In which Fantasy Magazine asks me some questions and promises me a jam donut if I answer …

Actually, Molly Tanzer didn’t promise any foodstuffs, she just asked nicely.

What was your inspiration for “The Chrysanthemum Bride?

I read about two men in a remote part of China who had been murdering prostitutes and selling them as brides for afterlife marriage to families who’d lost unmarried sons. The idea was so weird and so grotesque and so strangely juxtaposed in modern society that it stuck in my bowerbird brain. I couldn’t get the story to shift onto the page, though, until a few months later when I was on a visit to Sydney and went to an art gallery and saw the quote that appears at the beginning of the story. I saw that and everything fell into place – I could see the main character and the setting and everything. I actually scribbled the story during a Billy Crystal performance at the Princess Theatre!

The rest of my highly improbable answers live here http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/2009/12/what-our-reflections-say-angela-slatter/

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