J. Robert Lennon, "Vandring"

It’s December 4. J. Robert Lennon, author of Hard Girls, does a series of wrist and arm stretches to prevent injury.

How would you describe your story?

J. ROBERT LENNON: A pandemic tale about aging and political resignation.

When did you write it, and how did the writing process compare to your other work?

JRL: Most of my stuff either comes to me instantly or is an endless slog… not much falls in between! This was one of the quick ones. I’d been reading about a secret dev room that had been discovered in an online video game I like to play, and got thinking about the forbidden spaces in our relationships with our communities… once the voice came to me, I knew where to take it.

What kind of research went into this story?

JRL: Just some YouTube!

What, to you, makes the short story a special form? What can it do that other kinds of writing can’t?

JRL: I think the form is good at apprehending the emotional texture of a particular moment… the way it can give the reader just enough to let them fill in the rest. Writing a novel, you can’t help but fill that stuff in yourself, but in a story, you need to be strategic about what not to say.

Where should people go to learn more about you and your work?

JRL: jrobertlennon.com.

What’s the best gift you’ve ever been given?

JRL: A writer whose book I blurbed gave me this incredible coffee mug hand-illustrated with an image (an ice cube melting its way through a metal grate from one of my novels. You coulda knocked me over with a quill pen.

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