Writer Spotlight: Deborah L. Davitt
Welcome to the 23rd installment of Writer Spotlight. This week’s focus is Deborah L. Davitt. I’ve reviewed 14 of Davitt’s pieces, eight of them individually on InkFoundry’s “Get WYSR” feed. (In case you didn’t know, InkFoundry is a wonderful and free resource that aggregates short fiction and poetry pieces!)
Recurring Themes:
Hive minds
Philosophical & Ethical Questions
Settings on Other Planets
Experiencing Other Peoples’ Emotions/Identities
Cruelties of War
Grief / Bitterness Over Lost Family
Preferred Isolation vs. Loneliness
Day One - July 23
“A Mother’s Love” | WYSR Review
While grieving the loss of a premature baby, the narrator receives an odd statue in the mail.
“Last Week I Was Esther” | WYSR Review
A people-eater starts to be overwhelmed by the number of souls inside them.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories were pretty different!
Individually:
"A Mother’s Love” This flash incorporates grief, loss of a child, and a tentative sense of healing towards the end.
"Last Week I Was Esther” This short story has a hive mind of multiple identities inside one person, all clawing for dominance. There is also an element of taking someone’s identity over, and of losing oneself inside other people.
Day Two - July 24
3. “We Are All of Us” | WYSR Review
After losing her husband, Suvan befriends an unlikely entity.
Darija has imprisoned a malevolent ghost inside her body for decades, and it is clawing to get out.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories both have husbands who die before the story begins.
Individually:
“We Are All of Us” This one has themes of body transformation and racism, and overcoming one’s own prejudices, and a type of hive mind, which reminded me of “Last Week I Was Esther.”
“A Cage of Flesh and Will” This story echoes “Last Week I Was Esther” in that one person holds willpower over another in their body. There is also a kind of merging that happens in both as well, a weakening between the identities.
Day Three - July 25
5. “The Big Steep: a Soft-Boiled Mystery”
Mallory can see probabilities, which can really come in handy as an investigator.
6. “Philoctetes in Kabul” | WYSR Review
An Iraq war veteran experiences memories from ancient times.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories both have MCs who experience other peoples’ lives in interesting ways. This reminds me of “Last Week” and “Flesh and Will” in that there is a kind of magic, or ability, that allows for someone to understand someone else’s thoughts or thoughts. Mallory does this in “The Big Steep” in how she can see other peoples’ possible futures, and therefore their motives for murder, and in “Philoctetetes” the MC experiences other lives from centuries before.
Individually:
“The Big Steep: A Soft-Boiled Mystery” This story was a whodunit with a twist: the MC can see possible futures. This made the story interesting especially when the MC’s power didn’t work on their own clients.
“Philoctetes in Kabul” This one also has a main theme of war / combat veteran, which reminded me of “A Cage of Flesh and Will.” There is also a fair amount of bitterness vs. the ability to regulate emotions / change, which actually reminded me somewhat of “A Mother’s Love.”
Day Four - July 26
7. “Madder and Woad” | WYSR Review
The narrator plots revenge against the wizard monks who murdered her husband and stole her daughter.
8. “Beneath the Surface, a Womb of Ice”
An expedition team on Mars search for water in deep caverns.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These stories both have husbands who either pass or die in the story, echoing “We Are All of Us” and “A Cage of Flesh and Will.”
Individually:
“Madder and Woad” This one has elements of vengeance, of indoctrination of children, and a mother on a mission.
“Beneath the Surface, a Womb of Ice” This story was full of delicious tension and action! Loved the philosophical arguments about the ethics of leaving Mars completely alone or not. I would classify this as hard sci-fi, with lots of technical explanations of geology, gravity, biochemistry, and more.
Day Five - July 27
9. “Dissolved in Some Ineffable Tide” | WYSR Review
An astrophysicist experiences higher dimensions.
Dominic has lived in the icy embrace of Titannia for a long time - but even a billion miles from Earth, he can’t escape people.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
I would classify both these stories as hard sci-fi, with lots of interesting technical explanations, reminding me of “Beneath the Surface.”
Individually:
“Dissolved in Some Ineffable Tide” This story hones in on the fascinating sci-fi concepts of higher dimensions and what they might entail, such as time fuckery/effect preceding cause, or four dimensional beings casting shadows, and a kind of hive mind, which reminded me of “Last Week I Was Esther” and “We Are All of Us.” There is also a betrayal from a friend.
“A Shot in the Dark” This one has an AI that has developed a personality, alien life forms, and an estranged daughter. One of the main themes seems to be about the difficult balance between preferred isolation and loneliness, which I can relate to. Also, this was set on a different planet other than Earth, like “Beneath the Surface.”
Day Six - July 28
11. “In the Hands of the Mountain God” | WYSR Review
Sennu seeks answers from the mountain god, but doubts whether she will find any.
Ancient remains are discovered in an alien pod, and Inzhu must inspect the body for pathogens.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories both display the theme of preferred isolation vs. loneliness, and how that balance can tip. Eero the mountain god has a certain aura of melancholic loneliness stemming from imposed isolation, and so does Inzhu. This reminded me of “A Shot in the Dark.”
Individually:
“In the Hands of the Mountain God” This one had mountain climbing which reminded me of “Beneath the Surface.” I also noticed a theme of resentment and grief vs. the ability to change.
“Red Ochre, Ivory Bone” I enjoyed the dialogue in this one! There were also quite a few differing alien species represented here, and accompanying them, their varying philosophies and ethics around memorials / remembering the dead. This theme is underlined by the structure of the piece, which flips back and forth from ancient times to far future. I would classify this one as another hard sci-fi story, joining “Beneath the Surface,” “Dissolved,” and “A Shot in the Dark.” Specifically, this one has technical explanations about organic compounds and carbon dating, among other things.
Day Seven - July 29
13. “The Alabaster Crown” | WYSR Review
Jasper guards a group of refugees fleeing the war while hiding the king’s crown.
14. “The Mountain at the Heart of the Labyrinth”
Sabrina travels to Pluto to spread her late husband’s ashes.
The Pairing: (Spoilers)
These two stories seemed pretty different to me.
Individually:
“The Alabaster Crown” This story has themes on how fear can create violence, and reflections on the extra cruelties of war on refugees. This reminded me of “Philoctetes” because of the war theme and what it does to those who wield it, as well as those it is wielded on.
“The Mountain at the Heart of the Labyrinth” This story echoes many previous themes, including the death of a husband and the grief around it as in “We Are All of Us,” “A Cage of Flesh and Will,” “Madder and Woad,” and “Beneath the Surface.” This flash also features the plot point of climbing a mountain, echoing “Beneath the Surface” and “Mountain God.” Even more niche, this story echoes “Beneath the Surface” as the mountain climbing takes place on a planet other than Earth! There is also a theme of reflections on death / memorials, as in “Red Ochre,” and loneliness, as in “Shot in the Dark.” Though, in this piece, the loneliness does not seem self-directed, but stems from a complicated mixture of her husband’s death and her husband not loving her as much as his work. This was also set on another planet, like in “Beneath the Surface and “Shot in the Dark.”
Emmie’s Personal Favorite: “Dissolved in Some Ineffable Tide”
Summary!
If I were to summarize Davitt's style in one sentence, I would say she often utilizes hard sci-fi concepts and philosophical questions to demonstrate themes of loneliness, grief, and memorials of the dead, and interesting methods of experiencing other peoples’ lives.
Interview Questions
What are the themes you tend to return to the most in your work overall? Why do think that is?
Davitt: There are a few themes that I harp on a bit, yes. Memory, and its importance to the self. Mostly because I genuinely believe that we humans are our memories, as well as what we do with and about the sum of those past experiences.
Another key point for me is grief, and getting to a point where that emotion is integrated into the new person we are once we’ve lost a person who was a part of us before. Not “moving past” or “getting over,” but making it a part of ourselves without it overwhelming us, if that makes sense. I’m sure my dad’s death back in ‘07 is a big part of that.
Hive minds vs. free souls are big for me (my poetry collection, Xenoforming, is precisely about this), as is free will vs. determinism. I’m a fiercely independent person, and yet, we are all a part of each other; I feel as if I’m a comet in an elliptical orbit sometimes, straining to be free, and yet pulled back into the gravitic embrace of the rest of humanity. I’ve been harping on free will since reading Boethius in college. I get actively upset with physicists that tell us that there’s no such thing!
2. What character(s) in these pieces do you relate to the most?
Davitt: Hmm. That’s a really good question. There’s a fragment of me in most of them; I view most stories as an activity in role-playing. “Okay, here’s the scenario, here’s what you know (A, B, and C). Here’s what you don’t know (X, Y, and Z). Without metagaming, how does your character respond. . .and go!” Obviously, as a mom myself, there’s a lot of me in “A Mother’s Love” and “Madder and Woad.” But the one I really like is Mallory, in “The Big Steep.” She’s got an arch sense of humor, and watches the world like a poet, seeing signs and significations where other people just see. . . reality.
3. How Has Your Writing Evolved Since You Began?
Davitt: Well, having recently found an incredibly dull story I attempted in a literary vein in college on an old CD-ROM I dug up to recover old files—I’d like to think I’ve improved! I spent my 20s writing mostly in forum-style play-by-post D&D games. I was the GM, so it taught me to create long-form story arcs, tailor information to specific characters, and drop hints. Lots and lots of hints. Then, in my 30s, I wrote a fairly lengthy fanfic for Mass Effect called The Spirit of Redemption. Again, that taught me to craft long-running plots, to pick up things as call-backs, to foreshadow early and often, and so on. After that, I started on novels, and wound up in short stories and poetry as sort of a side-benefit! I’ve written in so many different styles and genres, that I think I’ve picked up a lot of flexibility and versatility over the years.
4. Do you tend to start writing a story idea out of a particular element, like character, setting, or point of view?
Davitt: A surprising number of my stories start by me crawling through a wikihole. I’ll find an interesting fact, or series of seemingly unrelated facts, and then wind up connecting them in strange fashions. I rarely know if it’s going to be first-person or third until I start writing. “Beneath the Surface, a Womb of Ice,” for example, I knew I wanted to write about exploring Mars, and looking for liquid water there. I read absolutely tons about the land masses there, and the outbreak events that shaped them, and I imagined driving along them, just as the protagonists did.
5. What short fiction author do you look up to? Why?
Davitt: As a kid, I used to eat up a yearly sword and sorcery anthology by a (deceased) editor who’s fallen into significant disrepute; I loved all the authors that were represented in it, and found intense inspiration in their work. For modern authors, I love the work of Carol Scheina, whose stories wrap me up in a warm coat and lift me up when I’m feeling down. I also admire and respect the work of P.A Cornell, who shifts moods and genres at a whim, and does it all well.
6. Anything else you’d like to say about your work?
Davitt: Er. . . if you like my stuff, there’s more of it out there! My website has links to where it’s available for free!
7. Do you have any piece, listed here or otherwise, that you would like to promote?
Davitt: Hmm. If you’d like to read something of mine that’s longer, please check out The Carrying Capacity of Paradise, which is a novella published in 2025 by Luna Press. Feel like playing a tabletop roleplaying game with some friends? My husband and I worked on Mists & Memory together—and I wrote it a tie-in novel, too! Up for some poetry? I’ve got that, in spades! :P
At any rate, thank you for having me on! It’s been lovely answering your questions. <3