{"id":9264,"date":"2025-12-11T16:55:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T16:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/?post_type=article&#038;p=9264"},"modified":"2025-12-11T16:55:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T16:55:25","slug":"meaning-in-the-asking-a-conversation-with-samantha-edmonds","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/meaning-in-the-asking-a-conversation-with-samantha-edmonds\/","title":{"rendered":"Meaning in the Asking: A Conversation with Samantha Edmonds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-9265\" src=\"http:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2025\/12\/Edmonds-cover-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2025\/12\/Edmonds-cover-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2025\/12\/Edmonds-cover.jpg 595w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/span><em>A Preponderance of Starry Beings: Stories<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Samantha Edmonds<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Northwestern University Press: TriQuarterly<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">$24.00<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Publication date: June 15, 2025<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6}\">\u00a0<\/span> <span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6}\">\u00a0<\/span> <span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> This is a gorgeous collection of intense, vulnerable stories. Some feel like stumbling into the open diary of a dear friend, while others read as fabulously constructed works of fantasy. What is the oldest story in the book, and what is the newest? And how do you feel that your style or aim as a writer has evolved over time from one to the other?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> The oldest stories are the four featuring Ruth Emerson, the young student who has an affair with the assistant pastor at her father\u2019s church. I wasn\u2019t even writing this collection when I drafted those stories, and I only added them to the book later, when I began to understand this project less about \u201couter space\u201d and more about \u201clooking up\u201d\u2014after all, God is also a kind of starry being too, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">By contrast, the newest story in the book is \u201cTastes like Raspberries, Smells like Rum,\u201d which I didn\u2019t write until after the manuscript had been accepted for publication. I felt the book could use a bit more unpublished material, and I thought that a collection about \u201cstarry beings\u201d without an alien story would be missing an opportunity. A decade has passed between those stories, and in that time, I feel that my goals as a writer have stayed the same\u2014I often think of the quote by E.B. White\u2014<\/span><em>all that I ever hope to say is that I love the world<\/em><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u2014but my style has evolved to allow more room for play and experimentation, especially in terms of genre and worldbuilding.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> Let\u2019s talk about influence. Lorrie Moore (humor) and Mary Miller (grit and faith) spring to mind, but those might just be surface level. \u201cMama Says\u201d feels like it\u2019s in conversation with Jamaica Kincaid\u2019s \u201cGirl.\u201d Am I right on any of these? Whose fiction really resonates with you, at any level?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> I\u2019m definitely a fan of Lorrie Moore and Jamaica Kincaid, so I\u2019m flattered by any reading that puts my work in conversation with theirs. Mary Miller is new to me\u2014but the description \u201cgrit and faith\u201d makes me sure that I\u2019d feel right at home with her writing. Personally, I feel my work is most influenced by fiction writers like Amber Sparks and Italo Calvino (<\/span><em>Cosmicomics<\/em><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, <\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">perhaps unsurprisingly, is my favorite). I love fabulism, especially when it\u2019s lyrical and language-driven, and I really admire the way the magic in the stories by these writers often begins at the sentence level.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> While we\u2019re talking influence, these stories are clearly informed by a faith background. Would you care to address the topic of growing up in the church? And, if so, do you see that history as a trauma that you escaped? Or as something else?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> Oh, now <\/span><em>that<\/em> <span data-contrast=\"auto\">is The Question, isn\u2019t it? I would have a different answer for you if you had asked me ten years ago, a year ago, last week. My perspective on being raised in the church is constantly shifting, and I don\u2019t have a clean or simple answer\u2014these conversations are best hashed out, in my opinion, over cold drinks on a long summer night. The most honest thing I can say is that I\u2019m coming to realize that the <\/span><em>answer<\/em><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> to how Christianity has shaped my experiences matters very little to me; my life instead is about the <\/span><em>question<\/em><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> Do you think that the shadow of Evangelical Christianity will continue to show up in your work, or have you said all you wanted to say with this book?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> I haven\u2019t said nearly as much as I want to say. As I said, it\u2019s the <\/span><em>question<\/em><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> that I find more interesting than any answer: I find meaning in the asking and reflecting and contemplating, and as these are not things that tend to lend themselves to conclusions, I think that\u2019s why I keep returning to the subject in story after story. I might never be finished.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> This is a generous collection, seventeen stories of varying lengths (some as brief as two or three pages, one story thirty-five pages long) told in a multitude of voices from varying points of view. You never play the same song twice, which is refreshing. Were you conceiving of a collection of this kind as you wrote, or did you suddenly find that you had enough stories to fill a collection?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> It\u2019s a little bit of both\u2014I\u2019m a big believer in writing your obsession, and for a long time, mine was outer space, so I had written three or four separate stories about stars before I had the idea to create a collection. I discovered the title, <\/span><em>A Preponderance of Starry Beings<\/em><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, <\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">one night when I had fallen into an online rabbit hole researching the Egyptian <\/span><em>Book of the Dead<\/em><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> (you know, as you do), and that\u2019s when I started to conceive of my space stories\u2014and others, like the ones about Ruth\u2014as a collection that I hoped would showcase the different interpretations of a \u201cstarry being\u201d: it means stars and moons and celestial bodies, sure, but it also means aliens and religious deities and\u2014above all\u2014the very human characters here on Earth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> In\u202fterms of craft, do you find that longer stories take different shapes, in their writing, from the writing of the flash pieces, or do you approach both the same (beginning, middle, end) regardless of length? I guess I\u2019m asking: What is your\u202f<em>philosophy <\/em>of flash?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> With flash, I sometimes feel a freedom from plot I don\u2019t often allow myself with longer writing. The more length a story has, the more pressure there is to make something <\/span><em>move<\/em><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">.<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> Good flash should imply movement, I think, but\u2014perhaps ironically, given the constraints of word limit\u2014I also feel that flash allows me to <\/span><em>slow<\/em><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> down, <\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">to pause and consider the moment my characters are in without the added burden of contemplating their histories or futures.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> You\u2019re a fan of alternative titles or subtitles: \u201cSamson Collapsing, or What I Lost Falling in Love;\u201d \u201cEve Choking, or How to Love Someone Who Is Uncertain;\u201d \u201cMagdalene Waiting, or How I Recovered (or Maybe Didn\u2019t)\u201d (first published in\u202f<span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><em><span style=\"color: #00ffff\"><a style=\"color: #00ffff;text-decoration: underline\" href=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/issue\/44-2-fall-2020\/\"><span style=\"color: #33cccc;text-decoration: underline\">The\u00a0Florida Review<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>). When and how did your passion for such titles begin?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> The easiest answer might just be that I love long titles. I think they\u2019re fun. I had a writing teacher tell me once that a good title should do three things: catch the eye, evoke the plot, and enhance the meaning of the story. I added subtitles to only the Ruth Emerson stories to create continuity; since they\u2019re scattered throughout the collection, I wanted readers to see at a glance that those four stories are connected. I also felt the first person POV in the titles added a layer of context to the stories themselves, because although the stories are in third, the titles suggest they\u2019re being (re)constructed by a narrator\u2014I\u2019ve always imagined Ruth herself\u2014who can\u2019t help but chime in from time to time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> Your work falls into any number of categories. Sci-fi. Fabulism. Realism. Fantasy.\u202f Do you feel like an adherent to any of these genres, or do you find such designations less useful when thinking about fiction?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> I consider myself a fan of all these categories, and I think their influence is obvious in this collection. However, I often feel that my work doesn\u2019t fit neatly into one genre: despite my affinity for sci-fi, for example, there are only a couple stories in the book that might be considered science fiction. I find the most meaning in the umbrella term \u201cspeculative fiction,\u201d which I feel speaks to many of the elements I pull from when writing. I also like thinking of <\/span><em>speculative writing<\/em> <span data-contrast=\"auto\">less as a genre designation and more as a craft technique, and thus applicable to any category of writing: fabulism, fantasy, realism, even nonfiction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> Do you have a favorite story in the collection, or one that feels particularly important to you personally?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"><strong>:<\/strong> Ah, this is hard! I have a special affinity for \u201cTastes like Raspberries, Smells like Rum.\u201d This might just be recency bias, as it\u2019s the newest one, but I had a great time writing that one. I also have a special place in my heart for \u201cStar Stuff,\u201d the last story in the collection, because it was the first space story I ever wrote, and the first from the book to be accepted for publication.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> You teach creative writing at my alma mater, Berry College. (Go Vikings!) What is your best craft advice for emerging or aspiring writers of any age?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong> <em>Stay low.<\/em> <span data-contrast=\"auto\">It\u2019s easy to get caught up in the lofty plans of a project\u2014all the stories you\u2019re going to write someday, what you\u2019ll title them, and how you\u2019ll design the book cover\u2014only to end up neglecting the next page, the next sentence, that needs your attention. I\u2019m guilty of this with each new project, and I always remind myself (and my students) to keep your head down and focus only on the paragraph in front of you: <\/span><em>Stay low.<\/em> <span data-contrast=\"auto\">Daydreaming about a finished book is fine, sure, but I can\u2019t get anything done with my head in the clouds. I\u2019ll end up paralyzed by the unwritten ending, the future synopsis, the readers I imagine buying this book, and that\u2019s not where stories start. In the words of Cheryl Strayed: \u201cWe get the work done on the ground level.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335551550&quot;:6,&quot;335551620&quot;:6}\">\u00a0<\/span> <span data-contrast=\"auto\">And hell yeah\u2014go Vikings!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> What are the best books you\u2019ve read recently?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> I just recently read\u2014and adored\u2014the Emily Wilde books by Heather Fawcett: <\/span><em>Emily Wilde\u2019s Encyclopedia of Fairies, Emily Wilde\u2019s Map of the Otherlands,<\/em> <span data-contrast=\"auto\">and <\/span><em>Emily Wilde\u2019s Compendium of Lost Tales.<\/em> <span data-contrast=\"auto\">They follow a wayward scholar of faerie folklore on her field research as she attempts to uncover the unstudied mysteries of faerie. The books are whimsical and cozy with a touch of the academic adventurer plot I love in <\/span><em>Indiana Jones.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Poissant:<\/strong> Finally, what\u2019s next for you? Would you care to share any details about what we might expect from you following the publication of\u202f<em>A Preponderance of Starry Beings<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> In addition to finally drafting new fiction (which has been so much fun!), next for me, I hope, is securing representation for my speculative memoir, currently titled <\/span><em>A World to Hold Us All<\/em><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">.<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> The project shares many of the same themes as this collection\u2014especially regarding faith and belonging\u2014only instead of the cosmos, this time I\u2019m featuring the invisible friends my best friend and I had when we were fifteen, which we used as a way of enriching and escaping our established reality in the Evangelical Church. (Told you I haven\u2019t finished with that subject. In fact, I\u2019m just getting started!)<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-9268\" src=\"http:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2025\/12\/Edmonds-Profile-Pic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"308\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2025\/12\/Edmonds-Profile-Pic.jpg 308w, https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2025\/12\/Edmonds-Profile-Pic-241x300.jpg 241w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 308px) 100vw, 308px\" \/><span style=\"font-size: 24pt\"><strong>Samantha Edmonds<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Dr. Samantha Edmonds is the author of the story collection\u00a0<em>A Preponderance of Starry Beings<\/em><i>\u00a0<\/i>as well as the chapbooks\u00a0<em>Pretty to Think So<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>The Space Poet<\/em>. Her work appears in\u00a0<em>The New York Times<\/em><i>, <\/i><em>Fourth Genre<\/em><i>, <\/i><em>Ninth Letter<\/em><i>, <\/i><em>Michigan Quarterly Review<\/em><i>, <\/i><em>Mississippi Review<\/em><i>, <\/i><em>Creative Nonfiction<\/em>,\u00a0and\u00a0<em>McSweeney&#8217;s Internet Tendency<\/em><i>,\u00a0<\/i>among others. She&#8217;s an Assistant Professor in the creative writing program at Berry College and lives in Rome, Georgia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Preponderance of Starry Beings: Stories Samantha Edmonds Northwestern University Press: TriQuarterly $24.00 Publication date: June 15, 2025\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Poissant: This is a gorgeous collection of intense, vulnerable stories. Some feel like stumbling into the open diary of a dear friend, while others read as fabulously constructed works of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":9265,"template":"","categories":[9,140,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9264","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-interview","category-literary-features"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Meaning in the Asking: A Conversation with Samantha Edmonds - The Florida Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/meaning-in-the-asking-a-conversation-with-samantha-edmonds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meaning in the Asking: A Conversation with Samantha Edmonds - The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Preponderance of Starry Beings: Stories Samantha Edmonds Northwestern University Press: TriQuarterly $24.00 Publication date: June 15, 2025\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Poissant: This is a gorgeous collection of intense, vulnerable stories. 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