{"id":9182,"date":"2025-10-09T15:17:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T15:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/?post_type=article&p=9182"},"modified":"2025-10-09T15:19:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T15:19:28","slug":"dreams-and-daydreams-a-conversation-with-christian-moody","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/dreams-and-daydreams-a-conversation-with-christian-moody\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreams and Daydreams: A Conversation with Christian Moody"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds<\/em>
\nChristian Moody
\nDzanc Books
\n$17.95
\nPublication date: October 14, 2025<\/p>\n

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Poissant:<\/strong> Lost in the Forest of Mechanical Birds<\/em> is a collection that has been in the works for a while. I\u2019ve been watching from afar, as a fan and a friend, as these stories came together, and I was so glad to read the finished book at last. It\u2019s a masterpiece, full stop. The stories are distinct, but they feel connected thematically or stylistically in a way that I can\u2019t quite put my finger on. What do you see as the glue that holds these stories together?<\/p>\n

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Moody:<\/strong> I published the first story at thirty and handed in the collection at forty-nine, so I didn\u2019t chase any current hot topics or consciously attempt to unify them by theme. But I do think they\u2019re a good representation of some of my core obsessions: forests, magical strangeness, and humans in their private, unguarded, awkward moments.<\/p>\n

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I grew up deep in the woods\u2014first in the redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains (looks like the Moon of Endor) and then in the deciduous oaks and sycamores of the Midwest. Very isolated. Few people. Lots of trees. People see climate change commentary in my stories because nature is often under threat\u2014and those themes are there\u2014but, more simply put, forests are the landscape of my childhood and heart.<\/p>\n

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How to explain the weird magic? As a kid, my younger brother and I would stand at the bus stop, shivering in the snow, and entertain ourselves with questions like: \u201cWhat if you had a tiny extra head in your armpit that whispered to you? Would you keep it for life or pluck it? When would you tell your girlfriend?\u201d Those semi-disturbing what ifs helped us laugh through divorce stuff, money problems, and all the usual growing-up stuff. We still fall back into what if mode when we\u2019re together. So, to me, magical weirdness is where my mind goes to survive life\u2019s harder parts, to find joy, to laugh, feel weirded out in delightful ways, and to connect with other people who like that too.<\/p>\n

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And, finally, I\u2019m drawn to people in their private, unguarded moments\u2014like the story with trees with eyes that record everything. Growing up in such isolated places, I get freaked out when someone rings my doorbell. It makes me want to hide. So, as cameras and social media proliferated, it did freak me out, and some of that ended up in my stories. I like to write about how people are when no one\u2019s watching, when they\u2019re alone with themselves, being weird, unafraid to whisper back to that tiny extra head in their armpit.<\/p>\n

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Poissant:<\/strong> You must have influences. George Saunders and Steven Millhauser spring to mind, but those might just be surface level comparisons. Who else do you read whose work creeps into your work, either at the surface level or at the sentence level?<\/p>\n

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Moody:<\/strong> This is a tough one. The metaphor that comes to mind is that writing a story is like building a house out of thousands of stolen parts. I\u2019ll take a board from Kevin Wilson, a bag of nails from Aimee Bender, a few roof shingles from Haruki Murakami, some plumbing from Station Eleven<\/em> or The Hunger Games<\/em>. Little bits and pieces of everything I\u2019ve read.<\/p>\n

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But those earliest, first reading experiences might count the most. My most honest roots go back to first grade, when a substitute teacher read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>. Lucy pushing through the wardrobe\u2019s fur coats into snowy woods was elemental for me. I begged for the book, got it in my Easter basket, sat on a mossy boulder in the redwoods, finished it, and started it again immediately. I didn\u2019t get the religious subtext and skipped over big words, but I loved the witch, werewolves, frozen statues, and talking beavers. I still have that copy, inscribed by the Easter Bunny in my mom\u2019s big, loopy handwriting.<\/p>\n

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Poissant:<\/strong> While we’re talking influence, I couldn’t help thinking of the work of filmmaker Ari Aster, who often credits his love of literature as an influence on his filmmaking. Your stories are richly visual. I can see the worlds of your stories. Do you credit any movies or film language with the nod toward imagery that your prose evokes?<\/p>\n

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Moody:<\/strong> I had to look up Ari Aster\u2014turns out I have seen Midsommar<\/em>. Beautiful and super creepy.<\/p>\n

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My 1980s childhood left a mark: The NeverEnding Story<\/em>, The Goonies<\/em>, Labyrinth<\/em>. None hit harder than Labyrinth<\/em>\u2014you had to be eleven, with a crush on Jennifer Connelly, and a confusing parallel one on David Bowie. One of my dreams was to work for Jim Henson\u2019s Creature Workshop; I even wrote him letters, and his son wrote back a few times.<\/p>\n

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Later came The Royal Tenenbaums<\/em>, Pan\u2019s Labyrinth<\/em>, and prestige TV like The Wire<\/em>. More recently, I\u2019ve admired Craig Mazin\u2019s screenwriting on The Last of Us<\/em> and Chernobyl<\/em>. I didn\u2019t even see Chernobyl<\/em>, I just read the scripts. They\u2019re so vivid in memory that I feel like I\u2019ve seen the show. I even had two questions read on his Scriptnotes podcast, including one about puzzle box storytelling that ended up helping me finish the novella. He always mocks my question, then answers it really well.<\/p>\n

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When I write, I often start with an image\u2014a landscape or scene. This seems somewhat cinematic, but I think dreams and daydreams are the real medium writers work with. I like the \u201cwaking dream\u201d theory of fiction: the writer has a vivid daydream and uses text to give someone else a similar dream.<\/p>\n

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Poissant:<\/strong> The collection is anchored by a novella: Ray of Golden Yolk<\/em>. Without offering any spoilers, I think it\u2019s fair to say that Ray, your protagonist and viewpoint character, gets put through the wringer. But the story never treats Ray as a punching bag. How do you negotiate your compassion for your characters with your need to riddle them with conflict?<\/p>\n

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Moody:<\/strong> Raising the stakes was central to Ray of Golden Yolk<\/em>. I\u2019d put Ray in a tough spot, then try to find a psychologically true reaction. I liked him, didn\u2019t want to hurt him, but I wanted to see how he\u2019d react.<\/p>\n

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I started the story at twenty-five and left just about every mystery unsolved. My editor, Chelsea, asked me to solve those mysteries. Dealing at age forty-nine with the consequences of decisions I made at twenty-five was some of the hardest writing I\u2019ve ever done.<\/p>\n

I dodged Chelsea\u2019s emails for months, rewrote the beginning, broke open the original premise and scattered the pieces, failed over and over, then wrote that letter about puzzle box storytelling to Scriptnotes<\/em> for advice. I almost gave up, thinking maybe I\u2019d just go into hiding and never publish another book.<\/p>\n

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Then, just as Chelsea said maybe we\u2019d go with the original version if I couldn\u2019t deliver, the solutions came. It was easier than I\u2019d thought. I kept the heart of the original story, wrote over twenty new pages, cut a bunch of the middle, and gave the novella a new ending. I didn\u2019t have a daughter when I began the story, but my daughter is now close to the age of the daughter in the story\u2014that might have helped.<\/p>\n

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Poissant:<\/strong> The story \u201cThe Babycatcher\u201d feels almost like a fairy tale. Have any fairy tales informed your fiction?<\/p>\n

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Moody:<\/strong> Fairy tales are in my fiction at a deep level.<\/p>\n

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My parents were divorced. At my mom\u2019s, we lived in a shack-like cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains, surrounded by redwoods. I could walk outside and wander for miles through forest. At my dad\u2019s, down in Santa Cruz proper, the yard was dug up for years for a project, just dirt and sun, which I hated, so I\u2019d retreat to the garage for shade.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s where I read fairy tales. Brothers Grimm, library finds, garage sale paperbacks. I loved how the same fairy tale could be totally different in another book\u2014translation differences, alternate versions. Fairy tales were an escape from one physical space into another, especially if a story featured woods and weirdness.<\/p>\n

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Poissant:<\/strong> \u201cHorusville\u201d is the quintessential coming of age story. It\u2019s very funny and very sad, sometimes at the same time. In terms of craft, how do you juggle such tonal shifts?<\/p>\n

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Moody:<\/strong> I tried to see each scene as vividly as I could in my mind\u2019s eye and get the reader to see it too (that daydream theory of fiction I mentioned). I often like my own sadness\u2014not full-on depression, but that gentle, pleasurable melancholy of a sad song.<\/p>\n

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As I mentioned, I also love jokes and what if thinking. The kind of sadness in this story and the kind of funny in it are both joy to me\u2014just toggling between stuff I love. So, to me, those tonal shifts never felt far apart.<\/p>\n

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Poissant:<\/strong> For a long time, you taught creative writing. What is your best craft advice for emerging or aspiring writers?<\/p>\n

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Moody:<\/strong> Early on, balance two opposite perspectives: be honest about the kind of work you love and want to write, while staying open to work you might initially dislike because your taste could change\u2014the way maybe you once hated coffee and now love it.<\/p>\n

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At a certain point, though, just write the work you most want to read. I spent years writing stories to please my teachers\u2014competent but without duende, without heart. Eventually, I said eff it and wrote about magical mechanical birds, expecting mockery. Instead, people liked it best. I like cooking\/taste metaphors for writing: Just because your teacher or friend is a renowned master chef of French cuisine doesn\u2019t mean they won\u2019t enjoy your awesome scrambled eggs.<\/p>\n

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My list for what I truly want from a story, and a quick, oversimplified tip for how to get there:<\/p>\n