Tanaïs’s new book, Stellar Smoke , is available now from Dutton, so we asked them a few questions about writing practice, interviews, favorite non-literary media, and more.

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Who do you most wish would read your book? (your boss, your childhood bully, etc.)

Friends I love still, but haven’t spoken to for the last several years, because we fell out of friendship. Because I ghosted them, or they ghosted me. Because I hurt them, or they hurt me. I’ve been on both ends of a breakup. I think of us as planets ellipsing our own orbits; we needed the space to be, and to become. There’s an intensity to queer femme friendships, and sometimes the merging has been too much to bear.

I’ve come to understand that whenever there’s a breakup, there’s a need to wrest back energy, and to pour this into ourselves, into our art, our work. Is it worth it? I don’t know, but sometimes that’s how books get written.…