke just the right kind of emotional resonance for the reader; it remains one of my absolute favourite flash pieces to date.

MVU: You absolutely nailed it. How many drafts do you usually take a story through? And how do you know when it’s ready to submit—is it a feeling, or do you have a specific method for that?

LM: Sometimes it comes out fully formed—‘The Immortal Game’ story was written in about 20 mins with very little editing during it or afterwards. Sometimes it takes multiple drafts, each one like peeling an onion, before I reach the purple core. Sometimes it’s a mixture of the two, with rough ideas and smooth prose joining together to form a kind of frankendraft that I later edit more heavily. Writing is like speaking to yourself in another language; I don’t always catch my own meaning straight away.

MVU: I love that analogy! So very true. In addition to writing, you’re also a mentor, a coach, and an editor. How would you describe yourself in these author-supportive roles? Have you developed any personal philosophies when it comes to teaching or writing that carry through all you do?

LM: When I first started seriously submitting to lit mags, I had no real idea what I was doing. The same could be said of my querying journey, which luckily ended quickly with a wonderful agent. Now I use the knowledge I’ve gained to help other writers achieve their goals; I feel like the publishing industry benefits from pushing the idea that we’re all in competition with each other, jostling for just a few elite spots. In fact, I hate that notion and reject it entirely. I got where I am now by working hard, being very lucky, and (crucially) meeting more established writers who were kind enough to take the time to explain things to me or give advice; now it’s my duty to give back to the community in every way I feasibly can. People are always trying to pay me for query help or career advice, and I refuse to take money for that—instead, I ask them to pay it forward if they ever find themselves in a position to do so.

If I can leave this world a slightly better place than I entered it, I’d consider that a job well done. There’s a well-known saying: ‘a rising tide lifts all boats.’ As far as mottos go, that’s a pretty good one.

My rambunctious-yet-supportive cats, Fitzwilliam and Dane

MVU: Amen. I’ve interviewed some prolific writers, but when I pulled up your website, I literally did a doubletake. You have written so much! What’s your strategy when it comes to maintaining a consistent output? And how do you balance your writing time with all the other things you do?

LM: I must confess that my website only looks impressive simply because I’m lazy with technology and indecisive about what to select, so I just included everything! I have a very understanding fiancée in Z.K. Abraham, an extremely talented writer in her own right, and she gets that sometimes I’m on a roll and can’t stop the words pouring out. Other times, when one of us is struggling with a story, we’ll go for a walk and hash out the problem together. Dating another writer is wonderful, although it does mean I’m extremely familiar with the sight of the side of her face, lit by a glaring screen.

I’m ambitious and stubborn, traits which have served me well in an industry which requires a monumental amount of patience and perseverance, but also—as I’ve frequently admitted—there’s no idea so ridiculous I won’t try it at least once. They don’t always work, but I keep mining anyway in the expectation that sooner or later a gem will glint in the darkness. Stories are like splinters under my skin; once it’s there, I have to sit down and tweeze it out or else it’ll ache for days. Also, I’d rather work than sleep. If there was a way I could turn my body’s need for sleep off entirely, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

MVU: Me too. It seems so absurd that we have to just go lie down in the dark and shut off for hours. What a strange design. Writing so much means constantly coming up with new ideas. Do you have any habits or rituals that really fuel your creativity, even if they’re not directly related to writing itself? And how do you collect and organize your ideas (notebooks? Google-docs)?

LM: I have an enormous Scrivener file which contains every short story draft I’ve worked on since about 2021. It’s almost 700K long now. Stories that make it to a finished draft get their own folder and a status label; those which are unfinished are left to languish as individual documents in a painfully long list as encouragement to turn into better versions when I’m not looking (so far this hasn’t worked but I remain optimistic).

I keep a writing journal, which I use about once a week to track what I’m working on, what problems I’m having, what successes, etc. I find it really helpful to be able to flick back through and see ‘oh, here’s where I had a similar issue, and this is how I worked out the solution’ or ‘here’s what I specifically liked about that piece/book I read,’ so I can figure out how to find a fresh angle on that theme. It’s a balance to be both writer and critic, and I try not to let being one get in the way of being the other.

I also see a tremendous amount of films—in 2023, I saw 100 films in cinemas, and in 2024 I’m on track for about 80-85. Often I like them, but other times I come out thinking, ‘You know what, that third act would have been better if they had fixed that plot hole’, or ‘Huh, that was sold to me as a thriller but it lost all tension in the kitchen scene because …’ And if the latter is the case, then I get the urge to explore what could have been. That’s probably my editor-brain intervening, always looking for a more efficient way to achieve the same result.

MVU: We all have causes that are close to our hearts. Can you tell us about a favorite charity or cause that is super meaningful to you, that you’d love for readers to check out?

LM: Refuge, who are the largest domestic abuse organisation in the UK (refuge.org.uk/). I have a blazing snarl of a story coming out with Nightmare Magazine soon called ‘Here I Go Again’, which is based on both the lyrics of the ABBA song ‘Mamma Mia’ and several high-profile murders in the UK; it might be the angriest thing I’ve ever written, and I have donated my entire payment for this story to Refuge. It can’t erase the past, but I hope it can change the future for other women.

MVU: Before we go, do you have any upcoming publications that readers should look out for, or any new projects in the works that you’re able to talk about?

LM: I do! I’ve just published a horror novella called Sunbathers, about a queer woman on the run from a cult of straight sun-vampires, and have a queer pirate horror novella coming out in January called Queen O’Nine Tails. I also have a queer historical romance coming out in April called The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet, which follows a widowed Charlotte Lucas (I kill off Mr. Collins in the first line, an act which is universally acknowledged to be long past due) as she navigates her new life and a second chance at happiness with the most unexpected Bennet sister.

In winter 2025, my collaborative anthology project An Honour and a Privilege will be published—twelve writers each writing one fiction piece in collaboration with me, each story accompanied by a non-fiction piece to discuss what techniques we used, what worked, and what didn’t. It’s been so challenging and so rewarding to produce a book which will be both entertaining and also a useful craft guide for writers.

MVU: That sounds amazing and 100% my jam. I can’t wait to read this. Thanks again for joining us and sharing all these insights!

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