Writer Spotlight: Koji A. Dae
Welcome to the third installment of Writer Spotlight. This week’s focus is Koji A. Dae. I’ve reviewed 14 of Dae’s pieces 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:
Childhood/Motherhood/Parenting (this was a big one!)
Parents making difficult decisions
Pregnancy as horror
Children dealing with abandonment/neglect
Criticism of the Patriarchy
Representation of Queer Sexualities
Learning to Live in New Ways on Spaceships
Characters Experiencing Segmented Thinking
Both Hopeful and Morally Gray Scientific Futures
Day One - Jan 15
Isabella is the last medium who can connect to the souls following the spaceship. She doesn’t know how to help Timothy, the last young man who she’s apprenticed, and when she passes, the souls she connects to will leave.
Sapphire loves her family. She’s been taught from childhood that women must be the ones to serve the Heritage meal, but now that it’s that time of year again, she’s struggling to make it happen.
From the very start, Dae’s stories are full of complex situations and high emotion. One of them is a hopeful sci-fi where I teared up at the end, and the second is dark and twisty and full of patriarchal oppression and a twist I won’t name so I don’t spoil it for new readers. Both of these are in first person present tense, which lends to the immediacy and urgency in both pieces.
Day Two - Jan 16
3. “Resistant”
What would happen if everyone had to receive modifications to their mind just to keep up with society?
Eldritch serial killer(s) explain their desires and reasoning to their victims.
This pairing of stories don't have as much in common, but I do want to note a recurring theme: the use of multiple juxtapositions and impossibilities in a sentence to convey brainwashing, or a lack of cognitive dissonance. This happened in both “And Someone Has to Do It” and “It Comes Through Us.”
This. Is. Brilliant. Because that’s what happens when you dismiss your cognitive dissonance —it lets you believe multiple opposing things at the same time. It lets you segment your mind so you don’t use critical thinking.
Also, a character has synesthesia in “Resistant” and I love the neurodivergence representation!
Day Three - Jan 17
5. “The Tides of Love” (This link goes to where you can get the anthology where this story was published, as it’s not freely available)
Annabelle is ekkremic, a type of romantic and/or sexual attraction where her love for someone wanes and waxes throughout the month. When her husband is killed, she is suspected of the murder.
6. “Shevitsa”
Anna immigrates to Bulgaria with her husband, but the pressure to have children is a constant and unending force.
Wow! Both of the characters’ names in this pairing have “Anna,” which I thought was a fun little coincidence. Also, both of these stories are about women struggling in their relationships with men, and feature the pressure and discrimination of society to act a certain way.
Ekkremia was a very interesting concept to me, and I felt that Dae wrote about it in a way that might help people in real life understand those who experience a different point on the romance and/or sexual spectrums. “Tides of Love” also echoed parts of Dae’s story “Resistant” when it comes to being different, not fitting in due to having a unique identity/neurodivergence, and being penalized for that in systemic ways.
Fun side note: I actually read “Tides of Love” a few weeks ago! I have a story in the same anthology “Rewired: Divergent Perspectives in Horror.” I’ve recently begun reading all the print anthologies I’ve been lucky to be a part of, and that story was one of those that I recommended online (Bluesky and Goodreads) already!
As for “Shevitsa,” I want to note a burgeoning theme about societies that force motherhood/pregnancy, which I saw also in “And Someone Has to Do It.” This, of course, fits under the umbrella of societal pressures that I mentioned above.
Day Four - Jan 18
7. “Casting”
What would you do to stop your son from screaming every night?
8. “The Uncurling of the Samsara”
On board the Samsara, nothing and no one is wasted. But Annessa struggles when her grandmother passes away, and she can’t eat.
For these two stories, I didn’t see easy parallels. However, “Casting” definitely creates a pattern of stories about parenting and children, as previously touched on in “And Someone Has to Do It” and “Shevitsa.” In “Casting,” Dae explores more of the cost associated with parenting instead of pregnancy or birth, and the lengths a parent might go to keep their child safe. (And to protect their own sanity.)
I see that the variations of the name “Anne” continues with “The Uncurling of the Samsara.” I’m interested to see if there are more!
Also with “The Uncurling,” the themes of people on a spaceship having to let go of the old and figure out how to live in a new way is explored, as it was with “Hook and Line.” Both of these also dealt with the heaviness of death and how to go on with the loss of self or someone dear, while balancing it with the harshness and demands of space travel.
Day Five - Jan 19
9. “Seven Steps to Reunite with Your Children When General Mutafchiiski Says to Stay Home”
A mother goes to great lengths to be with her kids in Bulgaria 2020.
“If the door is blue, you're welcome. Red, you've come too early. Green, too late.”
This pairing has an obvious immediate shared topic - how parents care for their children, or if they neglect them in some way. We see this in the first story, which doesn’t strike me as speculative (unless I missed something, totally possible) but it does go into the details and hardships of what a parent will endure to be close to their children. The second story has the same concept, but flipped - what a child would do to try and find their birth parent that neglects them. Interestingly, the step parent in the second story seems stable and loving, but the child still can’t help feeling abandoned because of how the birth parent left things.
These two stories join the ranks of “Casting,” “Shevitsa,” and “And Someone Has to Do It” when it comes to themes on parenting. I love that there is such a variety here, as well, with points of view from both children and parents, parents who abuse their children, and parents stuck in an abusive relationship with society.
I also wanted to note that “When the Door is Blue” has the same segmented thinking as “It Comes Through Us” and “And Someone Has to Do It.” There is an element of “if I don’t think about it, it doesn’t exist.”
Day Six - Jan 20
11. “Lucy Pemgrass Eats a Crow”
Lucy and her sister go to see Miss Veronica.
A couple plans for seven years to create a polyamorous relationship.
These two pieces are not similar, for a few reasons, the most obvious being that one is a poem. Yay, my first reviewed poem! I think the one overarching theme in this pairing is that people will leave their comfort zones if it means being with the one they love. Lucy eats a crow, and the couple tries a poly relationship, “planning it for seven years.”
The first story fits easily into Dae’s recurring motif of children and mothers. There is a sub-theme here as well, where the mother is gone for some reason, and the child is dealing with her absence.
As for “Polyamory in Theory,” I was reminded of Dae’s earlier story “Tides of Love,” because of the queer aspect explored in each piece. In “Polyamory,” however, it seemed that the tension in the piece didn’t come from outside oppressive sources but from inside themselves.
Day Seven - Jan 21
A parent of a troubled child makes a difficult decision.
14. “Child Time”
A young boy has the power of a time lord.
Oooh, these two are have obvious parallels! Both are about childhood and parenthood, and specifically difficult decisions the parents must make. The first is about a child that has behavioral issues from the parent’s point of view. Interestingly, I also noticed that “Adjustment Parenting” and Dae’s earlier story “Resistant” explored futuristic ways that science might alter a child’s brain.
“Child Time” as a poem does a fantastic job of discussing not behavioral issues with children, but that fascinating stage in a child’s life where they have a kind of power. This reminded me of “The Door is Blue”, “Casting,” and “Lucy Pemgrass Eats a Crow,” all of which feature a child that either gains power or has it innately.
Overall: if I were to summarize Dae’s body of work in one sentence, I’d say that she has a talent for showcasing both hopeful and morally gray scientific futures, and her themes tend to explore parenthood from both the child and parent’s perspectives, critiques of the patriarchy, and representations of neurodivergence and queer identities.
Interview Questions
What are the themes you tend to return to the most in your work overall? Why do think that is?
Dae: My two most prominent themes are definitely mental health and parenting (and often the intersection of the two). Mental health is important to me because I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety since I was eleven. People don’t talk enough about how mental health challenges can affect children and then shape your entire adult experience, so it’s important for me to share the ways my challenges have colored my life.
As for parenting – I have two wonderful children. Parenting continues to be the most difficult, frightening thing I’ve done. While it can also be rewarding and beautiful, I do think speculative fiction still has a lot of room to explore the complexities of parenting – especially parenting in a digital age.
2. What is one of the characters in your short stories/flash pieces that you relate to the most, and why?
Dae: All of my characters draw on different times in my life, so it depends on which day you catch me. Because holidays just passed, I relate to the mother in “And Someone Has To Do It”. Being an immigrant mother, I have a lot of stress around both introducing my children to holidays from my country and making sure they engage in holidays from my husband’s culture. Even when there’s little outside pressure, there is so much pressure inside me (and many mothers) to create a perfect childhood that their children can take with them throughout their lives, and holidays are a boiling point for that pressure.
3. What short fiction author do you look up to? Why?
Dae: I really appreciate Christi Nogle. I remember listening to her short story Taste in pseudopod early in my writing career. That was the story that made me realize it is okay to write darker things – it is okay to really explore the depths of humanity and my imagination. Her work has remained inspiring to me over the years.
Anything else you’d like to say about your work?
Dae: I’d just like to thank you for putting this together. It’s really special to have a focus on short fiction, and it reminds me to go out and read more shorts It is such a powerful genre.